THE ARYANS OF INDIA
THE ARYANS
=Aryan Languages.=--The races which in our day inhabit Europe--Greeks
and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts
in Ireland--speak very different languages. When, however, one studies
these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of
common words, or at least certain roots. The same roots occur in
Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the
ancient tongue of the Persians. Thus,
Father--pere (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin). It
is the same word pronounced in various ways. From this (and other such
examples) it has been concluded that all--Hindoos, Persians, Greeks,
Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs--once spoke the same language, and
consequently were one people.
=The Aryan People.=--These peoples then called themselves Aryans and
lived to the north-west of India, either in the mountains of Pamir, or
in the steppes of Turkestan or Russia; from this centre they dispersed
in all directions. The majority of the people--Greeks, Latins,
Germans, Slavs--forgot their origin; but the sacred books of the
Hindoos and the Persians preserve the tradition. Effort has been
made[22] to reconstruct the life of our Aryan ancestors in their
mountain home before the dispersion. It was a race of shepherds; they
did not till the soil, but subsisted from their herds of cattle and
sheep, though they already had houses and even villages.
It was a fighting race; they knew the lance, the javelin, and shield.
Government was patriarchal; a man had but one wife; as head of the
family he was for his wife, his children, and his servants at once
priest, judge, and king. In all the countries settled by the Aryans
they have followed this type of life--patriarchal, martial, and
pastoral.
PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS
=The Aryans on the Indus.=--About 2,000 years before our era some
Aryan tribes traversed the passes of the Hindu-Kush and swarmed into
India. They found the fertile plains of the Indus inhabited by a
people of dark skin, with flat heads, industrious and wealthy; they
called these aborigines Dasyous (the enemy). They made war on them for
centuries and ended by exterminating or subjecting them; they then
gradually took possession of all the Indus valley (the region of the
five rivers).[23] They then called themselves Hindoos.
=The Vedas.=--These people were accustomed in their ceremonies to
chant hymns (vedas) in honor of their gods. These chants constituted
a vast compilation which has been preserved to the present time. They
were collected, perhaps, about the fourteenth century B.C. when the
Aryans had not yet passed the Indus. The hymns present to us the
oldest religion of the Hindoos.
=The Gods.=--The Hindoo calls his gods devas (the resplendent).
Everything that shines is a divinity--the heavens, the dawn, the
clouds, the stars--but especially the sun (Indra) and fire (Agni).
=Indra.=--The sun, Indra, the mighty one, "king of the world and
master of creatures," bright and warm, traverses the heavens on a car
drawn by azure steeds; he it is who hurls the thunderbolt, sends the
rain, and banishes the clouds. India is a country of violent tempests;
the Hindoo struck with this phenomenon explained it in his own
fashion. He conceived the black cloud as an envelope in which were
contained the waters of heaven; these beneficent waters he called the
gleaming cows of Indra. When the storm is gathering, an evil genius,
Vritra, a three-headed serpent, has driven away the cows and enclosed
them in the black cavern whence their bellowings are heard (the
far-away rumblings of thunder). Indra applies himself to the task of
finding them; he strikes the cavern with his club, the strokes of
which are heard (the thunderbolt), and the forked tongue of the
serpent (the lightning) darts forth. At last the serpent is
vanquished, the cave is opened, the waters released fall on the earth,
Indra the victor appears in glory.
=Agni.=--Fire (Agni, the tireless) is regarded as another form of the
sun. The Hindoo, who produces it by rapidly rubbing two pieces of
wood together, imagines that the fire comes from the wood and that the
rain has placed it there. He conceives it then as the fire of heaven
descended to earth; in fact, when one places it on the hearth, it
springs up as if it would ascend toward heaven. Agni dissipates
darkness, warms mankind, and cooks his food; it is the benefactor and
the protector of the house. It is also "the internal fire," the soul
of the world; even the ancestor of the human race is the "son of
lightning." Thus, heat and light, sources of all life, are the deities
of the Hindoo.
=Worship.=--To adore his gods he strives to reproduce what he sees in
heaven. He ignites a terrestrial fire by rubbing sticks, he nourishes
it by depositing on the hearth, butter, milk, and soma, a fermented
drink. To delight the gods he makes offerings to them of fruits and
cakes; he even sacrifices to them cattle, rams and horses; he then
invokes them, chanting hymns to their praise. "When thou art bidden by
us to quaff the soma, come with thy sombre steeds, thou deity whose
darts are stones. Our celebrant is seated according to prescription,
the sacred green is spread, in the morning stones have been gathered
together. Take thy seat on the holy sward; taste, O hero, our offering
to thee. Delight thyself in our libations and our chants, vanquisher
of Vritra, thou who art honored in these ceremonies of ours, O Indra."
The Hindoo thinks that the gods, felicitated by his offerings and
homage, will in their turn make him happy. He says naively, "Give
sacrifice to the gods for their profit, and they will requite you.
Just as men traffic by the discussion of prices, let us exchange
force and vigor, O Indra. Give to me and I will give to you; bring to
me and I will bring to you."
=Ancestor Worship.=--At the same time the Hindoo adores his ancestors
who have become gods, and perhaps this cult is the oldest of all. It
is the basis of the family. The father who has transmitted the "fire
of life" to his children makes offering every day at his hearth-fire,
which must never be extinguished, the sacrifice to gods and ancestors,
and utters the prayers. Here it is seen that among Hindoos, as among
other Aryans, the father is at once a priest and a sovereign.
THE BRAHMANIC SOCIETY
=The Hindoos on the Ganges.=--The Hindoos passing beyond the region of
the Indus, between the fourteenth and tenth century B.C. conquered all
the immense plains of the Ganges. Once settled in this fertile
country, under a burning climate, in the midst of a people of slaves,
they gradually changed customs and religion. And so the Brahmanic
society was established. Many works in Sanscrit are preserved from
this time, which, with the Vedas, form the sacred literature of the
Hindoos. The principal are the great epic poems, the Mahabarata, which
has more than 200,000 verses; the Ramayana with 50,000, and the laws
of Manou, the sacred code of India.
=Caste.=--In this new society there were no longer, as in the time of
the Vedas, poets who chanted hymns to the gods. The men who know the
prayers and the ceremonies are become theologians by profession; the
people revere and obey them. The following is their conception of the
structure of society: the supreme god, Brahma, has produced four kinds
of men to each of whom he has assigned a mission. From his mouth he
drew the Brahmans, who are, of course, the theologians; their mission
is to study, to teach the hymns, to perform the sacrifices. The
Kchatrias have come from his arms; these are the warriors who are
charged with the protection of the people. The Vaicyas proceed from
the thigh; they must raise cattle, till the earth, loan money at
interest, and engage in commerce. The Soudras issue from his foot;
their only mission is to serve all the others.
There were already in the Aryan people theologians, warriors,
artisans, and below them aborigines reduced to slavery. These were
classes which one could enter and from which one could withdraw. But
the Brahmans determined that every man should be attached to the
condition in which he was born, he and his descendants for all time.
The son of a workman could never become a warrior, nor the son of a
warrior a theologian. Thus each is chained to his own state. Society
is divided into four hereditary and closed castes.
=The Unclean.=--Whoever is not included in one of the four castes is
unclean, excluded from society and religion. The Brahmans reckoned
forty-four grades of outcasts; the last and the lowest is that of the
pariahs; their very name is an insult. The outcasts may not practise
any honorable trade nor approach other men. They may possess only dogs
and asses, for these are unclean beasts. "They must have for their
clothing the garments of the dead; for plates, broken pots; ornaments
of iron; they must be ceaselessly on the move from one place to
another."
=The Brahmans.=--In the organization of society the Brahmans were
assigned the first place. "Men are the first among intelligent beings;
the Brahmans are the first among men. They are higher than warriors,
than kings, even. As between a Brahman of ten years of age and a
Kchatria of one hundred years, the Brahman is to be regarded as the
father." These are not priests as in Egypt and Chaldea, but only men
who know religion, and pass their time in reading and meditating on
the sacred books; they live from presents made to them by other men.
To this day they are the dominating class of India. As they marry only
among themselves, better than the other Hindoos they have preserved
the Aryan type and have a clearer resemblance to Europeans.
=The New Religion of Brahma.=--The Brahmans did not discard the
ancient gods of the Vedas, they continued to adore them. But by sheer
ingenuity they invented a new god. When prayers are addressed to the
gods, the deities are made to comply with the demands made on them, as
if they thought that prayer was more powerful than the gods. And so
prayer (Brahma) has become the highest of all deities. He is invoked
with awe:[24] "O god, I behold in thy body all the gods and the
multitudes of living beings. I am powerless to regard thee in thine
entirety, for thou shinest like the fire and the sun in thine
immensity. Thou art the Invisible, thou art the supreme Intelligence,
thou art the sovereign treasure of the universe, without beginning,
middle, or end; equipped with infinite might. Thine arms are without
limit, thine eyes are like the moon and the sun, thy mouth hath the
brightness of the sacred fire. With thyself alone thou fillest all the
space between heaven and earth, and thou permeatest all the universe."
Brahma is not only supreme god; he is the soul of the universe. All
beings are born from Brahma, all issue naturally from him, not as a
product comes from the hands of an artisan, but "as the tree from the
seed, as the web from the spider." Brahma is not a deity who has
created the world; he is the very substance of the world.
=Transmigration of Souls.=--There is, then, a soul, a part of the soul
of Brahma, in every being, in gods, in men, in animals, in the very
plants and stones. But these souls pass from one body into another;
this is the transmigration of souls. When a man dies, his soul is
tested; if it is good, it passes into the heaven of Indra there to
enjoy felicity; if it is bad, it falls into one of the twenty-eight
hells, where it is devoured by ravens, compelled to swallow burning
cakes, and is tormented by demons. But souls do not remain forever in
heaven or in the hells; they part from these to begin a new life in
another body. The good soul rises, entering the body of a saint,
perhaps that of a god; the evil soul descends, taking its abode in
some impure animal--in a dog, an ass, even in a plant. In this new
state it may rise or fall. And this journey from one body to another
continues until the soul by degrees comes to the highest sphere. From
lowest to highest in the scale, say the Brahmans, twenty-four millions
of years elapse. At last perfect, the soul returns to the level of
Brahma from which it descends and is absorbed into it.
=Character of this Religion.=--The religion of the Aryans, simple and
happy, was that of a young and vigorous people. This is complicated
and barren; it takes shape among men who are not engaged in practical
life; it is enervated by the heat and vexatious of life.
=Rites.=--The practice of the religion is much more complicated. Hymns
and sacrifices are still offered to the gods, but the Brahmans have
gradually invented thousands of minute customs so that one's life is
completely engaged with them. For all the ceremonies of the religious
life there are prayers, offerings, vows, libations, ablutions. Some of
the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments,
etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of
sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That
a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that
he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the
hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his
hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his
nails or who bites his nails is, like the outcast, speedily hurried to
his doom." An animal must not be killed, for a human soul may perhaps
be dwelling in the body; one must not eat it on penalty of being
devoured in another life by the animals which one has eaten.
All these rites have a magical virtue; he who observes them all is a
saint; he who neglects any of them is impious and destined to pass
into the body of an animal.
=Purity.=--The principal duty is keeping one's self pure; for every
stain is a sin and opens one to the attack of evil spirits. But the
Brahmans are very scrupulous concerning purity: men outside of the
castes, many animals, the soil, even the utensils which one uses are
so many impure things; whoever touches these is polluted and must at
once purify himself. Life is consumed in purifications.
=Penances.=--For every defect in the rites, a penance is necessary,
often a terrible one. He who involuntarily kills a cow must clothe
himself in its skin, and for three months, day and night, follow and
tend a herd of cows. Whoever has drunk of arrack[25] must swallow a
boiling liquid which burns the internal organs until death results.
=The Monks.=--To escape so many dangers and maintain purity, it is
better to leave the world. Often a Brahman when he has attained to a
considerable age withdraws to the desert, fasts, watches, refrains
from speech, exposes himself naked to the rain, holds himself erect
between four fires under the burning sun. After some years, the
solitary becomes "penitent"; then his only subsistence is from
almsgiving; for whole days he lifts an arm in the air uttering not a
word, holding his breath; or perchance, he gashes himself with
razor-blades; or he may even keep his thumbs closed until the nails
pierce the hands. By these mortifications he destroys passion,
releases himself from this life, and by contemplation rises to Brahma.
And yet, this way of salvation is open only to the Brahman; and even
he has the right to withdraw to the desert only in old age, after
having studied the Vedas all his life, practised all the rites, and
established a family.
BUDDHISM
=Buddha.=--Millions of men who were not Brahmans, suffered by this
life of minutiae and anguish. A man then appeared who brought a
doctrine of deliverance. He was not a Brahman, but of the caste of the
Kchatrias, son of a king of the north. To the age of twenty-nine he
had lived in the palace of his father. One day he met an old man with
bald head, of wrinkled features, and trembling limbs; a second time he
met an incurable invalid, covered with ulcers, without a home; again
he fell in with a decaying corpse devoured by worms. And so, thought
he, youth, health, and life are nothing for they offer no resistance
to old age, to sickness, and to death. He had compassion on men and
sought a remedy. Then he met a religious mendicant with grave and
dignified air; following his example he decided to renounce the world.
These four meetings had determined his calling.
Buddha fled to the desert, lived seven years in penitence, undergoing
hunger, thirst, and rain. These mortifications gave him no repose. He
ate, became strong, and found the truth. Then he reentered the world
to preach it; he made disciples in crowds who called him Buddha (the
scholar); and when he died after forty-five years of preaching,
Buddhism was established.
=Nirvana.=--To live is to be unhappy, taught Buddha. Every man suffers
because he desires the goods of this world, youth, health, life, and
cannot keep them. All life is a suffering; all suffering is born of
desire. To suppress suffering, it is necessary to root out desire; to
destroy it one must cease from wishing to live, "emancipate one's self
from the thirst of being." The wise man is he who casts aside
everything that attaches to this life and makes it unhappy. One must
cease successively from feeling, wishing, thinking. Then, freed from
passion, volition, even from reflection, he no longer suffers, and
can, after his death, come to the supreme good, which consists in
being delivered from all life and from all suffering. The aim of the
wise man is the annihilation of personality: the Buddhists call it
Nirvana.
=Charity.=--The Brahmans also considered life as a place of suffering
and annihilation as felicity. Buddha came not with a new doctrine, but
with new sentiments.
The religion of the Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on
men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just
this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade
to love even those who do us ill. Purna, one of his disciples, went
forth to preach to the barbarians. Buddha said to him to try him,
"There are cruel, passionate, furious men; if they address angry words
to you, what would you think?" "If they addressed angry words to me,"
said Purna, "I should think these are good men, these are gentle men,
these men who attack me with wicked words but who strike me neither
with the hand nor with stones." "But if they strike you, what would
you think?" "I should think that those were good men who did not
strike me with their staves or with their swords." "But if they did
strike you with staff and sword, what would you think then?" "That
those are good men who strike me with staff and sword, but do not take
my life." "But if they should take your life?" "I should think them
good men who delivered me with so little pain from this body filled as
it is with pollution." "Well, well, Purna! You may dwell in the
country of the barbarians. Go, proceed on the way to complete Nirvana
and bring others to the same goal."
=Fraternity.=--The Brahmans, proud of their caste, assert that they
are purer than the others. Buddha loves all men equally, he calls all
to salvation even the pariahs, even the barbarians--all he declares
are equal. "The Brahman," said he, "just like the pariah, is born of
woman; why should he be noble and the other vile?" He receives as
disciples street-sweepers, beggars, cripples, girls who sleep on
dung-hills, even murderers and thieves; he fears no contamination in
touching them. He preaches to them in the street in language simple
with parables.
=Tolerance.=--The Brahmans passed their lives in the practice of
minute rites, regarding as criminal whoever did not observe them.
Buddha demanded neither rites nor exertions. To secure salvation it
was enough to be charitable, chaste, and beneficent. "Benevolence,"
says he, "is the first of virtues. Doing a little good avails more
than the fulfilment of the most arduous religious tasks. The perfect
man is nothing unless he diffuses himself in benefits over creatures,
unless he comforts the afflicted. My doctrine is a doctrine of mercy;
this is why the fortunate in the world find it difficult."
=Later History of Buddhism.=--Thus was established about 500 years
before Christ a religion of an entirely new sort. It is a religion
without a god and without rites; it ordains only that one shall love
his neighbor and become better; annihilation is offered as supreme
recompense. But, for the first time in the history of the world, it
preaches self-renunciation, the love of others, equality of mankind,
charity and tolerance. The Brahmans made bitter war upon it and
extirpated it in India. Missionaries carried it to the barbarians in
Ceylon, in Indo-China, Thibet, China, and Japan. It is today the
religion of about 500,000,000[26] people.
=Changes in Buddhism.=--During these twenty centuries Buddhism has
undergone change. Buddha had himself formed communities of monks.
Those who entered these renounced their family, took the vow of
poverty and chastity; they had to wear filthy rags and beg their
living. These religious rapidly multiplied; they founded convents in
all Eastern Asia, gathered in councils to fix the doctrine, proclaimed
dogmas and rules. As they became powerful they, like the Brahmans,
came to esteem themselves as above the rest of the faithful. "The
layman," they said, "plight to support the religious and consider
himself much honored that the holy man accepts his offering. It is
more commendable to feed one religious than many thousands of laymen."
In Thibet the religious, men and women together, constitute a fifth of
the entire population, and their head, the Grand Lama, is venerated
as an incarnation of God.
At the same time that they transformed themselves into masters, the
Buddhist religious constructed a complicated theology, full of
fantastic figures. They say there is an infinite number of worlds. If
one surrounded with a wall a space capable of holding 100,000 times
ten millions of those worlds, if this wall were raised to heaven, and
if the whole space were filled with grains of mustard, the number of
the grains would not even then equal one-half the number of worlds
which occupy but one division of heaven. All these worlds are full of
creatures, gods, men, beasts, demons, who are born and who die. The
universe itself is annihilated and another takes its place. The
duration of each universe is called _kalpa_; and this is the way we
obtain an impression of a kalpa: if there were a rock twelve miles in
height, breadth, and length, and if once in a century it were only
touched with a piece of the finest linen, this rock would be worn and
reduced to the size of a kernel of mango before a quarter of a kalpa
had elapsed.
=Buddha Transformed into a God.=--It no longer satisfied the Buddhists
to honor their founder as a perfect man; they made him a god, erecting
idols to him, and offering him worship. They adored also the saints,
his disciples; pyramids and shrines were built to preserve their
bones, their teeth, their cloaks. From every quarter the faithful came
to venerate the impression of the foot of Buddha.
=Mechanical Prayer.=--Modern Buddhists regard prayer as a magical
formula which acts of itself. They spend the day reciting prayers as
they walk or eat, often in a language which they do not understand.
They have invented prayer-machines; these are revolving cylinders and
around these are pasted papers on which the prayer is written; every
turn of the cylinder counts for the utterance of the prayer as many
times as it is written on the papers.
=Amelioration of Manners.=--And yet Buddhism remains a religion of
peace and charity. Wherever it reigns, kings refrain from war, and
even from the chase; they establish hospitals, caravansaries, even
asylums for animals. Strangers, even Christian missionaries, are
hospitably received; they permit the women to go out, and to walk
without veiling themselves; they neither fight nor quarrel. At
Bangkok, a city of 400,000 souls, hardly more than one murder a year
is known.
Buddhism has enfeebled the intelligence and sweetened the
character.[27]
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The process is as follows: when a word (or rather a root) is found
in several Aryan languages at once, it is admitted that this was in use
before the dispersion occurred, and therefore the people knew the object
designated by the word.
[23] The Punjab.--ED.
[24] Prayer of the Mahabarata cited by Lenormant.
[25] A spirituous liquor made by the natives.--ED.
[26] A high estimate.--ED.
[27] India is for us the country of the Vedas, the Brahmans, and Buddha.
We know the religion of the Hindoos, but of their political history we
are ignorant.