In the Bhagavad-gītā (IV. 1 ff.) Kṛishṇa announces that he preached his doctrine to Vivasvān the Sun-god, who passed it on to his son the patriarch Manu; elsewhere in the Mahābhārata (XII. cccv. 19) the Sātvata teaching is said to have been announced by the Sun. Ghōra in his list of moral virtues enumerates "mortification, charity, uprightness, harmlessness, truthfulness"; exactly the same attributes, with a few more, are said in the Bhagavad-gītā to characterise the man who is born to the gods' estate (XVI. 1-3). Ghōra's exhortation to think of the nature of the Supreme in the hour of death is balanced by Kṛishṇa's words: "He who at his last hour, when he casts off the body, goes hence remembering me, goes assuredly into my being" (VIII. 5; cf. 10). These parallels are indeed not very close; but collectively they are significant, and when we bear in mind that the author of the Bhagavad-gītā is eager to associate his doctrine with those of the Upanishads, and thus to make it a new and catholic Upanishad for all classes, we are led to conclude that its fundamental ideas, sanctification of works (karma-yōga), worship of a Supreme God of Grace (bhakti) by all classes, and rejection of animal sacrifices (ahiṃsā) arose among the orthodox Kshatriyas, who found means to persuade their Brahmanic preceptors to bring it into connection with their Upanishads and embellish it with appropriate texts from those sources. Very likely Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, if not the first inventor of these doctrines, was their most vigorous propagator.
Now what are the teachings of the Nārāyaṇīya? It appears to contain two accounts. In the first we have the story of king Vasu Uparichara, who is said to have worshipped the Supreme God Hari (Vishṇu) in devotion without any animal-sacrifices, in accordance with doctrines ascribed to the Āraṇyakas, i.e. the later sections of the Brāhmaṇas, including the older Upanishads. This fully agrees with the standpoint of the Bhagavad-gītā. The second account gives the story of a visit paid by the divine saint Nārada to a mysterious "White Island," Śvēta-dvīpa, inhabited by holy worshippers of God who are, strangely enough, described as having heads shaped like umbrellas and feet like lotus-leaves and as making a sound like that of thunder-clouds[23]; they are radiant like the moon, have no physical senses, eat nothing, and concentrate their whole soul on rapturous adoration of the spirit of God, which shines there in dazzling brightness to the eye of perfect faith. Nārāyaṇa there reveals himself to Nārada, and sets forth to him the doctrine of Vāsudēva. According to this, Nārāyaṇa has four forms, called mūrtis or vyūhas. The first of these is Vāsudēva, who is the highest soul and creator and inwardly controls all individual souls. From him arose Saṃkarshaṇa, who corresponds to the individual soul; from Saṃkarshaṇa issued Pradyumna, to whom corresponds the organ of mind, and from Pradyumna came forth Aniruddha, representing the element of self-consciousness. Observe in passing that these are all names of heroes of legend: Saṃkarshaṇa is Vāsudēva's brother Bala-rāma, Pradyumna was the son and Aniruddha the grandson of Vāsudēva. Nārāyaṇa then goes on to speak of the creation of all things from himself and their dissolution into himself, and of his incarnations in the form of the Boar who lifted up on his tusk the earth when submerged under the ocean, Narasiṃha the Man-lion who destroyed the tyrant Hiraṇya-kaśipu, the Dwarf who overthrew Balī, Rāma Bhārgava who destroyed the Kshatriyas, Rāma Dāśarathi, of whom we shall have something to say later. Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva the slayer of Kaṃsa of Mathurā, the Tortoise, the Fish, and Kalkī. Then follow some further details, among them a statement that this doctrine was revealed to Arjuna at the beginning of the Great War—a clear reference to the Bhagavad-gītā—that at the beginning of every age it was promulgated by Nārāyaṇa, that it requires activity in pious works, that at the commencement of the present age it passed from him to Brahmā, from him to Vivasvān the Sun-god, from him to the patriarch Manu, etc., that it does not allow the sacrifice of animals, and that for salvation the co-operative grace of Nārāyaṇa is necessary. Most of this doctrine is already in the Bhagavad-gītā; what is not found in the latter is the account of the mysterious White Island, the theory of vyūhas or emanations, which represents Vāsudēva as issuing from Nārāyaṇa and so forth, and the details of Nārāyaṇa's incarnations. It is therefore a distinct textbook of the Sātvata or Pāñcharātra church, not much later than the Bhagavad-gītā. According to it, the Supreme Being is Nārāyaṇa, the Almighty God who reveals himself as highest teacher and saintly sage, whose legendary performance of a five-days' sacrifice (above, p. 76) has gained for his doctrine the title of Pāñcharātra. Next in order of divinity is Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whose tribal name of Sātvata has furnished the other name of this church; then follow in due order Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, all of his family; and with Vāsudēva is closely associated the epic hero Arjuna, a prototype for this mortal pair being discovered in the legendary Nara and Nārāyaṇa.
Comparing then the Bhagavad-gītā with the Nārāyaṇīya, we see that in all essentials they agree, but in two points they differ. Both preach a doctrine of activity in pious works, pravṛitti, in conscious opposition to the inactivity of the Aupanishadas and Sāṃkhyas; but the Nārāyaṇīya does not dwell much on this topic, and limits activity to strictly religious duties, while the Bhagavad-gītā develops the idea so as to include everything, thus sketching out a bold system for the sanctification of all sides of life, which enables it to open the door of salvation directly to all classes of mankind. Secondly, the Bhagavad-gītā says nothing about the theory of emanations or vyūhas in connection with Vāsudēva; probably its author knew the legends of Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, but he apparently did not know or at least did not accept the view that these persons were related as successive emanations from Vāsudēva. We must therefore look round for sidelights which may clear up the obscurities in the history of this church.
Our first sidelight glimmers in the famous grammar of Pāṇini, who probably lived in the fifth century b.c., or perhaps early in the fourth century. Pāṇini informs us (IV. iii. 98) that from the names of Vāsudēva and Arjuna the derivative nouns Vāsudēvaka and Arjunaka are formed to denote persons who worship respectively Vāsudēva and Arjuna. Plainly then in the fifth century Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and Arjuna were worshipped by some, probably in the same connection as is shown in the Mahābhārata. Perhaps Vāsudēva had not yet been raised to the rank of the Almighty; it is more likely that he was still a deified hero and teacher, and Arjuna his noblest disciple. But both of them were receiving divine honours; they had been men, and were now gods, with bands of adorers.
Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior State,[24] and must have been engraved soon after 200 b.c. It reads as follows: "This Garuḍa-column of Vāsudēva the god of gods was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of the Lord [bhāgavata], the son of Diya [Greek Dion] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as ambassador of the Greeks from the Great King Aṃtalikita [Greek Antialcidas] to King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra the Saviour, who was flourishing in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal steps ... when practised lead to heaven—self-control, charity, and diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably forming part of the Śuṅga empire, Vāsudēva is worshipped not as a minor hero or teacher, but as the god of gods, dēva-dēva; and he is worshipped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting the place as an ambassador from Antialcidas, a Hellenic king of the lineage of Eucratides, who was reigning in the North-West of India. Doubtless the act of Heliodorus was a diplomatic courtesy, in order to please King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra. But observe the nature of his act. He caused to be erected a Garuḍa-column, that is, a pillar engraved with the figure of Garuḍa, the sacred bird of Vishṇu; and he added a verse about "three immortal steps" (trini amutapadāni), as leading to heaven, which sounds suspiciously like an attempt to moralise the old mythical feature of the three Steps of Vishṇu. Plainly Vāsudēva had now risen in this part of the country from being the teacher of a church of Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa to the rank of its chief god, with which he had become fully identified.
Another inscription, a few years later in date, has been found in Besnagar. It is a mere fragment, but it supplements the other; for it states that a certain bhāgavata, or "worshipper of the Lord," named Gōtama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garuḍa-column for the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King Bhāgavata. This king is perhaps the same as the person of that name who appears in some genealogical lists as the last but one of the Śuṅga Kings.[25]
Next in date is an inscription on a stone slab found at Ghasundi, about four miles north-east of Nagari, in Udaipur State. It was engraved about 150 b.c., and records that a certain bhāgavata, or "worshipper of the Lord," named Gājāyana, son of Pārāśarī, caused to be erected in the Nārāyaṇa-vāṭa, or park of Nārāyaṇa, a stone chapel for the worship of the Lords Saṃkarshaṇa and Vāsudēva.[26] Here their worship is associated with that of Nārāyaṇa.
Passing over an inscription at Mathurā which records the building of a part of a sanctuary to the Lord Vāsudēva about 15 b.c. by the great Satrap Sōḍāsa,[27] we note that the grammarian Patañjali, who wrote his commentary the Mahābhāshya upon Pāṇini's grammar about 150 b.c., has something to say about Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whom he recognises as a divine being (on IV. iii. 98). He quotes some verses referring to him. The first (on II. ii. 23) is to the following effect: "May the might of Kṛishṇa accompanied by Saṃkarshaṇa increase!" Another (on VI. iii. 6) speaks of "Janārdana with himself as fourth," that is to say, Kṛishṇa with three companions: the three may be Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, or they may not. Another verse (on II. ii. 34) speaks of musical instruments being played at meetings in the temples of Rāma and Kēśava. Rāma is Bala-rāma or Bala-bhadra, who is the same as Saṃkarshaṇa, and Kēśava is a title of Kṛishṇa, which was applied also to Vishṇu or Nārāyaṇa according to the Bōdhāyana-dharma-sūtra, which may be assigned to the second century b.c. The Ovavāī, or Aupapātika-sūtra, a Jain scripture which may perhaps belong to the same period, mentions (§ 76) Kaṇha-parivvāyā, wandering friars who worshipped Kṛishṇa. Thus literature as well as inscriptions shows that Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and his brother Saṃkarshaṇa were in many places worshipped as saints of a church of Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa about 150 b.c., and that in some parts Vāsudēva was recognised as the Almighty himself about 200 b.c.
In another passage (on III. i, 26) Patañjali describes dramatic and mimetic performances representing the killing of Kaṃsa by Vāsudēva. Altogether his references show that the legend and worship of Vāsudēva bulked largely in the popular mind at this time in India north of the Vindhya mountains. Vāsudēva was adored as the great teacher and hero-king, in whom the gods Vishṇu and Nārāyaṇa were incarnated; and he was associated with two great cycles of legend, the one that related his birth at Mathurā, his victory over the tyrant Kaṃsa, his establishment of the colony at Dvārakā, and his adventures until his death and translation to heaven, and the other telling of his share in the Great War as ally of the five Pāṇḍava brethren. Both cycles represented him as supported by princely heroes. The Mathurā-Dvārakā legend gave him his brother Bala-bhadra or Saṃkarshaṇa, his son Pradyumna, and his grandson Aniruddha, whom theologians about the beginning of the Christian era fitted into their philosophical schemes by representing them as successive emanations from him; and the Mahābhārata furnished him with the Pāṇḍavas, whose heroic tale soon created for them a worship everywhere. As we have seen, there were adorers of Arjuna already in the fifth century b.c.; and in the first century b.c. there seems to be evidence for a worship of all the five together with Vāsudēva, for an inscription has been found at Mora which apparently mentions a son of the great Satrap Rājuvula, probably the well-known Satrap Sōḍāsa, and an image of the "Lord Vṛishṇi," probably Vāsudēva, and of the "Five Warriors."[28] Already the poets of the Mahābhārata have taken the first step towards the deification of the Pāṇḍavas by finding divine fathers for each of them, making Yudhishṭhira the son of Dharma or Yama, the god of the nether world, Arjuna son of Indra, Bhīma son of Vāyu the Wind-god, and Nakula and Sahadēva offspring of the Aśvins. Hundreds of caverns throughout India are declared by popular legend to have been their dwellings during their wanderings; and a noble monument to their memory has been raised by one of the great Pallava kings of Conjevaram who in the seventh century a.d. carved out of the solid rock on the seashore at Mamallapuram the fine chapels that bear their names. Doubtless all these heroes from both cycles were once worshipped in the usual manner, with offerings of food, incense, lights, flowers, etc., and singing of hymns on their exploits—chiefly in connection with Vāsudēva; but all this worship is now utterly forgotten, except where echoes of it linger in popular legend.
Our survey of the religion of Vāsudēva has brought us down to a date which cannot indeed be exactly fixed, but which may be placed approximately in the second century of our era. This religion, as we have seen, arose and grew great in the fertile soil of the spiritual needs and experiences of India. It began by moulding a personal God out of ancient figures of myth and legend, and it surrounded him with a hierarchy of godly heroes. Though its doctrines were often philosophically incongruous and incoherent, its foundation was a true religious feeling; it gave scope to the mystic raptures of the ascetic and the simple righteousness of the laic; and it claimed for its heroes, Vāsudēva and his kindred and his friends the Pāṇḍava brethren, a grave and dignified hero-worship. In short, it is a serious Indian religion with an epic setting.
And now suddenly and most unexpectedly an utterly new spirit begins to breathe in it. To the old teachings and legends are added new ones of a wholly different cast. The old epic spirit of grave and manly chivalry and godly wisdom is overshadowed by a new passion—adoration of tender babyhood and wanton childhood, amorous ecstasies, a hectic fire of erotic romance.
Of this new spirit there is no trace in the epic, except in one or two late interpolations. But the Hari-vaṃśa, which was added as an appendix to the Mahābhārata not very long before the fourth century a.d., is already instinct with it. It adds to the epic story of Kṛishṇa a fluent verse account of his miraculous preservation from Kaṃsa at his birth, his childhood among the herdsmen and herdswomen of Vraja (the Doab near Mathurā) with its marvellous freaks and wonderful exploits, his amorous sports with the herdswomen, in fact all the sensuous emotionalism on which the later church of Kṛishṇa has ever since battened. About the same time appeared the Vishṇu-purāṇa, which includes most of the same matter as the Hari-vaṃśa; and some centuries later, probably about the tenth century, there was written a still more remarkable book, the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, of which a great part is taken up with the romance of Kṛishṇa's babyhood and childhood, and especially his amorous sports. In the Bhāgavata the later worship of Kṛishṇa found its classic expression. In the Hari-vaṃśa and Vishṇu-purāṇa religious emotion is still held under a certain restraint; but in the Bhāgavata it has broken loose and runs riot. It is a romance of ecstatic love for Kṛishṇa, who is no longer, as in the Vishṇu-purāṇa, the incarnation of a portion of the Supreme Vishṇu, but very God become man, wholly and utterly divine in his humanity. It dwells in a rapture of tenderness upon the God-babe, and upon the wanton play of the lovely child who is delightful in his naughtiness and marvellous in his occasional displays of superhuman power; it figures him as an ideal of boyish beauty, decked with jewels and crested with peacock's feathers, wandering through the flowering forests of Vraja, dancing and playing on his flute melodies that fill the souls of all that hear them with an irresistible passion of love and delight; it revels in tales of how the precocious boy made wanton sport with the herdswomen of Vraja, and how the magic of his fluting drew them to the dance in which they were united to him in a rapture of love. The book thrills with amorous, sensuous ecstasy; the thought of Kṛishṇa stirs the worshipper to a passion of love in which tears gush forth in the midst of laughter, the speech halts, and often the senses fail and leave him in long trances. Erotic emotionalism can go no further.
Where did this new spirit come from? Some have laboured to prove that it had its source in Christianity; others have argued that it was Christianity that was the debtor to India in this respect. Both theories are in the main impossible. This cult of the child Kṛishṇa arose in India, and, with the possible exception of a few obscure tales, it never spread outside the circle of Indian religion. But how and where did it arise? That is a question hard to answer; there is no direct evidence, and we can only balance probabilities. Now what are the probabilities?
The worship of Kṛishṇa as a babe, a boy, and a young man among the herdsfolk of Vraja seems to have no relation with the older form of the religion as set forth in the epic textbooks. It is a new element, imported from without. The most natural conclusion then is that it came from the people who are described in it, some tribe that pastured their herds in the woodlands near Mathurā. Perhaps these herdsfolk were Ābhīras, ancestors of the modern Āhīr tribes. If so, it would be natural that their cult should attract attention; for sometimes Ābhīras counted for something in society, and we even find a short-lived dynasty of Ābhīra kings reigning in Nasik in the third century a.d.[29] Be this as it may, it seems very likely that some pastoral tribe had a cult of a divine child blue or black of hue, and perhaps actually called by them Kṛishṇa or Kaṇha, "Black-man" (observe that henceforth Kṛishṇa is regularly represented with a blue skin), a cult in which gross rustic fantasy had free play; that it came in some circles to be linked on to the epic cycle of Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva; and that some Bhāgavatas, seeing in it latent possibilities, gave it polished literary expression and thereby established it as a part of the Vāsudēva legend. It quickly seized upon the popular imagination and spread like wild-fire over India. For it satisfied many needs. The tenderness of the father and still more of the mother for the little babe, their delight in the sports of childhood, the amorist's pleasure in erotic adventure, and, not by any means least, the joy in the romantic scenery of the haunted woodlands—all these instincts found full play in it, and were sanctified by religion.
Rāma is the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa, the great epic ascribed to Vālmīki, a poet who in course of time has passed from the realm of history into that of myth, like many other Hindus. The poem, as it has come down to us, contains seven books, which relate the following tale. Daśa-ratha, King of Ayōdhyā (now Ajodhya, near Faizabad), of the dynasty which claimed descent from the Sun-god, had no son, and therefore held the great Aśva-mēdha, or horse-sacrifice, as a result of which he obtained four sons, Rāma by his queen Kauśalyā, Bharata by Kaikēyī, and Lakshmaṇa and Śatrughna by Sumitrā. Rāma, the eldest, was also pre-eminent for strength, bravery, and noble qualities of soul. Visiting in his early youth the court of Janaka, king of Vidēha, Rāma was able to shoot an arrow from Janaka's bow, which no other man could bend, and as a reward he received as wife the princess Sītā, whom Janaka had found in a furrow of his fields and brought up as his own daughter. So far the first book, or Bāla-kāṇḍa. The second book, or Ayōdhyā-kāṇḍa, relates how Queen Kaikēyī induced Daśa-ratha, sorely against his will, to banish Rāma to the forests in order that her son Bharata might succeed to the throne; and the Araṇya-kāṇḍa then describes how Rāma, accompanied by his wife Sītā and his faithful brother Lakshmaṇa, dwelt in the forest for a time, until the demon King Rāvaṇa of Laṅkā, by means of a trick, carried off Sītā to his city. The Kishkindhā-kāṇḍa tells of Rāma's pursuit of Rāvaṇa and his coming to Kishkindhā, the city of Sugrīva, the king of the apes, who joined him as an ally in his expedition; and the Sundara-kāṇḍa describes the march of their armies to Laṅkā, which is identified with Ceylon, and their crossing over the straits. Then comes the Yuddha-kāṇḍa, which narrates the war with Rāvaṇa, his death in battle, the restoration of Sītā, the return of Rāma and Sītā to Ayōdhyā, and the crowning of Rāma in place of Daśa-ratha, who had died of grief during his exile. Finally comes the Uttara-kāṇḍa, which relates that Rāma, hearing some of the people of Ayōdhyā spitefully casting aspersions on the virtue of Sītā during her imprisonment in the palace of Rāvaṇa, gave way to foolish jealousy and banished her to the hermitage of Vālmīki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Kuśa and Lava; when these boys had grown up, Vālmīki taught them the Rāmāyaṇa and sent them to sing it at the court of Rāma, who on hearing it sent for Sītā, who came to him accompanied by Vālmīki, who assured him of her purity; and then Sītā swore to it on oath, calling upon her mother the Earth-goddess to bear witness; and the Earth-goddess received her back into her bosom, leaving Rāma bereaved, until after many days he was translated to heaven.
Such is the tale of Rāma as told in the Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa—a clean, wholesome story of chivalry, love, and adventure. But clearly the Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa is not the work of a single hand. We can trace in it at least two strata. Books II.-VI. contain the older stratum; the rest is the addition of a later poet or series of poets, who have also inserted some padding into the earlier books. This older stratum, the nucleus of the epic, gives us a picture of heroic society in India at a very early date, probably not very long after the age of the Upanishads; perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say it was composed some time before the fourth century b.c. In it Rāma is simply a hero, miraculous in strength and goodness, but nevertheless wholly human; but in the later stratum—Books I. and VII. and the occasional insertions in the other books—conditions are changed, and Rāma appears as a god on earth, a partial incarnation of Vishṇu, exactly as in the Bhagavad-gītā and other later parts of the Mahābhārata the hero Kṛishṇa has become an incarnation of Vishṇu also. The parallel may even be traced further. Kṛishṇa stands to Arjuna in very much the same relation as Rāma to his brother Lakshmaṇa—a greater and a lesser hero, growing into an incarnate god and his chief follower. This is thoroughly in harmony with Hindu ideas, which regularly conceive the teacher as accompanied by his disciple and abhor the notion of a voice crying in the wilderness; indeed we may almost venture to suspect that this symmetry in the epics is not altogether uninfluenced by this ideal. This, however, is a detail: the main point to observe is that Rāma was originally a local hero of the Solar dynasty, a legendary king of Ayōdhyā, and as the Purāṇas give him a full pedigree, there is no good reason to doubt that he really existed "once upon a time." But the story with which he is associated in the Rāmāyaṇa is puzzling. Is it a pure romance? Or is it a glorified version of some real adventures? Or can it be an old tale, perhaps dating from the early dawn of human history, readapted and fitted on to the person of an historical Rāma? The first of these hypotheses seems unlikely, though by no means impossible. The second suggestion has found much favour. Many have believed that the story of the expedition of Rāma and his army of apes to Laṅkā represents a movement of the Aryan invaders from the North towards the South; and this is supported to some extent by Indian tradition, which has located most of the places mentioned in the Rāmāyaṇa, and in particular has identified Laṅkā with Ceylon. In support of this one may point to the Iliad of Homer, which has a somewhat similar theme, the rape and recovery of Helen by the armies of the Achæans, the basis of which is the historical fact of an expedition against Troy and the destruction of that city. But there are serious difficulties in the way of accepting this analogy, the most serious of all being the indubitable fact that there is not a tittle of evidence to show that such an expedition was ever made by the Aryans. True, there were waves of emigration from Aryan centres southward in early times; but those that travelled as far as Ceylon went by sea, either from the coasts of Bengal or Orissa or Bombay. Besides, the expedition of Rāma is obviously fabulous, for his army was composed not of Aryans but of apes. All things considered, there seems to be most plausibility in the third hypothesis[30]. Certainly Rāma was a local hero of Ayōdhyā, and probably he was once a real king; so it is likely enough that an old saga (or sagas) attached itself early to his memory. And as his fame spread abroad, principally on the wings of Vālmīki's poem, the honours of semi-divinity began to be paid to him in many places beyond his native land, and about the beginning of our era he was recognised as an incarnation of Vishṇu sent to establish a reign of righteousness in the world. In Southern India this cult of Rāma, like that of Kṛishṇa, has for the most part remained subordinate to the worship of Vishṇu, though the Vaishṇava church there has from early times recognised the divinity of both of them as embodiments of the Almighty. But its great home is the North, where millions worship Rāma with passionate and all-absorbing love.
With all its attractions and success, the new Kṛishṇaism did not everywhere overgrow the older stock upon which it had been engrafted. There were many places in which the early worship of Vishṇu and Vāsudēva remained almost unchanged. The new legends of Kṛishṇa's childhood might indeed be accepted in these centres of conservatism, but they made little difference in the spirit and form of the worship, which continued to follow the ancient order. In some of them the Bhagavad-gītā, Nārāyaṇīya, and other epic doctrinals still remained the standard texts, which theologians connected with the ancient Upanishads and the Brahma-sūtra summarising the latter; in other centres there arose, beginning perhaps about the seventh century a.d., a series of Saṃhitās, or manuals of doctrine and practice for the Pāñcharātra[31] sect, which, though in essentials agreeing with the Nārāyaṇīya, taught a different theory of cosmogony and introduced the worship of the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, the consort of Vishṇu, as the agency or energy through which the Supreme Being becomes active in finite existence; and in yet other places other texts were followed, such as those of the Vaikhānasa school. This worship of Vishṇu-Vāsudēva on the ancient lines was peculiarly vigorous among the representatives of Aryan culture in the South, who had introduced the cults of Vishṇu and Śiva with the rest of the Aryan pantheon into the midst of Dravidian animism. Hinduism, transplanted into the Dravidian area, has there remained more conservative than anywhere else, and has clung firmly to its ancient traditions. There is nothing of Dravidian origin in the South Indian worship of Vishṇu and Śiva; they are entirely Aryan importations. But they have become thoroughly assimilated in their southern home, and each of them has produced a huge mass of fine devotional literature in the vernaculars. In the Tamil country the church of Vishṇu boasts of the Nāl-āyira-prabandham, a collection of Tamil psalms numbering about 4,000 stanzas composed by twelve poets called Ālvārs, which were collected about 1000 a.d.; and the worship of 'Siva is equally well expressed in the Tiru-muṛai, compiled about the twelfth century, of which one section, the Dēvāram, was put together about the same time as the Nāl-āyira-prabandham. Both the Tiru-muṛai and the Nāl-āyira-prabandham breathe the same spirit of ecstatic devotion as the Bhāgavata-purāṇa; they are the utterances of wandering votaries who travelled from temple to temple and poured forth the passionate raptures of their souls in lyrical praise of their deities. Through these three main channels the stream of devotion spread far and wide through the land. Like most currents of what we call "revivalism," it usually had an erotic side; and the larger temples frequently have attached to them female staffs of attendant votaries and corps de ballet of very easy virtue. But this aspect was far more marked in neo-Kṛishṇaism, which often tends to intense pruriency, than in the other two cults. The Ālvārs pay little regard to the legends of Kṛishṇa, and concentrate their energies upon the worship of Vishṇu as he is represented in the great temples of Srirangam, Conjevaram, Tirupati, and similar sanctuaries.
About the beginning of the ninth century the peaceful course of Vaishṇava religion was rudely disturbed by the preaching of Śaṃkara Āchārya. Śaṃkara, one of the greatest intellects that India has ever produced, was a Brahman of Malabar, and was born about the year 788. Taking his stand upon the Upanishads, Brahma-sūtra, and Bhagavad-gītā, upon which he wrote commentaries, he interpreted them as teaching the doctrine of Advaita, thorough monistic idealism, teaching that the universal Soul, Brahma, is absolutely identical with the individual Soul, the ātmā or Self, that all being is only one, that salvation consists in the identification of these two, and is attained by knowledge, the intuition of their identity, and that the phenomenal universe or manifold of experience is simply an illusion (māyā) conjured up in Brahma by his congenital nature, but really alien to him—in fact, a kind of disease in Brahma. This was not new: it had been taught by some ancient schools of Aupanishadas, and was very like the doctrine of some of the Buddhist idealists; but the vigour and skill with which Śaṃkara propagated his doctrines threatened ruin to orthodox Vaishṇava theologians, and roused them to counter-campaigns. Among the Vaishṇava Brahmans of the South who won laurels in this field was Yāmunāchārya, who lived about 1050, and was the grandson of Nātha Muni, who collected the hymns of the Ālvārs in the Nāl-āyira-prabandham and founded the great school of Vaishṇava theology at Srirangam. In opposition to Śaṃkara's monism, Yāmunāchārya propounded the doctrine of his school, the so-called Viśishṭādvaita, which was preached with still greater skill and success by his famous successor Rāmānuja, who died in 1137. Rāmānuja's greatest works are his commentaries on the Brahma-sūtra and Bhagavad-gītā. In them he expounds with great ability the principles of his school, namely, that God, sentient beings or souls, and insentient matter form three essentially distinct classes of being; that God, who is the same as Brahma, Vishṇu, Nārāyaṇa, or Kṛishṇa, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and possessed of all good qualities; that matter forms the body of souls, and souls form the body of God; that the soul attains salvation as a result of devout and loving meditation upon God, worship of him, and study of the scriptures; and that salvation consists in eternal union of the soul with God, but not in identity with him, as Śaṃkara taught. The scriptures on which Rāmānuja took his stand were mainly the Upanishads, Brahma-sūtra, and Bhagavad-gītā; but he also acknowledged as authoritative the Pāñcharātra Saṃhitās, in spite of their divergences in details of doctrine, and it is from them that his church has derived the worship of Śrī or Lakshmī as consort of Vishṇu, which is a very marked feature of their community and has gained for them the title of Śrī-vaishṇavas. But Rāmānuja was much more than a scholar and a writer of books; he was also a man of action, a "practical mystic." Like Śaṃkara, he organised a body of sannyāsīs or ascetic votaries, into which, however, he admitted only Brahmans, whereas Śaṃkara opened some of the sections of his devotees to non-Brahmans; but on the other hand he was far more liberal than Śaṃkara in the choice of his congregations, for he endeavoured to bring men of the lowest castes, Śūdras and even Pariahs, within the influence of his church, though he kept up the social barrier between them and the higher castes, and he firmly upheld the principle of the Bhagavad-gītā that it is by the performance of religious and social duties of caste, and not by knowledge alone, that salvation is most surely to be won. He established schools and monasteries, reorganised the worship of the temples, usually in accordance with the Pāñcharātra rules, and thus placed his church in a position of such strength in Southern India that its only serious rival is the church of Śiva.
Nimbārka, who probably flourished about the first half of the twelfth century, preached for the cult of Kṛishṇa a doctrine combining monism with dualism, which is followed by a small sect in Northern India. Ānanda-tīrtha or Madhva, in the first three quarters of the thirteenth century, propounded for the same church a theory of thorough dualism, which has found many admirers, chiefly in the Dekkan. Vallabhāchārya, born in 1479, founded a school of Kṛishṇa-worshippers which claims a "pure monism" without the aid of the theory of māyā, or illusion, which is a characteristic of Śaṃkara's monism. This community has become very influential, chiefly in Bombay Presidency; but in recent times it has been under a cloud owing to the scandals arising from a tendency to practise immoral orgies and from the claims of its priesthood, as representing the god, to enjoy the persons and property of their congregations.
Besides these and other schools which were founded on a basis of Sanskrit scholastic philosophy, there have been many popular religious movements, which from the first appealed directly to the heart of the people in their own tongues.
The first place in which we see this current in movement is the Maratha country. Here, about 1290, Jñānēśvara or Jñānadēva, popularly known as Jñānōbā, composed his Jñanēśvarī, a paraphrase of the Bhagavad-gītā in about 10,000 Marathi verses, as well as a number of hymns to Kṛishṇa and a poem on the worship of Śiva. To the same period belonged Nāmadēva, who was born at Pandharpur, according to some in 1270 and according to others about a century later. Then came Ēkanātha, who is said to have died in 1608, and composed some hymns and Marathi verse-translations from the Bhāgavata. The greatest of all was Tukārām, who was born about 1608.[32] In the verses of these poets the worship of Kṛishṇa is raised to a level of high spirituality. Rāmānanda, who apparently lived between 1400 and 1470 and was somehow connected with the school of Rāmānuja, preached salvation through Rāma to all castes and classes of Northern India, with immense and enduring success. To his spiritual lineage belongs Tulsī Dās (1532-1623), whose Rāma-charita-mānasa, a poem in Eastern Hindi on the story of Vālmīki's Rāmāyana, has become the Bible of the North. The same influences are visible in the poems of Kabīr, a Moslem by birth, who combined Hindu and Muhammadan doctrines into an eclectic monotheism, and is worshipped as an incarnation of God by his sect. He died in 1518. A kindred spirit was Nānak, the founder of the Sikh church (1469-1538).[33]
By the side of these upward movements there have been many which have remained on the older level of the Bhāgavata. The most important is that of Viśvambhara Miśra, who is better known by his titles of Chaitanya and Gaurānga (1485-1533); he carried on a "revival" of volcanic intensity in Bengal and Orissa, and the church founded by him is still powerful, and worships him as an incarnation of Kṛishṇa.
Brahmā, the Creator, a masculine noun, must be carefully distinguished from the neuter Brahma, the abstract First Being. The latter comes first in the scale of existence, while the former appears at some distance further on as the creator of the material world (see above, p. 60 f.). In modern days Brahmā has been completely eclipsed by Vishṇu and Śiva and even by some minor deities, and has now only four temples dedicated to his exclusive worship.[34] But there was a time when he was a great god. In the older parts of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa he figures as one of the greater deities, perhaps the greatest. But in the later portions of the epic he has shrunk into comparative insignificance as compared to Vishṇu and Śiva, and especially to Vishṇu. This change faithfully reflects historical facts. During the last four or five centuries of the millennium which ended with the Christian era the orthodox Vēdic religion of the Brahmans had steadily lost ground, and the sects worshipping Vishṇu and Śiva had correspondingly grown in power and finally had come to be recognised as themselves orthodox. Brahmā, as his name implies, is the ideal Brahman sage, and typifies Vēdic orthodoxy. He is represented as everlastingly chanting the four Vēdas from his four mouths (for he has four heads), and he bears the water-pot and rosary of eleocarpus berries, the symbols of the Brahman ascetic. But Vēdic orthodoxy had to make way for more fascinating cults, and the Vēdic Brahman typified in the god Brahmā sank into comparative unimportance beside the sectarian ascetics. Still the old god, though shorn of much of his glory, was by no means driven from the field. The new churches looked with reverence upon his Vēdas, and often claimed them as divine authority for their doctrines; and though each of them asserted that its particular god, Śiva or Vishṇu, was the Supreme Being, and ultimately the only being, both of them allowed Brahmā to retain his old office of creator, it being of course understood that he held it as a subordinate of the Supreme, Śiva or Vishṇu as the case might be. Meanwhile, at any rate between the third and the sixth centuries, there existed a small fraternity who regarded Brahmā as the Supreme, and therefore as identical with the abstract Brahma; but although they have left a record of their doctrines in the Mārkaṇḍēya-purāṇa and the Padma-purāṇa, they have had little influence on Indian religion in general.
A love of system—unfortunately not always effectual—is a notable feature of the Hindu mind in dealing with most subjects, from grammar to Ars Amoris; and this instinct inspired some unknown theologian with the idea of harmonising the three gods into a unity by representing in one compound form or Trimūrti Brahmā as creator, Vishṇu as the sustaining power in the universe, and Śiva as the force of dissolution which periodically brings the cosmos to an end and necessitates in due course new cycles of being.[35] This ingenious plan has the advantage that it is without prejudice to the religion of any of the gods concerned, for all the three members of this trinity are subordinate to the Supreme Being, or Param Brahma, whom the Vaishṇavas identify with Vishṇu in his highest phase, Para-Vāsudēva, and distinguish from his lower phase, the Vishṇu of this compound, while the Śaivas draw a corresponding distinction between Parama-Śiva, the god in his transcendent nature, and the Śiva who figures in the Trimūrti. So the most orthodox Vaishṇava and the most bigoted Śaiva can adore this three-headed image of the Trimūrti side by side with easy consciences.
This idea of the three gods in one, though it is embodied in some important works of sculpture such as the famous Trimūrti in the Caves of Elephanta, has not had much practical effect upon Hindu religion. But it has given birth to at any rate one interesting little sect, the worshippers of Dattātrēya, who are to be found mainly in the Maratha country. The legend of the saint Dattātrēya, which is already found in the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas and is repeated with some modifications and amplifications in modern works of the sect,[36] relates that when the holy Ṛishi Atri subjected himself to terrific austerities in order to obtain worthy progeny, the gods Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Śiva visited him and promised him the desired boon; accordingly his wife Anasūyā gave birth to three sons, of whom the first was the Moon, an incarnation of Brahmā, the second Dattātrēya, an incarnation of Vishṇu, and the third the holy but irascible saint Durvāsas, representing Śiva. Dattātrēya dwelt in a hermitage in the Dekkan: he indulged in marriage and wine-drinking, which however were not detrimental to his miraculous sanctity and wisdom, and he became famous as a benefactor to humanity. He is said to have lived in the time of Kārtavīrya Arjuna, the Haihaya king, and to have counselled the latter to remain on his throne when he wished to resign it. In older works of plastic art he is sometimes represented by the simple expedient of placing the three gods side by side, sometimes by figuring him as Vishṇu in the guise of a Yōgī with some of the attributes of the other two; but in modern times he usually appears as a single figure with three heads, one for each of the great gods, and four or six arms bearing their several attributes (usually the rosary and water-pot of Brahmā, the conch and discus of Vishṇu, and the trident and drum of Śiva), while he is accompanied by four dogs of different colours, supposed to represent the four Vēdas, and a bull.[37] Observe that in all these types Dattātrēya is conceived as an embodiment of the three gods, which is comparatively a later idea, for in the oldest version of the legend he was simply an incarnation of Vishṇu; but as Vishṇu was regarded not only as a member of the Trinity but also the Supreme Being over and above it, Dattātrēya as his representative has come to include in his personality the nature of all the trio. There is, moreover, something curious in his character. His love of wine and woman is a singular trait, and is quite incompatible with the nature of an ideal saint. It smells of reality, and strongly suggests that he was not a figment of the religious imagination but an actual man; and this is supported by the tradition of his association with Kārtavīrya Arjuna, who, in spite of all the mythical tales that are related of him, really seems to have been a king of flesh and blood. Thus we may venture to see in him yet another example of the metamorphosis so common in India from a saint to an incarnation of the god worshipped by him.
In Northern India, and especially in Bengal, you will often find Hindus worshipping a god whom they call Satya-nārāyaṇa and believe to be an embodiment of Vishṇu himself. The observance of this ritual is believed to bring wealth and all kinds of good fortune; a Sanskrit sacred legend in illustration of this belief has been created, and you may buy badly lithographed copies of it in most of the bazaars if you like, besides which you will find elegant accounts of the god's career on earth written by quite a number of distinguished Bengali poets of the last three centuries. But curiously enough this "god," though quite real, was not a Hindu at all; he was a Bengali Moslem, a fakir, and the Muhammadans of Bengal, among whom he is known as Satya Pīr, have their own versions of his career, which seem to be much nearer the truth than those of the Hindus. In their stories he figures simply as a saint, who busied himself in performing miracles for the benefit of pious Moslems in distress; and as one legend says that he was the son of a daughter of [H.]usain Shāh, the Emperor of Gaur, and another brings him into contact with Mān Singh, it is evident that tradition ascribed him to the sixteenth century, which is probably quite near enough to the truth.[38]
The next instance belongs to the twentieth century. A few years ago there died in the village of Eral, in Tinnevelly District, a local gentleman of the Shanar caste named Aruṇāchala Nāḍār. There was nothing remarkable about his career: he had lived a highly respectable life, scrupulously fulfilled his religious duties, and served with credit as chairman of the municipal board in his native village. If he had done something prodigiously wicked, one might have expected him to become a local god at once, in accordance with Dravidian precedent; but he being what he was, his post-mortem career is rather curious. For a legend gradually arose that his kindly spirit haunted a certain place, and little by little it has grown until now there is a regular worship of him in Eral, and pilgrims travel thither to receive his blessings, stimulated by a lively literary propaganda. He is worshipped under the name of "The Chairman God," in affectionate memory of his municipal career, and as Jagadīśa, or "Lord of the Universe," a phase of the god Śiva.