The Religions of India Part 3

[Footnote 2: If, as thinks Schrader, the Aryans' original seat was on the Volga, then one must imagine the Indo-Iranians to have kept together in a south-eastern emigration.]

[Footnote 3: That is to say, frequent reference is made to 'five tribes.' Some scholars deny that the tribes are Aryan alone, and claim that 'five,' like seven, means 'many.']

[Footnote 4: RV. III. 33. 11; 53. 12. Zimmer, _Altindisches Leben_, p. 160, incorrectly identifies _vic_ with tribus (Leist, _Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 105).]

[Footnote 5: Vicv[=a]mitra. A few of the hymns are not ascribed to priests at all (some were made by women; some by 'royal-seers,' _i.e._ kings, or, at least, not priests).]

[Footnote 6: Caste, at first, means 'pure,' and signifies that there is a moral barrier between the caste and outcast.

The word now practically means cla.s.s, even impure cla.s.s. The native word means 'color,' and the first formal distinction was national, (white) Aryan and 'black-man.' The precedent cla.s.s-distinctions among the Aryans themselves became fixed in course of time, and the lines between Aryans, in some regards, were drawn almost as sharply as between Aryan and slave.]

[Footnote 7: Compare RV. iii. 33, and in I. 131. 5, the words: 'G.o.d Indra, thou didst help thy suppliants; one river after another they gained who pursued glory.']

[Footnote 8: Thomas, _Rivers of the Vedas_ (JRAS. xv. 357 ff.; Zimmer, loc. cit. cap. 1).]

[Footnote 9: Later called the Candrabh[=a]ga. For the Jumna and Sarayu see below.]

[Footnote 10: This is the error into which falls Brunnhofer, whose theory that the Vedic Aryans were still settled near the Caspian has been criticised above (p. 15).]

[Footnote 11: Compare Geiger, _Ostiranische Cultur_, p. 81.

See also Muir, OST. ii. p. 355.]

[Footnote 12: La.s.sen, I. p. 616, decided in favor of the western pa.s.ses of the Hindukush.]

[Footnote 13: From Kandahar in Afghanistan to a point a little west of Lah.o.r.e. In the former district, according to the Avesta, the dead are buried (an early Indian custom, not Iranian).]

[Footnote 14: Geiger identifies the Vita[=g]uhaiti or Vitanghvati with the Oxus, but this is improbable. It lies in the extreme east and forms the boundary between the true believers and the 'demon-worshippers' (Yasht, 5, 77; Geiger, _loc. cit._ p. 131, note 5). The Persian name is the same with Vitast[=a], which is located in the Punj[=a]b.]

[Footnote 15: On the Kurus compare Zimmer (loc. cit.), who thinks Kashmeer is meant, and Geiger, loc. cit. p. 39. Other geographical reminiscences may lie in Vedic and Brahmanic allusions to Bactria, Balkh (AV.); to the Derbiker (around Meru? RV.), and to Manu's mountain, whence he descended after the flood (Naubandhana): _catapatha Br[=a]hmana_, I.

8. 1, 6, 'Manu's descent'.]

[Footnote 16: _Arch. Survey_, xiv. p. 89; Thomas, loc. cit.

p. 363.]

[Footnote 17: RV. x. 136. 5.]

[Footnote 18: RV. iii. 33. 2.]

[Footnote 19: RV. vii. 95. 2. Here the Sarasvat[=i] can be only the Indus.]

[Footnote 20: Pa[=n]ca-nada, Punjnud, Persian 'Punj[=a]b,'

the five streams, Vitas[=a], Asikn[=i], Ir[=a]vat[=i], Vip[=a]c, cutudr[=i]. The Punjnud point is slowly moving up stream; Vyse, JRAS. x. 323. The Sarayu may be the Her[=i]r[=u]d, Geiger, loc. cit. p. 72.]

[Footnote 21: Muir, OST. ii. 351; Zimmer, loc. cit. p. 51 identifies the _K[=i]katas_ of RV. iii. 53. 14 with the inhabitants of Northern Beh[=a]r. Marusthala is called simply 'the desert.']

[Footnote 22: The earlier _ayas_, Latin _aes_, means bronze not iron, as Zimmer has shown, loc. cit. p. 51. Pischel, _Vedische Studien_, I, shows that elephants are mentioned more often than was supposed (but rarely in family-books).]

[Footnote 23: Weber, _Indische Studien,_ I. p. 228; Oldenberg, _Buddha_, pp. 399 ff., 410.]

[Footnote 24: Very lately (1893) Franke has sought to show that the P[=a]li dialect of India is in part referable to the western districts (Kandahar), and has made out an interesting case for his novel theory (ZDMG. xlvii. p.

595).]

CHAPTER III.

THE RIG VEDA. THE UPPER G.o.dS.

The hymns of the Rig Veda may be divided into three cla.s.ses, those in which are especially lauded the older divinities, those in which appear as most prominent the sacrificial G.o.ds, and those in which a long-weakened polytheism is giving place to the light of a clearer pantheism. In each category there are hymns of different age and quality, for neither did the more ancient with the growth of new divinities cease to be revered, nor did pantheism inhibit the formal acknowledgment of the primitive pantheon. The cult once established persisted, and even when, at a later time, all the G.o.ds had been reduced to nominal fractions of the All-G.o.d, their ritualistic individuality still was preserved. The chief reason for this lies in the nature of these G.o.ds and in the att.i.tude of the worshipper. No matter how much the cult of later G.o.ds might prevail, the other G.o.ds, who represented the daily phenomena of nature, were still visible, awe-inspiring, divine. The firmest pantheist questioned not the advisability of propitiating the sun-G.o.d, however much he might regard this G.o.d as but a part of one that was greater. Belief in India was never so philosophical that the believer did not dread the lightning, and seek to avert it by praying to the special G.o.d that wielded it.

But active veneration in later times was extended in fact only to the strong Powers, while the more pa.s.sive divinities, although they were kept as a matter of form in the ceremonial, yet had in reality only tongue-worshippers.

With some few exceptions, however, it will be found impossible to say whether any one deity belonged to the first pantheon.

The best one can do is to separate the ma.s.s of G.o.ds from those that become the popular G.o.ds, and endeavor to learn what was the character of each, and what were the conceptions of the poets in regard both to his nature, and to his relations with man. A different grouping of the G.o.ds (that indicated below) will be followed, therefore, in our exposition.

After what has been said in the introductory chapter concerning the necessity of distinguishing between good and bad poetry, it may be regarded as inc.u.mbent upon us to seek to make such a division of the hymns as shall ill.u.s.trate our words. But we shall not attempt to do this here, because the distinction between late mechanical and poetic hymns is either very evident, and it would be superfluous to burden the pages with the trash contained in the former,[1] or the distinction is one liable to reversion at the hands of those critics whose judgment differs from ours, for there are of course some hymns that to one may seem poetical and to another, artificial. Moreover, we admit that hymns of true feeling may be composed late as well as early, while as to beauty of style the chances are that the best literary production will be found among the latest rather than among the earliest hymns.

It would, indeed, be admissible, if one had any certainty in regard to the age of the different parts of the Rig Veda, simply to divide the hymns into early, middle, and late, as they are sometimes divided in philological works, but here one rests on the weakest of all supports for historical judgment, a linguistic and metrical basis, when one is ignorant alike of what may have been accomplished by imitation, and of the work of those later priests who remade the poems of their ancestors.

Best then, because least hazardous, appears to be the method which we have followed, namely, to take up group by group the most important deities arranged in the order of their relative importance, and by studying each to arrive at a fair understanding of the pantheon as a whole. The Hindus themselves divided their G.o.ds into highest, middle, and lowest, or those of the upper sky, the atmosphere, and the earth.

This division, from the point of view of one who would enter into the spirit of the seers and at the same time keep in mind the changes to which that spirit gradually was subjected, is an excellent one. For, as will be seen, although the earlier order of regard may have been from below upwards, this order does not apply to the literary monuments. These show on the contrary a worship which steadily tends from above earthwards; and the three periods into which may be divided all Vedic theology are first that of the special worship of sky-G.o.ds, when less attention is paid to others; then that of the atmospheric and meteorological divinities; and finally that of terrestrial powers, each later group absorbing, so to speak, the earlier, and therewith preparing the developing Hindu intelligence for the reception of the universal G.o.d with whom closes the series.

Other factors than those of an inward development undoubtedly were at work in the formation of this growth. Especially prominent is the amalgamation of the G.o.ds of the lower cla.s.ses with those of the priest-hood. Climatic environment, too, conditioned theological evolution, if not spiritual advance. The cult of the mid-sphere G.o.d, Indra, was partly the result of the changing atmospheric surroundings of the Hindus as they advanced into India. The storms and the sun were not those of old. The tempests were more terrific, the display of divine power was more concentrated in the rage of the elements; while appreciation of the goodness of the sun became tinged with apprehension of evil, and he became a deadly power as well as one beneficent. Then the relief of rain after drought gave to Indra the character of a benign G.o.d as well as of a fearful one. Nor were lacking in the social condition certain alterations which worked together with climatic changes. The segregated ma.s.s of the original people, the braves that hung about the king, a warrior-cla.s.s rapidly becoming a caste, and politically the most important caste, took the G.o.d of thunder and lightning for their G.o.d of battle. The fighting race naturally exalted to the highest the fighting G.o.d. Then came into prominence the priestly caste, which gradually taught the warrior that mind was stronger than muscle. But this caste was one of thinkers.

Their divinity was the product of reflection. Indra remained, but yielded to a higher power, and the G.o.d thought out by the priests became G.o.d. Yet it must not be supposed that the cogitative energy of the Brahman descended upon the people's G.o.ds and suddenly produced a religious revolution. In India no intellectual advance is made suddenly. The older divinities show one by one the transformation that they suffered at the hands of theosophic thinkers. Before the establishment of a general Father-G.o.d, and long before that of the pantheistic All-G.o.d, the philosophical leaven was actively at work. It will be seen operative at once in the case of the sun-G.o.d, and, indeed, there were few of the older divinities that were untouched by it. It worked silently and at first esoterically. One reads of the G.o.ds' 'secret names,' of secrets in theology, which 'are not to be revealed,' till at last the disguise is withdrawn, and it is discovered that all the mystery of former generations has been leading up to the declaration now made public: 'all these G.o.ds are but names of the One.'

THE SUN-G.o.d.

The hymn which was translated in the first chapter gives an epitome of the simpler conceptions voiced in the few whole hymns to the sun. But there is a lower and a higher view of this G.o.d. He is the shining G.o.d _par excellence_, the _deva, s[=u]rya_,[2] the red ball in the sky.

But he is also an active force, the power that wakens, rouses, enlivens, and as such it is he that gives all good things to mortals and to G.o.ds. As the G.o.d that gives life he (with others)[3] is the author of birth, and is prayed to for children. From above he looks down upon earth, and as with his one or many steeds he drives over the firmament he observes all that is pa.s.sing below. He has these, the physical side and the spiritual side, under two names, the glowing one, S[=u]rya, and the enlivener, Savitar;[4] but he is also the good G.o.d who bestows benefits, and as such he was known, probably locally, by the name of Bhaga. Again, as a herdsman's G.o.d, possibly at first also a local deity, he is P[=u]shan (the meaning is almost the same with that of Savitar). As the 'mighty one' he is Vishnu, who measures heaven in three strides. In general, the conception of the sun as a physical phenomenon will be found voiced chiefly in the family-books: "The sightly form rises on the slope of the sky as the swift-going steed carries him ... seven sister steeds carry him."[5] This is the prevailing utterance. Sometimes the sun is depicted under a medley of metaphors: "A bull, a flood, a red bird, he has entered his father's place; a variegated stone he is set in the midst of the sky; he has advanced and guards the two ends of s.p.a.ce."[6] One after the other the G.o.d appears to the poets as a bull, a bird,[7] a steed, a stone, a jewel, a flood, a torch-holder,[8] or as a gleaming car set in heaven.

Nor is the sun independent. As in the last image of a chariot,[9] so, without symbolism, the poet speaks of the sun as made to rise by Varuna and Mitra: "On their wonted path go Varuna and Mitra when in the sky they cause to rise Surya, whom they made to avert darkness"; where, also, the sun, under another image, is the "support of the sky."[10] Nay, in this simpler view, the sun is no more than the "eye of Mitra Varuna,"[11] a conception formally retained even when the sun in the same breath is spoken of as pursuing Dawn like a lover, and as being the 'soul of the universe' (I. 115. 1-2). In the older pa.s.sages the later moral element is almost lacking, nor is there maintained the same physical relation between Sun and Dawn. In the earlier hymns the Dawn is the Sun's mother, from whom he proceeds.[12] It is the "Dawns produced the Sun," in still more natural language;[13] whereas, the idea of the lover-Sun following the Dawn scarcely occurs in the family-books.[14] Distinctly late, also, is the identification of the sun with the all-spirit _([=a]tm[=a],_ I. 115. 1), and the following prayer: "Remove, O sun, all weakness, illness, and bad dreams." In this hymn, X. 37. 14, S[=u]rya is the son of the sky, but he is evidently one with Savitar, who in V. 82. 4, removes bad dreams, as in X. 100. 8, he removes sickness. Men are rendered 'sinless' by the sun (IV. 54. 3; X. 37. 9) exactly as they are by the other G.o.ds, Indra, Varuna, etc. In a pa.s.sage that refers to the important triad of sun, wind and fire, X. 158. I ff., the sun is invoked to 'save from the sky,' _i.e._ from all evils that may come from the upper regions; while in the same book the sun, like Indra, is represented as the slayer of demons _(asuras)_ and dragons; as the slayer, also, of the poet's rivals; as giving long life to the worshipper, and as himself drinking sweet _soma_. This is one of the poems that seem to be at once late and of a forced and artificial character (X. 170).

Although S[=u]rya is differentiated explicitly from Savitar (V. 81. 4, "Savitar, thou joyest in S[=u]a's rays"), yet do many of the hymns make no distinction between them. The Enlivener is naturally extolled in fitting phrase, to tally with his t.i.tle: "The shining-G.o.d, the Enlivener, is ascended to enliven the world"; "He gives protection, wealth and children" (II. 38.1; IV. 53. 6-7). The later hymns seem, as one might expect, to show greater confusion between the attributes of the physical and spiritual sun. But what higher power under either name is ascribed to the sun in the later hymns is not due to a higher or more developed homage of the sun as such. On the contrary, as with many other deities, the more the praise the less the individual worship. It is as something more than the sun that the G.o.d later receives more fulsome devotion. And, in fact, paradoxical as it seems, it is a decline in sun-worship proper that is here registered. The altar-fire becomes more important, and is revered in the sun, whose hymns, at most, are few, and in part mechanical.

Bergaigne in his great work, _La Religion Vedique_, has laid much stress on s.e.xual ant.i.thesis as an element in Vedic worship. It seems to us that this has been much exaggerated. The sun is masculine; the dawn, feminine. But there is no indication of a primitive ant.i.thesis of male and female in their relations. What occurs appears to be of advent.i.tious character. For though sun and dawn are often connected, the latter is represented first as his mother and afterwards as his 'wife' or mistress. Even in the later hymns, where the marital relation is recognized, it is not insisted upon. But Bergaigne[15] is right in saying that in the Rig Veda the sun does not play the part of an evil power, and it is a good ill.u.s.tration of the difference between Rik and Atharvan, when Ehni cites, to prove that the sun is like death, only pa.s.sages from the Atharvan and the later Brahmanic literature.[16]

When, later, the Hindus got into a region where the sun was deadly, they said, "Yon burning sun-G.o.d is death," but in the Rig Veda' they said, "Yon sun is the source of life,"[17] and no other conception of the sun is to be found in the Rig Veda.

There are about a dozen hymns to S[=u]rya, and as many to Savitar, in the Rig Veda.[18] It is noteworthy that in the family-books the hymns to Savitar largely prevail, while those to S[=u]rya are chiefly late in position or content. Thus, in the family-books, where are found eight or nine of the dozen hymns to Savitar, there are to S[=u]rya but three or four, and of these the first is really to Savitar and the Acvins; the second is an imitation of the first; the third appears to be late; and the fourth is a fragment of somewhat doubtful antiquity.

The first runs as follows: "The altar-fire has seen well-pleased the dawns' beginning and the offering to the gleaming ones; come, O ye hors.e.m.e.n (Acvins), to the house of the pious man; the sun (S[=u]rya), the shining-G.o.d, rises with light. The shining-G.o.d Savitar has elevated his beams, swinging his banner like a good (hero) raiding for cattle. According to rule go Varuna and Mitra when they make rise in the sky the sun (S[=u]rya) whom they have created to dissipate darkness, being (G.o.ds) sure of their habitation and unswerving in intent. Seven yellow swift-steeds bear this S[=u]rya, the seer of all that moves. Thou comest with swiftest steeds unspinning the web, separating, O shining-G.o.d, the black robe. The rays of S[=u]rya swinging (his banner) have laid darkness like a skin in the waters.

Unconnected, unsupported, downward extending, why does not this (G.o.d) fall down? With what nature goes he, who knows (literally, 'who has seen')? As a support he touches and guards the vault of the sky" (IV.

13).

There is here, no more than in the early hymn from the first book, translated in the first chapter, any worship of material phenomena.

S[=u]rya is worshipped as Savitar, either expressly so called, or with all the attributes of the spiritual. The hymn that follows this[19] is a bald imitation. In V. 47 there are more or less certain signs of lateness, _e.g.,_ in the fourth stanza ("four carry him, ... and ten give the child to drink that he may go," etc.) there is the juggling with unexplained numbers, which is the delight of the later priesthood. Moreover, this hymn is addressed formally to Mitra-Varuna and Agni, and not to the sun-G.o.d, who is mentioned only in metaphor; while the final words _namo dive_, 'obeisance to heaven,' show that the sun is only indirectly addressed. One cannot regard hymns addressed to Mitra-Varuna and S[=u]rya (with other G.o.ds) as primarily intended for S[=u]rya, who in these hymns is looked upon as the subject of Mitra and Varuna, as in VII. 62; or as the "eye" of the two other G.o.ds, and 'like Savitar' in VII. 63. So in VII. 66. 14-16, a mere fragment of a hymn is devoted exclusively to S[=u]rya as "lord of all that stands and goes." But in these hymns there are some very interesting touches. Thus in VII. 60. 1, the sun does not make sinless, but he announces to Mitra and Varuna that the mortal is sinless. There are no other hymns than these addressed to S[=u]rya, save those in the first and tenth books, of which nine stanzas of I.