The Religions of India Part 47

[Footnote 92: Edkins, cited by Muller, _India_, p. 286.]

[Footnote 93: Weber, _Janm[=a][s.][t.]am[=i]_, pp. 259, 318.

Weber describes in full the cult of the "Madonna with the Child," according to the Pur[=a]nas.]

[Footnote 94: On the subsequent deification of the Pandus themselves see 1A. VII. 127.]

[Footnote 95: Hence the similarity with Herakles, with whom Megasthenes identifies him. The man-lion and hero-forms are taken to rid earth of monsters.]

[Footnote 96: Greek influence is clearly reflected in India's architecture. h.e.l.lenic bas-reliefs representing Bacchic scenes and the love-G.o.d are occasionally found.

Compare the description of civa's temple in Orissa, Weber, _Literature_, p. 368; _Berl. Ak._, 1890, p, 912. civa is here a.s.sociated with the Greek cult of Eros and Aphrodite.]

CHAPTER XVII.

MODERN HINDU SECTS.[1]

Although the faith of India seems to have completed a circle, landing at last in a polytheism as gross as was that of the Vedic age, yet is this a delusive aspect, as will appear if one survey the course of the higher intellectual life of the people, ignoring, as is right, the invariable factor introduced by the base imaginings of the vulgar. The greater spirituality has always expressed itself in independent movement, and voiced itself in terms of revolution. But in reality each change has been one of evolution. To trace back to the Vedic period the origin of Hindu sectarianism would, indeed, be a nice task for a fine scholar, but it would not be temerarious to attempt it. We have failed of our purpose if we have not already impressed upon the reader's mind the truth that the progress of Brahmanic theology (in distinction from demonology) has been one journey, made with rests and halts, it is true, and even with digressions from the straight path; but without abatement of intent, and without permanent change of direction. Nor can one judge otherwise even when he stands before so humiliating an exhibition of groundling bigotry as is presented by some of the religious sects of the present day. The world of lower organisms survives the ascent of the higher. There is always undergrowth; but before the fall of a great tree its seeds sprout, withal in the very soil of the weedy thicket below. So out of the rank garden of Hindu superst.i.tions arise, one after another, lofty trees of an old seed, which is ever renewed, and which cultivation has gradually improved.

We have shown, especially in the chapters on the Atharva Veda and on Hinduism, as revealed in epic poetry, how constant in India is the relation between these two growths. If surprised at the height of early Hindu thought, one is yet more astonished at the permanence of the inferior life which flourishes beneath the shady protection of the superior. Even here one may follow the metaphor, for the humbler life below is often a condition of the grander growth above.

In the Rig Veda there is an hymn of faith and doubt

To INDRA.[2]

He who, just born, with thought endowed, the foremost, Himself a G.o.d hemmed in the G.o.ds with power; Before whose breath, and at whose manhood's greatness, The two worlds trembled; he, ye folk, is Indra.

He who the earth made firm as it was shaking, And made repose the forward tottering mountains; Who measured wide the inter-s.p.a.ce aerial, And heaven established; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who slew the dragon, loosed the rivers seven, And drove from Vala's hiding place the cattle;[3]

Who fire between the two stones[4] hath engendered, Conqueror in conflicts; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who all things here, things changeable, created; Who lowered and put to naught the barbarous color,[5]

And, like victorious gambler, took as winnings His foe's prosperity; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Whom, awful, they (yet) ask about: 'where is he?'

And speak thus of him, saying, 'he exists not'-- He makes like dice[6] his foe's prosperity vanish; Believe on him; and he, ye folk, is Indra.

In whose direction horses are and cattle; In whose, the hosts (of war) and all the chariots; Who hath both S[=u]rya and the Dawn engendered, The Waters' leader; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Both heaven and earth do bow themselves before him, And at his breath the mountains are affrighted; Who bolt in arms is seen, the _soma_-drinker, And bolt in hand; ('tis) he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who helps the _soma_-presser, (_soma_)-cooker, The praiser (helps), and him that active serveth; Of whom the increase _brahma_ is and _soma_, And his this offering; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Here _brahma_, which word already in the Yajur Veda has taken to itself the later philosophical signification, is merely prayer, the meaning which in the Rig Veda is universal.

The note struck in this hymn is not unique:

(THE POET.)

Eager for booty proffer your laudation To Indra; truth (is he),[7] if truth existeth; 'Indra is not,' so speaketh this and that one; 'Who him hath seen? To whom shall we give praises?'

(THE G.o.d.)

I am, O singer, he; look here upon me; All creatures born do I surpa.s.s in greatness.

Me well-directed sacrifices nourish, Destructive I destroy existent beings.[8]

These are not pleas in behalf of a new G.o.d. It is not the mere G.o.d of physical phenomena who is here doubted and defended. It is the G.o.d that in the last stage of the Rig Veda is become the Creator and Destroyer, and, in the light of a completed pantheism, is grown too great to retain his personality. With such a protest begins the great revolt that is the sign of an inner evolution extending through the Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads. Indra, like other G.o.ds,[9] is held by the rite; to the vulgar he is still the great G.o.d;[10] to the philosopher, a name. The populace respect him, and sacerdotalism conserves him, that same crafty, priestly power, which already at the close of the Rig Vedic period dares to say that only the king who is subject to the priest is sure of himself, and a little later that killing a priest is the only real murder. We have shown above how the real divinity of the G.o.ds was diminished even at the hands of the priests that needed them for the rites and baksheesh, which was the goal of their piety. Even Praj[=a]pati, the Father-G.o.d, their own creation, is mortal as well as immortal.[11] We have shown, also, how difficult it must have been to release the reason from the formal band of the rite. Socially it was impossible to do so. He that was not initiated was excommunicated, an outcast. But, on the other hand, the great sacrifices gradually fell over from their own weight. c.u.mbersome and costly, they were replaced by proxy works of piety; _vidh[=a]nas_ were established that obviated the real rite; just as to-day, 'pocket altars' take the place of real altars.[12] There was a gradual intrusion of the Hindu cult; popular features began to obtain; the sacrifice was made to embrace in its workings the whole family of the sacrificer (instead of its effect being confined to him alone, as was the earlier form); and finally village celebrations became more general than those of the individual.

Slowly Hinduism built itself a ritual,[13] which overpowered the Brahmanic rite. Then, again, behind the geographical advance of Brahmanism[14] lay a people more and more p.r.o.ne to diverge from the true cult (from the Brahmanic point of view). In the latter part of the great Br[=a]hmana[15] there is already a distrust of the Indus tribes, which marks the breaking up of Aryan unity; not that breaking up into political division which is seen even in the Rig Veda, where Aryan fights against Aryan as well as against the barbarian, but the more serious dismemberment caused by the hates of priests, for here there was no reconciliation.

The cynical scepticism of the Brahmanic ritualists, as well as the divergence of opinions in regard to this or that sacrificial pettiness, shows that even where there was overt union there was covert discord, the disagreement of schools, and the difference of faith. But all this does but reflect the greater difference in speculation and theology which was forming above the heads of the ritualistic bigots. For it is not without reason that the Upanishads are more or less awkwardly laid in as the top-stone on the liturgical edifice. They belong to the time but they are of it only in part. Yet to dissociate the ma.s.s of Brahmanic priestlings from the Upanishad thinkers, as if the latter were altogether members of a new era, would be to lose the true historical perspective. The vigor of protest against the received belief continues from the Rig Veda to Buddha, from Buddha till to-day.

The Vedic cult absorbed a good deal of Hinduism, for instance the worship of Fate,[16] just as Hinduism absorbed a good deal of Vedic cult. Nor were the popular works obnoxious to the priest. In the Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad[17] the Itih[=a]sas and Pur[=a]nas (fore-runners of the epic) are already reckoned as a fifth Veda, being recognized as a Veda almost as soon as was the Atharvan,[18] which even in Manu is still called merely 'texts of Atharvan and Angiras'

(where texts of Bhrigu might as well have been added). Just as the latter work is formally recognized, and the use of its magical formulas, if employed for a good purpose, is enjoined in epic[19] and law (_e.g._ Manu, xi. 33), so the Hinduistic rites crept gradually into the foreground, pushing back the _soma_-cult. Idols are formally recognized as venerable by the law-makers;[20] even before their day the 'holy pool,' which we have shown to be so important to Hinduism, is accepted by Brahmanism.[21] Something, too, of the former's catholicity is apparent in the cult at an early date, only to be suppressed afterwards. Thus in [=A]it. Br. II. 19, the slave's son shares the sacrifice; and the slave drinks _soma_ in one of the half-Brahmanical, half-popular festivals.[22] Whether human sacrifice, sanctioned by some modern sects, is aught but pure Hinduism, civaism, as affected by the cult of the wild-tribes, it is hard to say. At any rate, such sacrifices in the Brahmanic world were obsolete long before one finds them in Hinduism. Of Buddhistic, Brahmanic, and Hinduistic reciprocity we have spoken already, but we may add one curious fact, namely, that the Buddhism of civaism is marked by its holy numbers.

The Brahmanic Rudra with eight names[23] and eight forms[24] is clearly civaite, and the numbers are as clearly Buddhistic[25] Thus, as Feer has shown, Buddhist h.e.l.ls are eight, sixteen, etc, while the Brahmanic h.e.l.ls are seven, twenty-one, etc. Again, the use of the rosary was originally civaite, not Buddhisttc;[26] and Buddha in Bali, where they live amicably side by side, is regarded as civa's brother.[27]

Two things result from this interlocking of sectarian Brahmanism with other sects. First, it is impossible to say in how far each influenced the other; and, again, the antiquity of special ideas is rendered doubtful. A Brahmanic idea can pretty safely be allotted to its first period, because the literature is large enough to permit the a.s.sumption that it will appear in literature not much later than it obtains. But a sectarian idea may go back centuries before it is permanently formulated, as, for example, the doctrine of special grace in a modern sect.

One more point must be noticed before we proceed to review the sects of to-day. Hindu morality, the ethical tone of the modern sects, is older than the special forms of Hindu viciousness which have been received into the cult. A negative altruism (beyond which Brahmanism never got) is characteristic of the Hindu sects. But this is already embodied in the golden rule, as it is thus formulated in the epic 'Compendium of Duty':

Not that to others should one do Which he himself objecteth to.

This is man's duty in one word; All other rules may be ignored.[28]

The same is true of the 'Ten Commandments' of one of the modern sects.

It is one of the strong proofs that Christian morals did not have much effect upon early Hinduism, that, although the Christian Church of St.

Thomas, as is well established, was in Malabar as early as 522,[29]

and Christians were in the North in the seventh century, yet no trace of the active Christian benevolence, in place of this abstention from injury, finds its way into the epic or Pur[=a]nas. But an active altruism permeates Buddhism, and one reads in the birth-stories even of a saviour Buddha, not the Buddha of love, M[=a]itreya, who was to be the next Buddha on earth, but of that M[=a]itrakanyaka, who left heaven and came to earth that he might redeem the sins of others.[30]

Whether there is any special touch between the older sects and those of modern days[31] that have their headquarters in the same districts is a question which we have endeavored to investigate, but we have found nothing to substantiate such an opinion. Buddhism retired, too early to have influence on the sects of to-day, and between Jainism and the same sects there does not seem to be any peculiar rapport even where the sect is seated in a Jain stronghold.[35]] The Jains occupy, generally speaking, the Northwest (and South), while the Buddhists were located in the Northeast and South. So civaism may be loosely located as popular in the Northeast and South, while Vishnuism has its habitat rather in the jain centres of the Northwest (and South).

We have mentioned in the preceding chapter the sects of a few centuries ago, as these have been described in Brahmanic literature.[33] The importance, and even the existence of some of the sects, described in the _Conquest of cankara_, has been questioned, and the opinion has been expressed that, since they are described only to be exposed as heretical, they may have been creations of fancy, imaginary sects; the refutation of their principles being a _tour de force_ on the part of the Brahmanic savant, who shows his ac.u.men by imagining a sect and then discountenancing it. It does not, indeed, seem to us very probable that communities were ever formed as 'Agnis'

or 'Yamas,' etc, but on the other hand, we think it is more likely that sects have gone to pieces without leaving any trace than that those enumerated, explained, and criticised should have been mere fancies.[46]] Moreover, in the case of some of these sects there are still survivors, so that _a fortiori_ one may presume the others to have existed also, if not as sects or communities, yet as bodies professing faith in Indra or Yama, etc. The sects with which we have to deal now are chiefly those of this century, but many of these can claim a definite antiquity of several centuries at least. They have been described by Wilson in his famous _Sketch_, and, in special cases, more recently and more fully by Williams' and other writers.

THE cIVAITES.

While the Vishnuites have a dualistic, as well as idealistic background, they are at present Vedantic, and may be divided to-day simply into intelligent and unintelligent adherents of pantheism, the former comprising the R[=a]ma sects, and the latter most of the Krishnaites. On the other hand, in civaism one must distinguish quite sharply in time between the different sects that go by civa's name. If one look at the sects of modern times he will find that the most degraded are dualistic, in so far as they may be said to have any philosophy, and that idealistic civaism is a remnant of the past. But he will not find a p.r.o.nounced sectarianism in any of these old Vedantic aspects of civaism. On the contrary, wherever civaism is pantheistic it is a civaism which obtains only in certain ancient schools of philosophy; where it is monotheistic it is among leaders who have been influenced by the modern teaching of Islam, and regard civa merely as a name for the One G.o.d. It is necessary, therefore, as it is everywhere in India, to draw as sharp a line as possible between the beliefs of the vulgar and the learned. For from the earliest period the former accepted perfunctorily the teaching of the latter, but at heart and in cult they remained true to their own lights.

The older S[=a]nkhya form of civaism was still found among the P[=a]cupatas,'adherents of the Lord' (Pacupati) and Mahecvaras ('adherents of the great Lord'), who are mentioned in the epic and in inscriptions of the fifth century. In the ninth century there was a purely philosophical civaism which is Vedantic. But neither in the fact (which is by no means a certainty) that cankara accepted civa as the name of the All-G.o.d, nor in the scholastic civaite philosophy of Kashmeer, which in the next two centuries was developed into a purely idealistic system at the hands of Abhinavagupta and Som[=a]nanda, is there any trace of a popular religion. civa is here the pantheistic G.o.d, but he is conceived as such only by a coterie of retired schoolmen. On the other hand, the popular religions which spring up in the twelfth century are, if Vedantic, chiefly Vishnuite, or, if civaite, only nominally Vedantic. Thus what philosophy the Jangamas professedly have is Vedantic, but in fact they are deistic (not pantheistic) disciples of civa's priest, Basava (Sanskrit Vrishabha), who taught civa-worship in its grossest form, the adoration of the Linga (phallus); while his adherents, who are spread over all India under the name of Jangamas, 'vagrants,' or Ling[=a]yits, 'phallus-wearers,' are idolatrous deists with but a tinge of Vedantic mysticism. So in the case of the Tridandins, the Dacan[=a]mis, and other sects attributed to civaism, as well as the Sm[=a]rtas (orthodox Brahmans) who professed civaism. According to Wilson the Tridandins (whose triple, _tri_, staff, _da[n.][d.]i_, indicates control of word, thought, and deed) are Southern Vishnuites of the R[=a]m[=a]nuja sect, though some of them claim to be Vedantic civaites. Nominally civaite are also the Southern 'Saints,' Sittars (Sanskrit Siddhas), but these are a modern sect whose religion has been taught them by Islam, or possibly by Christianity.[36] The extreme North and South are the districts where civaism as a popular religion has, or had, its firmest hold, and it is for this reason that the higher religions which obtain in these districts are given to civa. But in reality they simply take civa, the great G.o.d of the neighborhood, in order to have a name for their monotheistic G.o.d, exactly as missionaries among the American Indians pray to the Great Spirit, to adapt themselves to their audience's comprehension. In India, as in this country, they that proselyte would prefer to use their own terminology, but they wisely use that of their hearers.

We find no evidence to prove that there were ever really sectarian civaites who did not from the beginning practice brutal rites, or else soon become ascetics of the lowest and most despicable sort. For philosophical civaites were never sectaries. They cared little whether the All-G.o.d or One they argued about was called Vishnu or civa. But whenever one finds a true civaite devotee, that is, a man that will not worship Vishnu but holds fast to civa as the only manifestation of the supreme divinity, he will notice that such an one quickly becomes obscene, brutal, p.r.o.ne to bloodshed, apt for any disgusting practice, intellectually void, and morally beneath contempt. If the civaite be an ascetic his asceticism will be the result either of his lack of intelligence (as in the case of the sects to be described immediately) or of his cunning, for he knows that there are plenty of people who will save him the trouble of earning a living. Now this is not the case with the Vishnuites. To be sure there are Vishnuites that are no better than civaites, but there are also strict Vishnuites, exclusively devotees of Vishnu, who are and remain pure, not brutal, haters of bloodshed, apt for no disgusting practices, intellectually admirable, and morally above reproach. In other words, there are to-day great numbers of Vishnuites who continue to be really Vishnuites, and yet are really intelligent and moral. This has never been the case with real civaites. Again, as Willams[37] has pointed out, civaism is a cheap religion; Krishnaism is costly. The civaite needs for his cult only a phallus pebble, _bilva_ leaves and water.

The Krishnaite is expected to pay heavily for _leitourgiai_. But civaism is cheap because civaites are poor, the dregs of society; it is not adopted because it is cheap.

We think, therefore, that to describe civaism as indifferently pantheistic or dualistic, and to argue that it must have been pantheistic a few centuries after the Christian era because civa at that time in scholastic philosophy and among certain intellectual sects was regarded as the one G.o.d, tends to obscure the historical relation of the sects. Without further argumentation on this point, we shall explain what in our view is necessary to a true understanding of the mutual relations between civaites and Vishnuites in the past.