The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 14

[340] Manu, 9, 104-220. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 239. In the sutras we are told of a division in a merchant's family, after the brothers have united; in this the oldest retains the house and lands, the other the shops, the third the stock, beside land. Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p.

242.

[341] Aurel Mayr, _loc. cit._ 3, 167, ff.

[342] Manu, 2, 29-34.

[343] Above, p. 252. M. Muller, "Hist. of Anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 380, ff.

[344] Sherring, _loc. cit._ p. 122.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMANS.

The unity in regard to law and morals, which the book of the law sought to establish throughout all the regions of India, between the Vindhyas and Himalayas, was never carried out to this extent. Indeed, the book itself is wanting in unity owing to the gradual acc.u.mulation of different strata in it, and the various rules which it contains for the same circle of life. Nor did it even attempt to remove the usages of Brahmavarta, or the customs of "the good" in general. In other points its requirements were pitched much too high, and were too ideal for princes and judges to feel bound by them, directly and immediately, or to guide their conduct by such rules, though on the whole they regarded the book as a standard. Even on the Ganges some districts resisted the law of the Brahmans, and took their law from their old customs,[345]

while on the other hand, in the land of the Indus, only a few regions followed the development attained in the life of the emigrants on the Yamuna and the Ganges; in these the elevation of the priestly order, the reform of religion, and the exclusiveness of the castes were very fitfully carried out. They clung obstinately to the older forms of Indian life, and submitted but partially to the reaction which the land of the Ganges exercised on the ancient home of the race.

In other nations and ages the priests have turned their attention to the past history of their states, and have recorded their fortunes, but on the Ganges the victory of the priests threw the past entirely aside, and established the Brahmanic system as the religion existing from the beginning. Why should the Brahmans trouble themselves with the deeds of ancient kings and heroes? These could only attract their attention in so far as the action of the G.o.ds was seen in them, or when they could be asked to prove that the power of the Brahmans had been from the first greater than the power of the kings and the Kshatriyas. Or need the Brahmans write the history of their own order? From this point of view that order had always been what it now was; it formed no organised corporation, no centralised system; the only points that could come into question were the acts of the great saints, the ancestors of the Brahman cla.s.s, or the claim and advantage of being descended from this or that priest of the old time. Ought the Brahmans to inquire into the laws of nature? In their view the life of nature was as little independent, as little founded on laws of its own, as the life and actions of men.

Nature was absorbed into the world-soul; the efficacy of sacrifices and penalties could, in the opinion of the Brahmans, remove the laws of nature at any moment. Where the order of the moral and physical world is broken and subdued at will by the supernatural, no account can be made of the actions of men, or the facts of nature, of history or natural science; theology and things divine are the only possible subjects of study.

The Brahmans occupied themselves very earnestly with the study of revelation, with the Veda, and with meditation on the highest being. If the first was the peculiar task of the schools of the Brahmans, the second was the essential duty of the anchorites in the forest. Moreover, it was advantageous for the teaching of the people to interpolate the new religion into the old Epos, and there also to exalt the acts of the great saints above the acts of the ancient heroes. We have already referred to the contradiction existing between the new doctrine and the Veda, on which it was founded, and which it set forth as a divine revelation. The invocations and prayers of the Veda arose out of the circle of different tribes, and from different dates; in their origin and tradition they proceeded from distinct races of priests. They were due to a conception wholly at variance with that of the Brahmans. How could these contradictions be removed? The contradiction between old and new was aggravated by numerous differences in the ritual. Along with the Veda the Brahmans regarded the sayings and conduct of the holy men of old, the great saints, as sufficient authorities. But the ritual was not the same in all the races of the Brahmans; and even customs and tradition had, as we have seen, a claim in the eyes of the Brahmans.

Every priestly school, or family, appealed in its ritual to the custom or word of the supposed progenitor, or to some other great saint. In order to fix the correct ceremonial of the sacrifice, the true ritual for purification, expiation, and penance, amid such varieties of practice, it was necessary to go back to the Veda. But in the Veda nothing was found on the greater part of the questions at issue, and only contradictory statements on others. Which was the true ritual, the form pleasing to the G.o.ds and therefore efficacious? Which were the decisive pa.s.sages in the Veda, and what was their true explanation? To the difficult task of bringing the Veda into harmony with the idea of Brahman, and the system of castes, and finding a proof for both in the Veda, in which castes and Brahman as the world-soul were unknown, was added the further difficulty of establishing the ritual so securely, as to leave no doubt about the practice of it, and to make it quite certain what liturgy was to be applied in each case, at every act. Owing to the Indian belief in the mystic power of the sacrifice and each single operation in it, this question was of very great importance. The sacrifice was invalid unless the ritual given by revelation or by the great priests of ancient times was used in it. From these questions and investigations rose commentaries on the Vedas;--the Brahmanas, which in part are still preserved to our times, the first compositions of the Indians in prose. They are reflections and rules of a liturgical and theological nature, and proceed on a plan somewhat of the following kind. After mentioning the rite and the sacrifice in question, the meaning of the words in the Veda which are supposed to refer to it is given, generally in a singular form; the various modes of performing the sacrifice are then mentioned, the sayings of the ancient saints in favour of this or that form are quoted; and then follows a regular solution, supported by legends from the history of the saints. We see from the rules of the Brahmanas that offerings, consecrations, and sacrifices were not diminished but rather increased by the idea of Brahman, and the number of the sacrificing priests was greater; a fourth priest was added to the Hotar, Udgatar, and Adhvaryu of the older period, whose duty it was to superintend the whole sacrifice, to guard against mistakes, and remedy them when made; at the greater sacrifices sixteen or seventeen priests officiated, besides those who were required for the supplementary duties; and beside the three daily sacrifices at morning, midday, and evening, the sacrifices of the new moon and full moon, the sacrifices to the ancestors, to fire, and the Soma, there were rites which lasted from two to eleven days, and others which occupied fourteen to one hundred days.[346] The Brahmanas fix the object and operation of every sacrifice; they show how the place of sacrifice is to be prepared and measured; how the altar is to be erected; how the vessels and instruments of sacrifice were to be prepared; what sort of wood and water is required, and the length of the pieces of wood which are to be placed on the fire. Then follow the invocations and the sentences at the use of the instruments of sacrifice, the paces and functions inc.u.mbent on the four cla.s.ses of priests, what one has to say and another to answer. Not only each word but even the tone and gesture is given formally at great length. An incorrect word, a false intonation may destroy the efficacy of the entire sacrifice. For this reason the rules for the great sacrifice, especially for the sacrifice of horses, fill up whole books of the Brahmanas.

Like the Arians of Iran, and the Germans, the Arians on the Indus sacrificed horses to the G.o.ds. "May Mitra, Aryaman, Indra and the Maruts," so we read in the Rigveda, "not rebuke us because we shall proclaim at the sacrifice the virtues of the swift horse, sprung from the G.o.ds, when the spotted goat is led before the horse adorned with ornaments of pure gold. If thrice at the proper seasons men lead around the sacrificial horse, which goes to the G.o.ds,--the goat, Pushan's share, goes first (p. 47). She goes along the path which Indra and Pushan love, and announces the sacrifice to the G.o.ds. May ye, O Hotar, Adhvaryu--the names of the remaining officiating priests follow--fill the streams (round the altar) with a well-prepared and well-accomplished sacrifice! They who cut the sacrificial post, and they who make the ring for the post of the horse, may their work be with us. My prayer has been well performed: the bright-backed horse goes to the regions of the G.o.ds, where poets celebrate him, and we have won a good friend among the G.o.ds.

The halter of the swift one, the heel-ropes of the horse, the girdle, the bridle, and even the gra.s.s that has been put into his mouth, may all these which belong to thee be with the G.o.ds. The ordure that runs from the belly, and the smallest particle of raw flesh, may the immolators well prepare all this, and dress the sacrifice till it is well cooked.

The juice that flows from thy roasted limb on the spit after thou hast been killed, may it not run on the earth or the gra.s.s; may it be given to the G.o.ds who desire it. They who examine the horse when it is roasted, they who say 'It smells well, take it away;' they who serve the distribution of the meat, may their work also be with us. The ladle of the pot where the meat is cooked, and the vessels for sprinkling the juice, the covers of the vessels, the shears, and the knives, they adorn the horse. Where he walks, where he stands, where he lies, what he drinks, and what he eats, may all these which belong to thee, be with the G.o.ds. May not the fire with smoky smell make thee hiss, may not the glowing cauldron swell and burst. The G.o.ds accept the horse if it is offered to them in due form. The cover which they stretch over the horse and the golden ornaments, the head-ropes of the horse, and the foot-ropes, all these which are dear to the G.o.ds, they offer to them.

If some one strike thee with the heel or the whip that thou mayest lie down, and thou art shouting with all thy might, then I purify all this with my prayer, as with a spoon of clarified b.u.t.ter at the sacrifices.

The axe approaches the thirty-four ribs of the quick horse, beloved of the G.o.ds. Do you wisely keep the limbs whole; find out each joint and ligament. One strikes the horse, two hold it; this is the custom. May the axe not stick to thy body; may no greedy and unskilful immolator, missing with the sword, throw thy mangled limbs together. May not thy dear soul burn thee while thou art coming near. Indeed thou diest not, thou sufferest not, thou goest to the G.o.ds on easy paths. May this horse give us cattle and horses, men, progeny, and all-sustaining wealth. May the horse of this sacrifice give us strength."[347] This was the foundation on which the Brahmanas construct an endless ritual for the sacrifice of horses, "the king of sacrifices," as the book of the law calls it. At the sacrifice of the horse, so we are told in the catapatha-Brahmana, the Adhvaryu on the first day calls on the players on the flute to celebrate the king who offers the sacrifice, and with him the virtuous princes of ancient days. The priest narrates the history begun by Manu Vaivasvata. On the second day he narrates the history begun by Yama Vaivasvata, and on the third day that begun by Varuna Aditya (p. 124); on the fourth day he narrates that begun by Soma Vaishnava, etc.; on the tenth day that begun by Dharma Indra, and sings the Soma, _i.e._ the hymns of the Samaveda.[348] In the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira, after ascending the throne of Hastinapura, offers a sacrifice of horses, in order to a.s.suage his grief at the loss of his heroes, and to extend his dominion. The Brahman Vyasa tells the king that this sacrifice is very difficult; that he must sleep the whole year through on the ground, with his wife at his side, and a naked sword between them; if he does not keep his desires in subjection during the whole of this time, the entire efficacy of the sacrifice is lost. The horse with the necessary marks is found and brought forward. According to the poem it must be as white as the moon, with a yellow tail, and the right ear must be black; the horse can also be entirely black. On a certain day, determined by the moon, the horse is let loose. It bears a gold plate on its forehead with the name of the king to whom it belongs, and the announcement that an army is following it, and any one who detains the horse, or leads it astray, will be compelled by force of arms to set it at liberty, and after the end of the year to appear at the sacrifice of the horse. Arjuna overcomes all the princes who would retain the horse. Then the princes who have submitted or been conquered a.s.semble at Hastinapura; Yudhishthira and Draupadi take a bath for purification; the king ploughs the place of sacrifice with a golden plough; Draupadi sows it to the accompaniment of the prayers of the Brahmans; then the midst of the s.p.a.ce is covered with four hundred golden tiles, and round about these are set up eight posts, eight trenches for the preparation of the curdled milk, clarified b.u.t.ter, and soma, and provided with eight great spoons, in order to bring the sacrificial gifts into the fire. Yudhishthira takes his place on the throne of gold and sandal-wood; twenty-four princes and rishis go to the Ganges in order to bring water for the sacrifice in pitchers on their heads. When the king has been purified by this water, the horse is brought, and it also is purified by having the water poured upon it.

Then the priests pressed the ear of the horse, and as milk ran out from it, it was proved that the horse was pure; so Bhima smote off the head with his sword. Then the priest held the flesh in the spoon over the fire, and made Homa out of it, and the flesh smelt of camphor, and he cried, "Indra, receive this flesh which has become camphor." To each of the Brahmans who had officiated at the sacrifice Yudhishthira gave a chariot, an elephant, ten horses, one hundred milch-cows, and slaves and gold and pearls, and had them entertained. In the Ramayana, king Dacaratha of Ayodhya offers a sacrifice of horses to obtain a son. At the appointed time the horse was set at liberty for a year; and a Brahman accompanied it. All the preparatory sacrifices were offered; the place was made ready on the northern banks of the Sarayu; twenty-one sacrificial posts were set up, and decked with flowers and ornaments, and twenty-one trenches were dug when the horse returned. The Brahmans kindle the sacred fire, the horse is led round it, and slain with the consecrated sword, while the Udgatar recites the sentences. The Hotar and the Ritvij bring the pieces of the horse according to the custom to the fire, and the Ritvij p.r.o.nounces the sentences while placing the flesh in the fire. Then the first and second wives of the king are brought to the horse and pa.s.s the night near it.[349] Rama offers a horse sacrifice for another reason; he wishes to make atonement for the offence which he has committed by the slaughter of the great giant Ravana of Lanka, who was a descendant of the holy Agastya, and consequently a Brahman. According to the narratives of the Vishnu-Purana, king Pushpamitra, who sat on the throne of Magadha in the first half of the second century B.C., offered a horse sacrifice.

The horse when set at liberty was carried off on the right bank of the Indus by an army of the Yavanas (Greeks), but was again liberated by the attendants. As a fact the land of the Indus as well as the Panjab was at that time under the dominion of the Greek princes of Bactria. From the period of the dynasty of the Guptas, who acquired the throne of Magadha about the year 140 B.C., a coin has been preserved to our time, relating to the efficacy of the horse sacrifice; it depicts an unsaddled horse before an altar.[350]

Not long after the time when the commentaries on the Vedas, or Brahmanas, arose in the schools of the Brahmans, a fourth Veda was added to the three collections of sacred songs and prayers already in existence. Ancient poems were preserved which had not been received into the Rigveda. These were not songs of praise or thanksgiving, prayers or sentences intended to accompany the sacrificial acts, but charms to avert evil, danger, sickness, or death, formulae relating to life in the house and family, bringing blessing or a curse. When the fourth superintending priest was added to the three already officiating, and the latter was charged with the office of avoiding the mistakes which might be committed in it, and atoning for those which had been committed by counter-charms and acts of expiation--a collection of the sentences required, a book of prayers, seems to have been given to this priest also, just as the Hotar had his Rigveda, the Udgatar his Samaveda, the Adhvaryu his Yajurveda. Thus the sentences of this kind already living in tradition may have been collected together, so as to form a fourth Veda. That some of the exorcisms and incantations belonging to this collection are also found in the Rigveda, that meditative hymns of later date are received into the fourth Veda together with pieces of very great antiquity, may count rather for than against this mode of origin.

The new collection was called the Atharvaveda after the ancient priest Atharvan, who is said first to have enticed the fire from the pieces of wood.[351] The Atharvaveda contains a number of ancient charms against sickness and death. It is the healing powers of waters and plants which are first invoked for a.s.sistance. In the Rigveda also all remedies are found in waters and plants, both of which come from the sky.[352] "May the waters of Himavat be blessed for thee," so we are told in the Atharvaveda; "the waters of the springs, the waters of the rain, the waters of the steppe, the waters of the cisterns, the waters of the pitchers. We bless the best healers, the waters. The waters should heal thee when pain overcomes thee; they should drive out thy sickness."[353]

Plants are not less efficacious. They pa.s.s into the limbs of the sick, they expel the sickness victoriously from the body, they unite with their king Soma in order to fight against the sickness; they obey the voice of the priest, rescue the sick person from pain, and set free the foot of man from the toils of Yama.[354] The Atharvaveda emphasises the peculiar healing power of a plant against the Rakshasas (the evil spirits); with this Kaciapa, Kanva, Agastya, and the son of Atharvan had defeated the Rakshasas. "Liberate," so the priest says to it, "liberate this man from the spirits of the Rakshasas; lead him back into the company of the living."[355] In other sentences of this Veda we are told: "With this sacrificial b.u.t.ter I liberate thee, so that thou mayest live; when the captor has seized him, do ye set him free, Indra and Agni. If his life is failing I draw him back from the brink of destruction unharmed for a hundred autumns" (p. 62). If the sickness is a punishment from the G.o.ds, the offence must be wiped out by sacrifice, prayer, and expiations; if it is the result of a charm, it must be driven into another creature by a counter-charm. The Atharvaveda gives us the following sentence against the demon Takman, who brings fever: "May refusal meet Takman, who has glowing weapons. O Takman, go to the Mujavant or further. Attack the cudra woman, the teeming one; shake her, O Takman. The Gandharas, the Angas, the Magadhas, we give over to Takman as servants, or a treasure."[356] The ague is banished into the frog, the jaundice into yellow birds. In the Rigveda the jaundice is put away into parrots and thrushes; consumption is to fly away with the blue jay.

The custom of supporting the exorcism by laying down a leaf or a herb, which is taught in the Atharvaveda, is not unknown to the Rigveda.[357]

The Atharva-veda also supplies charms against sprains, worms, and other evils.[358]

The Brahmanas of the various schools of priests were not merely rules for ritual, but also exegetical and dogmatic commentaries on the separate Vedas, each destined for one of the three cla.s.ses of priests who were allotted to the Rigveda, Samaveda, and Yajurveda. Of these commentaries on the Rigveda, two, differing in their arrangement, have been preserved to us; the Aitareya-Brahmana, and the Kaus.h.i.taki-Brahmana, _i.e._ the commentaries of the schools of Aitareya and Kaus.h.i.taka: for the Samaveda we have the Chandoga-Brahmana, and the Tandya-Brahmana; for the Yajurveda the Taittiriya-Brahmana and the catapatha-Brahmana, _i.e._ the commentaries of the schools of t.i.ttiri and Vajasaneya. In one or two of these Brahmanas we have additions at the end of a speculative character. The compressed and difficult language of these books, the abstruse dogmatism, the abundance of examples and legends, made the Brahmanas so difficult to understand that explanations of them were soon written in a more synoptical arrangement, an easier style, and shorter form. These explanations were called sutras, _i.e._ clues. If they were intended to explain the Veda, _i.e._ revelation, they were known as crauta-sutras; if they collected in a synoptical form the rules for the ritual given in the Brahmanas, they were known as Kalpa-sutras. The oldest sutras of this kind, which have come down to us, are supposed to have been written about the year 400 B.C.[359] From the duty of properly intoning and p.r.o.nouncing the prescribed words of the Veda, marking the metre, correctly understanding the ancient Vedic language which had subsequently taken the form of Sanskrit, and gone through other changes in the mouth of the people, and fixing the correct time for the sacrifice, there grew up among the schools of the Brahmans the beginnings of metrical, grammatical, etymological, and astronomical inquiries. As the people in the land of the Ganges had ceased to understand Sanskrit in the sixth century _B.C._, while the Brahmans were compelled to preserve it for the Vedas and the Brahmanas, and as a learned and theological language, it became necessary to learn it from teachers. The sutras of the Buddhists speak of a grammar of Indra, which is also mentioned by the Chinese Hiuan-Thsang as the earliest Indian grammar; from the fourth century B.C. we have the grammatical rules of Panini remaining, which, based on the previous crauta-sutras, present us with a complete grammatical system, provided with an artificial terminology.[360]

The desire to offer sacrifices to the G.o.ds at the correct and acceptable time did not permit the Brahmans entirely to neglect the observation of the heavens. Their attention was directed princ.i.p.ally to the moon, to the courses of the planets they paid no particular regard. According to the advance of the moon in the heavens they distinguished twenty-seven, and at a later period twenty-eight stations in the sky (_nakshatra_).

"The moon," we are told, "follows the course of the Nakshatras." The year of the Indians was divided into twelve months of thirty days; the month was divided into two halves of fifteen days each, and the day into 30 hours (_muhurta_). In order to bring this year of 360 days into harmony with the natural time, the Brahmans established a quinquennial cycle of 1860 lunar days. Three years had 12 months of 30 lunar days; the third and fifth year of the cycle had thirteen months of the same number of days. The Brahmans do not seem to have perceived that by this arrangement the cycle contained almost four days in excess of the astronomical time; and indeed they were not very skilful astronomers.

Twelve quinquennial cycles were united into a greater period (_yuga_) of sixty years.[361] It was an old belief of the Indians that sacrifices and important affairs in domestic and family life should only be engaged in when the position of the sky was favourable--when the moon was waxing, or the sun moving to the north. At a later time it was also believed that the constellation, under which a child saw the light, was of good or evil influence on his fortunes. Charms are preserved, which are supposed to avert evil influences of this kind.[362] Some time after the seventh century the Brahmans began to foretell the fortunes of children from the position of the stars of their parents, to look for the marks of good and bad fortune on the human body as well as in the sky, and to question the stars about the favourable hours for the transactions or festivals of the house, and the labours of the field, voyages and travels. Though the book of the law declares astrology to be a wicked occupation,[363] it was carried on to a considerable extent in the fifth and fourth centuries. But this astrological superst.i.tion has nevertheless remained without effect in advancing the astronomy of the Brahmans; further advance was due to the foreign help gained by closer contact with the kingdom of the Seleucids, and the influence of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, which extended its power to the east beyond the Indus, and the Graeco-Indian kingdom which succeeded it in the second century.[364] The result of their grammatical and astronomical studies were collected by the Brahmans as auxiliary sciences to the explanation and interpretation of the Veda; and they termed them the members of the Veda (Vedanga). They enumerated six of such members; the doctrine of p.r.o.nunciation and intonation, the doctrine of metres, grammar, etymology, the ritual, and astronomy. The two first were declared to be indispensable for the reading of the Veda, the third and fourth for understanding the Veda, the fifth and sixth for the performance of sacrifice.[365]

From all antiquity, as has been already observed, the Indians were greatly given to magic. It was the mysterious secret of the worship, the power of the rightly-offered prayer, which exercised compulsion on the G.o.ds. Out of this power grew their Brahmanaspati, and then Brahman.

Consequently, the Brahmans ascribed the greatest efficacy to the severities of asceticism, the annihilation of the body. The sacrifice of sensual enjoyment was more meritorious and powerful than all other sacrifices. Was it not this devotion, this mortification, this concentration, which annihilated the unholy part in men? Did not a man by these means approach the holy nature of Brahman--did he not thus draw into himself Brahman and its power? The Brahmans were convinced that great penances and absorption into Brahman conferred a supernatural power and a command over nature; and imparted to the penitent a superhuman and even superdivine power, like that of Brahman. The Indians invariably transferred the new point of view to the past. The past was with them a mirror of the present, and therefore the ancient priests who were supposed to have sung the hymns of the Veda, the mythical ancestors of the leading priestly families, were not only patterns of Brahmanic wisdom, but also great ascetics, examples of energetic penances. By such penances these ancient saints, the Maharshis, _i.e._ the great sages as they were now called, had obtained power over men and G.o.ds, and even creative force. Hence in the order of beings the seven or ten great saints received the place nearest to Brahman, above the G.o.ds--a change which was rendered easier to the Brahmans because pa.s.sages in the Rigveda spoke of the "ancient-born sages" as illuminated, as seers and friends of the G.o.ds.[366] With the Brahmans the force of asceticism was so preponderant, and absorbed the divine nature to such a degree, that it was soon regarded by them as the highest divine potency; in their view the G.o.ds and Brahman itself exercised creative power only by virtue of ascetic concentration on self, and severe penances. The theory of creation was modified from this point of view. Creation was not any longer the act of the ancient G.o.ds, though they are praised as creators in the Veda; it no longer took place by the emanation of being out of Brahman. According to the a.n.a.logy of the asceticism of the Brahmans, the G.o.ds and the personal Brahman who proceeded out of the impersonal Brahman must have rendered themselves capable of creation by penance, and gained their peculiar power in this way. In the black Yajurveda we are told: "This world was at first water; in this moved the lord of creation, who had become air. Then he formed the earth and created the G.o.ds. The G.o.ds said: How can we form creatures? He replied: As I formed you by the glow of my meditation (_tapas_), so do ye seek in deep meditation the means of bringing forth creatures."[367] The introduction to the book of the law goes further still in the theory of creation given above. When Brahman had proceeded from the egg (p. 197), he subjects himself to severe penance and so creates Manu. Then Manu begins the most severe exercises, and by them creates the ten great sages, and seven new Ma.n.u.s. The ten great saints, the lords of creatures, on their part bring all created things into being. By the force of their penances they create the G.o.ds and their different heavens, then the other saints who possess unbounded power, the spirits of the earth (Yakshas), the giants (Rakshasas), and the evil spirits (Asuras), the blood-suckers (Picachas), the serpent spirits (Nagas), the heavenly genii (the Gandharvas and Apsarasas), and the spirits of the ancestors; after them the thunder, the lightning, and the clouds, the wild animals, and last of all the whole ma.s.s of creatures living and lifeless.[368] According to this theory, Brahman has only given the impulse to creation; it is completed by the penances of Manu and the other saints. The G.o.ds are deposed, and the Brahmans, through their forefathers, the great saints, become the authors of the G.o.ds and the world, the sovereign lords of creation. The Brahman, learned or not, such is the teaching of the book of the law, is always a mighty deity, just as fire, whether consecrated or not, is always a mighty deity. Creation belongs to the Brahman, and consequently all property is his; it is by his magnanimity that the rest of the orders enjoy the goods of this world. Who would venture to injure a Brahman, by whose sacrifice the G.o.ds live and the world exists? Any one who harms a Brahman will be at once annihilated by the power of his curse; even a king who ventures on such a thing will perish with his army and their armour by the word of a Brahman.[369]

The schools of the Brahmans sought to establish their ritual beyond the power of doubt, to understand the Veda in its interpretation, as well as in its etymology and grammar; they raised the centre of their ethics, their asceticism, high above the G.o.ds of the Veda, and they also attempted to embody their views and their whole system in the poems of their Epos. The pre-eminence of their order must have been established even in the ancient times; even then the Brahmans must have stood far above the Kshatriyas; and the princes and heroes, of whom the Epos told us, must have been patterns of reverence towards the Brahmans; they must have walked in the paths which the theory of the Brahmans subsequently prescribed. In this feeling the Brahmans proceeded to revise the Epos.

In contradiction to the ancient poem the princes of the Pandus were placed in the best light, and, so far as was possible, were made eager worshippers or obedient pupils of the Brahmans.

We have already pointed out what an opposition the Brahmans had invented between Vasishtha and Vicvamitra from a few hints given by the Rigveda; how from this point of view, Vicvamitra is made into a Kshatriya, in order to be able to point out from the example of his ruin as a Kshatriya in opposition to Vasishtha the superiority of the Brahmans over the Kshatriyas. But the Veda contains hymns by Vicvamitra; he belonged, like Vasishtha, to the great saints; the one no less than the other was the progenitor of an ancient and eminent branch of the Brahmans. Hence the Kshatriya Vicvamitra must be changed again into a Brahman, and this could only be done by penances of the most severe kind. As the most powerful effects were attributed to these penances, the Kucikas and the other races derived from Vicvamitra were indemnified for the previous defeat of Vicvamitra when he was still a Kshatriya. The description of the feeble conflict of the Kshatriya against the Brahman, of the prince against the Rishi, the marvellous exaltation of the Kshatriya and the prince by submission to the Brahman law and severe penances, are here set forth in the utmost detail and inserted in the Epos. King Vicvamitra had ruled over the earth for several thousand years. On one occasion he came with his warriors to the abode of Vasishtha in the forest, who hospitably received and entertained him and his army. Vasishtha possessed a marvellous cow--a wishing cow--which brought forth whatever Vasishtha desired; she produced food and drink for Vicvamitra and his army. This cow Vicvamitra wished to possess, and offered 100,000 ordinary cows in exchange. It was a jewel, he said, and the king has a right to all jewels found in his country; hence the cow belonged of right to him, a deduction which is not contrary to certain rules in the book of the law. Vasishtha refuses to part with the cow; and Vicvamitra resolves to take her by force from the saint. The cow urges her master to resist; wide and powerful as Vicvamitra's rule may be, he is not more mighty than Vasishtha is; the wise praise not the might of the warriors, the power of the Brahmans is greater. Instead of the means of subsistence, with the production of which she has. .h.i.therto been contented, she now brings forth different armies from the different parts of her body; and when these are conquered by the warriors of Vicvamitra, she goes on producing new armies till the host of the king is destroyed. Then the hundred sons of Vicvamitra filled with rage rush on Vasishtha; but the saint consumes them by the flame of meditation which proceeds from his mouth. Vicvamitra acknowledges with shame the superiority of the Brahman over the Kshatriya; he resolves to overcome Vasishtha by penances. He goes into the forest, stands on his toes for one hundred years, lives on air only, and in this way acquires the possession of heavenly arms. With these he hastens to the settlement of Vasishtha; sets it on fire by the heavenly arrows, and then hurls a fiery weapon at the Brahman. Vasishtha cries aloud: "Vile Kshatriya, now will I show thee what the strength of a warrior is!" and with his staff easily wards off even the arms of the G.o.ds. With no better success Vicvamitra throws the toils of Varuna, and even Brahman's dreadful weapons against Vasishtha, who beats them away with his staff, "which burned like a second sceptre of Yama." With sighs Vicvamitra acknowledges that the might of kings and warriors is nothing, that only the Brahmans possess true power, and now attempts by severe penances to elevate himself to be a Brahman. He proceeds to the south, and undergoes the severest mortifications. After a thousand years of penance Brahman allows him the rank of a wise king. But he wishes to be a Brahman, and therefore begins his penances over again. Tricanku, the son of Prithu, the pious king of the Kocalas (p. 149), had bidden his priest Vasishtha exalt him with his living body to heaven by a great sacrifice. Vasishtha declares that this is impossible. Tricanku repairs to Vicvamitra, who offers the sacrifice. But the G.o.ds do not descend to the sacrificial meal. Then Vicvamitra in anger seizes the ladle, and says to Tricanku: "By my own power I will exalt you to heaven. Receive the power of sanct.i.ty which I have gained by my penances. I have certainly earned some reward for them." Tricanku at once rose to heaven; but Indra refused him admittance, and Tricanku began to sink again. In anger Vicvamitra begins to found another heaven in the south, new G.o.ds and new stars. Then the G.o.ds humbly entreat the saint to desist from conveying Tricanku into heaven, but Vicvamitra had given his promise to Tricanku; he must keep his word, and the G.o.ds must receive Tricanku. Then Vicvamitra repairs to the west in order to begin further penances. After a thousand years Brahman hails him as a sage. But Vicvamitra is resolved to be a Brahman. He begins his penances once more, but is disturbed by the sight of an Apsarasa, whom he sees bathing in the lake of Pushkara, and for ten years he lies in her toils. Disgusted at his weakness Vicvamitra repairs to the northern mountain, and there again undergoes yet severer penances for a thousand years. Brahman now greets him as a great sage; but Vicvamitra wishes to have the incomparable t.i.tle of a wise Brahman. This Brahman refuses because he has not yet fully mastered his sensual desires. New penances begin; Vicvamitra raises his arms aloft, stands on one leg, remains immovable as a post, feeds on nothing but air, is surrounded in the hot season by four fires, and in the cold by water, etc.--all which goes on for a thousand years. The G.o.ds are alarmed at the power which Vicvamitra obtains by such penances, and Indra sends the Apsarasa Rambha to seduce the penitent. Vicvamitra resists, but allows himself to be transported with rage, and turns the nymph into a stone. But anger also belongs to the sensual man, and must be subdued. He leaves the Himalayas, repairs to the east, and there resolves to perform the most severe penance; he will not speak a word, and this penance he performs for a thousand years, standing on one leg like a statue. The G.o.ds now beseech Brahman to make Vicvamitra a Brahman, otherwise by the power of his penances he will bring the three worlds to destruction; soon would the sun be quenched before the majesty of the penitent. Brahman consents; all the G.o.ds go to Vicvamitra, pay him homage and salute him: "Hail, wise Brahman!" Vasishtha hears of this new dignity of Vicvamitra, and both now stand on the same footing. This narrative teaches us not only that the power of the G.o.ds was nothing as against the Brahmans, but also that it was easier to exercise compulsion upon the G.o.ds, to create new G.o.ds and new stars, than for any one to attain the rank of a Brahman who had been born as a Kshatriya.[370]

Like Vicvamitra the heroes of antiquity were thought to have obtained divine power by their penances. An episode, inserted by the Brahmans into the Mahabharata, tells us how Arjuna, when the Pandus had been banished into the forest after the second game of dice at Hastinapura, practises severe penances on the Himavat, in order to obtain the weapons of the G.o.ds for the conflict against the Kurus. Indra sends his chariot in order to convey him to heaven, and there, in the heaven of Indra, everything shines with a peculiar splendour. Here are the G.o.ds, the heroes fallen in battle, sages and penitents by hundreds, who have attained to the height of Indra, but not, as yet, to Brahman. Instead of the blowing winds, his old companions in the fight, Indra is now surrounded by troops of the Gandharvas, the heavenly musicians, and by the Apsarasas. The G.o.ds and saints greet Arjuna to the sound of sh.e.l.ls and drums, and, as servants, wash his feet and mouth. Indra sits like the king of the Indians under the yellow umbrella, with a golden staff in his hands; he gives his bow to Arjuna; Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera (p.

160) also give him their weapons. Thus armed, Arjuna subdues in the first place the Danavas, the sons of Danu (the evil spirits of darkness and drought), whom Indra himself cannot overcome. For this object Indra gives him his chariot, which is now yoked with ten thousand yellow horses, and harness impenetrable as the air. Beyond the sea Arjuna comes upon the hosts of the Danavas. They cover him with missiles, and then contend with magic arts, with rain of stones and water and storms, and shroud everything in darkness. Arjuna is victorious, though the Danavas, at last changed into mountains, throw themselves upon him; and thus, as is expressly said, he surpa.s.ses the achievements of Indra. Indra's conflicts with the demons are transferred to Arjuna. We see to what an extent the soaring fancy of the Brahmans has crushed and distorted by these extravagances the simple and beautiful conception of Indra in conflict with Vritra and Atri, the poetry of the ancient myth of Indra's battle in the storm[371] (p. 48).

It was a marvellous world which the imagination of the Brahmans had created. The gay pictures, excited and nourished in the mind of the Indians by the nature of the Ganges valley, became reflected in more and more distorted and peculiar forms in the legends and wonders of the great saints and heroes of the ancient time. The G.o.ds and spirits are perpetually interfering in the life and actions of men. The saints without intermission convulsed the sky, and played at will with the laws of nature. The more the desire for the marvellous was satisfied, the stronger it became. In order to go beyond what had been already achieved brighter colours must be laid on; the power of the imagination must be excited more vigorously, so as to enchain once more the over-excited and wearied spirit. Thus, for the Indians, the boundaries of heaven and earth gradually disappeared; the world of G.o.ds and that of men became confounded in a formless chaos. The arrangement of the orders was of divine origin; the gradations of being reached from the world-soul, through the saints, the G.o.ds and spirits, down to plants and animals.

The earth was peopled with wandering souls; sacrifice, asceticism, and meditation set man free not only from the impurity of sin, but also from the laws of nature. They gave him powers transcending nature, which raised him above the earth and the G.o.ds, secured divine power for him, and carried him back to the origin and essence of all things.

However fantastic this structure, the positive basis of it was supposed to be revelation or the Veda. Extensive as the commentaries became owing to the rivalry of the schools, vast as were the acc.u.mulations of ritual and legends, of verbal explanations and sentences of the saints--the main questions became only the more obscure. What saint was qualified to decide? Which school taught the correct doctrine? By whom and in what way was the Veda revealed? Were the words or the sense of the poems decisive? How were the undeniable contradictions, the opposition between various pa.s.sages, to be removed? In order to obtain a firm footing the Brahmans found themselves invariably driven back to the idea of the world-soul. If in the interpretation of the words and the meaning of the Veda, in the effort to smoothe down the contradictions between them, and the necessity of finding a consistent mode of explanation and proof, the Indian acuteness and delicate power of distinction grew into a hair-splitting division of words and ideas, into the most minute and complicated logic, the conception of the world-soul, the theories of the creation, impelled them, on the other hand, to explain the whole life of the world from one source, and to compa.s.s it with one measure.

Forced as they were in these two directions, they were unavoidably brought at last to attempt to establish the theory independently, to construct Brahman and the world out of their nature and ideas. In all advanced stages of rational thought, fancy, or its reverse-side, abstraction, has seldom omitted to reflect the whole world as an organised unity in the brain of man, and to bring the oppressive mult.i.tude of things under some general conceptions and points of view.

In the schools of the Brahmans it was the formal side of these philosophical efforts, the method of inquiry and investigation, in connection with the sacred scriptures, religious traditions, and the attempts to fix the interpretation of them, which was specially developed. On the other hand, the anchorites in the forest opposed these efforts from the opposite direction with the combined body of religious conceptions, with their views of Brahman. The highest object of the eremite was meditation, absorption in Brahman. The more uniform their own lives, the stiller the life around them, the greater the ferment in their minds. When these penitents were weary of the world of G.o.ds and marvels which occupied their dreams, when the endless mult.i.tude of bright pictures confounded their senses, they turned to the central conception of the world-soul, and attempted to think of this more deeply, acutely, comprehensively, to see the connection of Brahman and the world more clearly, and explain it more distinctly. As the fancy, and consequently the abstracting power of the Indians, was always superior to the power of division, and remained the basis of their view of the world, their constructive speculation, which was occupied with the contents of their religious conceptions, surpa.s.ses their powers of formal thought. The latter had indeed no other office than to arrange and organise the pictures supplied by the former.

The attempt to construct a world on general principles was neither peculiarly bold nor peculiarly new. The way was prepared by the idea of the world-soul as the origin and essence of the G.o.ds and the world, and the path was opened for a constructive philosophy, developing the world out of ideas and thoughts by this abstract single deity existing beside and above the plurality of mythological forms, the exaltation of the saints above the G.o.ds, and the consequent degradation of the latter, the perpetual suspension of the natural order of things by the transcendental and mystical world of the G.o.ds and saints, the removal of the boundaries between heaven and earth, and the constant confusion of the two worlds. After this, there was nothing remarkable in putting abstract ideas in the place of the G.o.ds, and removing entirely the distinction between the transcendental world and the world of sense. In fact, the philosophy of the Indians is, in the first instance, nothing but the dogmatism of the Brahmans translated into abstractions--nothing but scholasticism, and their philosophical ethics no less than their religious require the liberation from the body.

Like all the productions of the Indian mind, with the exception of the Veda, the philosophical systems of the Indians, which arose in the seventh and sixth century B.C., are no longer before us in their original shape. We only possess them in a pointed compendious form which could not have been obtained without long labours, many revisions and reconstructions--and which is in reality of quite recent date. We are not in a position to ascertain the previous or intermediate stages through which the Brahmans pa.s.sed before they brought their system to a close; here, as everywhere in India, the later forms have completely absorbed their predecessors, the fathers are lost in the children. Hence we can only guess at the original form of these philosophical systems.

Still the order of succession, and the essential contents, are fixed not only on internal evidence--by the unalterable progress of development, which cannot be pa.s.sed over--but also by the fragments of genuine old Indian philosophy contained in the system of Buddha, and in their turn presupposing the existence of certain ideas and points of view.[372]

The oldest system of the Indians contains much more theology than philosophy. In part proceeding from the sacred scriptures and the traditional side of religion, it is an explanation of the Veda; in part it is an attempt to found a dogma on a basis of its own, on philosophical construction. In this sense, regarded as exegetical theology brought to a close by philosophical proof of dogma, this system is denoted by the name Vedanta, _i.e._ end or object of the Veda.

Combined with the portion explanatory of the Veda, it is also called Mimansa, _i.e._ inquiry; and the section which expounds the ceremonial side of religion bears the name of the first or work-investigation--Karma-mimansa; the speculative part is called Uttara-mimansa (metaphysics), or Brahma-mimansa, _i.e._ investigation of Brahman. The method of the first part, the investigation of works, is obviously taken from the requirements of the situation at the moment, and the process common in the schools of the Brahmans; the object was to establish a definite kind of interpretation for explanation and exegesis, and the development of dogma from the pa.s.sages in the Veda. On the consideration of a subject follows the doubt or the contradiction, which has been or can be raised on the other side. The contradiction is met by refutation on counter-grounds. This negative proof is followed by positive proof, that the view of the opponents is in itself untenable and worthless, and last comes the final proof of the thesis maintained by demonstration that it agrees with the whole system. In this manner we find philosophy treating first the authority of revealed scriptures, the Veda, then the relation of tradition to it, the statements of the sages, the commentary on the revelation. Then the variations and coincidences of revelation and their inner connection are developed, and so the system pa.s.ses on to the explanation of the Veda. It is shown that all pa.s.sages in the Veda point directly or indirectly to the one Brahman.

At certain pa.s.sages it is shown how a part of these plainly and another part obscurely refer to Brahman, though even the latter refer to it as a being worthy of divine reverence; another part of the pa.s.sages in the Veda point to Brahman as something beyond our knowledge. The contradictions between the pa.s.sages in the Veda are proved to be only apparent. These explanations of the pa.s.sages in the Veda are followed by the doctrine of good works, as the means of salvation, which are either external, like the observation of the ceremonial, the laws of purification, or internal like the quieting and taming of the senses, the hearing and understanding of revelation, and the acknowledgment of Brahman.[373]

The other part of the system, the Vedanta, leaves out of sight the difficult task of proving the idea of Brahman from the Veda, and bringing the two into harmony; it attempts to derive the existence and nature of Brahman from the idea. Brahman--such is the line of argument in the Vedanta--is the one eternal, self-existent essence, unalterable and unchangeable. It developes into the world, and is thus creative and created. As milk curdles, as water becomes snow and ice, Brahman congeals into matter. It becomes first ether, then air, then fire, then water, and then from water it becomes earth. From these elements arise the finer and coa.r.s.er bodies, with which the souls of the G.o.ds, spirits, men and animals are clothed. These souls go forth from Brahman like sparks from a crackling fire--a metaphor common in the book of the law--they are of one essence with Brahman, and parts of the great world-soul. This soul is in the world, but also outside and above it; to it must everything return, for all that is not Brahman is impure, without foundation, and perishable.

In this view there lies a contradiction which could not escape the keen penetration of a reflective spirit. Brahman is intended to be not only the intellectual but also the material basis of the world. It is regarded as absolutely non-material, eternal, and unchangeable, and yet the material, changeable world is to rise out of it; the sensible out of the non-sensible and the material out of the immaterial. In order to remove this dualism and contradiction which the orthodox doctrine introduced into Brahman, the speculation of the Brahmans seized upon a means which if simple was certainly bold: they denied the whole sensible world; they allowed matter to be lost in Brahman. There is only one Being; this is the highest soul (_paramatman_, p. 131), and besides this there is nothing: what seems to exist beyond this is mere illusion. The world, _i.e._ matter, does not exist, but only seems to exist, and the cause of this illusion is Maya or deception. Of this the sensible world is a product, like the reflection of the moon in water, and the mirage in the desert. Nature is nothing but the play of illusion, appearing in splendour and then disappearing. It is deception and nothing else which presents various forms to men, where there is only unity without distinction. The movement and action of living beings is not caused by the sparks of Brahman dwelling in them--for Brahman is consistently regarded as single and at rest--but by the bodies and senses, which being of themselves appearance and deception, adopt and reflect the deception of Maya. By this appearance the soul of man is kept in darkness, _i.e._ in the belief that the external world exists, and the man is subject to the emotions of pain and joy. In his actions man is determined by appearance and by the perception arising out of appearance. In truth Brahman alone exists. It is only deception which allows the soul to believe that it has a separate existence, or that the perceptible world exists, or that there is an existent manifold world.

This deceptive appearance of the world, which seems to darken the pure Brahman as the clouds darken the brightness of the sun, must be removed by the investigation which teaches us the truth, that the only existing being is the highest being, the world-soul. In this way the delusion of a multiform world disappears. As the sunlight dispels mists, true knowledge dispels ignorance, and destroys the glamour of Maya. This knowledge is the way to liberation and the highest salvation. The liberation of men from appearance, from the senses and the world of the sense, from the emotions arising from these, is the knowledge that this world of the senses does not exist, that the soul of a man is not separated from the highest soul. Thus man finds the direct path from the sensible world, the body and separate existence, to Brahman, by active thought which penetrates deception. The sage declares: "It is not so, it is not so;" he knows that the highest soul is all, and that he himself is Brahman. Recognising himself as the eternal, changeless Brahman, he pa.s.ses into the world-soul; he who knows Brahman reposes in it beyond reach of error. As the rivers flowing to the ocean disappear in it, losing their names and form, so the man of knowledge liberated from his name and his form pa.s.ses into the highest eternal spirit. He who knows this highest Brahman is freed from trouble and sin; from the bonds of the body and the eye; he is lost in Brahman, and becomes himself Brahman.[374]

We cannot but acknowledge the capacity of the Indians for philosophic speculations, and the vigour of thought which for the first time in history maintained the thesis that our senses deceive us; that all which surrounds us is appearance and deception--which denies the whole world of things, and in opposition to the evidence of the tangible and actual world, boldly sets up the inward capacity of knowledge, as a criterion against which the evidence of the senses is not to be taken into consideration. For a long time the actual world had been resolved into the transcendental world of G.o.ds and saints; this is now contracted into a simple substance, beyond and besides which nothing exists but appearance. Instead of the appearance of the sensible world, in which there is no being, there exists one real being, the one invisible world-soul, which allows the corporeal world to arise into appearance from it like airy bladders, and then again to sink back whence it came.

This universal deity is conceived as a being at rest; its activity and development into a sensible world is only apparent. It is a Pantheism which annihilates the world; matter and nature are completely absorbed by the world-soul, are plunged and buried in it; the soul of a man is a being only apparently separated from the world-soul. From these notions the mission of a man becomes clear. He must turn from appearance; he must unite with the world-soul by recognising the fact that all perceptions and emotions come from the world of phenomena, and therefore do not really exist; he must rise to the conception that only Brahman exists, and that man is Brahman. If from an ancient period the Indians were of opinion that they could draw down the G.o.ds to men by the holy spirit ruling in their prayers and sacrifices--if the mortification of the flesh in penances can give divine power and force to men--their philosophy is no more than consistent, when by recognising the worthlessness of sensible existence it allows Brahman to wake in the human spirit, and thus re-establishes the unity of man with Brahman.

The system of the Vedanta carried out the idea of Brahman so consistently that the entire actual existence of the world is thus annihilated. When once interest in speculation had been aroused, the reaction against positions of this kind was inevitable. The reality of actual things, the existence of matter, the certainty of the individual existence, must be defended against such a doctrine. On these factors was founded a new system, of which the founder in the tradition of the Brahmans is called the Rishi Kapila. The name Sankhya given to this system means "enumeration," "consideration." It maintains that reason alone is in a position to lead man to a right view, to truth and liberation.[375] It also exhibits the boldness arising from the fanciful nature of the Indians; and as the Vedanta took up a position on the idea of Brahman in order to wrest the world from its foundations, the Sankhya system stands on the idea of the soul (_purusha_) and of nature or matter (_prakriti, pradhana_). These two alone have existed from the beginning, uncreated and eternal. Nature is uncreated and eternal, creative and without cognition; the soul is also uncreated and eternal; it is not creative but has cognition. All that exists is the effect of a cause. The effect is limited in time and extension, subject to change, and can be resolved into its origin, _i.e._ into its cause. As every effect supposes a cause, every product supposes a producing force, every limited an unlimited. If the limited or product is pursued from cause to cause, there results the unlimited, eternal, creative, _i.e._ producing, nature as the first cause of all that is produced and limited. But beside nature there exists a second first cause. Nature is blind, _i.e._ without cognition; "light cannot arise out of darkness," intelligence cannot be the effect of nature. The cause of intelligence is the soul, which though completely distinct from nature exists beside it. Nature is eternal and one; the soul is also eternal, but manifold. Were the soul one, it could not feel pain in one man at the same time that it feels joy in another. The soul exists as the plurality of individual souls; these existed from the beginning, and are eternal beside nature. But they also entered into nature from the beginning. Their first case is the primeval body (_linga_), which consists essentially of "I-making"

(_ahankara_), _i.e._ individualisation, and the primeval elements; the second material body consists of the five coa.r.s.e elements of ether, air, light, water, earth. Neither the soul nor the primeval body dies, but only the material body.[376] The primeval body accompanies the soul through all its migrations; the material body is created anew at the regenerations, _i.e._ the soul and the primeval body are constantly clothed anew with new materials. The soul itself is uncreated, unchangeable amidst all mutations, and eternal, but it does not carry the consciousness of itself from one body to another. The soul is not creative; it exercises no influence on nature; it is only perceptive, observant, cognising, only a witness of nature. Nature is illumined by the proximity of the soul, and the soul gives witness of nature; nature takes its light from the soul, just as a white crystal appears red in the proximity of a red substance.[377]

The object of human life is to obtain liberation from the fetters of the body which bind the soul. The office of true knowledge is to set the soul free from the body, from nature. Man must grasp the difference of the soul and the body; he must understand that beside the body and nature, the soul is a completely self-existent being. The union of the soul and the body is nothing but deception, error, appearance. "In truth, the soul is neither bound nor free, nor a wanderer; nature alone is bound or free or migratory."[378] The soul seems to be bound to nature, but is not so. This appearance must be removed; the soul must recognise that it is not nature. When the soul has once penetrated nature it turns from it, and nature turns from the soul. The "unveiling of the spirit" from the case of nature is the liberation of the soul; by knowledge "release is brought about; by its opposite bondage."[379] By conceiving the absolute independence of the soul, man sets himself free from nature and his body; the idea of this independence is release. With this idea the man of knowledge surrenders his body; he is no longer affected or disturbed by it; even though his natural life continues, he looks on the body only "as on the movement of the wheel by virtue of the impulse once communicated to it."[380]

In spite of the sharp contrast in which the doctrine of Kapila stands to the system of the Vedanta, it works, in the last resort, with a.n.a.logous factors, only it applies them differently. The soul and nature were put in the place of Brahman and Maya. Instead of the one intelligent principle, which the Vedanta establishes in the world-soul, Kapila maintains the plurality of individual spirits. In the Vedanta, it is true, nature exists as an illusion only: still it is a factor, which though it is also appearance, is nevertheless an existence, and in the last resort exists in Brahman; it has ever to be overcome anew, and thus in this system of unity, the basis is really a dualism. In the Sankhya doctrine nature is actually and materially existent; but the intelligent principle has to discover that this actually existent matter is, in truth, not existent for it, and cannot fetter the soul. If in the orthodox system the illusion of nature is to be annihilated by the free pa.s.sage of the individual into Brahman, the doctrine of Kapila requires in the same way that man should rise to the idea that he is not nature, that the body is not his being, that he is not matter; it requires that man should be conscious of his freedom from nature, that he should return to his independence, in the same way as the Vedanta requires the absorption into Brahman. Then in the one case, as in the other, the individual escapes the restless movement of the world. In both systems the connection of the spirits and nature is only apparent, and the power of this deception in the spirit is removed by knowledge. Both proceed from the idea of an eternal being, self-contained, at rest, unmoved, self-sufficient; this the Vedanta ascribes to Brahman, while the Sankhya explains it as the nature of the soul. Nevertheless there is an important difference. In the Sankhya the intellectual principle is not the divine world-soul, which permits everything to emanate from itself and return to itself; it is the individual self, and besides this and material nature there is no real being, no real essence. If in the Vedanta liberation is the identification with the world-soul or the G.o.dhead, liberation in the Sankhya is the retirement of the soul into itself. According to the Vedanta the liberated man says, I am Brahman; according to the Sankhya, I am not body nor nature.[381]

In the certainty of conviction which the Sankhya doctrine opposed to the orthodox system, in the clearness with which it drew out the consequences of its point of view, in the boldness of scepticism concerning the G.o.ds and revelation, in the courage with which it protested against the regulations of the priests, and the whole religious tradition of