HANDBOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
EDITED BY MORRIS JASTROW, JR., PH.D.
_Professor of Semitic Languages
in the University of Pennsylvania_
VOLUME I
HANDBOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS
THE
RELIGIONS OF INDIA
BY
EDWARD WASHBURN HOPKINS
Ph.D. (LEIPSIC)
PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
_"This holy mystery I declare unto you:
There is nothing nobler than humanity."_
THE MAH[=A]BH[=A]RATA.
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
PUBLISHER TO THE INDIA OFFICE
1896
_(All rights reserved)_
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
EDWARD WASHBURN HOPKINS
TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
PREFATORY NOTE
BY THE EDITOR.
The growing interest both in this country and abroad in the historical
study of religions is one of the noticeable features in the
intellectual phases of the past decades. The more general indications
of this interest may be seen in such foundations as the Hibbert and
Gifford Lectureships in England, and the recent organization of an
American committee to arrange in various cities for lectures on the
history of religions, in the establishment of a special department for
the subject at the University of Paris, in the organization of the
Musée Guimet at Paris, in the publication of a journal--the _Revue de
l'Histoire des Religions_--under the auspices of this Museum, and in
the creation of chairs at the Collège de France, at the Universities
of Holland, and in this country at Cornell University and the
University of Chicago,[1] with the prospect of others to follow in the
near future. For the more special indications we must turn to the
splendid labors of a large array of scholars toiling in the various
departments of ancient culture--India, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt,
Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, China, Greece, and Rome--with the result
of securing a firm basis for the study of the religions flourishing in
those countries--a result due mainly to the discovery of fresh sources
and to the increase of the latter brought about by exploration and
incessant research. The detailed study of the facts of religion
everywhere, both in primitive society and in advancing civilization,
and the emphasis laid upon gathering and understanding these facts
prior to making one's deductions, has succeeded in setting aside the
speculations and generalizations that until the beginning of this
century paraded under the name of "Philosophy of Religion."
Such has been the scholarly activity displayed and the fertility
resulting, that it seems both desirable and timely to focus, as it
were, the array of facts connected with the religions of the ancient
world in such a manner that the summary resulting may serve as the
point of departure for further investigations.
This has been the leading thought which has suggested the series of
Handbooks on the History of Religions. The treatment of the religions
included in the series differs from previous attempts in the aim to
bring together the ascertained results of scholarship rather than to
make an additional contribution, though the character of the scholars
whose coöperation has beep secured justifies the hope that their
productions will also mark an advance in the interpretation of the
subject assigned to each. In accord with this general aim, mere
discussion has been limited to a minimum, while the chief stress has
been laid upon the clear and full presentation of the data connected
with each religion.
A uniform plan has been drawn up by the editor for the order of
treatment in the various volumes, by following which it is hoped that
the continuous character of the series will be secured.
In this plan the needs of the general reader, as well as those of the
student, for whom, in the first place, the series is designed, have
been kept in view. After the introduction, which in the case of each
volume is to be devoted to a setting forth of the sources and the
method of study, a chapter follows on the land and the people,
presenting those ethnographical and geographical considerations,
together with a brief historical sketch of the people in question, so
essential to an understanding of intellectual and religious life
everywhere.
In the third section, which may be denominated the kernel of the book,
the subdivisions and order of presentation necessarily vary, the
division into periods being best adapted to one religion, the
geographical order for another, the grouping of themes in a logical
sequence for a third; but in every case, the range covered will be the
same, namely, the beliefs, including the pantheon, the relation to the
gods, views of life and death, the rites--both the official ones and
the popular customs--the religious literature and architecture. A
fourth section will furnish a general estimate of the religion, its
history, and the relation it bears to others. Each volume will
conclude with a full bibliography, index, and necessary maps, with
illustrations introduced into the text as called for. The Editor has
been fortunate in securing the services of distinguished specialists
whose past labors and thorough understanding of the plan and purpose
of the series furnish a guarantee for the successful execution of
their task.
It is the hope of the Editor to produce in this way a series of
manuals that may serve as text-books for the historical study of
religions in our universities and seminaries. In addition to supplying
this want, the arrangement of the manuals will, it is expected, meet
the requirements of reliable reference-books for ascertaining the
present status of our knowledge of the religions of antiquity, while
the popular manner of presentation, which it will be the aim of the
writers to carry out, justifies the hope that the general reader will
find the volumes no less attractive and interesting.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In an article by the writer published in the
_Biblical World_ (University of Chicago Press) for January,
1893, there will be found an account of the present status
of the Historical Study of Religions in this country.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.--INTRODUCTION.
SOURCES.--DATES.--METHODS OF INTERPRETATION.--DIVISIONS OF SUBJECT.
SOURCES.
India always has been a land of religions. In the earliest Vedic
literature are found not only hymns in praise of the accepted gods,
but also doubts in regard to the worth of these gods; the beginnings
of a new religion incorporated into the earliest records of the old.
And later, when, about 300 B.C, Megasthenes was in India, the
descendants of those first theosophists are still discussing, albeit
in more modern fashion, the questions that lie at the root of all
religion. "Of the philosophers, those that are most estimable he terms
Brahmans ([Greek: _brachmanas_]). These discuss with many words
concerning death. For they regard death as being, for the wise, a
birth into real life--into the happy life. And in many things they
hold the same opinions with the Greeks: saying that the universe was
begotten and will be destroyed, and that the world is a sphere, which
the god who made and owns it pervades throughout; that there are
different beginnings of all things, but water is the beginning of
world-making, while, in addition to the four elements, there is, as
fifth, a kind of nature, whence came the sky and the stars.... And
concerning the seed of things and the soul they have much to say also,
whereby they weave in myths, just as does Plato, in regard to the
soul's immortality, judgment in hell, and such things."[1]
And as India conspicuously is a country of creeds, so is its
literature preëminently priestly and religious. From the first Veda to
the last Pur[=a]na, religion forms either the subject-matter of the
most important works, or, as in the case of the epics,[2] the basis of
didactic excursions and sectarian interpolations, which impart to
worldly themes a tone peculiarly theological. History and oratory are
unknown in Indian literature. The early poetry consists of hymns and
religious poems; the early prose, of liturgies, linguistics, "law,"
theology, sacred legends and other works, all of which are intended to
supplement the knowledge of the Veda, to explain ceremonies, or to
inculcate religious principles. At a later date, formal grammar and
systems of philosophy, fables and commentaries are added to the prose;
epics, secular lyric, drama, the Pur[=a]nas and such writings to the
poetry. But in all this great mass, till that time which Müller has
called the Renaissance--that is to say, till after the Hindus were
come into close contact with foreign nations, notably the Greek, from
which has been borrowed, perhaps, the classical Hindu drama,[3]--there
is no real literature that was not religious originally, or, at least,
so apt for priestly use as to become chiefly moral and theosophic;
while the most popular works of modern times are sectarian tracts,
Pur[=]nas, Tantras and remodelled worldly poetry. The sources, then,
from which is to be drawn the knowledge of Hindu religions are the
best possible--the original texts. The information furnished by
foreigners, from the times of Ktesias and Megasthenes to that of
Mandelslo, is considerable; but one is warranted in assuming that what
little in it is novel is inaccurate, since otherwise the information
would have been furnished by the Hindus themselves; and that,
conversely, an outsider's statements, although presumably correct,
often may give an inexact impression through lack of completeness; as
when--to take an example that one can control--Ktesias tells half the
truth in regard to ordeals. His account is true, but he gives no
notion of the number or elaborate character of these interesting
ceremonies.
The sources to which we shall have occasion to refer will be, then,
the two most important collections of Vedic hymns--the Rig Veda and
the Atharva Veda; the Brahmanic literature, with the supplementary
Upanishads, and the S[=u]tras or mnemonic abridgments of religious and
ceremonial rules; the legal texts, and the religious and theological
portions of the epic; and the later sectarian writings, called
Pur[=a]nas. The great heresies, again, have their own special
writings. Thus far we shall draw on the native literature. Only for
some of the modern sects, and for the religions of the wild tribes
which have no literature, shall we have to depend on the accounts of
European writers.
DATES.
For none of the native religious works has one a certain date. Nor is
there for any one of the earlier compositions the certainty that it
belongs, as a whole, to any one time. The Rig Veda was composed by
successive generations; the Atharvan represents different ages; each
Br[=a]hmana appears to belong in part to one era, in part to another;
the earliest S[=u]tras (manuals of law, etc.) have been interpolated;
the earliest metrical code is a composite; the great epic is the work
of centuries; and not only do the Upanishads and Pur[=a]nas represent
collectively many different periods, but exactly to which period each
individually is to be assigned remains always doubtful. Only in the
case of the Buddhistic writings is there a satisfactorily approximate
terminus a quo, and even here approximate means merely within the
limit of centuries.
Nevertheless, criteria fortunately are not lacking to enable one to
assign the general bulk of any one work to a certain period in the
literary development; and as these periods are, if not sharply, yet
plainly distinguishable, one is not in so desperate a case as he might
have expected to be, considering that it is impossible to date with
certainty any Hindu book or writer before the Christian era. For,
first, there exists a difference in language, demarcating the most
important periods; and, secondly, the development of the literature
has been upon such lines that it is easy to say, from content and
method of treatment, whether a given class of writings is a product of
the Vedic, early Brahmanic, or late Brahmanic epochs. Usually, indeed,
one is unable to tell whether a later Upanishad was made first in the
early or late Brahmanic period, but it is known that the Upanishads,
as a whole, _i.e._, the literary form and philosophical material which
characterize Upanishads, were earlier than the latest Brahmanic period
and subsequent to the early Brahmanic period; that they arose at the
close of the latter and before the rise of the former. So the
Br[=a]hmanas, as a whole, are subsequent to the Vedic age, although
some of the Vedic hymns appear to have been made up in the same period
with that of the early Br[=a]hmanas. Again, the Pur[=a]nas can be
placed with safety after the late Brahmanic age; and, consequently,
subsequent to the Upanishads, although it is probable that many
Upanishads were written after the first Pur[=a]nas. The general
compass of this enormous literature is from an indefinite antiquity to
about 1500 A.D. A liberal margin of possible error must be allowed in
the assumption of any specific dates. The received opinion is that
the Rig Veda goes back to about 2000 B.C., yet are some scholars
inclined rather to accept 3000 B.C. as the time that represents this
era. Weber, in his _Lectures on Sanskrit Literature_ (p. 7), rightly
says that to seek for an exact date is fruitless labor; while Whitney
compares Hindu dates to ninepins--set up only to be bowled down again.
Schroeder, in his _Indiens Literatur und Cultur_, suggests that the
prior limit may be "a few centuries earlier than 1500," agreeing with
Weber's preferred reckoning; but Whitney, Grassmann, and Benfey
provisionally assume 2000 B.C. as the starting point of Hindu
literature. The lowest possible limit for this event Müller now places
at about 1500, which is recognized as a very cautious view; most
scholars thinking that Müller's estimate gives too little time for the
development of the literary periods, which, in their opinion, require,
linguistically and otherwise, a greater number of years. Brunnhofer
more recently has suggested 2800 B.C. as the terminus; while the last
writers on the subject (Tilak and Jacobi) claim to have discovered
that the period from 3500 to 2500 represents the Vedic age. Their
conclusions, however, are not very convincing, and have been disputed
vigorously.[4] Without the hope of persuading such scholars as are
wedded to a terminus of three or four thousand years ago that we are
right, we add, in all deference to others, our own opinion on this
vexed question. Buddhism gives the first semblance of a date in Hindu
literature. Buddha lived in the sixth century, and died probably about
480, possibly (Westergaard's extreme opinion) as late as 368.[5]
Before this time arise the S[=u]tras, back of which lie the earliest
Upanishads, the bulk of the Br[=a]hmanas, and all the Vedic poems. Now
it is probable that the Brahmanic literature itself extends to the
time of Buddha and perhaps beyond it. For the rest of pre-Buddhistic
literature it seems to us incredible that it is necessary to require,
either from the point of view of linguistic or of social and religious
development, the enormous period of two thousand years. There are no
other grounds on which to base a reckoning except those of Jacobi and
his Hindu rival, who build on Vedic data results that hardly support
the superstructure they have erected. Jacobi's starting-point is from
a mock-serious hymn, which appears to be late and does not establish,
to whatever date it be assigned, the point of departure from which
proceeds his whole argument, as Whitney has shown very well. One is
driven back to the needs of a literature in respect of time sufficient
for it to mature. What changes take place in language, even with a
written literature, in the space of a few centuries, may be seen in
Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. No two thousand years are required
to bridge the linguistic extremes of the Vedic and classical Sanskrit
language.[6] But in content it will be seen that the flower of the
later literature is budding already in the Vedic age. We are unable to
admit that either in language or social development, or in literary or
religious growth, more than a few centuries are necessary to account
for the whole development of Hindu literature (meaning thereby
compositions, whether written or not) up to the time of Buddha.
Moreover, if one compare the period at which arise the earliest forms
of literature among other Aryan peoples, it will seem very strange
that, whereas in the case of the Romans, Greeks, and Persians, one
thousand years B.C. is the extreme limit of such literary activity as
has produced durable works, the Hindus two or three thousand years
B.C. were creating poetry so finished, so refined, and, from a
metaphysical point of view, so advanced as is that of the Rig Veda.
If, as is generally assumed, the (prospective) Hindus and Persians
were last to leave the common Aryan habitat, and came together to the
south-east, the difficulty is increased; especially in the light of
modern opinion in regard to the fictitious antiquity of Persian
(Iranian) literature. For if Darmesteter be correct in holding the
time of the latter to be at most a century before our era, the
incongruity between that oldest date of Persian literature and the
"two or three thousand years before Christ," which are claimed in the
case of the Rig Veda, becomes so great as to make the latter
assumption more dubious than ever.
We think in a word, without wishing to be dogmatic, that the date of
the Rig Veda is about on a par, historically, with that of 'Homer,'
that is to say, the Collection[7] represents a long period, which was
completed perhaps two hundred years after 1000 B.C, while again its
earliest beginnings precede that date possibly by five centuries; but
we would assign the bulk of the Rig Veda to about 1000 B.C. With
conscious imitation of older speech a good deal of archaic linguistic
effect doubtless was produced by the latest poets, who really belong
to the Brahmanic age. The Brahmanic age in turn ends, as we opine,
about 500 B.C., overlapping the S[=u]tra period as well as that of the
first Upanishads. The former class of writings (after 500 B.C. one may
talk of writings) is represented by dates that reach from circa
600-500 B.C. nearly to our era. Buddhism's _floruit_ is from 500 B.C.
to 500 A.D., and epic Hinduism covers nearly the same centuries. From
500 to 1000 Buddhism is in a state of decadence; and through this time
extend the dramatic and older Puranic writings; while other Pur[=a]nas
are as late as 1500, at which time arises the great modern reforming
sect of the Sikhs. In the matter of the earlier termini a century may
be added or subtracted here and there, but these convenient divisions
of five hundreds will be found on the whole to be sufficiently
accurate.[8]
METHODS OF INTERPRETATION.
At the outset of his undertaking a double problem presents itself to
one that would give, even in compact form, a view of Hindu religions.
This problem consists in explaining, and, in so far as is possible,
reconciling opposed opinions in regard not only to the nature of these
religions but also to the method of interpreting the Vedic hymns.
That the Vedic religion was naturalistic and mytho-poetic is doubted
by few. The Vedic hymns laud the powers of nature and natural
phenomena as personified gods, or even as impersonal phenomena. They
praise also as distinct powers the departed fathers. In the Rig Veda
I. 168, occur some verses in honor of the storm-gods called Maruts:
"Self-yoked are they come lightly from the sky. The immortals urge
themselves on with the goad. Dustless, born of power, with shining
spears the Maruts overthrow the strongholds. Who is it, O Maruts, ye
that have lightning-spears, that impels you within? ... The streams
roar from the tires, when they send out their cloud-voices," etc.
Nothing would seem more justifiable, in view of this hymn and of many
like it, than to assume with Müller and other Indologians, that the
Marut-gods are personifications of natural phenomena. As clearly do
Indra and the Dawn appear to be natural phenomena. But no less an
authority than Herbert Spencer has attacked this view: "Facts imply
that the conception of the dawn as a person results from the giving of
dawn as a birth-name."[9] And again: "If, then, Dawn [in New Zealand
and elsewhere] is an actual name for a person, if where there prevails
this mode of distinguishing children, it has probably often been given
to those born early in the morning; the traditions concerning one of
such who became noted, would, in the mind of the uncritical savage ...
lead to identification with the dawn."[10] In another passage: "The
primitive god is the superior man ... propitiated during his life and
still more after his death."[11] Summing up, Spencer thus concludes:
"Instead of seeing in the common character of so-called myths, that
they describe combats of beings using weapons, evidence that they
arose out of human transactions; mythologists assume that the order of
Nature presents itself to the undeveloped mind in terms of victories
and defeats."[12] Moreover (_a posteriori_), "It is not true that the
primitive man looks at the powers of Nature with awe. It is not true
that he speculates about their characters and causes."[13] If Spencer
had not included in his criticism the mythologists that have written
on Vedic religion, there would be no occasion to take his opinion into
consideration. But since he claims by the light of his comparative
studies to have shown that in the Rig Veda the "so-called nature
gods,"[14] were not the oldest, and explains Dawn here exactly as he
does in New Zealand, it becomes necessary to point out, that apart
from the question of the origin of religions in general, Spencer has
made a fatal error in assuming that he is dealing in the Rig Veda with
primitive religion, uncritical savages, and undeveloped minds. And
furthermore, as the poet of the Rig Veda is not primitive, or savage,
or undeveloped, so when he worships _Dyaus pitar_ [Greek: Zeùs patáer]
as the 'sky-father,' he not only makes it evident to every reader that
he really is worshipping the visible sky above; but in his
descriptions of gods such as Indra, the Dawn, and some other new gods
he invents from time to time, long after he has passed the savage,
primitive, and undeveloped state, he makes it no less clear that he
worships phenomena as they stand before him (rain, cloud, lightning,
etc.), so that by analogy with what is apparent in the case of later
divinities, one is led inevitably to predicate the same origin as
theirs in the case of the older gods.
But it is unnecessary to spend time on this point. It is impossible
for any sober scholar to read the Rig Veda and believe that the Vedic
poets are not worshipping natural phenomena; or that the phenomena so
worshipped were not the original forms of these gods. Whether at a
more remote time there was ever a period when the pre-historic Hindu,
or his pre-Indic ancestor, worshipped the Manes exclusively is another
question, and one with which at present we have nothing to do. The
history of Hindu religions begins with the Rig Veda, and in this
period the worship of Manes and that of natural phenomena were
distinct, nor are there any indications that the latter was ever
developed from the former. It is not denied that the Hindus made gods
of departed men. They did this long after the Vedic period. But there
is no proof that all the Vedic gods, as claims Spencer, were the
worshipped souls of the dead. No _argumentum a fero_ can show in a
Vedic dawn-hymn anything other than a hymn to personified Dawn, or
make it probable that this dawn was ever a mortal's name.
In respect of that which precedes all tradition we, whose task is not
to speculate in regard to primitive religious conceptions, but to give
the history of one people's religious progress, may be pardoned for
expressing no opinion. But without abandoning history (i.e.,
tradition) we would revert for a moment to the pre-Indian period and
point out that Zarathustra's rejection of the _daevas_ which must be
the same _devas_ that are worshipped in India, proves that
_deva_-worship is the immediate predecessor of the Hindu religion. As
far back as one can scrutinize the Aryan past he finds, as the
earliest known objects of reverence, 'sun' and 'sky,' besides and
beside the blessed Manes. A word here regarding the priority of
monotheism or of polytheism. The tradition is in favor of the latter,
while on _a priori_ grounds whoever thinks that the more primitive the
race the more apt it is for monotheism will postulate, with some of
the older scholars, an assumed monotheism as the pre-historic religion
of the Hindus; while whosoever opines that man has gradually risen
from a less intellectual stage will see in the early gods of the
Hindus only another illustration of one universal fact, and posit even
Aryan polytheism as an advance on the religion which it is probable
that the remoter ancestors of the Aryans once acknowledged.
A word perhaps should be said, also, in order to a better
understanding between the ethnologists as represented by Andrew Lang,
and the unfortunate philologists whom it delights him to pommel.
Lang's clever attacks on the myth-makers, whom he persistently
describes as the philologists--and they do indeed form part of that
camp--have had the effect of bringing 'philological theories' into sad
disrepute with sciolists and 'common-sense' people. But the sun-myths
and dawn-myths that the myth-makers discover in Cinderella and Red
Riding Hood, ought not to be fathered upon all philologists. On the
other hand, who will deny that in India certain mythological figures
are eoian or solar in origin? Can any one question that Vivasvant the
'wide gleaming' is sun or bright sky, as he is represented in the
Avesta and Rig Veda? Yet is a very anthropomorphic, nay, earthly
figure, made out of this god. Or is Mr. Lang ignorant that the god
Yima became Jemshid, and that Feridun is only the god Trita? It
undoubtedly is correct to illuminate the past with other light than
that of sun or dawn, yet that these lights have shone and have been
quenched in certain personalities may be granted without doing
violence to scientific principles. All purely etymological mythology
is precarious, but one may recognize sun-myths without building a
system on the basis of a Dawn-Helen, and without referring Ilium to
the Vedic _bila_. Again, myths about gods, heroes, and fairies are to
be segregated. Even in India, which teems with it, there is little, if
any, folklore that can be traced to solar or dawn-born myths. Mr. Lang
represents a healthy reaction against too much sun-myth, but we think
that there are sun-myths still, and that despite his protests all
religion is not grown from one seed.
There remains the consideration of the second part of the double
problem which was formulated above--the method of interpretation. The
native method is to believe the scholiasts' explanations, which often
are fanciful and, in all important points, totally unreliable; since
the Hindu commentators lived so long after the period of the
literature they expound that the tradition they follow is useful only
in petty details. From a modern point of view the question of
interpretation depends mainly on whether one regard the Rig Veda as
but an Indic growth, the product of the Hindu mind alone, or as a work
that still retains from an older age ideas which, having once been
common to Hindu and Iranian, should be compared with those in the
Persian Avesta and be illustrated by them. Again, if this latter
hypothesis be correct, how is one to interpret an apparent likeness,
here and there, between Indic and foreign notions,--is it possible
that the hymns were composed, in part, before the advent of the
authors into India, and is it for this reason that in the Rig Veda are
contained certain names, ideas, and legends, which do not seem to be
native to India? On the other hand, if one adopt the theory that the
Rig Veda is wholly a native work, in how far is he to suppose that it
is separable from Brahmanic formalism? Were the hymns made
independently of any ritual, as their own excuse for being, or were
they composed expressly for the sacrifice, as part of a formal cult?
Here are views diverse enough, but each has its advocate or advocates.
According to the earlier European writers the Vedic poets are
fountains of primitive thought, streams unsullied by any tributaries,
and in reading them one quaffs a fresh draught, the gush of
unsophisticated herdsmen, in whose religion there is to be seen a
childlike belief in natural phenomena as divine forces, over which
forces stands the Heaven-god as the highest power. So in 1869
Pfleiderer speaks of the "primeval childlike naïve prayer" of Rig Veda
vi. 51. 5 ("Father sky, mother earth," etc.);[15] while Pictet, in his
work _Les Origines Indo-Européennes_, maintains that the Aryans had a
primitive monotheism, although it was vague and rudimentary; for he
regards both Iranian dualism and Hindu polytheism as being
developments of one earlier monism (claiming that Iranian dualism is
really monotheistic). Pictet's argument is that the human mind must
have advanced from the simple to the complex! Even Roth believes in an
originally "supreme deity" of the Aryans.[16] Opposed to this, the
'naïve' school of such older scholars as Roth, Müller,[17] and
Grassmann, who see in the Rig Veda an ingenuous expression of
'primitive' ideas, stand the theories of Bergaigne, who interprets
everything allegorically; and of Pischel and Geldner, realists, whose
general opinions may thus be formulated: The poets of the Rig Veda are
not childlike and naïve; they represent a comparatively late period of
culture, a society not only civilized, but even sophisticated; a mode
of thought philosophical and sceptical a religion not only ceremonious
but absolutely stereotyped. In regard to the Aryanhood of the hymns,
the stand taken by these latter critics, who renounce even Bergaigne's
slight hold on mythology, is that the Rig Veda is thoroughly Indic. It
is to be explained by the light of the formal Hindu ritualism, and
even by epic worldliness, its fresh factors being lewd gods, harlots,
and race-horses. Bloomfield, who does not go so far as this, claims
that the 'Vedic' age really is a Brahmanic age; that Vedic religion is
saturated with Brahmanic ideas and Brahmanic formalism, so that the
Rig Veda ought to be looked upon as made for the ritual, not the
ritual regarded as ancillary to the Rig Veda[18]. This scholar
maintains that there is scarcely any chronological distinction between
the hymns of the Rig Veda and the Br[=a]hmana, both forms having
probably existed together "from earliest times"; and that not a single
Vedic hymn "was ever composed without reference to ritual
application"; nay, all the hymns were "liturgical from the very
start"[19]. This is a plain advance even on Bergaigne's opinion, who
finally regarded all the family-books of the Rig Veda as composed to
subserve the _soma_-cult.[20]
In the Rig Veda occur hymns of an entirely worldly character, the
lament of a gambler, a humorous description of frogs croaking like
priests, a funny picture of contemporary morals [describing how every
one lusts after wealth], and so forth. From these alone it becomes
evident that the ritualistic view must be regarded as one somewhat
exaggerated. But if the liturgical extremist appears to have stepped a
little beyond the boundary of probability, he yet in daring remains
far behind Bergaigne's disciple Regnaud, who has a mystical 'system,'
which is, indeed, the outcome of Bergaigne's great work, though it is
very improbable that the latter would have looked with favor upon his
follower's results. In _Le Rig Veda_ [Paris, 1892] Paul Regnaud,
emphasizing again the connection between the liturgy and the hymns,
refers every word of the Rig Veda to the sacrifice in its simplest
form, the oblation. According to this author the Hindus had forgotten
the meaning of their commonest words, or consistently employed them in
their hymns in a meaning different to that in ordinary use. The very
word for god, _deva_ [deus], no longer means the 'shining one' [the
god], but the 'burning oblation'; the common word for mountain,
_giri_ also means oblation, and so on. This is Bergaigne's allegorical
mysticism run mad.
At such perversion of reasonable criticism is the exegesis of the Veda
arrived in one direction. But in another it is gone astray no less, as
misdirected by its clever German leader. In three volumes[21]
Brunnhofer has endeavored to prove that far from being a Brahmanic
product, the Rig Veda is not even the work of Hindus; that it was
composed near the Caspian Sea long before the Aryans descended into
India. Brunnhofer's books are a mine of ingenious conjectures, as
suggestive in detail as on the whole they are unconvincing. His
fundamental error is the fancy that names and ideas which might be
Iranian or Turanian would prove, if such they really could be shown to
be, that the work in which they are contained must be Iranian or
Turanian. He relies in great measure on passages that always have been
thought to be late, either whole late hymns or tags added to old
hymns, and on the most daring changes in the text, changes which he
makes in order to prove his hypothesis, although there is no necessity
for making them. The truth that underlies Brunnhofer's extravagance is
that there are foreign names in the Rig Veda, and this is all that he
has proved thus far.
In regard to the relation between the Veda and the Avesta the
difference of views is too individual to have formed systems of
interpretation on that basis alone. Every competent scholar recognizes
a close affinity between the Iranian Yima and the Hindu Yama, between
the _soma_-cult and the _haoma_-cult, but in how far the thoughts and
forms that have clustered about one development are to be compared
with those of the other there is no general agreement and there can be
none. The usual practice, however, is to call the Iranian _Yima,
haoma_, etc., to one's aid if they subserve one's own view of _Yama,
soma,_ and other Hindu parallels, and to discard analogous features as
an independent growth if they do not. This procedure is based as well
on the conditions of the problem as on the conditions of human
judgment, and must not be criticized too severely; for in fact the two
religions here and there touch each other so nearly that to deny a
relation between them is impossible, while in detail they diverge so
widely that it is always questionable whether a coincidence of ritual
or belief be accidental or imply historical connection.
It is scarcely advisable in a concise review of several religions to
enter upon detailed criticism of the methods of interpretation that
affect for the most part only the earliest of them. But on one point,
the reciprocal relations between the Vedic and Brahmanic periods, it
is necessary to say a few words. Why is it that well-informed Vedic
scholars differ so widely in regard to the ritualistic share in the
making of the Veda? Because the extremists on either side in
formulating the principles of their system forget a fact that probably
no one of them if questioned would fail to acknowledge. The Rig Veda
is not a homogeneous whole. It is a work which successive generations
have produced, and in which are represented different views, of local
or sectarian origin; while the hymns from a literary point of view are
of varying value. The latter is a fact which has been ignored
frequently, but it is more important than any other. For one has
almost no criteria, with which to discover whether the hymns precede
or follow the ritual, other than the linguistic posteriority of the
ritualistic literature, and the knowledge that there were priests with
a ritual when some of the hymns were composed. The bare fact that
hymns are found rubricated in the later literature is surely no reason
for believing that such hymns were made for the ritual. Now while it
can be shown that a large number of hymns are formal, conventional,
and mechanical in expression, and while it may be argued with
plausibility that these were composed to serve the purpose of an
established cult, this is very far from being the case with many
which, on other grounds, may be supposed to belong severally to the
older and later part of the Rig Veda. Yet does the new school, in
estimating the hymns, never admit this. The poems always are spoken of
as 'sacerdotal', ritualistic, without the slightest attempt to see
whether this be true of all or of some alone. We claim that it is not
historical, it is not judicious from a literary point of view, to
fling indiscriminately together the hymns that are evidently
ritualistic and those of other value; for, finally, it is a sober
literary judgment that is the court of appeals in regard to whether
poetry be poetry or not. Now let one take a hymn containing, to make
it an unexceptionable example, nothing very profound or very
beautiful. It is this well-known
HYMN TO THE SUN (_Rig Veda_, I. 50).
Aloft this all-wise[22] shining god
His beams of light are bearing now,
That every one the sun may see.
Apart, as were they thieves, yon stars,
Together with the night[23], withdraw
Before the sun, who seeth all.
His beams of light have been beheld
Afar, among [all] creatures; rays
Splendid as were they [blazing] fires,
Impetuous-swift, beheld of all,
Of light the maker, thou, O Sun,
Thou all the gleaming [sky] illum'st.
Before the folk of shining gods
Thou risest up, and men before,
'Fore all--to be as light beheld;
[To be] thine eye, O pure bright Heaven,
Wherewith amid [all] creatures born
Thou gazest down on busy [man].
Thou goest across the sky's broad place,
Meting with rays, O Sun, the days,
And watching generations pass.
The steeds are seven that at thy car
Bear up the god whose hair is flame
O shining god, O Sun far-seen!
Yoked hath he now his seven fair steeds,
The daughters of the sun-god's car,
Yoked but by him[24]; with these he comes.
For some thousands of years these verses have been the daily prayer of
the Hindu. They have been incorporated into the ritual in this form.
They are rubricated, and the nine stanzas form part of a prescribed
service. But, surely, it were a literary hysteron-proteron to conclude
for this reason that they were made only to fill a part in an
established ceremony.
The praise is neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious
tone. It has a directness and a simplicity, without affectation, which
would incline one to believe that it was not made mechanically, but
composed with a devotional spirit that gave voice to genuine feeling.
We will now translate another poem (carefully preserving all the
tautological phraseology), a hymn
To DAWN _(Rig Veda_ VI. 64).
Aloft the lights of Dawn, for beauty gleaming,
Have risen resplendent, like to waves of water;
She makes fair paths, (makes) all accessible;
And good is she, munificent and kindly.
Thou lovely lookest, through wide spaces shin'st thou,
Up fly thy fiery shining beams to heaven;
Thy bosom thou reveals't, thyself adorning,
Aurora, goddess gleaming bright in greatness.
The ruddy kine (the clouds) resplendent bear her,
The blessed One, who far and wide extendeth.
As routs his foes a hero armed with arrows,
As driver swift, so she compels the darkness.
Thy ways are fair; thy paths, upon the mountains;
In calm, self-shining one, thou cross'st the waters.
O thou whose paths are wide, to us, thou lofty
Daughter of Heaven, bring wealth for our subsistence.
Bring (wealth), thou Dawn, who, with the kine, untroubled
Dost bring us good commensurate with pleasure,
Daughter of Heaven, who, though thou art a goddess,
Didst aye at morning-call come bright and early.
Aloft the birds fly ever from their dwelling,
And men, who seek for food, at thy clear dawning.
E'en though a mortal stay at home and serve thee,
Much joy to him, Dawn, goddess (bright), thou bringest.
The "morning call" might, indeed, suggest the ritual, but it proves
only a morning prayer or offering. Is this poem of a "singularly
refined character," or "preëminently sacerdotal" in appearance? One
other example (in still a different metre) may be examined, to see if
it bear on its face evidence of having been made with "reference to
ritual application," or of being "liturgical from the very start."
To INDRA _(Rig Veda_, I.11).
'Tis Indra all (our) songs extol,
Him huge as ocean in extent;
Of warriors chiefest warrior he,
Lord, truest lord for booty's gain.
In friendship, Indra, strong as thine
Naught will we fear, O lord of strength;
To thee we our laudations sing,
The conqueror unconquered.[25]
The gifts of Indra many are,
And inexhaustible his help
Whene'er to them that praise he gives
The gift of booty rich in kine.
A fortress-render, youthful, wise,
Immeasurably strong was born
Indra, the doer of every deed,
The lightning-holder, far renowned.
'Twas thou, Bolt-holder, rent'st the cave
Of Val, who held the (heavenly) kine;[26]
Thee helped the (shining) gods, when roused
(To courage) by the fearless one.[27]
Indra, who lords it by his strength,
Our praises now have loud proclaimed;
His generous gifts a thousand are,
Aye, even more than this are they.
This is poetry. Not great poetry perhaps, but certainly not ground out
to order, as some of the hymns appear to have been. Yet, it may be
said, why could not a poetic hymn have been written in a ritualistic
environment? But it is on the hymns themselves that one is forced to
depend for the belief in the existence of ritualism, and we claim that
such hymns as these, which we have translated as literally as
possible, show rather that they were composed without reference to
ritual application. It must not be forgotten that the ritual, as it is
known in the Br[=a]hmanas, without the slightest doubt, from the point
of view of language, social conditions, and theology, represents an
age that is very different to that illustrated by the mass of the
hymns. Such hymns, therefore, and only such as can be proved to have a
ritualistic setting can be referred to a ritualistic age. There is no
convincing reason why one should not take the fully justified view
that some of the hymns represent a freer and more natural (less
priest-bound) age, as they represent a spirit freer and less
mechanical than that of other hymns. As to the question which hymns,
early or late, be due to poetic feeling, and which to ritualistic
mechanism or servile imitation, this can indeed be decided by a
judgment based only on the literary quality, never on the accident of
subsequent rubrication.
We hold, therefore, in this regard, that the new school, valuable and
suggestive as its work has been, is gone already farther than is
judicious. The Rig Veda in part is synchronous with an advanced
ritualism, subjected to it, and in some cases derived from it; but in
part the hymns are "made for their own sake and not for the sake of
any sacrificial performance," as said Muller of the whole; going in
this too far, but not into greater error than are gone they that
confuse the natural with the artificial, the poetical with the
mechanical, gold with dross. It may be true that the books of the Rig
Veda are chiefly family-books for the _soma_-cult, but even were it
true it would in no wise impugn the poetic character of some of the
hymns contained in these books. The drag-net has scooped up old and
new, good and bad, together. The Rig Veda is not of one period or of
one sort. It is a 'Collection,' as says its name. It is essentially
impossible that any sweeping statement in regard to its character
should be true if that character be regarded as uniform. To say that
the Rig Veda represents an age of childlike thought, a period before
the priestly ritual began its spiritual blight, is incorrect. But no
less incorrect is it to assert that the Rig Veda represents a period
when hymns are made only for rubrication by priests that sing only for
baksheesh. Scholars are too prone to-day to speak of the Rig Veda in
the same way as the Greeks spoke of Homer. It is to be hoped that the
time may soon come when critics will no longer talk about the
Collection as if it were all made in the same circumstances and at the
same time; above all is it desirable that the literary quality of the
hymns may receive due attention, and that there may be less of those
universal asseverations which treat the productions of generations of
poets as if they were the work of a single author.
In respect of the method of reading into the Rig Veda what is found in
parallel passages in the Atharva Veda and Br[=a]hmanas, a practice
much favored by Ludwig and others, the results of its application have
been singularly futile in passages of importance. Often a varied
reading will make clearer a doubtful verse, but it by no means follows
that the better reading is the truer. There always remains the lurking
suspicion that the reason the variant is more intelligible is that its
inventor did not understand the original. As to real elucidation of
other sort by the later texts, in the minutiae of the outer world, in
details of priestcraft, one may trust early tradition tentatively,
just as one does late commentators, but in respect of ideas tradition
is as apt to mislead as to lead well. The cleft between the theology
of the Rig Veda and that of the Br[=a]hmanas, even from the point of
view of the mass of hymns that comprise the former, is too great to
allow us with any content to explain the conceptions of the one by
those of the other. A tradition always is useful when nothing else
offers itself, but traditional beliefs are so apt to take the color of
new eras that they should be employed only in the last emergency, and
then with the understanding that they are of very hypothetical value.
In conclusion a practical question remains to be answered. In the few
cases where the physical basis of a Rig Vedic deity is matter of
doubt, it is advisable to present such a deity in the form in which he
stands in the text or to endeavor historically to elucidate the figure
by searching for his physical prototype? We have chosen the former
alternative, partly because we think the latter method unsuitable to a
handbook, since it involves many critical discussions of theories of
doubtful value. But this is not the chief reason. Granted that the
object of study is simply to know the Rig Veda, rightly to grasp the
views held by the poets, and so to place oneself upon their plane of
thought, it becomes obvious that the farther the student gets from
their point of view the less he understands them. Nay, more, every bit
of information, real as well as fancied, which in regard to the poets'
own divinities furnishes one with more than the poets themselves knew
or imagined, is prejudicial to a true knowledge of Vedic beliefs. Here
if anywhere is applicable that test of desirable knowledge formulated
as _das Erkennen des Erkannten_. To set oneself in the mental sphere
of the Vedic seers, as far as possible to think their thoughts, to
love, fear, and admire with them--this is the necessary beginning of
intimacy, which precedes the appreciation that gives understanding.
DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT.
After the next chapter, which deals with the people and land, we shall
begin the examination of Hindu religions with the study of the beliefs
and religious notions to be found in the Rig Veda. Next to the Rig
Veda in time stands the Atharva Veda, which represents a growing
demonology in contrast with _soma_-worship and theology; sufficiently
so at least to deserve a special chapter. These two Vedic Collections
naturally form the first period of Hindu religion.
The Vedic period is followed by what is usually termed Brahmanism, the
religion that is inculcated in the rituals called Br[=a]hmana and its
later development in the Upanishads. These two classes of works,
together with the Yajur Veda, will make the next divisions of the
whole subject. The formal religion of Brahmanism, as laid down for
popular use and instruction in the law-books, is a side of Brahmanic
religion that scarcely has been noticed, but it seems to deserve all
the space allotted to it in the chapter on 'The Popular Brahmanic
Faith.' We shall then review Jainism and Buddhism, the two chief
heresies. Brahmanism penetrates the great epic poem which, however, in
its present form is sectarian in tendency, and should be separated as
a growth of Hinduism from the literature of pure Brahmanism.
Nevertheless, so intricate and perplexing would be the task of
unraveling the theologic threads that together make the yarn of the
epic, and in many cases it would be so doubtful whether any one thread
led to Brahmanism or to the wider and more catholic religion called
Hinduism, that we should have preferred to give up the latter name
altogether, as one that was for the most part idle, and in some degree
misleading. Feeling, however, that a mere manual should not take the
initiative in coining titles, we have admitted this unsatisfactory
word 'Hinduism' as the title of a chapter which undertakes to give a
comprehensive view of the religions endorsed by the many-centuried
epic, and to explain their mutual relations. As in the case of the
'Popular Faith,' we have had here no models to go upon, and the mass
of matter which it was necessary to handle--the great epic is about
eight times as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together--must be our
excuse for many imperfections of treatment in this part of the work.
The reader will gain at least a view of the religious development as
it is exhibited in the literature, and therefore, as, far as possible,
in chronological order. The modern sects and the religions of the hill
tribes of India form almost a necessary supplement to these nobler
religions of the classical literature; the former because they are the
logical as well as historical continuation of the great Hindu
sectarian schisms, the latter because they give the solution of some
problems connected with Çivaism, and, on the other hand, offer useful
un-Aryan parallels to a few traits which have been preserved in the
earliest period of the Aryans.[28]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Megasthenes, Fr. XLI, ed. Schwanbeck.]
[Footnote 2: Epic literature springs from lower castes than
that of the priest, but it has been worked over by
sacerdotal revisers till there is more theology than epic
poetry in it.]
[Footnote 3: See Weber, _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 224;
Windisch, _Greek Influence on Indian Drama_; and Lévi, _Le
théâtre indien_. The date of the Renaissance is given as
"from the first century B.C. to at least the third century
A.D." (_India_, p. 281). Extant Hindu drama dates only from
the fifth century A.D. We exclude, of course, from "real
literature" all technical hand-books and commentaries.]
[Footnote 4: Jacobi, in Roth's _Festgruss_, pp. 72, 73
(1893); Whitney, _Proceed. A.O.S._, 1894, p. lxxii; Perry,
_P[=u]shan,_ in the _Drisler Memorial_; Weber, _Vedische
Beiträge._]
[Footnote 5: Westergaard, _Ueber Buddha's Todesjahr_. The
prevalent opinion is that Buddha died in 477 or 480 B.C.]
[Footnote 6: It must not be forgotten in estimating the
_broad_ mass of Br[=a]hmanas and S[=u]tras that each as a
school represents almost the whole length of its period, and
hence one school alone should measure the time from end to
end, which reduces to very moderate dimensions the
literature to be accounted for in time.]
[Footnote 7: _'Rig Veda Collection'_ is the native name for
that which in the Occident is called Rig Veda, the latter
term embracing, to the Hindu, all the works (Br[=a]hmanas,
S[=u]tras, etc.) that go to explain the 'Collection' (of
hymns).]
[Footnote 8: Schroeder, _Indiens Literatur und Cultur,_
p.291, gives: Rig-Veda, 2000-1000 B.C.; older Br[=a]hmanas,
1000-800; later Br[=a]hmanas and Upanishads, 800-600;
S[=u]tras, 600-400 or 300.]
[Footnote 9: _Principles of Sociology_, I. P.448 (Appleton,
1882).]
[Footnote 10: Ib. p. 398.]
[Footnote 11: Ib. p. 427.]
[Footnote 12: Ib. p. 824.]
[Footnote 13: Ib.]
[Footnote 14: Ib. p. 821.]
[Footnote 15: Compare Muir, _Original Sanskrit Texts_, V. p.
412 ff., where are given the opinions of Pfleiderer, Pictet,
Roth, Scherer, and others.]
[Footnote 16: ZDMG., vi. 77: "Ein alter gemeinsam arischer
[indo-iranic], ja vielleicht gemeinsam indo-germanischer
oberster Gott, Varuna-Ormuzd-Uranos."]
[Footnote 17: In his _Science of Language_, Müller speaks of
the early poets who "strove in their childish way to pierce
beyond the limits of this finite world." Approvingly cited,
SBE. xxxii. p. 243 (1891).]
[Footnote 18: The over view may be seen in Müller's _Lecture
on the Vedas_ (Chips, I. p. 9): "A collection made for its
own sake, and not for the sake of any sacrificial
performance." For Pischel's view compare _Vedische Studien_,
I. Preface.]
[Footnote 19: Bloomfield, JAOS xv. p. 144.]
[Footnote 20: Compare Barth (Preface): "A literature
preeminently sacerdotal.... The poetry ... of a singularly
refined character, ... full of ... pretensions to
mysticism," etc.]
[Footnote 21: _Iran und Turan_, 1889; _Vom Pontus bis zum
Indus_, 1890; _Vom Aral bis zur Gang[=a]_ 1892.]
[Footnote 22: Or "all-possessing" [Whitney]. The metre of
the translation retains the number of feet in the original.
Four [later added] stanzas are here omitted.]
[Footnote 23: So P.W. possibly "by reason of [the sun's]
rays"; _i.e._, the stars fear the sun as thieves fear light.
For 'Heaven,' here and below, see the third chapter.]
[Footnote 24: Yoked only by him; literally "self-yoked."
Seven is used in the Rig Veda in the general sense of
"many," as in Shakespeare's "a vile thief this seven
years."]
[Footnote 25: _jet[=a]ram [=a]par[=a]jitam_.]
[Footnote 26: The rain, see next note.]
[Footnote 27: After this stanza two interpolated stanzas are
here omitted. Grassman and Ludwig give the epithet
"fearless" to the gods and to Vala, respectively. But
compare I.6.7, where the same word is used of Indra. For the
oft-mentioned act of cleaving the cave, where the dragon Val
or Vritra (the restrainer or envelopper) had coralled the
kine(i.e. without metaphor, for the act of freeing the
clouds and letting loose the rain), compare I.32.2, where of
Indra it is said: "He slew the snake that lay upon the
mountains ... like bellowing kine the waters, swiftly
flowing, descended to the sea"; and verse 11: "Watched by
the snake the waters stood ... the waters' covered cave he
opened wide, what time he Vritra slew."]
[Footnote 28: Aryan, Sanskrit _aryà, árya_, Avestan _airya_,
appears to mean the loyal or the good, and may be the
original national designation, just as the Medes were long
called [Greek: _Arioi_]. In late Sanskrit _[=a]rya_ is
simply 'noble.' The word survives, perhaps, in [Greek:
_aristos_], and is found in proper names, Persian
Ariobarzanes, Teutonic Ariovistus; as well as in the names
of people and countries, Vedic [=A]ryas, [=I]ran, Iranian;
(doubtful) Airem, Erin, Ireland. Compare Zimmer, BB. iii. p.
137; Kaegi, _Der Rig Veda_, p. 144 (Arrowsmith's
translation, p. 109). In the Rig Veda there is a god
Aryaman, 'the true,' who forms with Mitra and Varuna a triad
(see below). Windisch questions the propriety of identifying
[=I]ran with Erin, and Schrader (p. 584^2) doubts whether
the Indo-Europeans as a body ever called themselves Aryans.
We employ the latter name because it is short.]
* * * * *