THE REFORMS OF THE BRAHMANS.
A doctrine coming forward with so much self-confidence and force as
Buddhism, touching such essential sides of the Indian national spirit,
and meeting such distinct needs of the heart and of society, could not
but react on the system which opposed it, which it fought against and
strove to remove, _i.e._ on Brahmanism. We cannot suppose that the
Brahmans looked supinely on at the advances of Buddhism. The accounts
which we received from the Greeks about the various forms of worship
dominant about the year 300 B.C. among the Indians (p. 424) show us that
the Brahmanic heaven and the order of the world did not remain
untouched; that there had crept in considerable variations from the
ideas which the ancient sutras mention as current among the Brahmans at
the time of the appearance of the Enlightened. We can confidently
conclude that this change in the Brahmanic idea of God--important as we
shall find it to be, and accomplished in part unconsciously and in part
with a definite purpose--was brought about through Buddhism, by the
inward value of the new doctrine, the struggle it entered into with
Brahmanism, the necessity of opposing and checking its advances.
We have shown above how the subordination of the gods to Brahman and
the great saints, the degradation of the ancient deities, must have
aroused especially in the people the need of living divine powers. Thus
forms hitherto little noticed in the series of the ancient deities
became prominent, in which the people, conforming to the change in their
instincts and the new demands of the heart, recognised the ruling and
protecting powers of their life, and which they invoked especially as
helpers and benefactors. These forms were Vishnu, the god of light, who
even in the Veda is extolled for his friendly feeling to man, and Çiva,
the mighty god of the storm-wind. In Vishnu the people found the spirit
of the beneficent and uniform nature of the district of the Ganges; in
Çiva, the lord of the storm-swept summits of the Himalayas, the ruler of
mountains. Each was equally in their eyes the life-giving, sovereign
power of nature. The system of the world-soul had left the gods a place
little to be envied in the series of the emanations of Brahman, and had
thrust back nature to a distance; the favour which Vishnu and Çiva found
among the people showed the Brahmans that the worship of real and living
deities was indispensable, that the life of nature could not be entirely
excluded from the forms of the deities. To overcome the tide of popular
feeling in the direction of Vishnu and Çiva, and the doctrine of Buddha
at one and the same time, was a victory which the Brahmans could the
less hope for, as the tendency towards a more personal supreme Being
than Brahman was not unknown in their own schools, so far as these were
not devoted to strict meditation and philosophy. Thus the Brahmans
followed the movement excited within the circle of the ancient religion;
they aimed at satisfying both the nation and themselves by the worship
of more personal living gods. In one place Vishnu, in another Çiva, was
adopted into the system of the Brahmans (p. 326, 330), which in this way
underwent a very essential change and assumed an entirely novel point of
view.
If the adoption of Vishnu into the Brahmanic system in the form given to
him by the people on the Ganges, who reproduced in the epithets ascribed
to the god their own quiet sensuous nature, was to be efficacious, he
could not be allowed to play the unimportant part to which the Brahmans
had condemned the ancient gods; they must make him the centre of heaven
in the place of the feeble personal or impersonal Brahman; he must
become the living lord of nature and the world. From the indications of
the Brahmans quoted above, we may draw, though in wavering lines, a
sketch of the gradations through which by a gradual elevation Vishnu
obtained the precedence even over Brahman. Brahman finally became the
quiescent, Vishnu the active, substance of the world. The latter
contains the former, and is therefore the higher power. Vishnu
personifies the world-soul; but he also comprises the whole life of
nature; he takes the place of the sun-gods Surya, Savitar, Pushan, and
even the place of Indra, who has to offer sacrifice to him, and purify
himself before him,[718] until at length in the revisions of the Epos he
is regarded no longer as the quiescent cause but as the active lord of
nature, and of the whole life of the spirits, and is elevated to be the
creator and governor of the universe. In him, the lord of all beings, so
we are told in the Mahabharata, all beings are contained as his
attributes, like precious stones on a string; on him rests the universe
existent and non-existent. Hari (Vishnu) with a thousand heads, a
thousand feet, a thousand eyes, gleams with a thousand faces; the god,
pre-eminent above all, the smallest of the small, the widest of the
wide, the greatest of the great, supreme among the supreme, is the soul
of all; he, the all-knowing, all-observing, is the author of all; in him
the world swims like birds in water.[719] Vishnu is without beginning
and without end, the source of the existence of all beings. From the
thousand-armed Vishnu, the head and the lord of the world, all creatures
sprang in the beginning of time, and to him all return at the end of
time. Hari is the eternal spirit, glittering as gold, as the sun in a
cloudless sky. Brahman sprung from his body, and dwells in it with the
rest of the gods; the lights of the sky are the hairs of his head. He,
the lotus-eyed god, is extolled by the eternal Brahman; to him the gods
pray.[720]
When Vishnu unveils himself to Arjuna at his prayer, and shows himself
in his real form, in which no man had yet seen him, he is seen reaching
up to the sky without beginning, middle, or end, with many heads, eyes,
and arms, uniting in himself thousands of faces; all gods, animals, and
serpents are to be seen in him; Brahman shows himself in the lotus-cup
of the navel of Vishnu.[721]
Thus did the Brahmans place Vishnu on the throne of Brahman; Brahman,
impersonal and personal, passed into him. These pictures are attempts to
represent the creative power, the supreme God, the world-soul, the cause
which sustains and comprises all, as a sensuous union of all divine
shapes, of all the forms of the world into one frame. The worship
offered to this supreme deity consisted in definite prayers, which had
to be spoken at morning, midday, and evening; in offerings of flowers,
and fruits, and libations of water.[722]
What attracted the people to the doctrine of Buddha was obviously, to no
inconsiderable extent, the fact that the highest wisdom and goodness
were personified in Buddha; that there was again mercy and grace, on
earth, if not in heaven; that the king's son had become a mendicant in
order to alleviate the sorrows of the world. The Brahmans, therefore,
had to prove that love and pity existed in their heaven; it was of
importance for them to show the people that the gods, whom the adherents
of the old religion worshipped, had compassion for men, and knew how to
help them, that even among them the divine wisdom and perfection had
assumed a human shape out of love to mankind. If the Brahmans had so
long taught that man could make himself into god by meditation, penance,
and sanctity, why should not the gods have made themselves into men? The
new god of the land of the Ganges was a gentle and helpful deity; his
government of the world and beneficent acts were not only shown in the
life of nature, and in the light which he sent daily, or the purifying
water which he sent yearly in the rainy season, and the inundation of
the Ganges, but also in the fortunes of men. The Brahmans obtained
historical points of connection for the new god, and re-established a
personal and living relation, which had been entirely lost in the
Brahmanic system, between man and the gods, by representing Vishnu as
gracious even in past days, as descending from heaven from time to time,
and walking on earth for the help of men. From motives of this kind or
because the conception of the beneficent acts of Vishnu came into the
foreground, because they wished to see and believed that they saw his
influence operating everywhere, there came the result that the
achievements of the heroes which in the Epos are the centres of the
action, Krishna and Rama, were transferred to the god Vishnu, and these
heroic figures were supposed to be appearances of the god, so that by
degrees a number of incarnations (_avatara_) are ascribed to Vishnu, in
which he visited earth and did great deeds for men. According to this
new system it was Vishnu who assisted the Brahmans to their supremacy,
and therefore consecrated it, who taking the bodily form of Paraçurama
annihilated the proud races of the Kshatriyas (p. 152). Thus the
Brahmans transformed the god of beneficent nature, when they adopted him
into their system, into the founder of the Brahmanic order of the world,
a pattern of Brahmanic sanctity and virtue, and thus they sought to
close the path against any counter-movement. In this way Vishnu appeared
in the light of a perpetual benefactor, constantly assuming the human
form anew, whenever mischief, evil, and sin had got the upper hand, in
order to remove them, and then to reascend into heaven. "Whenever
justice falls asleep and injustice arises, I create myself," are the
words of Vishnu in the Bhagavad-gita; "for the liberation of the good
and the annihilation of the evil I was born in each age of the
world."[723]
In the Epos, as has been observed, Vishnu took the form of a dwarf in
order to rescue the world from the Asura, Bali. According to the
Vishnu-Purana, he had, even before the creation of the world, taken the
form of a boar in order to raise the earth out of the waters. In the
Matsya-Purana, beside three heavenly incarnations as Dharma, a dwarf,
and a man-lion, he underwent seven earthly incarnations in consequence
of a curse, as is strangely asserted, which an Asura had pronounced
upon him, when Vishnu had slain the Asura's mother in order to aid Indra
against him.[724] The Bhagavata-Purana ascribes twenty incarnations to
Vishnu; as creator, a boar, tortoise, fish, man-lion; as a sacrifice, a
dwarf; as Paraçurama, Rama, Balarama, Krishna, etc.--twice more would he
appear on the earth--and then it is added: "But the incarnations of
Vishnu are innumerable as the streams which flow down from an
inexhaustible lake; all saints and gods are parts of him."[725]
In order to transform the heroes of the Ramayana into incarnations of
Vishnu, vigorous interpolations were required in the body of the poem.
According to the old poem, king Daçaratha offered a horse-sacrifice in
order to procure posterity (p. 278). When this sacrifice has been
accurately described in all its parts, and we have been informed that
the gods appeared and received each his portion, a second sacrifice is
inserted because Daçaratha wished to have a famous son born to him.[726]
While Rishyaçringa is advising the king to make this new sacrifice and
beginning it, the gods complain to Brahman that the Rakshasa Ravana of
Lanka has subjugated them and made them his slaves; he oppressed the
gods, the Brahmans, and the cows. Ravana's son, Indrashit, had conquered
Indra himself, a victory which Brahman explains to be the consequence of
the seduction of a rishi's wife by Indra.[727] Brahman then announces to
the helpless deities that Ravana had besought him that he might be
invulnerable to Gandharvas, Yakshas, gods, Danavas, and Rakshasas, and
had obtained his request; as he despised men he had not asked to be
invulnerable to men, and this favour had not been granted to him. When
the gods with Indra at their head heard this they were delighted. At
that moment came the famous Vishnu, with the shell, the discus, the
sun's disk, and the club in his hand, in a yellow robe, on the Garuda
(his bird), like the sun sitting on the clouds, with a bracelet of fine
gold, invoked by the head of the gods. The gods fell down before him and
said: "Thou art he who removest the sorrows of the distressed worlds. We
entreat thee, be our refuge, O unconquerable one." Then they besought
him to take upon himself the son-ship of Daçaratha. When changed into a
man, he might slay Ravana, the powerful enemy of the worlds, whom the
gods could not overcome. He alone in the hosts of heaven can slay the
wicked one. Then Vishnu, the "lord of the gods, the greatest of the
immortals, entreated of all worlds," soothes the gods, and promises them
to slay Ravana, and reign on earth for eleven thousand years.[728]
Meanwhile Rishyaçringa at Ayodhya is ready with the sacrifice, and out
of the fire there appears a being of a brightness incomparable, clear as
a burning flame, strong as a tiger, and his shoulders were as the
shoulders of a lion; his garment was red, and his teeth like the stars
in heaven; in both hands he held a golden cup, and spake to king
Daçaratha: "Receive this draught, Maharaja, which the gods have
prepared; it is the fruit of the sacrifice, let thy fair wives enjoy it;
then wilt thou receive the sons for whom thou hast offered the
sacrifice."[729] Then Kauçalya bore Rama, the lord of the world,
entreated of all worlds, and gained glory by this son of unlimited
power, even as Aditi did by the birth of the chief of the gods, who
brandishes the club; and Kaikeyi bore Bharata, who was the fourth part
of Vishnu, and Sumitra bore Lakshmana and Çatrughna, each of whom was
the eighth part of Vishnu. This division of Vishnu according to the
valour of the sons, and the more or less prominent parts which they play
in the poem, is entirely forgotten in the course of it; even Rama
himself is entirely uninfluenced by this new introduction; when fighting
with magic weapons and arts he feels as a virtuous man and an obedient
son.[730] Towards the end of the poem Brahman and the gods come in order
to tell Rama who he is; the original creator of the universe and the
worlds, the head of the divine host, whose eyes are the sun and the
moon, whose ears are the Açvins. Brahman himself then declares to him:
"Thou, O Being of primal force, thou art the famous lord armed with the
discus, thou art the boar with one horn, the conqueror of present and
future enemies, the true and imperishable Brahman in the middle and at
the end. Thou art the supreme order of the world, the bearer of the bow,
the supreme spirit, the unconquered, the brandisher of the sword. Thou
art wisdom, patience, self-control. Thou art the source of birth, the
cause of decay. Thou art Mahendra, the greater Indra; thou performest
the functions of Indra. Thou hast formed the Vedas; they are thy
thoughts, thou first-born, thou self-dependent lord. Thou art in all
creatures, in the Brahmans and the cows; thou sustainest creatures and
the earth with its hills; thou art at the end of the earth, in the
waters, a mighty serpent which supports the three worlds. The whole
world is thy body, Agni is thy anger, Soma thy joy, and I (Brahman) am
thy heart."[731] Rama is here identified with Vishnu, and the latter is
at the same time set forth as including Brahman and all nature, as the
world-soul and a personal god.
The form of Krishna goes through the same change in the Mahabharata,
though the position, acts and counsels which the old poem ascribed to
this hero of the tribe of the Yadavas were often, as we saw, neither
honourable nor praiseworthy. Besides his relation to the sons of Pandu,
the Mahabharata ascribed to him a long series of earlier achievements.
While yet among the herdmen, he had slain Haya among the forests on the
Yamuna, and overcome the mischievous bull which slew the oxen. Then he
slew Pralambha, Naraka, Jambha, and Pitha, the great Asura, and
conquered Kansa, king of Mathura, in battle. Supported by his brother
Balarama, he overcame Kansa's brother, the bold prince of the Çurasenas.
Jarasandha also, the king of Magadha and of the Chedis, was defeated by
Krishna, and the victory over Panchajana who lived in Patala brought him
into the possession of his divine shell. This assisted Krishna in his
suit for the daughter of the king of the Gandharas, for no prince was
his equal in weapons; he yoked the conquered princes to his bridal
car.[732] In the ancient form of the poem, Krishna was the son of the
cowherd Nanda, and his wife Yaçoda. It is already an alteration of his
original position when he is described as a son of Vasudeva and Devaki,
who was changed with the child of the herdman's wife. In the
Chandogya-Upanishad Krishna is still no more than the son of
Devaki.[733] Afterwards, the prayers of the gods to Vishnu that he would
allow himself to be born upon earth, were inserted into the Mahabharata.
Vishnu plucks out two hairs from himself, one white, the other black;
these two hairs pass into two women of the tribe of Yadavas, the two
wives of Vasudeva, Devaki and Rohini. From the white hair Rohini brought
forth Balarama, and from the black Devaki brought forth Krishna.[734]
Hence Krishna is merely one part of Vishnu, and Balarama another; but of
this no further notice is taken; wherever Krishna is treated as a god in
the poem, he is the whole god. In the other parts of the poem he is no
more than a mortal; in the earliest revision he fights his fight with
the arms and the blessing of the gods, of which he would have no need if
he were himself the supreme god; in the last revision he is the supreme
god. Then it is imparted to him that in the beginning of days Brahman,
who is the whole world, sprang from the lotus of his navel; that the
lords of the gods proceeded from his body and carry out his
commands.[735] Brahman says to the gods: "Ye must worship this Vasudeva,
whose son I, Brahman, the lord of the worlds, am. Never, ye great gods,
can the mighty bearer of the shell, the discus, and the club be regarded
as merely a mortal." This being is the supreme mystery, the supreme
existence, the supreme Brahman, the supreme power, the supreme joy, the
supreme truth. It is the Imperishable, the Indivisible, the Eternal.
Vasudeva (Krishna) of unlimited power cannot therefore be despised by
the gods, nor by Indra, nor by the Asuras, as merely a man. "He who says
that he is only a man, his understanding is perverted; he who despises
Krishna will be called the lowest of mankind. He who despises Vasudeva
is full of darkness; as also is the man who knows not the glorious god
whose self is the world. The man who despises this great being, who
bears crowns and jewels, and liberates his worshippers from fear, is
plunged into deep darkness."[736] Assertions and statements of this kind
show clearly that at the time of their insertion into the Mahabharata
the deification of Krishna was by no means universally recognised.[737]
While a tendency at work within the circle of the Brahmans put Vishnu in
the place of Brahman, another impulse was not less eagerly occupied in
elevating the old storm-god Rudra-Çiva to be the highest deity. In the
poem of the Veda the storm-god wears the plaited hair. He is called
Kapardin, _i.e._ the bearer of the locks, an idea no doubt borrowed from
the collected clouds driven by the storm. As the old priestly families
plaited their hair in different ways (p. 29), and all penitents wore
their hair in knots, the storm-god also became a penitent with the
Brahman, and as the divine power resided pre-eminently in penance, and
Çiva was so strong and mighty a god, he became the greatest of all
penitents. The old conception of Rudra assisted to retain for this
mighty deity an angry and destructive aspect; but as rain and
fructification also came from the storm Çiva was placed in relation to
procreation. If Vishnu is celebrated in the passages quoted from the
Ramayana and Mahabharata, the same honour is allotted in other parts of
the same poems to Çiva, who is now called Mahadeva, _i.e._ the great
god. He also is the source, the unborn cause of the world, the framer of
the all, the beginning of all beings, the shaper of the gods, the
uncreated, imperishable lord, the origin of the past, the present, and
the future. He is the highest spirit, the home of the lights, the sky,
the wind, the creator of the ocean, the substance of the earth, Brahman
itself. But he is also the supreme anger, the creator of the world and
its destroyer.[738] He, the all-penetrating god, is the creator and lord
of Brahman, Vishnu, and Indra; they serve him, who extends beyond matter
and spirit, who at once is and is not. When by his power he set matter
and spirit in motion, Çiva, the god of the gods, the creator
(Prajapati),[739] created Brahman from his right side and Vishnu from
his left. His attributes could not be set forth in a hundred years. He
is Indra, he is Agni, he is the Açvins, he is Surya, he is Varuna.
Nothing is above him, and nothing can withstand his divinity; the heart
of the gods is terrified in the battle when they hear his awful voice;
none can endure the sight of the angry bearer of the bow. He has two
bodies, and these assume marvellous shapes. One of the bodies is full of
sorrow, the other is gracious. If angry and passionate, he is an eater
of flesh, blood, and marrow, and then he is called Rudra. When he is
angry, all worlds are confounded at the sound of his bow-string, gods
and Asuras are defeated and helpless, the waters are in tumult, and the
earth quakes, the mountains sink, the light of the sun is quenched,
heaven is torn asunder and veiled in thick darkness.[740] There were
three cities of the mighty Asuras which Indra could not overcome. At the
entreaty of the gods that he would liberate the world Çiva made Vishnu
his arrow, Agni the barbs, Yama the feathers, all the Vedas his bow, and
the Gayatris (p. 172) his bow-string; Brahman was the leader of his
chariot, and he burnt the three cities and the Asuras with the arrow of
triple barbs, of the colour of the sun, and glowing like fire, which
consumes the world.[741] Çiva is the soul of all worlds; he dwells in
the heart of all creatures, he knows all desires, he is visible and
invisible; serpents are his girdle and the skins of serpents his robe;
he carries the discus, the club, sword, and axe. He assumes the form of
Brahman and Vishnu, of all gods, spirits, and demons, of all kinds of
men. He laughs, and weeps, and hops, and dances, and sings, and speaks
softly, and then again with the voice of a drunkard. Naked, with excited
glances, he plays with the maidens.[742]
Thus does the Epos describe the forms of Vishnu and Çiva. The Brahmans
had allowed the pure world-soul to drop out, in order to return again to
living deities; nature, which was nothing but deception as opposed to
Brahman, they had again assumed in the being of the new gods; the two
new supreme deities absorbed Brahman, each into himself; each was also
Brahman; each had given forth from himself all living and lifeless
beings, the whole of nature; each governs and rules the life of nature,
and is the cause of growth and decay. These were attempts made in
combination with the national faith to personify once more the Pantheism
of the Brahmanic system, without excluding the life of nature, to
represent the divine power to the religious consciousness in an active,
direct, living, impressive, helpful way. This process and change of the
Brahmanic system took place about the same time that the Buddhists began
to pay divine honour to the founder of their doctrine, and exalt him to
the highest deity, or perhaps a little earlier. As compared with
Buddhism the new conception of the Brahmanic idea of god had the
disadvantage that there were two supreme deities which contended side by
side with Brahman for the first place. The worshippers of the one and
the other equally inserted into the Epos their great deity and his
praises. The exaltation of Vishnu and of Çiva, the repression of the
idea of Brahman, cannot have begun later than the beginning of the
fourth century B.C., since, as the Greeks have already told us, it was
towards the end of the fourth century, about the year 300 B.C., that
Çiva and Vishnu were worshipped by the Indians as their chief deities,
the first by the inhabitants of the mountains, the second by the
dwellers in the plains. At the same time it is clear, from the accounts
of the Greeks, that the incarnations of Vishnu, assumed in order to
benefit the world, in Paraçurama, Rama, and Krishna had already obtained
recognition at the time mentioned, and received expression in the Epos
and the worship. In any other case it would have been impossible for the
Greeks to have regarded Vishnu as their own Heracles. From certain
quotations in Panini, who lived about the middle or the last third of
the fourth century,[743] it follows that Krishna and Vishnu were
identified about this time, and Vishnu was described by the name
Vasudeva, the family name of Krishna.[744]
Buddhism appears to have had a two-fold influence on the ethical demands
of the Brahmans; on the one hand, it challenged and therefore
intensified them; on the other, it softened and diminished their force.
According to the book of the law the Dvija satisfied the highest
requirements of religion, when, after founding his house and seeing the
children of his children, he renounced the world, retired into the
forest, and there, occupied only with divine things, with salvation for
the future, sought his return to Brahman by penances and meditation. It
was the duty of the king when he became old and weak and was no longer
in a position to protect his subjects and inflict punishment, as he
ought, to seek death in battle, or if no war was being waged at the
time, to put an end to his life by starvation. In a few cases the book
allows suicide as a punishment for grievous offences. In the Epos we
find an advance in this direction. Traits are introduced into it which
represent voluntary death as the greatest act of merit, as the summit
and perfection of asceticism. While yet in full vigour and equal to
their duties, Yudhishthira and his brothers abandon their throne and
kingdom, in order to seek and find death on a pilgrimage to the holy
mountain, and by such penances and such an end to be rid of the earthly
grossness still clinging to them. When Rama, even after his father
Daçaratha is dead, refuses to ascend the throne, because he must keep
the promise made to his dead father that he would live fourteen years in
exile, the younger brother Bharata, conscientiously respecting the right
of the elder, will not assume the government; for these fourteen years
he lives in the garment of a penitent with a penitent's knot of hair,
and five days after Rama's return from banishment, he "goes into the
fire." The anchorite Çarabhanga, who by severe penances has obtained the
highest reward, erects a pyre for himself, kindles it with his own
hands, and burns himself in the presence of Rama in order to pass into
the heaven of Brahman, for which in other revisions of the poem is
substituted the heaven of Vishnu. The Greeks have already told us that
the sages among the Indians regarded disease and weakness as
disgraceful; if one of them fell ill he burned himself on a pyre (p.
422). The companions of Alexander of Macedon tell us that Calanus, one
of the Brahmans of Takshaçila, whom Alexander had induced to join him
(p. 398), fell sick in Persia and became weak. Alexander in vain
attempted to move him from his resolution to burn himself. Too feeble to
walk, Calanus was carried to the pyre, crowned after the Indian manner,
and singing hymns in the Indian language. When the funeral pyre was
kindled, he lay down without shrinking in the midst of the flames.[745]
According to the statement of Megasthenes the Indian sages put an end to
their lives not by fire only but also by throwing themselves from a
precipice or into water.[746] By this kind of sacrifice can only be
meant suicide or pilgrimage to the sacred places in the Himalayas, near
the pools, to which a peculiar power of purification was ascribed.
Pilgrimages to the sacred waters are mentioned even in Manu's laws.
Bathing in the Ganges, in the lakes of the Himalayas, which lay near the
holy mountain, in the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges, was supposed
to have the power of washing away many sins, and thus relieving men from
the torturing penances imposed by the Brahmans. "If," we are told in the
book of the law, "thou art not at variance with Vivasvati's son Yama,
who dwells in thy heart (_i.e._ with thy conscience), go not to the
Ganges nor the Kurus." In the lands formerly governed by the Kurus, lay
the places of sacrifice of the ancient kings; there, at this or that
place, the great rishis of the ancient time were said to have
sacrificed; on the lakes Ravanahrada and Manasa, in the high Himalayas,
under Kailasa, the old sutras of the Buddhists showed us the settlements
of penitent Brahmans. We cannot doubt that the pilgrimage of the
Buddhists to the places where Buddha lived, preached, and died,
increased the pilgrimages of the Brahmans, and that, to match the
blessing which the Buddhists attached to their journeys, they estimated
and commended more highly than before the expiating and redeeming power
of their holy shrines. In the Mahabharata a considerable number of
shrines of pilgrimage are mentioned together with their legends; the
visitation of these seems to be quite common; the especial effects of
the various places are stated;[747] in fact, the pilgrimages to the
sacred pools and places of purification must have been so common and so
zealously undertaken among the Brahmans that about the middle of the
third century _B.C._ the Buddhists denote their Brahmanic opponents by
the names Tirthyas and Tirthikas, _i.e._ men who live at the pools of
purification or hold them in especial estimation.[748] Not merely to
bathe in the waters at the sacred places, which take away sins, but to
end life there, could not but have a most efficacious and meritorious
influence on the future of the soul in the next world, and the
regenerations. Hence sinners would seek death in the sacred waters as
the best and most perfect expiation; and even those who did not think
themselves under the burden of special offences could find in a
voluntary death in the sacred flood the highest expiation for the
impurity entailed upon them, according to the Brahmanic system, by
their life in the body. Thus even then, as now, many died by a voluntary
death at these places. The strict consequences of the Brahmanic system
pointed to suicide. Did not the ethical aim of the Brahmans consist in
the elevation of the _Ego_ by meditation, in the annihilation of the
body by asceticism? It was a step farther to end and escape the torments
of long penances at a single bound. The more prominence the Buddhists
gave to the fact that their doctrine ensured liberation from
regenerations, the keener must be the attention paid by the Brahmans to
this object. According to their view of the world, and the basis of
their system--that the body was the adulteration of Brahman in men, the
hindrance in the way of his return to Brahman--the end of the bodily
life, which they had constantly sought to subdue, at a consecrated
place, by a holy act in the midst of purification in the sacred bath,
could not but bring salvation; the man who offered his body and himself
for sacrifice was at once purified for his return into the world-soul.
If the Buddhists avoided regenerations by taming desire, and
annihilating the soul, the Brahmans could now prevent them by the
sacrifice of the body at a holy place. That all Brahmans were not of
this opinion we may conclude from the assertion of Megasthenes that
death by suicide was not a dogma of the Indian sages; those who put
themselves to death were looked on as rash and perverse. There was,
therefore, an opposite view. Nor was it the Buddhists only, who, in
accordance with the whole conception of their faith, represented this
opposition; even among the Brahmanic castes, as we shall see, there was
a variety of opinions.
The companions of Alexander tell us that among some Indians widows
voluntarily burnt themselves with the corpses of their husbands, and
those who did not do this were in no esteem.[749] Among the Indians,
says Nicolaus of Damascus, the favourite wife was burnt with the dead
husband. The wives contended for this mark of honour with the greatest
eagerness, and each was supported by her friends.[750] The captain of
the Indians who with Eudemus attacked the army of Eumenes (p. 442)--the
Greeks call him Ceteus--fell in the battle, which took place between
Eumenes and Antigonus in Parætacene in the year 316 B.C. The two wives
of Ceteus had accompanied him to the field and now contended for the
honour of being burnt with him, since the law of the Indians, as
Diodorus observes, allowed one wife only to be so burnt. The younger of
the two maintained that the elder was pregnant; the elder declared that
precedence in years carried precedence in honour. When the pregnancy of
the elder had been established, the captains of the army decided that
the younger was to ascend the pyre. "Then the elder took the diadem from
her head, tore her hair and cried aloud, as though she had met with a
great misfortune, while the younger, rejoicing in her victory, went to
the funeral pile, crowned and adorned as if for marriage, accompanied by
her women, who sang a hymn. When she approached the pyre, she divided
her ornaments among her relations, servants, and friends, as memorials
of herself: a number of rings set with precious stones of various
colours, gold stars with brilliant stones from her head-dress, and a
great quantity of necklaces, large and small. When she had bidden
farewell to her relations and servants, her brother conducted her to the
pyre; she bowed herself before the corpse of her husband, and when the
flames blazed up she uttered no sound of lamentation. In such a heroic
manner did she end her life, and moved all who saw her death to sympathy
or admiration."[751] Western accounts from the first century B.C. and
later times represent the burning of widows as an established
custom.[752]
We are acquainted with the hymns of the Rigveda in which the widow, when
she has led her husband to the place of burial, is exhorted to "elevate
herself to the world of life," for her marriage is at an end; we know
the rule in the law that a widow should not marry again after the death
of her husband; if she did so, she would fall into disrepute in this
world, and in the next be excluded from the abode of her husband. She
must live alone, avoid all sensual pleasure, starve herself, and do acts
of piety, then after her death she would ascend to heaven. Neither the
sutras of the Buddhists nor the Brahmanas mention the burning of widows.
On the other hand, in the Mahabharata the two wives of Pandu, Kunti and
Madri, contend after his death precisely as the two wives of Ceteus,
which is to ascend the pyre. Kunti founds her claims on the fact that
she had been the wife of Pandu before Madri, and his first queen; Madri
asserts that Pandu had loved her more than Kunti, that she had been his
favourite wife. The Brahmans decide that Madri is to go. In the Ramayana
the burial of king Daçaratha is described in great detail, but none of
his wives, neither Kauçalya, nor Kaikeyi, nor Sumitra is burnt with him.
In other passages also the Epos speaks of widowed queens with all
honour. If, then, the Epos of the Indians, even in the form in which we
have it, wavers about the custom of the cremation of widows, and on the
other hand the Greeks assert and prove the existence of the custom in
the last thirty years of the fourth century B.C., we may assume that the
sacrifice of widows came into practice in the course of the fourth
century B.C. in connection with the increase in the requirements of
self-annihilation, of which we have just read. It was, no doubt, the
consequence derived from the unconditional dependence of the wife on the
husband, required by the Indians, and the command to bear any fortune
joyfully together with the husband, of that extreme wifely love and
devotion, of which we have found touching examples in the Epos. From the
idea of self-annihilation, which was the summit of all good actions, the
Brahmans might arrive at the demand that women also ought in certain
cases to practise such annihilation; that a widow must sacrifice herself
on the pyre of her husband as an offering for his sins. This is never
stated as a law, but at a subsequent time the demand of the Brahmans
obtained general observance and recognition, supported as it was by the
doctrine that only the widow, who burnt herself with the corpse of her
husband, found an entrance into the better world. According to the
rules, which have come down to us from a later time, the widow of the
Dvija, when she had bathed and anointed herself, coloured herself with
sandal wood, and put on her ornaments, more especially her jewels, with
butter, kuça-grass, and sesame in her hands, offered a prayer to all the
gods, with the reflection that her life was nothing, that her lord was
her all. Then she walks round the pyre, gives her jewels to the
Brahmans, comforts her relatives, and bids farewell to her friends.
Afterwards she says: "That I may enjoy the happiness of heaven with my
husband and purify my ancestors and his I ascend the pyre in expiation
of the sins of my husband, even though he has murdered a Brahman, torn
asunder the bonds of gratitude, or slain a friend. On you I call, ye
eight protectors of the world (p. 160), as witnesses of this action, ye
sun and moon, air, fire, earth, æther, and water. Be witnesses, my own
soul and conscience, and thou, Yama, Day and Night, and Ushas, be ye
witnesses, be witnesses! I follow the corpse of my husband to the
burning pyre." Then the widow ascends the pile of wood, which must be
kindled by her son or her nearest relation, embraces the corpse of her
husband, with the words, I pray, adoration, and commits herself to the
flames, crying Satya, Satya, Satya.[753]
In opposition to Buddhism, the chief point was not only to keep the
hearts of the people true to the Brahmanic arrangement of life by the
adoption and exaltation of the deities to which their religious feeling
was directed; at the same time a counterpoise must be provided to the
speculation and scepticism of the Buddhists; they must be met by an
orthodox system of philosophy. The question was, whether the existence
of the individual soul beside nature, on which the Sankhya doctrine no
less than Buddha laid such stress, was incompatible with the idea of
Brahman; whether death without regeneration, the highest good and
supreme object of the Buddhists, could not be shown to be attainable by
the fulfilment of the duties prescribed by the Brahmans, by Brahmanic
speculation and meditation. These were the questions which a new system,
the Yoga, sought to solve. The author of this is said by the Indians to
be Yajnavalkya, whose life is placed in the fourth century B.C. The
oldest form in which the principles of this new system are known to us
does not go back beyond the year 300 B.C.[754] He attempts to fix the
idea of the world-soul or Brahman more clearly than had been done in
earlier theories. This soul is now regarded as present everywhere in the
world, but also as existing for itself. In opposition to the Sankhya and
the Buddhists the separate existences and souls of men could be now
explained as something more than parts of Brahman; their individual
existence must be conceded, and proof given that they were still parts
of Brahman. This system therefore teaches us: whatever gives to each
thing its leading characteristic or quality, that is the world-soul in
it. But though this living world-soul is divided into all creatures and
exists in all, it must nevertheless be one and therefore indivisible. In
opposition to heterodox systems Brahmanic speculation was no longer bold
enough to deny entirely the existence of matter, and to explain it as
appearance or deception; on the contrary, it now borrows from the Sankya
doctrine the dogma of the eternity of matter. Matter is no less eternal
than the world-soul. It is true that it changes, but it is not
destroyed; the destruction of matter is only a change, in which a new
birth follows on apparent decay. It is allowed that the souls of men
which proceed out of Brahman, "as sparks out of a piece of hot iron,"
exist independently; when one is worn out they perpetually provide
themselves with a new body, a new garment, for the souls and the
elements, _i.e._ nature, are real;[755] but since these souls proceed
from the divinity they can go back to the world-soul.
In this we find an unmistakable attempt to harmonise the old Brahmanic
system with the axioms of the Buddhist theory, the Buddhist principles
of the permanent existence of the soul with the theory of the
world-soul. The essential question was a practical one; how this new
theory of the Brahmans would bring about the liberation from
regeneration, which Buddha realised in the last instance by the
extinction of the ground of existence in the soul, of desire. Like the
Buddhists it assumed the eternal change, the restless revolution of
birth and decay; it naturally maintained the old Brahmanic position that
the soul is followed by its actions into another world; that by these
the new births were fixed; what means did it provide for an escape from
this revolution? Like the Buddhists it taught that only the knowledge of
the true connection of things can lead to liberation. But the spirit
furnished with immature instruments is as incapable of knowledge as an
unclean mirror is incapable of reflecting forms. By subduing the senses,
removing passions, avoiding love or hate, by purifying the mind, the
instruments of knowledge must be sharpened. As the soul is infected with
matter, the requirements of nature must be satisfied with moderation; as
man is in the world, he must fulfil the duties which fall to every man
in the order of the world. He must act, but in such a manner as if he
were not acting; he must be indifferent to the results of the action,
and acquire freedom from doubleness, _i.e._ from the prosperous or
unfortunate result. Filled with darkness and passion man is driven round
like a wheel. Truth, which consists in "casting aside the net of folly,"
liberates men, and the net is cast aside by distinguishing between the
cognitive faculty and nature or change.[756] As the æther, though
isolated in various jars, is still one, so is the spirit at the same
time one and many, just as the sun is reflected in various masses of
water.[757] The being who dwells like a lamp in the heart has beams
innumerable; from this one darts upward, piercing the sun's disk, to the
world of Brahman. With eyes closed in repose, with veiled face avoiding
every charm of the senses, holding in check his appetites, on a scale
neither too high nor too low, let him who has brought to perfection the
instruments of knowledge, and purified his spirit, who will find truth,
hold his breath twice or thrice. Then let him think on the lord who is
the lamp in his heart, and with all his heart keep his mind fixed on
this. Meditation is brought about by the realisation of true being. The
symbol of the perfection of meditation is the power to create and
disappear, to leave one's own body and enter another. He whose spirit at
the dissolution of his body is firmly fixed in the truth in regard to
the lord, whose conviction remains unshaken, attains to the remembrance
of his births, and he who leaves the body in complete meditation
(_yoga_) becomes an inhabitant of Brahman's world; there is no return
for him; he is never born again.[758]
Thus in the place of the annihilation of the body and consciousness
required by the old system, in the place of the extinction of the _Ego_
by the annihilation of its basis taught by the Buddhists, the new
speculation of the Brahmans puts the mystical union of the _Ego_ with
the Supreme by meditation, by elevation and concentration of the spirit,
when the path has been prepared for such union by retirement from the
world, by the removal of the passions, and conquest over the appetites.
The fruits of this act of union with the god-head are in the first
instance the same supernatural powers which the Buddhists ascribed to
the Arhat, the man "advanced in the path" (p. 472), and finally the
freedom from regeneration, the highest object of all.
More important than the speculation which founded this new way to
liberation were the practical consequences, the ethical rules which
resulted from this theory of the Brahmans. It was now possible to
identify Vishnu or Çiva with Brahman. If a certain attitude of the soul,
an inward deed, an act of the spirit, meditation, was the highest aim,
the first place could no longer be ascribed to sacrifice, penance, and
asceticism. The order of the world ascribed to the creator, the rights
and duties of the castes, could not be altered in any way; the castes
were still special emanations and forms of the Supreme. Even sacrifice
is still to be offered, expiations and penances are to be observed. But
their effects must not be over-estimated. The exclusive value ascribed
to them, so the new theory maintains, is exaggerated, as is the reward
which men promise themselves from such works.[759] In reality, the wise
man ought only to perform them in order not to deceive the people. He
must do the works by which the ancient sages attained perfection, and
fulfil all ceremonies for the edification of men. The people would
become corrupt if they performed no pious works, the castes would be
mixed, creatures thrown into confusion.[760] Thus in reality the new
system maintains works simply because the position of the Brahmans, the
order of the castes, cannot be tampered with or overthrown. But at the
same time asceticism is essentially softened, and an approach made to
the milder Buddhist form of it. It is a proof of incomplete knowledge to
starve oneself, pass into fire, or plunge into water.[761] No doubt the
Dvija in his later years ought to go into the forest accompanied by his
wife, or when he has left her in the charge of his sons, and there
practise the prescribed exercises.[762] But the anchorite's life is not
the cause of virtue, and those who seek salvation by gifts, sacrifice,
and penances do indeed attain to the heaven of the fathers, but they
return to this world.[763] If the Yoga, by ascribing this position to
penance, approaches the doctrine of Buddha, the same is done in a still
higher degree in the rules of its ethics. Here the new Brahmanic
teaching is wholly in harmony with the Buddhists; it requires gentleness
and kindness to all creatures, truthfulness, control of the appetites;
it forbids theft and hatred: that is the sum of virtue. Nevertheless,
the greatest concession made to Buddhism lies in the removal of the
boundary which had been set up in regard to religion between the Dvija
and the Çudra. It is true that neither all the castes nor all men are
permitted in the Yoga, as they are in Buddhism, to find salvation and
liberation. But the Çudras are no longer excluded as hitherto from the
Veda and the worship; they too may learn the Veda,[764] and in the
Bhagavad-gita it is openly stated that even the Çudra may attain the
highest point.[765]
The principles of the new doctrine appeared so important to the circles
of the Brahmans, to which they owed their origin and observance, that
they attempted to obtain recognition for them among princes and people
by a new book of the law. This book originated in Mithala (Tirhat), and
like the Yoga bears the name of Yajnavalkya. Setting aside the worship
of the deities of the planets--star-worship came into vogue after the
sixth century B.C.--and the rules for asceticism, ethics, and the way of
salvation, the new book is distinguished from the old by its compressed
compendious form, and by the clearer composition of the separate rules.
Its regulations for trade and conduct are more detailed than in the book
of Manu. If the latter mentions written stipulations, the new speaks of
the preparation of documents on metal plates. The modes of the divine
judgments are increased,[766] and gambling-houses are permitted. All the
rules for purity, expiations, and penance given in the older book are
repeated with the restrictions given above, that they have beneficial
results, but do not exclude regenerations, and that penance must not be
carried to the point of self-annihilation. The duties of the monarchy
are given accurately according to the old law; the arrangement of the
castes and the ancient law of marriage are retained, with the
advantages, privileges, and exemptions of the Brahmans. Some new
subordinate and mixed castes are added. The opposition to the Buddhists
is vigorously expressed, and mention is made of men with shorn heads and
yellow garments.[767] The kings are required to erect buildings in the
cities and put Brahmans in them to form societies for the study of the
Veda; these the king is to support with the exhortation that they must
fulfil their duties.[768] Hence it appears that the Brahmans considered
it advisable to erect Brahmanic monasteries in opposition to the viharas
of the Buddhists, and to support them at the cost of the state.
FOOTNOTES:
[718] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 495 ff.
[719] "Mahabharata Çantiparvan," in Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 263 ff.
[720] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 271 ff.
[721] W. von Humboldt, "Bhagavad-gita," s. 41, 57.
[722] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 153.
[723] Bhagavad-gita, 4, 7, 8.
[724] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 151 ff.
[725] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 156.
[726] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 172 ff.
[727] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 495 ff.
[728] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 165 ff.
[729] "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 27.
[730] On the variations in the different recensions of the Ramayana in
this narrative; see Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 444 ff.
[731] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 178 ff.
[732] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 243 ff.
[733] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 182.
[734] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 259.
[735] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 229.
[736] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 216.
[737] Lassen's view inclines also to the supposition that Krishna's
deification belongs to the time after Buddha, "Ind. Alterth." 2^2, 822.
[738] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 184 ff.
[739] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 188 ff.
[740] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 205.
[741] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 203.
[742] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 191.
[743] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 474.
[744] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 152. M. Müller, "Hist,
of Anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 46. The name of the Sinha princes, who ruled
in Guzerat between 200 B.C. and 25 A.D. (Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 929);
Rudrasinha, Rudrathaman, Içvaradatta, prove that the worship of Çiva was
in vogue in this region at the time mentioned. The coins of the Turushas
exhibit Çiva and his bull, while others bear Buddha's name; Lassen,
_loc. cit._ 2^2, 842, 843. The coins of the older Guptas exhibit
Vishnu's bird Garuda, the goddess Lakshmi, Vishnu's female side, who is
churned out of the sea of milk, Rama, and Sita, and Çiva's bull; Lassen,
_loc. cit._ 2^2, 1111.
[745] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 3. Onesicr. fragm. 33, ed. Müller. Plut.
"Alex." c. 69.
[746] Cf. _infra_, p. 518. Curt. 8, 9. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 19.
[747] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 467.
[748] Burnouf, "Introd." p. 158. Lassen, _loc, cit._ 2^2, 467.
[749] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 714. _Supra_, p. 435.
[750] Nicol. Dam. Fragm. 143, ed. Müller.
[751] Diod. 19, 33, 34. The narrative is apparently taken from Duris of
Samos, who wrote soon after the year 300 _B.C._
[752] Cic. "Tuscul." 5, 27. Plut. "Vitios." c. 4. Aelian, "Var. Hist."
7, 13.
[753] Colebrooke, "Asiatic Researches," 4, 205-215.
[754] Lassen puts Yajnavalkya about the year 360 B.C., and Patanjali,
the author of the Yogaçastra, between 144 and 124 B.C., _loc. cit._ 1^2,
875, 999, and 2^2, 516. We must also agree with Lassen, that in the
theory which Mandanis developes from Onesicritus (frag. 10, ed. Müller),
the principles of the Yoga can be traced. The opposition also in which
this Mandanis places himself to Calanus, the adherent to strict
asceticism, is in favour of the view. As Panini also mentions the Yoga
(Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 878), it was in existence towards the end of
the fourth century. In the same way I can only agree with Lassen that
the book which bears Yajnavalkya's name, and according to the
commentators was composed by a pupil of his, cannot be put earlier than
300 B.C. It is the next oldest to Manu (Stenzler, "Yajnavalkya," s. x.).
In it the opposition to the Buddhists is vigorous, the Yoga is presented
in a simpler form than in the Bhagavad-gita and Patanjalis, and it is
free from the mysticism afterwards adopted into the system. The reign of
Açoka and his immediate successors could not give any room for the
Brahmans to hope for assistance from the state.
[755] Yajnavalkya, 3, 148, 149.
[756] Yajnavalkya, 3, 182, 157.
[757] Yajnavalkya, 3, 145.
[758] Yajnavalkya, 3, 160, 161, 198, 203, 194.
[759] "Bhagavad-gita," in Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 30.
[760] "Bhagavad-gita," in Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 3, 30.
[761] Yajnavalkya, 3, 155.
[762] Yajnavalkya, 3, 63-66, 155.
[763] Yajnavalkya, 3, 195, 196.
[764] Yajnavalkya, 3, 191.
[765] Muir, _loc. cit._ 6, 300.
[766] _Supra_, p. 207, _n._
[767] Yajnavalkya, 1, 271, 272.
[768] Yajnavalkya, 2, 185.