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Transcriber's note:
1. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
2. A carat character is used to denote superscription. A
single character following the carat is superscripted
(example: 1^2).
3. Mixed fractions in this text version are indicated with
a hyphen and forward slash. For example, four and a half
is represented by 4-1/2.
4. The original text includes Greek characters. For this
text version these letters have been replaced with
transliterations.
THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.
From the German of
PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,
by
Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D.,
Fellow And Tutor Of Balliol College, Oxford.
VOL. IV.
London:
Richard Bentley & Son, New Burlington Street,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1880.
Bungay:
Clay and Taylor, Printers.
CONTENTS.
BOOK V.
_THE ARIANS ON THE INDUS AND THE GANGES._
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 1
CHAPTER II.
THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS 27
CHAPTER III.
THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND OF THE GANGES 65
CHAPTER IV.
THE FORMATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE ORDERS 110
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD AND THE NEW RELIGION 154
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE INDIANS 188
CHAPTER VII.
THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY 236
CHAPTER VIII.
THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMANS 270
BOOK VI.
_BUDDHISTS AND BRAHMANS._
CHAPTER I.
THE STATES ON THE GANGES IN THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. 315
CHAPTER II.
BUDDHA'S LIFE AND TEACHING 332
CHAPTER III.
THE KINGDOM OF MAGADHA AND THE SETTLEMENTS IN THE SOUTH 365
CHAPTER IV.
THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS 383
CHAPTER V.
THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE INDIANS IN THE FOURTH
CENTURY B.C. 408
CHAPTER VI.
CHANDRAGUPTA OF MAGADHA 439
CHAPTER VII.
THE RELIGION OF THE BUDDHISTS 454
CHAPTER VIII.
THE REFORMS OF THE BRAHMANS 491
CHAPTER IX.
AÇOKA OF MAGADHA 521
CHAPTER X.
RETROSPECT 544
BOOK V.
THE ARIANS ON THE INDUS AND THE GANGES.
INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.
It was not only in the lower valley of the Nile, on the banks of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, and along the coast and on the heights of
Syria that independent forms of intellectual and civic life grew up in
antiquity. By the side of the early civilisation of Egypt, and the
hardly later civilisation of that unknown people from which Elam,
Babylon, and Asshur borrowed such important factors in the development
of their own capacities; along with the civilisation of the Semites of
the East and West, who here observed the heavens, there busily explored
the shores of the sea; here erected massive buildings, and there were so
earnestly occupied with the study of their own inward nature, are found
forms of culture later in their origin, and represented by a different
family of nations. This family, the Indo-European, extends over a far
larger area than the Semitic. We find branches of it in the wide
districts to the east of the Semitic nations, on the table-land of Iran,
in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Other branches we have
already encountered on the heights of Armenia, and the table-land of
Asia Minor (I. 512, 524). Others again obtained possession of the
plains above the Black Sea; others, of the peninsulas of Greece and
Italy. Nations of this stock have forced their way to the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean; we find them settled on the western coast of the Spanish
peninsula, from the mouth of the Garonne to the Channel, in Britain and
Ireland no less than in Scandinavia, on the shores of the North Sea and
the Baltic. Those branches of the family which took up their abodes the
farthest to the East exhibit the most independent and peculiar form of
civilisation.
The mutual relationship of the Arian, Greek, Italian, Letto-Sclavonian,
Germanic, and Celtic languages proves the relationship of the nations
who have spoken and still speak them; it proves that all these nations
have a common origin and descent. The words, of which the roots in these
languages exhibit complete phonetic agreement, must be considered as a
common possession, acquired before the separation; and from this we can
discover at what stage of life the nation from which these languages
derive their origin stood at the time when it was not yet divided into
these six great branches, and separated into the nations which
subsequently occupied abodes so extensive and remote from each other. We
find common terms for members of the family, for house, yard, garden,
and citadel; common words for horses, cattle, dogs, swine, sheep, goats,
mice, geese, ducks; common roots for wool, hemp or flax, corn (_i.e._
wheat, spelt, or barley), for ploughing, grinding, and weaving, for
certain metals (copper or iron), for some weapons and tools, for waggon,
boat and rudder, for the elementary numbers, and the division of the
year according to the moon.[1] Hence the stock, whose branches and
shoots have spread over the whole continent of Europe and Asia from
Ceylon to Britain and Scandinavia, cannot, even before the separation,
have been without a certain degree of civilisation. On the contrary,
this common fund of words proves that even in that early time it tilled
the field, and reared cattle; that it could build waggons and boats, and
forge weapons, and if the general name for the gods and some names of
special deities are the same in widely remote branches of this
stock,--in India, Iran, Greece, and Italy, and even on the plains of
Lithuania,--it follows that the notions which lie at the base of these
names must also be counted among the common possessions existing before
the separation.
We can hardly venture a conjecture as to the region in which the fathers
of the Indo-European nations attained to this degree of cultivation. It
must have been of such a nature as to admit of agriculture beside the
breeding of cattle. The varieties of produce mentioned and the domestic
animals point to a northern district, which, however, cannot have
reached down to the ocean, inasmuch as no common roots are in existence
to denote the sea. This proof is strengthened by the fact that in all
the branches the wolf and bear alone among beasts of prey are designated
by common roots. If we combine these considerations with the equal
extension of the tribes of this nation towards east and west, we may
assume that an elevated district in the middle of the eastern continent
was the abode of the nation while yet undivided.
The branches which occupied the table-land of Iran and the valley of the
Indus were the first to rise from the basis acquired in common to a
higher civilisation; and even they did not attain to this till long
after the time when Egypt, under the ancient kingdom of Memphis, found
herself in the possession of a many-sided culture, after Babylon had
become the centre of a different conception of life and development. The
western branches of the Indo-Europeans remained at various stages behind
their eastern fellow-tribesmen in regard to the epochs of their higher
culture. If the Greeks, who were brought into frequent contact with the
civilisation of the Semites, came next in point of time after the
eastern tribes, and the Italians next to the Greeks, it was only through
conflict and contact with the culture of Greece and Rome that the
western branches reached a higher stage, while the dwellers on the
plains of the Baltic owe their cultivation to the influences of Germanic
life. Finally, when the West European branches, the Indo-Germans, had
developed independently their capacities and their nature, when in
different phases they had received and assimilated what had been left
behind by their Greek and Roman kinsmen, and formed it into the
civilisation of the modern world, their distant navigation came into
contact with the ancient civilisation, to which their fellow-tribesmen
in the distant East had finally attained some 2000 years previously.
With wonder and astonishment the long-separated, long-estranged
relatives looked each other in the face. But even now the ancient,
deeply-rooted, and variously-developed civilisation of the eastern
branch maintains its place with tough endurance beside the mobile,
comprehensive, and restlessly-advancing civilisation of the west.
On the southern edge of the great table-land which forms the nucleus of
the districts of Asia, the range of the Himalayas rises in parallel
lines. The range runs from north-west to south-east, with a breadth of
from 200 to 250 miles, and a length of about 1750 miles. It presents the
highest elevations on the surface of the earth. Covered with boundless
fields of snow and extensive glaciers, the sharp edges and points of the
highest ridge rise gleaming into the tropic sky; no sound breaks the
deep silence of this solemn Alpine wild. To the south of these mighty
white towers, in the second range, is a multitude of summits, separated
by rugged ravines. Here also is neither moss nor herb, for this range
also rises above the limits of vegetation. Much lower down, a third
range, of which the average elevation rises to more than 12,000 feet,
displays up to the summits forests of a European kind; in the cool,
fresh air the ridges are clothed with birches, pines, and oaks. Beneath
this girdle of northern growths, on the heights which gradually sink
down from an elevation of 5000 feet, are thick forests of Indian
fig-trees of gigantic size. Under the forest there commences in the west
a hilly region, in the east a marshy district broken by lakes which the
mountain waters leave behind in the depression, and covered with
impenetrable thickets, tall jungles, and rank grass--a district
oppressive and unhealthy, inhabited by herds of elephants, crocodiles,
and large snakes.
The mighty wall of the Himalayas decides the nature and life of the
extensive land which lies before it to the south in the same way as the
peninsula of Italy lies before the European Alps. It protects hill and
plain from the raw winds which blow from the north over the table-land
of Central Asia; it checks the rain-clouds, the collected moisture of
the ocean brought up by the trade winds from the South Sea. These clouds
are compelled to pour their water into the plains at the foot of the
Himalayas, and change the glow of the sun into coolness, the parched
vegetation into fresh green. Owing to their extraordinary elevation, the
mountain masses of the Himalayas, in spite of their southern situation,
preserve such enormous fields of ice and snow that they are able to
discharge into the plains the mightiest rivers in the world. From the
central block flow the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, _i.e._
the son of Brahma.
Springing from fields of snow, which surround Alpine lakes, the Indus
descends from an elevated mountain plain to the south of the highest
ridge. At first the river flows in a westerly direction through a cleft
between parallel rows of mountains. In spite of the long and severe
winter of this region, mountain sheep and goats flourish here, and the
sandy soil contains gold-dust. To the south of the course of the river
we find depressions in the mountains, where the climate is happily
tempered by the nature of the sky and the elevation of the soil. The
largest of these is the valley of Cashmere, surrounded by an oval of
snowy mountains. To the west of Cashmere the Indus turns its course
suddenly to the south; it breaks through the mountain ranges which bar
its way, and from this point to the mouth accompanies the eastern slope
of the table-land of Iran. As soon as the Himalayas are left behind, a
hilly land commences on the left bank, of moderate warmth and fruitful
vegetation, spreading out far to the east between the tributaries of the
stream. The river now receives the Panjab, and the valley is narrowed in
the west by the closer approach of the mountains of Iran; in the east by
a wide, waterless steppe, descending from the spurs of the Himalayas to
the sea, which affords nothing beyond a scanty maintenance for herds of
buffaloes, asses, and camels. The heat becomes greater as the land
becomes flatter, and the river more southerly in its course; in the dry
months the earth cracks and vegetation is at a standstill. Any overflow
from the river, which might give it new vigour, on the melting of the
snow in the upper mountains, is prevented for long distances by the
elevation of the banks. The Delta formed by the Indus at its mouth,
after a course of 1500 miles, contains only a few islands of good marsh
soil. The sea comes up over the flat shore for a long distance, and
higher up the arms of the river a thick growth of reeds and rushes
hinders cultivation, while the want of fresh water makes a numerous
population impossible.
Not far from the sources of the Indus, at the very nucleus of the
highest summits of the Himalayas, rise the Yamuna (Jumna) and the
Ganges. The Ganges flows out of fields of snow beneath unsurmountable
summits of more than 20,000 feet in height, and breaking through the
mountains to the south reaches the plains; here the course of the river
is turned to the east by the broad and thickly-wooded girdle of the
Vindhyas, the mountain range which rises to the south of the plains.
Enlarged by a number of tributaries from north and south, it pours from
year to year copious inundations over the low banks, and thus creates
for the plains through which it flows a fruitful soil where tropic
vegetation can flourish in the most luxuriant wildness. This is the land
of rice, of cotton, of sugar-canes, of the blue lotus, the edible
banana, the gigantic fig-tree. On the lower course of the river, where
it approaches the Brahmaputra, which also at first flows between the
parallel ranges of the Himalayas towards the east, in the same way as
the Indus flows to the west, there commences a hot, moist, and luxuriant
plain (Bengal) of enervating climate, covered with coco and arica palms,
with the tendrils of the betel, and the stalks of the cinnamon, with
endless creepers overgrowing the trunks of the trees, and ascending even
to their topmost branches. Here the river is so broad that the eye can
no longer reach from one bank to the other. In the region at the mouth,
where the Ganges unites with the Brahmaputra, and then splits into many
arms, the numerous waters create hot marshes; and here the vegetation is
so abundant, the jungles of bamboo so thick and impenetrable, that they
are abandoned to the rhinoceros, the elephant, and the tiger, whose
proper home is in these wooded morasses.
Into this wide region, which in length, from north to south, exceeds the
distance from Cape Skagen to Cape Spartivento, and in breadth, from east
to west, is about equal to the distance from Bayonne to Odessa, came a
branch of the family, whose common origin has been noticed, and their
civilisation previous to the separation of the members sketched. The
members of this branch called themselves Arya, _i.e._ the noble, or the
ruling. In the oldest existing monuments of their language and poetry
these Aryas are found invoking their gods to grant them room against the
Dasyus,[2] to make a distinction between Arya and Dasyu, to place the
Dasyus on the left hand, to turn away the arms of the Dasyus from the
Aryas, to make the hostile nations of the Dasyus bow down before the
Aryas, to increase the might and glory of the Aryas, to subjugate the
"Black-skins" to them.[3] In the epic poetry of the Indians we find
mention of black inhabitants of Himavat (_i.e._ inhabitants of the snowy
mountains, the Himalayas), and of "black Çudra" beyond the delta of the
Indus. By the same name, Çudra, the Aryas designated the population
which became subject to them in the valley of the Ganges; and when they
advanced from the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges towards the south,
to the coasts of the Deccan, they found there also populations of a
similar kind. Even at the present day the inhabitants of India fall into
two great masses, essentially distinguished from each other by the
formation of their bodies and their language. In the broad and
inaccessible belt of the Vindhya mountains, which separates the
peninsula of the Deccan from the plains of the two rivers, are situated
the tribes of the Gondas, men of a deep-black colour, with thick, long,
and black hair, barbarous manners, and a peculiar language. Closely
allied to these nations are the slim and black Bhillas, of small
stature, who inhabit the western slopes of the Vindhyas to the sea; and
the Kolas, who dwell in the mountainous district of Surashtra (Guzerat),
and to this day form two-thirds of the inhabitants of this district.[4]
On the eastern declivities and spurs of the Vindhyas we find in the
south the Kandas, in the north the Paharias, nations also of a dark
colour and thick long hair. Distinct from these rude savages, less dark
in colour, and exhibiting other modes of life, are the tribes which
possess the coasts of the Deccan, the Carnatas, Tuluwas, and Malabars on
the west, the Tamilas and Telingas on the east. Opposed to all these
tribes are the Aryas, with their light colour and decisively Caucasian
stamp. These once spoke Sanskrit, and are still acquainted with the
language, and to them is due the development of civilisation in these
wide districts.
This juxtaposition of two populations, of which one is in possession of
the best districts in the country, while of the other only fragments
are in existence (combined masses are not found except in the most
inaccessible regions),--the indications supplied by these invocations,
according to which the light-coloured population on the Indus was in
conflict with the "Black-skins,"--the fact that the light-coloured
population, both on the Ganges and the coasts of the Deccan, has always
taken up an exclusive and contemptuous position towards the darker
tribes existing there, justify the conclusion that the whole region from
the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to Cape
Comorin, once belonged to the dark population, and that the Aryas are
immigrants. These immigrants partly drove back the ancient population,
and confined it in hardly accessible mountains or morasses, partly
forced it to submit to their rule and accept their civilisation, partly
allowed it to live among them, as now, in a despicable and subordinate
position. In historical times we can trace this process, by which the
old population was driven back or civilised, on the coasts of the Deccan
and in Ceylon. From the position of the remnant of this population on
the Ganges, and these invocations of the Aryas, which spring from a time
when they were not yet established in the land of the Ganges, we may
conclude that a similar process went on in a severer form on the Indus.
Following the example of the Indians, modern science collects the
languages of these inhabitants of India, who are found under and among
the Aryas, so far as they at present exist, under the names of the
Nishada and Dravida languages.[5] The language of the Brahuis to the
west of the Indus,--they were settled there, or at least retired from
thence, at the time of the immigration of the Aryas,--the Canaresian,
the Malayalam, the language of the Tamilas, of the Telingas, the Badaga
of the inhabitants of the Nilgiri, on the southern apex of the Deccan,
are closely related, but to which of the great stems of language they
are to be apportioned is not determined.[6]
The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They
stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of
Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call
themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya,
and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest
connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in
very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and
Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of
the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous
character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths,
sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is
not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover,
the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the
region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here, in the west, the Aryas had
their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently
mention the Indus, but not the Ganges.[7] Even the name by which the
Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha
(Deccan), _i.e._ path to the right[8], confirms the fact already
established, that the Aryas came from the west.
From this it is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the
heights of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five
tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from the
north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures and arable
land, _i.e._ as far eastward as the desert which separates the valley of
the Indus from the Ganges. The river which irrigated their land, watered
their pastures, and shaped the course of their lives they called Sindhu
(in Pliny, Sindus), _i.e._ the river[9]. It is, no doubt, the region of
the Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the land
_hapta hindu_ (_hendu_), i.e. the seven streams. The inscriptions of
Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus. These names the Greeks
render by Indos and Indoi.
Can we fix the time at which the Aryas immigrated into India and
occupied the valley of the Indus? As we proceed it will become clear
that it was not till a late period that the nation began to record the
names of the kings of their states, that they never wrote down in a
satisfactory matter their legends and the facts of their history, and
that we cannot find among them any trustworthy chronology. Even with the
assistance of the statements of western writers, we can only go back
with any certainty to the year 800 B.C. for the dynasties of the kingdom
of Magadha, the most important kingdom in ancient times on the Ganges.
But if at this period the Aryas held sway not on the upper Ganges only,
but also on the lower, they must have been already settled on the Indus
for centuries. If the narratives already given of the foundation of the
Assyrian kingdom and the war of Semiramis on the Indus (II. 9 ff) were
historical, the Aryas must have been settled in that country even at
this date, _i.e._ about 1500 B.C. They must have lived there under a
monarchy which could place great forces in the field, and they must have
been already acquainted with the use of elephants in war. Stabrobates,
the name of the king of the Indians who met Semiramis and repulsed her,
would become Çtaorapati, _i.e._ lord of oxen, in the language of the
Aryas. But after what has been previously said (II. 19 ff), we can only
allow this narrative to have a value for the conceptions existing in
Persian epic poetry about the foundation of the empire of Assyria, and
the campaigns of Assyrian rulers to the distant East. In their
statements about India we can only, at most, expect to find a repetition
of the information existing about that country in the western half of
Iran in the seventh or sixth century, and even this takes a form
corresponding to the views expressed in the poems. In the monuments of
the kings of Assyria we found the elephant and the rhinoceros among the
tribute offered to Shalmanesar II., who reigned from 859-823 B.C. (II.
320); the inscriptions of Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.) pointed to
campaigns of this king extending as far as Bactria (II. 328); we were
able to follow the marches of Tiglath Pilesar II. (745-727 B.C.) in the
table-land of Iran as far as Arachosia (III. 4). Hence the Assyrian
tablets do not as yet supply any definite information about the land of
the Indus. Arrian has preserved a notice according to which the
Astacenes and Assacanes, Indian nations on the right bank of the Indus,
between the river and Cophen (Cabul), were once subject to the
Assyrians.[10] The Indian epics extol the horses of the Açvakas, who, in
them also, are an Indian nation, and we may venture to regard them as
the Assacenes of Arrian. Alexander of Macedon found them in that region;
they could place many warriors in the field against him on their high
mountain uplands. But the observation in Arrian, even if we attach
weight to it, does not carry us far in answering the question when the
Aryas came into the valley of the Indus, for it does not make it clear
at what period the Açvakas were subject to the Assyrians. More may be
gained, perhaps, from the Hebrew scriptures. We saw that about 1000 B.C.
Solomon of Israel and Hiram of Tyre caused ships to be built and
equipped at Elath, on the north-east point of the Arabian Gulf. These
ships were to visit the lands of the south, and we saw what wealth they
brought back from Ophir after an absence of three years (II. 188). They
are laden with gold, silver, precious stones, and sandal-wood in
abundance, the like of which was not seen afterwards; peacocks, apes,
and ivory.[11] Now ivory, sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks are the
products of India, and peacocks and sandal-wood belong to that land
exclusively. It is true that they might have been transported to the
south coast of Arabia or the Somali coast of East Africa by the trade of
the Arabians, or even of the Indians (I. 321); but the ships of Solomon
and Hiram would not need to be absent for three years in order to obtain
them there. For our question it is decisive that the names with which
the Hebrews denote apes, peacocks, and sandal-wood, _kophim_, _tukijim_,
_almugim_, are Sanskrit (_kapi_, _çikhi_, _valgu_), and from this it
follows that the Aryas must have been in possession, at any rate, of
the land of the Indus and the coast of that region as early as 1000 B.C.
The book of the law of the Aryas mentions a nation Abhira. According to
the Aryan epics this nation possessed cows, goats, sheep, and camels.
Ptolemy places a land Abiria at the mouth of the Indus, and to this day
a tribe of the name of Ahir possesses the coast of the peninsula of
Cashtha (Kattywar).[12] These Abhiras may therefore have been meant by
the Ophir of the Hebrews. It is true that the genealogical table in
Genesis puts Ophir among the tribes which are said to spring from
Joktan, but no doubt it includes under the name of Joktan all the
nations of the south-east known to the Hebrews. If the ships of Hiram
brought back gold in abundance from their voyages to the mouth of the
Indus, this can only have been conveyed to the lower Indus, where there
is no gold, from the upper Indus, which is rich in gold, and from other
upland valleys in the Himalayas, where the mountain streams carry down
this metal. Hence about the year 1000 B.C. there must have been a lively
trade between the upper and lower Indus. Further, if the Phenicians and
Hebrews purchased sandal-wood among the Abhiras, this can only have been
transported to the mouth of the Indus by sea, and the coast navigation,
which is rendered easy in the Indian Sea by the regular occurrence of
the monsoons, for sandal-wood nowhere flourishes except in the glowing
sun of the Malabar coast. Whatever may have been the case with this
trade, products of India, and among them such as do not belong to the
land of the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B.C., under
names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must have been
settled there for centuries previously. For this reason, and it is
confirmed by facts which will appear further on, we may assume that the
Aryas descended into the valley of the Indus about the year 2000 B.C.,
_i.e._ about the time when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the
valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the
dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by the Hyksos.
We have no further accounts from the West about the Aryas till the year
500 B.C., and later. It is not improbable that the arms of Cyrus reached
the Indus. The Astacenes and Assacanes are said to have been subject to
the Medes after the Assyrians; then Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, imposed
tribute upon them.[13] As Cyrus subjugated Bactria, fought in Arachosia,
and marched through Gedrosia, we may assume that he compelled the
nations of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus to pay tribute. It
was in conflict with the Derbiccians, to whom the Indians sent elephants
as auxiliaries, that Cyrus, according to the account of Ctesias, was
slain. Darius, as Herodotus tells us, sent messengers to explore the
land of the Indus. Setting out from Arachosia, they proceeded from
Caspapyrus (Kaçpapura), a city which, according to Hecatæus, belonged to
the Gandarii[14]--_i.e._ without doubt from Kabura (Cabul) down the
Indus to the sea. According to Herodotus' account the Gandarii, together
with the Arachoti and Sattagydæ, paid 170 talents of gold yearly; the
rest of the Indians paid a larger tribute than any other satrapy--360
talents of gold.[15] The Indians who paid this tribute were, according
to Herodotus, the most northerly and the most warlike of this great
nation. They dwelt near the city of Caspapyrus, _i.e._ near Cabul; their
mode of life was like that of the Bactrians, and they obtained the gold
from a sandy desert, where ants, smaller than dogs, but larger than
foxes, dug up the gold-dust.[16] Darius tells us himself, in the
inscriptions of Persepolis, that the Gandarii and the Indians were
subject to him. Like Herodotus, these inscriptions comprise the tribes
of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus as far down as Cabul under
the name of Indians, so that the Açvakas were included among them. The
Gandarii, as is shown by their vicinity to and connection with the
Arachoti, lay to the south of Cabul. In the epos of the Indians the
daughter of the king of the Gandharas is married to the king of the
Bharatas, who lie between the Yamuna and the Ganges, and the Buddhist
writings speak of the Brahmans of the Gandarii as the worst in
India.[17] In the campaign of Xerxes, Herodotus separates the Gandarii
from the rest of the Indians who are subject to the Persian kingdom. The
first, he says, were armed like the Bactrians; with the rest marched the
Ethiopians of the East, equipped almost like the Indians; but on their
heads they had the skins of horses' heads, with the ears and mane erect,
and their shields were made from the skins of cranes. These Ethiopians
of the East were not distinguished from the others in form and
character, but by their language and hair. The Libyan Ethiopians, _i.e._
the negroes, had the curliest hair of all men; but the hair of the
Eastern branch was straight.[18] We have already observed that now, as
in the days of Xerxes, remains of the dark-coloured pre-Aryan population
of India are found on the right bank of the Indus (p. 10).
Of the Indians "who never obeyed Darius,"[19] Herodotus tells us that
they lived the furthest to the east of all the nations about which
anything definite was known. Still further in that direction were sandy
deserts. The Indians were the largest of all nations, and the Indus was
the only river beside the Nile in which crocodiles are found (they are
alligators).[20] The remotest parts of the earth have always the best
products, and India, the remotest inhabited land to the east, was no
exception. The birds and the quadrupeds were far greater in size here
than elsewhere, with the exception of the horse; for the Nisæan horses
of the Medes were larger than the horses of the Indians. Moreover, India
possessed an extraordinary abundance of gold, of which some was dug up
from mines, and some brought down by the rivers, and some obtained from
the deserts. The wild trees also produced a wool which in beauty and
excellence surpassed the wool of sheep; this the Indians used for
clothing. There were many nations of the Indians, and they spoke
different languages. Some were stationary; some dwelt in the marshes of
the rivers, and lived on raw fish, which they caught in canoes made of
reeds, and every joint of the reed made a canoe. These Indians wore
garments of bark, which they wove like cloths, and then drew on like
coats of mail. Eastward of these dwelt the Padæans, a migratory tribe,
who ate raw flesh; and when any one, even the nearest relative, among
them was sick, they slew him, in order to eat the corpse. This custom
was also observed by the women. Even the few who attained to old age
they killed, in order to eat them. Other Indian nations lived only on
herbs, which they ate cooked, and troubled themselves neither about
their sick nor their dead, whom they carried out, like the sick, into
desert places. All the nations spoken of were black in colour.[21]
These, the oldest accounts from the West on the ancient pre-Aryan
population of India, and on the black-skins of the Rigveda, we owe to
Herodotus. His statements about their physical formation are correct;
those on their savage life may be exaggerated; but even to this day a
part of these nations live in the marshes and mountains in a condition
hardly removed from that of animals.
The contrast between the light-coloured and dark population of India,
between the Aryas and the ancient inhabitants, did not escape Ctesias.
India, he maintained, was as large as the rest of Asia, and the
inhabitants of India almost as numerous as all the other nations put
together. The Indians were both white and black. He had himself seen
white Indians, five men and two women. The sun in India appeared ten
times as large as in other lands, and the heat was suffocating. The
Indus was a great river flowing through mountains and plains; in the
narrowest places the water occupied a space of 40 stades, or five miles,
in the broadest it reached 100 stades.[22] The river watered the land.
In India it did not rain, and there were no storms there, though there
were violent whirlwinds which carried everything before them.[23] On the
Indus grew reeds small and great; the stoutest reeds could not be
spanned by two men, and the height of the largest was equal to the mast
of a ship.[24] The fruit of the palms also in India was three times as
large as in Babylonia, and the sheep and goats there were equal in size
to asses elsewhere, and had such enormous tails that they had to be cut
off to enable them to walk. Ctesias goes on to describe the large cocks
of India, with their beautiful combs, and broad tails of gold,
dark-blue, and emerald; the peacocks, the many-coloured birds with red
faces, dark-blue necks, and black beards, which had a human tongue, and
could speak Indian, and would speak Greek if they were taught; the
little apes with tails four cubits long.[25] He was the first to
describe the elephant to the Greeks.[26] He had seen these animals, and
had been present in Babylon when the elephants of the Persian king had
torn up palm trees with their roots out of the ground. These animals
could even throw down the walls of cities. In war the king of India was
preceded by 100,000 elephants, and 3000 of the strongest and bravest
followed him.[27]
After the army of Alexander of Macedon had encamped in the Panjab, the
Greeks could give more accurate accounts of India. Megasthenes assures
us that India reached in breadth, from west to east, an extent of from
15,000 to 16,000 stades (1940 to 2000 miles), while the length, from
north to south, was 22,000 stades (2750 miles);[28] and in these
distances he is not very greatly in error, for, measured in a direct
line, the breadth is 13,600 stades (1720 miles), and the length 16,400
stades (2050 miles). To the north India was bounded by lofty mountains,
which the Greeks called Caucasus, and the Indians Paropamisos
(Paropanishadha[29]), and Emodos, or Imaos. Emodos, like Imaos,
is the Greek form of the old Indian name for the Himalayas, Haimavata
(Himavat).[30] In India there were many great mountains, but
still greater plains; and even the mountains were covered with
fruit-trees, and contained in their bowels precious stones of various
kinds--crystals, carbuncles, and others. Gold also and silver, metals
and salt, could be obtained from the mines,[31] and the rivers carried
down gold from the mountains.[32] The streams of India were the largest
and the most numerous in the world. The Indus was larger than the Nile,
and all the rivers of Asia; the Ganges, which took an easterly direction
on reaching the plains, was a great river even at its source, and
reached a width of 100 stades, or 12-1/2 miles. In many places it formed
lakes, so that one bank could not be seen from the other, and its depth
reached 20 fathoms.[33] The first statement is exaggerated, the second
is correct for the lower course of the river. The Indus, according to
Megasthenes, had 15 navigable affluents, and the Ganges 19, the names of
which he could enumerate.[34] In all there were 58 navigable rivers in
India.
This abundance of streams in India the Greeks explained by the fact that
the lands which surrounded the country--Ariana, as the Greeks call
eastern Iran, Bactria, and the land of the Scythians--were higher than
India, so that the waters from them flowed down, and were collected
there.[35] The water was also the cause of the great fertility of India,
which the Greeks unite in extolling. The rivers not only brought down,
as Nearchus observes, soft and good earth into the land from the
hills,[36] but they traversed it in such a manner that, from the
universal irrigation, it was turned into a fruit garden.[37] Onesicritus
tells us that India is better irrigated by its rivers than Egypt by its
canals. The Nile flows straight on through a long and narrow land, and
so is continually passing into a different climate and different air,
while the Indian rivers flow through much larger and broader plains, and
continue long in the same region. Hence they are more nourishing than
the Nile, and the fish are larger than the fish in the Nile;[38] they
also refresh the land better by their moist exhalations.[39] Besides,
there were the inundations caused by the rivers; and the land was also
watered by the heavy rains, which fell constantly each year at a fixed
period with the regular winds, so that the rivers rose fully 20 cubits
above their beds,--a statement quite accurate,--and in many places the
plains were changed into marshes,[40] in consequence of which the Indus
had sometimes taken a new channel through them.[41] Since, then, the
warmth of the sun was the same in India as in Arabia and Ethiopia,--for
India lay far to the south, and in the most southern parts of the land
the constellation of the Bear was seen no longer, and the shadows fell
in the other direction, i.e. to the south,--[42]while in India there was
more water and a moister atmosphere than in those other countries, the
creatures of the water, air, and land were much larger and stronger in
India than anywhere else.[43] Further, as the water in the river and
that which fell from heaven was tempered by the sun's heat, the growth
of the roots and plants was extraordinarily vigorous. The strength of
the tiger, which, according to Megasthenes, is twice the size of the
lion, the docility of the elephant, the splendour of the birds, were the
admiration of the Greeks. With horror they saw the whale for the first
time in the Indian waters. Nearchus caused his ship to be rowed forward
at double speed to contend with this peaceful monster of the deep.
According to the statement of Megasthenes--which for the land of the
Ganges is quite correct--there are two harvests in India. For the winter
sowing rice and barley were used, and other kinds of fruit unknown to
the Greeks; for the summer sowing, sesame, rice, and bosmoron; while
during the rainy season flax and millet were planted, so that in India
want and famine were unknown.[44] Equally luxuriant in growth were the
herbs and reeds. There was a reed there which produced honey without
bees (the sugar-cane); and in Southern India cinnamon, nard, and the
rest of the spices grew as well as in Arabia and Ethiopia.[45] The
Greeks did not know that the cinnamon is a native of India only, and
that the bark came to them from that country, though it came through
Arabia. The marshes of India were filled with roots, wholesome or
deadly; the trees there grew to a larger size than elsewhere; some were
so tall that an arrow could not be shot over them, and the leaves were
as large as shields. There were other trees there of which the trunks
could not be spanned by five men, and the branches, as though bent, grew
downwards till they touched the earth, and then, springing up anew,
formed fresh trunks, to send out other arches, so that from one tree
was formed a grove, not unlike a tent supported by many poles. Fifty or
even 400 horsemen could take their mid-day rest under such a tree.
Nearchus even goes so far as to say that there were trees of this kind
under which there was room for 10,000 men.[46] There were also trees in
India which produced intoxicating fruits. This description of the Indian
fig tree and the statements about the shelter its branches afford are
not exaggerated. By intoxicating fruits the coco and fan-palms are, no
doubt, meant, from which palm-wine is made.[47]
The northern, _i.e._ the light-coloured, Indians, or Aryas, are said by
the Greeks of this period to have most closely resembled the Egyptians
in the colour of their skin and their shape. They were light, delicate,
and slim of body, and not so heavy as other nations. They were free from
diseases, for their climate was healthy, and their land possessed good
air, pure water, and wholesome fruits. The southern Indians, _i.e._ the
non-Aryan population, who were at that time far less broken up in the
Deccan by Aryan and other settlers than now, and must therefore have
existed in far greater masses, were not quite so black as the Ethiopians
(the negroes), and had not, like them, a snub nose and woolly hair.
Strabo was of opinion that their colour was not so black owing to the
moist air of India, which also caused the hair of the inhabitants to be
straight.[48] Of the 200 millions, at which the population of India is
now estimated, more then 150 millions either spring from the Aryas or
have adopted their civilisation. The number of the dark-coloured races,
dwelling in the mountains and broad marshes, who have remained free from
the dominion of the Aryas, the Mohammedans, and the English, and are,
therefore, strangers to their civilisation, is estimated at 12
millions.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Whitney, "Language," p. 327; Benfey, "Geschichte der
Sprachwissenchaft," s. 598.
[2] "Rigveda," 1, 59, 2; 7, 5, 6; 10, 69, 6. Cf. Manu, 10, 45. That in
the Rigveda the Dasyus are always enemies, and even evil spirits, is
beyond a doubt, and cannot excite any wonder when we remember how the
Indians confound the natural and supernatural; Muir, "Sanskrit Texts,"
2^2, 358 ff. On the original meaning of the word Dasyu, and its
signification in the Mahabharata, cf. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 633.
[3] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 110, 113.
[4] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 440.
[5] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 461.
[6] According to Whitney ("Language," p. 327), the language of the Kolas
and Santals is quite distinct from the Dravidian languages. Lassen's
view on the relation of the Vindhya tribes to the Dravida and the
Nishada is given, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 456.
[7] The Ganges (Ganga) is mentioned only twice in the Rigveda, and then
without any emphasis or epithet; "Rigveda," 10, 75, 5; 64, 9. This book
is of later origin; Roth, "Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda," s.
127, 136, 137, 139.
[8] This name, it is true, may also have arisen from the fact that the
Indians turned to the east when praying.
[9] The root _syand_ means "to flow."
[10] Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3; "Anab." 4, 25.
[11] 1 Kings ix. 26-28; x. 11, 12, 22.
[12] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 651 ff.; 2^2, 595 ff.
[13] Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3.
[14] Steph. _sub. voc._
[15] Herod. 3, 94, 105; 4, 44.
[16] Herod. 3, 102 ff.
[17] "Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 47.
[18] Herod. 7, 66, 70.
[19] Herod. 3, 101.
[20] Herod. 3, 94; 4, 44.
[21] Herod. 3, 96, 98 ff.
[22] Ctes. "Ecl." 1.
[23] "Ecl." 1, 8.
[24] "Ecl." 6.
[25] Ctes. "Ecl." 3; Aelian, 16, 2.
[26] Herodotus only makes a passing mention of the elephant in Libya, 4,
191.
[27] Ælian 17, 29. Arrian also ("Anab." 4, 14) maintains that the Indus
is 100 stades in breadth, and even broader; Megasthenes also relates
that the elephants tore down walls, and that the bamboo was a fathom in
thickness. Strabo, p. 711. That Ctesias followed Persian-Bactrian
accounts is clear from the fact that the scene of all his history is the
north-west of India. He knows that India is a civilised land, though he
also believes that it obeys only one king; he knows the veneration of
the Indians for their kings, their contempt of death, and some products
of Indian industry. The fabulous stories of the Pygmæans, Dog-heads,
Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet, and Macrobii he did not invent, but copied.
Similar marvels of men with dogs' heads, and without a head, and of
unicorns, are narrated by Herodotus, only he ascribes these stories to
the western Ethiopians, not to the eastern (4, 191). Homer had already
sung of the Pygmæans ("Il." 3, 6). Hecatæus had spoken of the
Shovel-eared and Shadow-feet (fragm. 265, 266, ed. Klausen), and also
Aristophanes ("Aves," 1553). Of the griffins, the one-eyed Arimaspians,
the long-lived, happy Hyperboreans, Aristeas of Proconnesus had told and
Æschylus had sung long before Ctesias (above, III. 232). Megasthenes
repeats the legends of the Pygmæans, Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet,
Dog-heads, and adds accounts of men without mouths, and other marvels.
Ctesias, therefore, had predecessors as well as followers in these
stories. The fantastic world with which the Indians surrounded
themselves, the nicknames and strange peculiarities which they ascribed
to some of the old population and to distant nations, reached the
Persians, and through them the Greeks. "Kirata" of small stature in the
Eastern Himalayas, against which Vishnu's bird fights, Çunamukhas
(Dog-heads), "brow-eyed" cannibals, "one-footed" men, who bring as
tribute very swift horses, occur in the Indian epics, and in other
writings. On the divine mountain Meru, according to the Indians, dwell
the Uttara Kuru, _i.e._ the northern Kurus, who live for 10,000 years,
among whom is no heat, where the streams flow in golden beds, and roll
down pearls and precious stones instead of gravel. Lassen, "Ind.
Alterth." 1, 511; 2, 653, 693 ff.; Muir, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 324 ff.
According to the cosmology of the Buddhists, whose Sutras also knew
these Uttara Kuru, Mount Meru is the centre of the world. To the south
of Meru is Yambudvipa, to the north the region of the Uttara Kuru, who
live for 1000 years, while the inhabitants of Yambudvipa only live for
100 years. Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 177;
Koppen, "Buddh." p. 233. Ptolemy, obviously following Indian sources,
puts the [Greek: Ottora Korra] to the north of the Imaus, beyond the
highest range, which with the Indians is a spur of the divine mountain
Meru. This land and nation is obviously the garden of Yima and his
elect, whom the myth of Iran places on the divine hill. These are the
long-lived Hyperboreans of the Greeks, who dwell in the remote north
beyond the Rhipaean mountains--one of the old common myths of the Aryan
and Greek branch of the Indo-Germanic stock.
[28] Megasthenes and Eratosthenes in Strabo, pp. 689, 690; Arrian,
"Ind." 3, 8.
[29] Lassen explains Paropamisus as Paropa-nishadha, "lower mountain,"
in opposition to Nishadha, "high mountain," by which the high ridge of
the Hindu Kush is meant, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 27, _n._ 4.
[30] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 2^2, 324, 328.
[31] Strabo, pp. 690, 691.
[32] Diod. 2, 35; Strabo, pp. 700, 717.
[33] Megasthenes in Strabo, pp. 690, 702; cf. Arrian, "Ind." 4. Diodorus
allows the upper Ganges a breadth of 30 stades, at Palibothra a breadth
of 32 stades--2, 37; 17, 93.
[34] Arrian, "Ind." 4.
[35] Diod. 2, 37.
[36] Strabo, p. 691.
[37] Diod. 2, 37.
[38] Strabo, p. 695.
[39] Diod. 2, 37.
[40] Strabo, pp. 690, 691.
[41] Aristobulus in Strabo, pp. 692, 693; cf. Curtius, 8, 30, ed.
Mützell.
[42] These statements, which are quite correct, are found in Megasthenes
in Strabo, p. 76; Diod. 2, 35.
[43] Strabo, p. 695; Diod. 2, 35.
[44] Strabo, pp. 690, 693.
[45] Strabo, p. 695.
[46] Strabo, p. 694; Arrian, "Ind." 11.
[47] Strabo, pp. 692, 693. Arrian ("Ind." 7) mentions the Sanskrit name
of the umbrella palm, _tala_, and tells us that the shoots were eaten,
which is also correct.
[48] Arrian, "Ind." 6, 17; Strabo, pp. 96, 690, 696, 701, 706, 709.
CHAPTER II.
THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS.
We have already examined the earliest date at which the kings who
reigned in antiquity in the lower valley of Nile attempted to bring
their actions into everlasting remembrance by pictures and writing. The
oldest inscription preserved there dates from the period immediately
preceding the erection of the great pyramids. The same impulse swayed
the rulers of Babylon and Asshur, of whom we possess monuments reaching
beyond the year 2000 B.C. The Hebrews also began at a very early time to
record the fortunes of their progenitors and their nation. With the
Indians the reverse is the case. Here neither prince nor people show the
least interest in preserving the memory of their actions or fortunes. No
other nation has been so late in recording their traditions, and has
been content to leave them in so fragmentary a condition. For this
reason, fancy is in India more lively, the treasures of poetry are more
rich and inexhaustible. Thus it becomes the object of our investigation,
from the remains of this poetry, and the wrecks of literature, to
ascertain and reconstruct, as far as possible, the history of the
Indians. From the first the want of fixed tradition precludes the
attempt to establish in detail the course of the history of the Aryan
states and their rulers. Our attempts are essentially limited to the
discovery of the stages in the advance of the power of the Aryas in the
regions where they first set foot, to the deciphering of the successive
steps through which their religious views and intellectual culture were
developed. And when we have thus exhumed the buried history of the
Indians, we are assisted in determining its periods by the contact of
the Indians with their western neighbours, the Persian kingdom, and the
Greeks, and by the accounts of western writers on these events.
The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas, whose immigration into the
region of the Indus and settlement there we have been able to fix about
2000 _B.C._, is given in a collection of prayers and hymns of praise,
the Rigveda, _i.e._ "the knowledge of thanksgiving." It is a selection
or collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the priestly
families, of hymns and prayers arising in these families, and sung and
preserved by them. In the ten books which make up this collection, the
poems of the first book are ascribed to minstrels of various families;
in some the minstrel is even named. "This song was made by Dirghatamas,
of the race of Angiras;" "this new hymn was composed by Nodhas, a
descendant of Gautama." Of the other books, each is ascribed to a single
family of priests--to the Gritsamadas, Viçvamitras, Vamadevas, Atris,
Bharadvajas, Vasishthas, and Kanvas. The tenth book contains isolated
pieces which found no place in the earlier books; several of these
pieces bear the stamp of a later origin, as they exhibit a more
complicated ritual, the operation of various classes of priests, and
reflections of an abstract character.[49]
We see, then, that from ancient times there were among the Aryas
families in possession of effectual invocations of the gods, who knew
how to pronounce and sing the prayers at sacrifice, and offer the
sacrifice in due form. We may gather further from the Rigveda that these
families were distinguished by special symbols. The family of Vasishtha
had a coil or knot of hair on the right side,[50] the family of Atri had
three knots, the family of Angiras five locks, while the Bhrigus shaved
their hair.[51] Sung for centuries in these families, in these circles
of minstrels and priests, these poems were thus revised and preserved,
until at length out of the possessions of these schools arose the
collection which we have in the Rigveda. We find frequent mention in the
poems of the invocations of ancient time, of the prayers of the fathers,
and hence what is in itself probable becomes certain--that we have
united in the Rigveda poems of various dates, and invocations divided in
their origin by centuries.
Though the minstrels of the poems of the Rigveda could look back on a
distant past, though they could distinguish the sages of the ancient,
the earlier time, and the present, and the men of old from those of the
later and most recent times,[52] there is yet nothing in these poems to
point to an earlier home, to older habitations, or previous fortunes of
the nation, unless, indeed, we ought to find an indication of life in a
more northern region in the fact that the older poems in the collection
count by winters, and the later by autumns.[53] In any case there is no
remembrance of earlier abodes, and therefore we must conclude that even
the oldest of these poems had been sung long after the immigration. If
the assumption established above, that the immigration took place soon
after 2000 _B.C._, is approximately probable, the extinction of any
memory of earlier abodes and fortunes will hardly allow us to carry back
the origin of the oldest songs of the Veda beyond the sixteenth century
_B.C._
On the other hand, the hymns of the Veda contain conceptions of the
creation and early ages of the world, the outlines of which, like the
conception of the contrast between the men of the old time and the
present, must have been brought by the Aryas into the land of the Indus
from the common possession of the Aryan tribes. The oldest man, the
father and progenitor of the Aryas, is, in the hymns of the Veda, Manu,
the son of Vivasvat, _i.e._ "the illuminating," the sun. Frequent
mention occurs in these poems of the "father Manu," of "our father
Manu," "the paternal path which Manu trod," "the children of Manu," "the
people of Manu." Manu brought the first offering to the gods of light;
with Atharvan and Dadhyanch he kindled the first sacrificial fire; he
has set Agni to give light to all the people, and to summon the gods,
and prayed to him with Bhrigu and Angiras.[54] Five races of men sprung
from Agni--the Yadus, the Turvaças, Druhyus, Anus, and Purus.[55] Beside
Manu stands Yama (_geminus_), like Manu, the son of Vivasvat. In the
hymns of the Rigveda he is the assembler of the people, the king, the
pattern of just dealing. He "has discovered the path which leads from
the deeps to the heights;" he "has removed the darkness," and "made
smooth the path of the godly." He first discovered the resting-place
from which no one drives out those who are there. From the depth of the
earth he first ascended to the heights of heaven; he has had experience
of death, he has entered into heaven, and there gathered round him all
the godly and brave. "He went before us, and found for us a
dwelling-place on a plain, which no one takes from us, whither the
fathers of old time have gone; thither his path guides every child of
earth."[56]
Manu and Yama are not unknown to the mythology of the nations of Iran.
With the Iranians Yama is Yima; his father, according to the laws of the
Bactrian, the language of East Iran, is not Vivasvat, but Vivanghat. The
meaning is of course the same. According to the myths of Iran, Yima is
the sovereign who first established the _cultus_ of fire, and first
tilled the field with the plough. In his reign of 1000 years there was
neither heat nor cold, hunger nor thirst, age nor sickness, hate nor
strife. And when this golden age came to an end, Yima continued to live
an equally happy life in his garden on the mountain of the gods (_i.e._
in heaven), where the sun, moon, and stars shone together, where there
was neither night nor darkness, in everlasting light with the elect. In
the Rigveda the sacrificers of old time, who kindled the fire with Manu,
and offered the first sacrifice,--Angiras, Bhrigu, Atharvan, and their
families,--are half divine creatures, though not quite on an equal with
Manu and Yama. They were ranged with the spirits of light, and shone
like them, though with less brilliancy.[57] In the faith of the Aryas
the good and pious deed confers supernatural power; it makes the body
light, and therefore like the body of the gods. The myths of Iran also
praise certain heroes and sages of old time, who sacrificed first after
Yima.
We can ascertain with exactness the region in which the greater number
of these poems grew up. The Indus is especially the object of praise;
the "seven rivers" are mentioned as the dwelling-place of the Aryas.
This aggregate of seven is made up of the Indus itself and the five
streams which unite and flow into it from the east--the Vitasta, Asikni,
Iravati, Vipaça, Çatadru. The seventh river is the Sarasvati, which is
expressly named "the seven-sistered." The land of the seven rivers is,
as has already been remarked, known to the Iranians. The "_Sapta
sindhava_" of the Rigveda are, no doubt, the _hapta hendu_ of the
Avesta, and in the form Harahvaiti, the Arachotus of the Greeks, we
again find the Sarasvati in the east of the table-land of Iran. As the
Yamuna and the Ganges are only mentioned in passing (p. 11), and the
Vindhya mountains and Narmadas are not mentioned at all, the conclusion
is certain that, at the time when the songs of the Aryas were composed,
the nation was confined to the land of the Panjab, though they may have
already begun to move eastward beyond the valley of the Sarasvati.[58]
We gather from the songs of the Rigveda that the Aryas on the Indus were
not one civic community. They were governed by a number of princes
(_raja_). Some of these ruled on the bank of the Indus, others in the
neighbourhood of the Sarasvati.[59] They sometimes combined; they also
fought not against the Dasyus only, but against each other. They ruled
over villages (_grama_), and fortified walled places (_pura_), of which
overseers are mentioned (_gramani_, _purpati_).[60] We find minstrels
and priests in their retinue. "Glorious songs of praise," says one of
them, "did I frame by my skill for Svanaya, the son of Bavya, who dwells
on the Indus, the unconquerable prince." Other poems in the Veda tell us
that the princes make presents to the minstrels and priests of cows,
chariots, robes, slave-women, and bars of gold. Whatever we may have to
deduct from these statements on the score of poetical exaggeration, they
still show that the court and possessions of the princes cannot have
been utterly insignificant. The descriptions of the ornaments and
weapons of the gods in the Rigveda are without a doubt merely enlarged
copies of the style and habit of the princes. The gods travel in golden
coats of mail, on splendid chariots, yoked with horses; they have
palaces with a thousand pillars and a thousand gates; they linger among
the lights of the sky, like a king among his wives.[61] From these
pictures, by reducing the scale, we may represent to ourselves the life
and customs of the princes in the land of the Indus.
From the numerous invocations for victory and booty, it follows that the
life of the Aryas in the Panjab was disturbed by wars, that raids and
feuds must have been frequent. War-chariots, and infantry,
standard-bearers, bows, spears, swords, axes, and trumpets are
mentioned.[62] We learn that those who fought in chariots were superior
to the foot-soldiers. "There appears like the lustre of a cloud when
the mailed warrior stalks into the heart of the combat. Conquer with an
unscathed body; let the might of thine armour protect thee. With the bow
may we conquer cattle; with the bow may we conquer in the struggle for
the mastery, and in the sharp conflicts. The bow frustrates the desire
of our enemy; with the bow may we conquer all the regions round. The
bow-string approaches close to the bowman's ear, as if to speak to or
embrace a dear friend; strung upon the bow, it twangs like the scream of
a woman, and carries the warrior safely through the battle. Standing on
the chariot, the skilful charioteer directs the horses whithersoever he
wills. Laud the power of the reins, which far behind control the impulse
of the horses. The strong-hoofed steeds, rushing on with the chariots,
utter shrill neighings; trampling the foe with their hoofs, they crush
them, never receding." Again and again are the gods invoked that the
bow-strings of the enemy may be snapped.[63]
The poems of the Veda distinguish the rich from the poor. The
cultivation of the land is practised and recommended. Corn (_dhana_),
barley, beans, and sesame were sown, but the rice of the Ganges valley
is unknown. Channels also are mentioned for leading water on the land.
Healing herbs are not unknown to the poems, nor the person who is
skilled in applying them, the physician. We find in them the desire for
health and a long life,[64] blessed with abundance, with sons and
daughters. Beautiful garments, precious stones, adorned women with four
knots of hair, dancers, wine-houses, and dice are repeatedly mentioned.
Weaving and leather-work are known, and also the crafts of the smith,
the carpenter, the wheelwright, and the shipbuilder.[65]
Among the Aryas of those days more attention must have been given to the
breeding of cattle than to the cultivation of the field. A great number
of similes and metaphors in the hymns of the Veda show that the Aryas
must have lived long with their flocks, and that they stood to them in
relations of the closest familiarity. The daughter is the milkmaid
(_duhitar_), the consort of the prince is even in later poems the
buffalo-cow (_mahishî_), the prince is at times the cow-herd, or
protector of cows (_gôpa_), the assembly of the tribe and the fold which
encloses the cows are called by the same name (_gôshtha_), and the word
expressing a feud (_gavisshthi_) denotes in the first instance the
desire for cows. Similes are taken especially from cows and horses.
Beside cattle and horses, buffaloes, sheep, and goats are mentioned. The
gods are invoked to protect and feed the cows, to increase the herds, to
make the cows full of milk, and satisfy the horses, to lead the herds to
good pastures, and protect them from misfortune on the way. At the
sacrifices parched corn was sprinkled for the horses of the gods.[66]
In regard to the ethical feeling and attitude of the nation, we learn
from the hymns of the Rigveda that it was filled at that time with a
courageous and warlike spirit, with freshness and enjoyment of life.
Liberality and fidelity were highly praised; theft and plunder held in
contempt; faithlessness and lying severely condemned. The friend of the
gods could look forward to horses, chariots, and cows. Beautiful to look
upon, and filled with vigorous strength, he will shine in the assembly
of the people. There is a lively feeling that the gods feel themselves
injured by untruth and falsehood, by neglect and improper offering of
the sacrifice, and the conscience is awake. The gods are earnestly
entreated to forgive the sins of the fathers, and those committed by the
suppliants, in wine, play, or heedlessness, to soften their anger, and
spare the transgressor from punishment or death. If princes and nobles
did not content themselves with one wife, monogamy was nevertheless the
rule, so far as we can see. The beautiful maiden is accounted happy
because she can choose her husband in the nation. Many a one certainly
would be content with the wealth of him who seeks her.
In the beneficent forces and phenomena of nature, which are friendly and
helpful to men, the religious conceptions of the Aryas see the power of
kindly deities; and in all the influences and phenomena which injure the
prosperity and possessions of men they see the rule of evil deities. To
the Aryas light was joy and life, darkness fear and death; the night and
the gloom filled them with alarm, the light cheered them. With gladsome
hearts they greeted the returning glow of morning, the beams of the sun,
which awaken us to life. The obscuring of the sun by dark clouds raised
the apprehension that the heavenly light might be taken from them. In
the heat of the summer the springs and streams were dried up, the
pastures were withered, the herds suffered from want, and therefore the
more fervent were the thanks of the Aryas to the spirits who poured down
fructifying water from heaven, and caused the springs, streams, and
rivers again to flow full in their banks.
The basis of these views the Aryas brought with them into the valley of
the Indus. Their name for the deity of light--_deva_, from _div_, to
shine--is found among the Greek, Italian, Lettish, and Celtic nations
in the forms [Greek: theoi], _dii_, _diewas_, and _dia_; it recurs in
the Zeus (_dyaus_) of the Greeks, and the Jupiter (_dyauspitar_) of the
Romans. The god of the upper air is with the Aryas Varuna, the Uranos of
the Greeks. And these were not the only ideas possessed by the Aryas
before their immigration. When they had broken off from the original
stem of the Indo-European tribes, they must for a time have lived in
union with another branch of the same stem, which inhabited the
table-land of Iran, and only after a long period of union did they
become a nation, and emigrate to the East. The nucleus of the view of
the nature and action of the gods is identical in the Aryas and the
tribes of Iran to such a degree that it can only have grown up in a
common life. In both it lies in the struggle and opposition in which the
spirits of light stand to the spirits of darkness, the spirits who give
water to the spirits who parch up all things--in the contest of good and
evil gods. It is assistance and protection against the evil spirits, the
boon of light and water, which is sought for in the worship of both
nations. The names of the deities of light, which the Indians and the
Iranians serve, are the same. Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Ushas are invoked
on the Indus and Sarasvati as well as on the Hilmend, in Bactria and
Media. Here, as there, the beneficent morning wind which drives away the
clouds of night is called Vayu; the same drink offerings were offered
under the same names in both nations to the good gods. With the Indians
Atharvan lights the sacrificial fire;[67] among the Iranians the fire
priests are called Athravas. The chief of the evil spirits, against
which the good spirits have to contend, is called Veretra among the
Iranians, and Vritra among the Indians; another evil spirit is called
Azhi (_Aji_) in one nation, Ahi in the other. Such was the development
given to the common inheritance from the parent stock, attained while
the Airyas and Aryas lived together; and after the community was broken
up, and the two nations became separated, those views received a
peculiar shape in each. The point in this special development reached by
the Aryas while yet in the Panjab we know from the poems of the Rigveda.
To the Iranians, as to the Aryas, the brightness of fire was a friendly
spirit which gave light in darkness. To it, among both nations, almost
the first place was allotted. By far the greatest number of invocations
in the Rigveda are addressed to this spirit, Agni (_ignis_). When the
darkness of evening came on, the glowing fire scared the beasts of prey
from the encampment of men and the herds, and so far as the flame shone
it drove back the evil spirits of the night.[68] Then the demons were
seen from a distance hovering round the kindled fire, and the changing
outlines of their forms were seen on the skirts of the darkness. Thus in
the Rigveda, the fire-god is a bringer of light, who overpowers the
night with red hues, who drives away the Rakshasas, or evil spirits; he
is the conqueror and slayer of demons, with sharp teeth and keen
weapons, a beautiful youth of mighty power. But the fire of the hearth
also unites the family, and provides them with nourishment. As such Agni
is the gleaming guest of men, the dear friend and companion of men, the
far-seeing house-lord, who dwells in every house, and despises none; a
god, giving food and wealth;[69] the protector, leader, and guide of his
nation. As his power carries the sacrificial gifts to the gods, he is
also the priest of the house; to the sensuous conception of the Aryas
he is the messenger of men to the gods; his gleam leads the eye of the
gods to the sacrifice of men; hence he is himself a priest, the first of
priests, the true offerer of sacrifice, the mediator between heaven and
earth, the lord of all religious duties, the protector and supporter of
the worship. With his far-reaching tongue, the smoke of the kindled fire
of sacrifice, he announces to the gods the gifts offered, the prayers
which accompany the sacrifice, and brings the gods to the place of
offering. Through Agni they consume their food. He is to the gods what
the goblet is to the mouth of men.[70] With a thousand eyes Agni watches
over him who brings him food, _i.e._ wood, and pours fat and clarified
butter into his mouth; he rejects not the gifts of him who possesses
neither cow nor axe, and brings but small pieces of wood; he protects
him from hunger, and sends him all kinds of good; in the battle he
fights among the foremost, and consumes the enemy like dry underwood.
When he yokes to his chariot the red, wind-driven horses, he roars like
a bull; the birds are terror-stricken when his sparks come consuming the
grass; when, like a lion, he blackens the forest with his tongue, and
seizes it with his flames, which sound like the waves of the sea; when
he shears off the hair of the earth, as a man shaves his beard, and
marks his path with blackness. Nothing can withstand the lightning of
the sky, the sounding winds, and Agni; by his power the gods Varuna,
Mitra, and Aryaman are victorious.[71]
In the conception of the Indians Agni was born from the double wood; in
this he lay concealed. They kindled fire by friction. A short staff was
fixed in a round disc of wood, and whirled quickly round till fire was
kindled.[72] This process was the birth of Agni. The disc was compared
to the mother, the staff to the father; the disc was impregnated by
friction, and soon a living creature springs forth from the dry wood. At
the moment of birth this golden-haired child begins to consume his
parents; he grows up in marvellous wise, like the offspring of serpents,
without a mother to give suck. Eagerly he stretches forth his sharp
tongue to the wood of the sacrifices; with gnashing and neighing he
springs up like a horse on high, when the priests sprinkle melted
butter; streaming brightly forth, he rolls up the sacred smoke, and
touches the sky with his hair, uniting with the sun.[73] Yet not on
earth only is Agni born; he is born in the air and the sky by the
lightning; in the lightning he descends to earth, and he is thus the
twice-born. But as the lightning descends in the torrents of the storm,
Agni is also born from the water of the sky, and is thus the
triple-born; he is also named the bull begotten in the bed of water.[74]
"We call on Agni, who gives food, with solemn songs," we are told in a
hymn. "We choose thee as a messenger to the all-knowing; thy rising
gleam shines far into the sky. To thee, rich youth, is every sacrifice
offered; be gracious to us to-day, and for the future. Sacrifice thyself
to the mightiest gods; bring our sacrifice to the gods. Mighty as a
horse, who neighs in the battle, give rich gifts, O Agni, to the
suppliant. Bring thyself to us, O mighty one; shine, most beloved of the
gods; let the winged smoke ascend. Bring thyself to us, thou whom the
gods once gave to man upon the earth. Give us treasures; gladden us.
Come, ascending at once to help us, like Savitar; shine and protect us
from sin by knowledge; make us strong for action and life; destroy our
enemies; protect us, Agni, from the Rakshasas; protect us from the
murderer and cruel bird of prey, and from the enemy who plans our
destruction, thou shining youth. Strike down the enemies who bring no
gifts, who sharpen their arrows against us, thou who art armed with a
gleaming beam as with a club, that our enemies may never rule over us.
No one can approach thy darting, strong, fearful flames; burn the evil
spirits, and every enemy."[75]
If Agni scared away the spirits of the night for the Aryas, they greeted
with the liveliest joy the earliest light, the approach of breaking day,
the first white rays of the dawn, which assured them that the night had
not been victorious over the light, that the daylight was returning.
These rays are for them a beautiful pair of twins, the brothers of
Ushas, the morning glow, the sons of the sky.[76] They are named the two
Açvins, _i.e._ the swift, the horsemen; and also Nasatyas, _i.e._
apparently, the trustworthy, or guileless. Swift spirits, they hasten on
before the dawn. As they pass onward victorious against the spirits of
the night, and each morning assist the earth against the darkness, they
are the helpers and protectors of men. That this conception of the
Açvins springs from the common possession of the parent-stock of the
Indo-Europeans, is proved by the Dioscuri of the Greeks. Dioskouroi
means, "the young sons of the sky," and in the myth of the Greeks they
are the brothers of Helena, _i.e._ of the Bright one, the Light; and if,
in this myth, they live alternately in heaven and in the gloom of the
under-world, this fact is no doubt founded in the idea that the first
beams which break forth from the night belong to the darkness as much as
to the light. In the Rigveda, the Açvins are compared to two swans, two
falcons, two deer, two buffaloes, two watchful hounds. They are invoked
to harness their light cars, drawn by swan-like, falcon-like,
golden-winged horses, to descend and drink the morning offering with
Ushas (the [Greek: Auôs, Eôs] of the Greeks.) They heal the sick, the
blind, the lame, and make the old young again, and strong; they give
wealth and nourishment, they accompany ships over the wide sea, and
protect them. In invocations in the Rigveda to the Açvins, in which the
benefits done by them to the forefathers are extolled and enumerated, we
find: "Açvins, come on your chariot which is yoked with the good horses,
which flies like the falcon, and is swifter than the wind, or the
thoughts of men, on which ye visit the houses of pious men; come to our
dwelling. On the chariot, whose triple wheel hastens through the triple
world (the Indians distinguish the heaven of light, the region of the
atmosphere and the clouds, and the earth as three worlds) approach us.
Make the cows full of milk, and feed our horses, and give us goodly
progeny. Approach in swift, fair-coursing chariots; listen, ye
bounteous, to my prayer; ye Açvins, whom the men of old extol as driving
away want. The falcons, the swift-winged ones, who fly like the vultures
in the sky, may they bring you, ye Nasatyas, like water streaming from
heaven, to the sacrifice. In old days ye gave nourishment to Manu; ye
speedily brought food to Atri in the dark dungeon, and freed him from
his bonds; ye restored light to the blind Kanva, ye bounteous ones, whom
we love to praise. With your onward flying horses ye brought Bhujyu
without harm from the wide pathless sea; for Çayu, when he prayed to
you, ye filled the cow with milk, and gave to Pedu the white horse,
clear-neighing, fearful, who is victorious over enemies, and defeats
them. Even as ye were of old, we invoke you, beautiful-born, to come to
our help; come with the swift flight of the falcons to us, for I summon
you to a sacrifice prepared at the first light of the eternal dawn."[77]
This dawn is in the hymns of the Veda a ruddy cow, a tawny mare, a
beautiful maiden, who is born anew every day, when the Açvins yoke their
chariot.[78] Many are the generations of men that she has seen, yet she
grows not old. Like a maiden robed for the dance, like a daughter
adorned by her mother, as a loving wife approaches her husband, as a
woman rising in beauty from the bath, smiling and trusting to her
irresistible charms, unveils her bosom to the eye of the beholder, so
does Ushas divide the darkness and unveil the wealth hidden therein.
From the far east she travels on her gleaming car, which the ruddy
horses and ruddy cows bring swiftly over thirty Yojanas, and illumines
the world to the uttermost end. She looses the cows (_i.e._ the bright
clouds) from the stall, and causes the birds to fly from their nests;
she awakes the five tribes (p. 30), as an active housewife wakes her
household, and sets each to his work; she passes by no house, but
everywhere kindles the sacrificial fire, and gives breath and life to
all. Occasionally the hymns call upon her to accelerate her awakening,
to linger no longer, to hasten that the sun may not wither her away.[79]
"Come, Ushas," we find in invocations, "descend from the light of the
sky on gracious paths: let the red cows lead thee into the house of the
sacrificer. The light cows bring in the gleaming Ushas; her beams appear
in the east. As bold warriors flash their swords, the ruddy cows press
on; already they are shining clear. The bright beam of Ushas breaks
through the dark veil of black night at the edge of heaven. We are
beyond the darkness. Rise up. The light is there. Thou hast opened the
path for the sun; rise up, awakening glad voices. Listen to our prayer,
O giver of all good; increase our progeny."[80]
The god of the sun was invoked under the names Surya and Savitar
(Savitri), _i.e._ "the impeller." The first name seems to belong
specially to the rising, the second to the sinking, sun. "Already," the
hymn tells us, "the beams raise up Surya, so that all see him. With the
night, the stars retire like thieves before Surya, the all-seeing. His
beams shine clear over the nations, like glowing flames. Before gods and
men thou risest up, Surya. With thy glance thou lookest over the
nations, wanderest through heaven, the broad clouds, measuring the day
and the night. Thy chariot, bright Surya, far-seeing one with the
gleaming hair, seven yellow horses draw. Looking on thee after the
darkness, we invoke thee, the highest light. Banish the pain and fear of
my heart; pale fear we give to the thrushes and parrots. The sun of
Aditi has arisen with all his victorious power;[81] he bows down the
enemy before me."[82] A hymn says to Savitar: "I summon Savitar to
help, who calls all gods and men to their place, when he returns to the
dark heaven. He goes on the ascending path, and on the sinking one;
shining from far, he removes transgression. The god ascends the great
gold-adorned chariot, armed with the golden goad. The yellow horses with
the white feet bring on the light, drawing the golden yoke. With golden
hands Savitar advances between heaven and earth. Golden-handed, Renewer,
rich one, come to us; beat off from us the Rakshasas; come, thou who art
invoked every night on thine old firm paths through the air, which are
free from dust; protect us to-day also."[83] In an evening song to
Savitar we find: "With the swift horses which Savitar unyokes, he brings
even the course of the swift one to a stand: the weaving woman rolls up
her web; the workman stops in the middle of his work; where men dwell,
the glimmer of the house fire is spread here and there; the mother puts
the best piece before the son; he who has gone abroad for gain returns,
and every wanderer yearns for home; the bird seeks the nest, the herd
the stall. From the sky, from the water, and the earth, Savitar caused
gifts to come to us, to bless the suppliant as well as thy friend, the
minstrel, whose words sound far."[84] A third god of light, who seems to
stand in some relation to the sun, especially the setting sun, is
Pushan, _i.e._ "the nourisher." He pastures the cows of the sky, the
bright clouds, and leads them back into the stall; he never loses one;
he is the protector and increaser of cattle; he weaves a garment for the
sheep; he protects the horses; he is also lord and keeper of the path of
heaven and earth; he protects and guides the wanderers in their paths;
he brings the bride to the bridegroom, and leads the souls of the dead
into the other world.[85]
Above the spirits of fire, of the first streaks of light, of the dawn,
and the sun, are those gods of the clear sky, with which we have already
made acquaintance, as belonging partly to the undivided possessions of
the Indo-Europeans, and partly to the undivided possessions of the Aryas
in Iran and on the Indus. Though still enthroned in the highest light
and the highest sky, these spirits are nevertheless, in the minds of the
Aryas, expelled from the central position in their religious conceptions
and worship, by a form which, though it did not spring up in the land of
the Indus, first attained this pre-eminent position among the Aryas
there. With the tribes of Iran, the god of the clear sky, the god of
light, is Mitra, the victorious champion against darkness and demons. It
is he who has overcome Veretra, the prince of the evil ones, the demon
of darkness; as a warrior-god, he is for the Iranians the god of
battles, the giver of victory. The nature of the land of the Panjab was
calculated to give a special development and peculiar traits to the
ancient conception of the struggle of the god of light against the demon
of darkness. There the pastures were parched in the height of summer,
the fields burnt, the springs and streams dried up, until at length,
long awaited and desired, the storms bring the rain. Phenomena of so
violent a nature as the tropical storms were unknown to the Aryas before
they entered this region. The deluge of water in storm and tempest, the
return of the clear sky and sunlight after the dense blackness of the
storm, could not be without influence on the existing conceptions of the
struggle with the spirits. In the heavy black clouds which came before
the storm, the Aryas saw the dark spirits, Vritra and Ahi, who would
change the light of the sky into night, quench the sun, and carry off
the water of the sky. The tempest which preceded the outbreak of the
storm, the lightning which parted the heavy clouds, and caused the rain
to stream down, the returning light of the sun in the sky, these must be
the beneficent saving acts of a victorious god, who rendered vain the
object of the demons, wrested from them the waters they had carried off,
rekindled the light of the sun, sent the waters on the earth, caused
streams and rivers to flow with renewed vigour, and gave fresh life to
the withered pastures and parched fields. These conceptions underlie the
mighty form into which the struggle of the demons grew up among the
Aryas on the Indus, the god of storm and tempest--Indra. The army of the
winds fights at his side, just as the wild army surrounds the storm-god
of the Germans. Indra is a warrior, who bears the spear; heaven and
earth tremble at the sound of his spear. This sound is the thunder, his
good spear is the lightning; with this he smites the black clouds, the
black bodies of the demons which have sucked up the water of the sky;
with it he rekindles the sun.[86] With it he milks the cows, _i.e._ the
clouds; shatters the towers of the demons, _i.e._ the tempests which
gather round the mountain top; and hurls back the demons when they would
ascend heaven.[87] "I will sing of the victories of Indra, which the god
with the spear carried off," so we read in the hymns of the Veda. "On
the mountain he smote Ahi; he poured out the waters, and let the river
flow from the mountains; like calves to cows, so do the waters hasten to
the sea. Like a bull, Indra dashed upon the sacrifice, and drank thrice
of the prepared drink, then he smote the first-born of the evil one.
When thou, Indra, didst smite them, thou didst overcome the craft of the
guileful: thou didst beget the sun, the day, and the dawn. With a mighty
cast Indra smote the dark Vritra, so that he broke his shoulders; like a
tree felled with an axe Ahi sank to the earth. The waters now run over
the corpse of Ahi, and the enemy of Indra sleeps there in the long
darkness."[88] "Thou hast opened the cave of Vritra rich in cattle; the
fetters of the streams thou hast burnt asunder."[89]
On a golden chariot, drawn by horses, yellow or ruddy, cream-coloured or
chestnut, Indra approaches;[90] his skilful driver is Vayu, _i.e._ "the
blowing," the spirit of the morning wind,[91] which, hastening before
the morning glow, frees the nocturnal sky from dark clouds. Indra is
followed by Rudra, _i.e._ the terrible, the spirit of the mighty wind,
the destroying, but also beneficent storm, and the whistling winds, the
swift, strong Maruts, who fight with Indra against the demons. These
are twenty-seven, or thirty-six in number, the sons of Rudra. Their
chariots are drawn by dappled horses; they wear golden helmets, and
greaves, and spears on their shoulders. They dwell in the mountains,
open the path for the sun, break down the branches of the trees like
wild elephants, and when Indra has overpowered Vritra, they tear him to
pieces. To Indra, as to Mitra, horses were sacrificed, and bulls also,
and the libation of soma was offered.[92] Indra is the deity addressed
in the greater part of the poems of the Rigveda. Himself a king, hero,
and conqueror, he is invoked by minstrels to give victory to their
princes. They entreat him "to harness the shrill-neighing,
peacock-tailed pair of cream-coloured horses;" to come into the ranks of
the warriors, like a wild, terrible lion from the mountains; to approach
with sharp spear and knotty club; to give the hosts of the enemy to the
vultures for food. The warriors are urged to follow Indra's victorious
chariot, to vie with Indra: he who does not flinch in the battle will
fight before them; he will strike back the arrows of the enemies. Indra
destroys the towers and fortresses of the enemies; he casts down twenty
kings; he smites the opponents by fifties and sixties of thousands.[93]
The prayer has already been mentioned in which Indra is invoked to give
the Aryas victory against the Dasyus. "Lead us, O Indra," we read in an
invocation of the Samaveda; "let the troop of the Maruts go before the
overpowering, victorious arms of the god. Raise up the weapons, O
wealthy god; raise up the souls of our warriors; strengthen the vigour
of the strong; let the cry of victory rise from the chariots. Be with
us, Indra, when the banners wave; let our arrows be victorious; give our
warriors the supremacy; protect us, ye gods, in the battle. Fear, seize
the hearts of our enemies, and take possession of their limbs."[94]
The old Arian conception of Mitra as the highest god of light, may still
be recognised in the Rigveda; the hymns declare that his stature
transcends the sky, and his glory spreads beyond the earth. He sustains
heaven and earth; with never-closing eyes he looks down on all
creatures. He whom Mitra, the mighty helper, protects, no evil will
touch, from far or from near; he will not be conquered or slain. A
mighty, strong, and wise king, Mitra summons men to activity.[95] Driven
back by the predominance of Indra, the functions of Mitra in the Rigveda
are found amalgamated with those of Varuna, but even in this
amalgamation the nature of light is completely victorious. In the
conception of the Arians light is not only the power that awakens and
gives health and prosperity, it is also the pure and the good, not
merely in the natural, but also in the moral sense, the true, the
honourable, just and faithful. Thus Mitra, removed from immediate
conflict with the evil spirits, is combined with Varuna, the god of the
highest heaven, and the life-giving water which springs from the heaven;
and becomes the guardian of truth, fidelity, justice, and the duties of
men to the gods. The sun is the eye of Mitra and Varuna; they have
placed him in the sky; at their command the sky is bright; they send
down the rain. Even the gods cannot withstand their will. They are the
guardians of the world; they look down on men as on herds of
cattle.[96] The light sees all, illuminates all: hence Mitra and Varuna
know what takes place on earth; the most secret thing escapes them not.
They are angry, terrible deities; they punish those who do not honour
the gods; they avenge falsehood and sin. But to those who serve them,
they forgive their transgressions. Varuna, whose special duty it is to
punish the offences of men, is entreated in the hymns, with the greatest
earnestness, to pardon transgression and sin. In the conception of the
hymns of the Rigveda, he is the highest lord of heaven and earth. In the
waters of heaven he dwells in a golden coat of mail, in his spacious
golden house with a thousand doors. He has shown to the sun his path; he
has excavated their beds for the rivers, and causes them to flow into
the sea; his breath sounds with invigorating force through the breezes.
He knows the way of the winds, and the flight of birds, and the course
of ships on the sea. He knows all things in heaven, on earth, and under
the earth. Even he who would fly further than the sky extends is not
beyond his power. He numbers the glances of the eyes of men; where two
men sit together and converse, king Varuna is a third among them.[97] He
knows the truth and falsehood of men; he knows their thoughts, and
watches them as a herdman his herd. His coils, threefold and sevenfold,
embrace them who speak lies. "May he remain unscathed by them who speak
truth," is the prayer of the invocations. "Was it for an old sin,
Varuna," we read in a prayer, "that thou wishest to destroy thy friend,
who praises thee? Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from
those which we committed with our own bodies. Release Vasishtha, O king,
like a thief who has feasted on stolen oxen; release him like a calf
from the rope. It was not our own doing that led us astray, O Varuna, it
was necessity (or temptation), an intoxicating draught, passion, dice,
thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young; even sleep
brings unrighteousness. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright
god, have I gone wrong: have mercy, almighty, have mercy. I go along
trembling, like a cloud driven before the wind; let not us guilty ones
reap the fruit of our sin. Let me not yet enter into the house of clay,
king Varuna. Protect, O wise god, him who praises thee. Whenever we men,
O Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly host, whenever we break
the law through thoughtlessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy."[98]
The chief offering which the Aryas made to the spirits of the sky, was
of ancient origin; even before they entered the land of the Indus, at
the time when they were one nation with their fellow-tribesmen of
Iran--this libation had been established. It was a drink-offering, the
juice of a mountain plant, the soma, or haoma of the Irans, which they
offered. The expressed sap of this plant, which is the _asclepias acida_
of our botanists, mixed with milk, narcotic and intoxicating, was to the
Arya the strongest, most exhilarating liquor, a drink fit for their
gods. According to the Rigveda, a tamed falcon brought the soma from the
summit of the sky, or from the tops of the mountains, where Varuna had
placed it. The drink of the soma inspires the songs of the poet, heals
the sick, prolongs life, and makes the poor believe themselves rich.
The rites of preparing the soma were already widely developed when the
songs of the Rigveda over the offering were composed. The sacrificial
vessels were washed out with kuça-grass, and with "the sacred word,"
_i.e._ with traditional forms of words. The plants of the
soma--according to the rubrics of later times, they are to be collected
by moonlight on the hills,[99]--were crushed between stones. In the Veda
we are told that the suppliants "squeeze the soma with stones." The
liquor thus obtained was then strained through a sieve, with songs and
incantations. The sieve appears to have been made out of the hairs of a
ram's tail, and the juice is pressed through it with the ten sisters,
_i.e._ with the fingers; "it rushes to the milk as fiercely as the bull
to the cow." The sound of the drops of the golden fluid falling into the
metal vessels is the roaring of the bulls, the neighing of the horses of
Indra, "the hymn of praise, which the song of the minstrel
accompanies."[100] The drink thus prepared was then placed in the
sacrificial vessel, on outspread, delicate grass, over which was laid a
cloth. Then the Açvins, Vayu, the Maruts, Indra were invoked to descend,
to place themselves at the sacrificial cloth, and drink the draught
prepared for them. According to the faith of the Aryas, Indra fights on
the side of the tribe whose soma offering he has drunk, and gives the
victory to them. The invocations to Indra, to the Maruts, and the
Açvins, who were considered mightiest and most influential in inviting
and bringing down the gods to the sacrifice, are preserved in the
Rigveda.
It would be futile to attempt to distinguish in detail the exuberant
abundance of conceptions and pictures which the young and vigorous fancy
of the Indians has embodied in the songs of the Veda. One poetical idea
presses on another; scarcely a single image is retained for any length
of time, so that we not unfrequently receive the impression of a
restless variety, of uncertain effort, of flux and confusion. On the
other hand, it is impossible to deny that in these poems there is a
freshness and vigour of thought, a wide sympathy and moral earnestness.
Beside the most lively conceptions of the phenomena of the heavens, the
formation of clouds and storms; besides deep delight in nature, and a
sensuous view of natural life, we find attempts to form a comprehensive,
exhaustive idea of the nature of God, the beginnings of reflection and
abstraction. If this contrast proves that the poems of the Veda were
divided in their origin by intervals of time, we can hardly be wrong if
we look upon the _naïve_, coarse and sensuous conceptions as the older,
and the attempts at combination and abstraction as of later origin. Yet
the basis of that conception of moral purity, of the just avenging power
of the high deities of light, Mitra and Varuna, cannot be regarded as of
later date, since it occurs also in the Mitra of the Iranians. We can
hardly find a more _naïve_ conception than the view expressed in the
poems of the Veda that the sacrifice not only gives food and drink to
the hungry deities, but also gives them the power to fulfil their
duties. The offering of soma strengthens Indra in the battles which he
has to fight against the evil spirits; it invigorates him for the
struggle against the enemies of the tribe whose offering he drinks. The
god requires strength for the contest; and this, according to the
peculiar view of the Indians, is increased by the offering of soma made
to him. And not only does the offering give strength, it inspires the
god for battle. Just as men sought courage in drinking, so does Indra
drink courage from the sacrificial goblet. If Indra is to give wealth
and blessing, if he is to fight victoriously his ever-recurring struggle
against Vritra and Ahi, to win the fructifying moisture, and contend in
the ranks of the tribe, the "honey-sweet" soma must be prepared for him
without ceasing, he must be invoked to harness his horses, and place
himself at the meal of the sacrifice, and exhilarate himself with the
drink prepared for him; in his exhilaration, victory over the demons is
certain; he will fight invincibly before the ranks of his friends. His
enemies, we are told of Indra, he overcomes in the inspiration of the
soma. "Drink, Indra, of the soma like a wise man, delighting thyself in
the mead; it is good for exhilaration. Come down, Indra, who art truly a
bull, and drink thyself full; drink the most inspiring of drinks. The
intoxicating drink of the rich gives bulls."[101] By the side of
conceptions such as this, the invocation praises the lofty power, the
sublime nature of the gods, in moving images, which attempt, to the
utmost degree, to glorify the power of the god to whom they are
addressed. They elevate him and his power above the other gods, and
concentrate the divine action in the deity to whom the prayer or
thanksgiving is made, at the expense of his divine compeers. The object
was to win by prayer and sacrifice the grace of the deity who was
invoked. In this manner Agni, Surya, Indra, Mitra, and Varuna are
celebrated as the highest deities. Of Indra we are told that none of the
gods is like him; that none can contend with him; that before him, the
thunderer, all worlds tremble. He is the lord of all; the king of the
firm land and flowing water; his power has set up the ancient hills, and
causes the streams to flow; he sustains the earth, the nourisher of all;
he has created the sky, the sun, the dawn; he has fixed the lights of
the sky; should he desire to take up both worlds--the heaven and
earth--it would be but a handful for him. Who of the seers of old has
seen the limits of his power?[102] As we have observed, the form of the
mighty storm-god which grew up in the land of the Indus, had driven back
the ancient forms of Mitra and Varuna, and thus the minstrels found a
strong tendency to unite in the mighty warrior, the thunderer, the sum
total of divine power. But Mitra and Varuna were not forgotten; and as
the warlike life fell into the back-ground, and the impulse to seize the
unity of the divine nature became stronger, these ancient forms were in
their turn more easily idealized, and framed into a higher ethical
conception than was possible with the peculiarly warlike nature of
Indra. In the songs of praise addressed to Varuna, which have been
quoted, it is impossible not to see the effort to concentrate in him as
the highest god the highest divine power.
If in the conception of the gods in the Veda we find besides sensuous
views important ethical elements, and traits transcending sense, we also
find in the worship of the Aryas, in the relation of man to the gods, a
certain simplicity coexisting with sharply defined ethical perception.
Men pray to the gods for protection against the evil spirits, for the
preservation and increase of the herd, for help in sickness, and long
life, for victory in battle. It is allowed that sacrifices are offered
in order to obtain treasures and wealth. Indra is to "give gift for
gift;" he is to send wealth "so that one may wade therein to the knee."
From this the god will obtain his advantage in turn; if Indra gives
horses, chariots and bulls, sacrifices will be offered without
ceasing.[103] Like flies round a jar of honey, we are told in another
place, do the suppliants sit round the bowl of the offering; as a man
sets his foot in the chariot, so does the host of minstrels longing for
treasure place their confidence in Indra.[104] In a hymn, the minstrel
says to Indra: "If I were the lord of cattle, master of such wealth as
thou art, Indra, then would I assist the minstrel; I would not leave him
in need."[105] But, on the other hand, it is emphatically stated that
Indra rejects the wicked, as a man spurns a toadstool with his
foot;[106] that no evil is concealed from Mitra and Varuna. It is left
to Indra to give to the sacrificer whatever he considers best and most
valuable; he is entreated to instruct the sacrificer, to give him
wisdom, as a father to his child.[107] Stress is laid on the fact that
sacrifice can remove a multitude of sins, and purify him who offers it,
and we saw how earnestly Varuna was invoked to forgive the guilt that
had been incurred.
The _naïve_ conception that the god drank vigour and courage out of the
sacrificial bowl is developed among the Aryas in a very peculiar manner.
From this fact they derived the idea that the sacrifice gave power to
the gods generally to increase their strength; that the gods "grew" by
prayer and sacrifice. Thus we read: "The suppliants, extolling Indra by
their songs of praise, have strengthened him, to slay Ahi. Increase, O
hero Indra, in thy body, praised with piety, and impelled by our
prayers. The hymns whet thy great strength, thy courage, thy power, thy
glorious thunder-club."[108] As it is men who offer sacrifice to the
gods, this conception gives mankind a certain power over the deities;
it lies with them to strengthen the gods by sacrifice and gifts; they
can compel the gods to be helpful to them, if only they understand how
to invoke them rightly. The holy words, _i.e._ the invocations, are, in
the conception of the Veda, "a voyage which leads to heaven." Hence
those who are acquainted with the correct mode of prayer and offering
become magicians, who are in a position to exercise force over the gods.
The idea that man has power to compel the gods is very _naïve_,
childlike, and childish; in its most elementary form it lies at the root
of fetishism. In other nations also great weight is laid on the correct
mode of offering sacrifices, as the essential condition of winning the
grace of the gods; but the conception that a hearing must attend a
sacrifice and prayer correctly made is far more strongly present in the
Indians, than in any other civilised people. Yet the hymns of the Veda
are far above fetishism, which attempts to exercise direct external
compulsion upon the gods. The Indian faith is rather that this effect is
obtained not merely by the custom of sacrifice, but by the intensity of
invocation, by the power of meditation, by elevation of spirit, by the
passionate force of prayer, which will not leave the god till he has
given his blessing. It is inward, not outward compulsion that they would
exercise. Developed in a peculiar direction, this mode of conception is
of deep and decisive importance for the religious and civic views of the
Indians.
The power ascribed to the sacrificial prayers of bringing down the gods
from heaven; the eager desire of every man to invite the gods
effectually to his own sacrifice, in order that he may scorn the
sacrifice of his enemy; the notion that it was possible by the correct
and pleasing invocation to disturb the sacrifice of the enemy and make
it inoperative, had their natural effect. The singers of these prayers,
who knew the strongest forms of invocation, or could "weave" them--the
priests--early obtained a position of importance. It has been already
remarked what rich presents they boast to have received from the
princes. The minstrel Kakshivat tells us that king Svanaya had presented
him with one hundred bars of gold, ten chariots with four horses each, a
hundred bulls and a thousand cows.[109] Other songs advise the princes
to place before them a pious suppliant at the sacrifice, and to reward
him liberally. These suppliants or priests were called _purohita_,
_i.e._ "men placed before." "He dwells happily in his house," we are
told; "to him the earth brings fruit at all times; to that king all
families willingly give way, who is preceded by the suppliant; that king
is protected by the gods, who liberally rewards the suppliant who seeks
food."[110] The invocations which have drawn down the gods and have
obtained an answer to the prayer of the sacrificer, are repeatedly used,
and handed down by the minstrel to his descendants. This explains the
fact that even in the Veda we find these families of minstrels; that
some of the hymns are said to spring from the ancestors of these races,
while others are mentioned as the new compositions of members of these
families; that the supposed ancestors are considered the first and
oldest minstrels and suppliants, and have already become mythical and
half-divine forms, of whom some kindled the first sacrificial fire, and
offered the first sacrifice with Manu, the progenitor of the Aryas.
The hymns of the Veda make frequent mention of the dead. They are
invited to the sacrificial meal; they are said to sit at the fire; to
eat and drink the gifts set before them on the grass. Those who have
attained "life," are entreated to protect the invocations of their
descendants, to ward off the evil spirits, to give wealth to their
descendants. We know from a later period that daily libations were
offered "to the fathers," and special gifts were given at the new moon;
that a banquet of the dead was kept. In Iran also similar honours were
given to the spirits of the dead. Yama, who first experienced death, who
ascended from the depths of the earth to the summit of heaven, has
discovered the path for mortals (p. 31). He dwells with Varuna in the
third heaven, the heaven of light. To him, in this heaven of light, come
the heroes who are slain in battle, the pious who are distinguished by
sacrifices and knowledge, who have trodden the path of virtue, who have
observed justice and have been liberal, _i.e._ all those who have lived
a holy and pure life, and have thus purified their own bodies. In this
body of light they walk in the heaven of Yama. According to the
Mahabharata, the heroes and saints of ancient days shine in heaven in a
light of their own (chapter viii.). In the heaven of Yama is milk,
butter, honey, and soma, the drink of the gods, in large vats.[111] Here
the weak no longer pay tribute to the strong;[112] here those whom death
has separated are again united; here they live with Yama in feasting and
rejoicing. The souls of the wicked, on the other hand, fall into
darkness.[113] According to an old commentary on the Rigveda, the heaven
of Yama is in the South-east, one thousand days journey on horse from
the earth.[114]
The Aryas buried their dead, a custom which was also observed in old
time among the Arians of Iran. A form of words, to be spoken at the
burial, which is preserved among the more recent hymns of the Veda,
shows that even at this period burial was practised. The bow was taken
from the hand of the dead; a sacrifice was offered, in which the widow
of the dead and the wives of the family took part, and during the
ceremony a stone was set up as a symbol between the dead and the living.
"Get thee gone, death, on thy way,"--such is this form of words--"which
lies apart from the way of the gods. Thou seest, thou canst hear what I
say to thee; injure not the children nor the men. I set this wall of
separation (the stone) for those that live, that no one may hasten to
that goal; they must cover death with this rock, and live a hundred
autumns. He comes to a length of years, free from the weakness of age.
The women here, who are wives not widows, glad in their husbands,
advance with sacrificial fat and butter, and without tears; cheerful,
and beautifully adorned, they climb the steps of the altar. Exalt
thyself, O woman, to the world of life. The breath of him, by whom thou
art sitting, is gone; the marriage with him who once took thy hand, and
desired thee, is completed. I take the bow out of the hand of the
dead--the symbol of honour, of courage, of lordship. We here and thou
there, we would with force and vigour drive back every enemy and every
onset. Approach to mother earth; she opens to receive thee kindly; may
she protect thee henceforth from destruction. Open, O earth; be not too
narrow for him; cover him like the mother who folds her son in her
garment. Henceforth thou hast thy house and thy prosperity here; may
Yama procure thee an abode there."[115]
The Arians in Iran gave up the burial of their corpses, and exposed them
on the mountains; the Arians on the Indus burnt them. For some time
burial and cremation went on side by side in the valley of the Indus.
"May the fathers," we are told in an invocation, "have joy in our
offering whether they have undergone cremation or not."[116] In other
prayers Agni is entreated to do no harm to the dead, to make the body
ripe, to carry the "unborn" part into heaven where the righteous keep
festival with the gods; where Yama says: "I will give this home to the
man who comes hither if he is mine."[117] "Warm, O Agni," so we are told
in one of these prayers, "warm with thy glance and thy glow the immortal
part of him; bear it gently away to the world of the righteous. Let him
rejoin the fathers, for he drew near to thee with the libation of
sacrifice. May the Maruts carry thee upwards and bedew thee with rain.
May the wise Pushan (p. 47) lead thee hence, the shepherd of the world,
who never lost one of his flock. Pushan alone knows all those spaces; he
will lead us on a secure path. He will carefully go before as a lamp, a
complete hero, a giver of rich blessing. Enter, therefore, on the old
path on which our fathers have gone. Thou shalt see Varuna and Yama,
the two kings, the drinkers of libations. Go to the fathers; there abide
with Yama in the highest heaven, even as thou well deservest. On the
right path escape the two hounds--the brood of Sarama--of the four eyes.
Then proceed onward to the wise fathers who take delight in happy union
with Yama. Thou wilt find a home among the fathers; prosper among the
people of Yama. Surround him, Yama, with thy protection against the
hounds who watch for thee, the guardians of thy path, and give him
health and painless life. With wide nostrils, eager for men, with
blood-brown hair, Yama's two messengers go round among men. O that they
may again grant us the pleasant breath of life to-day, and that we may
see the sun!"[118] In other invocations of the Rigveda the object of the
prayer is "to reach to the imperishable, unchangeable world, where is
eternal light and splendour; to become immortal, where king Vaivasvata
(Yama) dwells, where is the sanctuary of heaven, where the great waters
flow, where is ambrosia (_amrita_) and peacefulness, joy and delight,
where wishes and desires are fulfilled."[119]
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Max Müller, "Hist. of Sanskrit Liter." p. 481 ff. Kaegi, "Rigveda,"
1, 9 ff.
[50] Roth, "Literatur des Veda," s. 120.
[51] In the later hymns of the Rigveda, Angiras and Bhrigu are combined
with other sages and minstrels of old time into a septad of saints (10,
109, 4), and designated the great saints. They are, beside Bhrigu and
Angiras, Viçvamitra, Vasishtha, Kaçyapa, Atri, Agastya. The eight saints
from whom the eight tribes of the Brahman priests now in existence are
derived are: Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Viçvamitra, Vasishtha,
Kaçyapa, Atri, Agastya. Jamadagni is said to have sprung from Bhrigu;
Gautama and Bharadvaja from Angiras.
[52] Muir, "Sanskrit texts," 3, 117 ff.; 121 ff.
[53] A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 1. 88.
[54] Muir, "Sanskrit texts," 1^2, 160 ff.
[55] Kuhn in Weber, "Ind. Stud." 1. 202. The Çatapatha-Brahmana (Weber,
"Ind. Stud." 1. 161) tells us that Manu, when washing his hands in the
morning, took a fish in his hands, which said to him--"Spare me, and I
will save thee; a flood will wash away all creatures." The fish grew to
a monstrous size, and Manu brought him to the ocean; and it bid Manu
build a ship, and embark on the ocean. When the flood rose, the fish
swam beside the ship, and Manu attached it by a rope to the horn of the
fish. Thus the ship passed over the northern mountains. And the fish
told Manu that he had saved him, and bade him fasten the ship to a tree.
So Manu went up as the waters sank from the northern hills. The flood
carried away all creatures; Manu alone remained. Eager for posterity,
Manu offered sacrifice, and threw clarified butter, curdled milk, and
whey into the water. After a year a woman rose out of the water, with
clarified butter under her feet. Mitra and Varuna asked her whether she
was their daughter, but she replied that she was the daughter of Manu,
who had begotten her, and she went to Manu and told him that he had
begotten her by the sacrifice which he had thrown into the water. He was
to conduct her to the sacrifice, and he would then receive posterity and
herds. And Manu did so, and lived with her with sacrifice and strict
meditation, and through her began the posterity of Manu. Cf. M. Müller,
"Hist. of Sanskrit Liter." p. 425 ff. The later form of the Indian
legend of the flood is found in an episode of the Maha-bharata. Here the
fish appears to Manu when he is performing some expiatory rites on the
shore of a river. The fish grew so mighty that Manu was compelled to
bring it into the Ganges, and when it became too large for this into the
ocean. When swimming in the ocean the fish announced the flood, and bade
Manu and the seven saints (Rishis) ascend the ship, and take with them
all kinds of seeds. Then the fish drew the ship attached to his horn
through the ocean, and there was no more land to be seen; for several
years all was water and sky. At last the fish drew the ship to the
highest part of the Himavat, and with a smile bade the rishis bind the
ship to this, which to this day bears the name of Naubandhana
(ship-binding). Then the fish revealed himself to the seven saints as
Brahman, and commanded Manu to create all living creatures, gods,
Asuras, and men, and all things movable and immovable; which command
Manu performed. The legend overlooks the fact that the new creation was
unnecessary, as we have already been told that Manu brought seeds of
everything on board ship. The poems of the Rigveda present no trace of
the legend of the flood. It may have arisen in the land of the Ganges,
from the experience of the floods there, unless it is simply borrowed
from external sources. In any case it is of later date; the
Çatapatha-Brahmana is one of the later Brahmanas. Weber, "Ind. Stud." 9,
423; Kuhn, "Beiträge," 4, 288. I cannot follow De Gubernatis, "Letture,"
p. 228, ff, _seqq._
[56] Kaegi, "Rigveda," 2, 58.
[57] On the Bhrigus see A. Weber, "Z. D. M. G." 9, 240. Kuhn,
"Herabkunft," s. 21 ff.
[58] On the Sarayu, which is mentioned, "Rigveda," 4, 30, 14, and 10,
64, 9, cf. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 644.
[59] "Rigveda," 1, 126, 1; 8, 21, 18.
[60] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 451, 456.
[61] "Rigveda," 7, 18, 2; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 455.
[62] "Rigveda," 1, 28, 5; 6, 47, 29.
[63] "Rigveda." 6, 75, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 469, 471.
[64] Roth, "Das lied des Arztes," "Rigveda," 10, 97. "Z. D. M. G." 1871,
645.
[65] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 457, 461, 465.
[66] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 463.
[67] "Rigveda," 10, 21, 5. Above, p. 29.
[68] "Rigveda," 1, 94, 7; 1, 140, 1.
[69] "Samaveda," by Benfey, 2, 7, 2, 1.
[70] "Samaveda," by Benfey, 1, 1, 2, 2; 1, 1, 1, 9.
[71] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 212 ff.
[72] Kuhn, "Herabkunft des Feuers," s. 23 ff., 36 ff., 70 ff.
[73] Kaegi, "Rigveda," 1, 23.
[74] The triple birth is explained differently in the poems of the
Rigveda and in the Brahmanas.
[75] "Rigveda," 1, 36; cf. 1, 27, 58, 76.
[76] _Divo napata_: "Rigveda," 1, 182, 1, 4.
[77] "Rigveda," 1, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, according to Roth's
rendering; cf. Benfey's translation, "Orient," 3, 147 ff.
[78] "Rigveda," 1, 92; 1, 30; 4, 52; 10, 39, 12.
[79] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 193 ff.
[80] "Rigveda," 1, 49; 1, 92; 1, 2, 5; 1, 113, 19 in Benfey's rendering,
"Orient," 1, 404; 2, 257; 3, 155. The three skilful Ribhus, who are
frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, are assistants of the spirits of
light. They assist the gods to liberate the cows, which the spirits of
the night have fastened in the rock-stable, _i.e._ the bright clouds.
[81] The spirits of light are called sons of Aditi, _i.e._ of the
Eternal, Unlimited, Infinite; seven or eight sons are ascribed to her;
Hillebrandt, "Die Göttin Aditi." Originally Aditi meant, in mythology,
merely the non-ending, the imperishable, in opposition to the perishable
world, and the gods are called the sons of immortality because they
cannot die. Darmesteter, "Haurvatat," p. 83.
[82] "Rigveda," 1, 50, according to Sonne's translation in Kuhn, "Z. V.
Spr." 12, 267 ff.; cf. Benfey's rendering, "Orient," 1, 405.
[83] "Rigveda," 1, 35, according to Roth's translation; cf. Benfey,
"Orient," 1, 53.
[84] "Rigveda," 2, 38, according to Roth's translation, "Z. D. M. G."
1870, 306 ff.
[85] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 171 ff. Kaegi, "Rigveda," 2, 43.
[86] Kuhn, "Herabkunft des Feuers," s. 66.
[87] "Rigveda," 1, 51, 5; 2, 12, 12.
[88] "Rigveda," 1, 32, according to Roth's translation; cf. Benfey,
"Orient," 1, 46.
[89] "Rigveda," 1, 11; 1, 121.
[90] Indra is derived by Benfey from _syand_, "to flow," "to drop," in
which case we shall have to refer it to the rain-bringing power of the
god. Others have proposed a derivation from _idh_, _indh_, "to kindle;"
others from _indra_, "blue." In any case, Andra, the corresponding name
in the Rigveda, must not be left out of consideration.
[91] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 144.
[92] Roth, "Zwei Lieder des Rigveda, Z. D. M. G.," 1870, 301 ff. Muir,
_loc. cit._ 5, 147 ff.
[93] "Rigveda," 4, 30; "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 3, 2, 1. 1, 4, 1, 1.
[94] "Samaveda," Benfey, _loc. cit._
[95] "Rigveda," 3, 59, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 69.
[96] "Rigveda," 1, 115, 1 in Benfey; "Orient," 3, 157; "Rigveda," 6, 51,
2; 7, 61, 1; 7, 63, 4; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 157.
[97] "Atharvaveda," 4, 16, according to M. Müller's translation
"Essays," 1, 40, 41. Cf. Roth, "Atharvaveda," 8. 19.
[98] "Rigveda," 7, 86, 89, according to Müller's rendering, "Essays," 1,
38, 39; cf. Muir's translation, _loc. cit._ 5, 63 ff. [who reads "like
an inflated skin" for "like a cloud," etc.]
[99] Windischmann, "Abh. der Münch. Akademie," 1847, s. 129.
[100] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 2, 2; "Rigveda," 1, 2, 2; 1, 5, 5, and
elsewhere.
[101] "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 4, 1, 1; 5, 2, 4, 1, 15, and elsewhere.
[102] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 98, ff.
[103] "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 3, 2, 4.
[104] "Samaveda," 2, 8, 2, 6.
[105] "Samaveda," 1, 4, 1, 2; 2, 9, 2, 9.
[106] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 2, 1.
[107] "Rigveda," 1, 32; "Samaveda," 1, 3, 2, 4.
[108] "Rigveda," 5, 31, 10; 1, 63, 2; 2, 20, 8; 1, 54, 8.
[109] "Rigveda," 1, 126, 2, 3.
[110] "Rigveda," 4, 50, 8, 9. Roth, "Z. D. M. G.," 1, 77. Lassen, _loc.
cit._ 1^2, 951.
[111] M. Müller, "Z. D. M. G.," 9, 16. These bright bodies of the
fathers led to the idea that the souls of the fathers had adorned the
heaven with stars, and that they were these stars. "Rigveda," 10, 68,
11.
[112] "Atharvaveda," 3, 29, 3; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 310.
[113] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 308, 309, 311. In the later portion of the
Rigveda, 10, 15, the old conception of the fathers is already changed.
Three classes of fathers are distinguished, and burning and non-burning
are mentioned side by side.
[114] "Aitareya-Brahmana," 2, 17; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 322.
[115] "Rigveda," 10, 18; according to Roth's rendering, "Z. D. M. G.,"
8, 468 ff.
[116] "Rigveda," 10, 15, 14; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 297.
[117] "Atharvaveda," 18, 2, 37; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 294.
[118] M. Müller, "Die Todtenbestattung der Brahmanen," s. 14 ff.
[119] "Rigveda," 9, 113, 7 ff.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND OF THE GANGES.
The life of the Aryas in the Panjab was manly and warlike. From the
songs of the Rigveda we saw how familiar they were with the bow and the
chariot, how frequent were the feuds between the princes, and the
prayers offered to the gods for victory. Such a life could, no doubt,
increase the pleasure in martial achievements, and lead to further
enterprises, even if the plains and pastures of the Panjab had not been
too narrow for the inhabitants. We remember the prayer in which the
war-god was invoked to grant the Arian tribes room against the
black-skins (p. 8). As a fact the Aryas extended their settlements to
the East beyond the Sarasvati; and as on the lower Indus the broad
deserts checked any progress towards the region of the Yamuna and the
Ganges, the advance from the Sarasvati to the Yamuna must have taken
place in the North along the spurs of the Himalayas.
From the hymns of the Rigveda we can ascertain that the Arian tribes
pressed on each other, and that the tribes settled in the East were
pushed forward in that direction by tribes in the West. Ten tribes of
the Panjab, who appear to have occupied the region of the
Iravati,[120]--the Bharatas, Matsyas, Anus, and Druhyus, are specially
mentioned among them--united for a campaign against king Sudas, the son
of Divodasa, the descendant of Pijavana, who ruled over the Tritsus on
the Sarasvati. On the side of the united tribes was the priest
Viçvamitra of the race of the Kuçikas; on the side of the Tritsus the
family of Vasishtha.[121] The Bharatas, Matsyas, Anus, and Druhyus, must
have crossed the Vipaça and the Çatadru in order to attack the Tritsus.
The Rigveda mentions a prayer addressed by Viçvamitra to these two
streams. "Forth from the slopes of the mountains; full of desire, like
horses loosed in the course, like bright-coloured cows to their calves,
Vipaça and Çatadru hasten with their waves. Impelled by Indra, seeking
an outlet to the sea, ye roll onward like warriors in chariots of war:
in united course with swelling waves ye roll into each other, ye clear
ones. Listen joyfully to my pleasant speech, for a moment. O abounding
in waters, halt on your steps to the sea. With strong earnestness,
crying for help, I entreat you, I, the son of Kuçika. Listen to the
minstrel, ye sisters; he has come from far with horse and chariot.
Incline yourselves, that ye may be crossed; your waves, ye streams,
must not reach the axles. When the Bharatas have crossed you, the
mounted host, goaded by Indra, then run on in your renewed course."
After the two rivers were crossed a battle took place. Viçvamitra
uttered the prayer for the Bharatas: "Indra, approach us with manifold
choice help; great hero, be friendly. May he who hates us fall at our
feet; may he whom we hate, be deserted by the breath of life. As the
tree falls beneath the axe, as a man breaks asunder a husk, as a boiling
kettle throws off the foam, so deal thou, O Indra, with them. These sons
of Bharata, O Indra, know the battle. They spur their horses; they carry
the strong bow like an eternal enemy, looking round in the battle."[122]
In spite of the prayer of Viçvamitra the Bharatas and their confederates
were defeated; Sudas was even able to invade their land, to capture and
plunder several places. The song of victory of the Tritsus, which a
minstrel of Sudas may have composed after their success, runs thus: "Two
hundred cows, two chariots with women, allotted as booty to Sudas, I
step round with praises, as the priests step round the place of
sacrifice. To Sudas Indra gave the flourishing race of his enemies, the
vain boasters among men. Even with poor men Indra has done marvellous
deeds; by the weak he has struck down the lion-like. With a needle Indra
has broken spears; all kinds of good things he has given to Sudas. Ten
kings, holding themselves invincible in battle, could not strive against
Sudas, Indra, and Varuna; the song of them who brought food-offerings
was effectual. Where men meet with raised banner in the battle-field,
where evil of every kind happens, where all creatures are afraid, there
have ye, Indra and Varuna, spoken (words of) courage above us, as we
looked upwards. The Tritsus in whose ranks Indra entered went onward
like downward streaming water: their enemies, like hucksters when
dealing, leave all their goods to Sudas. As Sudas laid low twenty-one
enemies in glorious strife, as the sacrificer strews holy grass on the
place of sacrifice, so did Indra the hero pour out the winds. Sixty
hundred of the mounted Anus and Druhyus perished; sixty and six heroes
fell before the righteous Sudas. These are the heroic deeds, all of
which Indra has done. Without delay, Indra destroyed all the fortresses
of the enemy, and divided the goods of the Anus in battle to the
Tritsus. The four horses of Sudas, the coursers worthy of praise, richly
adorned, stamping the ground, will bring race against race to glory. Ye
strong Maruts, be gracious to him as to his father Divodasa, preserve to
him the house of Pijavana, and let the power of the righteous king
continue uninjured." In another song of the Rigveda the glory of this
victory of king Sudas is especially ascribed to Vasishtha and his sons
"in white robes with the knot on the right side" (p. 29). They were seen
surrounded in the battle of the ten kings, then Indra heard Vasishtha's
song of praise, and the Bharatas were broken like the staffs of the
ox-driver. The Vasishthas had brought the mighty Indra from far by their
soma-offering, by the power of their prayer; then had Indra given glory
to the Tritsus, and their tribes had extended.[123]
The extension of the Aryas in the rich plains of the Yamuna and the
Ganges must in the first place have followed the course of the former
river towards the south, and then reached over the land between the two
rivers, until the immigrants arrived further and further to the east on
the banks of the Ganges. We have no historical information about the
facts of these migrations and conquests, of the occupation of the
valleys of the Yamuna, the upper and middle Ganges; we can only
ascertain that the valley of the Yamuna, and the doab of the two rivers
were first occupied and most thickly colonised. It is not till we come
lower down the course of the Ganges, that we find a large number of the
old population in a position of subjection to the Arian settlers.
Lastly, as we learn from the Indian Epos, the Aryas had not merely to
contend against the old population at the time of their settlement; nor
did they merely press upon one another, while those who came last sought
to push forward the early immigrants, as we concluded to be the case
from the hymns quoted from the Rigveda; they also engaged in conflicts
among themselves for the possession of the best land between the Yamuna
and the Ganges. In these struggles the tribes of the immigrants became
amalgamated into large communities or nations, and the successful
leaders found themselves at the head of important states. The conquest
and colonisation of such large regions, the limitation and arrangement
of the new states founded in them, could only be accomplished in a long
space of time. According to the Epos and the Puranas, _i.e._ the very
late and untrustworthy collections of Indian legends and traditions, it
was after a great war among the Aryas in the doab of the Yamuna and
Ganges, in which the family of Pandu obtained the crown of the Bharatas
on the upper Ganges, that the commotion ceased, and the newly founded
states enjoyed a state of peace. In the Rigveda, the Bharatas are to the
west of the Vipaça, in the Epos we find them dwelling on the upper
Ganges; on the Yamuna are settled the nations of the Matsyas, and the
Yadavas; between the upper Yamuna and the Ganges are the Panchalas,
_i.e._ the five tribes; eastward of the Bharatas on the Sarayu, down to
the Ganges, are the Koçalas. Still further to the east and north of the
Ganges are the Videhas; on the Ganges itself are the Kaçis and the
Angas, and to the south of the Ganges the Magadhas.
Are we in a position to fix even approximately the period at which the
settlement of the Aryas in the valley of the Ganges took place, and the
struggles connected with this movement came to an end? The law-book of
the Indians tells us that the world has gone through four ages; the age
of perfection, _Kritayuga_; the age of the three fires of sacrifice,
_i.e._ of the complete observance of all sacred duties, _Tritayuga_; the
age of doubt, _Dvaparayuga_, in which the knowledge of divine things
became obscured; and lastly the age of sin, the present age of the
world, _Kaliyuga_. Between the end of one period and the beginning of
the next there came in each case a period of dimness and twilight. If
this period is reckoned in, the first age lasted 4800 divine years, or
1,728,000 human years; the life of men in this age reached 400 years.
The second age lasted 3600 divine years, or 1,296,000 human years, and
life reached 300 years. The third age lasted 2400 divine years, or
864,000 human years, and men only lived to the age of 200 years. The
present age will last 1200 divine years, or 432,000 human years, and men
will never live beyond the age of 100 years.[124] This scheme is
obviously an invention intended to represent the decline of the better
world and the increase of evil, in proportion to the distance from the
divine origin. In the matter of numbers the Indians are always inclined
to reckon with large figures, and nothing is gained by setting forth the
calculations in greater detail. From the Rigveda it is clear that the
year of the Indians contained 360 days in twelve months of 30 days. In
order to bring this year into accordance with the natural time, a month
of thirty days was inserted in each fifth year as a thirteenth month
although the actual excess in five years only amounted to 26-1/4 days.
Twelve of these cycles of five years were then united into a period of
60 years, _i.e._ 12 x 5, and both the smaller and the larger periods
were called _Yuga_.[125] On this analogy the world-periods were formed.
By multiplying the age of sin by ten we get the whole duration of the
world; the perfect age is four times as long as the age of sin.[126] A
year with the gods is as long as a day with men; hence a divine year
contains 360 years of men, and the world-period, _i.e._ the great
world-year, is completed in 12 cycles each of 1000 divine years, _i.e._
360,000 human years. In the first age, the age of perfection, Yama and
Manu walked and lived on earth with their half-divine companions (p.
30); in the age of the three fires of sacrifice, _i.e._ of the strict
fulfilment of sacred duties, lived Pururavas, who kindled the triple
sacrificial fire,[127] and the great sacrificers or minstrels, the seven
or ten Rishis (p. 29 _n._ 2); the period of darkness and doubt was the
age of the great heroes. With the priests who invented this system of
ages the period of the great heroes was naturally placed lower than that
of the great sacrificers and saints. The historical value attaching to
this scheme lies in the fact that the Epos places the great war of the
Pandus and Kurus in the period of transition between the age of doubt
and the age of evil, in the twilight of the Kaliyuga, and the Puranas in
consequence make the beginning of the reign of the first Pandu over the
Bharatas after the great war, the accession of Parikshit, coincide with
the commencement of the Kaliyuga.[128] Now according to the date of the
Puranas the Kaliyuga begins in the year 3102 B.C. On this calculation
the great movement towards the east and in the east came to an end about
this time.
That the Indians once contented themselves with smaller numbers in
fixing the ages than those which we find in the book of the law and the
Puranas, we may conclude from the statements of the Greek Megasthenes,
who drew up his account at the court of Chandragupta (Sandrakottos) of
Magadha at the end of the fourth century B.C. This author tells us that
in ancient times the Indians were nomads, clothed in the skins of
animals, and eating raw flesh, till Dionysus came to them and taught
them the tillage of the field, the care of vines, and the worship of the
gods. On leaving India he made Spatembas king, who reigned 52 years;
after him his son Budyas reigned for 20 years, who was in turn succeeded
by his son Kradeuas, and so the sceptre descended from father to son;
but if a king died without children the Indians selected the best man to
be king. From Dionysus to Sandrakottos the Indians calculated 153 kings,
and 6402 years. In this period the line had been broken three times; the
second interruption lasted 300 years, the third 120 years.[129] What
particular rite among the Indians caused the Greeks to represent
Dionysus as visiting India and to make him the founder of Indian
civilisation, will become clear further on. Putting this aside, the
account of Megasthenes of the triple break in the series of kings shows
that the system of the four ages was in vogue among the Indians even at
that time. If Megasthenes speaks of a single line of Indian kings ruling
over the whole of India from the very beginning, the reason is obviously
that he transfers to the past the condition in which India was at the
time when he abode on the Ganges. Chandragupta did what had never been
done before; he united under his dominion all the regions of India from
the Panjab to the mouth of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to the
Vindhyas. But the close of this series of kings at which Sandrakottos is
himself placed shows us plainly that the royal line of Megasthenes is no
other than the royal line of Magadha. The Puranas of the Indians also
carry back the line of Magadha to the ancient heroes, and through them
to the progenitors of the nation. Spatembas, with whom the series of
Indian kings commences in Megasthenes, may be the Manu Svayambhuva whom
the cosmogonic systems of the priests had meanwhile placed before Manu
Vaivasvata, the son of Vivasvat. Budyas the successor of Spatembas may
have been the Budha of the Indians who is with them the father of
Pururavas, the kindler of the triple fire of sacrifice: and Pururavas
himself may be concealed under the Kradeuas of the manuscripts, which
is possibly Prareuas, the Grecised form of the Indian name. However this
may be, the statements of Megasthenes present us with far smaller and
more intelligible numbers for the periods of Indian history than those
obtained from Manu's book of the law and the Puranas.[130]
The year in which Chandragupta conquered Palibothra, and so ascended the
throne of Magadha, can be fixed with accuracy from the accounts of
western writers. It was the year 315 B.C. As 6042 years are supposed to
elapse between Spatembas and the accession of Sandrakottos, Spatembas
must have begun to reign over the Indians in the year 6717 B.C. But this
date it is impossible to maintain. In the first place it is impossible
that 153 reigns should have filled up a space of 6400 years. This would
allow each king a reign of 42 years, or of about 38 years if we deduct
600 years for the three interruptions in the series. Moreover, the
Indian lists of kings, at any rate as we now find them in the Epos and
in the Puranas, present a smaller total of kings than 153, whether they
come down to Chandragupta himself, or to his age. From Chandragupta to
Brihadratha, the supposed founder of the race, the lists of the kings of
Magadha give 53 kings according to the lesser total and 64 according to
the larger. If to these lists we add the rulers who unite the kings of
Magadha to the family of Kuru, and those who carry back the family of
Kuru to Manu, we are still able to add no more than 28 or 38 kings
according as we take the shorter or longer lists. Hence in these lists,
instead of 153 kings, we get at most only 100, as reigning before
Chandragupta. The list given in the Vishnu Purana for the kings of the
Koçalas is somewhat longer; it enumerates 116 kings from Manu to
Prasenajit, whose reign fills the interval between 600 and 550 B.C. If
we add 10 or 14 reigns for the period between Prasenajit and the
accession of Chandragupta, the longest of the lists preserved by the
Indians would still only present 130 reigns before the time of
Chandragupta.[131]
It is not clear from the account of Megasthenes, or at any rate from the
excerpts which have come down to us, what was the extent of the period
which elapsed between the last interruption in the list of kings and
Sandrakottos. Hence we are not in a position to ascertain the duration
of the fourth age, or Kaliyuga, as it was fixed among the Indians in his
time; we must therefore have recourse to other proofs in order to
discover whether the year given in the Puranas, 3102 B.C., may be taken
for the commencement of a new period, _i.e._ the post-epic, or historic,
in the valley of the Ganges. The fixed point from which we must start is
the year of the accession of Sandrakottos, a date rendered certain by
the accounts of the Greeks. In the period before this date, the lists of
the Brahmans taken together with the lists of Buddhists carry back the
series of the kings of Magadha, which was the most important kingdom on
the Ganges long before Sandrakottos, with tolerable certainty as far as
the year 803 B.C., _i.e._ to the beginning of the sway of the dynasty
of the Pradyotas over Magadha.[132]
Can we ascend beyond this point? According to the Puranas, the race of
the Barhadrathas had ruled over Magadha before the Pradyotas, from
Somapi to Ripunjaya, the last of the family, and their sway had
continued 1000 years. Of this family the Vayu-Purana enumerates 21
kings, and the Matsya-Purana 32 kings. This domination of a thousand
years is obviously a round, cyclic sum: and both in the Vayu-Purana and
the Matsya-Purana the total of the reigns given for the several rulers
of this dynasty falls below the sum of 1000 years. If we take 25 years,
the highest possible average for each reign, 21 reigns or 525 years will
only bring us to the year 1328 B.C. (803 + 525). At this date, then, the
Barhadrathas may have begun to reign over Magadha. If, on the other
hand, we keep 32 as the number of these kings, and an average of only 15
years is allotted to the several reigns--an average usually correct in
long lists of reigns in the East--we arrive at 1283 B.C. as the date of
the beginning of the reign of the Barhadrathas (803 + 480). To this
date, or near it, we come, if we test the lists of kings supplied by the
Puranas for the series of the kings of the Koçalas and the Bharatas in
the land of the Ganges. The time at which Prasenajit was king of the
Koçalas can be fixed at the first half of the sixth century B.C. (see
below). Before him the Vishnu-Purana gives a series of 23 kings down to
the close of the great war. Twenty-three reigns, allowing an average of
25 years for each, carry us 575 years beyond the commencement of
Prasenajit, _i.e._ up to 1175 B.C. (600 + 575). In the list of the
rulers of Hastinapura, for which throne the great war was waged,
Çatanika appears as the twenty-fourth successor of Parikshit, to whom,
as we found, this throne fell, after the conclusion of the great war. As
Çatanika died about the year 600 B.C. (cf. Book VI. chap, i.), 24 reigns
of 25 years before him would bring us to the year 1200 B.C. as the
beginning of the year of Parikshit. The statement of the Puranas that he
ascended the throne in the year 3102 B.C. and that the Kaliyuga began
with that year cannot therefore be maintained. And this date is
contradicted not only by the results of an examination of the lists of
the kings of Magadha, of the Koçalas and Bharatas, but also by a
statement in the Vishnu-Purana. This tells us that, from the beginning
of the Kaliyuga to the date when the first Nanda ascended the throne of
Magadha, a period of 1015 years elapsed.[133] The accession of this king
we can place with tolerable certainty in the year 403 B.C.; and thus,
even on the evidence of the Vishnu-Purana, the Kaliyuga began in the
year 1418 B.C., and Parikshit ascended the throne of the Bharatas in
that year. It is not impossible, therefore, that the 32 reigns which the
Matsya-Purana gives to the Barhadrathas may have filled up the time from
the year 1418 to the year 803 B.C. (615 years).[134] Before the first
Barhadrathas, Sahadeva, Jarasandha, and Brihadratha are said to have
reigned over Magadha. Hence the foundation of the kingdom of Magadha
would have to be placed, at the earliest, in the year 1480 B.C., and not
earlier; but rather, if we follow the comparison of the parallel reigns
as above, a century later. If the great movement towards the east and in
the east was brought to an end at the accession of Parikshit and the
commencement of the Kaliyuga in the year 1418 B.C., and thus in the
course of the fifteenth or fourteenth century the foundation could be
laid for the kingdom of Magadha, _i.e._ for a great civic community far
to the east, the migration into the regions of the Yamuna and the upper
Ganges must have commenced at the least about the year 1500 B.C. We have
already referred to the fact that the colonisation of such extensive
districts, the foundation and fortification of large kingdoms in them,
which was moreover rendered still more difficult by severe contests
among the immigrants, could not have been the work of a few decades of
years.
If the immigration of the Aryas into the land of the Ganges took place
about 1500 B.C. we should have a point whereby to fix the time at which
the hymns of the Veda were composed, for in them, as has been already
remarked, the Ganges is rarely mentioned. The great number of the hymns
must therefore have received the form in which they were retained and
handed down by the families of minstrels before the year 1500 B.C. The
period of migration brought with it more serious and earnest tasks than
had occupied the Aryas in the Panjab. The struggles against the old
population, the wars of the newly-established states with one another,
claimed the whole power of the emigrants. Hence the duties of the
sacrificial songs or of hymns of thanksgiving were thrown into the
background by the imperative necessities of the moment. Men were
contented with the invocations of the gods which lived in the memory of
the minstrel-families, and had been brought from the ancient home. The
minstrels also, who led the emigrant princes and tribes, naturally gave
their attention to songs of war and victory--songs of which the fragment
preserved from the wars of the Bharatas against the Tritsus is an
example (p. 67). When at length the period of emigration, of settlement,
and struggle was over, with the advent of more peaceful times, the
excitement of the moment gave place to reflection and to the remembrance
of the great deeds of the ancestors. The inspired flights, the pressure
of immediate feeling which had prompted the songs before the battle and
after the victory, were followed by a more peaceful and narrative tone.
Hence grew up a series of songs of the marvels and deeds of the heroes
who had conquered the land in the Yamuna and Ganges, and had founded
states and cities there. As the heroes and events thus celebrated passed
into the background, as the intervening periods became wider, the
greater was the tendency of this mass of song to gather round a few
great names and incidents. The less prominent forms and struggles
disappeared, and in the centuries which followed the strain of
settlement and establishment an artificial culture of this warlike
minstrelsy united the whole recollections of the heroic times into the
narrative of the great war, the Mahabharata.
If we could present to ourselves this Epos of the Indians in the form
which it may have assumed two or three centuries after the close of the
great migrations and struggles, _i.e._ about the eleventh century B.C.,
it would still be a valuable source of historical knowledge. We could
not indeed have taken the occurrences described in it as historical
facts, without criticism, but we should have possessed a tradition of
which the outline would have been approximately correct, and a
description of manners historically true for the period when the poems
arose and were thrown into shape--though untrue for the period depicted
in the poem--after deducting what was due to the idealism of the poet.
Unfortunately, repeated revisions and alterations have almost effaced
the original lines; each new stage of civilisation attained by the
Indians has eagerly sought to infuse its ideas and conceptions into the
national tradition; older and later elements lie side by side often
without any attempt at reconciliation, sometimes in direct opposition.
The original warlike character of the poetry is forced into the
background by the priestly point of view of a later age. In the poems in
their present form there is none of that freshness of feeling and
impression which is so vividly expressed in the prayers of the priests
of the Bharatas, and the songs of the Tritsus; there is no immediate
recollection at work. The effort to comprise all the stories and legends
of the nation into a whole, to bring forward in these poems, as in a
pattern and mirror of virtue, every lesson of religion and morals, and
unite them into one great body of doctrine, has swelled the Indian Epos
into a heavy and enormous mass, an encyclopædia, in which it is not
possible without great labour to discover the connecting links of the
narrative in the endless chaos of interpolations and episodes, the
varying accounts of one and the same event. The Epos has thus become a
tangle in which we cannot discover the original threads. It received its
present form in the last centuries B.C.[135]
In the poem of the great war once waged by the kings of the Aryas on the
Yamuna and the upper Ganges the Tritsus are no longer found on the
Sarasvati or the Yamuna. The enemies at this period are the Matsyas and
the Bharatas, the former on the Yamuna, the latter further to the east
on the upper Ganges. The Tritsus have been forced further to the east,
and have become lost among the Koçalas, who are situated on the Sarayu,
or have taken that name; at any rate, the name of Sudas appears in the
genealogical table of the rulers of the Koçalas, and in the Ramayana, as
in other traditions, Vasishtha, who (or whose family) then gained
victory by his prayers for Sudas, is the wisest priest among the
Koçalas.[136] Hence we may conclude that at a later time the Bharatas
were more fortunate in their advance to the east. The struggle for their
country and throne is the central point in the poem. According to the
Mahabharata the rulers of the Bharatas spring from Manu. With Ila, the
daughter of Manu, Budha the son of the moon, begot the 'pious'
Pururavas, _i.e._ the far-famed. Pururavas is succeeded by Ayus,
Nahusha, and Yayati. From Yayati's elder sons, Anu, Druhyu, Yadu, spring
the Anus, the Drahyus, and the Yadavas,[137] of whom we already have the
two first as confederates of the Bharatas.[138] Yayati was followed on
the throne by his youngest son Puru. Dushyanta, one of the successors of
Puru, married Çakuntala, the daughter of the priest Viçvamitra. To him
she bore Bharata, who reduced all nations, and was lord of the whole
earth. After Bharata, Bhumanyu, Suhotra, Ajamidha, and Samvarana,
occupied the throne of Hastinapura, the chief city of the kingdom on the
upper Ganges.[139] In Samvarana's reign the kingdom was attacked by
droughts, famine, and pestilence; and the king of the Panchalas advanced
with a mighty host, and conquered Samvarana in the battle, who fled with
his wife Tapati, his children and dependants, to the west, and took up
his abode in a forest hut in the neighbourhood of the Indus. There the
Bharatas lived for a long time, protected by the impenetrable country.
Afterwards Samvarana reconquered the glorious city which he had
previously inhabited, and Tapati bore him Kuru, whom the nation chose to
be king. Kuru was succeeded on the throne of Hastinapura by Viduratha,
Anaçvan, Parikshit, Pratiçravas, Pratipa and Çantanu.
The names which the poem places at the head of the genealogical tree of
the rulers of the Bharatas are taken from the Veda. Yayati, like
Pururavas, is commended in the Rigveda as a sacrificer. The name of
Yayati's son, Puru, is borrowed from a name which in the Veda designates
the Bharatas, who in these poems are variously called Purus and
Bharatas.[140] The tribes of the Anus, and the Druhyus, whom the Rigveda
presented to us as confederates of the Bharatas, are in the Epos united
with them by their ancestors. We have become acquainted with Viçvamitra
as a priest and minstrel of the Bharatas, when they crossed the Vipaça
against the Tritsus. In the Epos a descendant of Puru begets Bharata,
_i.e._ the second eponymous hero of the tribe, with the daughter of
Viçvamitra. In order to glorify the position of this priest, and secure
his blessing for the royal race of the Puru-Bharatas, he becomes, in the
Epos, by his daughter, the progenitor of king Bharata, to whom at the
same time is ascribed the dominion over the whole earth. Thus far, it is
obvious, the Epos goes to work upon the names of the tribes, and changes
them into the names of heroes or kings. Apart from any poetical
exaggeration, the wide dominion of the mythical king Bharata is, no
doubt, an anticipation of the predominance to which the Bharatas
attained at a later time on the upper Ganges. At any rate, according to
the Epos, Samvarana, the descendant of Bharata, was compelled to return
once more to the Indus, and there take up his abode for a long time. The
statement that it is the Panchalas who conquer Samvarana is no doubt an
invention based on the attitude of the Panchalas towards the Bharatas in
the great war (p. 88). With Kuru, the successor of Samvarana, it is
obvious that a new dynasty begins to reign over the Bharatas. This is
obviously the first dynasty, whose achievements were widely felt, to
which the Epic poetry could attach itself. Owing to his justice, Kuru is
chosen by the nation of the Bharatas to be their king; this, of itself,
is evidence of a new beginning. But Kuru is also said to be of divine
origin, like Pururavas, the progenitor of his supposed ancestors.
Pururavas is the child of the son of the moon and the daughter of Manu;
Kuru is the child of Samvarana and the sister of Manu, the daughter of
the god of light. Manu was the son of Vivasvat (p. 30); Tapati, the
mother of Kuru, is the daughter of Vivasvat.[141] The name Kurukshetra,
_i.e._ land or kingdom of Kuru, which adheres to the region between the
Drishadvati and the Yamuna, is evidence that the Bharatas, under the
guidance of the kings descended from Kuru, first conquered this region
and settled in it. When they had been there long enough to give to the
country as a lasting name a title derived from their kings, they
extended their settlements from the Yamuna further to the north-east.
Here, on the upper Ganges, Hastinapura became the abode of their kings
of the stock of Kuru, whose name now passed over to the people, so that
the Bharatas, who, in the Veda, are called Purus and Bharatas, are now
called Kurus after their royal family. With the Bharatas, or soon after
them, other Arian tribes advance to the Yamuna; here we meet in the Epos
the tribes which, according to the Rigveda, once fought with the
Bharatas against the Tritsus, the Matsyas, and the Yadavas, the latter
lower down on the Yamuna. Hence we may conclude with tolerable certainty
that the Bharatas, under the guidance of the Kurus, succeeded in driving
further to the east the tribes which had previously emigrated in that
direction--the Tritsus (_i.e._ the Koçalas), Angas, Videhas, and
Magadhas (as they were afterwards called), and that it was the family of
the Kurus who established the first extensive dominion among the Indians
on the upper Ganges. It is the struggles of the tribes, who once in part
united with the Bharatas, and followed them into the valley of Yamuna,
against the kingdom of the Kurus which are described in the Mahabharata.
Çantanu, the descendant of Kuru, had a son Bhishma, so we are told in
this poem. When Çantanu was old he wished to marry a young wife,
Satyavati; but her parents refused their consent, because the sons of
their daughter could not inherit the throne. Then Bhishma vowed never to
marry, and to give up his claim to the throne. Satyavati became the wife
of Çantanu, and bore him two sons. The oldest of these Bhishma placed,
after Çantanu's death, on the throne, and, when he fell in war, he
placed the younger son, Vijitravirya, to whom he married two daughters
of the king of the Kaçis, a people situated on the Ganges (in the
neighbourhood of Varanasi or Benares). But the king died without
children. Anxious that the race of Kuru should not die out, Satyavati
bade the wise priest Vyasa, the son of her love, whom she had borne
before her marriage with Çantanu, raise up children to the two widows of
Vijitravirya. When the first widow saw the holy man approach by the
light of the lamp, with knots in his hair, with flashing eyes, and bushy
brows, she trembled and closed her eyes. The second widow became pale
with fear; and so it befell that the son of the first, Dhritarashtra,
was born blind, and the son of the second, Pandu, was a pale man.
Bhishma took both under his care. He married Dhritarashtra to Gandhari,
the daughter of the king of the Gandharas, on the Indus; for Pandu he
chose the daughter of a prince of the Bodshas, Kunti; and with gold and
precious stones, Bhishma also purchased for him a second wife, Madri,
the sister of the prince of the Madras. As Dhritarashtra was blind,
Bhishma made Pandu king of Hastinapura, and he became a mighty warrior;
under him the kingdom was as powerful as under Bharata. But he loved
hunting even more than war. He went with his wives to the Himalayas in
order to hunt, and there he died at an early age. The blind
Dhritarashtra now reigned over the Bharatas. His wife Gandhari had first
borne him Duryodhana and then ninety-nine sons; but on the same day on
which Duryodhana saw the light Kunti had borne Yudhishthira to Pandu,
and after him Arjuna and Bhima. Madri bore twins to Pandu, Nakula and
Sahadeva. With these five sons Kunti returned to Hastinapura after
Pandu's death. Dhritarashtra received them into the palace, and they
became strong and brave, and showed their power and skill in arms at a
great tournament, which Dhritarashtra caused to be held at Hastinapura.
The martial skill exhibited in this tournament by the sons of Pandu, and
a victory which they obtained against the Panchalas, who had defeated
Duryodhana, induced Dhritarashtra to fix on Yudhishthira as his
successor. But Duryodhana would not allow the throne to be taken from
him. At his instigation Dhritarashtra removed the sons of Pandu from
Hastinapura to Varanavata at the confluence of the Yamuna and the
Ganges. Even here Duryodhana's hatred pursued them; he caused their
house to be set on fire, so that they with difficulty escaped from the
flames. They fled into the wilderness. As they wandered up and down,
they heard that Drupada, the king of the Panchalas, against whom they
had fought for Dhritarashtra, had made proclamation, that whosoever
could bend his great bow and hit the mark, should win his daughter. In
vain did all kings and heroes try their strength on this bow, till
Arjuna came. He strung the bow, hit the mark, and so won the king's
daughter to wife--whom he shared with his four brothers. When the Kurus
discovered that the sons of Pandu were alive and had become the
sons-in-law of the king of the Panchalas, they were afraid, and in order
to avoid a war between the Panchalas and Bharatas, Dhritarashtra divided
his kingdom with the sons of Pandu. As Dhritarashtra's royal abode was
at Hastinapura, on the Ganges, the sons of Pandu founded the city of
Indraprashtha in their portion of the kingdom (it lay to the south-west
of Hastinapura on the Yamuna), conquered the surrounding people, and
amassed great wealth in their new city, so that Yudhishthira offered the
great royal sacrifice. This aroused the envy and anxiety of Duryodhana.
He caused the sons of Pandu to be invited to Hastinapura to a game of
dice. As Çakuni, the brother of his mother Gandhari, was very skilful in
throwing the dice and always won, Duryodhana hoped to be able to gain
back his kingdom from Yudishthira. The sons of Pandu came. Yudishthira
lost his kingdom and his goods, his slaves, himself, and finally he lost
Draupadi. Duryodhana bade the latter, as a slave, sweep the room; and
when she refused, Dushana, one of his brothers, dragged her by her long
black hair. Then the blind Dhritarashtra came, and said that his sons
had done wrong; the Pandus should return into their kingdom and forget
what had happened on this day. When they returned home, Duryodhana
induced his father to allow a second game of dice against the Pandus, as
he and his brothers were not allowed to take up arms against them; the
defeated party was to go into banishment for twelve years. This was
done, and Çakuni, who again threw the dice for Duryodhana, was once more
victorious. For twelve years the Pandus wandered with Draupadi into the
desert, and lived by the chase. In the thirteenth they went in disguise
to Virata the king of the Matsyas, and became his servants. Yudishthira
was his instructor in the game of dice; Arjuna, clothed as a eunuch,
taught dancing and music in the women's apartment; Bhima was cook;
Nakula and Sahadeva were overseers of the horses and cattle; Draupadi
was the queen's maid. When Duryodhana invaded the land of the Matsyas
and lifted their cattle, Arjuna recovered the booty, and in reward, when
the Pandus had made themselves known, he received the king's daughter as
a wife for his son Abhimanyu. On the day after the marriage a
consultation was held how the Pandus could recover their sovereignty, as
the time of exile was now over. An embassy was sent to Hastinapura to
demand the part of the kingdom possessed by the Pandus. Through
Duryodhana's efforts the request was refused. The Pandus and Kurus
prepared for war.
The armies met in the plain of Kurukshetra, in the ancient territory of
the Kuru-Bharatas, between the Drishadvati and the Yamuna. The Bharatas
were led by the aged Bhishma, Çantanu's eldest son, with whom was
associated his grand-nephew Duryodhana, the oldest son of Dhritarashtra
and the bitter foe of his cousins. With the Bharatas were the Çurasenas,
whom we afterwards find on the Yamuna, the Madras, the Koçalas, the
Videhas and the Angas--who were situated on the eastern affluents of the
Ganges, and the northern bank of the river. The Pandus were supported by
the Matsyas, the king of the Panchalas, Drupada, with his young son
Çikhandin, and his people, the Kaçis from the Ganges, and Krishna, a
hero of the Yadavas, with a part of his people; the remainder fought for
the Kurus. In front of the army of the Pandus were seen the five
brothers on their chariots of war, from which waved their standards.
Before the banner of Yudishthira, who stood upon his chariot, slim of
shape, in garments of yellow and gold, with a nose like the flower of
Prachandala, the two drums sounded; beside him was the long-armed Bhima,
holding in his hand his iron club adorned with gold, with dark glance
and knitted brows. The third was the bearer of the great bow, Arjuna,
with an ape on his banner, the steadfast hero of men, who reverenced the
men of old, the destroyer of the troops of the enemy, who banished the
fears of the fearful. Last were seen Nakula who fought with the sword,
and Sahadeva. Opposite them Bhishma's banner waved from his chariot on a
golden palm-stem; it displayed five silver stars. When the armies
approached each other Bhishma cried with a voice of thunder to his
warriors: "To-day the gates of heaven are opened for the brave; go ye
the way which your fathers and ancestors have gone to heaven, by falling
gloriously. Would ye rather end life on a sick-bed in pain? Only in the
field may the Kshatriya (warrior) fall." Then he seized the great
gold-adorned shell and blew for onset. As the sea surges to and fro in a
storm when driven by roaring winds, the armies dashed upon each other;
from afar the ravens screamed and the wolves howled, announcing a great
slaughter, and heaps of carcasses. The heroes fight against the hostile
heroes; rarely do they spring down from their chariots, and scatter the
"heads of the foot soldiers like seed." The princes mutually cover each
other with clouds of arrows; they shoot down the hostile charioteers, so
that the horses rage uncontrolled hither and thither in the battle; if
the elephants are driven against the chariots in order to overthrow
them, the riders shoot them like "peacocks from trees," or they seize
the great swords and hew off their trunks, at the root, close by the
tusks, so that "the harnessed elephants" raise a great roar. In their
turn they tear the warriors from their chariots; they press on
irresistibly through the ranks of the warriors, like streams "leaping
from rock to rock;" they check the advance of the enemy "as rocks beat
back the waves of the sea." Covered with arrows they drop blood, till,
deeply wounded in the head and neck, they fall to the ground, or turn
raging on their own army. When the heroes have shot forth their arrows,
their bows broken, the missiles driven through their coats of mail, so
that the warriors "blossom like rose-trees," they leap down from their
chariots, seize their great painted shields of hide, raise aloft their
war-clubs and rush like buffalo-bulls upon each other. At one time in
attack, at another in defence, they circle round each other, and spy out
a moment to give a deadly blow. If the shields are destroyed and the
clubs broken, they rush like "maddened tigers" to wrestle and fight hand
to hand, till one sinks to earth pouring out blood, like a tree of which
the root has been hewn through.
Thus, for nine days, the contest went on between the two armies. The
army of the Kurus had the advantage; no one ventured to meet the aged
Bhishma. Then Krishna, the driver of Arjuna, advised him to mount the
chariot of Çikhandin, the young son of Drupada, the prince of the
Panchalas, on the following morning and to put on his armour. The aged
Bhishma would not fight against Çikhandin; he held it beneath him to
fight against children. When he saw Arjuna approach him with the ensigns
of Çikhandin, and in his armour, he cried out, "Attack me as you will,
I will not fight with you." Then Arjuna laid the smooth arrows of reed,
furnished with feathers from the heron and points of iron, on the string
of the bow, and covered Bhishma with arrows as a cloud in summer pours
its rain on the mountain. The invincible old man looked up with
astonishment, and cried: "Like a row of swarming bees, arrow hisses
after arrow through the air. As the lightning of Indra travels to earth,
so do these arrows fly. They are not the arrows of Çikhandin. Like
thunder-bolts shattering all they pierce through my mail and shield into
my limbs. Like poisonous snakes darting their tongues in anger, their
arrows bite me and drink my heart's blood. They are not the arrows of
Çikhandin; they are Yama's messengers (p. 63); they bring the death I
have long desired; they are the arrows of Arjuna." Head foremost,
streaming with blood, Bhishma fell from the chariot. Delighted at this
victory, Arjuna cried aloud with a clear lion's cry, and the army of the
Pandus shouted for joy and blew their shells. Duryodhana's warriors were
seized with panic; their tower and defence was gone. Drona, whom the
sons of Pandu had once instructed in the use of arms, now led the army
of the Kurus; and a second time they gained the advantage. Bhima sought
in vain to overcome Drona; then the brother of Draupadi attacked him,
and at Krishna's advice, Yudishthira and Bhima called to Drona that his
son Açvatthaman had fallen. Deceived by this craft, Drona allowed his
arms to drop, and Draupadi's brother smote off his head. After his fall,
the Kurus were led by Karna, the prince of the Angas. He passed as the
son of a waggoner; his real father, the sun-god Surya, appeared to him
in the night, and warned him against Arjuna; he would meet his death.
Glory was sweet to the living, when parents, children, and friends
surrounded him with pride, and kings celebrated his courage; but what
was honour and glory to the withered man who had become ashes?--it was
only the flowers and the chaplets placed on his corpse to adorn it.
Karna answered: He had no friend, no wife nor child; he feared not
death, and would gladly sacrifice his body in the battle; but Arjuna
would not conquer him. On the next morning he prudently besought Çalya,
the prince of the Madyas, to guide his horses, since Krishna, the best
of charioteers, guided the horses of Arjuna. At the instance of
Duryodhana, Çalya undertook to do this, but his heart was angered at the
degrading thought that he was guiding the horses of a waggoner, and he
guided them so that while Karna was fighting against Arjuna, and had
wounded him with his arrows, the chariot sank in a marsh. As Karna
sprang down in order to draw the chariot out, Arjuna, at Krishna's
instigation, shot a deadly arrow into the hero's back. Then one hero of
the Kurus fell after the other. On the eighteenth day of the struggle,
Duryodhana and Bhima met. As two raging elephants goad each other for
the possession of a female elephant, so did these princes meet with
their battle-clubs, whirling round sometimes to the right and sometimes
to the left, each seeking the unprotected part of his opponent, and
brandishing his club in the air. Duryodhana has the advantage. He has
retired before a stroke of Bhima's club, which has thus spent itself on
the ground; seeing the unprotected state of his opponent, he has dealt
him a mighty blow on the breast. Then, on Krishna's advice, Bhima dealt
a blow at Duryodhana's thigh, broke the bone, and the two fell to the
earth. The army of the Pandus shouted for joy, but Duryodhana spoke with
his dying voice: "We have always fought honourably, and, therefore, the
honour remains with us. You have won by craft and dishonour, and
dishonour attends your victory. In honourable fight you would never have
conquered us. In the garments of Çikhandin, Arjuna slew Bhishma when
defenceless. To Drona ye cried in subtlety that his son was dead, and
slew him as he dropped his arms. Karna, Arjuna slew by a shameful blow
from behind; by dishonour Bhima brings me to the ground, for it is said,
'In battle with the club it is dishonourable to strike below the
navel.'" Red with rage, Bhima stepped up to the king-lion who lay
outstretched, with his club beside him, beat in his skull with his foot,
and said: "We have not laid fire to burn our enemies, nor cheated them
in the game, nor outraged their wives; by the strength of our arms alone
we destroy our enemies." On the evening of the eighteenth day of the
battle, all the brothers of Duryodhana, all the princes who fought for
the Kurus, and all the warriors of the Kurus were dead. The victors blew
their shells, called Yudishthira to the king, and obtained as booty
numberless treasures in gold and silver, in precious stones, in cloths,
skins, and slave-women. Then all is sunk in deep slumber. But three
warriors of the army of the Kurus have escaped into the forest;
Açvatthaman, the son of the slain Drona, Kritavarman and Kripa. Sorrow
for his father made rest impossible for Açvatthaman; on the branches of
the fig-tree under which he lay he saw a troop of crows asleep; an owl
softly flew up and slew one crow after the other. Açvatthaman set out
with his companions and penetrated into the camp of the Pandus. First he
slays the brother of Draupadi who had killed his father; then he throws
fire into the camp, and slays the five sons of Draupadi, and all the
Matsyas and Panchalas. Then he hastens to the place where Duryodhana
lies. "Thou art still living," he says to Duryodhana; "listen, then, to
a word which will be pleasing to thine ear: all the Panchalas, all the
Matsyas, all the sons of Draupadi are dead." Only the four brothers, the
sons of Pandu, Krishna and his charioteer, escaped this nocturnal
massacre.
Then the dead were buried on the field of Kurukshetra: the sons of Pandu
knelt before Dhritarashtra, and Vyasa reconciled the old king with the
sons of his step-brother; but Gandhari cursed Krishna, who by his
devices had brought her sons to death. Then the Pandus made their
entrance into Hastinapura, and Yudishthira was consecrated king under
the guidance of Krishna. He treated the old king as a son treats his
father, but the latter could not forget the death of Duryodhana and his
other sons: he went with Gandhari into the jungles on the Ganges, and
with her he perished, when the jungle was set on fire. At Vyasa's
command Yudishthira offered a sacrifice of horses, and then obtained the
dominion over the whole earth. Following the course of the sacrificial
horse (chap. VIII.) Arjuna conquered for him the Magadhas on the south
bank of the Ganges, the Chedis, the Nishadas, the Saindhavas, _i.e._ the
inhabitants of the Indus, and the Gandharas, beyond the Indus.[142]
Afterwards all the conquered kings presented themselves at this
sacrifice of the horse in Hastinapura, and acknowledged Yudishthira as
their lord. He sat on the throne of Hastinapura for 36 years, and then
heard that the curse which Gandhari had pronounced upon Krishna was
fulfilled. At a great festival of the Yadavas the reproach was made
against Açvatthaman that he had basely slain the heroes in their sleep,
after the great battle. Then there arose a strife among the princes of
the Yadavas. They seized their weapons and mutually slaughtered each
other. Distressed at the loss of his people Krishna retired into the
wilderness, and there he was slain by the arrow of a hunter who took him
for an antelope. The death of the hero to whom he owed his victory
filled Yudishthira and his brothers with deep sorrow. On Vyasa's advice
they determined to withdraw with Draupadi into the forest. All her sons
had fallen in the great battle; but the wife of one (Abhimanyu), who was
the daughter of the king of the Matsyas, had borne a son, Parikshit,
after the death of her husband. When he had been consecrated at
Hastinapura, the sons of Pandu went on a pilgrimage to the east, to the
Himalayas, and beyond this to the holy mountain, Meru. Draupadi was the
first to succumb, then Nakula and Sahadeva; last of all Arjuna and Bhima
fell exhausted. Yudishthira climbed on, till Indra met him with his
chariot, and carried him with his body to the imperishable world, the
heaven of the heroes; there he would again behold his brothers and his
wife, when their souls had been freed from the earthly impurity still
adhering to them. For Bhima had trusted too much to his bodily power,
and had eaten too much. Arjuna had loved battle too well, and had been
too harsh against his enemies; Sahadeva was too proud of his wisdom,
Nakula of his beauty; and Draupadi had loved Arjuna too dearly. But
Parikshit reigned in Hastinapura 60 years. He died from the bite of a
snake. Hence his son, Janamejaya, caused all the snakes to be burned in
one great fire of sacrifice. On this occasion he asked Vyasa how the
strife had arisen in old times between the Kurus and the Pandus, for
Vyasa had been a witness: "I would hear from thee, Brahman, the story of
the fortunes of the Kurus and Pandus." So the king concludes. Then Vyasa
bids Vaiçampayana repeat the great poem which he had taught him.
Janamejaya was succeeded by Çatanika, Açvamedhadatta, Asimakrishna, and
Nichakra, in his sway over the Bharatas, Nichakra changed the place of
residence from Hastinapura to Kauçambi lower down the Ganges. And after
Nichakra 24 kings of the race of Pandu reigned over the Bharatas.
No words are needed to point out the absurdity and recent origin of an
arrangement which not only ascribes to Vyasa the reconciliation of the
last Kurus with the Pandus, but also makes him the father of the
progenitors of the two hostile houses of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, and
the author of the great poem. The name Vyasa means collector, arranger;
and if the arranger of the poem is also the father of the ancestors of
the contending tribes, this expression can only mean, that poetry has
invented the whole legend. But a more minute examination limits this
interpretation to a _naïve_ confession on the part of poetry, that she
and not tradition has transferred the origin of the Pandus to the race
of the Kurus, and has represented the progenitors of the hostile races
as brothers.
We can do no more than make hypotheses about the original contents of
the poem on the great war. Against the Kurus, who, at the head of the
Bharatas, maintained their supremacy on the upper course of the Yamuna
and the Ganges, there rises in rebellion a younger race, the Pandus, who
have risen into note among the Panchalas. The sons of Pandu receive in
marriage the daughter of the king of the Panchalas, who are situated to
the south of the Bharatas on the confluence of the Yamuna and the
Ganges; and they are aided by the king of the Matsyas. It is Krishna, a
hero of the Yadavas, to whom the Pandus owe their success in council and
action. The Epos represents the Pandus as growing up in their childhood
in the forest, and afterwards again making their home in the wilderness;
they receive half of the kingdom of the Bharatas, and then lose it; and
in their half they found Indraprastha to the west of Hastinapura on the
Yamuna. From this we may conclude that the supremacy of the Bharatas
established by the Kurus was resisted by the Panchalas and Matsyas and a
part of the Yadavas--the Yadavas fight in the Epos partly for the Kurus
and partly against them--and that a family among these nations,
apparently a family of the Panchalas, succeeded in combining this
resistance and establishing another kingdom, with Indraprastha as a
centre, beside the kingdom of Hastinapura, from which they finally
conquered the Bharatas. This struggle of the Panchalas and Matsyas
against the Bharatas is the nucleus of the Epos. A tradition may lie at
the base of the statement in the poems, that the nations of the East,
the Madras, Koçalas, Videhas and Angas (in north-western Bengal), fight
beside the Kurus against the Panchalas and Matsyas: at any rate it would
be to the interest of the previous settlers on the Ganges to repel the
advance of later immigrants. On the other hand, the Kaçis, in the region
of the later Benares, may have fought against the Bharatas. However this
may be, the race of the Kurus disappeared in a great war, and kings of
the race of Pandu ascended the throne of Hastinapura. If, as we have
assumed, the Bharatas had previously forced the Tritsus from the
Sarasvati to the Yamuna, and from the Yamuna to the upper Ganges, and
from the upper Ganges further east to the Sarayu, they were now, in
turn, not indeed expelled, but over-mastered, by the tribes which had
followed them and settled on the Yamuna. The metropolis of the kingdom
which arose out of these struggles was Hastinapura, the chief city of
the Bharatas; under the rule of the race of Pandu it comprised the
Bharatas and the Panchalas; in the old ritual of consecration we find
the formula: "This is your king, ye Kurus, ye Panchalas."[143]
The original poem no doubt took the part of the Kurus against the
Pandus, of the Bharatas against the Panchalas. In some passages of the
old poem, which have remained intact, Duryodhana, _i.e._ Bad-fighter, is
called Suyodhana, _i.e._ Good-fighter. It is not by their bravery but by
their cunning that the Pandus were victorious. The words of the dying
Duryodhana: "The Pandus have fought with subtlety and shame, and by
shame have obtained the victory," are an invention made from this point
of view. The vengeance which follows close after the victory of the
Pandus, the massacre of their army in the following night, through which
the life of the dying Duryodhana is prolonged; the fulfilment of the
curse which the mother of Duryodhana pronounces upon Krishna and the
Yadavas--at a later time the tribes of the Yadavas disappeared, at any
rate in these regions--all enable us to detect the original form and
object of the poem. It was the lament over the fall of the famous race
of the Kurus, which had founded the oldest kingdom in India, over the
death of Bhishma and his hundred sons, and the narration of the
vengeance which overtook the crime of Krishna and the Pandus.
In any case certain traits which reappear in the Epic poetry of the
Greeks and the Germans--the contest with the bow for Draupadi, the death
of the young hero of half-divine descent by an arrow shot in secret, the
fall of an ancient hero with his hundred sons, the destruction even of
the victors in the great battle--are evidence that old Indo-Germanic
conceptions must have formed the basis of the original poem. Even in
the form in which we now have them they remind us of the grand, mighty,
rude style of the oldest Epic poetry. In other respects also traits of
antiquity are not wanting--the marriage of five brothers with one wife,
the hazard of goods, kingdom, wife, and even personal liberty, on a
single throw of the dice, which is an outcome of the passionate nature
already known to us through the songs of the Vedas. In the songs of the
conquests and struggles on the Yamuna and Ganges, sung by the minstrels
to the princes and nobles of these new states, these elements became
amalgamated with the praises of the deeds achieved by their ancestors at
their first foundation. This is proved by the tone of the poem, which
penetrates even the description of the great war. It was only before
princes who made war and battle their noblest occupation, before
assemblies of a warlike nobility, and in the spirit of such circles,
that songs could be recited, telling of the contests in all knightly
accomplishments--the wooing of the king's daughter by the bow, the
choice of a husband by the princess, who gives her hand to the noblest
knight. Only there could such lively and detailed descriptions of single
contests and battles be given, and the laws of knightly honour and
warfare be extolled with such enthusiasm. These must have penetrated
deeply into the minds of the hearers, when the decision in the great
battle could be brought about by a breach of these laws, and the
destruction of the Yadavas accounted for by a quarrel arising out of a
question of this kind. Even the law-book which bears the name of Manu
places great value on the laws of honourable contest.[144] Hence we may
with certainty assume that the songs of the princes who conquered the
land on the Yamuna and the Ganges, were sung at the courts of their
descendants, at the time when the latter, surrounded by an armed
nobility, ruled on the Ganges. There, after the tumult of the first
period of the settlement had subsided, these songs of the marvels and
achievements of ancient heroes, coloured with mythical conceptions, were
united into a great poem, the original Epos of the great war, and in
this the living heroic song came to an end. In the German Epos, the
Nibelungen, we find a foundation of mythical elements, together with
historical reminiscences of the wars of Dietrich of Bern, overgrown by
the conflicts and destruction of the Burgundians.
At a much later time the Epos of the great war passed from the tradition
of the minstrels into the hands of the priests, by whom it was recorded
and revised from a priestly point of view. Descendants of the Pandus who
had overthrown the ancient famous race of the Kurus, and had gained in
their place the kingdom of Hastinapura, are said to have remained on the
throne for 30 generations in that city, and afterwards at Kauçambi. From
other sources we can establish the fact, that at least in the sixth
century B.C. the sovereignty among the Kuru-Panchalas belonged to kings
who traced their descent from Pandu; and even in the fourth century we
have mention of families of Nakula, and Sahadeva, and among the Eastern
Bharatas, of descendants of Yudhishthira and Arjuna.[145] Hence the
rulers of the tribe of Pandu must have thought it of much importance not
to appear as evil-doers and rebels, and to invent some justification of
their attack on the Kurus, and the throne of Hastinapura. In this way
they would appear both to the Panchalas and the Bharatas as legitimate
princes sprung from noble ancestors, and would share wherever possible
in the ancient glory of the kings of the Bharatas, who were sprung from
the race of Kuru. This end it was attempted to gain by revision and
interpolation; and the views of the priests, which were of later origin,
have no doubt supported the subsequent justification of the usurpation
of the race of the Pandus. The priestly order might think it desirable
to win the favour of the Pandu-kings of Kauçambi. Of this they were
secure if they united the ancestors of the race with the family of the
Kurus, while at the same time they brought the kings of the Bharatas and
Panchalas into connection with priestly views of life by representing
their ancestors as patterns of piety, virtue, and respect for priests.
In the old poem, Bhishma, the descendant of Kuru on the throne of the
Bharatas, perished, at an advanced age, with his son Suyodhana, and his
ninety-nine brothers, in stout conflict against the Pandus, who were at
the head of the Panchalas; but his fall was due to the craft of the
latter. On the other hand, the revision maintains that king Çantanu was
the last legitimate Kuru; that his son Bhishma renounced the throne,
marriage, and children; that Çantanu's younger son died childless; and
represents the Dritarashtras and the Pandus as his illegitimate
descendants. Thus the Pandus are brought into the race of Kuru, and the
claims of the descendants of Dhritarashtra and Pandu are placed on an
equality. It was an old custom among the Indians, not wholly removed by
the law-book of the priests, even in the later form of the regulation,
that if a father remained without a son his brother or some other
relation might raise up a son to him by his wife or widow.[146]
According to the poem, the wife of Çantanu charged her nearest
relation, her natural son, to raise up children to the two childless
widows of her son born in marriage. Agreeably to the tendency of the
revision, this son is a very sacred and wise person; and thus it is
proved that it was within the power of the priests to summon into life
the most famous royal families. But great as the freedom of the revision
is, it does not venture to deny the right of birth of the Kurus.
Dhritarashtra is the older, Pandu is the younger, of the two sons. In
order to clear the younger brother, Dhritarashtra is afflicted with
blindness, because his mother could not endure the sight of the great
Brahman. Even the son of Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana, is allowed to have
the right of birth; it is only maintained that Yudhishthira, Pandu's
elder son, was born on the same day. That this insertion of the Pandus
into the race of the Kurus in the Epic poem was completed in the fourth
century B.C. we can prove.[147] The revision then represents
Dhritarashtra as voluntarily surrendering half his kingdom to the sons
of Pandu, and this is a great help towards their legitimacy. When the
Pandus are resolved on war, Krishna removes Yudhishthira's scruples by
asserting "that even in times gone by it has not always been the eldest
son who has sat on the throne of Hastinapura." These traits are all
tolerably transparent. How weak the position of the Pandus was in the
legend, how little could be told of their ancestors and of Pandu
himself, is shown in the poem by the fact that the want of ancestors can
only be supplemented by inserting the family in the race of the Kurus,
and that no definite achievement of Pandu is mentioned. He is allowed to
die early, and his sons grow up in the forest. So transparent is the
veil thrown over the fact that an unknown family rose to be the leaders
of the Panchalas. The insertion of Dhritarashtra is caused by the
insertion of Pandu. The Indian poetry of the later period is not
troubled by the fact that Bhishma, Çantanu's eldest son, renounces the
throne in order to allow a blind nephew to reign in his place; that even
as a great-uncle he is the mightiest hero of the Kurus, and can only be
slain on the battle-field by treachery.
Thus, rightly or wrongly, the Pandus were brought into the family of the
Kurus. But why should the elder branch make way for the younger? To
explain this circumstance, the blind king, the honourable Dhritarashtra,
_i.e._ "firmly holding to the kingdom," must first fix on Yudhishthira
as his successor, to the exclusion of his own sons, and then, even in
his own lifetime, divide the kingdom with Yudhishthira. Hence the Pandus
could advance claims, and the more fiercely Duryodhana opposed the
surrender of his legitimate right, the more does he lose ground from a
moral standard against the Pandus. His persecutions and villainies
provide the revision with the means to bring the Pandus repeatedly into
banishment, and into the forest, from which in the old poem they had
been brought to stand at the head of the Panchalas. It is Duryodhana who
causes the house of Pandu to be set on fire, who by false play wins
Draupadi from Yudhishthira, and treats her despitefully, and takes from
him the half of the kingdom. On the other hand, the sons of the Pandus,
so far as the lines of the old poem allow, are changed into persecuted
innocents, patterns of piety, virtue, and obedience to the Brahmans. It
is naturally the form of Yudhishthira which undergoes the main change
from these points of view, since he twice succumbs to the passion for
the game. By these interpolations his brother Bhima is fortunately put
in a position to answer the reproach of the dying Duryodhana--that the
Pandus had conquered by treachery and shame--by asserting that they had
not laid fire for their enemies as he had, or cheated them in the game,
or outraged their women.
The revision carries the justification and legitimisation of the Pandus
even beyond the destruction of Duryodhana and the Kurus. Owing to his
blindness the king Dhritarashtra could not be brought into the battle
and slain there. Where the old poem represents the mother of the slain
Kurus as cursing Krishna, the revision interpolates a reconciliation
between the aged Dhritarashtra and the destroyers of his race, a
reconciliation naturally accomplished through the instrumentality of a
Brahman. Hence Yudhishthira is allowed to ascend the throne of
Hastinapura with the consent of the legitimate king, and reign in his
name. Lastly, in order to remove every stain from the Pandus, they are
represented as renouncing the world, and dying on a pious pilgrimage to
the divine mountain.
A second revision of the poem--which, as will become clear below,
cannot, in any case, have been made before the seventh century
B.C.--represents the Pandus as becoming the sons of gods, and thus makes
still easier the task of their justification. It was not by Pandu that
Kunti became the mother of Yudhishthira, Arjuna, and Bhima, but the
first and most just of all rulers she bore to the very god of justice.
Hence his claim to the throne and his righteous life were established
from the first. The second brother, the great warrior Arjuna, owed his
birth to Indra; the third, Bhima, to the strong wind-god, Vayu; the
twin-sons of Madri are then naturally the children of the twins in
heaven, the two Açvins. More serious is the change of Krishna, _i.e._
the black, into the god Vishnu, assumed in a third revision, which was
completed in the course of the fourth century B.C. (Book VI. chap.
viii.). Krishna, after whom the city of Krishnapura on the Yamuna is
said to have been named,[148] belongs to the tribe of the Yadavas, who
were settled on the Yamuna, in the district of Mathura. He is the son of
the cow-herd Nanda and his wife Yaçoda; he is himself a cow-herd, drives
off herds of cows, carries away the clothes of the daughters of the
herdsmen while they are bathing, and engages in many other exploits of a
similar kind. He rebels against the king of Mathura, and slays him. His
crafty and treacherous plans then bring the heroes of the Kurus to
destruction; at length, with his whole nation, he succumbs to the curse
hurled against him by the mother of Duryodhana. Out of this form of the
ancient poem the later revision has made an incarnation of Vishnu, the
beneficent, sustaining god. The child of Vasudeva and Devaki, who bears
all the marks of Vishnu, is no other than Vishnu, who permits himself to
be born from Devaki; he is changed with the child of Yaçoda, which was
born in the same night. But these new points of view are not thoroughly
carried out; the Mahabharata is not consistent about the origin of
Krishna or his divine nature. At one time he is a human warrior, at
another the highest of the gods, and the original position both of
Krishna and the Pandus is still perceptible.[149]
The second great Epic of the Indians--the Ramayana--is essentially
distinguished from the poems of the great war. Here also a legend, or
ancient ballads, may have formed the basis; here, too, it is clear that
a later redaction has changed the hero of the poem into an incarnation
of a god. But the legend is already changed into the fairy tale, of
which the scene is principally the Deccan, the banks of the Godavari,
the island of Lanka (Ceylon) where the Aryas first arrived about the
year 500 B.C. The cast of the poem as a whole is essentially different
from that of the Mahabharata. The old legend may have related the story
of a prince who wins his wife by his power to string the great bow of
her father, and who, when banished from the banks of the Sarayu,
contends in the Himavat, or in the south of the Ganges, against the
giants dwelling there. These giants carried off his wife from the forest
hut, and he is only able to regain her after severe struggles. Rama, the
banished prince, is supposed to be a son of a king of the Koçalas (the
Tritsus of the Rigveda), who had taken up their abode on the Sarayu.
Daçaratha, the father of Rama, had apparently reigned a long time before
the great war; he was descended from Ikshvaku, the son of Manu.
According to the Vishnu-Purana, Daçaratha is the sixtieth king of this
family, the eleventh after Sudas, who repelled the attack of the
Bharatas.[150] In their battle the Tritsus were aided by the priest
Vasishtha, to whom in the poem of Rama the same place is allotted which
in the Mahabharata is first allotted to Viçvamitra and then to Vyasa.
Without regard to the ancient poems and their strongly-marked traits of
great battles and mighty contests, the priests entirely transformed the
legend of Rama from their point of view into the form in which it now
lies before us; and this took place at a period of Indian life, when the
warlike impulse had long given way to peaceful institutions, and the
requirements of the priests had driven out the military code of honour
and martial glory--a time when the weaker sides of the Aryan
disposition, submission and sacrifice, had won the victory over the hard
and masculine qualities of activity and self-assertion. The Ramayana
gives expression to the feeling of calm subjection, virtuous
renunciation, passionless performance of duties, patient obedience,
unbroken reticence. Throughout, prominence is given to the system of
priestly asceticism, of the eremite's life in the forest, of voluntary
suicide. Here we can scarcely find any echoes of that desire of honour,
that jealousy, that lust of battle, and eagerness for revenge, which
occur unmistakably in the Mahabharata; nothing remains of the knightly
pride which scorns to give a blow forbidden by the rules of the battle.
The hero of the Ramayana is a hero of virtue, not of the battle. He
commends without ceasing renunciation and the fulfilment of duties; he
abandons throne and kingdom; he gives up his right out of obedience to
his father, and respect for a promise made by him; his wife leads him
against his will into the desert, because she also knows her duties.
Respect, devotion, and sacrifice in the relation of children to their
parents, of younger brothers to the elder, of the wife to her husband,
of subjects to their lords, are described with great poetical beauty and
power, but often with the weakest sentimentality. The mission of the
hero in his banishment is the defence of the settlements of holy
penitents against the giants. But his battles are no merely human
struggle; he not only strings the bow of Çiva, he breaks it, so that it
sounds like the fall of a mountain or like Indra's thunder. He fights
with the bow of Indra and the arrows of Brahman, and at length even with
the chariot of Indra against the giants. These battles are no less
legendary than are his confederates' against the giants of Lanka, the
vulture Jatayu, the apes and bears, which build him a bridge into that
island. These are all described with an exaggeration and monstrous
unreality into which Indian poetry only strayed after traversing many
stages. We do indeed once hear, even in the Ramayana, of heroes "who
never turned in the battle, and fell struck in front." Even here, in
isolated passages, the old manly independence breaks forth, which,
conscious of its strength, beats down injustice instead of enduring it,
and makes a path for itself, but only in order to place in a still
clearer light a quick compliance, a patient fulfilment of duties, and
thus allow to the latter a greater advantage.
At this day Epic poetry lives in India in full force, just as it left
the hands of the priests. At the close of the Mahabharata we are told:
"What the Brahman is to the rest of mankind, the cow to all quadrupeds,
the ocean to the pool, such is the Mahabharata in comparison with all
other histories." To the readers and hearers of the Mahabharata and
Ramayana the best rewards in this life and the next are promised:
wealth, forgiveness of sins, entrance into heaven. At all festivals and
fairs, at the marriages of the wealthy, episodes from one of the two
poems are recited to the eager crowd of assembled hearers; the audience
accompany the acts and sufferings of the heroes with cries of joy or
signs of sorrow, with laughter or tears. In the village, the Brahman,
sitting beneath a fig-tree, recites the great poems, in the order of the
events no doubt, to the community. The interest of the audience never
flags. If the piece recited touches on happy incidents--on victory,
triumph, happy return home, the marriage or consecration of the heroes,
the village is adorned with crowns as at a festival. The Indians live
with the forms of their Epos; they know the fortunes of these heroes,
and look on them as a pattern or a warning. The priests have fully
realised their intention of setting before the nation in these poems a
mirror of manners and virtue.
FOOTNOTES:
[120] This follows from the fact that the army of the confederates had
to cross the Vipaça and Çatadru in order to reach the Tritsus.
[121] In the Rigveda king Sudas is at once a son of Divodasa and a scion
of the house of the Pijavanas, possibly because Pijavana was the father
or some ancestor of Divodasa. In the Samaveda (2, 5, 1, 5) Divodasa is
called the noble. In the book of Manu (7, 41; 8, 110) Sudasa is the son
of Pijavana. In the genealogy of the kings of the Koçalas, by whom the
Tritsus were destroyed, the Vishnu-Purana mentions in the fiftieth
generation after Ikshvaku, the founder of the race, a king Sudasa, the
son of Sarvakama, grandson of Rituparna. So also the Harivança, and in
the Vishnu-Purana (ed. Wilson, p. 381) Vasishtha is the priest of king
Sudas as well as of Nimi, the son of Ikshvaku. On the other hand the
Vishnu-Purana (p. 454, 455) is aware of a second Sudas, the grandson of
Divodasa, in the race of the moon. Viçvamitra is himself called a
Bharata; we shall see below that the Mahabharata connects Viçvamitra
with the genealogy of the kings of the Bharata. Cp. Roth, "Zur
Literatur," S. 142 ff. [On the names of Indian rivers, see Muir, _loc.
cit._ 2, 345 ff.]
[122] Cf. Muir, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 339, where the hymn is translated.
[123] Roth, "Zur Literatur," S. 87, 91 ff. [Rigveda, 3, 33; 7, 83. Muir,
_loc. cit._ 322, 323.]
[124] Manu, 1, 67 ff. [Muir, 1, 43 ff.]
[125] Weber, "Jyotisham, Abh. d. Berl. Akad." 1862, s. 23 ff. and below.
[126] With similar exaggeration "Duty" tells king Parikshit at the close
of the Mahabharata that her four feet measured 20 yodhanas in the first
age, 16 in the second, 12 in the third, whereas now in the Kaliyuga they
only measure four yodhanas. The whole narrative is intended to point out
that in the Kaliyuga even Çudras could become kings. The Vishnu-Purana
(ed. Wilson, p. 467) calls the first Nanda who ascended the throne of
Magadha in 403 B.C. the son of a Çudra woman.
[127] "Bhagavata-Purana," 9, 14.
[128] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 600.
[129] Arrian, "Ind." 7, 8, 9. Plin. 6, 21, 4. Solin. 52, 5. As to the
numbers, Bunsen, "Ægypt." 5, 156; Von Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 64. The
duration of the first interruption is lost; but it was less than the
second, for Arrian says that the second continued as much as 300 years.
Perhaps the number of the first and third interruptions taken together
are as long as the second. Diodorus (2, 38, 39) allots the 52 years to
Dionysus, which Arrian gives to Spatembas.
[130] That the Kalpa--_i.e._ the great world-period--was a current
conception in the third century B.C. is proved by the inscriptions of
Açoka at Girnar. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 238.
[131] Not more than nine names can be given to the dynasty of the
Nandas, which reigned for 88 years before Chandragupta; seventeen for
the dynasty of the Çaiçunagas, even if Kalaçoka's sons are all counted
as independent regents; and five for the Pradyotas. For the Barhadrathas
the Vayu and Vishnu-Puranas give 21 kings after Sahadeva, the
Bhagavata-Purana 20, the Matsya-Purana 32. Hence, taking the highest
figures, the united dynasties number 64 reigns. To these are to be added
the seven names which connect Brihadratha with Kuru, and the 31 or 21
names given in the longer and shorter lists of the Mahabharata between
Kuru and Manu.
[132] Von Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 76 ff. See below.
[133] P. 484, ed. Wilson.
[134] Von Gutschmid, _loc. cit._ s. 85 ff.
[135] That the main portions of the Epos in their present form cannot be
older, is clear from the views of the worship of Vishnu and Çiva which
prevail in the poem. These forms of worship first obtained currency in
the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (see below). It is also clear from
the identification of Vishnu and Krishna, of Rama and Vishnu; the deeply
felt Brahmanic anti-Buddhist tendencies, seen in such a marked manner in
the Ramayana; the form of philosophic speculation, and the application
of astrology, which are characteristic of the Epos in its present state;
and finally from the mention of the Yavanas as the allies of the Kurus,
and Dattamira, _i.e._ Demetrius, the king of the Yavanas. This king
reigned in Bactria in the first half of the second century B.C. (Lassen,
_loc. cit._ 1, 557). Another king of the Yavanas who is mentioned is
Bhagadatta, _i.e._ apparently, Apollodotus, the founder of the
Græco-Indian kingdom in the second half of the first century B.C. (Von
Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 75). We are led to the same result by the
descriptions of Indian buildings, of paved roads and lofty temples,
which were first built by the Brahmans in opposition to the stupas of
the Buddhists. Lassen places the important pieces of the Mahabharata, in
their present form, between Kalaçoka and Chandragupta, _i.e._ between
425-315 B.C. (_loc. cit._ 1^2, 589 ff.) Benfey places them in the third
century B.C., A. Weber in the first century. The Mahabharata, which
according to the statement found in the poem (1, 81) originally had only
8,800 double-verses, now numbers 100,000: A. Weber, "Acad. Vorlesungen,"
s. 176. The old form of the Mahabharata is much anterior to the fifth
century B.C.; certain passages of the present poem are much later: A.
Weber, "Indische Skizzen," s. 37, 38. When Dion Chrysostom remarks (2,
253, ed. Reiske) that the Homeric poems were sung by the Indians in
their own language--the sorrows of Priam, the lamentation of Hecuba and
Andromache, the bravery of Achilles and Hector--Lassen is undoubtedly
right in referring this statement to the Mahabharata, and putting
Dhritarashtra in the place of Priam, Gandhari and Draupadi in the place
of Andromache and Hecuba, Arjuna and Suyodhana or Karna in the place of
Achilles and Hector ("Alterth." 2^2, 409). It is doubtful whether the
remark of Chrysostom is taken from Megasthenes. That the Ramayana is
later in style than the Mahabharata will become clear below.
[136] "Vishnu-Purana," ed. Wilson, p. 380, _seqq._
[137] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, Anhang xviii. n. 4.
[138] In the Rigveda we find: "If you, Indra and Agni, are among the
Druhyus, Anus or Purus, come forth."
[139] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1, xxii. n. 15.
[140] "Rigveda," 1, 31, 4; 1, 31, 17; 7, 18, 13.
[141] According to the Brahmanic recension of the poem which we now
possess, Samvarana is able to obtain the daughter of the god only by the
mediation of a sacred priest. The king therefore bethinks him of
Vasishtha, who ascends to the god of light and obtains his daughter for
the king. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, Anhang xxvi.
[142] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2 656, n. and 1^2 850.
[143] A. Weber, "Ind. Literaturgesch." s. 126^2.
[144] Manu, 7, 90, 93. Yajnavalkya, 1, 323-325.
[145] Panini in M. Müller, "Hist. of anc. Sanskrit Literature," p. 44,
_n._ 2.
[146] Manu, 9, 59.
[147] M. Müller, _loc. cit._
[148] "Vishnu-Purana," ed. Wilson, p. 440. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2,
68 ff.
[149] In Panini Krishna is called a god, but also a hero. M. Müller,
"Hist. of anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 45 _n._
[150] On the form of the Rama legend in the Daçaratha-Jataka, cf. A.
Weber, "Abh. Berl Akad." 1870. The Vishnu-Purana enumerates 33 kings of
the Koçalas from Daçaratha to Brihadbala, who falls in the great battle
on the side of the Kurus. Including these this Purana makes 60 kings
between Manu and Daçaratha. For the same interval the Ramayana has only
34 names, of which some, like Yagati, Nahusha, Bharata, are taken from
the genealogical table of the kings of the Bharata, others, like Pritha
and Triçanku, belong to the Veda. We have already seen that the series
of the Bharata kings give about ten generations between the time when
they gained the upper hand on the Yamuna and upper Ganges, _i.e._ the
time of Kuru and Duryodhana. The Koçalas forced eastward by the Bharatas
would thus have existed on the Sarayu from 23 generations before Kuru.
Wilson, "Vishnu-Purana," p. 386.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FORMATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE ORDERS.
The Aryas had now advanced far beyond the borders of their ancient
territory; from the land of the Panjab they had conquered and occupied
the valley of the Ganges. The plundering raids and feuds which had
occupied the tribes on the Indus had passed away, and in their place
came the migration, conquest, settlement, the conflict for the conquered
districts, and a warlike life of considerable duration. It was only when
attempted in large masses that attack or defence could be successful. By
this means the tribes grew up into larger communities; the small unions
of tribes became nations, which divided the land of the Ganges among
them. The tribal princes were changed into leaders of great armies. The
serious and important nature of the tasks imposed upon them by the
conquest and the settlement, by the need of security against the ancient
inhabitants or the pressure of their own countrymen, placed in the hands
of these princes a military dictatorship; so that in the new districts
which were won and maintained under their guidance, the princes had a
much greater weight, and a far wider power, than the heads of the tribes
on the Indus, surrounded by the warriors of their nations, had ever
ventured to exercise. Thus arose a number of monarchies in the
conquered land. Beside the Matsyas on the western bank of the Yamuna,
and the Çurasenas, who lay to the south in the cities of Mathura and
Krishnapura (in the place of the Yadavas), stood the kingdom of the
Bharatas and Panchalas on the upper course of the Yamuna and Ganges.
These nations were governed by the dynasty of Pandu, at first from
Hastinapura on the upper Ganges, and afterwards, apparently after the
accession of the eighth successor of Parikshit, from Kauçambi, which
lies on the lower Yamuna, about 30 miles above the confluence of the
Yamuna and the Ganges.[151] Further to the east, and to the north of the
Ganges, the Koçalas were situated on the Sarayu; the seat of their
kingdom was Ayodhya. Still further to the east were the Videhas, whose
rulers resided at Mithila (Tirhat). On the Ganges, below the confluence
with the Yamuna, were the kings of the Kaçis at Varanasi (Benares), and
farther to the east still, the kings of the Angas at Champa, also on the
Ganges. To the south of the river the Magadhas had won a large district;
their kings resided at Rajagriha (king's house) on the Sumagadhi.[152]
Thus in the east there was a complex of tolerably extensive states,
under a monarchy which owed its origin to military leadership in the
war, and its permanence to the success of the settlement; a state of
things forming a complete contrast to the old life of the tribes of the
Aryas in the land of the Panjab.
Such a powerful, extensive, and complete alteration of the forms of the
civic community, combined with the new conditions of life rendered
necessary on the Ganges, must have exercised a deeply-felt influence on
the Aryas. The conquest, establishment, and arrangement of extensive
dominions had created the monarchy, but at the same time a warlike
nobility had sprung up beside the princes in these contests. The land of
the Ganges had been won by the sword and divided among the victors. No
doubt those who had achieved most in the battles, and stood nearest to
the princes, received the best reward in land and slaves, in captives or
dependants among the old population. In this way a number of families
with larger possessions became distinguished from the mass of the
population. In these the delight in arms and war became hereditary; the
feeling of the father passed to his son along with his booty, his
horses, and his weapons. He could apply himself to the chase, or to the
exercise of arms; he was raised above all care for his maintenance, or
the necessity of work. He possessed land and slaves to tend his herds or
till his fields. From the later position of this order, we might assume
that a nobility practised in the use of arms, the Rajnayas, _i.e._ the
princely, the Kshatriyas, _i.e._ the wealthy or powerful, surrounded the
princes in the Ganges in greater numbers and with greater importance
than the warriors of pre-eminent position, who in the land of the Indus
had aided the tribal princes in battle, in council, and in giving
judgment.
The battles for the possession of the new territory were over, and the
mutual pressure of the Arian tribes had come to an end. War was no
longer a constant occupation, or carried on for existence; it was only
at a distance, on the borders of the new states, that battles took
place, either to check the incursions of the old inhabitants from the
mountains or to extend the territory already possessed. Hence the
majority of the settlers preferred to till their lands in peace, and
left it to those for whom booty or glory had a charm, to follow their
kings in beating back the enemy at the borders, or making an attack on
foreign tribes and countries. Those who had to work the soil with their
own hands gladly gave up the precedence to this military nobility; the
king might fight out his wars with their help, if under such protection
the herds could pasture in peace, or the fields be tilled without
interruption. It was time enough for the peasants to take arms when the
nobles who surrounded the princes were no longer able to keep off the
attacks of the enemy. No doubt the Kshatriyas formed a still more
favourable estimate of themselves and their position. Busied with their
arms, their horses, or the chase, they became proud, and despised the
work of the peasant, paying little respect to that laborious occupation
in comparison with their own free and adventurous life.
Owing to their close relation to the king, to their weapons, and their
possessions, the Kshatriyas took the first place in the new states on
the Ganges. This they maintained beyond a doubt for centuries in the
kingdom of the Bharatas, among the Matsyas and Çurasenas, the Koçalas,
Kaçis, Videhas, Magadhas. In the royal houses and the families of the
Kshatriyas the achievements of the forefathers continued to live; they
preserved the recollection of the wars of conquest, the struggles for
the possession of the lands, which they now held. At their festivals and
banquets the minstrels sang to them the songs of the ancient heroes,
their ancestors, their mighty deeds, their sufferings and death; they
extolled the delight in battle and the martial spirit, the knightly
temper and mode of combat, and thus at length arose the poem of the
great war. If our assumption, that the conquest of the land on the
Ganges may have been completed about the year 1400 B.C., is tenable, we
might ascribe to the two following centuries the rise of the
Kshatriyas, the establishment of their prominent position in the
newly-conquered territory, and to the next century the composition of
the songs of the great war in their oldest form.
In the development of other nations the periods of wide expansion, the
rise of the military element, and protracted war, usually repress the
influence and importance of the priesthood, but among the emigrant Aryas
this could not have been the case. We have already seen that among them
the contest of sacrifices preceded the contest of arms. The victory fell
to the side whose sacrificial bowl Indra had drained. As the correct
offering and correct invocation compelled the gods to come down and
fight for the nation whose sacrifice they received, the priests were
naturally most indispensable in the time of war. The singers of the
sacrificial hymns which caused the gods to come down were identical
among the Indians with the priests, and were in fact the priests in the
stricter sense. With them, minstrel and priest had one name--Brahmana,
_i.e._ one who prays. The hymns of the Vedas showed us how the princes
were commanded to set before them at the sacrifice a holy minstrel to
offer prayer, and to be liberal to him. The minstrels who accompanied
the emigrant tribes to the Yamuna and Ganges had, in those turbulent
times, to sing songs of war and victory, as well as to offer prayers at
sacrifice, and afterwards to compose the poems on the deeds of the
heroes. If the result was that no more new invocations were composed in
the period of heroic song, the minstrels nevertheless preserved the old
invocations which they had brought with them from the land of the Indus
very faithfully. They had imported the ancient worship of their native
deities into the new land; they had to preserve the old faith and the
old rites at a distance from their ancient home, to offer sacrifice in
the old fashion, and thus to win and retain the favour of the gods for
the emigrants in their new abode. In the families which claimed to
spring from Atri and Agastya, from Bhrigu and Gautama, from Kaçyapa and
Vasishtha, one generation handed down by tradition to another the
prayers which they had preserved as effectual, and which had been
composed, or were thought to have been composed, by these celebrated
minstrels, the rites which were considered requisite for the efficacy of
the sacrifice, for winning the favour and help of heaven. It is obvious
that these families did not consist exclusively of the actual
descendants of the supposed tribal ancestor. In ancient times the family
is the only form, as yet known, of community and instruction. As the
prayers pleasing to the gods and the form of sacrifice could only be
learnt from a minstrel and priest, those who had this object in view
must seek for admittance into a priestly family, and must be adopted as
disciples by a priest in the place of sons.[153] Such admittance was
naturally most sought after in the case of that race which bore the most
famous name, which was supposed to spring from the most celebrated
sacrificer of early times, and claimed to possess his songs. Among the
"sons of Vasishtha," who, according to the hymn of the Veda (p. 67),
sacrificed for the Tritsus, in the race of the Kuçikas to which
Viçvamitra belonged, and the other priestly races mentioned in the Veda,
we must consider that we have just as much disciples claiming to be
descended, or being actually descended, from these supposed ancestors,
as relations connected by blood. The importance of these families who
preserved the ancient customs and prayers, and worshipped the ancient
gods, must have risen in the new territory in proportion to the length
of the period between the emigration from the Indus and the present. In
different districts the kings regarded the sacrifice and supplication of
different races as the most pleasing to the gods. Among the Koçalas,
according to the Ramayana and the Puranas, Vasishtha was the priest of
the kings; among the Bharatas, the Kuçikas; among the Videhas and Angas,
the Gautamas.[154] The amalgamation of the various tribes into larger
nations had the effect of bringing the priestly families into
combination and union, and thus they had the opportunity of exchanging
the knowledge of their possession of hymns and ritual. This union taught
them to regard themselves as a peculiar order. Princes and nations are
always inclined to recognise the merit of those who know how to win for
them the favour of the gods, good fortune and health by prayer and
sacrifice.
The ancient population of the new states on the Ganges was not entirely
extirpated, expelled, or enslaved. Life and freedom were allowed to
those who submitted and conformed to the law of the conqueror; they
might pass their lives as servants on the farms of the Aryas.[155] But
though this remnant of the population was spared, the whole body of the
immigrants looked down on them with the pride of conquerors--of
superiority in arms, blood, and character--and in contrast to them they
called themselves Vaiçyas, _i.e._ tribesmen, comrades--in other words,
those who belong to the community or body of rulers.[156] Whether the
Vaiçya belonged to the order of the nobles, the minstrels and priests,
or peasants, was a matter of indifference; he regarded the old
inhabitants as an inferior species of mankind. In the land of the Ganges
down to the lower course of the river this class of inhabitants bears
the common name of Çudras, and as this word is unknown to Sanskrit we
must assume that it was the original name of the ancient population of
the Ganges, just as the tribes of the Vindhyas bear to this day the
common name of Gondas. In the new states on the Ganges, therefore, the
population was separated into two sharply-divided masses. How could the
conquerors mix with the conquered?--how could their pride stoop to any
union with the despised servants? And even if they had been willing to
unite, would not the language and character of the immigrants be lost
and destroyed in this mixture with tribes of rude customs and manners?
As the conquered territory became more extensive, and the old
inhabitants more numerous--for many were spared by the numerically
weaker immigrants and continued to live among them as slaves or free
out-door servants, while others hung upon the borders of the conquered
regions--the more pressing was the danger that the noble blood and
superior character of the immigrants, and the worship of the ancient
gods, might be lost in mingling with this mass of servants. This danger
co-operated with the natural pride of the conqueror, and his feeling of
superiority, to place a strongly-marked separation between the Çudras
and the Aryas.
In every nation which has gone beyond the primitive stages of life,
wealth and occupation form the basis of a division into more or less
fixed forms, more or less close orders. The states on the Ganges were no
exception. Here, beside the Kshatriyas, beside the minstrels and
priests, or Brahmans, stood the bulk of the immigrant Aryas, whose land
required the personal labour of the owner, to whom the name Vaiçya, at
first common to all, gradually passed as a special name. Below these
three orders were the Çudras. The name given by the Indians to their
orders, _varna_, _i.e._ colour, proves that the difference between the
light skin of the immigrants and the dark colour of the native
population was of considerable influence, and if a doubt were raised
whether or not another population is concealed in the fourth order or
Çudras, it would be removed by the close union of the three orders
against the fourth, the uncompromising exclusion of the latter in all
matters of religion, and the fact that the law of East Iran (the Avesta)
as well as that of the Ganges, recognises warriors, priests, and
peasants, but no fourth order. The sharp distinction between the Aryas
and Çudras may subsequently have had an influence on the orders of the
Aryas, so as to mark the divisions more strongly; resting on such a
foundation, the division of orders might strike deeper roots on the
Ganges than elsewhere.
The higher and more favoured strata of society will seldom be free from
the desire to bequeath to posterity the advantages they possess; and
this feeling makes itself felt with greater force in earlier stages of
civilisation than in later. As the possessions and occupation of the
father descend to the son who grows up in them, the favoured orders are
inclined to maintain this natural relation, and elevate it into a legal
rule; they believe that the qualification for their special calling
depends on birth in it, or better blood, and make it so to depend. In
the states on the Ganges these tendencies must have been the more
strongly marked, as in this case the Aryas saw beneath them, in the
Çudras, a class of men less capable and less cultivated than
themselves; to descend to this class and mingle with it, seemed to them
as disgraceful as it was dangerous to the maintenance of their empire
over these men. Here it was more natural than elsewhere to pursue this
analogy further--to regard even the classes of their own tribe,
according to their more or less honourable occupation, as separate
circles, as races having different characters and higher or lower gifts,
and to transform these distinctions of occupation and social position
into rigid castes. Thus the Kshatriyas, in the full consciousness of
their aristocratic life, proud of their brave deeds and noble feeling,
must have rendered difficult or impossible all approach to their
occupation and order; they regarded the minstrels and the priests, and
the Vaiçyas, as classes of inferior birth. When the minstrels had sung
the praises of the ancient heroic age in the poem of the marvels of the
heroes, in the Epos in its earliest form, and so arrived at more
peaceful times in which everything no longer depended on the sword, a
feeling of their importance and dignity must have grown up among the
priests. Without them, without the accurate knowledge of the old songs
and customs of sacrifice, as given by Manu and Pururavas,--without
precise acquaintance with the prayers in which efficacy rested,
efficient sacrifices could not be offered. We have already remarked that
the amalgamation of the emigrant tribes, and the formation of the new
kingdoms, brought the priests, who had hitherto belonged to the separate
tribes, into closer connection and combination, and made them into a
separate order. At the same time, their importance as preserving the old
rites and the old faith tended to increase. The community thus arising
between the priestly families led of necessity to an interchange of
forms of prayer and invocations, of songs, and poems, and customs of
sacrifice, the exclusive possession of which had hitherto belonged to
each of these families or schools. Thus in each of the new states the
priestly families attained a larger collection of songs, and a ritual
which was the natural product of the liturgies of the various families,
the observances regarded by one or other of these as traditional and
indispensable. The traditional prayers and songs of praise were regarded
as magical spells, of which even the gods could not escape the power.
This exchange and combination of spells and rubrics of sacrifice no
doubt made the ritual more complicated. The strictly-preserved and now
extended possession of these prayers, invocations, and customs, which
were known to the priests, separated that order from the Kshatriyas, and
the Vaiçyas; they stood in opposition to the other orders, as the
exclusive possessors of the knowledge of the customs of sacrifice, and
efficient invocations. It was only among the members of this order that
the correct observances and invocations were known; how could the
Kshatriya or the Vaiçya avoid errors in his offering or invocation, such
as would remove their efficacy and change them into their opposite? The
constant increase of the prayers and forms accompanying every step in
the sacrifice occupied more priests: the _Hotar_ offered the invitation
to the god to come down and receive the sacrifice; the _Udgatar_
accompanied the preparation of the offering with the solemn forms and
prayers; the _Adhvaryu_ performed the actual rite.
Thus an equality of knowledge, advantage, and interests united the
priests against the Kshatriyas, Vaiçyas, and Çudras. By the
consciousness that they were in possession of the means to win the
favour of the gods for the king, the nobles, and the people, the pious
feeling aroused among them was greatly assisted towards gaining the
recognition of the other orders. Like the Kshatriyas, they must have
scorned to descend to the occupations of the Vaiçyas; they must have
felt that only the priest born a priest could perform the priestly
service, or offer pleasing sacrifice to the gods. They must have
maintained that birth alone in the order could confer the capacity for
so important and lofty a calling as theirs. If nobles and priests
debarred the Vaiçyas from entrance into their order, their occupations,
and modes of life, they must have been no less careful to maintain the
advantages of their birth against the Çudras.
If the separation of the orders was the result of a natural progress, if
the effort of the favoured classes to close their circles was
essentially promoted by the common contrast of the immigrants to the
remnant of the old population, the natural conditions in which the Aryas
were placed on the Ganges were not without an influence on the
maintenance of the separation when once introduced. In the land of the
Indus the Aryas had not learned to endure such a climate and such heat
as they found on the Ganges. The atmosphere began by degrees to
undermine the active and vigorous feeling of the Aryas, to lead them to
a life of greater calm and rest, which inclined them to retain the
conditions and circumstances once introduced.
The orders attain complete exclusiveness and become castes when not only
the change from one to another is forbidden, but when even marriage
between the members of different orders is either impossible, or if
allowed entails the loss of order, and other disadvantages. We do not
exactly know to what extent the mutual exclusiveness of the Kshatriyas,
the Brahmans, and the Vaiçyas was carried; we only know that these
distinctions existed, and that marriages between the orders took place
at the time when the priests succeeded in wresting the first place on
the throne and in the state from the Kshatriyas, who had maintained it
for centuries.
The priests would never have succeeded in raising themselves above the
Kshatriyas and repressing the ancient pre-eminence of the armed nobility
so closely connected with the kings, who belonged to their order, and
were their born chiefs, had they not succeeded in convincing the people
on the Ganges, that the effectual sacrifice was the most important and
all-decisive act; that the position in which men stood to the gods was a
matter far transcending all other relations. They must have transformed
the old religious conceptions by a new doctrine, and by means of this
transformation given to themselves a special position, with a peculiar
sanction from above. This rise of the priesthood, and their elevation to
the first order, is the decisive point in the development of the Arians
in India. It was a revolution of Indian life, of the Indian state, of
Indian history, of which the effects still continue. It has been
observed that the peculiar relations of the tribes on the Ganges, and
the nature of the land, tended to fix more strongly there than elsewhere
the separation between the orders. But that this division is the
sharpest known in history; that the orders became castes, sub-divided in
turn into a number of hereditary under-castes; that this unnatural
social system has continued in spite of the severest attacks and most
violent shocks, and still does continue in unbroken force--this is due
to a development of the religious views supplied by the priests, and to
the position of the priesthood which was founded on this
transformation. The victory over the Kshatriyas was the first step on
this path. It was won by means of a new conception of the idea of God,
and a scheme of the origin of the world, and the stages of created
beings established thereon. On this foundation it was that the priests
obtained the highest position.
When the priestly families on the Ganges passed beyond the borders of
their several states in their contact with each other, they perceived
the extent of the whole treasure of sacrificial song and forms of
prayer, which the races had brought over in separate portions from the
Indus. The confusing multitude of deities and their attributes, which
now forced themselves upon the priests, led to the attempt to discover
some unity in the mass. The astonishing abundance of conceptions and the
number of the supreme deities in the old prayers were essentially due,
as has already been pointed out, to the fact that the Indians desired to
render to every god whom they invoked the proper and the highest honour.
With this object the number of attributes was increased, and the god in
question endowed to a greater or less degree with the power and
peculiarities of other deities; and in order to win the favour of the
deity to whom the sacrifice was offered, men were inclined to praise him
as the highest and mightiest of all gods. This inclination was supported
by the circumstance that the quick and lively fancy of the Indians never
fixed the outlines of their deities or separated them as individuals,
and further, by the blind impulse already noticed, to concentrate the
power of the gods in one highest god, and seize the unity of the divine
nature. Thus we saw that Indra and Agni, Mitra and Varuna, were in turns
extolled as the highest deity. The task now before the priests was to
understand the meaning of these old prayers, to grasp the point of
agreement in these various invocations, the unity in these wide
attributes, ascribed sometimes to one god and sometimes to another. This
gave a strong impulse to the reflective mind of the Brahmans, and no
sooner did the Indians begin to meditate than their fancy became
powerful. The form of Indra, and the conception lying at the base of his
divinity--the struggle against the black spirits of darkness--faded away
in the land of the Ganges. In that region tempests do not come on with
the same violence as in the Panjab; the hot season is followed by the
rainy season and the inundation without any convulsions of the
atmosphere. Again, as the life of war fell into the background, the
position of Indra as a god of war and victory became less prominent.
Least of all could the priests in a time of peace recognise the god of
their order in the god of war, and in any case the national, warlike,
heroic character of Indra could offer few points of contact with
priestly meditation. If in consequence of the new circumstances and
relations of life, Indra passed into the background--the old gods of
light, the common possession of the Aryas in Iran and India, Mitra,
Aryaman, Varuna, beside and above whom Indra had risen, were again
allowed to come into prominence. The effort to grasp the unity of the
divine power seemed to find a satisfactory basis in the form of Varuna,
who from his lofty watch-tower beholds all things, is present
everywhere, and sits throned in unapproachable light on the waters of
heaven, and in the ethical conceptions embodied in the nature of this
deity. The Brahmans struck out another path: they set aside altogether
Aditi, _i.e._ the imperishable, who in the old poems of the Veda is the
mother of the gods of light, _i.e._ of "the immortal" (p. 45, _n._ 2),
and in other poems is extolled as the heaven and the firmament, as
procreation and birth, as well as other attempts to conceive this unity.
The effort to grasp the unity of the divine Being, the attempt to
comprehend its nature, took quite another direction--highly significant
and important for the character and development of the Indians.
The soma was offered most frequently to Indra, the Açvins, and the
Maruts, and by it they are strengthened and nourished. The drink which
gave strength to men and intoxicated them nourished and inspired the
gods also in the faith of the Indians; it gave them strength, and thus
won for men the blessing of the gods. To the Indians it appeared that a
potency so effectual must itself be divine--a deity. Hence the soma
itself is invoked as a god, and by consistently following out the
conception, the Indians see in it the nourisher and even the creator of
the gods. "The soma streams forth," we are told in some songs of the
Rigveda, "the creator of heaven and the creator of earth, of Agni and of
the sun, the creator of Indra and of thoughts." The soma-plants are now
the "udders of the sky;" the god is pressed for the gods, and he is
offered as drink, who in his liquor contains the universe.[157] The
sacrificial drink which nourishes the gods, or the spirit of it, is thus
exalted to be the most bountiful giver of blessings, the bravest
warrior, the conqueror of darkness, the slayer of Vritra, the lord of
created things, and even to be the supreme power over the gods, the
creator of the sun, the creator and father of Indra and the gods;[158]
and so the highest power could be ascribed with greater justice to the
correct invocations, the efficacious prayers which, according to the
ancient faith of the Indians, compelled the gods to come down to the
sacrificial meal, and hear the prayers of men. If man could induce or
compel the gods to obey the will of men, the means by which this
operation was attained must of itself be obviously of a divine and
supernatural character. Only a divine power can exercise force over the
mighty gods. We saw above how the spirit of fire, which carried the
offerings to the sky, was to the Indian the mediator between earth and
heaven. But the gifts were accompanied by prayers, and these, according
to the idealistic tendencies of the Indians and the opinion of their
priests, were the most efficacious part of the sacrifice; in them was
contained the elevation of the mind to heaven; and therefore to the
Indian the priest was one who offered prayer; and the songs of the Veda
lay the greatest weight on "the holy word," _i.e._ on the prayer, which
with them "was the chariot which leads to heaven." Thus a second spirit
was placed beside Agni, the bearer of gifts, and this spirit carried
prayer into heaven, and was the means by which the priests influenced
the gods, the power which compelled the gods to listen to them. This
spirit is the personification of the cultus, the power of meditation. It
lives in the acts of worship, in the prayers; it is the spirit which in
these prayers is the constraining power upon the gods. In the faith of
the Indians the gods grow by invocations and prayers; this spirit,
therefore, gives them vigour and strength, and as he is able to compel
the gods, he must himself be a mighty god.
This spirit of prayer is a creation of the priestly families, a
reflected expression of that power and compulsion which from all
antiquity the Indians believed could be exercised upon spirits, and
which they attribute to the power of meditation. The name of this deity
no less than his abstract nature is a proof of his later origin. He is
called Brahmanaspati, _i.e._ lord of prayer. "Brahmanaspati," we are
told in the Vedas, "pronounces the potent form of prayer, where Indra,
Varuna, Mitra, and the gods have made their dwellings."[159] The lord of
prayer, the leader of songs, the creator of the songs by which the gods
grow, and who gives them power, the "bright, gold-coloured," has in
reality done the deeds of Indra. "He has cleft the clouds with his
lightning, opened the rich hollow of the mountains (the hidden streams),
driven the cows from the mountains, poured forth streams of water,
chased away the darkness with his rays, has brought into being the dawn,
the clear sky, and fire."[160] Thus did the priests transfer the
achievements of the old god of storm and battle to their new god, their
own especial protector, whom they now make the possessor of all divine
attributes, and the father of gods. As this spirit was concealed, and
lived in the acts of sacrifice, in the priests who offered it, in their
prayers and meditations, and, on the other hand, had a power over the
gods, guiding them and compelling them, Brahmanaspati, the spirit of the
cultus, the mysterious force, the magic power of the rite, became with
the priests the Holy, an impersonal essence, which at last was looked on
by the priests as "Brahman."[161] It was not with the lightning, but
with the Brahman, _i.e._ with the power of the Holy, that Indra burst
asunder the cave of Vritra.[162]
In Brahmanaspati the priests found a special god for their order and
vocation; they were also at the same time carried beyond the circle of
the ancient gods, whose forms had sprung up on a basis of natural
powers; they had arrived at a transcendental deity emanating from the
mysterious secret of their worship. It was a step further on the same
path to resolve Brahmanaspati into Brahman, the Sacred Being.
Nevertheless, even in the latest poems of the Veda, Brahman still
coincides with Brahmanaspati, with the power of meditation and
prayer.[163] But by degrees, in the eager desire to detach the unity of
the divine power from the plurality of divine shapes, and find the one
in the other, Brahman is elevated far above this signification; it
becomes the ideal union of all that is sacred and divine, and is
elevated into the highest divine power. If the Holy nourishes, leads,
and constrains the gods, it is mightier than the gods, the mightiest
deity, and therefore the most divine. If the Holy constrains the gods,
and at the same time gives them power, in it alone the special power of
the gods can rest, in so far as it is in them: the greater the portion
they have in it, the mightier are they. The self-concentrated Holy is
the mightiest power, the essence of all gods, the deity itself. Thus the
oneness of nature in the gods, their unity and the connection between
them, was discovered. Yet, this Holy, or Brahman, was not in heaven
only, but also existed on earth; it lived in the holy acts and in those
who performed them; in the ritual and prayer, in meditation and
heaven-ward elevation of spirit, in the priests. Thus there stood upon
the earth a holy and an unholy world in opposition to each other; the
world of the priests and of the laity, the holy order of the priests and
the unholy orders of the Kshatriyas, Vaiçyas, and Çudras.
It was the power of meditation and prayer, of the holy word, which with
the priests had shaped itself into the divine power, the essence of the
divine, and had thus driven out the more ancient gods. From another side
this change was aided by ideas which the nature of the land of the
Ganges forced upon the Aryas. It was not merely that the climate
compelled them to rest, and thus won, for the priests more especially,
leisure for contemplation, reflection, and minute investigation--all
tendencies natural to the Aryas. Little care for his maintenance was
required from the man who went into the forest to pursue his thoughts
and dreams. There, instead of the hot sun which ripened the sugar-cane
and shone on the fields of rice, was cool shade under the vast bananas
and fig-trees; in the fruits growing wild in the forest, he found
sufficient food. The gods invoked in the land of the Indus had been the
spirits of light, of the clear sky, of the winds, the helpful force of
fire, the rain-giving power of the storm-god. It was the bright,
friendly, beneficial phenomena and gifts of the heavens and nature which
were honoured in Indra and Mitra, in Varuna, Surya, and Agni. On the
Ganges the Aryas found themselves surrounded by a far more vigorous
natural life. They were in the midst of magnificent forms of landscape,
the loftiest mountains, the mightiest rivers; around them was a
vegetation unwearied in the luxuriance of its ceaseless growth, throwing
up gigantic leaves and stems, and creepers immeasurable. They saw on
every side a bright-coloured and marvellous animal world; glittering
birds, hissing serpents, the colossal shapes of the elephant and
rhinoceros. The multifarious forms of their gods had impelled them to
seek for a single source, a point of unity among them, and the same
impulse was roused by the wealth, variety, and bewildering abundance of
this natural life, which in quick alternation of blossom and decay, went
on creating without rest, under shapes the most various. The more
variegated the pictures formed by this rich nature in the lively fancy
of the Indians, the more confusing this change and multitude, the
stronger was the effort required of the mind in order to grasp the
unity, the single source, of all this mighty stream of life. To the old
gods the phenomena and operations of a wholly different region and
climate had been ascribed, but here life was far more varied and
luxuriant; here there was no contest of fruitful land with desert, of
the spirits of drought with the god of the storm. On the contrary, the
inundations of the Ganges displayed a fixed and regular revolution, and
in every kind of growth and decay there was a constant unalterable
order. Who, then, was the author and lord of these mighty pulses of
life, and this order, which seemed to exist of themselves? What was the
element of existence and continuance in this alternation of growth and
decay? When once men had come to regard the wonderful life of the Ganges
as a whole picture, as one, that life was naturally ascribed to some one
comprehensive form of deity, to one great god. The meditation of the
priests finally brought them to the result that the dust, earth, and
ashes, into which men, animals, and plants fell and disappeared could be
neither the cause and seat of their own life, nor of the general life.
Behind the material and the phenomenon, which could be grasped and seen
by the senses, must lie the dim and secret source of existence; behind
the external side must be another, inward, immaterial, and invisible.
Thus not man only, but all nature, fell into two parts, body and soul.
As behind the body of men, so also behind the perishable outward side of
nature, there seemed to live a great soul, penetrating through all
phenomena, the source and fountain of their being. The priests
discovered that behind all the changing phenomena there must exist a
single breath, a soul, Atman--it is also called Mahanatma, Paramatman,
_i.e._ "the great soul"[164]--and this must be the creative, sustaining,
divine power, the source and seat of the life which we behold at one
time rising in gladness, at another sinking in exhaustion.
This world-soul was amalgamated with Brahman and denoted by that name.
In and behind the prayers and sacred acts an invisible spirit had been
discovered, which gave them their power and efficacy, and this holy
spirit ruled over the deities, inasmuch as it compelled them to listen
to the prayers of men. Behind, above, and in the gods, the nature of the
Holy was all-powerful; and it was the divine, the highest form of deity.
The same spirit must be sought for behind the great and various
phenomena of the life of nature. There must be the same spirit ruling in
both spheres, a spirit which existed at once in heaven and on earth,
which gave force to the prayers of the Brahmans, and summoned into life
the phenomena of nature, and caused the latter to move in definite
cycles, which was also the highest god and the lord of the gods. Thus
the sacred spirit ruling over the gods became extended into a
world-soul, penetrating through all the phenomena of nature, inspiring
and sustaining life.
From prayer and meditation, which are mightier than the power of the
gods, from this inward concentration, which, according to the faith of
the Indians, reaches even unto heaven, the priests arrived at the idea
of a deity which no longer rested on any basis in the phenomena of
nature, but was ultimately regarded as the Holy in the general sense of
the word. To them this Holy was the soul of the world, and the creator
of it, or rather, not so much the creator as the cause and basis. From
it the world emanated as the stream from the spring. The Brahman, the
'That' (_tat_), does not stand to the world in the contrast of genus and
species; it has developed into the world. In the latest hymns of the
Veda we read: "Let us set forth the births of the gods in songs of
praise and thanksgiving. Brahmanaspati blew forth these births like a
smith. In the first age of the gods being sprang out of not-being. There
was neither being nor not-being, neither air nor heaven overhead,
neither death nor immortality, no division of day or night, darkness
existed, and this universe was indistinguishable waters. But the 'That'
(from which was nothing different, and nothing was above it), breathed
without respiration, but self-supported. Then rose desire (_kama_) in
it; this was the germ which by their wisdom the wise discovered in their
hearts as the link uniting not-being and being; this was the original
creative seed. Who knows, who can declare, whence has sprung this
creation?--the gods are subsequent to this, who then knows whence it
arose?"[165] We see how, in spite of consistency, Brahman is retained
beside the purely spiritual potency, the fructifying water of heaven
beside not-being, as the material in existence from the first.
From the point of view which the priests gained by this conception of
Brahman, a new idea of the world lay open to them. Behind and above the
gods stood an invisible, pure, and holy spirit, which was at once the
germ and source of the whole world, the life of nature's life; in
Brahman the world and all that was in it had their origin; there was no
difference between the nature of Brahman and the world. Brahman was the
efficient and material cause of the world, but while Brahman streamed
forth into the world and became at every step further removed from
itself, its products became less clear and pure, less like the
perfection of its nature. Beginning from a spiritual being,
suprasensual, transcendental, and yet existing in the world, the Indians
ended in discovering a theory of creation, according to which all
creatures proceeded from this highest being in such a manner, that the
most spiritual forms were the nearest to him, while the most material,
sensual, and rude were the most remote. There was a graduated scale of
beings from Brahman down to the stones, and from these again to the holy
and pure, the only true and real, self-existent, eternal being of this
world-soul. In the first instance the gods had sprung from Brahman. From
Brahman the impersonal world-soul, the self-existent Holy, a personal
Brahman, first streamed forth, who was the highest deity. The personal
Brahman was followed by the origin of the old gods. After the gods the
spirits of the air are said to have flowed from Brahman, and after them
the holy and pure men, the castes in their order, according as they are
nearer to the sanctity of Brahman or more remote. Men were succeeded by
the beasts according to their various kinds, by trees, plants, herbs,
stones, and the lifeless matter.
In this way all created things emanated from Brahman, and to each class
and kind a definite occupation was appointed, to perform which was the
duty of the class in the universal system. Thus the life of all
creatures was defined, and their vocation assigned to them in such a
manner that they must fulfil it even in subsequent births.[166] The
orders of priests, Kshatriyas, Vaiçyas, and Çudras, were a part in the
divine order of the world; the distinction between them, the nature and
relative position of each, emanated from Brahman. They are, therefore,
distinct steps in the development of Brahman, and, for this reason,
distinct occupations are apportioned to them. Thus there now stood, side
by side, among the Indians, four classes or varieties of men, separated
by God, and each provided by him with a different function. Henceforth
no change was possible for one class into another, no mixture of one
with another could be endured. The limits drawn by God were not to be
broken through. The Brahmans are nearest to Brahman; in them the essence
of Brahman, the holy spirit, the power of sanctification, lives in
greater force than in the rest; they emanated from Brahman before the
others; they are the first-born order. In one of the latest songs of the
Rigveda, the Purusha-suktas, we are told of the world-spirit: "The
Brahman was his mouth, the Rajnaya (Kshatriya) his arm, the Vaiçya his
thigh, the Çudra his foot." This is a parable: the Brahman was his
mouth, because the Brahmans are in possession of the prayers and holy
hymns; whether the arm or the mouth, strength or speech, was preferable,
is a question which remains unanswered. More distinctly and with special
insistance that the mouth of Brahman is the best part of him, the law
book of the priests tells us: Brahman first allowed the Brahmans to
proceed from his mouth; then the Kshatriyas from his arms; next the
Vaiçyas from his thigh; and lastly, the Çudras from his foot.[167] The
duties fixed by Brahman for the Brahmans were sacrifice, the study and
teaching of the Veda, to give justice and receive it. The duty of the
Kshatriyas is to protect the people; of the Vaiçyas to tend the herds,
till the fields, and carry on trade; the Çudras were only pledged to
serve the three other orders.[168] It is a duty for the Kshatriyas and
Vaiçyas to be reverent, submissive, and liberal to the Brahmans or
first-born caste. The vocation of man is to adapt himself to the
existing order of the world, to fulfil the particular mission assigned
to him at birth. Any rebellion against the order of the castes is a
rebellion against the divine order of the world.
This new view of the world, at which, beginning from the conception of
the Holy and the world-soul, the meditation of the priests had arrived,
was at variance with the old faith. The new idea of God and the doctrine
of the world-soul, in its abstract and speculative form, could have but
little influence on the kings, the nobles, the peasants, and the people.
As a fact, it shattered almost too violently the belief of the Aryas in
the ancient gods. With the people Indra continued to be the highest god,
and still, as before, the spirits of light, of the wind, of fire were
invoked. But even without the new doctrine the forms of the ancient gods
were fainter in the minds of the nobles and people, partly in
consequence of the change in climate and country, and partly because the
old impulses which had given the first place in heaven to the gods of
battle no longer moved the heart so strongly, when the Aryas lived in
larger states and under more peaceful relations. The atmosphere of the
valley of the Ganges also required a more passive life, and the ideas of
the people, no less than the fancy of the priests, must have received
from the gigantic forms of the landscape, and the rich and marvellous
animal world of the new region, a direction and elevation quite
different from that felt in the land of the Indus. More especially, the
reasons noticed above--the contrast between the Aryas on the one hand
and the Çudras on the other--facilitated the reception of the doctrine
maintained by the priests of the division of castes. The pious feeling
which penetrated the Indians would, moreover, have found it difficult to
resist the conviction that the first place must invariably belong to the
relation to the gods. Hence ready credence was given to the priests when
they spoke of their order as the first-born and nearest to the gods.
It was not in the sphere of religion or worship, but in ethics, that the
doctrine of the priests attained to a thorough practical influence on
the state and life of the Indians, and this complete victory was due to
the consequences which the priests derived from it for the life of the
soul after death. We are acquainted with the ancient ideas cherished by
the Aryas in the Panjab on the future of the soul after death; the
spirits of the brave and pious passed into the bright heaven of Yama,
where they lived in happiness and joy on soma, milk, and honey; those
who had done evil passed into thickest darkness. Yama allowed or refused
entrance into his heaven; his two hounds kept watch (p. 64). The
descendants duly sprinkled water for the spirits of their ancestors, and
their families brought libations at the new moon, when the souls of the
fathers came in troops and enjoyed food and drink. In the oldest
Brahmanas, Yama holds a formal judgment on the souls. The actions of the
dead were weighed in a balance; the good deeds allowed the scale to
rise; the evil deeds were threatened with definite punishments and
torments in the place of darkness. The body of light which the pious
souls are said to have received in heaven, required, according to this
new conception, a less amount of food, or no food at all. But the deeper
change rests in the fact that the heaven of Yama, the son of the deity
of light, can now no longer be the reward of those who have lived a
purer life, and approached to the sanctity and perfection of Brahman.
They had raised themselves in the scale of existence, and must therefore
return into the bosom of the pure being from which they had emanated.
The souls which have attained to complete purity pass after death into
Brahman. Thus the heaven of Yama was rendered unnecessary, and was, in
fact, set aside. The sinner who has not lived according to the vocation
which he received at birth, has neither offered sacrifice nor purified
himself, must be severely punished, and it is Yama--now transformed from
a judge of the dead into a prince of darkness, and having his abode in
hell--who imposes on sinners the torments which they must endure after
death for their guilt. The fancy of the Indians depicted, in great
detail, according to the various torments, the place of darkness, the
hell, situated deep below the earth. As among the Egyptians, and all
nations living in a hot climate, so in the hell of the Indians fierce
heat is the chief means of punishment. In one place is the region of
darkness, and the place of tears, the forest where the leaves are
swords. In another the souls are torn by owls and ravens; in another
their heads are struck every day by the guardians of hell with great
hammers. In another and yet worse hell they are broiled in pans; here
they have to eat hot coals; there they walk on burning sand and glowing
iron; in another place hot copper is poured into their necks.[169] For
the kings and warriors, on the other hand, the heaven of Indra takes the
place of the heaven of Yama; and into this the brave warriors enter. In
the Epos, Indra laments that "none of the beloved guests come, who
dedicate their lives to the battle, and find death without an averted
countenance." We have already seen how Indra meets Yudhishthira in order
to conduct him into the heaven of the heroes, the imperishable world,
where he will see his brothers and his wife, when they are freed from
the earthly impurity still clinging to them.
The torments provided in hell for the sinners could not satisfy the
system which the priests had established in the doctrine of the
world-soul. In this the holy and pure being had allowed the world to
emanate from itself; the further this world was removed from its origin
and source, the more melancholy and gloomy it became. If the gods, the
holy and pious men in the past, and the heaven of light of Indra, were
nearest to the purity of Brahman, the pure nature of this being became
seriously adulterated in the lower stages of removal. In the present
world, purity and impurity, virtue and passion, wisdom and folly, were
at least in equipoise. The worlds of animals, plants, and dead matter
were obviously still further removed from the pure Brahman. If,
according to this view, the world was an adulterated, broken, impure
Brahman, it received, along with this corruption, the duty of regaining
its original purity. All beings had received their origin from Brahman,
and to him all must return. From this point of view, and the requirement
that every being must work out its way to perfection, in order to be
adapted to its perfect origin, the priests arrived at the idea that
every creature must go through all the gradations of being as they
emanated from Brahman, before it could attain to rest. The Çudra must
become a Vaiçya, the Vaiçya a Kshatriya, the Kshatriya a Brahman, and
the Brahman a wholly sinless and sacred man, a pure spirit, before he
can pass into Brahman. From the necessity that every one should work up
to Brahman, arose the monstrous doctrine of regenerations. The Çudra who
had lived a virtuous life, was, it was thought, by the power of this
virtue and the practice of it, changed in his nature, and born anew in
the higher existence of a Vaiçya; the Kshatriya became a Brahman, and so
on.[170] In this manner the pure and holy life, according as it was
freed from all sensuality and corporeality, from the whole material
world, succeeded in winning a return to supersensual and incorporeal
Brahman. Conversely, the impure, spotted, and sinful were born again in
a lower order, and in the worst shape according to the measure of the
offence--sometimes they did not even become men at all, but animals--in
order to struggle back again through unutterable torments, and
innumerable regenerations, to their former condition, and finally to
Brahman. Thus a wide field was opened to the fancy of the Indians, on
which it soon erected a complete system of regenerations; and into this
the theory of hell was adopted. The man who had committed grievous sins,
sinks after death into hell, and for long periods is tortured in the
various departments there, that thus, after expiation of his sins, he
may begin again the scale of migration from the lowest and worst form of
existence. One who was guilty of less serious offences was born again
according to their measure as a Çudra or an elephant, a lion or a tiger,
a bird or a dancer.[171] One who had committed acts of cruelty was
re-born as a beast of prey.[172] One who had attempted the murder of a
Brahman was punished in hell one hundred or a thousand years, according
to the progress of the attempt, and then saw the light of the world in
twenty-one births, each time proceeding from the body of some common
animal. He who had shed the blood of a Brahman, was torn in hell by
beasts of prey for so many years as the flowing blood had touched grains
of sand; and if any one had slain a Brahman his soul was born again in
the bodies of the animals held in greatest contempt on the Ganges, the
dog and the goat.[173] If any one had stolen a cow he was born again as
a crocodile, or a lizard; if corn, as a rat;[174] if fruits and roots,
as an ape.[175] He who defiled his father's bed was to be born a hundred
times as a herb, or a liana--the creepers embracing the trees;[176] the
Brahman who is guilty of a fault in the sacrifice is born again for a
hundred years as a crow or kite, and those who eat forbidden food will
again see light as worms. He who reproaches a free man with being the
son of a slave-woman, will himself be born five times from the body of
a slave.[177] In this manner, partly fanciful, partly pedantic, the
priests built up the system of regenerations. According to the law-book
of the priests, inorganic matter, worms, insects, frogs, rats, crows,
swine, dogs, and asses, were on the lowest stage in the scale of
creation; above them came first, elephants, horses, lions, boars, the
Çudras and the Mlechhas; _i.e._ the nations who did not speak Sanskrit.
Above these were rogues, players, demons (Raksheras), Piçachas, _i.e._
blood-suckers, vampyres; above these wrestlers and boxers, dancers,
armour-smiths, drunkards, and Vaiçyas; above them the Kshatriyas and the
kings, the men eminent in battle and speech, the genii of heaven, the
Gandharvas and Apsarasas. Above these were the Brahmans, the pious
penitents, the gods, the great saints, and finally, Brahman.
Thus the new system effaced the specific distinctions between plants and
beasts, men and gods. Everywhere it saw nothing but spirits, which have
to work their way in a similar manner from greater or less impurity to
purity, from incompleteness to completeness and the original source of
their existence. The souls, when they had once been created and had
emanated from Brahman, found no rest or end till they had returned once
more to this their starting-point; and this they were unable to do till
they had been raised to the purity and sanctity of Brahman.
However indifferent the kings, nobles, and peasants may have been to
this doctrine of the world-soul and Brahman, these new, severe, and
terrible consequences, derived from it by the priests for the life
after death, could not be without a deep impression. They operated with
immense force on the spirit of the Indians. To endure the torments of
hell in continuous heat, while even on earth the warmth of the climate
was so hard to bear, was a terrible prospect. But even this appeared
only as the lesser evil. Along with and after the torments of hell those
who committed grievous sins had to expect a ceaseless regeneration in
the bodies of men and animals until they had worked their way up to
Brahman. At the same time the priests took care to impress upon the
hearts of the people the fate which awaited those who did not follow
their ordinances. They reminded them perpetually of "the casting of the
soul into hell and hell-torments." The sinner was to think, "what
migrations the soul would have to undergo owing to his sin; of the
regeneration through ten thousand millions of mothers."[178] These
endless terrors and torments now in prospect for the man who did not
fulfil the vocation assigned to him by the creator at birth, or the
prescripts of the priests, were only too well adapted to win respect for
their requirements. Who would venture to trespass on the divine
arrangement of the world, according to which the first place was secured
on earth to the Brahman in preference to the wealthy armed noble, the
peasant, and the miserable Çudra, who was only on a level with the
higher order of animals? Who would not look up with reverence to the
purer incarnation of the world-soul, the holier spirit, which dwelt in
the Brahmans? Even though the theory of the world-soul remained
unintelligible to the many, they understood that the Brahmans, who
busied themselves with sacrifice, prayers, and sacred things, stood
nearer to the deity than they did; they understood that if they
misconducted themselves towards the sacred race or disregarded the
vocation of birth, they must expect endless torments in hell, and
endless regenerations in the most loathsome worms and insects, or in the
despised class of the Çudras--"those animals in human form."
The priesthood cannot have succeeded in making good their claims to
superiority over the Kshatriyas, their new doctrine and ethics, without
long-continued struggles and contests. If the two first centuries after
the foundation of the states--the period between 1400 and 1200
B.C.--were occupied, as we assumed above, with the arrangement and
consolidation of the new kingdom, the establishment of the position of
the nobles, and the composition of songs of heroism and victory, we may
assign to the next two centuries--from 1200 to 1000 B.C.--the sharper
distinction of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the amalgamation of the
families of minstrels and priests into an order; the rise of this order
in the states on the Ganges as the preserver of the ancient faith and
ancient mode of worship; the combination of the customs, formulæ, and
invocations hitherto handed down separately in the separate states. If
in the first period the immigrant Aryas separated themselves as a common
race from the Çudras, in the next the three orders of the Aryas became
distinguished. Only the man who was born a Kshatriya could partake in
the honour of this order; only one who sprung from a family of priests
could be allowed to assist in the holy acts of sacrifice; and he who was
born a Vaiçya must continue to till the field.
At the beginning of the ensuing century--_i.e._ in the period from 1000
B.C. downwards--the priests, now in possession of all the ancient
invocations and formulæ, may have begun their meditations with the
comparison of the invocations, the attempt to find out the right meaning
of them, and to grasp the unity of the divine nature. The hymns of the
latest portion of the Vedas, which are obviously a product of these
meditations, may perhaps have arisen in the first half of this period.
From the mysterious secret of the worship, the spirit of prayer, and the
idea of the mighty, ever-recurring stream of birth and decay in the land
of the Ganges, the Brahmans arrived at the idea of Brahman, the
world-soul, and from this deduced its consequences. We may with
certainty presuppose a long and severe struggle of the nobles against
the dominion of the priests--a struggle which went on for several
generations. Even the Vaiçyas can hardly have submitted without
resistance to all the requirements of the Brahmans. The impassable gulf
between the orders, the exclusion of intermarriage, was only carried
out, as we can show, with difficulty; and even the ethics of the new
doctrine must have met with resistance.
We have already referred to the circumstances which rendered victory
easier to the Brahmans, to the changed conditions of life, and the
nature of the land of the Ganges. Another fact in their favour was that
the new doctrines of the Brahmans did not attack the monarchy. This
continued to remain in the order of the Kshatriyas, and no essential
limitation of their powers was required by the new doctrine from the
princes on the Ganges. It is true that it demanded recognition of the
superiority of the Brahmans to the other orders, and acknowledgment of
the special sanctity of the order even from the kings; it required
reverence, respect, and liberality, towards the Brahmans; yet in all
other respects the new system was calculated to increase rather than
diminish the power of the kings. The rule of unconditional submission to
the existing order must have strengthened considerably the authority of
the kings, and assisted them in removing the limitations hitherto,
without doubt, imposed upon them by the importance of the Kshatriyas;
and we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the kingdom on the Ganges
was first raised by the new doctrine to absolute power; on this
foundation it became a despotism.
We may feel confident in assuming that the victory of the Brahmans in
the land of the Ganges was completed about the time when the dynasty of
the Pradyotas ascended the throne of Magadha, _i.e._ about the year 800
B.C.[179] The districts from the Sarasvati eastward as far as the upper
Ganges are after that time a sacred land to the Indians. The country
between the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati is called Brahmavarta, _i.e._
Brahma-land. Kurukshetra (between the Drishadvati and the Yamuna), the
districts of the Bharatas and Panchalas, of the Matsyas and Çurasenas,
_i.e._ the entire doab of the Yamuna and the Ganges, are comprised under
the name Brahmarshideça, _i.e._ the land of the holy sages. Here were
situated the famous residences of the Kurus and Pandus, Hastinapura,
Indraprastha, Kauçambi, and on the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges,
Pratishthana; here, finally, was the city of Krishna, Krishnapura, and
the sacred Mathura on the Yamuna; and elsewhere also in this district we
find consecrated places and shrines of pilgrimage. It is maintained that
the bravest Kshatriyas and the holiest priests are to be found in this
district; the customs and observances here are regarded as the best, and
as giving the rule to the remainder. The law-book of the priests
requires that every Arya shall learn the right walk in life from a
Brahman born in Brahmarshideça, and that, properly, all Aryas should
live there.[180] It cannot have been any reminiscence of the great war
which caused the priests to set such a value on these regions, and make
these demands, nor even the fact that these districts were the first
occupied by the emigrants from the Indus, so that here first in the new
country were consecrated places set up for the worship of the
immigrants, and the least intermixture took place with the ancient
population. It is due rather to the fact that in these regions the
civilisation and culture of the Indians were consolidated in an especial
degree; here the priestly reform of the religion, if it did not receive
the first impulse, yet acquired the victory and became supreme, owing
perhaps to the support of the princes of the dynasty of Pandu, who
reigned at Kauçambi. As these were the regions in which the priests
first regulated the ancient customs of worship, morals, and justice
according to the new doctrine, they could afterwards serve as a pattern
for all the rest. If the Brahmans, soon after they had succeeded in
carrying through their demands here, revised the Epos of the great war
in the light of their new system, they could claim the thanks of the
kings of the Bharatas for their support, they could show that the kings
who in ancient times had won the dominion in these lands, the ancestors
of the race then on the throne, had even in early times obediently
followed the commands of the priests, and they could set up the
conquerors in that struggle as patterns of the proper conduct of kings
to Brahmans (p. 101).
Hence we may perhaps assume that it was in the districts on the upper
Yamuna and the upper Ganges that the priesthood first got the upper
hand, and the same change followed in the lands still further to the
east, after the great priestly families, with more or less difficulty,
delay and completeness, established themselves among the Kshatriyas of
these districts--the Vasishthas with the kings of the Koçalas, the
Gautamas with the kings of the Videhas, to whom no doubt they made very
clear the services their forefathers had rendered to the predecessors on
the throne. According as the previous circumstances offered more
resistance in one place, and less in another, the new system was
sometimes carried out more rapidly and thoroughly, and at others more
slowly and with less severity.
No historical tradition has come down to us of the resistance made by
the nobles to the priestly order in defence of their possession, or by
the kings in questions affecting their power. It was the interest of the
Brahmans to establish and describe the position they had won by
conquest as occupied by them from the first. No nation has gone so far
as the Indians in their eagerness to forget the old condition of affairs
in every succeeding evolution, and to establish the new point of view as
one existing from the first. The liveliness and force of their fancy
must have unconsciously led them to regard the new and the present as
the old and the original after comparatively short intervals of time.
In some episodes of the Epos and narratives of the Puranas we find
legends of kings and warriors who because they did not show the proper
respect for the Brahmans, or opposed them, were severely punished, and
of saintly heroes who slew the Kshatriyas. We cannot, however, assume,
that in the one or the other there is concealed any historic
reminiscence. They are merely intended to set up terrifying examples of
the lot which awaited kings and Kshatriyas who ventured to disregard the
Brahmans. The book of the law tells us that the wise king Vena became
infirm in mind owing to sensuality, and in this condition he brought
about the mixture of the orders.[181] King Nahusha, Sudas, the son of
Pijavana, and Nimi perished through want of humility, but Viçvamitra by
his humility was raised to the rank of a Brahman.[182] All these names
are taken from the legend as it existed previously to the great war.
In the Rigveda, Vena is mentioned as the father of Prithu;[183] the
Ramayana enumerates Vena and his son Prithu among the first successors
of Ikshvaku, the progenitor of the kings of the Koçalas (p. 106). The
Vishnu-Purana, which assigns the same position to Vena, tells us that he
took upon himself to arrange the duties of men, and forbade the
Brahmans to sacrifice to the gods; no one might be worshipped but
himself. Then the holy Brahmans slew the sinner with swords of the
sacred sacrificial grass, which had been purified by invocations. And
when, on the death of the king, robbers sprung up on every side, the
Brahmans rubbed the right arm of the dead king, and from it sprung the
pious and wise Prithu, who shone like Agni; he ruled between the Yamuna
and Ganges, and subdued the earth, and by this noble son Vena's soul was
freed from hell. The Mahabharata tells us that Prithu inquired with
folded hands of the great saints about his duties, and that they bade
him maintain the Veda, abstain from punishing Brahmans, and protect
society from the intermixture of the castes.[184]
King Nahusha belongs to the royal race of the Bharatas; he is mentioned
as the second successor of Pururavas (p. 82). The Mahabharata tells us
that he was a mighty king, but he laid tribute on the saints, and forced
them to carry him. Once he caused his palanquin to be carried by a
thousand great sages, and because they did not go fast enough, he struck
with his foot the holy Agastya who was among them. Then Agastya cursed
him and he was changed into a serpent.[185]
Nimi, according to the Ramayana, is a son of Ikshvaku, the progenitor of
the Koçalas. He bade Vasishtha his priest offer a sacrifice for him, and
Vasishtha undertook to perform the second half of it. But the king
caused the sacrifice to be offered by another saint, by Gautama. When
Vasishtha heard this he pronounced a curse on Nimi that he should lose
his body, and Nimi forthwith died. He was not punished for rebellion
against a Brahman, but because he had not submitted himself with
absolute obedience to his own priest.
Lastly Viçvamitra is said to have obtained the rank of a Brahman by
humility. Viçvamitra is known to us from the hymns of the seventh book
of the Rigveda as offering sacrifice for the Bharatas, while Vasishtha
or his race offer prayer and sacrifice for their opponent, Sudas, the
king of the Tritsus, who afterwards settle on the Sarayu and bear the
name of Koçalas (p. 66). But the Ramayana and the Puranas also place
Vasishtha at the side of the kings of the Koçalas, not at the time of
Nimi only, as we have seen, who is the son of the tribal ancestor
Ikshvaku, but at the side of Ikshvaku's descendants in the fifth
century, like Vena, and even in the twentieth and fiftieth generations.
The imagination of the Indians was not disturbed by such things in the
case of a great priest of the old time. Yet in other parts of the
Rigveda besides those quoted above, in the third book, we find prayers
offered by Viçvamitra for Sudas, and some obscure expressions may be
regarded as curses directed by Vasishtha against Viçvamitra. From the
circumstance that Viçvamitra at one time offers prayers for the king of
the Tritsus, and at another for the king of the Bharatas, we may draw
the conclusion, that the family of the Kuçikas to which Viçvamitra
belonged was driven out among the Tritsus by another family--that of
Vasishtha, and that afterwards the Kuçikas offered their services to the
kings of the Bharatas, and were allowed to perform them. Out of the
opposition of Viçvamitra and Vasishtha, indicated in the Rigveda, the
priestly literature of the Indians has invented a great contest between
Viçvamitra and the Kshatriyas, in order to bring to light the
superiority of the Brahmans. Even with the aid of his weapons,
Viçvamitra the Kshatriya cannot prevail against the Brahman Vasishtha.
At length he recognises the majesty of the Brahman, submits to Brahmanic
ordinances, and distinguishes himself by sanctity to such a degree "that
he became like a Brahman, and possessed all the qualifications of
one."[186]
In the Vishnu-Purana Sudas is the fiftieth successor of Ikshvaku on the
throne of the Koçalas. His priest was Vasishtha; and Viçvamitra, the son
of a great Kshatriya, the king of Kanyakubja (Kanoja), wished to drive
him out. One day, while hunting, Sudas met a Brahman, who would not move
out of the way for him, and he struck him with his whip. The Brahman was
Çakti, the eldest of Vasishtha's hundred sons. Çakti pronounced on the
king the curse that he should become a cannibal, and the curse was
fulfilled. But by the help of an evil spirit Viçvamitra was able to
bring the consequences of the curse on the sons of Vasishtha; Çakti
himself and all his brothers were eaten by the king. In despair at the
death of his sons, Vasishtha sought to put an end to his own life, but
in vain. When at length he returned to his settlement, he found that the
widow of his eldest son was pregnant; and when she brought forth
Paraçara the hope of progeny revived in him. But Sudas desired to eat
Paraçara also. Then the holy Vasishtha blew on Sudas, sprinkled him with
holy water, and took the curse from him, and in return the king promised
never to despise Brahmans, to obey their commands, and show them all
honour. And when Paraçara grew up, and wished to avenge the death of his
father, Vasishtha told him that under the rule of Kritavirya (he is said
to have reigned over a tribe of the Yadavas) the Bhrigus, the priests
of the king, had become rich in corn and gold by his liberality. Arjuna,
the successor of Kritavirya, had fallen into distress, and sought aid
from the Bhrigus. Then some of them buried their possessions out of fear
of the Kshatriyas, and when by accident a Kshatriya discovered the
treasure hidden in the house of a Bhrigu they slew all the Bhrigus. But
their widows fled to the Himalayas, and there one of them brought forth
Aurva, who desired to avenge the death of the Bhrigus by the slaughter
of the Kshatriyas. But the spirits of the holy Bhrigus warned him to
give up his passion, and curb his anger; by concealment they had roused
the anger of the Kshatriyas, in order to arrive the sooner in heaven. In
like manner Paraçara abandoned the idea of avenging his father.
No greater historical value is to be attached to a legend of the
destruction of the Kshatriyas by a Brahman. Gadhi, the father of
Viçvamitra, had given his daughter to wife to a saint, Richika, the son
of Aurva, of the race of the Bhrigus. She bore Jamadagni to Richika, who
lived as an eremite after the example of his father. One day Arjuna came
to the abode of Jamadagni, and though he received the king with honour,
Arjuna caused the calf of his cow to be carried away. Then Paraçurama,
_i.e._ Rama with the axe, the youngest son of Jamadagni, slew the king,
and the king's sons slew Jamadagni. To avenge the death of his father,
Paraçurama swore to destroy all the Kshatriyas from the earth. Thrice
seven times with his irresistible axe he cut down the Kshatriyas, and
appeased the manes of Jamadagni and the Bhrigus with the blood of the
slain. Then he offered a great sacrifice to Indra, and presented the
earth to the saint Kaçyapa. But Kaçyapa gave it to the Brahmans, and
went into the forest. Then the stronger oppressed the weaker, and the
Vaiçyas and Çudras behaved themselves wickedly towards the wives of the
Brahmans, and the earth besought Kaçyapa for a protector and a king; a
few Kshatriyas were still left among the women; and Paraçara had brought
up Sarvakarma, the son of Sudas. And Kaçyapa did as the earth entreated
him, and made the son of Sudas and the other Kshatriyas to be kings.
This was long before the great war.[187] In the Ramayana, Paraçurama
rebels when Rama has broken Çiva's great bow. All were in terror lest he
should again destroy the Kshatriyas. But Rama also strings Paraçurama's
great bow, shoots the arrow to the sky, not towards Paraçurama, "because
he was a Brahman," and Paraçurama returned to Mount Mahendra.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] Cunningham, "Survey," 1. 301 ff.
[152] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 168 _n._
[153] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 168.
[154] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 671, 951.
[155] Manu, 1. 91.
[156] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 966 _n._
[157] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 1, 4, 5, in Benfey's translation.
[158] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 5, 266 ff.
[159] "Rigveda," 1, 40, 5, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 272 ff.
[160] "Rigveda," 10, 68, 8 ff. Roth, "Z. D. M. G." 1. 75.
[161] _Brahmán_, from the root _barh_, connected with the root _vardh_
(to become, to grow), means to raise, to elevate. The masc. _brahmán_
means "he who elevates, makes to increase;" the neuter _bráhman_ means
first, "growth," the "creative power," and then, "the elevating and
elevated mood," the prayer and sacred form of words, the creative,
reproducing power. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 2, 303; 9, 305.
[162] Roth, _loc. cit._ 1. 73.
[163]Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 382.
[164] So in Manu, _e.g._ 6. 65. _Atman_ means "_breathing_;"
_paramatman_ "the highest breathing."
[165] "Rigveda," 10, 72, 1-3; 10, 129, 1-6, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 48
ff. 356.
[166] Manu, 1, 28, 29.
[167] "Rigveda," 10, 90; Manu, 1, 31 and in the Puranas; Muir, "Sanskrit
Texts," 5, 371. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 9, 7.
[168] Manu, 1, 88-91, and in many other places.
[169] In Manu, 4, 88-90 (cf. 12, 75, 76) eight hells are mentioned and
described, in each of which the torments grow worse as the offences are
more serious. The Buddhists retain these eight hot hells, and add eight
cold; Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 320, 366,
367, 201. The Singhalese have increased the number to 136, the Siamese
to 462. Koppen, "Relig. des Buddha," s. 244. Cf. A. Weber, in "Z. D. M.
G." 9, 237.
[170] _e.g._ Manu, 9, 335.
[171] Manu, 12, 43, 44.
[172] Manu, 12, 59.
[173] Manu, 12, 55.
[174] Manu, 12, 62, 64.
[175] Manu, 12, 67.
[176] Manu, 12, 58.
[177] Manu, 12, 59. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 274. Bohlen has already
observed that many of these regenerations are merely fanciful, "Indien,"
24.
[178] Manu, 6, 61-63.
[179] In the sixth century B.C. the Brahmanic arrangement of the state
was in full force in the cities on the Ganges, and carried out most
strictly. Hence it must have obtained the upper hand about 800 B.C. at
the latest. It was not only established by law about the year 600 B.C.,
but the doctrine of the Brahmans had already created scholastic and
heterodox systems of philosophy. Before this system could become
current, the idea of Brahman must have been discovered; the strong
elements of resistance in the ancient life and faith must have been
overcome. This would occupy a space of about two centuries, and may
therefore have filled the period from 1000 to 800 B.C., as assumed in
the text. Buddhism required a space of three centuries in order to
become the recognised religion in the kingdom of Magadha. Before the
idea of the world-soul could be discovered, the hymns of the Veda must
have reached a certain point of combination and synopsis, and the
confusing multitude of divine forms must have been sufficiently felt to
call forth the opposite idea of unity. From the book of the law it is
clear that the three Vedas were in existence before it was drawn up. It
refers perpetually to the triple Veda. The evidence of the Sutras proves
that four Vedas existed at the time of the appearance of Buddha. If
these were in existence in the sixth century the three which are
acknowledged to be older must have existed as early as the seventh
century B.C.
[180] Manu, 2, 6, 12, 18, 20.
[181] Manu, 9, 67.
[182] Manu, 7, 38-42, 8, 110.
[183] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 1, 268, 305.
[184] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 297 ff.
[185] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 307 ff.
[186] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 157.
[187] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 151, 200.
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD AND THE NEW RELIGION.
In the land of the Ganges the Brahmans had gained a great victory and
carried out a great reform. A new god had thrown the old gods into the
background, and with the conception of this new god was connected a new
view of the world, at once abstract and fantastic. From this in turn
followed a new arrangement of the state, and of the orders, which were
now of divine origin, as direct products of creation, and thus became
irrevocably fixed. The monarchy itself was of humbler descent than the
Brahmans, the first of the earth; to them the warlike nobles were made
inferior, while the doctrines of hell and regeneration, which the
Brahmans put in the place of the old ideas of life after death, must
gradually have brought about the subjugation of the national mind and
heart to the new religion.
When the Brahmans succeeded in establishing their claims in the land of
the Ganges about the year 800 B.C. (as we ventured to assume), the old
sacrificial songs and invocations, which they had imported with them
from the land of the Indus, were no doubt to a great extent already
written down. When the various families of minstrels and priests had
first exchanged with each other their special treasures of ancient
prayers; when the Brahmans, passing beyond the borders of the separate
states, had become amalgamated into one order, and had thus consolidated
the existing stock of traditional formulæ and ritual--it must have been
felt necessary to preserve this valuable treasure in its greatest
possible extent, and, considering the belief of the Aryas in the magical
power of these forms, as securely as possible from any change. Whatever
might be the assistance which the compact form of these invocations lent
to the memory, the body of songs which had now passed from tradition and
the possession of the separate families into the general possession of
the orders, was too various and comprehensive,--minute and verbal
accuracy was too important,--for the resources of even the most careful
oral teaching, the strongest and most practised memory. But the process
of writing them down was not accomplished at once. In the first case, no
doubt, each family added to its own possessions the store of the family
most closely connected with it.[188] Beginning from different points,
after manifold delays, extensions, and enlargements from the invocations
first composed in the land of the Ganges, which allow us to trace the
change from the old views to the new system, the collection must at last
have comprised all that was essential in the forms and prayers used at
offerings and sacrifices.
We do not know how far back the use of writing extends with the Indians.
According to the account of Nearchus, they wrote on cotton, beaten hard;
other Greeks speak of the bark of trees, while native evidence teaches
us that the leaves of the umbrella palm were used for the purpose.
Modern enquirers are of opinion that the Indian alphabet is not an
invention of the people, but borrowed from the Phenician.[189] As we
have shown, the Phenicians reached the mouth of the Indus in the tenth
century. But about this time, or perhaps before it, there existed a
marine trade between the Indians and Sabæans, on the coasts of south
Arabia. Granting the origin of the Indian alphabet from the Phenician,
it is thus rendered more probable that it was taken from the south
Arabian alphabet, which in its turn rose out of the Aramaic alphabet,
than that it was borrowed directly from the Phenician. In the latter
case we should have to presuppose a trade between Babylonia and India by
means of the Persian Gulf (in Babylonia the Aramaic alphabet was in use
beside the cuneiform in the eighth century B.C. at the latest) as a more
probable means of communication than the voyages of the Phenicians to
Elath, which had already been given up. But from whatever branch of the
Semitic races the Indian letters may have been taken, the general use of
them cannot be put much earlier than 800 B.C. The oldest inscriptions of
the Indians which have come down to us, are those of Açoka, king of
Magadha, and belong to the middle of the third century B.C. They exhibit
a complete alphabetic use of writing, and the forms of the letters are
not very different from those employed at a later time.[190]
Among the Indians the collection of their old songs and forms is known
as the Veda, _i.e._ knowledge: it forms the knowledge of the priest. We
possess these songs in three groups. The oldest, and no doubt the
original group, the Rigveda, _i.e._ the knowledge of thanksgiving,
comprises in ten books more than a thousand of the traditional poems and
sacrificial songs. For the most part they are arranged according to a
certain recurring order in the deities invoked; and, as we have seen,
some poems are included which could never have been sung at sacrifices
at all. Besides this collection there are two collections of the
liturgic prayers which ought to accompany the performance of sacrifice.
The Samaveda comprises the prayers sung at the offering of the soma;
they are verses taken from the Rigveda, and the collection is a book of
songs or hymns.[191] The Yajur-veda contains the formulæ and ritual
which must be chanted at the dedication of the altar, the kindling of
the fire, and every act of every sacrifice. Thus the Samaveda supplied
the knowledge of the Udgatar, the prayers during the sacrifice of soma,
the Yajur-veda supplied the knowledge of the Adhvaryu, who had to
perform the material part of the sacrificial service, the ritual for the
separate acts of the ceremony. Compared with these two books the Rigveda
was the book of the Hotar, _i.e._ of the chief priest, who had to
conduct the sacrifice, and invoke the gods to come down to it.[192] If
in the parts of the hymns of praise and invitations, which are repeated
from the Rigveda in the Samaveda, the style and tone is often more
archaic than in the Rigveda, the explanation is that the prayer at the
sacrifice was no doubt preserved with more liturgic accuracy, than the
invitation to the god, which preceded the sacrifice. The Yajur-veda is
preserved in a double form; of which one, the black Yajus, is shown to
be the older by its want of systematic sequence; but even in this older
form we find, as in the tenth book of the Rigveda,[193] pieces of later
origin, the outcome of priestly meditation.
The writing down of these invocations and the possession of the sacred
books formed a new bond to unite the Brahmans into an order distinct
from the others. The superior knowledge of the priestly families became
of still greater importance. By appealing to these writings, which in
the first instance were only accessible to the members of their order,
they were enabled to find a considerable support in asserting their
claims against the kings, Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, though their contents
told against rather than for the new doctrine. Strong though the impulse
might be, which the variety of these invocations had supplied to advance
the new conception of god, this body of ritual, with the exception of a
few later pieces, was strongly opposed to the new doctrine. It was
filled with praise of those very gods, which, in the view of the
Brahmans, had given way to their new god. The way in which the Brahmans
harmonised the songs of the Veda, where Varuna, Mitra, Agni, and Indra
are each praised in turn as the highest deity, with their new idea of
god, was a matter for their modes of interpretation and their schools.
For the nation the chief object was to remove or conceal the striking
discord between the doctrine of the new god and the old faith, a task
all the more difficult, as the nation clung more closely to the old
forms of the gods, though some, as has been remarked, were almost
obliterated by the natural characteristics of the land of the Ganges,
and the novel conditions of life in the new states. Small as the space
was which the battles of Indra could claim in the eyes of the Brahmans
beside their own Brahman, they could not resist the Veda, which
testified to his existence in every part of the work, nor the belief of
the nation, so far as to set aside either this deity or the rest. On the
other hand, it was easy to subordinate the old gods to Brahman on the
system of the emanation of everything in the world from Brahman. They
were degraded into a class of higher beings, which had emanated from
Brahman before men, _i.e._ immediately before the Brahmans. From Brahman
the Brahmans first allowed a personal Brahman to emanate, unless indeed
this personification had already proceeded from Brahmanaspati (p. 128),
and was in existence beside the sacred world-soul, the impersonal
Brahman. The personal Brahman was a deity like the old gods, but far
more full of life. To him neither shrines were dedicated nor sacrifices
offered,[194] yet before meals corns of rice were to be scattered for
him as for the rest of the gods, and spirits. The personal Brahman, like
the impersonal, was the result of theory and meditation; in both Brahman
was a product of reflection, without life and ethical force, without
participation in the fortunes of men and states, without love and anger,
without sympathy and pity: a colourless, abstract, super-personal and
therefore impersonal being, the strictest opposite of that mighty
personality into which the Jehovah of the Hebrews grew, owing to the
historical, practical, and ethical development of the conception.
Brahman was not so much above the natural world which he has created by
his command, as its lord and master. Brahman was within it and inwoven
in it, and yet at the same time outside it, the hollow form of a being,
at once self-originating and returning into itself; or as a personal
Brahman he was the president of a meaningless council of heavenly
spirits. The old deities, the beings who stood first in the scale of
emanations from Brahman, surrounded this personal Brahman as a court
surrounds a king. Like other beings, they also have their duties
assigned to them; some of the old deities are raised into prominence,
and to them is given the old mission of conflict against the evil
spirits. They are to defend the eight regions of the earth entrusted to
their care against the attacks of the Asuras, or evil spirits. At the
head of these eight protectors Indra is naturally placed. To his keeping
is assigned the most sacred district, the north-east, where beyond the
Himalayas is the divine mountain Meru, which illuminates the northern
region, and round which move the sun, moon, and constellations. On this
mountain, according to the oldest conceptions of the Aryas, Indra has
his abode with the spirits of light. Yama is now king of the south-east,
where in the old religion his heaven of light lay with the kingdom of
the blessed spirits. Varuna, who previously was throned in the height of
heaven on the great waters, and sent sickness and death on sinners, is
now the deity of the distant ocean. Of the old gods of light, Surya, the
sun-god, found a place among the eight protectors of the world, and at
his side was Chandra, the moon-god. The remaining regions belong to Vayu
the wind-god, and Kuvera, the god of the inundation. Attempts to
localise the highest deities, though first carried out in the law book
of the priests, are found in the Yajur-veda.[195] Another classification
of the gods mentions Indra in the first series, and afterwards the eight
Vasus, the "givers of good;" among whom are Agni and Soma, whose
apotheosis has been already mentioned--then Rudra, the father of the
winds, with the ten Maruts, and after them the spirits of light, the
Adityas (the sons of Aditi), of which in the older period seven or eight
are enumerated. The hymns of the Veda sometimes mention a total of
thirty-three gods, eleven in heaven, eleven in the clouds, and eleven on
earth,[196] a total found also among the Aryas in Iran, and afterwards
retained by the Buddhists.[197] But the Indians could not remain
contented with such a moderate number of gods; the more each deity was
deprived of honour, the higher became the total. Even in the Rigveda we
find: "Three hundred, three thousand, thirty and nine gods honoured
Agni." In the older commentaries this number of 3339 is regarded as the
total sum of gods; but in later writings it is raised to 33,000.[198]
The people troubled themselves little about Brahman or the positions
which the Brahmans assigned to the gods, their classes or their number.
They continued to invoke Indra and Agni, Surya and Aryaman, as their
helpers and protectors.
The removal of sacrifice was less to be thought of by the Brahmans than
the removal of the ancient gods, even if they had maintained the
strictest consistency in their conception of Brahman. The Rigveda was
mainly a collection of sacrificial chants and ritual. Brahmans no less
then Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas were accustomed to invoke the spirits of
light in the early dawn, to offer gifts at morning, mid-day, and evening
to Agni; to lay wood on the fire, or throw milk and butter into it;
above all, to celebrate sacrifices at the changes of the moon or the
seasons. It was not these sacrifices only, or the offering of the
soma-juice, which the Brahmans retained, but the whole service of
sacrifice, for which instructions were found in the sentences of the
Veda. The idea that every sacrifice when offered correctly was
efficacious, that a magic power resided in it, that the assistance and
therefore a part of the divine power or nature was gained by the
sacrifice, could not fail to retain the service of sacrifice in full
force in the new doctrines. According to this the divine nature was
present, and existed in the world in different degrees of purity or
dimness, of power or weakness, and owing to the direction taken in the
development of the new idea of god, it was especially alive in the
sentences and acts of sacrifice; so that the efficacy of the correct
sacrifice must apply a portion of the divine nature to the person
sacrificing. Hence the invocation of the old gods was allowed to remain;
sacrifice to them was still meritorious, and necessary for this world as
well as the other.
We know from the Rigveda the old sentences used at burial, which were
supposed to avert death from the living, the prayers that the soul of
the dead might be taken up into Yama's heaven of light (p. 62 ff.). We
saw with what reverence the living thought of the spirits of their
forefathers; how careful the Aryas were to offer gifts to them, so that
their food and clothing might never fail. It was customary to sprinkle
water for the spirits of the forefathers, and in the land of the Ganges
to scatter grains of rice; at the funeral feast of the dead, kept by the
families on each new moon, three furrows were made, in which every
member of the family placed three cakes, for the father, the
grandfather, and great-grandfather; the cakes were then covered with
locks of wool, and the ancestors invoked to clothe themselves with it.
On the death-day of any member of the family, or a certain time after,
the family assembled, in order to offer fruits and flesh to his spirit.
There was now no longer any light heaven of Yama; he was the prince of
the hot hell (p. 137), where souls are tormented after death, and then
born again to a new life in plants, animals, and men: the chief object
now was to attain the end of all life and regeneration by a return into
Brahman. So far as they could, the Brahmans reconciled the old and new
conceptions. The heaven of Indra (p. 138) was substituted for the old
heaven of Yama. It was not the pure heaven of Brahman, but a higher,
brighter world. The soul of the virtuous passes into this outer heaven;
the soul of the sinner sinks into hell. But the merit of good works is
consumed, as the guilt of sin is expiated, by the lapse of time, by a
shorter or longer participation in the joys of the heaven of Indra, a
shorter or longer torment in hell. Then begins for the souls who have
thus received only the first reward of their lives a series of
regenerations. The old chants of burial could only be rendered in the
sense of the new system by the most violent interpretations. The belief
in the spirits of the ancestors, and the pious worship of them, had
struck roots far too deep and ancient into the heart of the nation for
the Brahmans to think of removing these services, the libations to the
spirits, or the funeral feast of the families, at which they invoked
their ancestors to come down and enjoy themselves at the banquet with
their descendants. Libation and feast continued to exist without
molestation. The Brahmans contented themselves with ordaining that at
the sacrifice to the dead, the fire Dakshina, _i.e._ the fire to the
right, was indispensable. When Yama's abode had been removed to the hot
south, the sacrificial fires for his kingdom must burn to the right,
_i.e._ towards the south. The theory of the priests then declared these
sacrifices to the dead to be indispensable in order to liberate the
souls out of certain spaces in hell; they also laid down the rule that a
Brahman should always be present at the funeral feast. The book of the
law gives very definite warnings of the evil consequences resulting from
funeral feasts celebrated without Brahmans, _i.e._ in the old
traditional manner. The elder of the family is to conduct the requisite
three Brahmans to his abode; the first Brahman after the necessary
prayers throws rice for the dead into the sacrificial fire; he then
makes funeral cakes of rice and butter, of which each member of the
family sacrifices three for his father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather. Then food is set forth, of which the Brahmans first
eat, with uncovered heads and feet, and in silence, in order that the
spirits may participate in the meal; after the Brahmans the rest
partake. According to the book of the law, cows' milk, and food made
from it, if set forth at the funeral feast, liberated the spirits of the
ancestors for a whole year; the flesh of horses and tortoises for eleven
months; of buffaloes for ten; of rams for nine; of antelopes for eight;
of deer for seven; of goats for six; of the permitted birds for five; of
wethers for four; game for three; fish for two--while water, rice,
barley, sesame were efficacious for one month only.[199] Though the
Brahmans changed the funeral feasts into banquets for the members of
their own order, yet the fact that they were retained, and with them the
connection of the families, the maintenance of this old form of worship,
though in reality at variance with the new arrangement of these unions
of the families and forms of ancient life, brought other and very
important advantages to the new system.
The old religion rested on the contrast between the friendly spirits who
gave light and water, and the demons of darkness and drought. From this
arose the conception that certain objects belonged to the gloomy spirits
and were pleasing to them; that by contact or defilement with them a man
gave the evil spirits power over him. Contact with corpses, dead hair,
skin, or bones, defilement with the impurities of the body, spittle,
urine, excrement, &c., gave the evil powers authority over the person
so defiled. This faith we find in full force and the widest extent among
the Arians of Iran; but it must have existed in a degree hardly less
among the Aryas on the Indus and the Ganges. According to the new views
of the Brahmans, the two sides of nature--the bright, pure, and clear
side belonging to good spirits, and the foul and dark side belonging to
evil spirits--existed no longer; all nature had become dark and defiled;
even the Brahmans, the best part of creation, participated, like the
other orders, though in a less degree, in this defilement and gloom. In
the new doctrine the world fell into two halves, a supersensual and a
sensual. The first was indeed supposed to be present in the second, but
only in a corrupt and adulterated form; the sensual side had, at bottom,
no right to exist; it must be utterly removed and elevated into Brahman.
As corrupted Brahman the whole sensual world was imperfect and
transitory, wavering between growth and destruction, and filled with
evil because through its own nature it was impure. The new system
required, therefore, in order to be consistent, that man should not only
keep himself removed from all impurity, but should also free himself
from all the vileness of nature which clung to him; that he should
liberate himself from nature herself, and the whole realm of sense. As
the whole existing world was more or less impure, consistency required
that all ancient customs of purification, all usages intended to remove
defilements when incurred, must be allowed to drop in order to proclaim
the elevation and destruction of sensual nature as the only duty of man.
Nevertheless the Brahmans allowed the old rites of purification to exist
beside the old sacrifice. As the latter is efficacious for salvation
and increase of power in the person sacrificing, so is the old
purification meritorious, not because it keeps the evil at a distance,
but because it removes the grossest defilement; and from this point of
view it is developed by the Brahmans to a far wider extent. He who could
not attain to the highest must be content with something less. The
performance of these duties of purification is, according to the
doctrine of the Brahmans, an act of merit for this world and the next,
and saving for the soul. Sacrifice and purity form the circle of the
good works, which, according to the measure of completeness, lead souls
for a longer or shorter time into the heaven of Indra, while disregard
of them brings men into hell for long periods and severe torments.
All the objects which a man touches, even the earth, can be impure,
_i.e._ defiled by spittle, blood, skin, bones, &c.; everything must
therefore be purified before it is taken into use. The earth is purified
by allowing a cow to lie on it for the night, the floors of houses by
throwing cow-dung upon them, clothes and woven-stuffs by sprinkling them
with the urine of a cow. To the Indians the cow was so sacred and
highly-revered an animal, that the same things, which in men and beasts
were considered most unclean, were regarded as means of purification
when coming from a cow. We have already seen how highly cows were prized
by the Aryas in the Panjab. The cow, the "highest of all animals," as
she is styled in the Mahabharata, was to them not only an emblem of
fruitfulness and bounteous nourishment; they compared her to the
nourishing earth, which is often spoken of as a cow. Moreover, the cow
provided food even for the gods, inasmuch as milk and especially butter
were offered to them. The patient, quiet existence of the cow is also
the pattern of the obedient and patient life now recommended by the
Brahmans.
Any contact with a corpse causes defilement. A death in a family makes
it unclean for ten days, during which the relatives of the dead must
sleep on the earth, each by himself, and eat uncooked rice only. The
Brahman then purifies himself by touching water; the Kshatriya, by
taking hold of his weapons, his horse, or elephant; the Vaiçya, by
seizing the reins of his oxen, &c.
The old customs of purity were considerably extended by the ordinances
of food, the rules about clean eating, laid down by the Brahmans.
According to their belief the whole world of animals was peopled with
the souls of the dead. In every tiger, elephant, ox, antelope, locust,
and ant, might be living the soul of a man, perhaps the soul of a
friend, relation, or ancestor. It was with aversion that any one brought
himself to make an attack on any creature, or any living animal. From
this point of view the Brahmans had to forbid entirely the eating of
flesh, whether of wild or domestic animals. They repressed hunting as
strictly as they could: "The man who slew animals for his pleasure would
not increase his happiness in life or death. He who slew an animal had a
share in its death no less than the man who dismembered it, or sold it,
or ate it." Above all, a Brahman himself was not to slay any animal
except for the purpose of sacrifice; and the sacrifice of animals never
prevailed to any great extent among the Indians. The Brahman who
offended against this law would in his regenerations die by a violent
death as many times as there were hairs on the skin of the slain animal.
But the Brahmans could not carry out the prohibition either of hunting
or eating flesh. They contented themselves with laying stress on the
advantages of nourishment by milk and vegetables; they limited
themselves to insisting that no ox-flesh should be eaten; birds of prey,
some kinds of the fish and the animals already mentioned, could be used.
The flesh of the rhinoceros also and the crocodile was not forbidden.
But even the flesh of the permitted kinds could only be eaten after it
had been offered to the gods or the ancestors, and the man who ate no
flesh at all would acquire a merit equal to a hundred festival
sacrifices.[200] Here, again, we see that the book of the law seeks to
bring the new doctrine into force, without having the courage entirely
to remove the old ways of life. At a later time the prohibition of flesh
was more strict. Of vegetables, leeks, garlic, and onions were
forbidden, and also all plants which had grown up among impure matter.
Drink of any kind must be purified before use by being cleared with the
stalks of kuça grass. Food could only be eaten at morning and evening;
always in moderation and with complete repose of mind. The sight of food
must give pleasure, and man must regard it with veneration; then it will
give muscular power and manly energy. Before each meal grains of rice
are to be sprinkled by the Dvija before the door, with the words: "I
greet you, ye Maruts;" and other grains must be thrown into the water
with the words: "I greet you, ye water-gods." On the pestle and mortar
grains of rice must be strewn with the words: "I greet you, ye deities
of the great trees." Grains of rice are also to be thrown into the air
for all the gods; into the middle of the house for the protecting deity
of the house, and Brahman; on the top of the house or behind it for all
living creatures; and the remainder must be strewn for the ancestors
with the face turned to the south. Any one who omits these offerings
before eating is a sinner.[201] At sunrise and sunset the Dvija is to
pronounce the prayer Gayatri on pain of losing caste;[202] and every day
he must pour libations to the saints, the gods, the spirits, the
ancestors, and strangers.
The forms of purification underwent further change and important
extension. The new system, unlike the old custom, was not contented to
remove defilement, when incurred, by the use of rules of purification,
in which, in certain cases, traditional prayers and formulæ had to be
pronounced in order to obviate the evil consequences, or drive away the
bad spirits. In a large number of defilements the Brahmans saw something
more than mere impurity; they were sins which must be removed by
expiation. Their desire was not to expel the black spirits, but to
eradicated and quench the false and sinful feelings in men, which gave
rise to impurity. From the same point of view, and following the same
path, they required that a man who had committed an offence, should not
wait for the penalty of the court, but should punish himself, do penance
of his own will, and by this voluntary punishment and expiation remove
the consequences of his offence, not in this world only but in the next.
The forms of expiation instituted by the Brahmans for the removal of
impurity and offences consist of prayers, which at times have to be
repeated a thousand times daily, of fasts more or less severe, and
occupying more or less time, of corporal punishments, and in the case of
grievous offences, of voluntary death or suicide. Any one who by
misadventure has eaten forbidden food must perform the expiation of the
moon, or the Santapana. The expiation of the moon consists in eating
nothing but rice for a whole month; on the first day of the waning moon
fifteen mouthfuls are to be taken, and a mouthful less each day till the
sixteenth, when a total fast is to be kept; from this time for each day
of the increase of the moon a mouthful more is to be taken till the
fifteenth day.[203] The Santapana requires that the penitent should live
for a day on the urine and dung of cows mingled with milk, and drink
water boiled with kuça-grass; the day following he is to fast.[204] To
atone for the forbidden food eaten unintentionally by an Arya in the
course of a year, it was necessary to perform the penance of Prajapatya
for twelve days.[205] On the first three days he eats in the morning
only; on the next three, in the evening only; on the seventh, eighth,
and ninth day he eats only what strangers give him, without asking; on
the last three days he keeps a strict fast. Any one who intentionally
eats what is forbidden is expelled by the members of his family from the
family and caste. The Brahmans punished indulgence in intoxicating
drinks with severe penalties; we saw how much inclined the Aryas were to
excess in this respect. The excited and passionate state, induced by
such liquors, was diametrically opposed to the quiet, patient existence,
which was now the ideal of the Brahmans. Any one who wilfully became
intoxicated was to go on drinking boiling rice-water till his body was
entirely consumed; then only was he free from his sin. This offence
could also be expiated by drinking the boiling urine of a cow, or
boiling liquid of cow-dung, till death ensued. Drunkenness was not the
only sin on which the Brahmans imposed a penalty of voluntary death. Any
one who unintentionally killed a cow, was to shave his head, put on as
a garment the skin of the dead cow, repair to the pasture, salute the
cows and wait upon them, and then perform his ablutions with the urine
of cows instead of water. He must follow the cows step by step, swallow
the dust which they raise, bring them into shelter in bad weather and
guard them. If a cow is attacked by a beast of prey he must defend it
with his life. If he does not perish in the service, cow-keeping of this
nature continued for three months atones for his offence.[206] If a
Vaiçya or a Kshatriya unintentionally kills a Brahman, he must wander
over a hundred yodhanas, constantly reciting one of the three Vedas. If
a Kshatriya intentionally slays a Brahman, he must allow himself to be
shot down by arrows, or throw himself head-foremost three times into the
fire till death ensues. Any one who has defiled the bed of his father or
teacher must lie on a red-hot bed of iron, or expiate his offence by
self-mutilation, and death.[207]
The purity and daily duties which the Brahmans imposed on themselves,
partly from custom, partly as a part of their new doctrine, were more
strict than those required from the other orders. The Brahman must rise
before the dawn, and repeat the Gayatri; _i.e._ the following words of
the Veda: "We have received the glorious splendour from the divine
Savitar (p. 46); may he strengthen our understanding;"[208] and purify
himself by a bath. Long prayers in the morning and the evening ensure
long life. He must never omit to perform the five daily duties--the
offering to the saints, the gods, the spirits, the ancestors, and the
strange guests. Each day he must bring gifts to Agni, the sun,
Prajapati, Dyaus, and Prithivi (the spirits of the heaven and the
earth), the fire of the good sacrifice, Indra, Yama, Varuna, and
Soma.[209] Each day he must repeat the mystical name of Brahman, _Om_
(in the older form _am_, _i.e._ "yes," "certainly"), and the other three
sacred words, _Bhar_, _Bhuva_, and _Svar_, which, according to the
commentators, are to be regarded as the spirits of the earth, the air,
and the heaven.[210] Fire he must always consider as sacred. He may not
fan it with his breath, or step over it. He may not warm his feet at it,
or place it in a brazier under his bed or under his feet. He must not
throw any refuse into it. Offal, the remains of food, and water which
has been used for a bath or the feet, must be removed far away from the
fire. Nor was the Brahman allowed to throw refuse into water, or pour
blood or any drink into it, still less to vomit into it; he might not
look at the reflection of his body in water, or drink water in the
hollow of his hand. The clothes of a Brahman must be always clean and
white, and never worn by another. His hair, nails, beard, must be cut;
but he may not cut them himself (for so he would be defiled), nor gnaw
his nails with his teeth. In his ears he must wear very bright gold
rings. He must wear a wreath on his head, and in one hand carry a staff
of bamboo, in the other kuça-grass and a pitcher for his ablutions. He
may not play at dice, or dance or sing except at the sacrifice, when
required to do so by the ritual: he may not grind his teeth, or scratch
his head with his hands, or beat himself on the head, or take the wreath
from his head with his own hands. He must always so place himself that
on his right hand there may be an elevation of the earth, a cow, a jar
of butter, a crossroad, or a sacred tree. He may not tread on ashes,
hair, bones, cotton-stems, or sprouting corn. He may never step over a
rope to which a cow is tethered, or disturb a cow when drinking. At
morning, evening, and midday, he may not look at the sun. Before an
altar of Agni, in a fold of cows, when with Brahmans, or reading the
sacred scriptures, or eating, he must leave the right arm uncovered. He
may not wash his feet in a brazen vessel, or bathe naked, or sleep naked
on the earth, or run when it rains.
If the use of flesh as food could not be entirely forbidden to the
Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the Brahman must live on milk and vegetables.
But he might not drink the milk of a cow when in heat, or that has
lately calved, or of a cow which had lost her calf, the milk of a camel,
the red gum which exudes from trees, or anything from which oil has been
pressed, or with which sesame has been mixed, or anything that from
sweet has become sour. He might not eat anything kept over night, or any
food into which lice have fallen, or which a cow has smelt, or anything
touched by a dog. He might not take the food of a criminal, or prisoner,
or usurer, or rogue, or hunter, or dog-trainer, or Çudra, or dancer, or
washer-woman; or of a man who is submissive to his wife, or allows her
infidelity, or into whose house the wife's paramour comes. All such food
is unclean for the Brahman; and so also is food offered to him in anger,
and that touched by a madman. Any one eating such things feeds on
"bones, hair, and skin."
With the same minute exactness, regulations are laid down for the
Brahman as to the mode and position in which he is to take the permitted
kinds of food; with what parts of the hand or finger he is to perform
his ablutions, how he is to demean himself on all the occasions of life,
when travelling, etc., in order to preserve his purity and sanctity.
With equal detail we are told how the Brahman is to perform the natural
requirements of the body, and the purifications thereby rendered
necessary.[211] The least neglect in the fulfilment of these endless
duties, which it was impossible to keep in view at once, and more
impossible still to bear in mind at every moment, even with the most
devoted attention, might bring on centuries of punishment and endless
regenerations, unless it was expiated.
The prescripts of the Brahmans have been thoroughly carried out, and
even the other orders to this time fulfil their daily duties. The
Brahman utters his morning prayer, bathes in the stream, the fountain,
the pool, or in his house, performs the invocations to the gods,
spirits, and ancestors, and then with his wife and child, who also have
bathed, offers prayers and gifts to the protecting deities of the
house.[212] Among wealthy families of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas the
morning prayers after the bath are performed under the guidance of the
priest of the house. No one eats the morning meal till the grains of
rice have been scattered for the Maruts, the gods of water and trees,
and the special deity of the house. No Hindoo proceeds to his work till
he has purified himself and performed his devotions. The Brahman does
not open his book, neither smith nor carpenter takes in hand his tool,
till he has uttered prayers. They neither stand up nor sit down, nor
leave the room, nor sneeze, nor vomit, without the prescribed formula.
Thus the new doctrine of the Brahmans removed the old gods and
sacrifices, and gave to the old customs of purification a further
extension, and in part a new meaning, inasmuch as it developed them into
a wide system of expiation; but the change wrought in the sphere of
morals was far more radical. The moral law of the Brahmans is distinctly
in opposition to the requirements of the old time. War and heroism are
no longer the highest aim of life, but patience, obedience,
sanctification. As all animals have their origin from Brahman, and to
each, at creation, is allotted a special mission, as Brahman is this
order of the world, it is man's task to adapt himself obediently to this
arrangement of gods, and fulfil the duties laid upon him at birth. At
the same time, no one is to disturb another in the fulfilment of his
duties. He must injure neither man nor beast; he must spare even the
plants and trees. No one must go beyond the limits allotted to him, but
lead a quiet and peaceful life within them. Without ceasing, the Çudras
must serve the three higher orders; the Vaiçyas must till the field, and
tend the herds, and carry on trade, and bestow gifts; the Kshatriyas
must protect the people, give alms, and sacrifice; the Brahman must read
the Veda, and teach it, offer sacrifice for himself and others, and
receive gifts, if poor. It is the duty of each of the lower orders to
reverence the higher; the Vaiçyas and Kshatriyas must bow before the
Brahmans, and heap gifts upon them.[213]
In opposition to the Çudras, who, as we saw, ranged with beasts (p.
142), Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaiçyas were united by community of
blood and common superiority of caste. The three upper orders are
distinguished from the Çudras as the "Dvijas," the twice-born, in the
phrase of the Brahmans. This second birth is performed by investiture
with the holy girdle. In old times this ceremony was no doubt the symbol
of the reception of boys and youths into the union of the family; at
present the girdle is not only the distinguishing sign of the three
upper orders, but from the Brahman point of view the pledge of higher
illumination. It is put on with solemn consecration, accompanied by the
most sacred prayer, and the second, higher birth consists in the
mystical operation of this ceremony. But the upper orders were not
merely united by origin, by superiority in rank, and this symbol of
superiority; the Dvijas alone had access to the worship, the sacrifice,
and the Veda.
The care of the doctrine and worship belongs especially to the Brahmans.
They have not only to attend to a special, higher purity; they must
above all things acquire a knowledge of the positive basis of doctrine
and worship, of revelation. For in the teaching of the Brahmans the Veda
was revealed: the hymns and prayers in it are created and given by the
gods; they are the divine word.[214] The study of the Veda is the first
and foremost duty of the Brahman. He must never omit to read the book at
the appointed day, at the appointed hour. He is not old, we are told in
the book of the law, whose hair is gray, but he who when young has
studied the holy scriptures will be regarded by the gods as full of
years and honour. The Brahman who does not study the Veda is like an
elephant of wood, or a deer of leather. Hence among the Brahmans those
who are learned in the scriptures take the first rank. The book of the
law ordains that every young Brahman must be attached as a pupil to a
learned Brahman. This "spiritual father" he is to love and reverence
above all beside, above his natural father, "for the spiritual birth is
not for this world only but for the next." The strictest ceremonial of
reverence and respect for the teacher, the careful observance of these
duties, and the accurate knowledge of the Veda, is intended to train the
young Brahmans to become worthy representatives of their order. A
peculiar garb and special reserve are prescribed for the novice. He must
first learn the rules for purity, for keeping up the sacred fire, and
then the religious duties of morning, mid-day, and evening. After this
begin the readings in the Veda. Before each reading the pupil must
purify himself with water, rub his hands with kuça-grass, and then
perform obeisance to the holy text. Next he prostrates himself before
his tutor, and touches his feet with his hands. Clad in a pure garment,
with kuça-grass in his hands, he then sits down on kuça-grass with his
face to the east. Before beginning to read he draws in his breath three
times, and then pronounces the mysterious name of Brahman, Om. The
lesson then begins. Even the wife of his teacher must be saluted by the
pupil on his knees; and these customs are still to a great extent
preserved in the schools of the Brahmans.[215] The time of instruction
begins immediately after the ceremony of investing with the sacred
girdle; it must continue nine, eighteen, or thirty-six years, in each
case until the pupil knows the Veda by heart. Then he may take a wife,
and set up his house.[216] Not only the young Brahmans--though the main
object was to educate them as representatives and teachers of the new
doctrine--were expected to go through the period of instruction and the
school of the learned Brahmans; even the sons of the Kshatriyas and
Vaiçyas were instructed in the religious duties and the Veda: in fact
religious instruction was to include all the Dvijas. Every young Dvija
must become a pupil of a Brahman (Brahmacharin) after being invested
with the girdle. But the Brahmans alone enjoyed the privilege of
teaching and interpreting the Veda. Without this interpretation it was
probable that a result would be attained the opposite of that which this
general instruction and catechising of every Dvija was intended to
effect: the pupils would have quickly learnt other things from the hymns
of the Veda besides the tenets of the Brahmans.
No doubt the pious performance of the daily customs, the offering of
sacrifice, the observance of the rules of purity, the voluntary
performance of expiations and penalties, the practice of duties imposed
on every caste and every being by the order of the universe, a respect
for the obligations and life of fellow-men, the peaceful conduct, the
regard for plants and animals, the eager study of the Veda,--the
"holiness of works" might lead a man into the heaven of Indra and the
gods, while the opposite conduct would plunge him into hell. But the
merit of works no less than the punishment of sins was exhausted in
time: it was no protection against new regenerations; it could indeed
shorten the process through which the soul must pass in order to attain
complete purity, but it did not cancel regeneration. That was only
excluded by attaining perfect purity and holiness, for then the process
of purification was complete, and with the return to Brahman, its divine
source, the existence of the soul ended. To bring about this return is
of all duties the highest; it is above the sanctity of works. Brahman
was an incorporeal, immaterial being. When changed into the world,
Brahman becomes ever more adulterated, dark, and impure, in these
successive emanations; it descends from the pure sanctity of itself, of
its undisturbed being. In this state of removal and alienation, the
world and mankind do not correspond to their origin, the nature of
Brahman, and in this condition man cannot return to Brahman. The better
side of men, the immaterial side closely akin to Brahman, the divine
elements, must become the ruling power; the impurity of matter, of the
sensual world, and the body must be done away. The rules of purification
only removed the grosser forms of defilement. The more that men
succeeded in doing away with the whole impurity of nature, the shorter
was the path of the soul after death to Brahman. It is, therefore, a
universal requirement of the Brahmanic system--a requirement laid upon
all, but more especially on the Brahmans--that the soul is not to be
over-grown, bound, and imprisoned by the body, the mind by the senses.
The sensual needs must be held in restraint; no great space must be
allowed to them. Men must be on their guard against the charms of sense;
sensual excesses are not to be indulged; to be lord of the senses is the
chief commandment. Even the affections and passions, which, in the
opinion of the Brahmans, sprang from the charm of the senses, must be
held in check. Every man must preserve a quiet calm, and dominion over
his passions, and the impressions which come from without and stir the
senses. But as it is the mission of every creature to return to his
divine origin, as no living being can find rest till it is purified for
this return, as Brahman is pure spirit--spirit, that is, and not
nature--it follows that no one can enter into Brahman who has not been
able entirely to free his soul from sensuality, to get rid utterly of
his body, and transform himself entirely into pure soul. From this point
of view all relations to the sensual world must appear as fetters of the
spirit, and the body as the prison of the soul.
The Brahmans did not hesitate to draw these last conclusions from their
doctrine of Brahman. "This habitation of men," they said, "of which the
framework is the bones, the bands the muscles; this vessel filled with
flesh and blood, and covered with skin; this impure dwelling, which
contains its own defilement, and is subject to age, sickness, and
trouble, to sorrows of every kind, and passions; this habitation,
destined to decay, must be abandoned with joy by him who assumes it."
But the main point was not to await with calmness and yearning the
breaking of these fetters of the soul, it was the manner in which they
were broken in order that the soul might go forth free to Brahman, to
eternal rest, to union with the highest spirit. For this it was
necessary, when a man had learned to live obediently, and to govern his
senses and passions, to put aside the world altogether, and direct the
eye to heaven alone. This duty is completed when the Brahman, the Dvija,
leaves house and home, in order to become an eremite in the forest
(_Vanaprastha_). He clothes himself in a garment of bark, or in the skin
of the black gazelle; his bed must be the earth; he lives on fruits
which have fallen from the trees, or on the roots found in the forest,
and on water, which he previously pours through a woollen cloth, in
order to avoid killing the little insects which may happen to be in the
water. He performs the service of the sacred fire, and the five daily
offerings; bathes three times each day, reads the Veda, and devotes
himself to the contemplation of the highest being. By this means he will
purify his body, increase his knowledge, and bring his spirit nearer to
perfection. His hair, beard, and nails must be allowed to grow; he must
fast frequently, live aloof from all desires, and be complete master of
his sensual impulses; he must not allow himself to be disturbed in any
way by the world, or by any accident which overtakes him. From this
condition he will advance still further towards perfection, if he
proceeds to reduce his body by mortification. He should roll on the
ground; or stand all day long on his toes, or be continually getting up
and sitting down. By degrees the eremite ought to increase the severity
of these penances. In the cold season of the year he should always wear
a wet garment; in the rainy season he should expose himself naked to the
tempest of rain. In the warm season he must sit between four fires in
the hot rays of the sun.[217] By the eagerness and fervour of devotion
which leads the ascetic to these self-tortures, and enables him to
endure them, by these mortifications (_tapas_, _i.e._ heat) he must show
that the pain of the body cannot trouble the soul, that nothing which
befalls the one can influence the other, that he is liberated from his
body.
When the eremite had reduced his body by mortifications gradually
increasing in severity, and attained complete mastery of the soul over
the flesh, he enters into the last stage, that of the _Sannyasin_, who
attempts by thought to be absorbed into the world-soul, to die while yet
alive in the body, by completing his return to Brahman. For this stage
the regulation is that the penitent is to wish for nothing, and expect
nothing, to observe silence, to live absolutely alone, in ceaseless
repose, in the society of his own soul. He must think of the misery of
the body, the migrations of the soul, which result from sin, and the
existence of the world-soul in the highest and lowest things; he must
suppress all qualities in himself which are opposed to the divine nature
of Brahman, and think of Brahman only. Brahman must be contemplated in
"the slumber of the most inward meditation, as being finer than an atom,
and more brilliant than gold!" By thus plunging in the deepest
reflection the penitent will succeed in carrying back his soul to its
original source: he will attain to union with Brahman, and will himself
become Brahman, from which he has emanated.[218]
With such consistency did the Brahmans develop their system; such was
the ideal which they put before the Indians of the holy life, leading to
union with Brahman. When the Dvija had set up his house, and married
and begot a son, when he had fulfilled his duties as Grihastha (house
master), when he was old and saw "the posterity of his posterity," he
must go into the forest--so the law of the priests bade,--in order to
become a Vanaprastha and Sannyasin. Indeed the importance which the
system ascribed to the spiritual as opposed to the sensual, to
super-sensual holiness as opposed to the unholy world of sense, even led
them to declare marriage and the family as unnecessary, disturbing, and
unholy; and with strict consistency they gave command to repair to the
forest at once, and forswear the world from the first. Even in the
law-book of the priests this was permitted; but as an exception. The
Brahmacharin could, when he had finished his long period of instruction,
go at once into the forest as an eremite and penitent.[219] The large
majority neither could nor did observe such commands, but, so far as we
can see, the number of penitents was not inconsiderable soon after 600
B.C.--and the ordinary people recognised the peculiar merit of those who
went into the forest. They looked on the penitents with respect. And
even to this day it is observed, that in the later years of life, when
the time approaches for receiving the reward or punishment of their
deeds, the Hindoos devote themselves with redoubled eagerness to their
religious duties.
The Ramayana describes the abodes in the forest and the life of the
penitents. There are some who live constantly in the open air; others
who dwell on the tops of the mountains; others who sleep on the places
of sacrifice, or on the naked earth, or who do not sleep at all; some
only eat during one month in the year; others eat rice with the husks;
others feed only on uncooked nutriment, leaves, or water; others do not
eat at all, but live on the air and the beams of the sun and the moon.
Some constantly repeat the name of the same deity; others read the Vedas
without ceasing; the greater part wear clothes of bark; others wear wet
garments perpetually; other stand up to the neck in water; others have
fire on every side and the sun overhead; others stand perpetually on one
leg; others on the tips of their great toes; others on their heads;
others hang by their heels on the branches of trees.[220] When this
passage of the Ramayana was composed or altered, the practices of the
ascetics had already gone beyond the rules prescribed in the book of the
law.
Beginning with the idea of a holy spirit, without admixture of anything
material, and forming the abstract opposite of nature, the Brahmans had
discovered that it is the duty of man to raise the spiritual above the
corporeal. The more excitable the nerves, the more receptive the senses,
the warmer the passions in that climate and nation, the more energetic
was the reaction of the spirit against the flesh, the more stringent the
command to become master of the senses and the body, to annihilate the
senses. It is true that the material world also had emanated from
Brahman; even matter had come from him. But this was an adulteration of
the pure Brahman; it was the non-sensual, not the material side of the
world which was the pure Brahman. Hence for the Brahmans these two
factors, the material and spiritual side, were again completely
separated. Hence the ethical problem was not to arrange the world of
sense for the objects of the spirit, to raise the soul to the mastery
over the body, and purify the sensual action by the spirit, but the
annihilation of the sensual elements by the soul, the removal and
destruction of the body--in a word, asceticism. Out of the absolute
annihilation of the material existence of man, his true intellectual
being--his real nature, _i.e._ Brahman--is to arise; it is only after
the complete destruction of the life of sense and the body that man can
plunge into the pure spirit. As this pure spirit could only be looked
upon as a negation of nature and the world, and was only regarded in
that light, and as it had no other quality but that of being
non-material, the command to think of Brahman and nothing but Brahman,
amounted to nothing less than this: on the one hand, every distinct
individual intuition was to be rejected and avoided; on the other, it
was a duty to develop the conception of an indefinite and indefinable
unity, in opposition to the multitudinous variety of the world and
nature. A conception of unity which altogether disregards the plurality
comprising it is nothing more than persistence in vacuity. Thus the
negation of the spiritual life was demanded beside that of the bodily
life; and this command was equivalent to bodily and spiritual
self-annihilation.
The doctrine of Brahman, with the practical and ethical requirements
included in it, along with the command of obedience to the existing
order of the world, of subjugation of the senses and renouncement, of
severe treatment of self, and tender feeling for plants and cows,
finally of annihilation of the body by asceticism, were in sharp
contrast to the earlier motives which governed the life of the Indians
of the heroic age. Nothing was to be left of the old vigour in action,
the old warrior life, and heroic deeds; and as a fact, in spite of
earnest attempts in other directions, nothing did remain beyond the
courage for lingering suicide by mortification, the reckless asceticism
in which the Indians are not surpassed by any nation, and which
increased as the centuries went on, and ever assumed more fantastic
forms.
FOOTNOTES:
[188] The participation of all the Gotras of the Brahmans, who claim to
be derived from the Rishis, in the composition of the Rigveda, has been
acutely and convincingly proved by M. Müller. "Hist. of Sansk. Lit." p.
461 ff.
[189] A. Weber, "Z. D. M. G." 10, 389 ff.
[190] Strabo, p. 717. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 840; 2, 215-223. M.
Müller considers that the use of writing was known to the Indians before
600 B.C., but nevertheless is of opinion that the Veda was written down
later, and allows no written work to the Indians before 350 B.C., the
date at which he fixes Panini: "Hist. of Sansk. Lit." p. 311, p. 477 ff.
Since, however, the Brahmanas date from between 800 and 600 B.C., which
is M. Müller's opinion, it is hardly credible that controversies, and
discussions, and examples, such as we find largely in the Brahmanas,
could have received a fixed form if they merely referred to groups of
poems retained in the memory only, though of considerable extent. That
the Brahmanas existed in memory only seems to me to be quite impossible,
considering their form. How could Çaunaka, about the year 400 B.C. as M.
Müller supposes, write sutras to facilitate the understanding of the
Brahmanas, if the latter were not in existence in writing? A. Weber has
observed that in Panini the 60 pathas of the first nine books of the
Çatapatha-Brahmana are quoted, and the 30 and 40 Adhyayas of the
Aitareya and Kaushitaki-Brahmanas. In my opinion, the fact so acutely
and convincingly proved by M. Müller--that the Rigveda is allotted to
all the Gotras of the Brahmans, is strongly in favour of the composition
of the Vedas in a written form; the tradition of the Gotras and the
schools would never have given equal attention to all. If the Brahmanas,
which cite the Vedas accurately in their present arrangement, and speak
not only of syllables but of letters, arose between 800 and 600 B.C., it
appears to me an inevitable conclusion that the Vedas must have existed
in writing about the year 800 B.C.
[191] Kaegi, "Rigveda," s. 3.
[192] Madhusudana, in M. Müller, "Hist. of Sansk. Lit." p. 122; cf. p.
173, 467.
[193] Roth, "Zur Literatur des Veda," s. 11. A. Weber, "Vorlesungen," s.
83, 84. Westergaard, "Aeltester Zeitraum der Ind. Gesch." s. 11. For the
legends of the Puranas on the origin of the black and white Yajus, which
allow the superior antiquity of the first, see M. Müller, _loc. cit._ p.
174, 349 ff.
[194] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 776.
[195] A. Weber, "Vajasaneya-Sanhitæ specimen," p. 33.
[196] "Rigveda," 1, 33, "Ye Açvins, come with the three and thirty
gods."
[197] Burnouf, "Commentaire sur le Yaçna," p. 34 ff., and below.
[198] "Rigveda," 3, 9, 9; A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 9, 265. Yajnavalkya
gives 33,000 gods; later we find 330 millions.
[199] Manu, 3, 69-74, 141-148, 158, 187-238, 266-274, 282, 283. 4, 25,
26. 11, 7. Of. Roth in "Z. D. M. G." 8, 471 ff.
[200] Manu, 5, 26-28; 54-56.
[201] Manu, 3, 94-118.
[202] Manu, 2, 101-103.
[203] Manu, 11, 216.
[204] Manu, 11, 212.
[205] Manu, 11, 211.
[206] Manu, 11, 108-116. Even to this day it is a custom in Bengal for a
man whose cow has died to wander from house to house with a rope round
his neck, to imitate the lowing of a cow, and without uttering a word go
on begging until he has collected enough to buy a substitute.
[207] Oder sich selbst entmannen, und seine Scham in der Hand
südostwärts (d. h. dem Reiche Jama's zu) wandern, bis er todt hinstürzt.
[Cf. Manu, 11, 104, 105.]
[208] "Rigveda," 3, 62.
[209] Manu, 3, 84 ff.
[210] Manu, 2, 76-78; A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 2, 188, 305.
[211] Der, welcher im Angesicht des Feuers, der Sonne, des Mondes, einer
Cisterne, einer Kuh, eines Dvidscha, oder gegen den Wind urinirt, wird
seiner ganzen Schriftgelehrsamkeit beraubt werden. Der Brahmane darf
seinen Urin nicht lassen, und seine Excremente nicht niederlegen, weder
auf den Weg noch auf Asche, noch auf eine Kuhweide, noch auf einen
Ameisenhügel, noch auf den Gipfel eines Berges, noch in ein Loch,
welches lebende Wesen bewohnen können, weder gehend noch stehend.
Nachdem er die Erde mit Holz und Blättern und trockenen Kraütern bedeckt
hat, kann er seine Bedürfnisse schweigend, in sein Gewand gehüllt und
verhüllten Hauptes, verrichten. Bei Tage muss er dabei sein Gesicht nach
Norden wenden, bei Nacht gegen Süden. Lassen sich die Himmelsgegenden in
der Dunkelheit gar nicht unterscheiden, oder hat der Brahmane einen
Ueberfall durch Räuber oder wilde Thiere zu befürchten, so kann er sein
Angesicht dahin richten, wohin es ihm beliebt. Niemals aber darf er
Excremente ansehen, weder seine eigenen noch fremde. [Manu, 4, 45 ff.]
[212] The daily duties which the Brahmans have now to perform, are given
in Belnos, "Daily Prayers of the Brahmins."
[213] Manu, 1. 87-91; 2, 31, 32.
[214] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 149, 150.
[215] Manu, 2, 69-76; 164-168; 173-181. On the reading of the Veda in
the schools cf. Roth, "Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda," s. 36.
[216] Manu, 2, 66, 67; 3, 1.
[217] Manu, 6, 1-8, 22, 23, 76, 77.
[218] Manu, 6, 69, 79-85, 96.
[219] Manu, 6, 38.
[220] Talboys Wheeler, "Hist. of India," 2, 247.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE INDIANS.
The requirements of the new doctrine extended throughout the whole
circle of life. The establishment of the arrangement into castes struck
deep into the sphere of the family, of civic society, and the state; the
old rules for purification were enlarged to suit the new system, and
changed into rubrics for expiation and penance, touching almost at every
step upon daily life. The ethical notions of the old time had to make
room for a new ideal of the life pleasing to God. How could the ancient
customs of the tribes, which hitherto had been the rule and standard of
family and inheritance, of _meum_ and _tuum_, resist such a sweeping
alteration of the social, religious, and moral basis of life? How could
the traditional punishments of transgressions and offences continue in
existence? Marriage and inheritance must be arranged so as to suit the
system of the castes; punishment must be dealt out according to the rank
of the castes, and the religious sin involved in each offence; the
administration of justice must take account of the new religious system
in which actions, hitherto regarded as permissible, were looked on as
offences. The monarchy had new duties to fulfil towards the Brahmans and
the new faith; the authority of the state, the power of inflicting
punishment, must side with the true faith, with the interests of the
priests, and the maintenance of the orders established by God. In the
circles of the Brahmans there must have been a lively desire to
establish the legal arrangement of the state on the basis of the divine
arrangement of the world; to regulate the state in all its departments
in a manner suitable to the nature of Brahman. The traditional
observances and legal customs, the usages of the families, races, and
districts, must be brought into harmony with the new doctrine; as an
almost inevitable consequence, a rule was set up for correct morals,
usages, and life, corresponding to the divine nature and will; a pattern
was drawn of the manner in which individual family and state might act
in every matter in accordance with the nature of Brahman. The commands
resulting from the system of the divine order of the world were combined
into one standard, set forth in a scheme universally accepted, and thus
elevated above all doubt and contradiction, and in this way the Brahmans
passed beyond the differences which could not but remain among them in
respect to this or that point, and did actually remain in the schools of
the priests, as the Brahmanas show. Moreover, unanimous prescripts, a
comprehensive and revered canon of law and morals, were naturally an
advantage to the position of the Brahmans; their status was thus
rendered more secure and distinctive; and success was more certain.
The priesthoods of the various districts must have made a beginning by
influencing and modifying in the spirit of the new doctrine the customs
and usages of the land; they then proceeded to draw up the customs of
family law, of marriage and inheritance, the rights and duties of the
castes. In this compilation it was inevitable that the hereditary
customs should be revised in the spirit of the priesthood. Collections
of this kind serving as rules for certain departments of life have been
preserved in certain _Grihya-Sutras_, _i.e._ books of household customs,
and _Dharma-Sutras_, _i.e._ catalogues or tables of laws.[221] Out of
the oldest records of household customs and legal usages, altered and
systematised in the spirit of the priests, out of the collections and
revisions of the customs of law and morals made in various schools of
priests, a book of law at last grew up for the Brahmans, which comprised
both the civic and religious life, and in all relations set forth the
ideal scheme, according to which they should be arranged in the spirit
of the priesthood, _i.e._ in a manner suitable to the divine will. This
book of the law bears the name of Manu, the first man, the progenitor of
the race.
It has been shown above that the victory of the Brahmans, the new faith
and code of morals, was first won in the regions between the Yamuna and
the Ganges, in the land of the Bharatas, Panchalas, Matsyas, and
Çurasenas. As it was there that the pre-eminence of the Brahmans was
first completely acknowledged, it was there that they were first able to
exercise an influence on the customs and ordinances of law; there also
that the need of a comprehensive regulation of life upon the Brahman
view was most strongly felt. "The land between the Sarasvati and the
Drishadvati was created by the gods (_devata_); and therefore the sages
give it the name of Brahmavarta"--so we are told in the book of the law.
The custom of Brahmavarta (_achara_), preserved unbroken in this land,
is for the book of the law the right custom, the correct law. Hence it
follows that the rules given in that book rest on the observances which
grew up in this region under the predominating influence of the
Brahmans. The book further tells us that on the borders of Brahmavarta
is Brahmarshideça, _i.e._ the land of the Brahmanic saints; this
includes the land of the Kurus (Kurukshetra) and that of the Panchalas,
Matsyas, and Çurasenas. From a Brahman born in this land all men are to
learn their right conduct upon earth. The "land of the middle"
(Madhyadeça), according to the book, extends from Vinaçana in the west
to Prayaga, _i.e._ to the confluence of the Yamuna and the Ganges; but
the law is to prevail from the Vindhyas to the Himalayas, from the
western to the eastern sea, over the whole of Aryavarta (_i.e._ the land
of the Aryas): "wherever the black gazelle is found, an efficacious
sacrifice can always be offered." In that land the Dvijas are to dwell;
"but the Çudra who cannot obtain sustenance there may dwell
elsewhere."[222]
The book of the law naturally declares the revelation (_Çruti_), the
threefold Veda, to be the main source of law. The second source is
immemorial tradition or the custom (_Smriti_) of the good, which is
found in its typical form in Brahmavarta; in the third degree are the
utterances of the old priests and sages, who are in part quoted by name
and cited--Vasishtha, Atri, Gautama, Bhrigu, and Çaunaka.[223] But the
book of the law is also not inclined utterly to reject the ancient
observances and customs; on the contrary, all usages of families, races,
and districts remain in force, provided that they are not contradictory
to this code.[224] The Brahmans were wisely prepared to content
themselves with this looser form of unity; by thus sparing local life,
they might hope to gain the ascendant more easily and readily in the
points of chief importance. This regard for local law is counterbalanced
by the fact that the book includes in its sphere religious duties,
morals, and worship, and the entire arrangement of the state; in all
these departments it lays down the scheme on which they are to be
regulated in the spirit of the priesthood. The book is as copious on the
doctrine as on the practice; it contains the punishments of heaven as
well as those on earth; the arrangement of expiations and penalties as
well as of regulations for the trade of the market; the principles of a
vigorous management of the state, and the description of hell; the rules
for living the Brahman's life and conducting war successfully; the
decision of the judge on earth and beneath it. It is not content with
establishing rules of law, or commands of moral duty, it includes among
its ordinances moral maxims, a number of proverbs and rules of wisdom;
it not only shows how heaven is gained but also the proper demeanour in
society; a compendium of diplomacy follows the system of regenerations.
Hence this book gives striking evidence of the mixture characteristic of
the Indian nature, a mixture of superstitious fancy and keen
distinction, of vague cloudiness and punctilious systematising, of
soaring theory and subtle craft, of sound sense and over-refinement in
reflection.
If from these indications about the customs of Brahmavarta and the
Brahmans of Brahmarshideça we can determine with tolerable certainty the
region in which the book of the law has grown up, it follows from the
introduction in which the holy Bhrigu recites the law as "Manu had
revealed it to him at his prayer," and from the close where we are again
told that this is "the law announced by Bhrigu,"[225] that the
collection of Brahmanic rules contained in this book have been preserved
in the form and revision received in the school derived from Bhrigu, and
connected with the old minstrel race of the Bhrigus.[226] It is more
difficult to find the date at which the germ of this collection of law
may have been brought to completion. Even if we set aside the
introduction and the close which are in no connection with the body of
the work, the book is still wanting in unity: it contains longer and
shorter rules on the same subject, is sometimes milder, sometimes more
severe; a fact in favour of the gradual origin of the book, which
indeed, as has been observed, is necessitated by the nature of the case.
The Indians possess a series of books of law, which, like that called
after Manu, bear the name of a saint or seer of antiquity, or of a god.
One is named after Gautama, another after Vasishtha, a third after
Apastamba, a fourth after Yajnavalkya; others after Bandhayana and
Vishnu. According to the tradition of the Indians the law of Manu is the
oldest and most honourable, and this statement is confirmed by a
comparison of the contents and system of the rules contained in it with
those of the other books.[227] Not to mention the fact that a
considerable number of the rules in the book of Manu are repeated
verbally in the other collections, the legal doctrine of the Indians is
seen even in the older of these collections, in the book of Vishnu,
which belongs to the Brahman school of the Kathakas, in that of Gautama,
and finally in that of Yajnavalkya, which with the book of Gautama is
nearest in point of date to the book of Manu--in a far more developed
state, and with much more straw-splitting refinement. The book which is
named after Yajnavalkya of the race of Vajasani belongs to the eastern
regions of the Ganges, the kingdom of Mithila. It is based on a doctrine
which, unknown to Manu's law, came into existence in the fourth century
B.C.; the system of mixed castes and trade law is far more developed in
it than in Manu. We shall see below that this doctrine cannot be placed
much further back than the year 300 B.C.,[228] and it is assumed that
the laws of Yajnavalkya in their present form may date from the third
century of our era. If Manu's law is older than Yajnavalkya's, and the
latter rests on a doctrine, the rise of which we can fix about the year
300 B.C., while Manu's doctrine is older, there are other indications to
be gathered from Manu's work which enable us to fix the date more
clearly. Manu's law, as we have seen, limits the habitations of the
Aryas to the land north of the Vindhyas--from which we may conclude that
this view belongs to a period when the Aryas had not yet set a firm foot
on the coast of the Deccan. This extension of the Aryas to the south of
the Vindhyas began, as will be seen below, after the year 600 B.C. Soon
after this year we find the states on the Ganges completely arranged
according to the Brahmanic law, and the prescripts of the laws of Manu;
even in the first half of the sixth century we find a stricter practice
in regard to marriages outside the order, and a severer asceticism than
the law-book requires. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the
decisive precepts, which we find in the collection, must have been put
together and written down about the year 600.[229]
The introduction belongs undoubtedly to a later period. Manu is seated
in solitary meditation, and there come to him the ten great saints--the
book mentions Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Daksha,
Vasishtha, Bhrigu, Narada[230]--and say: "Thou alone, lord, knowest the
distinction of the pure and impure castes, the true meaning of this
universal order, which is self-existent; deign to explain it to us with
clearness and in order." Manu then first narrates to the saints the
story of creation. The highest being first created the water, and cast
into it procreative seed, which became an egg, bright as gold and
gleaming like the sun, and in this egg the highest being was born in the
shape of Brahman. Then Brahman caused the egg to divide and formed from
it the heaven and the earth and the great waters. He then divided
himself into a man and a woman, and the male half (Brahman Viraj)
produced him, Manu, who fashioned all things and created the ten Rishis,
and the seven Manus, who in turn created animals and plants. Then the
highest being caused him (Manu) to learn the book of the law by heart:
he imparted it to the great saints and taught it to Bhrigu, who would
recite it. Then Bhrigu takes up the word and says: "Learn from me the
law as Manu has revealed it at my prayer." Bhrigu then narrates how the
seven Manus had created various beings each in his age, and recites the
doctrine of the four great periods of the world (p. 70), of the origin
of the four castes and the majesty of the Brahmans.[231]
It is no doubt a somewhat late form of Brahmanic cosmogony which is
recited in this introduction. We hear no more of the Manu of the
Rigveda, the progenitor of the Aryas; he is elevated in the priestly
system to be the first being beside Brahman, and made the creator of the
world. He is now called Manu Svayambhu, _i.e._ the self-existent Manu,
and creates from himself the ten Rishis, the seven other Manus, who in
their turn create living creatures and plants. The seven Manus are all
denoted by special epithets--the seventh is known as the ancient Manu;
he is called the son of Vivasvat, Vivasvata (p. 30). If Manu Svayambhu
had already imparted the law to the great saints, to whose number Bhrigu
belongs, and taught it especially to Bhrigu, it was unnecessary for the
great saints to ask it from Manu once more. This difficulty is as little
felt in the book as the still more striking contradiction that the
collection, though emanating from the first Manu or Brahman, is based
upon and even expressly appeals to the utterances of Vasishtha, Atri,
Gautama, Bhrigu. This is further explained by the fact that the
introduction is completely ignored in the text of the book.
In the text we see the civic polity on the Ganges at an advanced stage.
The monarchy which rose up from the leadership of the immigrant hordes,
in conflict partly against the old inhabitants and partly against the
newly-founded states, has maintained this supreme position, and extended
it to absolute domination. It is in full possession of despotic power.
The Brahmanic theory, so far from destroying it, has, on the contrary,
extended and strengthened it. The Brahmans, it is true, demanded that
the king should regulate worship, law, and morals according to their
views and requirements; they imposed upon him duties in reference to
their own order, but, on the other hand, they were much in need of the
civic power to help them in carrying through their demands against the
other orders. This doctrine of submission to the fortune of birth, of
patient obedience, of a quiet and passive life, in connection with the
reference to the punishments after death, and the evils to come, were
highly calculated to elevate the power of the kings, and lull to sleep
energy, independence of feeling and attitude, boldness and enterprise,
in the castes of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas. The interest in another
world and occupation with the future must thus have become more
prominent than the participation in this world or care for the present.
In such circumstances the world was gladly left to those who had once
taken in hand the government of it. When the nation had gradually become
unnerved by such doctrines and cares, the monarchy had an easy game to
play. Its rule might be as capricious as it chose. In weaker nations,
unaccustomed to action, the need of order and protection is so great
that not only acts of violence against individuals but even the
oppression felt by the whole is gladly endured for the sake of the
security enjoyed in other respects by the entire population.
The book compares the kings with the gods. "He who by his beneficence
spreads abroad the blessings of prosperity, and by his anger gives
death, by his bravery decides the victory, without doubt unites in
himself the whole majesty of the protectors of the world."[232] Brahman
created the king, the book tells us, by taking portions from the
substance of the eight protectors of the world, and these the king now
unites in his person.[233] "As Indra is the bright firmament, so does
the king surpass in splendour all mortal beings; as Indra pours water
from heaven for four months (the Indians on the Ganges reckoned the
rainy season at four months), so must he heap benefits on his people.
Like Surya (the sun-god) the king beams into the eyes and hearts of all;
no one can look into his countenance. As Surya by his rays draws the
moisture out of the earth for eight months, so may the king draw the
legal taxes from his subjects. As Vayu flies round the earth and all
creatures and penetrates them, so should the power of the king penetrate
through all. Like Yama in the under world, the king is lord of justice;
as Yama when the time is come judges friends and enemies, those who
honour him and those who despise him, so shall the king hold captive the
transgressors. As Varuna fetters and binds the guilty, so must the king
imprison criminals. Like Agni, the king is the holy fire: with the flame
of his anger he must annihilate all transgressors, their families and
all that they have, their flocks, and herds, and he must be inexorable
towards his ministers. As men rejoice at the sight of the moon-god
(Chandra), so do they take pleasure in the sight of the good ruler; as
Kuvera spreads abundance, so does the gracious look of the king give
blessing and prosperity.[234] The sovereign is never to be despised, not
even when he is a child; for a great divinity dwells in this human
form."[235] The king also represents, according to Manu, the four ages
of the world. On his sleeping and waking and action depends the
condition of the land. "If the king does what is good, it is Kritayuga
(the age of perfection); if he acts with energy, it is Tritayaga (the
age of the sacrificial fires); if he is awake, it is Dvaparayuga (the
period of doubt); if he sleeps it is Kaliyuga (the period of sin)."[236]
We have already become acquainted with the deification of kings in a
still more pronounced form in the inscriptions on the temples and
palaces of Egypt. It will always be found where there is nothing to
oppose the authority of the king but the impotence of subjects who
possess no rights, when life and death depend on his nod, and above all
where a divine order supposed to be gathered from the commands of heaven
is realised on earth in the state, and there are no institutions to
carry it out, but only the person of the king as the single incarnation
of power.
However high the Brahmans placed the sanctity and dignity of their own
order above that of the Kshatriyas, the book makes no attempt to bring
the monarchy into the hands of the Brahmans. It lays down the rule that
the kings must belong to the order of the Kshatriyas;[237] and leaves
the throne to them, without feeling the contradiction that by this means
a member of a subordinate caste receives dominion over the first-born of
Brahman. It was part of the conception of the Brahmans that each order
had a definite obligation. The Kshatriyas must protect the other orders;
and therefore the chief protector must belong to this caste. But the
book does not even aim at confining the royal power of the Kshatriyas in
narrower limits for the benefit of the Brahmans. The kings are merely
commanded to be obedient to the law of the priests; the order of
Brahmans is declared to be especially adapted for public offices,
without excluding the rest of the Dvija from them. The king is further
recommended to advise chiefly with Brahmans on affairs of state, and to
allow Brahmans to pronounce sentence in his place.[238] For the great
sacrifices he must have a Brahman to represent him (Purohita); and for
household devotion and daily ritual he must keep a chaplain (Ritvij).
Agreeably to the Brahmanic conception of the world, the maintenance of
the established order is the especial duty of the king. He must take
care that all creatures do what is required of them and perform their
duties. He must also protect his subjects, their persons, property, and
rights. He must reward the good and punish the bad. Justice is the first
duty of the king. By justice the book understands chiefly the
maintenance of authority and order by terror, by sharp repression and
severe punishment. The power of inflicting punishment is regarded as the
best part of the kingly office; the king must especially occupy himself
with pronouncing judgment, and punish without respect of persons. The
terror spread by punishment, and the apportionment of it in particular
cases, are the principles of the law of penalties. The Brahmans had
gained recognition for their doctrine mainly by the fear of the
penalties of hell, and the regenerations; they thought that nothing but
fear governs the world, and by that means only could order be maintained
in the state. The more the Brahmanic doctrine drained the marrow out of
the bones and the force out of the souls of the people, the more
dependent and incapable of self-help the subjects were made by the
severe oppression and tutelage of the kings, the more necessary it
became, as no one could now defend or help himself, to have an effectual
protection for persons and property, and this the book finds only in the
power of punishment exercised by the king.
We find a complete theory of the preservative power of punishment,
before which all distinctions of criminal and civil process disappear,
and it becomes a matter of indifference whether an offence has taken
place from a doubtful claim, from error, carelessness, or evil
intention. "A man who does good by nature," so we are told in the book,
"is rarely found. Even the gods, the Gandharvas, the giants, the
serpents perform their functions only from fear of punishment. It is
this which prevents all creatures from abandoning their duties, and puts
them in a position to enjoy what is properly their own. Punishment is
justice, as the sages say; punishment governs the world; it is a mighty
power, a strong king, a wise expounder of law. When all things sleep,
punishment is awake. If the king did not ceaselessly punish those who
deserve it, the stronger would eat up the weak; property would cease to
exist; the crow would pick up the rice of the sacrifice, and the dog
lick the clarified butter. Only when black punishment with red eyes
annihilates the transgressors, do men feel no anxiety."
The services rendered by the king in the exercise of justice and the
maintenance of order and the system of caste thus attained, are
naturally rated very highly by the book of law, in accordance with its
general tendency. "By the suppression of the evil and protection of the
good, the king purifies himself like a Brahman by sacrifice." "Then his
kingdom flourishes like a tree that is watered continually;" through the
protection which the king secures for the good by punishment, he
acquires a portion of the merits of the good. The portion of these
merits thus allotted to the king is determined by arithmetical
calculations. "The king who collects the sixth part of the harvest and
protects his people by punishment, obtains a sixth part of the merit of
all pious actions, and the sixth part of all rewards allotted by the
heavenly beings to the nation for their sacrifices and gifts to the
gods, and for the reading of the holy scriptures. But the king who does
not protect his people, and yet takes the sixth, goes into hell; as does
also the king who punishes the innocent and not the transgressors. Even
if the king has not himself pronounced the unjust sentence, a part of
the guilt falls upon him. The fourth part of the injustice of the
sentence falls on him who began the suit, a fourth on the false
witnesses, a fourth on the judge, a fourth on the king. A pure prince,
who is truthful, who knows the holy scriptures, and does not disregard
the laws, which he has himself given, is regarded by the sages as
capable of regulating punishment, of imposing it evenly, and thus he
increases the virtue, the wealth, and prosperity of his subjects (the
three means of happiness)." "To the prince who decides a case
righteously, the people will flock like the rivers to the ocean, and
when he has thus obtained the good-will of the nation"--so the book
continues--"he must attempt to subjugate the lands which do not obey
him."[239]
Accompanied by Brahmans and experienced councillors, the king is to
repair without magnificence to the court of justice. After invoking the
protectors of the world, he begins, standing or seated, with the right
hand raised, and his attention fixed, to examine the case according to
the rank of the castes. Like Yama, the judge of the under world, the
king must renounce all thoughts of what is pleasing to him; he must
follow the example of the judge of all men, suppress his anger, and put
a bridle on his senses. If right wounded by wrong enters the court and
the king does not draw out the arrow he is himself wounded. From the
attitude of the litigants, the colour of their faces, and the tone of
their voices, their appearance and gestures, the king must ascertain
their thoughts and attain to truth, as the hunter reaches the lair of
the wild beast which he has wounded by following up the traces of its
blood. Beside these indications, witnesses are required for proof; and
if these are not forthcoming, oaths or the "divine declaration."
Respectable men of all the orders are allowed as witnesses, especially
the fathers of families; if these are not to be obtained, the friends or
enemies of the accused, his servants, or such as are in need and
poverty, and are afflicted with sickness. In cases of necessity the
evidence of a woman, a child, and a slave can be taken.[240]
The book repeatedly and with great urgency exhorts the witnesses to
speak the truth, and threatens false witnesses with hell and a terrible
series of regenerations. In the presence of the accuser and accused the
king calls on the witness to tell the truth: to the Brahman he says,
"speak;" to the Kshatriya, "tell the truth;" to the Vaiçya, he points
out that false witness is as great a crime as theft of corn, cattle, and
gold.[241] "The wicked think," says Manu, "no one sees us if we give
false witness. But the protectors of the world know the actions of all
living creatures, and the gods see all men. The soul also is its own
witness; a severe judge and unbending avenger dwells in thine heart. The
soul is a part of the highest spirit, the attentive and silent observer
of all that is good and evil." The false witness will not only come to
misfortune in his life, so that, deprived of his sight, with a potsherd
in his hand he will beg for morsels in the house of his enemy--for all
the good that a man has done in his life at once departs into dogs by
false witness--in a hundred migrations he will fall into the toils of
Varuna, and at last will be thrown head foremost into the darkest abyss
of hell. Even his family and kindred are brought into hell by the false
witness. For further elucidation the book provides a scale; by false
witness about oxen five, about cows ten, about horses a hundred, and
about men a thousand members of the family of the false witness are
thrown into hell.[242]
If no witnesses are forthcoming the king must endeavour to find out the
truth by the oaths of the accuser or the accused, which in cases of
special importance he may test and confirm by the "divine declaration."
Even the Brahmans could not refuse the oath; for Vasishtha had sworn to
the son of Pijavana (Sudas). The Brahman swore by his truthfulness; the
Kshatriya by his weapons, his horses, and elephants; the Vaiçya by his
cows, his corn, his grass; the Çudra, when taking an oath, must invoke
all sins on his own head.[243] If the king desires the "divine
revelation" on the truth of the oath, the person taking it must lay his
hand, while swearing, on the head of his wife, or the heads of his
children; or after taking it, he must undergo the test of fire and water
or fire; i.e. he is thrown into water and he must touch fire with his
hand. If in the second case no immediate harm follows, if in the first
the witness sinks like any other person, if in the third he is not
injured by the fire, the oath is correct. Fire, so the book proceeds, is
to be the test of guilt or innocence for all men; the holy Vatsa once
demonstrated his innocence by walking through fire without a hair of
his head being consumed.[244] When we consider the inclination of the
Indians to the marvellous, and their belief in the perpetual
interference of the gods, it cannot surprise us that these regulations
about the divine declaration--which are all that are found in the book
of the law--became at a later time much more extended and complicated;
it is also possible that the book has omitted certain hereditary forms
of the divine sentence, such as the carrying of hot iron, though they
continue to exist.[245]
When the king had thus come to a conclusion about the matter and its
position by means of indications, evidence, oaths, and "divine
declaration," when he had considered the extenuating or aggravating
circumstances, _e.g._ special qualities in the criminal, or repeated
convictions, and reflected on the prescriptions given by the law, he is
to cause punishment to be inflicted on the guilty. The book
acknowledges that the king alone is not sufficient for the burden of
pronouncing justice; it is open to him to name a representative, and the
necessary judges from the number of the twice-born; no exclusive right
in this respect is reserved for the Brahmans, but they are especially
recommended. "A court of law, assembled by the king, and consisting of a
very learned Brahman and three Brahmans acquainted with writing, is
called by the sages the court of Brahman with four faces." A Çudra can
never be named by the king as his representative in a court of law. If
such a thing were to happen, the kingdom would be in the unfortunate
position of a cow which had fallen into a morass.[246]
The doctrine of the Brahmans that no living creature is to be killed is
little attended to in respect of human life either in their penal code
or in their asceticism. The punishment of death is perhaps less
frequently imposed than elsewhere in the East, but mutilations are only
the more common, and at times they are employed to aggravate the
sentence of death, which is inflicted by beheading and impalement.[247]
The legends of the Buddhists show that cruel mutilations were not
uncommon. Men of the despised classes, especially Chandalas, served as
executioners.[248] The Brahmans are to be free from all bodily
punishment; the other castes could be punished either by loss of life,
or of the sexual organs, or in the belly, the tongue, feet and hands,
eyes and nose, and were distinguished by different brands on the
forehead.[249] But the book of the law adds a rule of some importance
intended to win respect and legal value for the priestly arrangements
of penances: all criminals, who perform the religious expiations
prescribed for their offence, are not to be punished in the body, but
only condemned to pay a fine. Next to corporal punishments, fines are
the most frequent; but imprisonment is mentioned; this was carried out
in gaols, which were to be erected on the highways "to spread terror."
The book allows the kings absolute power to punish with capricious
severity and with death any attempt and even "any hostile feeling"
against themselves. This is necessitated by the position of the despotic
ruler whose throne depends on keeping alive the sense of fear in his
subjects. "He who in the confusion of his mind betrays hatred against
his king must die; the king must at once occupy himself with the means
to bring about his destruction." Any one who has refused obedience to
the king or robbed the king's treasury must be put to death with
tortures.[250] He who forges royal orders, puts strife between the
ministers of the king, appropriates the royal property, has any
understanding with the enemies of the king, and inspires them with
courage, must die. So also must the man who has killed a Brahman, a
woman, or a child,[251] who has broken down a dyke, so that the water in
the reservoir is lost.[252] Adultery under certain circumstances is
punished with death. Robbery, arson, attacks with violence on persons or
property, are punished very severely, for such crimes "spread alarm
among all creatures."[253] The punishments prescribed by the law for the
protection of property are, comparatively, the most severe; it seems
that the Brahmanic view, which allots to each creature his sphere of
rights, regarded property, the extended circle of the person, as an
appurtenance deserving the strictest respect, and that the Brahmans
looked on the protection of property as an essential part of a good
arrangement of the state, which must secure his own to every man and
maintain him in the possession of it. The king is to suppress theft with
the greatest vigour. In order to discover the thief, no less than the
gambler and cheat, the law recommends him to avail himself of the
espionage of those who apparently pursue the same occupation. These
spies are to be taken from all orders, and must watch especially the
open places, wells, and houses of courtesans in the cities, and in the
country the sacred trees, the crossways, the public gardens, and parks
of the princes. The king must cause every one to be executed who is
caught on the spot with the property upon him, and the concealers of the
thief must be punished as severely as the thief himself.[254] Any one
who steals more than ten kumbhas worth of corn is to be punished with
death; theft of a less value is followed by loss of hand or foot. Petty
stealing, _e.g._ of flowers, or of as much corn as a man can carry, is
to be punished by fines, in which the Vaiçya has to pay twice as much as
the Çudra, the Kshatriya four times, the Brahman eight or a hundred
times. Burglary is a capital offence; the sentence is carried out by
impalement, after the hands of the victim have been cut off.[255] A
cut-purse loses two fingers; on a second offence a hand and a foot; if
the offence is repeated he must die.[256] In regard to property, Manu's
laws are so severe that they not only put the sale of another's goods,
but even the loosing of a tied ox, or the tying of one which is loose,
the use of the slave, horse, or carriage of another on the same level
as theft. On the other hand, it is permissible to take roots, and
fruits, and even wood for sacrifice out of any unfenced field; the
hungry traveller, if a Dvija, may break two sugarcanes, but not
more.[257] Gamblers are punished like thieves, and any one who keeps a
gambling house must undergo corporal punishment; drunkards are branded
in the forehead. The law of contract and debt, the breach of covenants,
the non-payment of wages when due, the annulling of a purchase or sale,
the law of deposits, the collection of outstanding accounts, gambling
debts and wages, are discussed at some length.
The views and regulations in the book of law about the unlimited power
of the king and the exercise of the right of punishment might appear to
be of a later date than has been assumed, if the sutras of the Buddhists
and the accounts of the Greeks from the end of the fourth century B.C.
did not exhibit the monarchy of India in the full possession of
unlimited power; the latter also mention the careful regard paid by the
kings to the administration of justice. Hence we can hardly be wrong in
assuming that the Arians in India were not later than their kindred in
Iran in reaching this form of constitution.
Along with the absolute power of punishment the law allows the kings a
very liberal right of imposing taxes. The taxes were regarded as the
recompense which the subjects have to pay for the protection which the
king extends to them. However high the quota of taxes may be which the
king has the right to raise, the law calls attention to the fact that it
is not good "to exhaust the realm by taxes." The impositions are to be
arranged in such a way that the subjects may confess that king and
nation find "the just reward of their labour." The king is never to cut
off his own roots by raising no taxes at all on a super-abundance of
possessions, nor may he from covetousness demand too heavy a tribute,
and so cut off the roots of his subjects. As the exhaustion of the body
destroys the life of the animated creature, so does the exhaustion of
the kingdom destroy the life of the king. As a rule, he may only demand
the twelfth part of the harvest, _i.e._ above eight per cent., and the
fiftieth, _i.e._ two per cent., of animals and incomes in gold and
silver.[258] Yet the eighth or sixth corn could be demanded according to
the quality of the soil and the amount of labour required upon it, and
the fifth part of the increase in cattle and in gold and silver. In
cases of necessity the fourth part of the harvest could be demanded,
"when the king is protecting his people with all his power." Of the gain
on fruit-trees, herbs, flowers, perfumes and honey the king can take the
sixth part. From the wares of the merchant which come to be sold, the
king may take the twentieth;[259] and those who live by retail trade may
be compelled to pay a moderate tax. Artisans, day-labourers, and Çudras
who earn too little to be able to pay taxes, the king compels to work
for him one day in each month.[260]
From this it is clear how extensive was the circle from which taxes were
paid; all incomes, whether from the soil and under it, even to flowers
and honey, or from the breeding of cattle, all purchases and sales were
taxed, and the rates at which the taxes were levied were high. There
were besides presents in kind. If we add to these the exactions of the
tax-gatherer, which in the East have rarely been wanting, the burdens
prescribed and imposed by the laws must have been very considerable. It
would afford little protection to those who had to pay that Manu's laws
required that the taxes should be collected by men of good family whose
characters were free from avarice.[261] Yet these and other rules in the
book show that an attempt was made to introduce order, and, at any rate,
a certain moderation into the taxation. The good advice given in
conclusion to the king, that he should collect his yearly tribute in
small portions, even as the bee and the leech suck in their nourishment
gradually,[262] is rather evidence of Machiavellian policy than of good
feeling towards the taxpayers, while the open reference to the leech as
a pattern of moderation is equivalent to an acknowledgment of the
draining process of which we find evidence elsewhere. From the general
duty of paying taxes the "learned Brahman" is alone exempted; from him
the king is never to take tribute even though he were dying of
hunger;[263] the Brahmans, as we shall see, paid their sixth in
intercessions.[264]
The rules given in the law for taxation are not of recent date. The
sixth part of the harvest is there prescribed as the rule. From the
accounts of the Greeks about the year 300 B.C. the fourth part of the
harvest was collected, and a tenth from trade.[265] According to the
sutras of the Buddhists the pressure of taxes in some states on the
Ganges became exhausting. Subsequently, the princes of the Mahrattas
took a fifth of the harvest, which seems to have become the rule in
later times, and occasionally a fourth, in corn or coin. The Sultan
Akhbar caused the whole land to be measured and the value of the produce
to be calculated on an average of the harvests of nineteen years, and
the size of the farm; then he took the third part of the produce thus
estimated in gold, with entire release from all other taxes. Lands in
the possession of the Brahmans partially enjoy even to this day the
traditional freedom from taxation.
As it is difficult for one man to govern a great kingdom the book
advises the king to choose seven or eight ministers from men whose
fathers have already been in the service of the crown, persons of good
family, of knowledge of the law, bold and skilful in the use of
weapons.[266] He is to secure their fidelity by an oath. With them he is
to consider all affairs, first with each singly, then with all together;
after this he may do what seems to him best. On matters of great
importance the king must always ask the advice of one Brahman of
eminence, and consider the affair with him as his first minister.[267]
The sutras of the Buddhists as well as the epic poems show us the court
of the king arranged according to these rules; in the Ramayana, king
Daçaratha of Ayodhya has eight ministers together with his Parohita and
Ritvij.[268]
The plan presented by the law for the management of the state is very
simple. The king is to place officers (_pati_, lords) over every
village, and again over every ten or twenty villages (_grama_), so that
these places with their acreage formed together a district. Five or ten
such districts form a canton, which contains a hundred communities, and
over this in turn the king places a higher magistrate. Ten of these
cantons form a region, which thus comprised a thousand villages, and
this is administered by a governor.[269] The overseers of districts are
to have divisions of soldiers at their disposal to maintain order in
their districts. Thefts and robbery which they are unable to prevent
with their own forces they must report to the overseers of cantons.[270]
Thus the states of India were governed by a complicated series of royal
magistrates subordinated to each other, which is of itself evidence of
an advanced stage of administration. Whether the kings of India adopted
this or some other plan for the management of their states, which in the
first instance were of no great extent, experience must have taught,
before Manu's laws received their present form, that these magistrates
did not always discharge their duties faithfully, but were guilty of
caprice and oppression. The subordination of the magistrates is intended
to supply a means of control; but the law also requires regular payment
of officers. "Those whom the king employs for the security of the land,"
we are told, "are as a rule knaves, who gladly appropriate the property
of the subjects."[271] In order to prevent this as far as possible
regular payment is absolutely necessary. The fourth class (the overseers
of the villages) is to receive what the village has to contribute to the
king in rice, wood, and drink; the third class (the overseers of
districts) must receive as pay the produce of an estate, which requires
twelve steers to cultivate it; the second class must receive the produce
of a plot five times as large, &c.[272] Moreover, in every great city
the king must nominate a head overseer, and must from time to time cause
reports to be made by special commissaries of the manner in which the
magistrates perform their duties; and those who take money from the
people with whom they have to do, the king must drive out of the land
and confiscate their property.[273]
The advice which the book imparts to the kings on the duties they have
to fulfil beside the protection of the subjects, the maintenance of
order, and the supervision of their magistrates; the art of government
sketched for them, the regulations for personal security put into their
hand, are the result of an unfettered reflection on all these relations
for which no limitations and principles are in existence, except the
interest of uncontrolled dominion, and the respect due to the Brahmans.
The king is to take up his abode in a healthy and rich district,
inhabited by loyal people, who get their living easily, and surrounded
by peaceful neighbours. In such a district he is to choose a place
difficult of access owing to deserts or forest. If these are not to be
found the king must build his citadel on a mountain, or he must make it
inaccessible by specially strong walls of stone or brick, or by trenches
filled with water. As a man can do nothing to a wild animal when in its
hole, so the king has nothing to fear in an inaccessible place. In the
midst of such a fortress the king must build his palace with the
necessary spaces properly divided in such a manner that it can be
inhabited at any period of the year. The palace must be provided with
water and surrounded with trees, the entire dwelling must then be
enclosed by trenches and walls. The citadel, in which the palace lies,
must be well provided with arms, supplies, beasts of burden, fodder,
machines, and Brahmans. One archer behind the breast of the wall easily
holds a hundred enemies in check.[274] The guard in the interior of the
palace is to be trusted only to men of little spirit, for brave men,
seeing the king frequently alone or surrounded by women, could easily
slay him at the instigation of his enemies. It is best to pay regularly
the servants of the palace; the chief servants are to receive six panas
a day, six dronas of corn a month, and six suits of clothes in the year;
the lowest receive one pana a day, one drona of corn a month, and an
upper and under garment twice in the year.[275]
The king, his council, his treasure, his metropolis, his land, army, and
confederates--these are, according to the book of the law, the seven
parts of the kingdom, which ought mutually to support each other. The
king is the most important part, "because through him all the other
parts are set in motion;" his destruction brings with it the ruin of the
rest. Hence the king must take thought for his preservation. For this
object the book advises him--besides securing the metropolis, the
citadel, and the people in it--to pay attention to a good arrangement of
the day. With early dawn he is to rise and purify himself, in deep
meditation to offer his sacrifice to Agni, and show his respect for the
Brahmans who know the three holy books.[276] Then he must go to the
magnificent hall of reception, and there delight his subjects by
gracious words and looks. After administering justice he is to consult
with his ministers in some secret place where he cannot be overheard, on
a lonely terrace or on the top of a mountain. In the middle of the day,
if he is free from disquiet and weariness (or in the middle of the
night), he must reflect on virtue, content, and riches, on war and
peace, on the prospect of success in his undertakings. Then he must
bathe, take such exercise as becomes a king, and then repair to the meal
in his inner chambers. There he must take food prepared for him by old,
faithful, and trustworthy servants, but previously tested with the help
of a partridge, whose eyes become red if there is poison in the dish. He
must consecrate the food by prayers, which will destroy the poison
contained in it. He must at all times carry precious stones with him, to
counteract the effect of poison, and must mix antidotes with his
food.[277] After dinner the women make their appearance to fan him, and
sprinkle him with water and perfumes, but not till their ornaments and
dress have been carefully searched to see that neither weapons nor
poison are hidden in them. When the king has passed the suitable time
with his wives, he occupies himself anew with public business. He puts
on his armour, and reviews his warriors, elephants, horses, chariots,
and arms.[278] In the evening, after sacrifice, he repairs in his armour
to a remote part of the palace, in order to receive the accounts of his
spies. Then he takes his evening meal in his innermost chambers, at
which his wives attend him. After a light repast and some music, he lies
down to rest at the proper time, and rises refreshed in the
morning.[279]
The book advises the king to make conquests, and gives him counsel on
the conduct of war. This may be explained as a survival of the old
warlike feeling of the people, or as the result of the duty imposed on
the Kshatriyas, or from the encyclopædic nature of the book, which
includes all sides of civic life. The ideal of the Brahmans lay no doubt
in a quiet and peaceful life, but like other priesthoods they were
inclined to leave the state a free course in its desire for extension
of power so long as it satisfied the requirements they laid upon it.
Conquests, the book tells us, cannot be made till a treasure has been
collected and the troops carefully exercised.[280] Every neighbour is to
be regarded as an enemy, but the neighbour of a neighbour as a friend.
While the king must carefully conceal the weaknesses of his own kingdom,
he must spy out the weakness of the enemy; he must send spies into the
enemy's land, just as he uses them to detect gambling, theft, and
cheating in his own. The persons best suited for this purpose are
fictitious penitents, degraded eremites, broken merchants, starving
peasants, and finally young men of bold and acute spirit; these must
collect accurate information concerning the ministers, treasures, and
army of the hostile state.[281] The choice of the ambassador sent to the
enemy's coast is of the first importance both for knowing the country,
and ascertaining the views of the prince. He must be a man of high
birth, of acuteness and honesty, friendly in his manners. In
negotiations with the hostile prince, this envoy must be able to judge
of his intentions from his conduct, tone, attitude, and demeanour; he
must detect his plans by secretly bribing a covetous minister.[282] When
acquainted with the strength and designs of the enemy, the king must
attempt to weaken their power and strengthen his own. For this purpose
he must by all possible means create dissension in the enemy's country,
or foster a dissension already existing; he must gain over relatives of
the prince who prefer a claim to the throne, or discontented and
displaced ministers; and make presents to the subjects of the hostile
prince. Finally, he must conclude treaties with the ambitious
neighbours of the hostile state, and attempt to break off his alliances,
by creating personal dissensions between the princes.[283]
The issue of all things in this world, the book says, depends on the
laws of fate, which are regulated according to the acts of men in their
former existence. These laws are concealed from us; we must therefore
hold to things which are accessible. It is enough if the king keeps
three things before him in these undertakings; himself, the object he
has in view, the means of attaining it. Starting from the experience of
the past and the present situation of affairs, he must attempt to
discover the probable issue. He who can foresee the use or harm of any
resolution, who decides quickly at a given moment, and can see the
consequences of any event, will never be overcome. A prince who is firm
in his views, liberal and grateful to all who serve him, bold, skilful,
and fearless, will, in the opinion of the sages, hardly be overcome.
Fortune attends the enterprising and enduring prince, and he who keeps
his counsels secret will extend his power over the whole earth.[284]
If the king is attacked unexpectedly he must take refuge in
negotiations; in such a case he must also make up his mind to endure
some slight injury, and even sacrifice a part of his kingdom. But if he
has made all his preparations and concealed them, if he has drawn all
the parts of his kingdom into himself like a tortoise; if the fortresses
are armed and garrisoned, if the six divisions of the army--the
elephants, chariots, cavalry, foot-soldiers, generals, and baggage--are
ready, and he has made arrangements for his absence, he must consider
like a hawk the best mode of attack, the object of which must be the
metropolis of the enemy, and make it suddenly at a favourable time of
the year. If the strength of his army consists in chariots, elephants,
and cavalry, he must set out in November (Margaçirsha) or in February
(Phalguna) in order to find the autumn or spring harvest in the fields,
in case some special misfortune has befallen the enemy, or the victory
is for general reasons beyond a doubt. The march must be secured by
making roads, by spies, and good advanced troops who know the signals,
for which purpose daring men, of whom it is known that they will not
desert, must be sought out.
Battles must be avoided as much as possible if the object can be
attained by other means, for the issue of a battle can never be
foreseen. But if it is found impossible to compel the enemy to make
peace by devastating his land, by taking up strong positions and an
entrenched camp, or by blockading him in his camp, and cutting him off
from supplies--water, and wood for firing, by provoking him by day, and
attacking him by night--if a battle is unavoidable, it is best in a
plain to fight with cavalry and chariots, in a well watered region with
elephants, in a woodland district with archers, on open ground with
sword and shield. The Kshatriyas of Brahmavarta and Brahmarshideça, from
the lands of the Matsyas, Panchalas, and Çurasenas were to be placed in
the front ranks, or if these were not forthcoming, tall and skilful men
of other regions. Poisoned arrows and fire arrows are not to be used. A
man on a chariot or a horse is not to attack a foot-soldier; an enemy is
not to be attacked who is already engaged with an opponent, or has lost
his arms, or is wounded. These rules, like the precept that the king is
never to turn his back when the army has been set in array, are results
of the old warlike and knightly feeling united with the view of the
Brahmans, that each order should fulfil its proper office. It is the
duty of the Kshatriyas not to fly, says the book, but much more of the
king; kings who fight with great courage in the battle, eager to
overcome each other, and do not turn aside their heads, go straight into
heaven when they fall. Those who pray for life with folded hands, the
severely wounded, and those who fly, are not to be slain.[285] According
to these regulations the regions of Brahmavarta and Brahmarshideça
produce not only the best Brahmans but the best Kshatriyas. The accounts
of the Greeks from the fourth century B.C. prove that at any rate the
princes of the land of the Indus knew how to fight bravely. Megasthenes
tells us that they rarely came to close conflict, but generally carried
on the contest with large bows at a distance.
When victory has been won, the law advises the king, however weary he
may be, to follow it up quickly. According to the regulations of the
Veda, gold and silver found in the booty belong to the king, everything
else to the man who has taken it. If the enemy's land is conquered an
attempt must be made to secure the possession of it. The king must issue
a proclamation to relieve all the inhabitants from alarm; he must
worship the deities worshipped by the conquered land, and pay respect to
the virtuous Brahmans in it. Under certain circumstances it is good to
make distributions to the people; to carry off treasures arouses hatred,
to distribute them excites love; each is worthy of praise or blame
according to circumstances. Finally, the book utterly disregards the
possible result of the excellent advice given by laying down the rule
that the king may hand over the conquered district to a prince of the
royal blood, and prescribe certain conditions with which he is to rule
there as a vassal king. It is obvious that such relations must soon end
in revolts. The position of the vassal king is too strong for obedience,
and his strength is a temptation to acquire complete freedom and
independence. Manu's doctrines are intended for these vassal kings also;
they may apply them like the chief kings for their own benefit.
No regulations are given in the book for the succession to the throne.
It only requires that a consecration shall take place on the accession
of a new king. If the king feels that his end is near, he must
distribute his treasures to the Brahmans; hand over the kingdom to his
son, and seek death in battle; if there is no war, the old king must end
his life by starvation. The precept that the king should seek death in
battle is again a remnant of the old feeling; he must live and die like
a Kshatriya.
The Epos and legends of the Brahmans are in complete agreement with the
book of the law as to the necessity of monarchy, its objects and duties.
It has been mentioned already how the Brahmans created a new king out of
the body of the dead king Vena (p. 149), as a protection against the
robbers who rose up on all hands. A land without a king, we are told in
the Ramayana, is like a cow without a bull, a herd without a herdsman, a
night without a moon, a woman who has lost her husband. There is then no
property; men consume each other as one fish eats another. When there is
no king Indra does not water the plains, the fields are not sown, the
son does not obey the father, No rich man builds houses and lays out
parks; no priest skilled in sacrifice brings offerings to the gods. The
people do not dance at the festival, the minstrels are not surrounded
by an audience. No maiden adorned with gold walks in the evening in the
gardens, no elephant sixty years old stands in the ways with tusks
adorned with bells. The peasant and the herdman cannot sleep securely
with open doors; the traders are not safe in the streets. When there is
no king the ceaseless sound of archers practising for battle is never
heard.[286] In the Mahabharata we are told of Yudhishthira's reign at
Indraprastha that he ruled with great justice, protected his subjects as
his sons, and conquered his enemies round about, so that every one in
the land was without fear or distress, and could apply his whole mind to
the fulfilment of religious duties. The kingdom received an abundance of
rain at the proper time; all the inhabitants were rich, and testified to
the virtues of the king in the abundance of the harvests, in the
increase of the flocks, and in the great growth of trade. There was
neither drought nor inundation; the parrots did not eat the corn; there
were no swindlers, liars, or thieves in the land.
In the Epos also we find the kings dwelling in fortified cities and
citadels. According to the Ramayana, Ayodhya is a city surrounded by
high walls, with broad and deep trenches and strong gates; the gateways
and the towers on the walls are occupied with archers; in the midst of
the city was the royal citadel surrounded by walls, so lofty that no
bird could fly over it, watched by a thousand warriors strong and
courageous as lions. In the three first of the five courts of this
citadel, young soldiers kept watch; in the two last, where the king and
his wives dwelt, were old men. In the Epos the kings when old lay aside
their crowns, as the book commands, and resign them to their sons. The
aged Dhritarashtra of Hastinapura resigns the throne to Yudhishthira;
Daçratba of Ayodhya wishes to give it up to Rama. Dhritarashtha and
Yudhishthira end their days in the wilderness as Vanaprasthas, or
penitents, in the manner prescribed in the book for every Dvija in his
old age (p. 184). The ceremonial of consecration required by the book is
described at great length in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Rice,
white flowers, clods of earth, pieces of silver and gold, and precious
stones are brought to Yudhishthira; he touches them in the traditional
manner. Then fire, milk, honey, curdled milk, purified butter, the holy
goblets, leaves and twigs of the sacred trees, and vessels with
consecrated water are placed before the king. When the sacrificial fire
has been kindled, Yudhishthira with Draupadi seats himself before it on
a tiger's skin; the consecrating Brahman pours the libations into the
sacrificial fire--cow's milk, sweet and curdled, and melted butter--and
in order to purify the king and queen he pours the urine of cows on
their heads and then lays cowdung upon them. Then the consecrated water
is poured over them, and after this the music begins to sound, and the
minstrels sing the praises of Yudhishthira and his ancestors. At the
consecration of Rama the golden throne is set up, the yellow parasol and
the two flappers of buffalo-tails, the tiger-skin, bow and sword are
brought forward. The four-yoked chariots, the elephants, the great white
buffalo, the lion with strong mane, the cows with golden ornaments on
their horns, the flowers and the jars filled with water from the Ganges
and the holy springs and pools, are made ready.[287] Rama and Sita place
themselves in beautiful garments in the portico of the palace, their
faces to the east, and the people cry aloud: Long live the Maharaja
(great-king) Rama; may his reign be prosperous and continue for ever!
Then the Rishis come with jars full of consecrated water, say the solemn
words, and pour the water upon the heads of Rama and Sita. Then the
Brahmans do the same, the Kshatriyas, Vaiçyas, and Çudras, and all the
remaining classes of the people. When Rama and Sita have changed their
garments they return to their place in the portico; the yellow parasol
is spread over Rama, and he is fanned with the two flappers. And the
Brahmans and the people of Ayodhya came to bless Rama, and scattered
rice in the husk and kuça-grass on his head, and Rama sent away the
Brahmans with rich gifts, and the minstrels and dancers and
dancing-girls were rewarded. The sutras of the Buddhists mention as the
symbols of monarchy the turban and tiara, the sword, the yellow parasol,
the flappers of buffalo-tails, and the parti-coloured shoes.[288] In the
Ramayana, Bharata, the younger brother, will not accept the throne in
the place of his elder brother Rama, though commanded to do so by his
father. Then Rama takes off the gilded shoes and hands them to Bharata,
a symbol of his renunciation of the throne, which was in use even among
the Germans.[289] The virtuous Bharata is now compelled to reign; but he
places the shoes on the throne, holds the yellow parasol over them, and
causes them to be fanned by the first ministers, and before these shoes
of his brother he takes counsel and administers justice.
The lecture which Rama gives his brother on the art of government is in
complete harmony with the doctrines of the book of the law. He asks
Bharata whether he is protecting the city of Ayodhya and all the cantons
of his kingdom in a proper manner; whether he pays due respect to
householders and proprietors, whether his judges give them justice? Is
an accused chief set at liberty through bribery? Are the judges in any
matter of law between rich and poor raised above the desire of gain? O
Bharata, the tears shed by those who have been condemned unjustly,
destroy the children and the flocks of him who governs with partiality.
He asks further whether Bharata despises the Brahmans who are so given
up to the satisfaction of the senses and the enjoyment of the world that
they do not trouble themselves about the things of heaven--whether he
despises men eminent in useless knowledge, and those who profess to be
wise without having learned anything: whether he prefers one learned man
to a thousand of the unlearned; ten thousand of the ignorant multitude
will not be able to render him any service in his government. Does he
employ distinguished servants in great matters, men of lower degree in
smaller affairs, and the lowest in the least important? In affairs of
great moment he must employ only those who have served his father and
grandfather, who have not opened their hand to bribes; heroic and
learned men, who are masters of their senses, and able to untie a knot.
Dost thou despise the counsel of women, and conceal from them thy
secrets? Or do thine own counsellors contemn thee, and the people,
oppressed by excessive punishments? Dost thou honour those who are bold
and skilful? Do thy servants and troops receive pay at the proper time?
Are thy fortresses well provided with corn, water, weapons, and
archers? Is the forest, where the royal elephants are kept, well chosen?
Art thou well equipped with horses and female elephants? Hast thou store
of young milch-cows? Is thy expenditure less than thy income? Dost thou
bestow thy wealth on Brahmans, Kshatriyas, needy strangers? or lavish it
on thy friends? Dost thou wake at the right time? Canst thou overcome
sleep? Dost thou divide thy time properly between recreation, state
business, and religious duties? Dost thou think at the end of the night
on the way to become prosperous? Dost thou take counsel with thyself and
with others also? Are thy resolutions kept secret? Do other princes know
thy aims? Art thou acquainted with that which they would undertake? Are
the plans formed in the councils of other princes known to thee and thy
counsellors? The concealment of his counsels by his ministers is the
source of success for a prince. He who does not remove an ambitious and
covetous minister, who maligns others, will be himself removed. Is thine
envoy a well-instructed, active man, able to answer any question on the
moment? Is he a man of judgment who knows how to deliver a message in
the words in which it is given to him? Art thou certain that thy
officers are on thy side, if sent into foreign lands, and if none knows
the commission given to another? Dost thou think lightly of enemies who,
though weak and expelled from their country, may easily return? Dost
thou seek to obtain land and wealth by all honest means? Dost thou bow
down before thy spiritual leaders; before the aged, the penitent, the
gods, strangers; before the holy groves and all instructed Brahmans?
Dost thou sacrifice wealth to virtue, or virtue to wealth, or both to
favouritism, covetousness, and sensuality? The prince who rules a
kingdom with justice, when surrounded with difficulties, wins heaven
when he leaves this world.
We can only fix in a very general way the date at which these prescripts
of the book on the art of government, and the doctrines of the Epos so
completely in agreement with them, came into existence. The sutras of
the Buddhists and the accounts of the Greeks from the end of the fourth
century B.C. exhibit to us the kingdom of India occupied with efforts
which correspond in some degree to the views of the book and the
descriptions of the Epos. If however we were to conclude from the
despotic power to which the monarchy attained in the states on the
Ganges, that the subject populations at that time or later were
disconnected and reduced, without independent movement in any sphere of
life--our conclusion would be completely wrong. As traditions, modes of
worship and customs of the ancient time maintained themselves beside and
in spite of the new doctrine of the Brahmans, so did remains of the old
communities, of the old social and political life, maintain themselves
against the omnipotence of the kings. These were the clans of the
minstrels, formed naturally or by the adoption of pupils--which brought
the old invocations from the Indus and preserved them--which on the
Ganges sang the heroic songs, the Epos in its earliest form, and
afterwards became combined into the priestly order, out of whose
meditations rose the new system. These clans continued in the new
states. The names represent in part different traditions of the
doctrine, various schools and views. But even the clans of the
Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, united by the common worship of ancestors,
existed on the Ganges. Only in them or in close local communities could
those customs of law grow up and perpetuate themselves, to which
reference is so frequently made in the book of the law. The spread of
the system of castes, the accompanying tendency to perpetuate what has
once come into existence, was not likely to injure the continuance of
these clans. They exercised a very important supervision over the
members; and by bringing the Brahmans to the funeral meals of the
families, as prescribed in the book (p. 163), this supervision became an
advantage to the new doctrine, and in any case assisted the Brahmans
essentially in carrying out their system, just as to this day it helps
in a higher degree to maintain that system. The book of the law lays
down detailed regulations who is to be invited to the funeral feasts and
the festivals for the souls of the departed, and who is to be excluded.
Those are to be excluded who are not true to the mission of their caste,
and neglect its obligations, who do not fulfil their religious duties,
who pursue forbidden and impure occupations, _e.g._ the burying of the
dead for hire, dancing as a trade, dog-breaking, buffalo-catching, etc.;
those who suffer from certain bodily infirmities, and finally those who
lead an immoral life; usurers, drunkards, gamblers, keepers of gambling
and drinking houses, adulterers and burglars, thieves and incendiaries,
every one of bad reputation and character.[290] In this way the clans
under the guidance of the Brahman assessors possessed the most complete
censorship over the lives of the members, and a power of punishment from
which there was no escape. The families could impose expiations and
fines on any member who transgressed or failed to fulfil his religious,
moral, or caste duties; if he refused to submit to these they could at a
certain time expel him for ever out of the community, by excluding him
from the funeral feast. The latter resolution of the family deprived the
person on whom it fell of his entire social position; in fact, of his
economical existence. It implied exclusion from the caste. No one could
have any dealings with a person so expelled, otherwise he became
infected by communion with him. He could not get his children married;
after his decease no sacrifice for the dead assuaged the punishments
which awaited him in the other world. Now as ever, the clans perform the
ceremony of adopting the young Dvija into the caste and family by
investiture with the sacred girdle; they still exercise this
jurisdiction, and as a penalty for breach of the arrangement of castes,
neglect of religious duties, drunkenness, slander, and other moral
errors, they impose exclusion from the family and caste by overturning
the water-jar and exclusion from the funeral feast. A sentence of social
extinction is thus pronounced upon the expelled person. He is civically
dead and despised. No one associates with him in any one relation; no
one holds any communion with him. The members of his own family will not
give him a draught of water after his expulsion; no member even of the
lowest order shelters him, for by doing so he would break the law of
caste. It is only by this self-government, this censorship of the clans,
that the system of caste has been able to strike such deep roots, to
resist every new doctrine, and the severest attacks of foreign tyranny;
that the religion, character, and civilisation of the Indians continue
to exist after centuries of oppression.
The corporate form of the village communities were not of a much later
date than the authority of the clans over their members. Its early
stages must go back at least as far as the settlement of the Aryas in
the land of the Ganges, for we find it in the same form in the districts
which were not occupied by the Aryas till later, in Malava (Malva),
Surashtra (Guzerat), and to a considerable extent in the provinces of
the Deccan. The village community possesses a definite property (mark)
consisting of arable land, pasture, forest, and uncultivated soil. The
book of the law orders the overseers of districts to take care that the
boundaries of the properties are marked out by the planting of trees, by
wells and altars. If a contention arises between two villages about the
borders, they must be marked out afresh, according to the traces which
can be discovered, and the declaration of witnesses taken in the
presence of inhabitants of the village. These witnesses must take their
oaths in red garments, with crowns of red flowers on their heads. If
witnesses cannot be found in the contending neighbouring villages, the
people who dwell in the open land, or the forest, must be taken; the
cowherds, fishermen, hunters, bird-catchers, snake-hunters; and on their
declaration the borders must be fixed and set down in writing.[291] The
community has its overseers, and the office is hereditary. He divides
the quotas among the villagers, according to the measure and
productiveness of the land; he also divides the uncultivated land and
fixes the share in water allotted to each. He settles differences
between the villagers, and manages the police, having even the power of
imprisonment. As a reward for the labours of the office the overseer is
in possession of a larger share in land, and receives taxes from the
villagers, one or two handfuls, as a rule, from every measure of corn or
rice in the harvest. But the overseer does not govern the community by
his own power; he exercises all his functions surrounded by the
community, who assemble under the great tree, and provide him with
assessors, or deputies for settling quarrels. Beside the overseer the
community has its Brahman, who has to point out the proper time for
beginning every business--without such certainty the Hindu undertakes
nothing--who narrates stories to the peasants from the Epos and legends,
and in modern times at any rate is the school-master of the village.
There are also other officers, the smith, and guardian of the soil, and
even a dancing-girl, to whom, along with the overseer, land and taxes
are allotted.[292] In the sutras of the Buddhists we also hear of
resolutions of the communities in cities, and corporations of merchants,
who compel the members to pay respect to their rules by imposing
fines;[293] and Megasthenes tells us that the cities in the kingdom of
Magadha were governed by six independent colleges. From this we may
assume that the impulse to form associations and corporations was not
unknown to the cities on the Ganges: we are however without any
information as to the extent of these corporations, or the length of
time during which they were able to maintain themselves against the
power of the kings. The advice of the book that the king should place
chief overseers over the cities has been mentioned above (p. 215). On
the other hand, the village communities remain intact in their old form
till this day, and they with the clans form the principal entrenchment
behind which the old Indian character has maintained itself against
native and foreign despotism. The change of princes or government has
little influence on the village communities; they manage their own
affairs independently: the business rarely amounts to more than an
increase or diminution in taxes. The violence of the princes fell on the
surrounding districts, not on quiet humble villages; it was only the
tax-gatherer and the overseer of the districts that they had to fear.
But even if specially bad times came, if invasion reached and devastated
the village, and the inhabitants were slaughtered or driven out, all who
survived the sword and famine returned, or their children returned, to
the land they had left, rebuilt their huts, and began again to cultivate
the fields which their fathers had cultivated from immemorial antiquity.
In spite of the violence and barbarity of native kings and foreign
conquerors, and the severe claims made upon them here and there, the
Indians in their clans and village communities possessed a considerable
share of freedom and self-government in the personal relations of life;
this was the case with the majority of the cultivators of the soil, and
the householders of all the upper castes. From the worship of the
ancestors, the combination of families, there grew up within the castes
of the Brahmans, the Kshatriyas, and the Vaiçyas a pre-eminence and
favoured position for those families which claimed to be not only of
purer, but also of older and nobler origin than the rest. In the circles
of the separate castes this aristocracy took the place of the ancient
aristocracy of the Kshatriyas. However little weight might be attributed
to it by the kings, the example and pattern of these families had great
influence on the lower members of the caste. In later centuries the
importance of this aristocratic element was strengthened by the fact,
that in the land of the Ganges the office became hereditary to which the
princes had to transfer the collection of land-taxes or taxes generally
in the various districts of the land. Thus the tax-gatherers were
enabled to perpetuate their functions in these families; they oppressed
the village communities, from which they took the taxes till they became
their serfs, and thus in course of time they reached an influential and
important position, which they were able to maintain with success, and
have maintained in all essentials to this day.
FOOTNOTES:
[221] Müller, "Hist. of anc. Sansk. Lit." 133 ff; 200 ff. Lassen, "Ind.
Alterth." 2, 80; Johaentgen, "Gesetzbuch des Manu," s. 108, 163.
[222] Manu, 2, 17, 18, 21-23, 24.
[223] Manu, 3, 16; 8, 140. If Vasishtha and Çaunaka, as lawgivers, did
not mean the old Rishis and, apparently, some traditional statements of
theirs, but the first name referred to the Vasishtha-dharma-çastra, and
thus to the teacher of Açvalayana, these quotations like many passages
would be interpolations; and those of Çaunaka would not be very late,
for M. Müller places this Çaunaka about 400 _B.C._ "Hist. of Sansk.
Lit." p. 242 ff.
[224] Manu, 8, 41, 46.
[225] Manu, 1, 119; 12, 126.
[226] There was a school of Brahmans, the Manavas, belonging to the
Madhyandinas, whose text-book was the black Yajus. From the name Manava,
Johaentgen concludes that it is the redaction of the Manava-school in
which we have these laws, and that Manu's book is really the book of the
Manavas. According to the tradition of the Indians, there ought to be
three redactions of Manu, of which one numbers 4000 verses. The copies
known as yet, and accessible to us, have only 2285 verses.
[227] Jolly, "Z. Vgl. Richtsw., Die Systematik des indischen Rechts."
[228] Cf. Stenzler, "Indische Studien," 1, 236, 246. Lassen, _loc. cit._
1^2, 999.
[229] Buddha's active life falls, as we shall see, in the period from
585 to 543 B.C. According to the sutras of the Buddhists, the Brahmanic
law was then in full force; in fact in the districts mentioned in the
text stricter rules were in force than those of the laws of Manu. The
law is cited in the legends of the Buddhists, _e.g._ Burnouf,
"Introduct. à l'histoire du Boud." p. 133; cf. Manu, 2, 233. It is true
we possess the old sutras of the Buddhists in the form which they
received in the third century B.C.; but Buddha's appearance presupposes
the prevalence of the Brahmanic system, the supremacy of the doctrine
and practice of it. In opposition to Buddhism the system of castes has
not been softened by the Brahmans, but demonstrably strengthened.
Moreover, the description of the legal and social conditions given in
the sutras cannot be suspected to be mere inventions. The book of the
law knows three Vedas only (cf. Manu, 4, 124); the sutras always quote
four. In Manu the sentence of the Atharvan is mentioned once only (11,
33); hence the Atharva-veda seems to be later than Manu's law. In the
Buddhist sutras the worship of Çiva is mentioned very frequently as in
common use (Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 131); but the book of the law knows
neither the name nor the god. From the accounts of the Greeks it is
further clear that the worship of Vishnu was widely spread towards the
end of the fourth century. This name the book contains only once, in the
concluding part (12, 107-126), which has very little connection with the
body of the book; and even here the word is used in the same sense as in
the Rigveda (12, 121). While Ceylon was occupied by the Aryas about the
year 500 B.C. and the southern Mathura was founded even earlier, the
knowledge of places in Manu's law does not really go beyond the Vindhyas
towards the south: the Odras and Dravidas are merely mentioned in a
general enumeration of nations (10, 44), and the Andhras as an impure
caste (10, 36, 49). The kingdoms of Mathura and Kerala would certainly
have been mentioned if they had been in existence. The book of the law
mentions the Nyaya (logic), the system of Mimansa, though only in the
suspected conclusion (12, 109, 111), but not the Buddhists. It is true
expressions occur, like liars (Nastika, 2, 11), revilers of the Veda
(Vedanindaka), but we know that before Buddha the Sankhya doctrine
denied both the gods and the Veda. I can, therefore, concede to
Johaentgen (who places the book between 500 and 350 B.C.) that germs and
analogies from the Sankhya doctrine occur in it, especially in the
doctrine given in the introduction of the elements and properties (1,
74-78); this requires no alteration in the date. It ought to be observed
that in the book of the law the kings and heroes of the Epos are not
mentioned at all, but names of kings are found which occur in the Vedas:
Vena, Nahusha, Pijavana, Sumukha, Nimi, Prithu (Manu, 7, 41, 42; 9, 44,
66); hence we may conclude that the book was brought to a close before
the revision of the Epos from a priestly point of view was accomplished,
or at any rate became a common possession of all. M. Müller's position,
that the _anushtubh çlòka_ was first used in the last centuries B.C.,
would affect only the form of the book, not the rules themselves; and
Goldstücker is of opinion that this metre is of a far older date.
However this may be, the metrical redaction of the Manava-dharma-çastra
is not its original form: it is based upon a non-metrical Dharma-sutram.
That the oldest Grihya-sutras and Çrauta-sutras are older than the first
Dharma-sutra is allowed; but this does not prove the modern origin of
the latter. A complete civilisation like that exhibited to us in the
philosophy and grammar of the Indians before Buddha, by the sutras of
the Buddhists and the accounts of the Greek, was certainly not without a
systematic canon to answer the questions in life for the Brahmans. They
required the power of the state, and could not leave it without a guide.
It would be inconceivable how the condition of India, which Buddha
finds, could have grown up without such a guide for princes and judges.
Müller himself maintains that the distinction of Çruti and Smriti
existed before Buddha; that it was the Çruti already containing Mantras
and Brahmanas, which gave the impulse to his reforms. "Hist. of Sansk.
Lit." p. 78 ff,; p. 86, 107, 135. If Çaunaka wrote, as Müller concludes,
about the year 400 _b.c._, his sutras for the elucidation of the
understanding of the Brahmanas, and Açvalayana wrote the sutras of
ritual about the year 350, and Panini his grammar, far more important
Dharma-sutras must have been written for the Brahmans before this time,
and thus the grounds given above and taken for the contents of the book
are in my judgment supported. From these contents, and these essential
precepts, two or three prohibitions might be made to count for a later
origin (Manu, 4, 102, 114; 8, 363), precepts aimed at Buddhism, but
which may also have had other heterodoxy in view. There is also the
mention of the name of Yavana. The Yavanas are mentioned among the
nations who have sunk owing to omission of the sacred customs, along
with the Odras, Dravidas, Kambojas, Duradas, Çakas and Pahlavas (10,
44). Supposing that this list came from an older time, the Yavanas Çakas
and Pahlavas may easily have been interpolated at a later period for the
sake of completeness. In any case it is clear that the laws of Manu are
the oldest book of law in India in their contents and theory of law, and
that the material in it is in part older than the material in the
Dharma-sutras which have come down to us; Jolly, _loc. cit._ It is only
in regard to the law of debt that Jolly seems to find older regulations
in the book of Gautama than in that of Manu. "Abh. M. A." 1877, s. 322.
[230] Manu, 1, 35.
[231] Manu, 1, 1-78, 119; 12, 126. The four periods of the world are
mentioned in Kaushitaki-Brahmana, in M. Müller, "Hist. of Sansk. Lit."
p. 412.
[232] Manu, 7, 4-11.
[233] Manu, 5, 96.
[234] Manu, 9, 304-309.
[235] Manu, 7, 8.
[236] Manu, 9, 301, 302.
[237] _e.g._ Manu, 7, 2.
[238] Manu, 7, 82-86.
[239] Manu, 7, 26, 27, 31; 8, 175; 9, 251.
[240] Manu, 8, 1-3, 23-26; 61-70.
[241] Manu, 8, 88.
[242] Manu, 8, 75, 82, 89-99.
[243] Manu, 8, 113.
[244] Manu, 8, 110, 114-116. A. Weber, "Ind. Stud." 9, 44, 45.
[245] In Yajnavalka, 2, 95, we find: "The balance, fire, water, poison,
and lustral water are the judgment of the gods for purification; these
are applied in great charges, if the accuser is prepared for a fine."
The later law knows nine divine judgments; it adds the corns of rice,
the hot piece of gold, the ploughshare, and the lot. Brahmans, women,
children, old men, sick persons, and the weak are to be tested by the
balance; the Kshatriya by the fire, the Vaiçya by water, the Çudra by
poison. In the test of the balance (Yama weighed the souls on scales,
_supr._ p. 137), the point was that the person to be tested should be
found lighter on the second weighing than on the first; in the test of
fire, a piece of red-hot iron, covered with leaves, must be carried
seven paces forward; each burn was a mark of guilt. The red-hot
ploughshare must be licked by the accused person; if his tongue was not
burnt he was acquitted; a piece of gold must be picked out of boiling
oil and the hand must show no marks. The taking of a particular poison
which ought to have no evil effects on the accused, and the drinking of
lustral water poured over the images of the gods, which was not to be
followed by any evil effects, and the piece of gold in the boiling oil
are later additions. According to an Upanishad to the Samaveda, guilt or
innocence is proved by the grasping a red-hot axe; a burn is a proof of
guilt. Stenzler, in "Z. D. M. G." 9, 662 ff. A. Weber, "Vorles." s.
79^2.
[246] Manu, 8, 11, 21.
[247] Manu, 9, 276. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 413.
[248] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 408. Yet Aryas are found also, Burnouf,
_loc. cit._ p. 365.
[249] Manu, 9, 237, 239-242.
[250] Manu, 9, 275.
[251] Manu, 9, 232.
[252] Manu, 9, 279.
[253] Manu, 8, 344-347.
[254] Manu, 9, 261-268, 278.
[255] Manu, 9, 276.
[256] Manu, 9, 277.
[257] Manu, 8, 341, 342.
[258] Manu, 7, 130.
[259] Manu, 8, 398; 7, 131.
[260] Manu, 7, 118, 138.
[261] Manu, 7, 62.
[262] Manu, 7, 129.
[263] Manu, 7, 133.
[264] Bohlen, "Indien," 2, 46.
[265] Megasthenes, in Strabo, p. 708 and below.
[266] Manu, 7, 54.
[267] Manu, 7, 58, 59.
[268] Ramayana, ed. Schlegel, 1, 7.
[269] Manu, 7, 114.
[270] Manu, 7, 116-118.
[271] Manu, 7, 123.
[272] Manu, 7, 118-120.
[273] Manu, 7, 124.
[274] Manu, 6, 69-75.
[275] Manu, 7, 126. The Indians learned to coin money from the Greeks
after the year 300 B.C.; till that time their coinage consisted of
weighed pieces of copper, silver, and gold, with the mark of the weight
as a stamp. The _pana_ is a copper weight of this kind; to this day the
name denotes copper money in India. The _drona_ is a weight of about 30
pounds. Cf. Lassen, 2, 574.
[276] Manu, 7, 37.
[277] Manu, 7, 218.
[278] Manu, 7, 222.
[279] Manu, 7, 224-226.
[280] Manu, 7, 101-103.
[281] Manu, 7, 154-158.
[282] Manu, 7, 63-68.
[283] Manu, 7, 107, 158-163, 198.
[284] Manu, 7, 205, 210.
[285] Manu, 7, 90-93.
[286] Ramayana, 2, 52.
[287] Ramayana, 2, 1-17.
[288] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 166, 416, 417. The ritual for the
consecration of kings, according to the Aitareya-Brahmana, is given in
Colebrooke, "Asiatic Researches," 8, 408 ff. Cf. Schlegel, "Ind.
Bibliothek," 1, 431, and Lassen, "Alterth." 2, 246, 427.
[289] Grimm, "Rechtsalterthümer," s. 156 ff.
[290] Manu, 3, 150 ff.
[291] Manu, 8, 229-260.
[292] Mill, "History of British India," 2, 66. Montgom. Martin,
"Political Constitution of the Anglo-Eastern Empire," p. 271.
[293] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 242, 245, 247.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY.
The book of the law was the canon of pure conduct, and the holy order of
the state and society, which the Brahmans held up before the princes and
nations on the Ganges. They made no attempt to get the throne into their
own hands; they had no thought of giving an effective political
organisation to their caste; they did not seek to set up a hierarchy
which should take its place by the side of the state, or rise superior
to it, and thus secure such obedience for their demands among clergy and
laity as would ensure the carrying out of the commands of the book. For
this the Brahmans had not sufficient practical or political capacity;
they were too deeply plunged in their hair-splitting and fanciful
speculations, in their ceremonial and their penances. They were content
with demanding the place of assessor or president at the funeral feasts
in the families of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the influence of which
position went far beyond their expectations; with recommending members
of their order as ministers, judges, and magistrates to the king; with
requiring that he should protect the Brahmans as his sons, provide for
their support, be greatly liberal to them, abstain from imposing taxes
on learned Brahmans, and maintain their advantages and rights against
the other classes. If a Brahman had no heirs, the king must not take his
property, but present it to the members of the order, and give to a
Brahman any treasure which he may happen to find. In the epic poetry an
exaggerated attempt is made to bring this liberality plainly before the
mind: the Brahmans acquire hundreds of thousands of cows, treasures
without end, and the whole earth.[294] But all these commands are only
wishes; as a fact the Brahmans had no other status as against the kings
than the respect which their educational knowledge of the doctrine,
their acquaintance with the forms and ritual of sacrifice, gave them:
they had only the moral influence which their dogma and their
exhortations could exercise on the heart of the king, the power of the
faith which they could excite in their disciples. Their power, as we
have seen, they knew how to support by their views on the merit acquired
by the king in this and the next world by reason of his good works
towards the Brahmans, by the fear of the punishments in hell and the
regenerations, with which the book of the law so liberally threatens all
who despise Brahmans. But they had no external means for enforcing
obedience to their law, respect for their purifications, expiations, and
penances, in case it was not rendered willingly. They did not extend
their power beyond the limits of the conscience of the king and the
people. They were as absolutely the subjects of the king as the other
orders; no political limitations, no institutions, checked the authority
of the king in its operations on the Brahmans; and the knowledge of the
Veda and the law was accessible to him. The princes held up in the Epos
as patterns are praised for their knowledge of the holy Scriptures and
the law. The kings, not the Brahmans, offer the great sacrifices; but
they cannot offer them without the Brahmans, the Purohita (p. 202), and
other priests. This position of the Brahmans at the side of the king,
and that which they subsequently obtained by the side of the people in
the clans, enabled them by moral means, by conviction and faith, to
shape the life and politics of the Indians according to their system,
and establish a lasting dominion over them.
If the Brahmans had no rights upward, they had at any rate forced the
Kshatriyas out of the first place; and they did not intend that the
aristocratic position which they had obtained over the other orders,
their privileges and advantages in regard to those beneath them, should
rest on moral authority merely. The book of the law is never weary of
impressing in every direction the pre-eminence of the Brahmans, the
subjection of the other orders. But as the wisdom of the Brahmans was
throughout unacquainted with the foundations and supports used by
aristocracies elsewhere to acquire and maintain their position--as they
were unable to create institutions of this kind--only one real and
effective means remained for legalising and securing their importance,
position, and privileges--and this was the exercise of penal
jurisdiction. In the division of penances and punishments, according to
the various orders, they attempted to bring the pre-eminence of their
own order into a position recognised and established by law. This fact
no doubt helped in causing the Brahmans to estimate the power of
punishment so highly. "Punishment alone," says the book, "guarantees the
fulfilment of duties according to the four castes; without punishment a
man out of the lower caste could take the place of the highest." But
here again there was a difficulty; it was not the Brahmans but the
kings who in the first instance had to dispense justice; the application
of the law depended on the princes.
Though, in general, it is a supreme principle of law that it shall be
administered without respect of persons, that the same punishment for
the same offence shall overtake every offender, be his rank and position
what it may, the system of caste leads to an arrangement diametrically
opposite. Throughout, the book of the law measures out punishment
unequally, according to the rank of the castes, so that in an equal
offence the highest order has as a rule to undergo the least punishment.
This apportionment of punishment according to the castes is most
striking in the case of injuries and outrages inflicted by members of
the lower orders on the members of the higher. The Brahmans, and in a
less degree the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, are protected by threats of
barbarous punishments. The Çudra who has been guilty of injuring a Dvija
by dangerous language, is to have his tongue clipped; if he has spoken
disrespectfully of him, a hot iron is to be thrust into his mouth, and
boiling oil poured into his mouth and ears. If a Çudra ventures to sit
on a seat with a "twice-born," he is to be branded; if he lays hold of a
Brahman, both hands are to be amputated; if he spits at a Brahman, his
lips are cut off, etc. In actual injuries done to members of the higher
castes by the lower, the members of the latter are doomed in each case
to lose the offending member: he who has lifted up his hand, or a stick,
loses his hand; he who has lifted up his foot, loses the foot. For
slighter offences of language against a Brahman the Çudra is whipped,
the Vaiçya is fined 200 panas, the Kshatriya, 100. If, on the contrary,
a Brahman injures one of the lower castes he pays 50 panas to the
Kshatriya, 25 to the Vaiçya, and 12 to the Çudra. If members of the same
caste injure each other in word, small fines of 12 or at most 24 panas
are sufficient. More unfair still are other privileges secured by the
law to the Brahmans,--that in suits for debt they are never to be given
up as slaves to the creditors; that no crime or transgression on the
part of a Brahman is to be punished by confiscation of his property, or
by corporal punishment. He is never, even for the worst crime, to be
condemned to death; at the utmost he can only be banished.[295] On the
other hand, as has been remarked in the case of theft, the fine
increases according to the caste of the offender, so that here we have a
gradation in the opposite direction: the Brahman is fined eight-fold the
sum paid by the Çudra in a similar case; and in loans the Brahman is
allowed to receive only the lowest rate of interest--two per cent. In
courts of law the Brahman was addressed differently, and asked to give
his evidence differently, from the other orders; his oath is given in
different terms. With Brahmans, who naturally come to maturity sooner
than the other orders, the consecration by investiture takes place in
the eighth year, with the Kshatriyas in the eleventh, with the Vaiçyas
not till the twelfth. The holy girdle, the common symbol of the Dvija as
opposed to the Çudra, must consist with the Brahmans of three threads of
cotton, with the Kshatriyas of three threads of hemp, with the Vaiçyas
of three threads of sheep's wool. The Brahman wears a belt of
sugar-cane, and carries a bamboo staff; the Kshatriya has a belt of
bow-strings, and a staff of banana-wood; the Vaiçya a girdle of hemp,
and a staff of fig-wood. The staff of the Brahman reaches to his hair,
that of the Kshatriya to the brow, that of the Vaiçya to the tip of his
nose. This staff must be covered with the bark, must be straight,
pleasing to the eye, and have nothing terrifying about it. The Brahman
wears a shirt of fine hemp, and as a mantle the skin of the gazelle; the
Kshatriya a shirt of linen, and the skin of a deer as a cloak; the
Vaiçya a woollen shirt, and a goat-skin. Any one who is inclined to do a
civility, must, says the book, ask the Brahman whether he is advancing
in sanctity, the Kshatriya whether he suffers in his wounds, the Vaiçya
whether his property is thriving, the Çudra whether he is in
health.[296]
We cannot exactly ascertain what position the old nobility, the
Kshatriyas, took up after the establishment of the new system. The
increased power of the kings, the elevation of the priesthood, the
change in the whole view of life, diminished their importance to a
considerable degree. If in some small tribes the warlike nobility on the
Ganges maintained its old position so far as to prevent the
establishment of the monarchy, or removed it altogether, this was an
exception.[297] In the Panjab, which did not completely follow the
development achieved in the regions on the Ganges, it was more generally
the case that the nobility overpowered the monarchy, and drove out the
old princes. This took place, no doubt, when the latter showed a desire
to take up a despotic position. In the fourth century we find among "the
free Indians," as the Greeks call them, numerous noble families in a
prominent position. The book of the law allows that the Brahmans cannot
exist without the Kshatriyas, but neither could the Kshatriyas without
the Brahmans; salvation is only to be obtained by a union of the two
orders: by this were Brahmans and Kshatriyas exalted in this world and
the next.[298] We have already remarked, that within their own caste the
old families of the Kshatriyas occupy a prominent place.
According to the book, the members of all the castes, like every created
being, fulfil duties imposed upon them, _i.e._ carry on the occupations
allotted to them. The life of the Brahmans is to be devoted to the Holy
Scriptures, the sacred services, the teaching of the Veda and the law
(the latter could be taught by none but Brahmans), and, finally, to
contemplation and penance in the forest. But how was it possible to keep
the whole order of the Brahmans to the study of the Veda, to sacrifice
and worship, when it was also necessary for them to find support? How
could the whole order disregard the care of their maintenance,
especially when it was a duty to bring up a numerous family, or give up
every desire to amass property? True it is, that liberality to the
Brahmans was impressed on the kings and the other castes as a supreme
duty; the pupils of the Brahmans were bidden to support their teachers
by gifts; and the law permitted the Brahmans to live by gifts, to beg,
to gather corn or ears of rice. From the Buddhist sutras we know that
the kings followed the commands of the law, and that a multitude of
Brahmans lived at the royal courts. We also know from the Greeks that
every house was open to the wandering Brahman, and in the market they
were overburdened with presents of the necessaries of life. Greek and
Indian accounts inform us that troops of Brahmans wandered through the
land--a mode of life which in India is not the most unpleasant; and it
is certain that a considerable number lived as anchorites in the
forests. But these habits required that a man should give up all
thoughts of wife and child, house and home; and this all could not
undertake to do. On what, then, were the Brahman householders to live,
who possessed nothing, and were without land sufficient for their
support? There were only two means for keeping the whole order to the
study of the Veda and the performance of sacrifice; either they must be
provided with sufficient land, or they must be maintained at the cost of
the state. Among the Egyptians the priesthood lived on the land of the
temples; among the Phenicians and Hebrews, on the tithes of the harvest,
paid to the temples; in the middle ages our hierarchy lived on its own
land and people, on tithes and other taxes: but all these were political
institutions, and the Brahman lawgivers had neither the capacity to
discover them, nor had their states the power to establish and maintain
them. Still less could refuge be taken in a law forbidding to marry; all
Brahmans could not be allowed to live from youth up as anchorites in the
forest, if the Brahmans were to continue to exist as a caste by birth,
and it was on superiority of blood that their whole position rested.
Practical life bid complete defiance to doctrine. The law must be
content to moderate in part, and in part to give up entirely the ideal
demands, the principles and results of system in favour of the necessity
for maintenance. It must allow that the Brahman householders, who
possessed no property, might lead the life of the Kshatriya. This
permission has been and is still used; at this time a great part of the
native Anglo-Indian army consists of born Brahmans. If a Brahman could
not earn a livelihood by service in war, he might lead the life of a
Vaiçya, and attempt to maintain himself by tilling the land and keeping
flocks. But if possible the Brahman must avoid tilling the field
himself; "the work of the field depends on the help of cattle; the
ploughshare cleaves the soil and kills the living creatures contained in
it." If the Brahman cannot live as a farmer, or a herdman, he may live
even by the "truth and falsehood of trade." But in regard to certain
articles of trade, the book is inexorable, and though it cannot threaten
trade in these with punishments from the state, it holds up the
melancholy consequences of such an occupation as a terror. Trade in
intoxicating drinks, juices of plants, perfumes, butter, honey, linen
and woollen cloths, turns the Brahman in seven nights into a Vaiçya:
trade in milk makes him a Çudra in three days. The Brahman who sells
sesame-seeds will be born again as a worm in the excrement of dogs; and
the punishment will even come upon his ancestors. The Brahman merchant,
like the Vaiçya, must never lend money on interest--in other places, as
has been mentioned, the law allows a low rate of interest (p. 240)--no
Brahman must attempt to gain a living by seductive arts, singing and
music, and he must never live by "the work of the slave--the life of the
dog."[299] The same exceptions are allowed by the law for the Kshatriya
as for the Brahman, if he possesses no property and cannot acquire
anything by the profession of arms. The Vaiçya, who cannot live by
agriculture, or trade, or handicraft, is allowed to live the life of a
Çudra. Hence there are the Brahmans of the Holy Scriptures and Brahmans
by birth,[300] and also Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas who belong to these
orders by birth only, not by occupation. Thus new distinctions arose
which must soon have become fixed and current.
If the law is compelled to make these large concessions, so
contradictory to the system, it seeks in the opposite direction to
maintain the distinctions of the castes as strongly as possible; the
higher castes may descend to the lower, but no lower caste can ever
engage in the occupation of the higher. Such interference is punished
with confiscation of property and banishment. Still, even here, the law
allows an exception, and that in favour of the lowest caste, the Çudras,
whom the law rigidly keeps in the servitude imposed upon them by force
of arms. The Çudra is meant for a servant; he who is not born a slave is
to serve voluntarily for hire; he must first seek service with a
Brahman, then with Kshatriyas, then with Vaiçyas. Blind submission to
the command of his master is the duty of the Çudra. Yet if he cannot
find service anywhere, he may support himself by handicraft; but the law
adds, "it is not good for a Çudra to acquire wealth, for he will use it
in order to raise himself to an equality with the other orders." The
impure castes among the Çudras are not, for this very reason, to be
employed among the Dvijas for labour in the house and field.
In the law the four castes are races divided from each other by
creation. As in all distinctions of orders, so in India, the separation
first applied to the men. The final point was not reached, the rigidity
of the order was not complete, the caste did not exist, till the women
also were included in the division, till the marriages between the
orders ceased and were forbidden, till the free circulation of blood
among the people was thus checked, and the classes stood towards each
other as distinct races and tribes of alien blood. In the book of Manu
we find two views on the connubium of the orders existing side by side,
one more strict than the other. From the nature of the case, and the
position which it occupies in the book of the law, the milder view is
the older, the more strict the later. According to the older view caste
is determined by descent from the father; a man belonging to the three
upper castes, _i.e._ a Dvija, may take a wife from the Brahmans,
Kshatriyas, or Vaiçyas, as he pleases; Çudra women only are excluded. In
this sense the law lays down that Çudra wives are not suitable for men
of the three upper classes, and wives of the three upper castes are not
suitable for Çudra husbands. In order to transform this, the current
custom, into a more severe practice, the law does not indeed forbid
marriage with women from any other of the three higher castes, but it
recommends that a maid of a man's own caste should be taken as his first
wife; and after this he may proceed according to the rank of the castes.
This recommendation met with more favour, it would seem, because a Çudra
woman could be taken as a second wife. It is obvious that only a wife of
equal birth could perform the sacrifices of the house with the
lord.[301] A Çudra woman could not be the first, _i.e._ the legitimate
wife; the Brahman who married a woman of that caste would be expelled
from his own.[302] The essential rule, by which the later and stricter
view seeks to remove the connubium existing among the three castes of
the Dvijas is this: in all orders, without exception, the children born
of women of that order remain participators in the order of the father.
When this rule was carried out, the castes were finally closed. The law
supported it by the doctrine that the children of mixed marriages,
according as the father or mother belonged to this or that order, formed
new divisions of the people. These divisions are impure because arising
out of a sinful union, and they perpetuate the stain of their
origin.[303] The law mentions by name a whole series of impure castes of
this kind, which must have been already in existence; it shows from what
combinations they have arisen, and sets them up as a warning example
against mixed marriages.
These impure castes, which are said to have arisen from the mutual
connubium of the orders, were really, in part, tribes of the ancient
population, who did not submit, like the majority of the Çudras, to the
Aryas, and accept their law and mode of life, but either amalgamated
with them and lived on in poverty after the manner of their fathers, or
preserved a certain independence in inaccessible regions; in part they
were Aryan tribes, which did not follow the development on the Ganges,
and never adapted their mode of life to the Brahmanic system. These
tribes are commanded by the law to carry on occupations which did not
become the Dvijas,[304] for some it prescribes that they must only make
nets and catch fish; for others, that they must occupy themselves with
hunting;[305] from which it is clear that these were the original
occupations of such branches of the population. From the marriage of a
Brahman with a Vaiçya wife spring, according to the law, the
Ambashthas,[306] who in the Epos are spoken of as nations fighting in
the ancient manner with clubs.[307] From the marriage of a Brahman with
a Çudra woman spring the Nishadas, whose vocation, according to the law,
it is to catch fish.[308] From the marriage of a Kshatriya with Çudra
wives come the Ugras, who are to catch and kill animals living in
holes;[309] from the marriage of a Brahman with an Ambashtha, the
Abhiras, whom we have already mentioned as cowherds at the mouths of the
Indus;[310] from the marriage of a Çudra with a Brahman woman comes the
Chandala, "the most contemptible mortal." The Chandalas are a numerous
non-Aryan tribe on the Ganges. The book lays down the rule that they are
not to live in villages or cities, or to have any settled habitation at
all. A Brahman is polluted by meeting them; they are distinguished by
marks fixed for them by the king; and must not come into the towns
except in the daytime, in order that they may be avoided. They cannot
possess any but the most contemptible animals, dogs and asses, nor any
harness that is not broken; they can only marry with each other. No one
can have any dealings with them. If a Dvija wishes to give food to a
Chandala beggar, he may not do it with his own hand, but must send it by
a servant on a potsherd. Executions--which in the minds of the Aryans
and the Brahmans were impure actions--were to be carried out by
Chandalas, and the clothes of the persons executed are to be given to
them; these and the clothes of the dead are the only garments which they
may wear.[311]
We can easily see that the rank, allotted by the law to the so-called
mixed castes, is taken from the degree of impurity assigned by the
Brahmans to the mode of life followed by them. By excluding them from
the other orders they compelled them to pursue these occupations for
ever, and so kept them in their despised condition. As they were all
branded with the stain of sinful intercourse between the castes, men
shrank from marriages outside their own caste, and if such connections
did take place, the children were thrust into the ranks of these
despised orders, they were compelled to adopt their modes of life and
occupations, and transmit them to their descendants. According to the
theory lying at the base of these regulations on the mixed castes, the
mixture is comparatively less impure in which men of higher castes are
connected with women of lower, and that mixture is the worst and most
impure in which women of the highest castes are united with men of the
lowest. The children of a Brahman by a wife of the Kshatriya caste stand
on the highest level, those of a Çudra by a Brahman on the lowest.[312]
The mixed castes, in their disposition and character, correspond to the
better or worse combination, just as in their duties the vocation of the
paternal caste is to be preserved in a descending line, and lower
degree, _e.g._ the Ugra--the son of a Kshatriya by a Çudra--is to live
by hunting, which is the vocation of a Kshatriya, but he is only to hunt
animals which live in holes, etc. The mixture of the impure castes with
the pure and other impure castes produces in turn new classes of men
with special duties and special dispositions, such as the Abhiras. The
system of mixed and consequently impure origin could not be very well
applied to nations which, though notoriously of Arian origin, or forming
independent states, led a life unsuited to the Brahmanic law; these the
law allows to be of a pure stock, but considers that they are corrupted
by neglect of their sacred duties. Among the degraded families of the
Kshatriyas the law-book reckons the Cambojas, the Daradas, and the
Khaças.[313] The Cambojas were settled in the west, the Daradas to the
north of Cashmere; the Khaças must be sought to the east of Cashmere in
the Himalayas.[314]
With these views and fictions, with the actual and legal consequences
assigned to them, the system of castes was consistently developed and
extended over the whole population. All modes of life, classes, and
occupations were brought into its sphere; the remnant of the natives,
the refractory tribes of the Aryas, received their position in the
Brahman state; and the Çudras were followed by a long list of orders in
a yet more degraded position.
From the contradictory views of the book on the connubium of the orders
it follows clearly that the castes were not completely closed at the
time when the book was finished; but they were closed, and, it would
seem, not long after. When the advantage of blood has been once brought
into such striking significance it must go on making further divisions;
new circles, distinguished by descent or vocation, must be marked off
from others as superior, and form an order; similar vocations, when the
occupation has once been connected with the caste, and the vocation with
descent, combine within the castes into new hereditary corporations.
This tendency to make new separations is supported by the law when it
arranges those tribes as new castes beside the four orders, and allots
to them on a certain system the descendants of mixed marriages, thus
creating a number of new castes by origin and descent. This was further
increased by a division of vocations within the chief orders. The
Brahmans, who also clung to the Veda and the worship, naturally regarded
themselves as in a better and higher position than those who descended
to the occupations of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, and kept themselves
apart. The opposition between the schools which inevitably grew up among
the priestly Brahmans in course of time, gradually caused the adherents
of one school to close their ranks against the adherents of another.
The Kshatriyas, who remained warriors, stood apart from those who became
husbandmen; among the Vaiçyas, the merchants, the handicraftsmen, and
the husbandmen formed separate classes. Hence the different professions
and schools of the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas: the merchants, smiths,
carpenters, weavers, potters, etc. separated themselves each from the
other as hereditary societies, and as they only married within the
society, they became in turn subordinate castes, in reference to each
other. And as in spite of all commands marriages took place outside the
castes, those who were rejected in consequence of such marriages, and
the children of them, could only rank with others in a similar position,
and must form a new caste. If the marriage took place outside the main
caste the descendants of the person thus excluded from his old caste
must join the impure castes, which were, or were supposed to be, of
similar origin. The hereditary professional societies within the four
castes remained members of them in so far as they carried on occupations
approved by the book of the law; but such members as pursued forbidden
and impure trades and transmitted them to their descendants, stood
outside and far below the main castes, like the castes arising out of
mixtures, partly real and partly fictitious. At present the Brahmans are
divided into twenty-five different societies, which do not intermarry,
and in part refuse to eat with each other; the Kshatriyas are divided
into thirty-six societies similarly closed; the pure and impure Vaiçyas,
the better and worse Çudras, are divided into some hundred groups.[315]
On a rough calculation it is assumed that now only about a tenth of the
Brahmanic population of India carries on the occupation assigned in the
law to the four great orders; the great majority in these castes has
descended to the permitted vocations, and the greater part of the whole
population belongs to the classes below the four chief orders.
We have already stated how closely the clans held together. The weight
given by the caste system to pure blood did not suppress even among the
Brahmans the pride in ancient and distinguished family descent. In the
fourth century B.C. the Brahmans who continued to be occupied with the
Veda and the sacred worship fell into forty-nine clans, which claimed to
be derived from the saints of old time: Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvaja,
Viçvamitra, Vasishtha, Kaçyapa, Atri, and Agastya. They were arranged in
eight large tribes (_gotra_) named after these progenitors. At the
consecration of the sacrificial fire the members of these clans invoked
the series of their ancestors.[316] We may assume the same pride in
descent among the Kshatriyas. We shall see how definitely the book of
the law and the forms of ritual require that the ancestors should be
mentioned up to the great-great-grandfather in the suit for any maiden,
and at this day the wealthy families in all the castes are desirous to
conclude alliances with houses of ancient origin for their children.
According to the law every man ought to marry; he must have a son who
may one day pour for him the libations for the dead. Without sacrifice
for the dead performed by a son, the soul of the father can never be
liberated from a certain place in hell--from _Put_. The law
distinguishes various kinds of marriage, and promises greater or less
blessings to the descendants according as the marriage celebrated is of
a more or less holy kind. The son born of the better kinds of marriage
can purify a larger number of the members of the family upwards and
downwards, _i.e._ of those already dead and those still to be born. If a
father gives his daughter, bathed and adorned, to a husband learned in
writing whom he has honourably invited and received into his house, the
marriage is a Brahman-marriage. The son born of such a wife purifies ten
members upwards and downwards both on the father's and the mother's
side. When the father gives his daughter to the priest at the sacrifice
it is a divine marriage; the son purifies seven members upwards and
downwards on either side. If the father gives the daughter to the
bridegroom with the words: "Fulfil ye all duties which devolve on you;"
it is a _prajapati_ marriage, and the son purifies six members upwards
and downwards. If the bridegroom has given a pair of cattle (a bull and
cow) for religious objects, the marriage of the Rishis is celebrated;
the son purifies three members upwards and downwards. These are the good
forms of marriage, the four which follow are bad. Marriage from mutual
inclination on either side is the marriage of the heavenly musicians,
the Gandharvas. If the father has sold his daughter or taken gifts for
her, it is the marriage of the Asuras, or evil spirits. Still worse is
the marriage by abduction--the marriage of the Rakshasas; and the worst
form of all is when the bride is previously intoxicated by drugs. This
is the marriage of the blood-suckers (Piçacha). These kinds of marriages
have no expiatory power for the ancestors or descendants; none but
cruel, lying, and Veda-despising sons can spring from them.[317] To
these rules on the form of marriage the law adds that the younger
sister is not to be married before the elder--nor can the younger
brother marry before the elder--and advises that a wife be not taken
from families too nearly related, such as those belonging to the same
tribe (_gotra_); or from those which neglect the sacred rites, or those
in which diseases prevail. A girl of eight years old is suitable for a
husband of twenty-four; a girl of twelve for a husband of thirty. The
later collections of laws repeat the rule that marriages are not to be
celebrated with families which invoke the same ancestors.[318]
The views lying at the base of these regulations of the law about the
various forms of marriage were transparent. Here, as everywhere, the
Brahmans are, above all, to be favoured. The learned Brahman is to
receive the girl from her father "adorned," _i.e._, no doubt, well
equipped. The Brahman, who officiates at the sacrifice, receives her as
a gift; in this way the father and the daughter have the happy prospect
of obtaining a blessing for ten or seven members of the family upwards
and downwards. But other forms of marriage--by purchase, inclination,
abduction--the law wishes to prevent, from which we may conclude that
these forms of marriage were in existence, a fact sufficiently
established by other evidence. The time, it is true, was long gone by
when the Aryan brothers had only one wife; in the Epos only do we find
traces of this custom. Draupadi is the wife of the five sons of Pandu;
and in the Ramayana the brothers Rama and Lakshmana are attacked with
the reproach--fictitious, it is true--that they have only one wife
between them. The abduction of maidens and wives is more frequent in the
Epos. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma carries off the three daughters of
the king of the Kaçis and marries the two younger to his step-brother
Vijatravirya; Jayadaratha, the prince of the Indus, lifts Draupadi into
his chariot and drives away with her, though her guardian cries out to
him, that according to the custom of the Kshatriyas he cannot carry her
off till he has conquered her husband in battle. It is skill in arms and
strength which gains their wives for the heroes of the Epos. Arjuna wins
Draupadi because he can bend the bow of her father, the king of the
Panchalas (p. 87). Rama wins Sita by mastering the bow of Çiva. We also
see in the Epos that princes allow their daughters the free choice of a
husband, and the suitors appear on a definite day. Thus Kunti chooses
Pandu for her husband; Damayanti, in her father's hall, places the
garland of flowers on Nala's neck, and declares that he is her husband.
The Greeks tell us that among the Cathæans, a tribe of the Panjab, young
men and maidens chose each other for marriage. The purchase of brides is
also mentioned in the Epos. Bhishma purchases the daughter of the prince
of the Madras for Pandu with gold and precious stones. In ancient times,
we can hardly doubt, purchase of the bride was the rule, except in the
case of princes, and those who carried off their wives or gained them in
battle.[319] The children, according to the conceptions peculiar to
primitive conditions, belong to the father; he must be recompensed for
the loss, and receive some return for the services which his daughter
can no longer render him. If the law declares that form of marriage to
be permissible in which a pair of cattle (a bull and a cow) are
given--it is true with the addition, "for religious objects"--we may
conclude that this was the customary price, and the law attempts to
embody the custom into its system by the additional proviso, that the
price is to be given "for religious objects." But the turn thus given in
the law to the purchase of the bride was slow in being carried out, and
was never carried out thoroughly. The Greeks at one time maintain that
among the Indians the bridegroom gave the father a yoke of oxen; at
another, that in contracting a marriage nothing was given or taken.[320]
The custom of giving a pair of oxen for the bride follows from the rites
of marriage still in existence,[321] and even now it is found in some
regions of India. Marriage from inclination is also not regarded with
favour in the law; such marriages might easily endanger the order of the
castes, and introduce mixed connections. Still as the law allows the
purchase of the bride under a very slight cover, so it allows the girl
the free choice of a husband in exceptional cases. It is a father's duty
to have his daughter married, for in the order of things she is intended
to be a mother. If in three years after the daughter is of age for
marriage the father makes no provision for giving her to a proper
husband, she may choose a husband for herself out of the men of her
caste; neither she nor the husband thus chosen are guilty in this
matter. But the ornaments which she has received from her father,
mother, and brothers she may not, in this case, carry into her new home;
in doing so she would commit a theft. On the other hand, the husband
whom she chooses has not to make any presents; the father has lost his
right over his daughter by keeping her back beyond the time at which she
could be a mother.[322]
It was precisely in this sphere that the old customs and poetry, the
worship of the old gods, the old delight in life, were retained under
the law and the Brahmanic system, or even in spite of it. Not the least
proof of this is found in the prayers, formulas, and blessings in use at
marriages. These occur for the most part in the Atharvaveda. The
Grihya-sutras of Açvalayana from the middle of the fourth century B.C.
give the ritual which must be observed on these occasions.[323] The
playmates of a girl, who desire a husband for her, must, according to
the Atharvaveda, speak thus: "O Agni, may the suitor come to this maid
to our delight; may happiness come to her quickly by a husband; may
Savitar bring to you the man who answers to your wishes! There comes the
bridegroom, with hair-knot loosed in front. She was weary, O bridegroom,
of going to the marriage of other maidens."[324] According to the sutras
the man who desired a woman in marriage sent two of his friends to her
father to ask for her. Then the family assembles and sits down opposite
the two envoys, with their faces to the east. The envoys extol the
family of the suitor, enumerate his forefathers, and ask for the bride.
If the request is granted, "a bowl filled with fruits and gold is placed
on the head of the bride, and the envoys say: 'We honour Aryaman, the
kind friend, who brings the husband. I set thee (the bride) free from
this place (the house of her father) as the gourd from the stem, not
from thence.'" Then the bride is prepared for the arrival of the
bridegroom by consecration and the bath. Marriage ought to take place
in the autumn or the winter, but never when the moon is waning. At the
bathing of the bride, the water is drawn with blessings; after it she is
clad in the bridal garments with the following words: "May the
goddesses, who spun and wove it, stretched it and folded the ends round
about, clothe thee even to old age. Put on this garment, and long be thy
years. Whatever charm there is in dice or wine, whatever charm in oxen,
whatever charm in beauty--with this, ye Açvins, adorn her. So do we deck
this wife for her husband; Indra, Agni, Varuna, Bhaga, Soma, may they
enrich her with children." Then the bridegroom, accompanied by his
friends, comes to the house of the bride, where he is courteously
received by the father, and entertained with a draught of milk and
honey. The bridegroom hands over the bridal gift (at this day garments
and mantles are indispensable for this purpose), and when the family of
the bride have placed a dark-red neck-band adorned with three precious
stones on her, the Brahman unlooses two locks of hair and says: "I loose
thee now from the bands of Varuna, with which the sublime Savitar bound
thee. I loose thee from this place (the house of her father), not from
thence, that she may, O Indra, giver of blessings, be rich in sons and
prosperity." When the bands, which connect the bride with the house of
her father, have thus been loosed, the father with his face turned to
the north, with kuça-grass, water, and grain in his hand, hands over the
maid to the bridegroom with these words: "To thee, the son, grandson,
and great-grandson, of such and such a man, I give this maiden of this
family and this race," and then he places her hand on the right hand of
the bridegroom. The bridegroom has previously placed a stone on the
ground, not far from the sacrificial fire; when receiving the hand of
the bride he says: "For health and prosperity I take thy hand here.
Bhaga, Aryaman, Pushan, Savitar, the gods give thee to me to govern my
house." When the father has sprinkled the bride with melted butter, the
bridegroom leads her to the stone, causes her to place the tip of her
right foot on it, and says: "This sure and faithful stone I lay down for
thy children on the lap of the divine earth; step on it with joy and
looks of gladness. As Agni has taken the right hand of this earth, so
did I take thy right hand. Fail not, united with me, in prosperity and
progeny. Bhaga took thy right hand here, and Savitar. Thou art now my
lawful wife; I am thy lord. Rich in children, live with me as thy
husband for the space of a hundred autumns."[325] When the bride has
thrown corn into the fire, the marriage contract is sealed by the "seven
steps" which she makes, led by the bridegroom, towards the right, round
the fire. At each step he recites the proper sentence. With the seventh
the marriage is completed; and the Brahman sprinkles the youthful pair
with lustral water.[326] After a festival, at which young men and girls
dance and sing for three days, the husband conducts his wife to the car
yoked with a pair of oxen, which is to carry her to her new house.[327]
When ascending the chariot, the bride is thus addressed: "Ascend the
gay, well-furnished car, the place of delight, and make the journey a
glad one for thy husband. Viçvavasa (the spirit of virginity) depart
from hence, for she has now a husband; let the husband and wife unite.
May Pushan (p. 47) lead thee hence by the hand; may the Açvins conduct
thee with the chariot; go hence to the house, to be the lady therein.
Lift her up (upon the chariot); beat away the Rakshasas; let king Bhaga
advance. Whatever diseases follow after the glad bridal procession, may
the holy gods send them back whence they came; may the robbers who lie
in wait for the wedded pair fail to find them; may they go on a secure
path and escape danger. This wife is here beautifully adorned. Come all,
and look on her. Give her your blessing, and then disperse to your
homes."[328] In the house of the bridegroom his family awaited the
youthful pair, and then prayed: "Kind to the brother, the cattle, and
her husband, O Indra, bring her rich in sons to us here, O Savitar. Stay
not the maid on her way, O divinely-planted pair of pillars (the posts
of the door of the house). May this wife enter the house for good, for
the good of all two-footed and four-footed creatures. Look with no evil
eye, slay not the husband, be gracious, powerful, gentle with the people
of the house and propitious. Harm not thy relations by marriage, nor thy
husband. Be bright, and of cheerful spirit; bring forth sons that are
heroes; love the gods, and with friendly spirit tend the fire of this
house. Make her, Indra, rich in sons; place ten sons in her. May ye
never separate; enjoy your whole lives playing with sons and grandsons,
rejoicing in your house." When the young wife has entered the house, her
husband leads her to the dung-heap in the court, then round the fire of
the new hearth, which is either kindled by friction, or taken from a
fire which has last been used for sacrifice, and there causes her to
offer the first sacrifice, at which she receives the courteous greeting
of the assembled family of her husband. When ascending the marriage
bed, the bride is thus addressed: "Ascend the bridal bed with joy. Wise
and prudent as Indrani (Indra's wife) and careful, wake with the first
beams of morning." On the following morning the married pair give away
their bridal garments; the bridegroom's friend puts on a woollen
garment, saying: "Whatever evil deed, whatever thing requiring
expiation, has been done at this marriage, or on the journey, we cast it
on the robe of the bridegroom's friend." When dressing himself the young
husband says: "Freshly clad, I rise up to the beaming day; as the bird
leaves the egg, so I slip from all guilt of sin." Then both husband and
wife are thus addressed: "Waking up from happy union, rich in cows,
sons, and gear, may ye live through many beaming dawns."
The law impresses on wives the greatest devotion and subjection to their
husbands. Never, we are told, is the woman independent. In her childhood
she depends on her father, then on her husband, and if he dies, on her
sons. The sister is in the tutelage and power of the brother. So long as
the husband lives, the wife is in a condition of subjection to him day
and night; neither in his life nor after his death must she do anything
displeasing to him, even though he is not irreproachable in his life,
and gives himself to other loves; she must be good-tempered, careful and
thrifty for house and home. She must honour her husband as a god; if she
honours him on earth, she will herself be honoured in heaven; if she has
kept her body, thoughts, and life pure, she receives one abode with him
in heaven. The Epos presents beautiful and touching pictures of Indian
wives, who follow their husbands into the wilderness, and when in the
power of the enemy keep their faith to their husbands, and without
doubt possess the qualities of devotion and self-sacrifice, which,
inherent in the disposition of the Aryas, were so greatly developed in
the Brahmanic system, and found in India their most beautiful
realisation in the character of women, to which indeed they chiefly
belong. Though in the law the husband is beyond question the master in
the house,--in case of resistance on the part of the wife, she may be
punished even with blows of the bamboo,--he is nevertheless bound on his
part to reverence and honour his wife; he must make her presents that
she may adorn herself; and he must not vex her, for where the wife is
vexed, the fire on the hearth soon goes out (it was quenched at the
death of the wife), and when the wife curses a house it will soon fall
to ruin.[329]
Adultery is in some cases threatened with very heavy penalties by the
law. But here also the Brahman, when guilty, escapes with the least
punishment, and the severest threats are directed against the members of
the lower castes who have seduced a Brahman wife. If a Brahman commits
adultery of the kind, which in the members of other castes is punished
with death, he is to be shaven as a mark of disgrace, and the king must
banish him out of the land; but his property is not to be taken from
him; he may depart unharmed beyond the borders. But if Kshatriyas and
Vaiçyas commit adultery with a Brahman woman of good family, they are to
be burnt, and the woman is to be torn to pieces by dogs in a public
place. As in these rules for punishment two views are intermixed, we can
only ascertain that the later conception permits milder punishment in
the case of wives who are not watched. If a Brahman has a criminal
connection with a wife that is watched with her consent he must pay 500
panas, if against her consent, 1000 panas. If a Kshatriya has a similar
connection with a Brahman woman who is watched, he is to be drenched
with the urine of asses and pay 1000 panas. A Vaiçya is to be imprisoned
for a year, and lose his whole property. If the wife was not watched,
the Kshatriya pays 1000 panas, the Vaiçya 500 panas.[330] The Çudra who
is guilty of adultery with the wife of a Dvija must die, if she was
watched; if not, he loses his sexual organs.
Every approach to the wife of another man is looked on as equivalent to
an adulterous inclination. Secret conversations in pleasure-gardens or
in the forest, the sending of flowers and perfumes, and still more any
touching of a married woman, or suffering oneself to be touched by her,
or joking or playing with her, are proofs of adulterous love. Even the
man who speaks with the wife of another, if a beggar, minstrel,
sacrificer, cook, or artisan, is to be fined. The violation of a virgin,
and the attempt on the part of a man of lower caste to seduce a virgin
belonging to a higher caste are to be punished with death.
It has been already remarked that the hymns of the Rigveda speak of more
than one wife among the princes of the Aryas. In one of these poems we
find that Svanaya, who reigned on the bank of the Indus (p. 34), gave
his ten daughters in marriage to the minstrel Kakshivat. But in the
hymns of burial we hear of one wife only. In the Epos, Daçaratha, king
of Ayodhya, has three wives, Pandu has two, and Vijitravirya has also
two. In Manu's law also, as the rules already quoted show (p. 245),
husbands are allowed to marry more than one wife. Still, not to mention
the fact that this was only possible for men of fortune, the book states
very distinctly that one only is the proper legitimate wife, that she
alone can offer the sacrifice of the house with her husband; more
plainly still does the law require that the king shall marry a wife from
his own caste; his other wives are merely concubines.[331] The ritual
observed at marriage recognises one wife only. If monogamy is not so
strictly insisted on in the law, the reason is that the attempted
removal of connubium between the three upper orders was made more
possible by allowing several wives; for in this way it became more
possible to insist that the first or legitimate wife, at any rate,
should be taken from a similar caste, even by those whose obedience
could not otherwise be gained. But the chief reason was that a son must
necessarily be born to the father to offer libations for the dead to
him. If the legitimate wife was barren, or brought forth daughters only,
the defect must be remedied by a second wife. Even now, Hindoo wives, in
a similar case, are urgent with their husbands to associate a second
wife with them, in order that they may not die without male issue. How
strongly the necessity was felt in ancient times is shown by an
indication of the Rigveda, where the childless widow summons her
brother-in-law to her bed,[332] and by the narrative in the Epos of the
widows of the king who died without a son, for whom children are raised
up by a relation, and these children pass for the issue of the dead king
(p. 85, 101). The law shows that such a custom did exist, and is not a
poetic invention. It permits a son to be begotten by the brother of the
husband, or the nearest of kin after him; in any case by a man of the
same race (_gotra_), even in the lifetime of the husband with his
consent. After the death of the husband this can be done by his younger
brother, but at all times it must be without carnal desire and only in
the sacred wish to raise up a male descendant for his relation. When a
son is born any further commerce is forbidden under pain of losing
caste. It is remarked, however, that learned Brahmans disapproved of
this custom. It might be omitted when there was a daughter's son in
existence, who could offer the funeral cakes for his maternal
grandfather; the younger son of another father could also be adopted,
but he must be entirely separated from his own family. At present the
old custom only exists among the Çudras and the classes below these;
among the Dvijas adoption takes place.[333]
In the burial hymns in the Rigveda the marriage is declared to be at an
end, when the widow has accompanied the corpse of her dead husband to
the place of rest; after the funeral was over, the widow was required to
"elevate herself to the world of life." The law ordains that the widow
shall not marry again after the death of her husband, even though she
has had no children by him. If she does marry, she falls into contempt
in this world, and in the next will be excluded from the abode of her
husband. The widow is to remain alone, and not to utter the name of
another man. She is to starve herself, living only on flowers, roots,
and fruits; if in addition to this she avoids all sensual pleasure to
the end of her life, pardons every injustice, and performs pious works
and expiations, she ascends after death to heaven, even though she has
never borne a child.[334] These are the simple rules of the law
concerning widowhood. The Dvija, whose wife dies before him, is to bury
her, if she has lived virtuously according to rule, with sacred fire and
suitable sacrifice. When the funeral is over he is permitted by the law
to marry again and kindle the marriage fire.[335]
On children the law impresses the greatest reverence towards parents;
and this respect is carried to a great extent in the Epos, where it
appears in that exaggerated and caricatured form into which the good
elements in the Indian character were driven by the victory of the
Brahmans. Rama, "who conquers his parents by obedience, and turns them
in the right way," greets his father and mother by falling down before
them, and kissing their feet; he then places himself with folded hands
at their side, in order to listen to what they have to say.[336] He
practises obedience with the utmost punctiliousness, as well as the
renunciation in which Brahmans saw the summit of all virtue. Even in the
law the pupil kneels before the Brahman and his wife; and the Buddhist
legends show us the sons lying at the feet of their fathers in order to
greet them. The younger brother must kneel before the elder if he would
give him a solemn salutation.[337]
The old legal customs of the Aryas knew only of the family property as
undivided and in the possession of the father. Wife, sons, daughters,
and slaves have no property; they are in fact themselves pieces of
property.[338] If the father dies, his place is taken by the eldest son,
at the head of the house; and if the mother is alive, she is in his
tutelage. That the right of the person to share in the property was
already felt against this old custom is shown in the book of the law by
the regulation that the sons, after the death of the father, are not to
share during the lifetime of the mother. Even when both parents are dead
it is best for the sons not to divide the property, but to live together
under the eldest as the head of the family. The doctrines of the law in
favour of maintaining the old custom of a family property were not, as
it seems, without results. In the sutras of the Buddhists the fathers
urge their sons not to divide the property after their decease. That
when a division did take place, custom gave a pre-eminence to the eldest
son[339] is clear from the rule given in the law: the eldest son can
only demand the best piece when he is more learned and virtuous than the
rest; otherwise it must not be divided. Another view expressed in the
law, which militated against the connubium of the three orders, attempts
in this case also to bring in the division of castes: if the father has
several wives of different castes, the sons of those who belong to the
higher castes have the advantage. If, for instance, a Brahman has wives
from all the four castes the inheritance is to be divided into ten
parts: the son of the Brahman woman receives four parts, the son of the
Kshatriya three, the son of the Vaiçya two, of the Çudra only one.[340]
Landed property in India is inherited and always has been by males only;
but if there are no sons, a daughter may be put in as heir. In other
cases women have only a claim to maintenance out of the family
property. The distinction between inherited and acquired property is
first recognised in the later law of India, but even now the father has
only the right of disposal over the latter when he divides it in his own
lifetime among his children. At present the unmarried daughters, and
quite recently widows, have a right to a son's portion instead of
maintenance out of the family property.[341]
In India, family life has in all essentials healthily developed and
maintained itself on the basis which we can detect in the sentences of
the marriage ceremony. The fortunate birth of a child, purification
after child-bed, and naming of the child--according to the law the name
of a boy ought to express among the Brahmans some helpful greeting,
among the Kshatriyas power, among the Vaiçyas wealth, among the Çudras
subjection[342]--the first cutting of the hair, the investiture of the
sons with the sacred girdle, the birthdays, betrothals, and marriages
are great festivals among the families, kept with considerable expense.
The Indians love their children; their maintenance and marriage form at
present the chief care of wealthy parents. The law allows a man to give
his daughter even to the poorest husband of his own caste; but now the
main effort of the family is not indeed to obtain the wealthiest husband
for a daughter, but to obtain one of at least equal wealth with their
own, and whenever possible of better descent. The claims of the priestly
Brahmans belonging to those eight tribes which carried back their origin
to the great saints, tribes existing in the fourth century B.C., are in
existence still;[343] but the number of the clans has increased. The
ceremonies at marriages are still essentially those of the old ritual.
Before walking round the fire the hands of the bride and bridegroom are
united with kuça-grass, and the points of their garments tied together.
It has long been a custom and a rule that the bride should be equipped
by her father, and the splendour with which marriages are celebrated
makes the wedding of a daughter a heavy burden on families that are not
wealthy. The Kshatriyas more especially suffer in this respect, since
they are peculiarly apt to seek after connections with ancient families.
In families of this caste it sometimes happens that daughters are
exposed or otherwise put out of the way in order to escape the cost of
their future equipment and marriage.[344]
FOOTNOTES:
[294] _e.g._ "Ramayana," 1, 13, 72, ed. Schlegel.
[295] Manu, 8, 380, 381.
[296] Manu, 2, 127.
[297] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 80.
[298] Manu, 9, 322.
[299] Manu, 10, 80-117.
[300] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 139.
[301] Manu, 3, 12-15, 44; 9, 22-24, 85-87.
[302] Manu, 3, 16-19; 10, 5, 6.
[303] Manu, 10, 15.
[304] Manu, 10, 46.
[305] Manu, 10, 48.
[306] Manu, 10, 8.
[307] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 820, _n._ 2.
[308] Manu, 10, 49.
[309] Manu, 10, 48.
[310] Manu, 10, 15; (above, p. 15).
[311] Manu, 10, 51-56; (above, p. 168).
[312] Manu, 10, 67.
[313] Manu, 10, 43-45.
[314] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1, 396, 439, 534.
[315] Sherring, "Hindu Castes and Tribes," 7-9; 120, 247.
[316] "Açvalayana Çrauta-Sutra," book 12, in M. Müller, "Hist. of
Sanskrit Lit." p. 381.
[317] Manu, 3, 27-38, 160, 171; 9, 100, 127 ff. The analogous series in
the Açvalayana in A. Weber, "Indische Studien," 5, 284.
[318] Açvalayana, Yajnavalkya, Apastamba in M. Müller, _loc. cit._ p.
378 ff.
[319] A. Weber, "Indische Studien," 5, 343, 400, 407.
[320] Strabo, p. 709. Arrian, "Ind." 17.
[321] "Açvalayana," 1, 63, in A. Weber, _loc. cit._
[322] Manu, 9, 88-96.
[323] Açvalayana says: "There are many different customs in different
districts and towns; we only give what is common." Haas and A. Weber in
the "Indische Studien," 5, 281.
[324] Weber, _loc. cit._ 5, 219, 236.
[325] A. Weber, _loc. cit._ 5, 201.
[326] Haas, _loc. cit._ 5, 322, cp. however, p. 358.
[327] A. Weber, _loc. cit._ 5, 214.
[328] The first part of the sentence is from the latest part of the
Rigveda (10, 184), the second from the Atharvaveda, 2, 30; 5, 25. in A.
Weber, "Ind. Studien," 5, 218, 227, 234.
[329] Manu, 9, 147-149; 3, 6-11; 55-62; 9, 2-7, 77-83.
[330] Manu, 8, 371-376.
[331] Manu, 7, 77, 78.
[332] Rigveda, 10, 40 in Aurel Mayr, "Indisches Erbrecht," s. 79.
[333] Manu, 9, 59-69, 144-146. Aurel Mayr, _loc. cit._ 3, 104.
[334] Manu, 5, 157-162.
[335] Manu, 5, 167-169.
[336] _e.g._ "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 2, 3, 31.
[337] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 238.
[338] Aurel Mayr, "Indisches Erbrecht," s. 160 ff.
[339] Aurel Mayr, _loc. cit._ s. 56.
[340] Manu, 9, 104-220. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 239. In the sutras
we are told of a division in a merchant's family, after the brothers
have united; in this the oldest retains the house and lands, the other
the shops, the third the stock, beside land. Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p.
242.
[341] Aurel Mayr, _loc. cit._ 3, 167, ff.
[342] Manu, 2, 29-34.
[343] Above, p. 252. M. Müller, "Hist. of Anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 380,
ff.
[344] Sherring, _loc. cit._ p. 122.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMANS.
The unity in regard to law and morals, which the book of the law sought
to establish throughout all the regions of India, between the Vindhyas
and Himalayas, was never carried out to this extent. Indeed, the book
itself is wanting in unity owing to the gradual accumulation of
different strata in it, and the various rules which it contains for the
same circle of life. Nor did it even attempt to remove the usages of
Brahmavarta, or the customs of "the good" in general. In other points
its requirements were pitched much too high, and were too ideal for
princes and judges to feel bound by them, directly and immediately, or
to guide their conduct by such rules, though on the whole they regarded
the book as a standard. Even on the Ganges some districts resisted the
law of the Brahmans, and took their law from their old customs,[345]
while on the other hand, in the land of the Indus, only a few regions
followed the development attained in the life of the emigrants on the
Yamuna and the Ganges; in these the elevation of the priestly order, the
reform of religion, and the exclusiveness of the castes were very
fitfully carried out. They clung obstinately to the older forms of
Indian life, and submitted but partially to the reaction which the land
of the Ganges exercised on the ancient home of the race.
In other nations and ages the priests have turned their attention to the
past history of their states, and have recorded their fortunes, but on
the Ganges the victory of the priests threw the past entirely aside, and
established the Brahmanic system as the religion existing from the
beginning. Why should the Brahmans trouble themselves with the deeds of
ancient kings and heroes? These could only attract their attention in so
far as the action of the gods was seen in them, or when they could be
asked to prove that the power of the Brahmans had been from the first
greater than the power of the kings and the Kshatriyas. Or need the
Brahmans write the history of their own order? From this point of view
that order had always been what it now was; it formed no organised
corporation, no centralised system; the only points that could come into
question were the acts of the great saints, the ancestors of the Brahman
class, or the claim and advantage of being descended from this or that
priest of the old time. Ought the Brahmans to inquire into the laws of
nature? In their view the life of nature was as little independent, as
little founded on laws of its own, as the life and actions of men.
Nature was absorbed into the world-soul; the efficacy of sacrifices and
penalties could, in the opinion of the Brahmans, remove the laws of
nature at any moment. Where the order of the moral and physical world is
broken and subdued at will by the supernatural, no account can be made
of the actions of men, or the facts of nature, of history or natural
science; theology and things divine are the only possible subjects of
study.
The Brahmans occupied themselves very earnestly with the study of
revelation, with the Veda, and with meditation on the highest being. If
the first was the peculiar task of the schools of the Brahmans, the
second was the essential duty of the anchorites in the forest. Moreover,
it was advantageous for the teaching of the people to interpolate the
new religion into the old Epos, and there also to exalt the acts of the
great saints above the acts of the ancient heroes. We have already
referred to the contradiction existing between the new doctrine and the
Veda, on which it was founded, and which it set forth as a divine
revelation. The invocations and prayers of the Veda arose out of the
circle of different tribes, and from different dates; in their origin
and tradition they proceeded from distinct races of priests. They were
due to a conception wholly at variance with that of the Brahmans. How
could these contradictions be removed? The contradiction between old and
new was aggravated by numerous differences in the ritual. Along with the
Veda the Brahmans regarded the sayings and conduct of the holy men of
old, the great saints, as sufficient authorities. But the ritual was not
the same in all the races of the Brahmans; and even customs and
tradition had, as we have seen, a claim in the eyes of the Brahmans.
Every priestly school, or family, appealed in its ritual to the custom
or word of the supposed progenitor, or to some other great saint. In
order to fix the correct ceremonial of the sacrifice, the true ritual
for purification, expiation, and penance, amid such varieties of
practice, it was necessary to go back to the Veda. But in the Veda
nothing was found on the greater part of the questions at issue, and
only contradictory statements on others. Which was the true ritual, the
form pleasing to the gods and therefore efficacious? Which were the
decisive passages in the Veda, and what was their true explanation? To
the difficult task of bringing the Veda into harmony with the idea of
Brahman, and the system of castes, and finding a proof for both in the
Veda, in which castes and Brahman as the world-soul were unknown, was
added the further difficulty of establishing the ritual so securely, as
to leave no doubt about the practice of it, and to make it quite certain
what liturgy was to be applied in each case, at every act. Owing to the
Indian belief in the mystic power of the sacrifice and each single
operation in it, this question was of very great importance. The
sacrifice was invalid unless the ritual given by revelation or by the
great priests of ancient times was used in it. From these questions and
investigations rose commentaries on the Vedas;--the Brahmanas, which in
part are still preserved to our times, the first compositions of the
Indians in prose. They are reflections and rules of a liturgical and
theological nature, and proceed on a plan somewhat of the following
kind. After mentioning the rite and the sacrifice in question, the
meaning of the words in the Veda which are supposed to refer to it is
given, generally in a singular form; the various modes of performing the
sacrifice are then mentioned, the sayings of the ancient saints in
favour of this or that form are quoted; and then follows a regular
solution, supported by legends from the history of the saints. We see
from the rules of the Brahmanas that offerings, consecrations, and
sacrifices were not diminished but rather increased by the idea of
Brahman, and the number of the sacrificing priests was greater; a fourth
priest was added to the Hotar, Udgatar, and Adhvaryu of the older
period, whose duty it was to superintend the whole sacrifice, to guard
against mistakes, and remedy them when made; at the greater sacrifices
sixteen or seventeen priests officiated, besides those who were required
for the supplementary duties; and beside the three daily sacrifices at
morning, midday, and evening, the sacrifices of the new moon and full
moon, the sacrifices to the ancestors, to fire, and the Soma, there were
rites which lasted from two to eleven days, and others which occupied
fourteen to one hundred days.[346] The Brahmanas fix the object and
operation of every sacrifice; they show how the place of sacrifice is to
be prepared and measured; how the altar is to be erected; how the
vessels and instruments of sacrifice were to be prepared; what sort of
wood and water is required, and the length of the pieces of wood which
are to be placed on the fire. Then follow the invocations and the
sentences at the use of the instruments of sacrifice, the paces and
functions incumbent on the four classes of priests, what one has to say
and another to answer. Not only each word but even the tone and gesture
is given formally at great length. An incorrect word, a false intonation
may destroy the efficacy of the entire sacrifice. For this reason the
rules for the great sacrifice, especially for the sacrifice of horses,
fill up whole books of the Brahmanas.
Like the Arians of Iran, and the Germans, the Arians on the Indus
sacrificed horses to the gods. "May Mitra, Aryaman, Indra and the
Maruts," so we read in the Rigveda, "not rebuke us because we shall
proclaim at the sacrifice the virtues of the swift horse, sprung from
the gods, when the spotted goat is led before the horse adorned with
ornaments of pure gold. If thrice at the proper seasons men lead around
the sacrificial horse, which goes to the gods,--the goat, Pushan's
share, goes first (p. 47). She goes along the path which Indra and
Pushan love, and announces the sacrifice to the gods. May ye, O Hotar,
Adhvaryu--the names of the remaining officiating priests follow--fill
the streams (round the altar) with a well-prepared and well-accomplished
sacrifice! They who cut the sacrificial post, and they who make the ring
for the post of the horse, may their work be with us. My prayer has been
well performed: the bright-backed horse goes to the regions of the gods,
where poets celebrate him, and we have won a good friend among the gods.
The halter of the swift one, the heel-ropes of the horse, the girdle,
the bridle, and even the grass that has been put into his mouth, may all
these which belong to thee be with the gods. The ordure that runs from
the belly, and the smallest particle of raw flesh, may the immolators
well prepare all this, and dress the sacrifice till it is well cooked.
The juice that flows from thy roasted limb on the spit after thou hast
been killed, may it not run on the earth or the grass; may it be given
to the gods who desire it. They who examine the horse when it is
roasted, they who say 'It smells well, take it away;' they who serve the
distribution of the meat, may their work also be with us. The ladle of
the pot where the meat is cooked, and the vessels for sprinkling the
juice, the covers of the vessels, the shears, and the knives, they adorn
the horse. Where he walks, where he stands, where he lies, what he
drinks, and what he eats, may all these which belong to thee, be with
the gods. May not the fire with smoky smell make thee hiss, may not the
glowing cauldron swell and burst. The gods accept the horse if it is
offered to them in due form. The cover which they stretch over the horse
and the golden ornaments, the head-ropes of the horse, and the
foot-ropes, all these which are dear to the gods, they offer to them.
If some one strike thee with the heel or the whip that thou mayest lie
down, and thou art shouting with all thy might, then I purify all this
with my prayer, as with a spoon of clarified butter at the sacrifices.
The axe approaches the thirty-four ribs of the quick horse, beloved of
the gods. Do you wisely keep the limbs whole; find out each joint and
ligament. One strikes the horse, two hold it; this is the custom. May
the axe not stick to thy body; may no greedy and unskilful immolator,
missing with the sword, throw thy mangled limbs together. May not thy
dear soul burn thee while thou art coming near. Indeed thou diest not,
thou sufferest not, thou goest to the gods on easy paths. May this horse
give us cattle and horses, men, progeny, and all-sustaining wealth. May
the horse of this sacrifice give us strength."[347] This was the
foundation on which the Brahmanas construct an endless ritual for the
sacrifice of horses, "the king of sacrifices," as the book of the law
calls it. At the sacrifice of the horse, so we are told in the
Çatapatha-Brahmana, the Adhvaryu on the first day calls on the players
on the flute to celebrate the king who offers the sacrifice, and with
him the virtuous princes of ancient days. The priest narrates the
history begun by Manu Vaivasvata. On the second day he narrates the
history begun by Yama Vaivasvata, and on the third day that begun by
Varuna Aditya (p. 124); on the fourth day he narrates that begun by Soma
Vaishnava, etc.; on the tenth day that begun by Dharma Indra, and sings
the Soma, _i.e._ the hymns of the Samaveda.[348] In the Mahabharata,
Yudhishthira, after ascending the throne of Hastinapura, offers a
sacrifice of horses, in order to assuage his grief at the loss of his
heroes, and to extend his dominion. The Brahman Vyasa tells the king
that this sacrifice is very difficult; that he must sleep the whole year
through on the ground, with his wife at his side, and a naked sword
between them; if he does not keep his desires in subjection during the
whole of this time, the entire efficacy of the sacrifice is lost. The
horse with the necessary marks is found and brought forward. According
to the poem it must be as white as the moon, with a yellow tail, and the
right ear must be black; the horse can also be entirely black. On a
certain day, determined by the moon, the horse is let loose. It bears a
gold plate on its forehead with the name of the king to whom it belongs,
and the announcement that an army is following it, and any one who
detains the horse, or leads it astray, will be compelled by force of
arms to set it at liberty, and after the end of the year to appear at
the sacrifice of the horse. Arjuna overcomes all the princes who would
retain the horse. Then the princes who have submitted or been conquered
assemble at Hastinapura; Yudhishthira and Draupadi take a bath for
purification; the king ploughs the place of sacrifice with a golden
plough; Draupadi sows it to the accompaniment of the prayers of the
Brahmans; then the midst of the space is covered with four hundred
golden tiles, and round about these are set up eight posts, eight
trenches for the preparation of the curdled milk, clarified butter, and
soma, and provided with eight great spoons, in order to bring the
sacrificial gifts into the fire. Yudhishthira takes his place on the
throne of gold and sandal-wood; twenty-four princes and rishis go to the
Ganges in order to bring water for the sacrifice in pitchers on their
heads. When the king has been purified by this water, the horse is
brought, and it also is purified by having the water poured upon it.
Then the priests pressed the ear of the horse, and as milk ran out from
it, it was proved that the horse was pure; so Bhima smote off the head
with his sword. Then the priest held the flesh in the spoon over the
fire, and made Homa out of it, and the flesh smelt of camphor, and he
cried, "Indra, receive this flesh which has become camphor." To each of
the Brahmans who had officiated at the sacrifice Yudhishthira gave a
chariot, an elephant, ten horses, one hundred milch-cows, and slaves and
gold and pearls, and had them entertained. In the Ramayana, king
Daçaratha of Ayodhya offers a sacrifice of horses to obtain a son. At
the appointed time the horse was set at liberty for a year; and a
Brahman accompanied it. All the preparatory sacrifices were offered; the
place was made ready on the northern banks of the Sarayu; twenty-one
sacrificial posts were set up, and decked with flowers and ornaments,
and twenty-one trenches were dug when the horse returned. The Brahmans
kindle the sacred fire, the horse is led round it, and slain with the
consecrated sword, while the Udgatar recites the sentences. The Hotar
and the Ritvij bring the pieces of the horse according to the custom to
the fire, and the Ritvij pronounces the sentences while placing the
flesh in the fire. Then the first and second wives of the king are
brought to the horse and pass the night near it.[349] Rama offers a
horse sacrifice for another reason; he wishes to make atonement for the
offence which he has committed by the slaughter of the great giant
Ravana of Lanka, who was a descendant of the holy Agastya, and
consequently a Brahman. According to the narratives of the
Vishnu-Purana, king Pushpamitra, who sat on the throne of Magadha in
the first half of the second century B.C., offered a horse sacrifice.
The horse when set at liberty was carried off on the right bank of the
Indus by an army of the Yavanas (Greeks), but was again liberated by the
attendants. As a fact the land of the Indus as well as the Panjab was at
that time under the dominion of the Greek princes of Bactria. From the
period of the dynasty of the Guptas, who acquired the throne of Magadha
about the year 140 B.C., a coin has been preserved to our time, relating
to the efficacy of the horse sacrifice; it depicts an unsaddled horse
before an altar.[350]
Not long after the time when the commentaries on the Vedas, or
Brahmanas, arose in the schools of the Brahmans, a fourth Veda was added
to the three collections of sacred songs and prayers already in
existence. Ancient poems were preserved which had not been received into
the Rigveda. These were not songs of praise or thanksgiving, prayers or
sentences intended to accompany the sacrificial acts, but charms to
avert evil, danger, sickness, or death, formulæ relating to life in the
house and family, bringing blessing or a curse. When the fourth
superintending priest was added to the three already officiating, and
the latter was charged with the office of avoiding the mistakes which
might be committed in it, and atoning for those which had been committed
by counter-charms and acts of expiation--a collection of the sentences
required, a book of prayers, seems to have been given to this priest
also, just as the Hotar had his Rigveda, the Udgatar his Samaveda, the
Adhvaryu his Yajurveda. Thus the sentences of this kind already living
in tradition may have been collected together, so as to form a fourth
Veda. That some of the exorcisms and incantations belonging to this
collection are also found in the Rigveda, that meditative hymns of later
date are received into the fourth Veda together with pieces of very
great antiquity, may count rather for than against this mode of origin.
The new collection was called the Atharvaveda after the ancient priest
Atharvan, who is said first to have enticed the fire from the pieces of
wood.[351] The Atharvaveda contains a number of ancient charms against
sickness and death. It is the healing powers of waters and plants which
are first invoked for assistance. In the Rigveda also all remedies are
found in waters and plants, both of which come from the sky.[352] "May
the waters of Himavat be blessed for thee," so we are told in the
Atharvaveda; "the waters of the springs, the waters of the rain, the
waters of the steppe, the waters of the cisterns, the waters of the
pitchers. We bless the best healers, the waters. The waters should heal
thee when pain overcomes thee; they should drive out thy sickness."[353]
Plants are not less efficacious. They pass into the limbs of the sick,
they expel the sickness victoriously from the body, they unite with
their king Soma in order to fight against the sickness; they obey the
voice of the priest, rescue the sick person from pain, and set free the
foot of man from the toils of Yama.[354] The Atharvaveda emphasises the
peculiar healing power of a plant against the Rakshasas (the evil
spirits); with this Kaçiapa, Kanva, Agastya, and the son of Atharvan had
defeated the Rakshasas. "Liberate," so the priest says to it, "liberate
this man from the spirits of the Rakshasas; lead him back into the
company of the living."[355] In other sentences of this Veda we are
told: "With this sacrificial butter I liberate thee, so that thou mayest
live; when the captor has seized him, do ye set him free, Indra and
Agni. If his life is failing I draw him back from the brink of
destruction unharmed for a hundred autumns" (p. 62). If the sickness is
a punishment from the gods, the offence must be wiped out by sacrifice,
prayer, and expiations; if it is the result of a charm, it must be
driven into another creature by a counter-charm. The Atharvaveda gives
us the following sentence against the demon Takman, who brings fever:
"May refusal meet Takman, who has glowing weapons. O Takman, go to the
Mujavant or further. Attack the Çudra woman, the teeming one; shake her,
O Takman. The Gandharas, the Angas, the Magadhas, we give over to Takman
as servants, or a treasure."[356] The ague is banished into the frog,
the jaundice into yellow birds. In the Rigveda the jaundice is put away
into parrots and thrushes; consumption is to fly away with the blue jay.
The custom of supporting the exorcism by laying down a leaf or a herb,
which is taught in the Atharvaveda, is not unknown to the Rigveda.[357]
The Atharva-veda also supplies charms against sprains, worms, and other
evils.[358]
The Brahmanas of the various schools of priests were not merely rules
for ritual, but also exegetical and dogmatic commentaries on the
separate Vedas, each destined for one of the three classes of priests
who were allotted to the Rigveda, Samaveda, and Yajurveda. Of these
commentaries on the Rigveda, two, differing in their arrangement,
have been preserved to us; the Aitareya-Brahmana, and the
Kaushitaki-Brahmana, _i.e._ the commentaries of the schools of Aitareya
and Kaushitaka: for the Samaveda we have the Chandoga-Brahmana, and the
Tandya-Brahmana; for the Yajurveda the Taittiriya-Brahmana and the
Çatapatha-Brahmana, _i.e._ the commentaries of the schools of Tittiri
and Vajasaneya. In one or two of these Brahmanas we have additions at
the end of a speculative character. The compressed and difficult
language of these books, the abstruse dogmatism, the abundance of
examples and legends, made the Brahmanas so difficult to understand that
explanations of them were soon written in a more synoptical arrangement,
an easier style, and shorter form. These explanations were called
sutras, _i.e._ clues. If they were intended to explain the Veda, _i.e._
revelation, they were known as Çrauta-sutras; if they collected in a
synoptical form the rules for the ritual given in the Brahmanas, they
were known as Kalpa-sutras. The oldest sutras of this kind, which have
come down to us, are supposed to have been written about the year 400
B.C.[359] From the duty of properly intoning and pronouncing the
prescribed words of the Veda, marking the metre, correctly understanding
the ancient Vedic language which had subsequently taken the form of
Sanskrit, and gone through other changes in the mouth of the people, and
fixing the correct time for the sacrifice, there grew up among the
schools of the Brahmans the beginnings of metrical, grammatical,
etymological, and astronomical inquiries. As the people in the land of
the Ganges had ceased to understand Sanskrit in the sixth century
_B.C._, while the Brahmans were compelled to preserve it for the Vedas
and the Brahmanas, and as a learned and theological language, it became
necessary to learn it from teachers. The sutras of the Buddhists speak
of a grammar of Indra, which is also mentioned by the Chinese
Hiuan-Thsang as the earliest Indian grammar; from the fourth century
B.C. we have the grammatical rules of Panini remaining, which, based on
the previous Çrauta-sutras, present us with a complete grammatical
system, provided with an artificial terminology.[360]
The desire to offer sacrifices to the gods at the correct and acceptable
time did not permit the Brahmans entirely to neglect the observation of
the heavens. Their attention was directed principally to the moon, to
the courses of the planets they paid no particular regard. According to
the advance of the moon in the heavens they distinguished twenty-seven,
and at a later period twenty-eight stations in the sky (_nakshatra_).
"The moon," we are told, "follows the course of the Nakshatras." The
year of the Indians was divided into twelve months of thirty days; the
month was divided into two halves of fifteen days each, and the day into
30 hours (_muhurta_). In order to bring this year of 360 days into
harmony with the natural time, the Brahmans established a quinquennial
cycle of 1860 lunar days. Three years had 12 months of 30 lunar days;
the third and fifth year of the cycle had thirteen months of the same
number of days. The Brahmans do not seem to have perceived that by this
arrangement the cycle contained almost four days in excess of the
astronomical time; and indeed they were not very skilful astronomers.
Twelve quinquennial cycles were united into a greater period (_yuga_) of
sixty years.[361] It was an old belief of the Indians that sacrifices
and important affairs in domestic and family life should only be engaged
in when the position of the sky was favourable--when the moon was
waxing, or the sun moving to the north. At a later time it was also
believed that the constellation, under which a child saw the light, was
of good or evil influence on his fortunes. Charms are preserved, which
are supposed to avert evil influences of this kind.[362] Some time after
the seventh century the Brahmans began to foretell the fortunes of
children from the position of the stars of their parents, to look for
the marks of good and bad fortune on the human body as well as in the
sky, and to question the stars about the favourable hours for the
transactions or festivals of the house, and the labours of the field,
voyages and travels. Though the book of the law declares astrology to be
a wicked occupation,[363] it was carried on to a considerable extent in
the fifth and fourth centuries. But this astrological superstition has
nevertheless remained without effect in advancing the astronomy of the
Brahmans; further advance was due to the foreign help gained by closer
contact with the kingdom of the Seleucids, and the influence of the
Græco-Bactrian kingdom, which extended its power to the east beyond the
Indus, and the Græco-Indian kingdom which succeeded it in the second
century.[364] The result of their grammatical and astronomical studies
were collected by the Brahmans as auxiliary sciences to the explanation
and interpretation of the Veda; and they termed them the members of the
Veda (Vedanga). They enumerated six of such members; the doctrine of
pronunciation and intonation, the doctrine of metres, grammar,
etymology, the ritual, and astronomy. The two first were declared to be
indispensable for the reading of the Veda, the third and fourth for
understanding the Veda, the fifth and sixth for the performance of
sacrifice.[365]
From all antiquity, as has been already observed, the Indians were
greatly given to magic. It was the mysterious secret of the worship, the
power of the rightly-offered prayer, which exercised compulsion on the
gods. Out of this power grew their Brahmanaspati, and then Brahman.
Consequently, the Brahmans ascribed the greatest efficacy to the
severities of asceticism, the annihilation of the body. The sacrifice of
sensual enjoyment was more meritorious and powerful than all other
sacrifices. Was it not this devotion, this mortification, this
concentration, which annihilated the unholy part in men? Did not a man
by these means approach the holy nature of Brahman--did he not thus draw
into himself Brahman and its power? The Brahmans were convinced that
great penances and absorption into Brahman conferred a supernatural
power and a command over nature; and imparted to the penitent a
superhuman and even superdivine power, like that of Brahman. The Indians
invariably transferred the new point of view to the past. The past was
with them a mirror of the present, and therefore the ancient priests who
were supposed to have sung the hymns of the Veda, the mythical ancestors
of the leading priestly families, were not only patterns of Brahmanic
wisdom, but also great ascetics, examples of energetic penances. By such
penances these ancient saints, the Maharshis, _i.e._ the great sages as
they were now called, had obtained power over men and gods, and even
creative force. Hence in the order of beings the seven or ten great
saints received the place nearest to Brahman, above the gods--a change
which was rendered easier to the Brahmans because passages in the
Rigveda spoke of the "ancient-born sages" as illuminated, as seers and
friends of the gods.[366] With the Brahmans the force of asceticism was
so preponderant, and absorbed the divine nature to such a degree, that
it was soon regarded by them as the highest divine potency; in their
view the gods and Brahman itself exercised creative power only by virtue
of ascetic concentration on self, and severe penances. The theory of
creation was modified from this point of view. Creation was not any
longer the act of the ancient gods, though they are praised as creators
in the Veda; it no longer took place by the emanation of being out of
Brahman. According to the analogy of the asceticism of the Brahmans, the
gods and the personal Brahman who proceeded out of the impersonal
Brahman must have rendered themselves capable of creation by penance,
and gained their peculiar power in this way. In the black Yajurveda we
are told: "This world was at first water; in this moved the lord of
creation, who had become air. Then he formed the earth and created the
gods. The gods said: How can we form creatures? He replied: As I formed
you by the glow of my meditation (_tapas_), so do ye seek in deep
meditation the means of bringing forth creatures."[367] The introduction
to the book of the law goes further still in the theory of creation
given above. When Brahman had proceeded from the egg (p. 197), he
subjects himself to severe penance and so creates Manu. Then Manu begins
the most severe exercises, and by them creates the ten great sages, and
seven new Manus. The ten great saints, the lords of creatures, on their
part bring all created things into being. By the force of their penances
they create the gods and their different heavens, then the other saints
who possess unbounded power, the spirits of the earth (Yakshas), the
giants (Rakshasas), and the evil spirits (Asuras), the blood-suckers
(Piçachas), the serpent spirits (Nagas), the heavenly genii (the
Gandharvas and Apsarasas), and the spirits of the ancestors; after them
the thunder, the lightning, and the clouds, the wild animals, and last
of all the whole mass of creatures living and lifeless.[368] According
to this theory, Brahman has only given the impulse to creation; it is
completed by the penances of Manu and the other saints. The gods are
deposed, and the Brahmans, through their forefathers, the great saints,
become the authors of the gods and the world, the sovereign lords of
creation. The Brahman, learned or not, such is the teaching of the book
of the law, is always a mighty deity, just as fire, whether consecrated
or not, is always a mighty deity. Creation belongs to the Brahman, and
consequently all property is his; it is by his magnanimity that the rest
of the orders enjoy the goods of this world. Who would venture to injure
a Brahman, by whose sacrifice the gods live and the world exists? Any
one who harms a Brahman will be at once annihilated by the power of his
curse; even a king who ventures on such a thing will perish with his
army and their armour by the word of a Brahman.[369]
The schools of the Brahmans sought to establish their ritual beyond the
power of doubt, to understand the Veda in its interpretation, as well as
in its etymology and grammar; they raised the centre of their ethics,
their asceticism, high above the gods of the Veda, and they also
attempted to embody their views and their whole system in the poems of
their Epos. The pre-eminence of their order must have been established
even in the ancient times; even then the Brahmans must have stood far
above the Kshatriyas; and the princes and heroes, of whom the Epos told
us, must have been patterns of reverence towards the Brahmans; they must
have walked in the paths which the theory of the Brahmans subsequently
prescribed. In this feeling the Brahmans proceeded to revise the Epos.
In contradiction to the ancient poem the princes of the Pandus were
placed in the best light, and, so far as was possible, were made eager
worshippers or obedient pupils of the Brahmans.
We have already pointed out what an opposition the Brahmans had invented
between Vasishtha and Viçvamitra from a few hints given by the Rigveda;
how from this point of view, Viçvamitra is made into a Kshatriya, in
order to be able to point out from the example of his ruin as a
Kshatriya in opposition to Vasishtha the superiority of the Brahmans
over the Kshatriyas. But the Veda contains hymns by Viçvamitra; he
belonged, like Vasishtha, to the great saints; the one no less than the
other was the progenitor of an ancient and eminent branch of the
Brahmans. Hence the Kshatriya Viçvamitra must be changed again into a
Brahman, and this could only be done by penances of the most severe
kind. As the most powerful effects were attributed to these penances,
the Kuçikas and the other races derived from Viçvamitra were indemnified
for the previous defeat of Viçvamitra when he was still a Kshatriya. The
description of the feeble conflict of the Kshatriya against the Brahman,
of the prince against the Rishi, the marvellous exaltation of the
Kshatriya and the prince by submission to the Brahman law and severe
penances, are here set forth in the utmost detail and inserted in the
Epos. King Viçvamitra had ruled over the earth for several thousand
years. On one occasion he came with his warriors to the abode of
Vasishtha in the forest, who hospitably received and entertained him and
his army. Vasishtha possessed a marvellous cow--a wishing cow--which
brought forth whatever Vasishtha desired; she produced food and drink
for Viçvamitra and his army. This cow Viçvamitra wished to possess, and
offered 100,000 ordinary cows in exchange. It was a jewel, he said, and
the king has a right to all jewels found in his country; hence the cow
belonged of right to him, a deduction which is not contrary to certain
rules in the book of the law. Vasishtha refuses to part with the cow;
and Viçvamitra resolves to take her by force from the saint. The cow
urges her master to resist; wide and powerful as Viçvamitra's rule may
be, he is not more mighty than Vasishtha is; the wise praise not the
might of the warriors, the power of the Brahmans is greater. Instead of
the means of subsistence, with the production of which she has hitherto
been contented, she now brings forth different armies from the different
parts of her body; and when these are conquered by the warriors of
Viçvamitra, she goes on producing new armies till the host of the king
is destroyed. Then the hundred sons of Viçvamitra filled with rage rush
on Vasishtha; but the saint consumes them by the flame of meditation
which proceeds from his mouth. Viçvamitra acknowledges with shame the
superiority of the Brahman over the Kshatriya; he resolves to overcome
Vasishtha by penances. He goes into the forest, stands on his toes for
one hundred years, lives on air only, and in this way acquires the
possession of heavenly arms. With these he hastens to the settlement of
Vasishtha; sets it on fire by the heavenly arrows, and then hurls a
fiery weapon at the Brahman. Vasishtha cries aloud: "Vile Kshatriya, now
will I show thee what the strength of a warrior is!" and with his staff
easily wards off even the arms of the gods. With no better success
Viçvamitra throws the toils of Varuna, and even Brahman's dreadful
weapons against Vasishtha, who beats them away with his staff, "which
burned like a second sceptre of Yama." With sighs Viçvamitra
acknowledges that the might of kings and warriors is nothing, that only
the Brahmans possess true power, and now attempts by severe penances to
elevate himself to be a Brahman. He proceeds to the south, and undergoes
the severest mortifications. After a thousand years of penance Brahman
allows him the rank of a wise king. But he wishes to be a Brahman, and
therefore begins his penances over again. Triçanku, the son of Prithu,
the pious king of the Koçalas (p. 149), had bidden his priest Vasishtha
exalt him with his living body to heaven by a great sacrifice. Vasishtha
declares that this is impossible. Triçanku repairs to Viçvamitra, who
offers the sacrifice. But the gods do not descend to the sacrificial
meal. Then Viçvamitra in anger seizes the ladle, and says to Triçanku:
"By my own power I will exalt you to heaven. Receive the power of
sanctity which I have gained by my penances. I have certainly earned
some reward for them." Triçanku at once rose to heaven; but Indra
refused him admittance, and Triçanku began to sink again. In anger
Viçvamitra begins to found another heaven in the south, new gods and new
stars. Then the gods humbly entreat the saint to desist from conveying
Triçanku into heaven, but Viçvamitra had given his promise to Triçanku;
he must keep his word, and the gods must receive Triçanku. Then
Viçvamitra repairs to the west in order to begin further penances. After
a thousand years Brahman hails him as a sage. But Viçvamitra is resolved
to be a Brahman. He begins his penances once more, but is disturbed by
the sight of an Apsarasa, whom he sees bathing in the lake of Pushkara,
and for ten years he lies in her toils. Disgusted at his weakness
Viçvamitra repairs to the northern mountain, and there again undergoes
yet severer penances for a thousand years. Brahman now greets him as a
great sage; but Viçvamitra wishes to have the incomparable title of a
wise Brahman. This Brahman refuses because he has not yet fully mastered
his sensual desires. New penances begin; Viçvamitra raises his arms
aloft, stands on one leg, remains immovable as a post, feeds on nothing
but air, is surrounded in the hot season by four fires, and in the cold
by water, etc.--all which goes on for a thousand years. The gods are
alarmed at the power which Viçvamitra obtains by such penances, and
Indra sends the Apsarasa Rambha to seduce the penitent. Viçvamitra
resists, but allows himself to be transported with rage, and turns the
nymph into a stone. But anger also belongs to the sensual man, and must
be subdued. He leaves the Himalayas, repairs to the east, and there
resolves to perform the most severe penance; he will not speak a word,
and this penance he performs for a thousand years, standing on one leg
like a statue. The gods now beseech Brahman to make Viçvamitra a
Brahman, otherwise by the power of his penances he will bring the three
worlds to destruction; soon would the sun be quenched before the majesty
of the penitent. Brahman consents; all the gods go to Viçvamitra, pay
him homage and salute him: "Hail, wise Brahman!" Vasishtha hears of this
new dignity of Viçvamitra, and both now stand on the same footing. This
narrative teaches us not only that the power of the gods was nothing as
against the Brahmans, but also that it was easier to exercise compulsion
upon the gods, to create new gods and new stars, than for any one to
attain the rank of a Brahman who had been born as a Kshatriya.[370]
Like Viçvamitra the heroes of antiquity were thought to have obtained
divine power by their penances. An episode, inserted by the Brahmans
into the Mahabharata, tells us how Arjuna, when the Pandus had been
banished into the forest after the second game of dice at Hastinapura,
practises severe penances on the Himavat, in order to obtain the weapons
of the gods for the conflict against the Kurus. Indra sends his chariot
in order to convey him to heaven, and there, in the heaven of Indra,
everything shines with a peculiar splendour. Here are the gods, the
heroes fallen in battle, sages and penitents by hundreds, who have
attained to the height of Indra, but not, as yet, to Brahman. Instead of
the blowing winds, his old companions in the fight, Indra is now
surrounded by troops of the Gandharvas, the heavenly musicians, and by
the Apsarasas. The gods and saints greet Arjuna to the sound of shells
and drums, and, as servants, wash his feet and mouth. Indra sits like
the king of the Indians under the yellow umbrella, with a golden staff
in his hands; he gives his bow to Arjuna; Yama, Varuna, and Kuvera (p.
160) also give him their weapons. Thus armed, Arjuna subdues in the
first place the Danavas, the sons of Danu (the evil spirits of darkness
and drought), whom Indra himself cannot overcome. For this object Indra
gives him his chariot, which is now yoked with ten thousand yellow
horses, and harness impenetrable as the air. Beyond the sea Arjuna comes
upon the hosts of the Danavas. They cover him with missiles, and then
contend with magic arts, with rain of stones and water and storms, and
shroud everything in darkness. Arjuna is victorious, though the Danavas,
at last changed into mountains, throw themselves upon him; and thus, as
is expressly said, he surpasses the achievements of Indra. Indra's
conflicts with the demons are transferred to Arjuna. We see to what an
extent the soaring fancy of the Brahmans has crushed and distorted by
these extravagances the simple and beautiful conception of Indra in
conflict with Vritra and Atri, the poetry of the ancient myth of Indra's
battle in the storm[371] (p. 48).
It was a marvellous world which the imagination of the Brahmans had
created. The gay pictures, excited and nourished in the mind of the
Indians by the nature of the Ganges valley, became reflected in more
and more distorted and peculiar forms in the legends and wonders of the
great saints and heroes of the ancient time. The gods and spirits are
perpetually interfering in the life and actions of men. The saints
without intermission convulsed the sky, and played at will with the laws
of nature. The more the desire for the marvellous was satisfied, the
stronger it became. In order to go beyond what had been already achieved
brighter colours must be laid on; the power of the imagination must be
excited more vigorously, so as to enchain once more the over-excited and
wearied spirit. Thus, for the Indians, the boundaries of heaven and
earth gradually disappeared; the world of gods and that of men became
confounded in a formless chaos. The arrangement of the orders was of
divine origin; the gradations of being reached from the world-soul,
through the saints, the gods and spirits, down to plants and animals.
The earth was peopled with wandering souls; sacrifice, asceticism, and
meditation set man free not only from the impurity of sin, but also from
the laws of nature. They gave him powers transcending nature, which
raised him above the earth and the gods, secured divine power for him,
and carried him back to the origin and essence of all things.
However fantastic this structure, the positive basis of it was supposed
to be revelation or the Veda. Extensive as the commentaries became owing
to the rivalry of the schools, vast as were the accumulations of ritual
and legends, of verbal explanations and sentences of the saints--the
main questions became only the more obscure. What saint was qualified to
decide? Which school taught the correct doctrine? By whom and in what
way was the Veda revealed? Were the words or the sense of the poems
decisive? How were the undeniable contradictions, the opposition
between various passages, to be removed? In order to obtain a firm
footing the Brahmans found themselves invariably driven back to the idea
of the world-soul. If in the interpretation of the words and the meaning
of the Veda, in the effort to smoothe down the contradictions between
them, and the necessity of finding a consistent mode of explanation and
proof, the Indian acuteness and delicate power of distinction grew into
a hair-splitting division of words and ideas, into the most minute and
complicated logic, the conception of the world-soul, the theories of the
creation, impelled them, on the other hand, to explain the whole life of
the world from one source, and to compass it with one measure.
Forced as they were in these two directions, they were unavoidably
brought at last to attempt to establish the theory independently, to
construct Brahman and the world out of their nature and ideas. In all
advanced stages of rational thought, fancy, or its reverse-side,
abstraction, has seldom omitted to reflect the whole world as an
organised unity in the brain of man, and to bring the oppressive
multitude of things under some general conceptions and points of view.
In the schools of the Brahmans it was the formal side of these
philosophical efforts, the method of inquiry and investigation, in
connection with the sacred scriptures, religious traditions, and the
attempts to fix the interpretation of them, which was specially
developed. On the other hand, the anchorites in the forest opposed these
efforts from the opposite direction with the combined body of religious
conceptions, with their views of Brahman. The highest object of the
eremite was meditation, absorption in Brahman. The more uniform their
own lives, the stiller the life around them, the greater the ferment in
their minds. When these penitents were weary of the world of gods and
marvels which occupied their dreams, when the endless multitude of
bright pictures confounded their senses, they turned to the central
conception of the world-soul, and attempted to think of this more
deeply, acutely, comprehensively, to see the connection of Brahman and
the world more clearly, and explain it more distinctly. As the fancy,
and consequently the abstracting power of the Indians, was always
superior to the power of division, and remained the basis of their view
of the world, their constructive speculation, which was occupied with
the contents of their religious conceptions, surpasses their powers of
formal thought. The latter had indeed no other office than to arrange
and organise the pictures supplied by the former.
The attempt to construct a world on general principles was neither
peculiarly bold nor peculiarly new. The way was prepared by the idea of
the world-soul as the origin and essence of the gods and the world, and
the path was opened for a constructive philosophy, developing the world
out of ideas and thoughts by this abstract single deity existing beside
and above the plurality of mythological forms, the exaltation of the
saints above the gods, and the consequent degradation of the latter, the
perpetual suspension of the natural order of things by the
transcendental and mystical world of the gods and saints, the removal of
the boundaries between heaven and earth, and the constant confusion of
the two worlds. After this, there was nothing remarkable in putting
abstract ideas in the place of the gods, and removing entirely the
distinction between the transcendental world and the world of sense. In
fact, the philosophy of the Indians is, in the first instance, nothing
but the dogmatism of the Brahmans translated into abstractions--nothing
but scholasticism, and their philosophical ethics no less than their
religious require the liberation from the body.
Like all the productions of the Indian mind, with the exception of the
Veda, the philosophical systems of the Indians, which arose in the
seventh and sixth century B.C., are no longer before us in their
original shape. We only possess them in a pointed compendious form which
could not have been obtained without long labours, many revisions and
reconstructions--and which is in reality of quite recent date. We are
not in a position to ascertain the previous or intermediate stages
through which the Brahmans passed before they brought their system to a
close; here, as everywhere in India, the later forms have completely
absorbed their predecessors, the fathers are lost in the children. Hence
we can only guess at the original form of these philosophical systems.
Still the order of succession, and the essential contents, are fixed not
only on internal evidence--by the unalterable progress of development,
which cannot be passed over--but also by the fragments of genuine old
Indian philosophy contained in the system of Buddha, and in their turn
presupposing the existence of certain ideas and points of view.[372]
The oldest system of the Indians contains much more theology than
philosophy. In part proceeding from the sacred scriptures and the
traditional side of religion, it is an explanation of the Veda; in part
it is an attempt to found a dogma on a basis of its own, on
philosophical construction. In this sense, regarded as exegetical
theology brought to a close by philosophical proof of dogma, this system
is denoted by the name Vedanta, _i.e._ end or object of the Veda.
Combined with the portion explanatory of the Veda, it is also
called Mimansa, _i.e._ inquiry; and the section which expounds
the ceremonial side of religion bears the name of the first or
work-investigation--Karma-mimansa; the speculative part is called
Uttara-mimansa (metaphysics), or Brahma-mimansa, _i.e._ investigation of
Brahman. The method of the first part, the investigation of works, is
obviously taken from the requirements of the situation at the moment,
and the process common in the schools of the Brahmans; the object was to
establish a definite kind of interpretation for explanation and
exegesis, and the development of dogma from the passages in the Veda. On
the consideration of a subject follows the doubt or the contradiction,
which has been or can be raised on the other side. The contradiction is
met by refutation on counter-grounds. This negative proof is followed by
positive proof, that the view of the opponents is in itself untenable
and worthless, and last comes the final proof of the thesis maintained
by demonstration that it agrees with the whole system. In this manner we
find philosophy treating first the authority of revealed scriptures, the
Veda, then the relation of tradition to it, the statements of the sages,
the commentary on the revelation. Then the variations and coincidences
of revelation and their inner connection are developed, and so the
system passes on to the explanation of the Veda. It is shown that all
passages in the Veda point directly or indirectly to the one Brahman.
At certain passages it is shown how a part of these plainly and another
part obscurely refer to Brahman, though even the latter refer to it as a
being worthy of divine reverence; another part of the passages in the
Veda point to Brahman as something beyond our knowledge. The
contradictions between the passages in the Veda are proved to be only
apparent. These explanations of the passages in the Veda are followed by
the doctrine of good works, as the means of salvation, which are either
external, like the observation of the ceremonial, the laws of
purification, or internal like the quieting and taming of the senses,
the hearing and understanding of revelation, and the acknowledgment of
Brahman.[373]
The other part of the system, the Vedanta, leaves out of sight the
difficult task of proving the idea of Brahman from the Veda, and
bringing the two into harmony; it attempts to derive the existence and
nature of Brahman from the idea. Brahman--such is the line of argument
in the Vedanta--is the one eternal, self-existent essence, unalterable
and unchangeable. It developes into the world, and is thus creative and
created. As milk curdles, as water becomes snow and ice, Brahman
congeals into matter. It becomes first ether, then air, then fire, then
water, and then from water it becomes earth. From these elements arise
the finer and coarser bodies, with which the souls of the gods, spirits,
men and animals are clothed. These souls go forth from Brahman like
sparks from a crackling fire--a metaphor common in the book of the
law--they are of one essence with Brahman, and parts of the great
world-soul. This soul is in the world, but also outside and above it; to
it must everything return, for all that is not Brahman is impure,
without foundation, and perishable.
In this view there lies a contradiction which could not escape the keen
penetration of a reflective spirit. Brahman is intended to be not only
the intellectual but also the material basis of the world. It is
regarded as absolutely non-material, eternal, and unchangeable, and yet
the material, changeable world is to rise out of it; the sensible out of
the non-sensible and the material out of the immaterial. In order to
remove this dualism and contradiction which the orthodox doctrine
introduced into Brahman, the speculation of the Brahmans seized upon a
means which if simple was certainly bold: they denied the whole sensible
world; they allowed matter to be lost in Brahman. There is only one
Being; this is the highest soul (_paramatman_, p. 131), and besides this
there is nothing: what seems to exist beyond this is mere illusion. The
world, _i.e._ matter, does not exist, but only seems to exist, and the
cause of this illusion is Maya or deception. Of this the sensible world
is a product, like the reflection of the moon in water, and the mirage
in the desert. Nature is nothing but the play of illusion, appearing in
splendour and then disappearing. It is deception and nothing else which
presents various forms to men, where there is only unity without
distinction. The movement and action of living beings is not caused by
the sparks of Brahman dwelling in them--for Brahman is consistently
regarded as single and at rest--but by the bodies and senses, which
being of themselves appearance and deception, adopt and reflect the
deception of Maya. By this appearance the soul of man is kept in
darkness, _i.e._ in the belief that the external world exists, and the
man is subject to the emotions of pain and joy. In his actions man is
determined by appearance and by the perception arising out of
appearance. In truth Brahman alone exists. It is only deception which
allows the soul to believe that it has a separate existence, or that the
perceptible world exists, or that there is an existent manifold world.
This deceptive appearance of the world, which seems to darken the pure
Brahman as the clouds darken the brightness of the sun, must be removed
by the investigation which teaches us the truth, that the only existing
being is the highest being, the world-soul. In this way the delusion of
a multiform world disappears. As the sunlight dispels mists, true
knowledge dispels ignorance, and destroys the glamour of Maya. This
knowledge is the way to liberation and the highest salvation. The
liberation of men from appearance, from the senses and the world of the
sense, from the emotions arising from these, is the knowledge that this
world of the senses does not exist, that the soul of a man is not
separated from the highest soul. Thus man finds the direct path from the
sensible world, the body and separate existence, to Brahman, by active
thought which penetrates deception. The sage declares: "It is not so, it
is not so;" he knows that the highest soul is all, and that he himself
is Brahman. Recognising himself as the eternal, changeless Brahman, he
passes into the world-soul; he who knows Brahman reposes in it beyond
reach of error. As the rivers flowing to the ocean disappear in it,
losing their names and form, so the man of knowledge liberated from his
name and his form passes into the highest eternal spirit. He who knows
this highest Brahman is freed from trouble and sin; from the bonds of
the body and the eye; he is lost in Brahman, and becomes himself
Brahman.[374]
We cannot but acknowledge the capacity of the Indians for philosophic
speculations, and the vigour of thought which for the first time in
history maintained the thesis that our senses deceive us; that all which
surrounds us is appearance and deception--which denies the whole world
of things, and in opposition to the evidence of the tangible and actual
world, boldly sets up the inward capacity of knowledge, as a criterion
against which the evidence of the senses is not to be taken into
consideration. For a long time the actual world had been resolved into
the transcendental world of gods and saints; this is now contracted into
a simple substance, beyond and besides which nothing exists but
appearance. Instead of the appearance of the sensible world, in which
there is no being, there exists one real being, the one invisible
world-soul, which allows the corporeal world to arise into appearance
from it like airy bladders, and then again to sink back whence it came.
This universal deity is conceived as a being at rest; its activity and
development into a sensible world is only apparent. It is a Pantheism
which annihilates the world; matter and nature are completely absorbed
by the world-soul, are plunged and buried in it; the soul of a man is a
being only apparently separated from the world-soul. From these notions
the mission of a man becomes clear. He must turn from appearance; he
must unite with the world-soul by recognising the fact that all
perceptions and emotions come from the world of phenomena, and
therefore do not really exist; he must rise to the conception that only
Brahman exists, and that man is Brahman. If from an ancient period the
Indians were of opinion that they could draw down the gods to men by the
holy spirit ruling in their prayers and sacrifices--if the mortification
of the flesh in penances can give divine power and force to men--their
philosophy is no more than consistent, when by recognising the
worthlessness of sensible existence it allows Brahman to wake in the
human spirit, and thus re-establishes the unity of man with Brahman.
The system of the Vedanta carried out the idea of Brahman so
consistently that the entire actual existence of the world is thus
annihilated. When once interest in speculation had been aroused, the
reaction against positions of this kind was inevitable. The reality of
actual things, the existence of matter, the certainty of the individual
existence, must be defended against such a doctrine. On these factors
was founded a new system, of which the founder in the tradition of the
Brahmans is called the Rishi Kapila. The name Sankhya given to this
system means "enumeration," "consideration." It maintains that reason
alone is in a position to lead man to a right view, to truth and
liberation.[375] It also exhibits the boldness arising from the fanciful
nature of the Indians; and as the Vedanta took up a position on the idea
of Brahman in order to wrest the world from its foundations, the Sankhya
system stands on the idea of the soul (_purusha_) and of nature or
matter (_prakriti, pradhana_). These two alone have existed from the
beginning, uncreated and eternal. Nature is uncreated and eternal,
creative and without cognition; the soul is also uncreated and eternal;
it is not creative but has cognition. All that exists is the effect of a
cause. The effect is limited in time and extension, subject to change,
and can be resolved into its origin, _i.e._ into its cause. As every
effect supposes a cause, every product supposes a producing force, every
limited an unlimited. If the limited or product is pursued from cause to
cause, there results the unlimited, eternal, creative, _i.e._ producing,
nature as the first cause of all that is produced and limited. But
beside nature there exists a second first cause. Nature is blind, _i.e._
without cognition; "light cannot arise out of darkness," intelligence
cannot be the effect of nature. The cause of intelligence is the soul,
which though completely distinct from nature exists beside it. Nature is
eternal and one; the soul is also eternal, but manifold. Were the soul
one, it could not feel pain in one man at the same time that it feels
joy in another. The soul exists as the plurality of individual souls;
these existed from the beginning, and are eternal beside nature. But
they also entered into nature from the beginning. Their first case is
the primeval body (_linga_), which consists essentially of "I-making"
(_ahankara_), _i.e._ individualisation, and the primeval elements; the
second material body consists of the five coarse elements of ether, air,
light, water, earth. Neither the soul nor the primeval body dies, but
only the material body.[376] The primeval body accompanies the soul
through all its migrations; the material body is created anew at the
regenerations, _i.e._ the soul and the primeval body are constantly
clothed anew with new materials. The soul itself is uncreated,
unchangeable amidst all mutations, and eternal, but it does not carry
the consciousness of itself from one body to another. The soul is not
creative; it exercises no influence on nature; it is only perceptive,
observant, cognising, only a witness of nature. Nature is illumined by
the proximity of the soul, and the soul gives witness of nature; nature
takes its light from the soul, just as a white crystal appears red in
the proximity of a red substance.[377]
The object of human life is to obtain liberation from the fetters of the
body which bind the soul. The office of true knowledge is to set the
soul free from the body, from nature. Man must grasp the difference of
the soul and the body; he must understand that beside the body and
nature, the soul is a completely self-existent being. The union of the
soul and the body is nothing but deception, error, appearance. "In
truth, the soul is neither bound nor free, nor a wanderer; nature alone
is bound or free or migratory."[378] The soul seems to be bound to
nature, but is not so. This appearance must be removed; the soul must
recognise that it is not nature. When the soul has once penetrated
nature it turns from it, and nature turns from the soul. The "unveiling
of the spirit" from the case of nature is the liberation of the soul; by
knowledge "release is brought about; by its opposite bondage."[379] By
conceiving the absolute independence of the soul, man sets himself free
from nature and his body; the idea of this independence is release. With
this idea the man of knowledge surrenders his body; he is no longer
affected or disturbed by it; even though his natural life continues, he
looks on the body only "as on the movement of the wheel by virtue of the
impulse once communicated to it."[380]
In spite of the sharp contrast in which the doctrine of Kapila stands to
the system of the Vedanta, it works, in the last resort, with analogous
factors, only it applies them differently. The soul and nature were put
in the place of Brahman and Maya. Instead of the one intelligent
principle, which the Vedanta establishes in the world-soul, Kapila
maintains the plurality of individual spirits. In the Vedanta, it is
true, nature exists as an illusion only: still it is a factor, which
though it is also appearance, is nevertheless an existence, and in the
last resort exists in Brahman; it has ever to be overcome anew, and thus
in this system of unity, the basis is really a dualism. In the Sankhya
doctrine nature is actually and materially existent; but the intelligent
principle has to discover that this actually existent matter is, in
truth, not existent for it, and cannot fetter the soul. If in the
orthodox system the illusion of nature is to be annihilated by the free
passage of the individual into Brahman, the doctrine of Kapila requires
in the same way that man should rise to the idea that he is not nature,
that the body is not his being, that he is not matter; it requires that
man should be conscious of his freedom from nature, that he should
return to his independence, in the same way as the Vedanta requires the
absorption into Brahman. Then in the one case, as in the other, the
individual escapes the restless movement of the world. In both systems
the connection of the spirits and nature is only apparent, and the power
of this deception in the spirit is removed by knowledge. Both proceed
from the idea of an eternal being, self-contained, at rest, unmoved,
self-sufficient; this the Vedanta ascribes to Brahman, while the Sankhya
explains it as the nature of the soul. Nevertheless there is an
important difference. In the Sankhya the intellectual principle is not
the divine world-soul, which permits everything to emanate from itself
and return to itself; it is the individual self, and besides this and
material nature there is no real being, no real essence. If in the
Vedanta liberation is the identification with the world-soul or the
Godhead, liberation in the Sankhya is the retirement of the soul into
itself. According to the Vedanta the liberated man says, I am Brahman;
according to the Sankhya, I am not body nor nature.[381]
In the certainty of conviction which the Sankhya doctrine opposed to the
orthodox system, in the clearness with which it drew out the
consequences of its point of view, in the boldness of scepticism
concerning the gods and revelation, in the courage with which it
protested against the regulations of the priests, and the whole
religious tradition of the people, lies its importance. By following the
rules of the Veda, so said the adherents of this philosophy, no peace
can be obtained; the means prescribed by the Veda are neither pure nor
of sufficient efficacy. How could it be a pure act to shed blood?--how
could sacrifices and ceremonies be of sufficient force? If they really
conferred the blessing of heaven, it could only be for a short time; the
blessing would merely last till the soul assumed a new body. Temporal
means could not give any eternal liberation from evil. The adherents of
Kapila explained the gods, including Brahman, to be souls, not much
distinguished from the souls of men; the more advanced denied their
existence altogether. There was no supreme soul, they said, and no god.
Even if there were a god, he must either be free from the world, or
connected with it. He cannot be free, for in that case nothing would
move him to creation, and if he were connected with the world he would
be limited by it, and could not be omniscient.[382] Thus not only were
the whole doctrine of Brahman and the whole system of gods overthrown,
but the authority of the Veda was annihilated on which the Brahmans
founded their belief no less than the worship by sacrifice, and with it
all revelation, all the positive basis of religious life. The doctrine
of Kapila found adherents. From orthodox scholasticism the Indian
philosophy very rapidly arrived at rationalism and scepticism, though
the latter, like the correct system, moved in scholastic forms and ended
with an unsolved dualism.
While in this manner one constructive system superseded the other, the
formal side of knowledge did not remain without a keen and penetrating
examination. The objects and means of knowledge were tested; men
occupied themselves with fixing the categories of the idea, of doubt, of
contradiction, of fallacies, of false generalisation, and conversion;
and at last inquiries were made into the syllogism and the members of
it, and more especially into the categories of cause and effect.
Researches of this kind quickly grew into a system, the Nyaya or logic,
which chiefly used the results of the theory of knowledge to establish
the authority of the Veda, and overthrow the arguments brought against
the revelation of it.[383] In themselves, at any rate in the late form
in which we have them, the logical researches of the Indians are
scarcely behind the similar works of modern times in the acuteness and
subtilty of their categories.
In the period between the years 800 and 600 B.C. the valley of the
Ganges must have been filled with the stir of intellectual life. No
doubt the times were long past when the ancient hymns of the Veda were
sung at the place of sacrifice, when the poems of victory and the heroic
deeds of men--the Epos in its original form--were recited at the courts
of princes or the banquets of the military nobility--the Kshatriyas. The
contest of the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas was also over; the Brahmans
had not only gained currency for their teaching in the sphere of
religion and the state, but had already developed it to its
consequences. They put before the princes and the people the canon of
correct life, of purity, of sins and penalties, of punishments beyond
the grave and regenerations, and held up the true law to the state. They
revised the Epos from their point of view; they established the ritual,
they justified every declaration and every ordinance in it from the
Veda, the sacred history; they explained the words and the sense of the
Veda; they went beyond the opposition of schools and authorities to
independent examination of the idea of Brahman, of the causes and
connection of the world, and to speculative philosophy. They have so
far succeeded that no nation has devoted its interest and power to
religion to the same degree as the Indians. The longer they lingered in
the magic world of gods and spirits, into which they were plunged by the
sacrifices, legends, and doctrines of the Brahmans, the more familiar
they became with these dreams, the more passive must they have grown to
the actual and prosaic connection of things, the more indifferent to the
processes going on in the world of reality. Hence in the end the Indians
knew more of the world of the gods than of the things of the earth; they
lived in the next world rather than in this. The world of fancy became
their fatherland, and heaven was their home. The more immutable the
limits of the castes, the heavier the taxation of the state, the greater
the caprice of the officers, the less the space left for the will or act
of the individual, the more uniform the life,--the more did the people
become accustomed to seek their fears and hopes in the kingdom of
fancies and dreams, in the world to come. Excluded from action in the
state, the Indians turned the more eagerly to the questions of worship
and dogma; for that was the only sphere in which movement found nothing
to check it, and the separation of the people into a number of tribes,
the mutual exclusiveness of the castes and local communities limited the
common feeling of the nation on the Ganges to the faith which they all
acknowledged.
FOOTNOTES:
[345] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 80.
[346] M. Müller, "Hist. Anc. Skt. Lit." p. 469 ff.
[347] "Rigveda," 1, 162, according to M. Müller's translation, _loc.
cit._ p. 553 ff.
[348] "Çatapatha-Brahmana," 13, 3, 1, 1, in M. Müller, _loc. cit._ p. 37
ff.
[349] "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 11 ff. A. Weber, "Vorles." s. 126^2.
[350] "Vishnu-Purana," ed. Wilson, p. 470, 471. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth."
2^2, 319, 346, 963, 1001.
[351] M. Müller has placed the period of the origin of the Brahmanas in
the period from 800 to 600 B.C.--very successfully, so far as I can see.
The collection of the Atharvan will belong to the end of this period,
but not merely on the internal ground of the increase in the ceremonial
brought about with and through the Brahmanas. The book of the law
consistently cites the triple Veda; the sutras of the Buddhists and the
Epos as consistently cite four. That the magic formulas of Atharvan and
Angiras are quoted in Manu 11, 33, and not those of the Atharvaveda,
seems also to prove that the latter collection was not made when the
citations were written. Cp. A. Weber, "Vorl." s. 165^2.
[352] "Rigveda," 10, 9, 5-7.
[353] "Atharvaveda," 5, 19, 2, 1-5.
[354] Darmesteter, "Haurvatat," p. 74.
[355] "Atharvaveda," 2, 9.
[356] "Atharvaveda," 1, 25, 2, 8, quoted by Grohmann in Weber's "Ind.
Stud." 9, 391, 403, 406 ff. If Takman is called Deva, this is due to the
connection in which he is placed with Varuna. Varuna sends diseases as
punishments, dropsy, as a water-god, but fever also, and thus Takman can
be called the son of Varuna.
[357] "Rigveda," 1, 50, 11, 12; 10, 97.
[358] Kuhn in his "Zeitschrift f. v. s." 13, 140 ff., where the
coincidence of the German language is pointed out.
[359] M. Müller, "Hist. Anc. Skt. Lit." p. 230 ff.; 245 ff. A. Weber,
"Vorles." s. 48^2.
[360] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 456. M. Müller, _loc. cit._ p. 305.
Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 474.
[361] In the Brahmanas we only find traces of a quinquennial or
sexennial cycle. A. Weber, in "Z. D. M. G." 15, 132. The worship of the
Nakshatras, or houses of the moon, _i.e._ the division of the sky into
27 (later 28) parts by means of certain constellations as marks, is
first found in a developed form in Buddha's time, as is proved by
Burnouf and A. Weber ("Abh. d. Berl. Akad.," 1861, s. 320). Weber does
not believe in the Indian origin of these stations of the moon; he
regards them as Semitic, and borrowed from Babylonia, _loc. cit._ s.
363. The inquiry at what time these marks for the course of the moon
according to the position of the stars were made astronomical has led to
various results. Biot regards the year 2357 B.C. as the earliest point
(the original number of 24 stations was increased to 28 about the year
1100 B.C.). A. Weber thinks that the period between 1472 and 536 B.C. is
the space within which the observation of the Jyotisha was fixed
("Studien," 2, 240, 413, 414. "Abh. d. Berl. Akad." 1860, s. 284; 1861,
s. 354, 364), and shows that the use of these houses of the moon in
China, in the order usual there, cannot be proved before 250 B.C. The
Chinese order corresponds to the latest Indian arrangement of the
Nakshatras, cf. "Ind. Stud." 9, 424 ff., whereas the length given in the
Jyotisha for the longest and shortest day, suits the position of
Babylon, _loc. cit._ 1861, s. 361. The Veda knows the Nakshatras as
stars but not as stations of the moon, though they are known as the
latter in the Brahmanas. The Vedic names of several of the gods who
preside over the stations (Aryaman, Bhaga, etc.) prove a tolerably
ancient origin for the Nakshatras. The civic computation of time among
the Buddhists is founded on them. Hence we may assume that this division
of the sky was perhaps current among the Indians in the tenth century
B.C.
[362] A. Weber, in "Abh. d. Berl. Akad." 1861, s. 291.
[363] Manu, 3, 162; 6, 50.
[364] A. Weber, "Vorl." s. 224 ff. The first traces of astrology in the
strict sense besides the mention in the book of the law are found in the
sutras of the Buddhists, _e.g._ in Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 140, 141, if
we do not prefer the accounts of the Greeks to those legends which were
written in Magadhi (Pali) the native language of Magadha, and the
central Ganges in general, and have come down in the form which they
received in the middle of the third century B.C., but also contain
fragments of far greater antiquity. In any case, preference must be
given to the simple sutras (Burn. _loc. cit._ p. 232), and these lay
great stress on the astrology and soothsaying of the Brahmans. After
this we meet with numerous traces of astrology in the Epos; but the
law-book of Yajnavalkya is the first to command the worship of planets.
[365] M. Müller, _loc. cit._ p. 109 ff.
[366] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 245 ff.
[367] A. Weber, "Indische Studien," 9, 2, 72, 74.
[368] Manu, 1, 33-40, 61, ff.
[369] Manu, 9, 31-34; 313-322.
[370] "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 51-65. In this extended form this
episode may, it is true, have first arisen at a much later time, as is
shown by the mention of Vishnu and Çiva, and the Yavanas (Greeks). If in
spite of these additions which are not important, I confidently place it
at this date, I do so because the importance of the penitent and his
power over the gods, the creation of beings by the penance of saints,
_i.e._ the degradation of the gods, must be placed before the appearance
of Buddha. This is the essential hypothesis for the religion which the
doctrine of Buddha found in existence. In the Mahabharata this legend is
told more briefly. Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 196 ff.
[371] A. Weber, "Ind. Stud." 1, 414.
[372] The Sankhya system, which Buddha found in existence, presupposes
the Vedanta system. The latter system must therefore have been in
existence before Buddha; Roer, "Lecture on the Sankhya Philosophy,"
Calcutta, 1854, p. 19. The Vedanta is expressly mentioned in Manu, 2,
160, as belonging to the study of the Veda. The names Mimansa and Nyaya
are also mentioned in Manu, but only in the final part, which is very
loosely connected with the whole (12, 109, 111).
[373] Colebrooke, "Miscellaneous Essays," 1, 325 ff. M. Müller,
"Beiträge zur Kenntniss der indischen Philosophie" in Z. D. M. G. 6, 6,
7.
[374] Colebrooke, "Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society," II, 1.
Vans Kennedy, "Asiatic Journal," 1839, p. 441 ff. Köppen, "Religion des
Buddha," s. 57 ff. Wuttke, "Geschichte des Heidenthums," 2, 257, 281,
399
[375] It is in the later Upanishads that we first find the doctrine of
Kapila called by the name Sankhya, Weber, "Vorles." s. 212; "Ind. Stud."
9, 17. As with the Vedanta system, so also with the Sankhya: in the
Sankhya-Karika we have only a very late and compressed exposition in 72
çlokas; but as Buddhism is founded on this system we are more certain
about the earlier form of it than in the case of the Vedanta.
[376] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 511.
[377] Roer, "Lecture," p. 15; Köppen, "Religion des Buddha," s. 65.
[378] "Sankhya-Karika," çl. 63.
[379] "Sankhya-Karika," çl. 44. Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 520, 522.
[380] "Sankhya-Karika," çl. 67. By the side of this keen scepticism the
system of the Sankhya allows the gradation of creatures as fixed by the
Brahmans to remain, and the migration of souls with some slight
modifications. The lowest stage is formed by the minerals; above these
are the plants, reptiles, birds, wild animals, domestic animals. These
are followed by men in the order of the castes; and then come the
regenerations in the form of demons, Piçachas, Rakshasas, Yakshas and
Gandharvas; and last in the form of Indra, Soma, Prajapati, Brahman.
Barthelemy St. Hilaire, "sur le Sankhya," p. 286.
[381] Köppen, _loc. cit._ s. 69.
[382] Roer, "Lecture on the Sankhya Phil." p. 14; "Introduction to the
Çvetaçvatara-upanishad," p. 36; cf. "Sankhya-Karika," çl. 53-55. Muir,
"Sanskrit Texts," 3, 133 ff.
[383] Muir, _loc. cit._ 3, 108 ff.
BOOK VI.
BUDDHISTS AND BRAHMANS.
CHAPTER I.
THE STATES ON THE GANGES IN THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C.
The list of the kings of Magadha, preserved not only among the Brahmans,
but from the seventh century B.C. downwards among the Buddhists who then
came forward to oppose them, allow us to assert with tolerable accuracy
that the dynasty of the Pradyotas, which ascended the throne of Magadha
in the year 803 B.C., was succeeded in 665 B.C. by another family, known
to the Brahmans as the Çaiçunagas.[384] The first two kings of this
house were Kshemadharman and Bhattya (the Kshatraujas of the Brahmans).
In 603 B.C. Bhattya was succeeded by his son Bimbisara. In the reign of
this king, according to the ancient sutras of the Buddhists, justice,
morals, and religion were regulated in Magadha and the neighbouring
states according to the wishes of the Brahmans. In these narratives we
find the rules of the law-book generally recognised and carried out in
all essential points, and in some respects they are even transcended.
The system of exclusive castes is complete. The stricter marriage law,
forbidding union with a woman of another caste, is victorious over the
more liberal view that the husband fixed the caste. "Brahmans marry
Brahmans only, nobles only nobles; a man takes a wife only from an equal
family."[385] Within the castes those of equal position are divided into
separate corporations. Among the Vaiçyas and Çudras, merchants,
artisans, barbers, form special castes, in which the occupation of the
father descends to the son; the son of a merchant is a merchant, and the
son of a butcher a butcher.[386] The laws on the order of the castes and
forbidden food were strictly observed. The lower and impure castes
thoroughly believe in their vocation. The Kshatriya, though sick to
death, refuses to take even as a remedy the forbidden onion (p. 169),
which the physician hands to him.[387] The Chandalas give notice of
their approach that the higher castes may not be rendered impure by
contact with them; they eat dog's flesh as the law requires, and carry
the dead out beyond the gates of the city.[388] Invested with the holy
girdle, the Brahmans, as the law directs (p. 173), bear continually in
their hands the staff of bamboo and the pitcher of water for
purification. The learned among them are occupied with the study of the
Veda; they recite the hymns, instruct pupils, and hold discussions on
theology and philosophy. Occasionally the princes take an interest in
these learned contests, and cause the disputations to go on at their
courts in their presence; one king favours this system, another that;
one protects this school, the other a different school. The penitent
Brahmans live as anchorites in the forest, in the mountains, on the holy
lakes Ravanahadra and Manasa, under Kailasa, the lofty peak of the
Himalayas. Some live in complete solitude, others dwell in such a manner
that a whole circle of settlements lie close together.[389] The
neighbours now and then combine for disputation, others give themselves
up in deep solitude to meditation and mortification. At that time
hundreds of these penitents are said to have lived on the holy lakes,
and the severity of their exercises appears already to have exceeded the
requirements of the book of the law. Some fast, others sit between four
fires, others perpetually hold their hands above their heads, others lie
on hot ashes, others on a wooden bed covered with sharp points.[390]
Other Brahmans, and it would appear a considerable number, wander as
mendicants through the land; others pursue the newly-discovered
avocations of astrology and sooth-saying;[391] others avail themselves
of the permission of the book of the law to drive the plough, and carry
on the business of a merchant.[392] Others think that they will find an
easier path to maintenance and money if they present the kings with
poems written in their praise, or give their daughters to be received
into the harem of princes. Not all Brahmans could read and write: many
confounded _Om_ and _Bhur_.[393]
The life of the opulent classes, had become, it is said, easy and
luxurious. In such circles no one went without a servant to carry the
parasol and keep off the flies. The physician was sent for in every case
of sickness, and poor men entreated him not to order too costly
remedies. The lot of the beggar was considered miserable, because he
could not have a physician in sickness, or obtain medicine.[394]
Industry and trade flourished in spite of the hindrances thrown in the
way by the system of caste, or the taxation, which, as is shown by many
indications beside the directions in the book of the law, was severe.
That Magadha, even before the sixth century, was the seat of a lively
trade, we may conclude from the fact that the merchants are called
simply "Magadhas" in the book of the law. Caravans under the guidance of
a chief convey the wares from one city to another on camels, elephants,
oxen, and asses, or on the shoulders of bearers, till the sea-coast is
reached. Stuffs and woven cloths, especially silk of Varanasi,
sandal-wood, saffron and camphor, horses from the north, "noble Sindhu
horses," are mentioned as the commonest articles of traffic.[395] As the
most important the book of the law enumerates precious stones, pearls,
corals, iron, woven cloths, perfumes and spices, and advises the man who
wishes to amass money quickly to go to sea; "he who will obtain wealth
most quickly must not despise the dangers and misery of the great
ocean." According to the statements of the sutras the merchants go by
hundreds over the sea. The costly sandal-woods of the Malabar coasts are
embarked at Çurparaka (which must no doubt be looked for at the mouth of
the Krishna); from thence men sailed past Tamraparni (Ceylon) in order
to buy precious stones on a distant island.[396] In the larger cities
the merchants formed corporations, the chiefs of which treat with the
kings in the names of the whole;[397] some especially-favoured merchants
obtained the privilege of receiving their wares free of toll. The great
merchants in the cities did not find it necessary to pay at once for the
wares which came from a distance. They printed their seal on the bales
which they would buy, and paid a small deposit.[398] The members of the
family work at their occupation in common; while one brother stays at
home and attends to the sale, the others go with the caravans or are at
sea.[399] In these circles no one marries till he has amassed a certain
sum of money. The profits of the merchants appear to have been easy and
large, though their journeys were attended with danger. They were not
only threatened with the exactions of tax-gatherers and attacks of
robbers, but were exposed to great temptations in the cities. Mistresses
could be found there, "whose bodies were soft as the lotus flower, and
shone in gay attire." These, no doubt, gave themselves up to the young
travellers at no inconsiderable price.[400]
The kings of Magadha resided at Rajagriha, _i.e._ the king's house, a
city which lay to the south of the Ganges and the east of the Çona. The
sutras mention Prasenajit, king of the Koçalas, who, as already
remarked, lay on the Sarayu, and Vatsa, the son of Çatanika, king of the
Bharatas, as contemporaries of Bimbisara, king of Magadha, and his son
Ajataçatru. Hence the reigns of Prasenajit and Vatsa may be placed in
the first half and about the middle of the sixth century B.C. Both
princes are mentioned in the tradition of the Brahmans. In the
Vishnu-Purana, Prasenajit is the twenty-third ruler of the Koçalas after
the great war. Vatsa is the twenty-fifth successor of Parikshit, who is
said to have ascended the throne of Hastinapura after the victory and
abdication of the sons of Pandu.[401] The kings of the Koçalas had
built a new city, Çravasti, to the north of their ancient capital
Ayodhya; the kings of the Bharatas resided at Kauçambi on the Ganges. To
the north of the kingdom of Magadha, on the other bank of the Ganges,
lay the commonwealth of the Vrijis on the Gogari, and the kingdom of
Mithila; to the east on both shores of the Ganges were the Angas, whose
capital appears to have been Champa (in the neighbourhood of the modern
Bhagalpur); to the west of Magadha on the Ganges were the Kaçis, whose
capital was Varanasi (Benares). The colonies of the Arians had advanced
and their territory had been extended to the south both on the east and
west. This is not merely proved by the mention of Çurparaka, for the
sutras of the Buddhists tell us of a great Arian kingdom on the northern
spur of the Vindhyas, the metropolis of which was Ujjayini (Ozene in
western writers) on the Sipra, and adjoining this on the coast was the
kingdom of Surashtra (Guzerat).[402]
The life of the kings on the Ganges is described by our authorities in
glowing colours. Their palaces are spacious, provided with gardens and
terraces for promenading. Besides the women and servants, the bodyguard
and the executioners clothed in blue are domiciled in the royal
citadels. The princes eat off silver and gold, and are clothed in silk
of Varanasi. Friendly princes make handsome presents to each other,
_e.g._ suits of armour adorned with precious stones.[403] Their edicts
and commands are composed in writing and stamped with the seal of
ivory.[404] The labours of government are relieved by the pleasures of
the chase. In sickness the princes are served with the most select
remedies. When Bimbisari's son and successor fell down one day in a
swoon, he was placed in six tubs full of fresh butter, and afterwards
in a seventh filled with the most costly sandal-wood.[405] The harem of
the king was numerous, and the women had great influence; the children
which they bore were suckled by nurses, of whom one child had at times
eight.[406] Any one who ventured to cast a look upon one of the wives of
the king forfeited his life. When one of the wives of Prasenajit, king
of the Koçalas, was walking in the evening on the terrace of the palace
she saw the handsome brother of the king, and threw him a bouquet; when
this came to the ears of Prasenajit, he caused the feet and hands of his
brother to be cut off.[407] The same cruel and barbarous character marks
all the punishments inflicted by the king. On the order of a king whose
mildness and justice are commended, all the inhabitants of the city are
said to have been put to death on account of an error committed by one
of them.[408] If any one had to make a communication to the king, or lay
any matter before him, he first besought that he might not be punished
for his words. No one approached the king without a present; least of
all merchants. Happy events were announced by princes to their cities by
the sound of bells. Stones, gravel, and dirt were then removed from the
streets, which were sprinkled with sandal-water and strewed with flowers
and garlands, and silken stuffs were hung along them. At certain
distances jars filled with frankincense were placed; and if a guest of
distinction was to be received the ways were cleansed for a considerable
space before the gates, smoothed, and perfumed, and furnished with
standards, parasols, and resting-places of flowers.[409]
We have already remarked how unfamiliar the abstract god which the
Brahmans had placed at the head of their theory remained to the people,
both in his impersonal and personal form. They had been more deeply
influenced by the degradation of the old gods, introduced by the
Brahmans in consequence of their religious system (p. 287). Yet it was
not so much these doctrines which caused the old gods to lose their
primitive power, and complete charm over the hearts of men, as the fact
that the motives which now governed the life of the Aryas were wholly
different from those which had filled them in old days on the Indus.
Indra, the hurler of the thunder-bolt, had fought with the tribes whose
offering of Soma he had drunk. The storm of the elements characteristic
of the Panjab was unknown on the Ganges; and in the civilised conditions
of a peaceful, obedient, quiet life the old slayer of the demons could
no longer excite the lively feelings of the people. The Brahmans might
recede ever further from nature; the people, the peasants and herdmen,
remained in constant contact with her, and with the phenomena of the sky
and the vegetative life of the earth; they felt themselves continually
surrounded by the mighty operations of nature. The feeling and faith of
the people required a more personal, present, living power, which
assured them of help and protection. While the Brahmans wearied
themselves with abstractions and philosophic systems, the needs of the
multitude, the poetical vein of the Indian nation, its realism as
opposed to the spiritualism of the priests and Brahmans, struck out new
paths. So it came about that as the supreme deities of the most ancient
and the early periods faded away more and more, as Mitra and Varuna,
Indra and Ushas passed into the background, forms hitherto little
regarded rose up out of the circle of these spirits, which were akin to
the present instincts and needs of the nation, the immediate modes of
feeling, and in closer relation to them. This movement was not confined
to the people; within the circles of the Brahmans, who were not wholly
given up to abstractions, the want of a living power, governing the
world, could not but be felt.[410]
In the hymns of the Rigveda a god Vishnu is invoked, though but little
prominence is given to him. He is called a friend and comrade of Indra;
it said of him that he walks over the seven parts of the earth; that he
plants his foot in three places. The "far-stepping" Vishnu is invited
with Mitra, Varuna, and Aryaman to give salvation. He dwells in the
height; his exalted habitation, where honey flows, beams with clear
light. He sustains trebly the sky, the earth, and all worlds; he walks
with three steps through the wide firmament. He walks through the worlds
to secure long life for men. Not even the soaring winged birds could
reach up to his third step. He hastens on to ally himself with the
beneficent Indra; he favours and protects the Aryas. Fired by hymns of
praise Vishnu himself yokes the mighty mares, and dashes into the battle
in his youth and strength, accompanied by the Maruts. "Friend Vishnu,"
said Indra, when planning the death of Vritra, "step out wide; thou
heaven, give room, that the thunder-club may descend; let us smite
Vritra and set the waters free. O strong god (Indra), in concert with
Vishnu thou hast smitten Vritra; thou hast smitten Ahi who held back the
waters." "Ye two heroes, who bring to nought the magic powers of the
hostile spirits, to you I bring songs of praise and sacrifice. Ye have
always conquered, ye have never been overcome. Come ye, Indra and
Vishnu, to the draught of Soma, bring treasures with you; may your
mares, which overpower the foe, sharing in your victories, bring you
hither; may our songs anoint you with the ointment of prayer. Rejoiced
by the draught of Soma, take ye your wide steps; make wide the
atmosphere and spread out the earth. Grant us rich sustenance in our
houses." "No mortal, O Vishnu, knows the uttermost limits of thy
greatness; thou hast surrounded the earth on both sides with beams of
light. Never does the man repent it, who serves the far-stepping Vishnu
with all his heart, and makes the mighty one favourable. Grant us, O
swift god, thy favour graciously, which includes all men; thy favouring
glance, that abundance, treasures, and horses may be ours. Thrice the
swift god stepped through the earth that he might make it to be a
dwelling for men."[411]
Hence we must regard Vishnu, whose dwelling is in the height of heaven,
as a swift spirit of light. Invoked in the hymns of the Veda beside the
Adityas or spirits of light, he is not definitely named as such, though
we cannot refuse to him a close connection with the sun when we consider
the further development of the conception formed of him. As he supports
Indra in the battle against the demons, he must be regarded, like him,
as a protector against the evil ones, a giver of water and wealth. His
kindly feeling towards men, his beneficent acts are brought into
prominence. Hence from the early point of view he was a god bringing
blessing and help. The three steps are explained by the Mahabharata as
the earth, the air, and the heavens;[412] other explanations refer them
to the light of the sun at morning, noon, and evening. The Brahmanas
reckon Vishnu among their twelve Adityas (instead of the seven or eight
of the Rigveda), and give a myth of Vishnu. The Aitareya-Brahmana calls
him the gate-keeper, but also the highest deity, as Agni is the lowest;
the rest of the gods are between them. Leaning on his bow Vishnu stood,
as the Çatapatha-Brahmana relates, while the rest of the gods sacrificed
to Kurukshetra; the ants ate through the string, the bow sprung back and
tore off Vishnu's head, which now flew through heaven and earth. The
body was divided by the gods into three parts; Agni took the morning
sacrifice, Indra that at mid-day, and all the rest the third sacrifice.
But they received no blessing from their headless sacrifice, till the
Açvins, who were skilled in the art of healing, put back the head on the
sacrifice. Further, by sacrifice and penance Vishnu became the first of
the gods; in order to wrest this place from him the other gods caused
the ants to eat through the string and then divided Vishnu, the
sacrifice, into three parts.[413] Here the gods are found sacrificing a
god, but the self-sacrifice of the gods is common in the Brahmanas.
Mystical conceptions of this kind naturally remained outside the
national religion. The view of the Aitareya-Brahmana is nearer the
popular mind--that Vishnu took away from the Asuras the world of which
they had possessed themselves, and gave it back to the gods. This idea
is carried out in the Epos: Bali, a great Asura, had gained the dominion
over the earth, and conquered the gods; in order to help the gods out of
their distress Vishnu assumes the form of a dwarf, and entreats Bali to
allow him space for three steps of his dwarfish feet. Having obtained
his request he takes possession of earth, air, and heaven in three great
steps, hurls the Asura into hell, and thus, by the liberation of the
world and the gods, he became the younger brother of Indra.[414]
This mighty god, the ruler of earth and heaven, this swift, bright,
friendly helper of gods and men, was invoked by the nation on the Ganges
as their best protecting deity. It was no doubt the helpful nature of
Vishnu, the characteristic celebrated in the songs of the Veda and in
the legends, which permitted this change. In the plains of the Ganges
fruit and increase naturally depended on the period of rain, on the
regular rise and overflow of the river, not on violent crises in the
sky, or the tempestuous storm in which Indra was still the ruling deity;
in this district the blessing of the land, the life-giving, fructifying
power of nature, could be ascribed to a deity who worked his beneficial
will in a ceaseless persistent course. In the book of the law Vishnu is
hardly mentioned; only once, in the addition at the close, is reference
made to his swift approach;[415] on the other hand, in the ancient
sutras of the Buddhists, Vishnu appears under the names Hari and
Janardana as a widely-honoured deity.[416]
Rudra, the god of the storm, is repeatedly invoked in the Rigveda.
Derived from the tumult of the tempest, the name signifies "the roarer,"
"the howler." He is the father of the Maruts, or winds, the god whom no
other surpasses in strength, terrible as a wild beast, as the boar of
the sky. Red or brown in colour, he wears his hair closely braided (an
idea no doubt taken from the clouds gathered together by the
storm-wind); the swift strong arrows from his mighty bow force their way
from heaven to earth; he is the lord of the heroes, the slayer of men.
"Bring to the venerable Rudra the draught of the Soma; I have praised
him with the heroes of the sky,"--so we are told in some prayers of the
Rigveda. "Submissively we call on the red boar of the sky; be gracious
to us, to our children and descendants! Smite neither the great nor the
small among us, neither father nor mother, neither our cattle nor our
horses. Listen to our prayers, father of the Maruts." "May Rudra's arrow
pass by us; may the spear which travels over the earth touch us not. May
the weapons which slay men and cows remain far from us! Grant us refuge
and protection; take thou our side. Remove from us sickness and want,
thou who art easily entreated. Thou bearest in thy hand a thousand
remedies; these I desire with the favour of Rudra. Be gracious to the
wandering sources of our nourishment; let our cows eat strengthening
plants, and drink abundant life-giving water. For our men and women, for
our horses, rams, sheep and cows, Rudra secures health and
prosperity".[417] It is the wild injurious force of the storm, the force
that carries off men and animals, which these prayers would avert, and
the beneficial consequences of this storm, the filling of springs and
streams, the refreshment of the meadows, the cooling and purification of
the air, are the blessings which these prayers would win from the double
nature of the easily entreated god. By the remedies which Rudra carries
in his hand along with the mighty bow the beneficial consequences of the
storm are no doubt to be understood. In the Atharvaveda, Rudra with
Bhava is invoked under the name of Çarva as a mighty, darkly-glancing
archer, with black hair, a thrower of the spear, who dashes on with a
thousand eyes, and slays the Andhakas. Here also he is entreated not to
be angry, not to smite men nor cattle, to hurl his heavenly weapons
against others and not against his suppliant.[418] He is more highly
exalted still in the Çatapatha-Brahmana, which unites in him the
attributes and functions of various gods, of Vayu, Chandra, Bhava,
Parjanya, _i.e._ the rain-god, and of Agni, represents the gods as
afraid of his power, and denotes him by the name Mahadeva (great god). A
long and extraordinary prayer which this Brahmana prescribes for
appeasing him, ascribes to him the most extensive power: it calls him
the inhabitant, the lord of the mountains, forests, and fields, of the
wild beasts, of the streets and hosts, who slays from before and from
behind, red in colour, with a blue neck. If the anger of the mighty
deity is appeased, he brings rain and blessing, and then he is the
gracious one, Çiva. The fruitfulness of this deity and the necessity of
propitiating him appear to have brought it about that this name, which
is found as an epithet of other gods, became his peculiar title. In the
old sutras of the Buddhists he is thus called, though he more frequently
bears the name Çankara, _i.e._ bringer of happiness.
We see that the deity whose strong power drove up the rain-clouds to the
coast of Surashtra (Guzerat) and the heights of the Himalayas was
victorious over the ancient god of tempest. In this god there was a
destroying power, but his anger and rage were followed by the
fructifying showers of rain, causing vegetation to revive and the
springs to flow, cooling the air and refreshing man and beast. So the
nation looked up with thankful eyes to the god of storm who had now, in
reality, become a god of increase and prosperity, a healer of wounds and
sickness, as was already indicated in the poems of the Rigveda. Among
his retinue is a being of the name of Nandin, who appears later as a
bull, and is without doubt nothing more than an indication of the wild
force of the storm, and its fruitful operation.[419] As he is more
especially a lord of the mountains, and is said to be throned on
Kailasa, and the Ganges flows down over his head, as the Epos represents
the heroes as going to the Himalayas to worship Çiva, and the storm
rages fiercest in the hills, we may assume that it was the inhabitants
of the Western Himalayas who elevated Rudra-Çiva to be their protecting
deity, just as Vishnu became the god of the nations on the Ganges.[420]
FOOTNOTES:
[384] Cp. p. 76, 145, 321.
[385] Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 208, 209,
151.
[386] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 152.
[387] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 150.
[388] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 138, 205, 208.
[389] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 157, 172. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1,
581-585.
[390] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 138, 415.
[391] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 141, 149, 343.
[392] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 141.
[393] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 139, 140, 149. _Supra_, p. 173.
[394] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 236, 420.
[395] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 241, 244 ff. "Dhammapadam," translated by
A. Weber, 322.
[396] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 223, 238.
[397] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 247.
[398] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 245, 246.
[399] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 240.
[400] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 146, 187.
[401] Above, p. 95. Our chronology for the epochs of Indian history
depends essentially on fixing two points. The first is the accession of
Chandragupta in Magadha, already mentioned, from which the year 315 B.C.
is certain (cp. _infra_); the second point is the year of Buddha's
death. The Bhagavata-Purana puts Buddha's death 2000 years after the
beginning of the Kaliyuga (_supra_, p. 77); such a round number and so
general a date cannot lay claim to credibility. Besides this we have a
number of other Brahmanic statements about the date of Buddha's life,
varying more or less, but equally untrustworthy. More weight would
naturally be ascribed to the statements of the Buddhists; yet even these
differ widely from each other. The Thibetans have fourteen different
statements about the year of Buddha's death, which cover the interval
from 2422 to 546 or 544 B.C. The Chinese Buddhists as a rule assign
Buddha's death to the year 950 B.C., but Buddhism did not reach the
Chinese till after the birth of Christ. The most trustworthy statement
seems to be that of the Singhalese. Buddhism reached them soon after the
year 250 B.C.; from the year 161 B.C. their chronology agrees with
existing inscriptions: their chronological system and their era is based
on the year of Buddha's death, which they place in 543 B.C. If this date
is compared with the Brahmanic list of kings of Magadha we get the
following results: Before Chandragupta the dynasty of the Nandas reigned
for 88 years according to the Brahmanic accounts, and 22 according to
the Singhalese. On this point I agree with Lassen and Gutschmid in
preferring the statement of the Brahmans, because the error of the
Singhalese may very easily have arisen from the fact that the reign of
22 years, which they give to the sons of Kalaçoka, was incorrectly
repeated for the following dynasty. According to this the first Nanda
ascended the throne of Magadha in the year 403 (315+88). From this year
the items on the Singhalese list carry us up to the year 665 B.C. for
the accession of Kshemadharman (Çiçunaga), and the year 603 B.C. for the
commencement of the reign of Bimbisara (Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 79
ff.), who is succeeded by Ajataçatru eight years before Buddha's Nirvana
("Mahavança," 2, 32, p. 10, ed. Turnour), which thus falls in the year
543 B.C. If we keep to the Singhalese date for the Nanda dynasty, we
arrive at the year 477 B.C. for Buddha's death. Bimbisara ascended the
throne 198 years according to the Matsya-Purana, and 193 years according
to the Vayu-Purana, before the first Nanda. If the year 403 B.C. marks
the accession of the Nandas, Bimbisara according to the Matsya-Purana
began to reign in 601 B.C., and according to the Vayu-Purana in 590 B.C.
Between Bimbisara's accession in 603 B.C. and the end of Açoka of
Magadha there intervene, according to the statements of the Buddhists,
375 years. If with this we compare the dates of the reigns in the list
of kings in the Vayu-Purana from Bimbisara to Açoka, we get 378 years
from the first year of Bimbisara to the last year of Açoka. There is
also another fact which agrees with the era 543 _B.C._ According to the
statements of the Singhalese the second synod of the Buddhists was held
100 or 110 years after Buddha's death, in the reign of Kalaçoka, _i.e._
in 443 or 433 B.C. ("Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 15). Of these two
statements it is obvious that the more definite, 110 years, is more
deserving of credit. According to the detailed statements of the
Singhalese for the time of the separate reigns, Kalaçoka's reign begins
90 years after Buddha's death, _i.e._ 453; he reigns 28 years according
to the Singhalese, _i.e._ if we reckon up the single items from
Chandragupta (the Nandas 80, and Kalaçoka's sons 22 years) from 453 to
425 B.C. In this way the era of the Singhalese and the year of Buddha's
death are completely justified. Still the year is not wholly beyond a
doubt. According to the statement of the native Singhalese, Chandragupta
ascended the throne 162 years (and the various items agree with this
total) after Buddha's death, _i.e._ 162 years after the year 543 B.C.,
and therefore in the year 381 B.C., but we know that his accession took
place in 315 B.C. Here we find an error of 66 years, which however we
have already removed by adopting the Brahmanic statement of 88 years for
the dynasty of the Nandas instead of the 22 years of the Singhalese.
Further, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C., when we are told by
the Singhalese that the third Buddhist synod was held 118 years after
the second, _i.e._ 228 years after Buddha's death. We know from
inscriptions that this synod met in the seventeenth year of Açoka,
Chandragupta's second successor. Açoka reigned from 265 to 228, or from
263 to 226 B.C.: his seventeenth year reckoned from 265 would be 249
B.C.; if we add to this 228 years we get 477 B.C. for the year of
Buddha's death; thus we have here again the same error of 66 years.
Lastly, it does not agree with the era of 543 B.C. when we are told that
the fourth Buddhist synod was held 400 years after the death of Buddha,
under Kanishka, king of Cashmere. Kanishka is a contemporary of Augustus
and Antonius (Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 412, 413); and according to
this statement, therefore, Buddha would have died about the year 400
B.C. As the number of 400 years given for the fourth synod is
nevertheless designedly a round number, little weight is to be placed
upon it, and the year 543 can be kept as the year of Buddha's death.
Before the dynasty of the Nandas in Magadha (403-315 B.C.) the throne
was occupied by the Kshatrabandhus or Çaiçunagas for 262 years (665-403
B.C.); before these came the Pradyotas with 138 years (803-665 B.C.),
who were again preceded (as is shown above, p. 77) by the Barhadrathas
with 615 years, _i.e._ from 1418 to 803 B.C. (Cf. Gutschmid in "Beiträge
zur Geschichte des alten Orients," s. 76, 87, and in "Zeitschrift d. D.
M. G." 18, 372 ff.)
[402] As the Arian colonists go from Surashtra to Ceylon about the year
500 B.C., this kingdom must have been in existence in the sixth century
B.C. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 166 ff.
[403] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 427.
[404] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 407.
[405] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 245.
[406] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 237, 432.
[407] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 146, 514.
[408] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 423.
[409] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 175, 261, 380.
[410] If I ascribe the rise of Vishnu and Çiva primarily to the people,
this is done because the need pointed out must have been felt most
deeply by them; two rival deities would never have been elevated to
supreme positions if the movement had not begun from beneath, and the
life in two different districts had not formed the starting-point.
[411] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 67 ff.
[412] "Vanaparvan," 484 ff. in Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 136.
[413] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 124 ff., 127.
[414] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 131, 252 ff. The epithet of Vishnu, Upendra,
_i.e._ Beside-Indra, points to this position.
[415] Manu, 12, 121.
[416] Burnouf, _loc. cit._ p. 137; A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 2, 20;
Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 918.
[417] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 300-320.
[418] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 184, 230, 269. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 922.
On the seats of the worship of Çiva on the coasts of the Deccan in the
Mahabharata, cp. Muir, _loc. cit._ 44, 28, 285.
[419] _Nandin_ means having delight, delighted.
[420] In the book of the law Vishnu is mentioned once only (12, 121),
and Çiva not at all. The old sutras of the Buddhists, on the other hand,
as has been stated, mentioned Çiva frequently under the name Çankara,
and Vishnu under the names Hari and Janardana. Lassen has rightly
perceived that the Narayana of the ancient sutras and of the law-book
was not yet Vishnu, but Brahman, and Narayana was not transferred to
Vishnu till later ("Alterth." 1^2, 918; 2^2, 464). The Mahavança (7, 47,
ed. Turnour) mentions Vishnu as the tutelary deity of the earliest
settlers in Ceylon. This settlement took place about 500 B.C., while
Çiva appears as the tutelary deity of the somewhat more ancient Mathura
in the south. The rise of the worship of Çiva and Vishnu according to
these indications must be placed between 600 and 500 B.C. Panini is
acquainted with Avataras of Vishnu (Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 921); in
the accounts of the Greeks Krishna is already identified with Vishnu,
and is widely worshipped both in the valley of the Ganges and in the
extreme south of India, while Çiva is worshipped in the mountains. The
development of this worship must therefore have taken place between 500
and 300 B.C., and no doubt chiefly in the second part of this period.