CHAPTER VIII.
EARLY HINDU DIVINITIES COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER ARYANS.
Nothing is more usual than to attempt a reconstruction of Aryan ideas in manners, customs, laws, and religious conceptions, by placing side by side similar traits of individual Aryan nations, and stating or insinuating that the result of the comparison shows that one is handling primitive characteristics of the whole Aryan body. It is of special importance, therefore, to see in how far the views and practices of peoples not Aryan may be found to be identical with those of Aryans. The division of the army into clans, as in the Iliad and the Veda; the love of gambling, as shown by Greeks, Teutons, and Hindus; the separation of captains and princes, as is illustrated by Teuton and Hindu; the belief in a flood, common to Iranian, Greek, and Hindu; in the place of departed spirits, with the journey over a river (Iranian, Hindu, Scandinavian, Greek); in the after-felicity of warriors who die on the field of battle (Scandinavian, Greek, and Hindu); in the reverence paid to the wind-god (Hindu, Iranian, and Teutonic, V[=a]ta-Wotan); these and many other traits at different times, by various writers, have been united and compared to illustrate primitive Aryan belief and religion.
The traits of the Five Nations of the Veda for this reason may be compared very advantageously with the traits of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Indians, the most united and intelligent of American native tribes. Their institutions are not yet extinct, and they have been described by missionaries of the 17th century and by some modern writers, to whom can be imputed no hankering after Aryan primitive ideas.[1] It is but a few years back since the last avat[=a]r of the Iroquois' incarnate god lived in Onondaga, N.Y.
First, as an illustration of the extraordinary development of memory among rhapsodes, Vedic students, and other Aryans; among the Iroquois "memory was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary degree," says Parkman, who adds that they could repeat point by point with precision any address made to them.[2] Murder was compromised for by Wehrgeld, as among the Vedic, Iranic, and Teutonic peoples. The Iroquois, like all Indians, was a great gambler, staking all his property[3] (like the Teutons and Hindus). In religion "A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things … Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls [as conspicuously in India] are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[4] The greatest spirit among the Algonquins is the descendant of the moon, and son of the west-wind (personified). After the deluge (thus the Hindus, etc.) this great spirit (Manabozho, mana is Manu?) restored the world; some asserting that he created the world out of water. But others say that the supreme spirit is the sun (Le Jeune, Relation, 1633). The Algonquins, besides a belief in a good spirit (manitou), had also a belief in a malignant manitou, in whom the missionaries recognized the devil (why not Ormuzd and Ahriman?). One tribe invokes the 'Maker of Heaven,' the 'god of waters,' and also the 'seven spirits of the wind' (so, too, seven is a holy number in the Veda, etc.).
The Iroquois, like the Hindu (later), believe that the earth rests on the back of a turtle or tortoise[5], and that this is ruled over by the sun and moon, the first being a good spirit; the second, malignant. The good spirit interposes between the malice of the moon and mankind, and it is he who makes rivers; for when the earth was parched, all the water being held back from earth under the armpit of a monster frog, he pierced the armpit and let out the water (exactly as Indra lets out the water held back by the demon). According to some, this great spirit created mankind, but in the third generation a deluge destroyed his posterity[6]. The good spirit among the Iroquois is the one that gives good luck (perhaps Bhaga). These Indians believe in the immortality of the soul. Skillful hunters, brave warriors, go, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds (as in India and Scandinavia); the cowardly and weak are doomed to live in dreary regions of mist and darkness (compare Niflheim and the Iranian eschatology?). To pass over other religious correspondences, the sacrifice of animals, use of amulets, love-charms, magic, and sorcery, which are all like those of Aryans (to compare, also, are the burying or exposing of the dead and the Hurons' funeral games), let one take this as a good illustration of the value of 'comparative Aryan mythology':
According to the Aryan belief the soul of the dead passes over a stream, across a bridge, past a dog or two, which guard the gate of paradise. The Hindu, Iranian, Greek, and Scandinavian, all have the dog, and much emphasis has been laid on the 'Aryan' character of this creed. The native Iroquois Indians believed that "the spirits on their journey (to heaven) were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river to be crossed on a log that shook beneath the feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage[7]." Here is the Persians' narrow bridge, and even Kerberos himself!
It is also interesting to note that, as the Hindus identify with the sun so many of their great gods, so the Iroquois "sacrifices to some superior spirit, or to the sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian[8]."
Weber holds that because Greek and Hindu gave the name 'bear' to a constellation, therefore this is the "primitive Indo-Germanic name of the star[9]." But the Massachusetts Indians "gave their own name for bear to the Ursa major" (Williams' 'Key,' cited Palfrey, I. p. 36; so Lafitau, further west).
Again, three, seven, and even 'thrice-seven,' are holy not only in
India but in America.
In this new world are found, to go further, the analogues of Varuna in the monotheistic god Viracocha of the Peruvians, to whom is addressed this prayer: "Cause of all things! ever present, helper, creator, ever near, ever fortunate one! Thou incorporeal one above the sun, infinite, and beneficent[10]"; of the Vedic Snake of the Deep, in the Mexican Cloud-serpent; of the Vedic Lightning-bird, who brings fire from heaven, in the Indian Thunder-bird, who brings fire from heaven[11]; of the preservation of one individual from a flood (in the epic, Manu's 'Seven Seers') in the same American myth, even including the holy mountain, which is still shown[12]; of the belief that the sun is the home of departed spirits, in the same belief all over America;[13] of the belief that stars are the souls of the dead, in the same belief held by the Pampas;[14] and even of the late Brahmanic custom of sacrificing the widow (suttee), in the practice of the Natchez Indians, and in Guatemala, of burning the widow on the pyre of the dead husband.[15] The storm wind (Odin) as highest god is found among the Choctaws; while 'Master of Breath' is the Creeks' name for this divinity. Huraka (hurricane, ouragon, ourage) is the chief god in Hayti.[16] An exact parallel to the vague idea of hell at the close of the Vedic period, with the gradual increase of the idea, alternating with a theory of reincarnation, may be found in the fact that, in general, there is no notion of punishment after death among the Indians of the New World; but that, while the good are assisted and cared for after death by the 'Master of Breath,' the Creeks believe that the liar, the coward, and the niggard (Vedic sinners par excellence!) are left to shift for themselves in darkness; whereas the Aztecs believed in a hell surrounded by the water called 'Nine Rivers,' guarded by a dog and a dragon; and the great Eastern American tribes believe that after the soul has been for a while in heaven it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be born again as a man, utilizing its old bones (which are, therefore, carefully preserved by the surviving members of the family) as a basis for a new body.[17]
To turn to another foreign religion, how tempting would it be to see in Nutar the 'abstract power' of the Egyptian, an analogue of brahma and the other 'power' abstractions of India; to recognize Brahm[=a] in El; and in Nu, sky, and expanse of waters, to see Varuna; especially when one compares the boat-journey of the Vedic seer with R[=a]'s boat in Egypt. Or, again, in the twin children of R[=a] to see the Açvins; and to associate the mundane egg of the Egyptians with that of the Brahmans.[18] Certainly, had the Egyptians been one of the Aryan families, all these conceptions had been referred long ago to the category of 'primitive Aryan ideas.' But how primitive is a certain religious idea will not be shown by simple comparison of Aryan parallels. It will appear more often that it is not 'primitive,' but, so to speak, per-primitive, aboriginal with no one race, but with the race of man. When we come to describe the religions of the wild tribes of India it will be seen that among them also are found traits common, on the one hand, to the Hindu, and on the other to the wild tribes of America. With this warning in mind one may inquire at last in how far a conservative judgment can find among the Aryans themselves an identity of original conception in the different forms of divinities and religious rites. Foremost stand the universal chrematheism, worship of inanimate objects regarded as usefully divine, and the cult of the departed dead. This latter is almost universal, perhaps pan-Aryan, and Weber is probably right in assuming that the primitive Aryans believed in a future life. But Benfey's identification of Tartaras with the Sanskrit Tal[=a]tala, the name of a special hell in very late systems of cosmogony, is decidedly without the bearing he would put upon it. The Sanskrit word may be taken directly from the Greek, but of an Aryan source for both there is not the remotest historical probability.
When, however, one comes to the Lord of the Dead he finds himself already in a narrower circle. Yama is the Persian Yima, and the name of Kerberos may have been once an adjective applied to the dog that guarded the path to paradise; but other particular conceptions that gather about each god point only to a period of Indo-Iranian unity.
Of the great nature-gods the sun is more than Aryan, but doubtless was Aryan, for S[=u]rya is Helios, but Savitar is a development especially Indian. Dy[=a]ús-pitar is Zeús-pater, Jupiter.[19] Trita, scarcely Triton, is the Persian Thraetaona who conquers Vritra, as does Indra in India. The last, on the other hand, is to be referred only hesitatingly to the demon A[=n]dra of the Avesta. Varuna, despite phonetic difficulties, probably is Ouranos; but Asura (Asen?) is a title of many gods in India's first period, while the corresponding Ahura is restricted to the good spirit, [Greek: kat hexochên]. The seven [=A]dityas are reflected in the Amesha Çpentas of Zoroastrian Puritanism, but these are mere imitations, spiritualized and moralized into abstractions. Bhaga is Slavic Bogu and Persian Bagha; Mitra is Persian Mithra. The Açvins are all but in name the Greek gods Dioskouroi, and correspond closely in detail (riding on horses, healing and helping, originally twins of twilight). Tacitus gives a parallel Teutonic pair (Germ. 43). Ushas, on the other hand, while etymologically corresponding to Aurora, Eos, is a specially Indian development, as Eos has no cult. V[=a]ta, Wind, is an aboriginal god, and may perhaps be Wotan, Odin.[20] Parjanya, the rain-god, as Bühler has shown, is one with Lithuanian Perkúna, and with the northern Fiögyu. The 'fashioner,' Tvashtar (sun) is only Indo-Iranian; Thw[=a]sha probably being the same word.
Of lesser mights, Angiras, name of fire, may be Persian angaros, 'fire-messenger' (compare [Greek: haggelos]), perhaps originally one with Sk. ang[=a]ra, 'coal.'[21] Hebe has been identified with yavy[=a], young woman, but this word is enough to show that Hebe has naught to do with the Indian pantheon. The Gandharva, moon, is certainly one with the Persian Gandarewa, but can hardly be identical with the Centaur. Saram[=a] seems to have, together with S[=a]rameya, a Grecian parallel development in Helena (a goddess in Sparta), Selene, Hermes; and Sarany[=u] may be the same with Erinnys, but these are not Aryan figures in the form of their respective developments, though they appear to be so in origin. It is scarcely possible that Earth is an Aryan deity with a cult, though different Aryan (and un-Aryan) nations regarded her as divine. The Maruts are especially Indian and have no primitive identity as gods with Mars, though the names may be radically connected. The fire-priests, Bhrigus, are supposed to be one with the [Greek: phlegixu]. The fact that the fate of each in later myth is to visit hell would presuppose, however, an Aryan notion of a torture-hell, of which the Rig Veda has no conception. The Aryan identity of the two myths is thereby made uncertain, if not implausible. The special development in India of the fire-priest that brings down fire from heaven, when compared with the personification of the 'twirler' (Promantheus) in Greece, shows that no detailed myth was current in primitive times.[22] The name of the fire-priest, brahman = fla(g)men(?), is an indication of the primitive fire-cult in antithesis to the soma-cult, which latter belongs to the narrower circle of the Hindus and Persians. Here, however, in the identity of names for sacrifice (yajna, yaçna) and of barhis, the sacrificial straw, of soma = haoma, together with many other liturgical similarities, as in the case of the metres, one must recognize a fully developed soma-cult prior to the separation of the Hindus and Iranians.
Of demigods of evil type the Y[=a]tus are both Hindu and Iranian, but the priest-names of the one religion are evil names in the other, as the devas, gods, of one are the daevas, demons, of the other.[23] There are no other identifications that seem at all certain in the strict province of religion, although in myth the form of Manus, who is the Hindu Noah, has been associated with Teutonic Mannus, and Greek Minos, noted in Thucydides for his sea-faring. He is to Yama (later regarded as his brother) as is Noah to Adam.
We do not lay stress on lack of equation in proper names, but, as
Schrader shows (p. 596 ff.), very few comparisons on this line have a
solid phonetic foundation. Minos, Manu; Ouranos, Varuna; Wotan,
V[=a]ta, are dubious; and some equate flamen with blôtan, sacrifice.
Other wider or narrower comparisons, such as Neptunus from náp[=a]t ap[=a]m, seem to us too daring to be believed. Apollo (sapary), Aphrodite (Apsaras), Artamis (non-existent [r.]tam[=a]l), P[=a]n (pavana), have been cleverly compared, but the identity of forms has scarcely been proved. Nor is it important for the comparative mythologist that Okeanus is 'lying around' ([=a]çáy[=a]na). More than that is necessary to connect Ocean mythologically with the demon that surrounds (swallows) the waters of the sky. The Vedic parallel is rather Ras[=a], the far-off great 'stream.' It is rarely that one finds Aryan equivalents in the land of fairies and fays. Yet are the Hindu clever artizan Ribhus[24] our 'elves,' who, even to this day, are distinct from fairies in their dexterity and cleverness, as every wise child knows.
But animism, as simple spiritism, fetishism, perhaps ancestor-worship, and polytheism, with the polydaemonism that may be called chrematheism, exists from the beginning of the religious history, undisturbed by the proximity of theism, pantheism, or atheism; exactly as to-day in the Occident, beside theism and atheism, exist spiritism and fetishism (with their inherent magic), and even ancestor-worship, as implied by the reputed after-effect of parental curses.
When the circle is narrowed to that of the Indo-Iranian connection the similarity in religion between the Veda and Avesta becomes much more striking than in any other group, as has been shown. It is here that the greatest discrepancy in opinion obtains among modern scholars. Some are inclined to refer all that smacks of Persia to a remote period of Indo-Iranian unity, and, in consequence, to connect all tokens of contact with the west with far-away regions out of India. It is scarcely possible that such can be the case. But, on the other hand, it is unhistorical to connect, as do some scholars, the worship of soma and Varuna with a remote period of unity, and then with a jump to admit a close connection between Veda and Avesta in the Vedic period. The Vedic Aryans appear to have lived, so to speak, hand in glove with the Iranians for a period long enough for the latter to share in that advance of Varuna-worship from polytheism to quasi-monotheism which is seen in the Rig Veda. This worship of Varuna as a superior god, with his former equals ranged under him in a group, chiefly obtains in that family (be it of priest or tribe, or be the two essentially one from a religious point of view) which has least to do with pure soma-worship, the inherited Indo-Iranian cult; and the Persian Ahura, with the six spiritualized equivalents of the old Vedic [=A]dityas, can have come into existence only as a direct transformation of the latter cult, which in turn is later than the cult that developed in one direction as chief of gods a Zeus; in another, a Bhaga; in a third, an Odin. On the other hand, in the gradual change in India of Iranic gods to devils, asuras, there is an exact counterpart to the Iranian change of meaning from deva to daeva. But if this be the connection, it is impossible to assume a long break between India and the west, and then such a sudden tie as is indicated by the allusions in the Rig Veda to the Persians and other western lands. The most reasonable view, therefore, appears to be that the Vedic and Iranian Aryans were for a long time in contact, that the contact began to cease as the two peoples separated to east and west, but that after the two peoples separated communication was sporadically kept up between them by individuals in the way of trade or otherwise. This explains the still surviving relationship as it is found in later hymns and in thank-offerings apparently involving Iranian personages.
They that believe in a monotheistic Varuna-cult preceding the Vedic polytheism must then ignore the following facts: The Slavic equivalent of Bhaga and the Teutonic equivalent of V[=a]ta are to these respective peoples their highest gods. They had no Varuna. Moreover, there is not the slightest proof that Ouranos in Greece[25] was ever a god worshipped as a great god before Zeus, nor is there any probability that to the Hindu Dyaus Pitar was ever a great god, in the sense that he ever had a special cult as supreme deity. He is physically great, and physically he is father, as is Earth mother, but he is religiously great only in the Hellenic-Italic circle, where exists no Uranos-cult[26]. Rather is it apparent that the Greek raised Zeus, as did the Slav Bhaga, to his first head of the pantheon. Now when one sees that in the Vedic period Varuna is the type of [=A]dityas, to which belong Bhaga and Mitra as distinctly less important personages, it is plain that this can mean only that Varuna has gradually been exalted to his position at the expense of the other gods. Nor is there perfect uniformity between Persian and Hindu conceptions. Asura in the Veda is not applied to Varuna alone. But in the Avesta, Ahura is the one great spirit, and his six spirits are plainly a protestant copy and modification of Varuna and his six underlings. This, then, can mean—which stands in concordance with the other parallels between the two religions—only that Zarathustra borrows the Ahura idea from the Vedic Aryans at a time when Varuna was become superior to the other gods, and when the Vedic cult is established in its second phase[27]. To this fact points also the evidence that shows how near together geographically were once the Hindus and Persians. Whether one puts the place of separation at the Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference. The Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun. They spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.
Of von Bradke's attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said nothing, because the attempt has failed signally. He imagines that the epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura; whereas it is quite certain that Varuna (Asura) grew up, out, and over the other Asuras, his former equals.
And yet it is almost a pity to spend time to demonstrate that Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally. We gladly admit that, even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature. And, for a worship so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside a man. The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.
In regard to eschatology, as in regard to myths, it has been shown that the utmost caution in identification is called for. It may be surmised that such or such a belief or legend is in origin one with a like faith or tale of other peoples. But the question whether it be one in historical origin or in universal mythopoetic fancy, and this latter be the only common origin, must remain in almost every case unanswered[28]. This is by far not so entertaining, nor so picturesque a solution as is the explanation of a common historical basis for any two legends, with its inspiring 'open sesame' to the door of the locked past. But which is truer? Which accords more with the facts as they are collected from a wider field? As man in the process of development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a probable community of origin.
But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as devils were due to Iranian influence—which can neither be proved nor disproved—the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main features is of a purely native character.
As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded the worship of soma of nature-gods that are in part already more than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral law and a belief in a life hereafter. There is also a vaguer nascent belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most wonder-working of the wonder-working gods, who made heaven and earth'(as above). The corresponding Power is Cerus in Cerus-Creator (Kronos?), although when a name is given, the Maker, Dh[=a]tar, is employed; while Tvashtar, the artificer, is more an epithet of the sun than of the unknown creator. The personification of Dh[=a]tar as creator of the sun, etc., belongs to later Vedic times, and foreruns the Father-god of the last Vedic period. Not till the classical age (below) is found a formal identification of the Vedic nature-gods with the departed Fathers (Manes). Indra, for example, is invoked in the Rig Veda to 'be a friend, be a father, be more fatherly than the fathers';[29] but this implies no patristic side in Indra, who is called in the same hymn (vs. 4) the son of Dyaus (his father); and Dyaus Pitar no more implies, as say some sciolists, that Dyaus was regarded as a human ancestor than does 'Mother Earth' imply a belief that Earth is the ghost of a dead woman.
In the Veda there is a nature-religion and an ancestor-religion. These approach, but do not unite; they are felt as sundered beliefs. Sun-myths, though by some denied in toto, appear plainly in the Vedic hymns. Dead heroes may be gods, but gods, too, are natural phenomena, and, again, they are abstractions. He that denies any one of these sources of godhead is ignorant of India.
Müller, in his Ancient Sanskrit Literature, has divided Vedic literature into four periods, that of chandas, songs; mantras, texts; br[=a]hmanas; and s[=u]tras. The mantras are in distinction from chandas, the later hymns to the earlier gods.[30] The latter distinction can, however, be established only on subjective grounds, and, though generally unimpeachable, is sometimes liable to reversion. Thus, Müller looks upon RV. VIII. 30 as 'simple and primitive,' while others see in this hymn a late mantra. Between the Rig Veda and the Br[=a]hmanas, which are in prose, lies a period filled out in part by the present form of the Atharva Veda, which, as has been shown, is a Veda of the low cult that is almost ignored by the Rig Veda, while it contains at the same time much that is later than the Rig Veda, and consists of old and new together in a manner entirely conformable to the state of every other Hindu work of early times. After this epoch there is found in the liturgical period, into which extend the later portions of the Rig Veda (noticeably parts of the first, fourth, eighth, and tenth books), a religion which, in spiritual tone, in metaphysical speculation, and even in the interpretation of some of the natural divinities, differs not more from the bulk of the Rig Veda than does the social status of the time from that of the earlier text. Religion has become, in so far as the gods are concerned, a ritual. But, except in the building up of a Father-god, theology is at bottom not much altered, and the eschatological conceptions remain about as they were, despite a preliminary sign of the doctrine of metempsychosis. In the Atharva Veda, for the first time, hell is known by its later name (xii. 4. 36), and perhaps its tortures; but the idea of future punishment appears plainly first in the Brahmanic period. Both the doctrine of re-birth and that of hell appear in the earliest S[=u]tras, and consequently the assumption that these dogmas come from Buddhism does not appear to be well founded; for it is to be presumed whatever religious belief is established in legal literature will have preceded that literature by a considerable period, certainly by a greater length of time than that which divides the first Brahmanic law from Buddhism.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare the accounts of Lafitau; of the native Iroquois, baptized as Morgan; and the works of Schoolcraft and Parkman.]
[Footnote 2: Jesuits in North America, Introduction, p. lxi.]
[Footnote 3: "Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate gamblers, staking their all,—ornaments, clothing, canoes, pipes, weapons, and wives," loc. cit. p. xxxvi. Compare Palfrey, of Massachusetts Indians. The same is true of all savages.]
[Footnote 4: Ib. p. lxvii.]
[Footnote 5: Compare Çat. Br. VI. 1. 1, 12; VII. 5. 1, 2 sq., for the Hindu tortoise in its first form. The totem-form of the tortoise is well known in America. (Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 85.)]
[Footnote 6: Charlevoix ap. Parkman.]
[Footnote 7: Parkman, loc. cit. p. LXXII; Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 248. A good instance of bad comparison in eschatology will be found in Geiger, Ostir. Cult. pp. 274-275.]
[Footnote 8: Parkman, loc. cit. p. LXXXVI.]
[Footnote 9: Sits. Berl. Akad. 1891, p. 15.]
[Footnote 10: Brinton, American Hero Myths, p. 174. The first worship was Sun-worship, then Viracocha-worship arose, which kept Sun-worship while it predicated a 'power beyond.]
[Footnote 11: Brinton, Myths of the New World, pp. 85, 203.]
[Footnote 12: Ib. pp. 86, 202.]
[Footnote 13: Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 243. The American Indians "uniformly regard the sun as heaven, the soul goes to the sun."]
[Footnote 14: Ib. p. 245.]
[Footnote 15: Ib. p. 239-40.]
[Footnote 16: Ib. p. 50, 51.]
[Footnote 17: Ib. pp. 242, 248, 255; Schoolcraft, III.
229.]
[Footnote 18: Renouf, Religion of Ancient Egypt; pp. 103,
113 ff.]
[Footnote 19: Teutonic Tuisco is doubtful, as the identity
with Dyaus has lately been contested on phonetic grounds.]
[Footnote 20: V[=a]ta, ventus, does not agree very well with
Wotan.]
[Footnote 21: [=A]it. Br. III, 34. [Greek: haggaron pur]
is really tautological, but beacon fires gave way to
couriers and [Greek: haggaros] lost the sense of fire, as
did [Greek: haggelos].]
[Footnote 22: But the general belief that fire (Agni, Ignis, Slavic ogni) was first brought to earth from heaven by a half-divine personality is (at least) Aryan, as Kuhn has shown.]
[Footnote 23: Compare the kavis and ugijs (poets and priests) of the Veda with the evil spirits of the same names in the Avesta, like daeva = deva. Compare, besides, the Indo-Iranian feasts, medha, that accompany this Bacchanalian liquor-worship.]
[Footnote 24: Ludwig interprets the three Ribhus as the three seasons personified. Etymologically connected is Orpheus, perhaps.]
[Footnote 25: [Greek: o de chalkeos asphales aien edos menei
ouranos], Pind. N. vi. 5; compare Preller[4], p.40.]
[Footnote 26: Wahrscheinlich sind Uranos und Kronos erst aus
dem Culte des Zeus abstrahirt worden. Preller[4], p. 43.]
[Footnote 27: When Aryan deities are decadent, Trita, Mitra,
etc.]
[Footnote 28: Spiegel holds that the whole idea of future punishment is derived from Persia (Eranische Altherthumskunde, I. p. 458), but his point of view is naturally prejudiced. The allusion to the supposed Babylonian coin, man[=a], in RV. VIII. 78. 2, would indicate that the relation with Babylon is one of trade, as with Aegypt. The account of the flood may be drawn thence, so may the story of Deucalion, but both Hindu and Hellenic versions may be as native as is that of the American redskins.]
[Footnote 29: IV. 17. 17.]
[Footnote 30: loc. cit. pp. 70, 480.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX.
BRAHMANISM.
Besides the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda there are two others, called respectively the S[=a]ma Veda and the Yajur Veda.[1] The former consists of a small collection of verses, which are taken chiefly from the eighth and ninth books of the Rig Veda, and are arranged for singing. It has a few more verses than are contained in the corresponding parts of the Rik, but the whole is of no added importance from the present point of view. It is of course made entirely for the ritual. Also made for the ritual is the Yajur Veda, the Veda of sacrificial formulae. But this Veda is far more important. With it one is brought into a new land, and into a world of ideas that are strange to the Rik. The period represented by it is a sort of bridge between the Rik and the Br[=a]hmanas. The Yajus is later than Rik or Atharvan, belonging in its entirety more to the age of the liturgy than to the older Vedic era. With the Br[=a]hmanas not only is the tone changed from that of the Rig Veda; the whole moral atmosphere is now surcharged with hocus-pocus, mysticism, religiosity, instead of the cheerful, real religion which, however formal, is the soul of the Rik. In the Br[=a]hmanas there is no freshness, no poetry. There is in some regards a more scrupulous outward morality, but for the rest there is only cynicism, bigotry, and dullness. It is true that each of these traits may be found in certain parts of the Rig Veda, but it is not true that they represent there the spirit of the age, as they do in the Brahmanic period. Of this Brahmanic stoa, to which we now turn, the Yajur Veda forms the fitting entrance. Here the priest is as much lord as he is in the Br[=a]hmanas. Here the sacrifice is only the act, the sacrificial forms (yajus), without the spirit.
In distinction from the verse-Veda (the Rik), the Yajur Veda contains the special formulae which the priest that attends to the erection of the altar has to speak, with explanatory remarks added thereto. This of course stamps the collection as mechanical; but the wonder is that this collection, with the similar Br[=a]hmana scriptures that follow it, should be the only new literature which centuries have to show.[2] As explanatory of the sacrifice there is found, indeed, a good deal of legendary stuff, which sometimes has a literary character. But nothing is for itself; everything is for the correct performance of the sacrifice.[3]
The geographical centre is now changed, and instead of the Punj[=a]b, the 'middle district' becomes the seat of culture. Nor is there much difference between the district to which can be referred the rise of the Yajur Veda and that of the Br[=a]hmanas. No less altered is the religion. All is now symbolical, and the gods, though in general they are the gods of the Rig Veda, are not the same as of old. The priests have become gods. The old appellation of 'spirit,' asura, is confined to evil spirits. There is no longer any such 'henotheism' as that of the Rig Veda. The Father-god, 'lord of beings,' or simply 'the father,' is the chief god. The last thought of the Rig Veda is the first thought of the Yajur Veda. Other changes have taken place. The demigods of the older period, the water-nymphs of the Rik, here become seductive goddesses, whose increase of power in this art agrees with the decline of the warrior spirit that is shown too in the whole mode of thinking. Most important is the gradual rise of Vishnu and the first appearance of Çiva. Here brahma, which in the Rik has the meaning 'prayer' alone, is no longer mere prayer, but, as in later literature, holiness. In short, before the Br[=a]hmanas are reached they are perceptible in the near distance, in the Veda of Formulae, the Yajus;[4] for between the Yajur Veda and the Br[=a]hmanas there is no essential difference. The latter consist of explanations of the sacrificial liturgy, interspersed with legends, bits of history, philosophical explanations, and other matter more or less related to the subject. They are completed by the Forest Books, [=A]ranyakas, which contain the speculations of the later theosophy, the Upanishads (below). It is with the Yajur Veda and its nearly related literature, the Br[=a]hmanas, that Brahmanism really begins. Of these latter the most important in age and content are the Br[=a]hmanas (of the Rig Veda and Yajur Veda), called [=A]itareya and Çata-patha, the former representing the western district, the latter, in great part, a more eastern region.
Although the 'Northerners' are still respectfully referred to, yet, as we have just said, the people among whom arose the Br[=a]hmanas are not settled in the Punj[=a]b, but in the country called the 'middle district,' round about the modern Delhi. For the most part the Punj[=a]b is abandoned; or rather, the literature of this period does not emanate from the Aryans that remained in the Punj[=a]b, but from the still emigrating descendants of the old Vedic people that used to live there. Some stay behind and keep the older practices, not in all regards looked upon as orthodox by their more advanced brethren, who have pushed east and now live in the country called the land of the Kurus and Pa[.n]c[=a]las.[5] They are spread farther east, along the banks of the Jumna and Ganges, south of Nep[=a]l; while some are still about and south of the holy Kurukshetra or 'plain of Kurus.' East of the middle district the Kosalas and Videhas form, in opposition to the Kurus and Pa[.n]c[=a]las, the second great tribe (Tirh[=u]t). There are now two sets of 'Seven Rivers,' and the holiness of the western group is perceptibly lessened. Here for the first time are found the Vr[=a]tya-hymns, intended to initiate into the Brahmanic order Aryans who have not conformed to it, and speak a dialectic language.[6] From the point of view of language and geography, no less than from that of the social and spiritual conditions, it is evident that quite a period has elapsed since the body of the Rig Veda was composed. The revealed texts are now ancient storehouses of wisdom. Religion has apparently become a form; in some regards it is a farce.
"There are two kinds of gods; for the gods are gods, and priests that are learned in the Veda and teach it are human gods." This sentence, from one of the most important Hindu prose works,[7] is the key to the religion of the period which it represents; and it is fitly followed by the further statement, that like sacrifice to the gods are the fees paid to the human gods the priests.[8] Yet with this dictum, so important for the understanding of the religion of the age, must be joined another, if one would do that age full justice: 'The sacrifice is like a ship sailing heavenward; if there be a sinful priest in it, that one priest would make it sink' (Çat. Br. IV. 2. 5. 10). For although the time is one in which ritualism had, indeed, become more important than religion, and the priest more important than the gods, yet is there no lack of reverential feeling, nor is morality regarded as unimportant. The first impression, however, which is gained from the literature of this period is that the sacrifice is all in all; that the endless details of its course, and the petty questions in regard to its arrangement, are not only the principal objects of care and of chief moment, but even of so cardinal importance that the whole religious spirit swings upon them. But such is not altogether the case. It is the truth, yet is it not the whole truth, that in these Br[=a]hmanas religion is an appearance, not a reality. The sacrifice is indeed represented to be the only door to prosperity on earth and to future bliss; but there is a quiet yet persistent belief that at bottom a moral and religious life is quite as essential as are the ritualistic observances with which worship is accompanied.
To describe Brahmanism as implying a religion that is purely one of ceremonies, one composed entirely of observances, is therefore not altogether correct. In reading a liturgical work it must not be forgotten for what the work was intended. If its object be simply to inculcate a special rite, one cannot demand that it should show breadth of view or elevation of sentiment. Composed of observances every work must be of which the aim is to explain observances. In point of fact, religion (faith and moral behavior) is here assumed, and so entirely is it taken for granted that a statement emphasizing the necessity of godliness is seldom found.
Nevertheless, having called attention to the religious spirit that lies latent in the pedantic Br[=a]hmanas, we are willing to admit that the age is overcast, not only with a thick cloud of ritualism, but also with an unpleasant mask of phariseeism. There cannot have been quite so much attention paid to the outside of the platter without neglect of the inside. And it is true that the priests of this period strive more for the completion of their rites than for the perfection of themselves. It is true, also, that occasionally there is a revolting contempt for those people who are not of especial service to the priest. There are now two godlike aristocrats, the priest and the noble. The 'people' are regarded as only fit to be the "food of the nobility." In the symbolical language of the time the bricks of the altar, which are consecrated, are the warrior caste; the fillings, in the space between the bricks, are not consecrated; and these "fillers of space" are "the people" (Çat. Br. VI. 1. 2. 25). Yet is religion in these books not dead, but sleeping; to wake again in the Upanishads with a fuller spiritual life than is found in any other pre-Christian system. Although the subject matter of the Br[=a]hmanas is the cult, yet are there found in them numerous legends, moral teachings, philosophical fancies, historical items, etymologies and other adventitious matter, all of which are helpful in giving a better understanding of the intelligence of the people to whom is due all the extant literature of the period. Long citations from these ritualistic productions would have a certain value, in showing in native form the character of the works, but they would make unendurable reading; and we have thought it better to arrange the multifarious contents of the chief Br[=a]hmanas in a sort of order, although it is difficult always to decide where theology ends and moral teachings begin, the two are here so interwoven.
BRAHMANIC THEOLOGY AND THE SACRIFICE.
While in general the pantheon of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda is that of the Br[=a]hmanas, some of the older gods are now reduced in importance, and, on the other hand, as in the Yajur Veda, some gods are seen to be growing in importance. 'Time,' deified in the Atharvan, is a great god, but beside him still stand the old rustic divinities; and chrematheism, which antedates even the Rig Veda, is still recognized. To the 'ploughshare' and the 'plough' the Rig Veda has an hymn (IV. 57. 5-8), and so the ritual gives them a cake at the sacrifice (Çun[=a]ç[=i]rya, Çat. Br. II. 6. 3. 5). The number of the gods, in the Rig Veda estimated as thirty-three, or, at the end of this period, as thousands, remains as doubtful as ever; but, in general, all groups of deities become greater in number. Thus, in TS. I. 4. 11. 1, the Rudras alone are counted as thirty-three instead of eleven; and, ib. V. 5. 2. 5, the eight Vasus become three hundred and thirty-three; but it is elsewhere hinted that the number of the gods stands in the same relation to that of men as that in which men stand to the beasts; that is, there are not quite so many gods as men (Çat. Br. II. 3. 2. 18).
Of more importance than the addition of new deities is the subdivision of the old. As one finds in Greece a [Greek: Zeus katachthonios] beside a [Greek: Zeus xenios], so in the Yajur Veda and Br[=a]hmanas are found (an extreme instance) hail 'to K[=a]ya,' and hail 'to Kasm[=a]i,' that is, the god Ka is differentiated into two divinities, according as he is declined as a noun or as a pronoun; for this is the god "Who?" as the dull Br[=a]hmanas interpreted that verse of the Rig Veda which asks 'to whom (which, as) god shall we offer sacrifice?' (M[=a]it. S. III. 12. 5.) But ordinarily one divinity like Agni is subdivided, according to his functions, as 'lord of food,' 'lord of prayer,' etc.[9]
In the Br[=a]hmanas different names are given to the chief god, but he is most often called the Father-god (Praj[=a]pati, 'lord of creatures,' or the Father, pit[=a]). His earlier Vedic type is Brihaspati, the lord of strength, and, from another point of view, the All-god.[10] The other gods fall into various groups, the most significant being the triad of Fire, Wind, and Sun.[11] Not much weight is to be laid on the theological speculations of the time as indicative of primitive conceptions, although they may occasionally hit true. For out of the number of inane fancies it is reasonable to suppose that some might coincide with historic facts. Thus the All-gods of the Rig Veda, by implication, are of later origin than the other gods, and this, very likely, was the case; but it is a mere guess on the part of the priest. The Çatapatha, III. 6. 1. 28, speaks of the All-gods as gods that gained immortality on a certain occasion, i.e., became immortal like other gods. So the [=A]dityas go to heaven before the Angirasas ([=A][=i]t. Br. IV. 17), but this has no such historical importance as some scholars are inclined to think. The lesser gods are in part carefully grouped and numbered, in a manner somewhat contradictory to what must have been the earlier belief. Thus the 'three kinds of gods' are now Vasus, of earth, Rudras, of air, and [=A]dityas, of sky, and the daily offerings are divided between them; the morning offering belonging only to the Vasus, the mid-day one only to (Indra and) the Rudras, the third to the [=A]dityas with the Vasus and Rudras together.[12] Again, the morning and mid-day pressing belong to the gods alone, and strict rule is observed in distinguishing their portion from that of the Manes (Çat. Br. IV. 4. 22). The difference of sex is quite ignored, so that the 'universal Agni' is identified with (mother) earth; as is also, once or twice, P[=u]shan (ib. III. 8. 5. 4; 2. 4. 19; II. 5. 4. 7). As the 'progenitor,' Agni facilitates connubial union, and is called "the head god, the progenitor among gods, the lord of beings" (ib. III. 4. 3. 4; III. 9. 1. 6). P[=u]shan is interpreted to mean cattle, and Brihaspati is the priestly caste (ib. III. 9. 1. 10 ff.). The base of comparison is usually easy to find. 'The earth nourishes,' and 'P[=u]shan nourishes,' hence Pushan is the earth; or 'the earth belongs to all' and Agni is called 'belonging to all' (universal), hence the two are identified. The All-gods, merely on account of their name, are now the All; Aditi is the 'unbounded' earth (ib. III. 9. 1. 13; IV. 1. 1. 23; i. 1. 4. 5; III. 2. 3. 6). Agni represents all the gods, and he is the dearest, the closest, and the surest of all the gods (ib. I. 6. 2. 8 ff.). It is said that man on earth fathers the fire (that is, protects it), and when he dies the fire that he has made his son on earth becomes his father, causing him to be reborn in heaven (ib. II. 3. 3. 3-5; VI. 1. 2. 26).
The wives of the gods (dev[=a]n[=a]m patn[=i]r yajati), occasionally mentioned in the Rig Veda, have now an established place and cult apart from that of the gods (ib. I. 9. 2. 11). The fire on the hearth is god Agni in person, and is not a divine or mystic type; but he is prayed to as a heavenly friend. Some of these traits are old, but they are exaggerated as compared with the more ancient theology. When one goes on a journey or returns from one, 'even if a king were in his house' he should not greet him till he makes homage to his hearth-fires, either with spoken words or with silent obeisance. For Agni and Praj[=a]pati are one, they are son and father (ib. II. 4. 1. 3, 10; VI. 1. 2. 26). The gods have mystic names, and these 'who will dare to speak?' Thus, Indra's mystic name is Arjuna (ib. II. 1. 2. 11). In the early period of the Rig Veda the priest dares to speak. The pantheism of the end of the Rig Veda is here decided and plain-spoken, as it is in the Atharvan. As it burns brightly or not the fire is in turn identified with different gods, Rudra, Varuna, Indra, and Mitra (ib. II. 3. 2. 9 ff.). Agni is all the gods and the gods are in men (ib. III. 1. 3. 1; 4. 1. 19; II. 3. 2. 1: Indra and King Yama dwell in men). And, again, the Father (Praj[=a]pati) is the All; he is the year of twelve months and five seasons(ib. I. 3. 5. 10). Then follows a characteristic bit. Seventeen verses are to be recited to correspond to the 'seventeenfold' Praj[=a]pati. But 'some say' twenty-one verses; and he may recite twenty-one, for if 'the three worlds' are added to the above seventeen one gets twenty, and the sun (ya esa tapati) makes the twenty-first! As to the number of worlds, it is said (ib. I. 2. 4. 11, 20-21) that there are three worlds, and possibly a fourth.
Soma is now the moon, but as being one half of Vritra, the evil demon. The other half became the belly of creatures (ib. I. 6. 3. 17). Slightly different is the statement that Soma was Vritra, IV. 2. 5. 15. In [=A]it. Br. I. 27, King Soma is bought of the Gandharvas by V[=a]c, 'speech,' as a cow.[13] With phases of the moon Indra and Agni are identified. One is the deity of the new; the other, of the full moon; while Mitra is the waning, and Varuna the waxing moon (Çat. Br. II. 4. 4. 17-18). This opposition of deities is more fully expressed in the attempt to make antithetic the relations of the gods and the Manes, thus: 'The gods are represented by spring, summer, and rains; the Fathers, by autumn, winter, and the dewy season; the gods, by the waxing; the Fathers, by the waning moon; the gods, by day; the Fathers, by night; the gods, by morning; the Fathers, by afternoon' (Çat. Br. II. 1.-31; ib. II. 4. 2. 1. ff.: 'The sun is the light of the gods; the moon, of the Fathers; fire, of men'). Between morning and afternoon, as representative of gods and Manes respectively, stands midday, which, according to the same authority (II. 4. 2. 8), represents men. The passage first cited continues thus: 'The seasons are gods and Fathers; gods are immortal; the Fathers are mortal.' In regard to the relation between spring and the other seasons, the fifth section of this passage may be compared: 'Spring is the priesthood; summer, the warrior-caste; the rains are the (viç) people.'[14]
Among the conspicuous divine forms of this period is the Queen of Serpents, whose verses are chanted over fire; but she is the earth, according to some passages ([=A]it. Br.. V. 23; Çat. Br. II. 1. 4. 30; IV. 6. 9. 17). In their divine origin there is, indeed, according to the theology now current, no difference between the powers of light and of darkness, between the gods and the 'spirits,' asuras, i.e., evil spirits. Many tales begin with the formula: 'The gods and evil spirits, both born of the Father-god' (Çat. Br. I. 2. 4. 8). Weber thinks that this implies close acquaintance with Persian worship, a sort of tit-for-tat; for the Hindu would in that case call the holy spirit, ahura, of the Persian a devil, just as the Persian makes an evil spirit, daeva, out of the Hindu god, deva. But the relations between Hindu and Persian in this period are still very uncertain. It is interesting to follow out some of the Brahmanic legends, if only to see what was the conception of the evil spirits. In one such theological legend the gods and the (evil) spirits, both being sons of the Father-god, inherited from him, respectively, mind and speech; hence the gods got the sacrifice and heaven, while the evil spirits got this earth. Again, the two entered on the inheritance of their father in time, and so the gods have the waxing moon, and the evil spirits, the waning moon (ib. III 2. 1. 18; I. 7. 2. 22).
But what these Asuras or (evil) spirits really are may be read easily from the texts. The gods are the spirits of light; the Asuras are the spirits of darkness. Therewith is indissolubly connected the idea that sin and darkness are of the same nature. So one reads that when the sun rises it frees itself 'from darkness, from sin,' as a snake from its slough (ib. II. 3. I. 6). And in another passage it is said that darkness and illusion were given to the Asuras as their portion by the Father-god (ib. II. 4. 2. 5). With this may be compared also the frequent grouping of The Asuras or Rakshas with darkness (e.g., ib. III. 8. 2. 15; IV. 3. 4. 21). As to the nature of the gods the evidence is contradictóry. Both gods and evil spirits were originally soulless and mortal. Agni (Fire) alone was immortal, and it was only through him that the others continued to live. They became immortal by putting in their inmost being the holy (immortal) fire (ib. II. 2. 2. 8). On the other hand, it is said that Agni was originally without brightness; and Indra, identified with the sun, was originally dark (ib. IV. 5.4.3; III. 4. 2. 15). The belief in an originally human condition of the gods (even the Father-god was originally mortal) is exemplified in a further passage, where it is said that the gods used to live on earth, but they grew tired of man's endless petitions and fled; also in another place, where it is stated that the gods used to drink together with men visibly, but now they do so invisibly (ib. II. 3. 4. 4; III. 6. 2. 26). How did such gods obtain their supremacy? The answer is simple, 'by sacrifice' (Çat. Br. III. 1. 4. 3; [=A]it. Br. II. I. I). So now they live by sacrifice: 'The sun would not rise if the priest did not make sacrifice' (Çat. Br. II. 3. 1. 5). Even the order of things would change if the order of ceremonial were varied: Night would be eternal if the priests did so and so; the months would not pass, one following the other, if the priests walked out or entered together, etc. (ib. IV. 3. 1. 9-10). It is by a knowledge of the Vedas that one conquers all things, and the sacrifice is part and application of this knowledge, which in one passage is thus reconditely subdivided: 'Threefold is knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, and the S[=a]ma Veda.[15] The Rig Veda, i.e., the verses sung, are the earth; the Yajus is air; the S[=a]man is the sky. He conquers earth, air, and sky respectively by these three Vedas. The Rik and S[=a]man are Indra and are speech; the Yajus is Vishnu and mind' (ib. IV. 6. 7. 1 ff.). An item follows that touches on a modern philosophical question. Apropos of speech and mind: 'Where speech (alone) existed everything was accomplished and known; but where mind (alone) existed nothing was accomplished or known' (ib. I. 4. 4. 3-4, 7). Mind and speech are male and female, and as yoke-fellows bear sacrificed to the gods; to be compared is the interesting dispute between mind and speech (ib. 5. 8). As dependent as is man on what is given by the gods, so dependent are the gods on what is offered to them by men (T[=a]itt. Br. II. 2. 7. 3; Çat. Br. I. 2. 5. 24). Even the gods are now not native to heaven. They win heaven by sacrifice, by metres, etc. (Çat. Br. IV. 3. 2. 5).
What, then, is the sacrifice? A means to enter into the godhead of the gods, and even to control the gods; a ceremony where every word was pregnant with consequences;[16] every movement momentous. There are indications, however, that the priests themselves understood that much in the ceremonial was pure hocus-pocus, and not of such importance as it was reputed to be. But such faint traces as survive of a freer spirit objecting to ceremonial absurdities only mark more clearly the level plain of unintelligent superstition which was the feeding-ground of the ordinary priests.
Some of the cases of revolted common-sense are worth citing. Conspicuous as an authority on the sacrifice, and at the same time as a somewhat recalcitrant priest, is Y[=a]j[.n]avalkya, author and critic, one of the greatest names in Hindu ecclesiastical history. It was he who, apropos of the new rule in ethics, so strongly insisted upon after the Vedic age and already beginning to obtain, the rule that no one should eat the flesh of the (sacred) cow ('Let no one eat beef…. Whoever eats it would be reborn (on earth) as a man of ill fame') said bluntly: 'As for me I eat (beef) if it is good (firm).[17] It certainly required courage to say this, with the especial warning against beef, the meat of an animal peculiarly holy (Çat. Br. III. I. 2. 21). It was, again, Y[=a]jñavalkya (Çat. Br., I. 3. I. 26), who protested against the priests' new demand that the benefit of the sacrifice should accrue in part to the priest; whereas it had previously been understood that not the sacrificial priest but the sacrificer (the worshipper, the man who hired the priest and paid the expenses) got all the benefit of the ceremony. Against the priests' novel and unjustifiable claim Y[=a]jñavalkya exclaims: 'How can people have faith in this? Whatever be the blessing for which the priests pray, this blessing is for the worshipper (sacrificer) alone.[18] It was Y[=a]jñavalkya, too, who rebutted some new superstition involving the sacrificer's wife, with the sneer, 'who cares whether the wife,' etc. (kas tad [=a]driyeta, ib. 21). These protestations are naïvely recorded, though it is once suggested that in some of his utterances Y[=a]jñavalkya was not in earnest (ib. IV. 2. 1. 7). The high mind of this great priest is contrasted with the mundane views of his contemporaries in the prayers of himself and of another priest; for it is recorded that whereas Y[=a]jñavalkya's prayer to the Sun was 'give me light' (or 'glory,' varco me dehi), that of [=A]upoditeya was 'give me cows' (ib. I. 9. 3. 16). The chronicler adds, after citing these prayers, that one obtains whatever he prays for, either illumination or wealth.[19] Y[=a]jñavalkya, however, is not the only protestant. In another passage, ib. ii. 6. 3. 14-17, the sacrificer is told to shave his head all around, so as to be like the sun; this will ensure his being able to 'consume (his foes) on all sides like the sun,' and it is added: But [=A]suri said, 'What on earth has it to do with his head? Let him not shave.'[20]
'Eternal holiness' is won by him that offers the sacrifice of the seasons. Characteristic is the explanation, 'for such an one wins the year, and a year is a complete whole, and a complete whole is indestructible (eternal); hence his holiness is indestructible, and he thereby becomes a part of a year and goes to the gods; but as there is no destruction in the gods, his holiness is therefore indestructible' (ib. ii. 6. 3. 1).
Not only a man's self but also his Manes are benefited by means of sacrifice.[21] He gives the Manes pleasure with his offering, but he also raises their estate, and sends them up to live in a higher world.[22] The cosmological position of the Manes are the av[=a]ntaradiças, that is, between the four quarters; though, according to some, there are three kinds of them, soma-Manes, sacrifice-Manes (Manes of the sacrificial straw), and the burnt, i.e., the spirits of those that have been consumed in fire. They are, again, identified with the seasons, and are expressly mentioned as the guardians of houses, so that the Brahmanic Manes are at once Penates, Lares, and Manes.[23]
The sacrifice is by no means meant as an aid to the acquirement of heavenly bliss alone. Many of the great sacrifices are for the gaining of good things on earth. In one passage there is described a ceremony, the result of which is to be that the warrior, who is the sacrificer, may say to a man of the people "fetch out and give me your store" (ib. i. 3. 2. 15; iv. 3. 3. 10). Everybody sacrifices, even the beasts erect altars and fires![24] That one should sacrifice without the ulterior motive of gain is unknown. Brahmanic India knows no thank-offering. Ordinarily the gain is represented as a compensating gift from the divinity, whom the sacrificer pleases with his sacrifice. Very plainly is this expressed. "He offers the sacrifice to the god with this text: 'Do thou give to me (and) I (will) give to thee; do thou bestow on me (and) I (will) bestow on thee'" (V[=a]j. S. iii. 50; Çat. Br. ii. 5. 3. 19). But other ends are accomplished. By the sacrifice he may injure his enemy, but in offering it, if he leaves too much over, that part accrues to the good of his foe (Çat. Br. i. 2. 1.7; 9. 1. 18).
The sacrifice is throughout symbolical. The sacrificial straw represents the world; the metre used represents all living creatures, etc.,—a symbolism frequently suggested by a mere pun, but often as ridiculously expounded without such aid. The altar's measure is the measure of metres. The cord of regeneration (badge of the twice-born, the holy cord of the high castes) is triple, because food is threefold, or because the father and mother with the child make three (Çat. Br. iii. 5. 1. 7 ff.; 2. 1. 12); the jagati metre contains the living world, because this is called jagat (ib. i. 8. 2. 11).
Out of the varied mass of rules, speculations, and fancies, a few of general character may find place here, that the reader may gain a collective impression of the religious literature of the time.
The fee for the sacrifice is mentioned in one place as one thousand cows. These must be presented in groups of three hundred and thirty-three each, three times, with an odd one of three colors. This is on account of the holy character of the numeral three. 'But [=A]suri (apparently fearful that this rule would limit the fee) said "he may give more"' (Çat. Br. iv. 5. 8. 14). As to the fee, the rules are precise and their propounders are unblushing. The priest performs the sacrifice for the fee alone, and it must consist of valuable garments, kine, horses,[25] or gold—when each is to be given is carefully stated. Gold is coveted most, for this is 'immortality,' 'the seed of Agni,' and therefore peculiarly agreeable to the pious priest.[26] For his greed, which goes so far that he proclaims that he who gives a thousand kine obtains all things of heaven (ib. iv. 5. 1. 11), the priest has good precept to cite, for the gods of heaven, in all the tales told of them, ever demand a reward from each other when they help their neighbor-gods. Nay, even the gods require a witness and a vow, lest they injure each other. Discord arose among them when once they performed the guest-offering; they divided into different parties, Agni with the Vasus, Soma with the Rudras, Varuna with the [=A]dityas, and Indra with the Maruts. But with discord came weakness, and the evil spirits got the better of them. So they made a covenant with each other, and took Wind as witness that they would not deceive each other. This famous covenant of the gods is the prototype of that significant covenant made by the priest, that he would not, while pretending to beseech } good for the sacrificer,[27] secretly do him harm (as he could by altering the ceremonial).[28] The theory of the fee, in so far as it affects the sacrifices, is that the gods, the Manes, and men all exist by what is sacrificed. Even the gods seek rewards; hence the priests do the same.[29] The sacrificer sacrifices to get a place in devaloka (the world of the gods). The sacrifice goes up to the world of gods, and after it goes the fee which the sacrificer (the patron) gives; the sacrificer follows by catching hold of the fee given to the priests (ib.. i. 9. 3. 1). It is to be noted, moreover, that sacrificing for a fee is recognized as a profession. The work (sacrifice is work, 'work is sacrifice,' it is somewhere said) is regarded as a matter of business. There are three means of livelihood occasionally referred to, telling stories, singing songs, and reciting the Veda at a sacrifice (Çat. Br. iii. 2. 4. 16).
As an example of the absurdities given as 'the ways of knowledge' (absurdities which are necessary to know in order to a full understanding of the mental state under consideration) may be cited Çat. Br. iv. 5. 8. 11, where it is said that if the sacrificial cow goes east the sacrificer wins a good world hereafter; if north, he becomes more glorious on earth; if west, rich in people and crops; if south, he dies; 'such are the ways of knowledge.' In the same spirit it is said that the sun rises east because the priest repeats certain verses ([=A]it. Br. i. 7. 4). No little stress is laid on geographical position. The east is the quarter of the gods; the north, of men; the south, of the dead (Manes; Çat. Br. i. 2. 5. 17); while the west is the region of snakes, according to ib. iii. 1. 1. 7. On account of the godly nature of the east ("from the east came the gods westward to men," ib. ii. 6. 1. 11) the sacrificial building, like occidental churches, is built east and west, not north and south. The cardinal points are elsewhere given to certain gods; thus the north is Rudra's.[30]
It has been said that the theological ideas are not clear. This was inevitable, owing to the tendency to identify various divinities. Especially noticeable is the identification of new or local gods with others better accredited, Rudra and Agni, etc. Rudra is the god of cattle, and when the other gods went to heaven by means of sacrifice he remained on earth; his local names are Çarva, Bhava, 'Beast-lord,' Rudra, Agni (Çat. Br. i. 7. 3. 8; M[=a]it. S. i. 6. 6). Indra is the Vasu of the gods. The gods are occasionally thirty-four in number, eight Vasus, eleven Rudras, twelve [=A]dityas, heaven and earth, and Praj[=a]pati as the thirty-fourth; but this Praj[=a]pati is the All and Everything (Çat. Br. i. 6. 4. 2; iv. 5. 7. 2 ff.). Of these gods, who at first were all alike and good, three became superior, Agni, Indra, and S[=u]rya. But, again, the Sun is death, and Agni is head of all the gods. Moreover, the Sun is now Indra; the Manes are the seasons, and Varuna, too, is the seasons, as being the year (Çat. Br. iv. 5. 4. 1; i. 6. 4. 18; iv. 4. 5. 18). Aditi, as we have said, is the Earth; the fee for an offering to her is a cow. Why? Because Earth is a cow and Aditi is Earth; Earth is a mother and a cow is a mother. Hence the fee is a cow.[31]
The tales of the gods, for the most part, are foolish. But they show well what conception the priests had of their divinities.
Man's original skin was put by the gods upon the cow; hence a cow runs away from a man because she thinks he is trying to get back his skin. The gods cluster about at an oblation, each crying out 'My name,' i.e., each is anxious to get it. The gods, with the evil spirits—'both sons of the Father'—attract to themselves the plants; Varuna gets the barley by a pun. They build castles to defend themselves from the evil spirits. Five gods are picked out as worthy of offerings: Aditi, Speech, Agni, Soma, the Sun (five, because the seasons are five and the regions are five). Indra and Wind have a dispute of possession; Praj[=a]pati, the Father, decides it. The heavenly singers, called the Gandharvas, recited the Veda to entice (the divine female) Speech to come to them; while the gods, for the same purpose, created the lute, and sang and played to her. She came to the gods; hence the weakness of women in regard to such things. Indra is the god of sacrifice; the stake of the sacrifice is Vishnu's; V[=a]yu (Wind) is the leader of beasts; Bhaga is blind;[32] P[=u]shan (because he eats mush) is toothless. The gods run a race to see who shall get first to the sacrifice, and Indra and Agni win; they are the warrior-caste among the gods, and the All-gods are the people (viçve, viç.). Yet, again, the Maruts are the people, and Varuna is the warrior-caste; and, again, Soma is the warrior-caste. The Father-god first created birds, then reptiles and snakes. As these all died he created mammalia; these survived because they had food in themselves; hence the Vedic poet says 'three generations have passed away.'[33]
Varuna is now quite the god of night and god of purification, as a water-god. Water is the 'essence (sap) of immortality,' and the bath of purification at the end of the sacrifice (avabh[r.]tha) stands in direct relation to Varuna. The formula to be repeated is: "With the gods' help may I wash out sin against the gods; with the help of men the sin against men" (Çat. Br. iv. 4. 3. 15; ii. 5. 2. 47). Mitra and Varuna are, respectively, intelligence and will, priest and warrior; and while the former may exist without the latter, the latter cannot live without the former, 'but they are perfect only when they coöperate' (ib. iv. 1. 4. 1).
Of the divine legends some are old, some new. One speaks of the sacrifice as having been at first human, subsequently changing to beast sacrifice, eventually to a rice offering, which last now represents the original sacrificial animal, man.[34] Famous, too, is the legend of the flood and Father Manu's escape from it (Çat. Br. i. 8. 1. 1 ff.). Again, the Vedic myth is retold, recounting the rape of soma by the metrical equivalent of fire (T[=a]itt. Br. i. 1. 3. 10; Çat. Br. i. 8. 2. 10). Another tale takes up anew the old story of Cupid and Psyche (Pur[=u]ravas and Urvaç[=i]); and another that of the Hindu Prometheus story, wherein M[=a]tariçvan fetches fire from heaven, and gives it to mortals (T[=a]itt. Br. iii. 2. 3. 2; Çat. Br. xi. 5. 1. 1; i. 7. 1. 11).[35]
Interesting, also, is the tale of Vishnu having been a dwarf, and the tortoise avatar, not of Vishnu, but of Praj[=a]pati; also the attempt of the evil spirits to climb to heaven, and the trick with which Indra outwitted them.[36] For it is noticeable that the evil spirits are as strong by nature as are the gods, and it is only by craft that the latter prevail.[37]
Seldom are the tales of the gods indecent. The story of Praj[=a]pati's incest with his daughter is a remnant of nature worship which survives, in more or less anthropomorphic form, from the time of the Rig Veda (x. 61.) to that of mediaeval literature,[38] and is found in full in the epic, as in the Brahmanic period; but the story always ends with the horror of the gods at the act.[39]
Old legends are varied. The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus: Indra, who slays Vritra, is the sun. Vritra is the moon, who swims into the sun's mouth on the night of the new moon. The sun rises after swallowing him, and the moon is invisible because he is swallowed ("he who knows this swallows his foes"). The sun vomits out the moon, and the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to serve the sun as food. In another passage it is said that when the moon is invisible he is hiding in plants and waters (Çat. Br. i. 6. 3. 17; 4. 18-20).
BRAHMANIC RELIGION.
When the sacrifice is completed the priest returns, as it were, to earth, and becomes human. He formally puts off his sacrificial vow, and rehabilitates himself with humanity, saying, "I am even he that I am."[40] As such a man, through service to the gods become a divine offering, and no longer human, was doubtless considered the creature that first served as the sacrificial animal. Despite protestant legends such as that just recorded, despite formal disclaimers, human sacrifice existed long after the period of the Rig Veda, where it is alluded to; a period when even old men are exposed to die.[41] The anaddh[=a]purusha is not a fiction; for that, on certain occasions, instead of this 'man of straw' a real victim was offered, is shown by the ritual manuals and by Brahmanic texts.[42] Thus, in Çat. Br. vi. 2. 1. 18: "He kills a man first…. The cord that holds the man is the longest." It is noteworthy that also among the American Indians the death of a human victim by fire was regarded as a religious ceremony, and that, just as in India the man to be sacrificed was allowed almost all his desires for a year, so the victim of the Indian was first greeted as brother and presented with gifts, even with a wife.[43]
But this, the terrible barbaric side of religious worship, is now distinctly yielding to a more humane religion. The 'barley ewe'[44] is taking the place of a bloodier offering. It has been urged that the humanity[45] and the accompanying silliness of the Brahmanic period as compared with the more robust character of the earlier age are due to the weakening and softening effects of the climate. But we doubt whether the climate of the Punj[=a]b differs as much from that of Delhi and Patna as does the character of the Rig Veda from that of the Br[=a]hmanas. We shall protest again when we come to the subject of Buddhism against the too great influence which has been claimed for climate. Politics and society, in our opinion, had more to do with altering the religions of India than had a higher temperature and miasma. As a result of ease and sloth—for the Brahmans are now the divine pampered servants of established kings, not the energetic peers of a changing population of warriors—the priests had lost the inspiration that came from action; they now made no new hymns; they only formulated new rules of sacrifice. They became intellectually debauched and altogether weakened in character. Synchronous with this universal degradation and lack of fibre, is found the occasional substitution of barley and rice sacrifices for those of blood; and it may be that a sort of selfish charity was at work here, and the priest saved the beast to spare himself. But there is no very early evidence of a humane view of sacrifice influencing the priests.
The Brahman is no Jain. One must read far to hear a note of the approaching ahims[=a] doctrine of 'non-injury.' At most one finds a contemptuous allusion, as in a pitying strain, to the poor plants and animals that follow after man in reaping some sacrificial benefit from a ceremony.[46] It does not seem to us that a recognized respect for animal life or kindness to dumb creatures lies at the root of proxy sacrifice, though it doubtless came in play. But still less does it appear probable that, as is often said, aversion to beast-sacrifice is due to the doctrine of karma, and re-birth in animal form. The karma notion begins to appear in the Brahmanas, but not in the sams[=a]ra shape of transmigration. It was surely not because the Hindu was afraid of eating his deceased grandmother that he first abstained from meat. For, long after the doctrine of karma and sams[=a]ra[47] is established, animal sacrifices are not only permitted but enjoined; and the epic characters shoot deer and even eat cows. We think, in short, that the change began as a sumptuary measure only. In the case of human sacrifice there is doubtless a civilized repugnance to the act, which is clearly seen in many passages where the slaughter of man is made purely symbolical. The only wonder is that it should have obtained so long after the age of the Rig Veda. But like the stone knife of sacrifice among the Romans it is received custom, and hard to do away with, for priests are conservative. Human sacrifice must have been peculiarly horrible from the fact that the sacrificer not only had to kill the man but to eat him, as is attested by the formal statement of the liturgical works.[48] But in the case of other animals (there are five sacrificial animals, of which man is first) we think it was a question of expense on the part of the laity. When the soma became rare and expensive, substitutes were permitted and enjoined. So with the great sacrifices. The priests had built up a great complex of forms, where at every turn fees were demanded. The whole expense, falling on the one individual to whose benefit accrued the sacrifice, must have been enormous; in the case of ordinary people impossible. But the priests then permitted the sacrifice of substitutes, for their fees still remained; and even in the case of human sacrifice some such caution may have worked, for ordinarily it cost 'one thousand cattle' to buy a man to be sacrificed. A proof of this lies in the fact that animal sacrifices were not forbidden at any time, only smaller (cheaper) animals took the place of cattle. In the completed Brahmanic code the rule is that animals ought not to be killed except at sacrifice, and practically the smaller creatures were substituted for cattle, just as the latter had gradually taken the place of the old horse (and man) sacrifice.