THE RIG VEDA (CONCLUDED).--YAMA AND OTHER GODS, VEDIC PANTHEISM,
ESCHATOLOGY.
In the last chapter we have traced the character of two great gods of
earth, the altar-fire and the personified kind of beer which was the
Vedic poets' chief drink till the end of this period. With the
discovery of _sur[=a], humor ex hordeo_ (oryzaque; Weber,
_V[=a]japeya_, p. 19), and the difficulty of obtaining the original
_soma_-plant (for the plant used later for _soma_, the _asclepias
acida_, or _sarcostemma viminale_, does not grow in the Punj[=a]b
region, and cannot have been the original _soma_), the status of
_soma_ became changed. While _sur[=a]_ became the drink of the people,
_soma_, despite the fact that it was not now so agreeable a liquor,
became reserved, from its old associations, as the priests' (gods')
drink, a sacrosanct beverage, not for the vulgar, and not esteemed by
the priest, except as it kept up the rite.
It has been shown that these gods, earthly in habitation, absorbed the
powers of the older and physically higher divinities. The ideas that
clustered about the latter were transferred to the former. The
altar-fire, Agni, is at once earth-fire, lightning, and sun. The drink
_soma_ is identified with the heavenly drink that refreshes the earth,
and from its color is taken at last to be the terrestrial form of its
aqueous prototype, the moon, which is not only yellow, but even goes
through cloud-meshes just as _soma_ goes through the sieve, with all
the other points of comparison that priestly ingenuity can devise.
Of different sort altogether from these gods is the ancient
Indo-Iranian figure that now claims attention. The older religion had
at least one object of devotion very difficult to reduce to terms of a
nature-religion.
YAMA
Exactly as the Hindu had a half-divine ancestor, Manu, who by the
later priests is regarded as of solar origin, while more probably he
is only the abstract Adam (man), the progenitor of the race; so in
Yama the Hindu saw the primitive "first of mortals." While, however,
Mitra, Dyaus, and other older nature-gods, pass into a state of
negative or almost forgotten activity, Yama, even in the later epic
period, still remains a potent sovereign--the king of the dead.
In the Avesta Yima is the son of the 'wide-gleaming' Vivanghvant, the
sun, and here it is the sun that first prepares the _soma (haoma)_ for
man. And so, too, in the Rig Veda it is Yama the son of Vivasvant (X.
58. 1; 60. 10) who first "extends the web" of (_soma_) sacrifice (VII.
33. 9, 12). The Vedic poet, not influenced by later methods of
interpretation, saw in Yama neither sun nor moon, nor any other
natural phenomenon, for thus he sings, differentiating Yama from them
all: "I praise with a song Agni, P[=u]shan, Sun and Moon, Yama in
heaven, Trita, Wind, Dawn, the Ray of Light, the Twin Horsemen" (X.
64. 3); and again: "Deserving of laudation are Heaven and Earth, the
four-limbed Agni, Yama, Aditi," etc. (X. 92. 11).
Yama is regarded as a god, although in the Rig Veda he is called only
'king' (X. 14. 1, 11); but later he is expressly a god, and this is
implied, as Ehni shows, even in the Rig Veda: 'a god found Agni' and
'Yama found Agni' (X. 51. 1 ff.). His primitive nature was that of the
'first mortal that died,' in the words of the Atharva Veda. It is
true, indeed, that at a later period even gods are spoken of as
originally 'mortal,'[1] but this is a conception alien from the early
notions of the Veda, where 'mortal' signifies no more than 'man.' Yama
was the first mortal, and he lives in the sky, in the home that "holds
heroes," _i.e._, his abode is where dead heroes congregate (I. 35. 6;
X. 64. 3)[2]. The fathers that died of old are cared for by him as he
sits drinking with the gods beneath a fair tree (X. 135. 1-7). The
fire that devours the corpse is invoked to depart thither (X. 16. 9).
This place is not very definitely located, but since, according to one
prevalent view, the saints guard the sun, and since Yama's abode in
the sky is comparable with the sun in one or two passages, it is
probable that the general idea was that the departed entered the sun
and there Yama received him (I. 105. 9, 'my home is there where are
the sun's rays'; X. 154. 4-5, 'the dead shall go, O Yama, to the
fathers, the seers that guard the sun'). 'Yama's abode' is the same
with 'sky' (X. 123. 6); and when it is said, 'may the fathers hold up
the pillar (in the grave), and may Yama build a seat for thee there'
(X. 18. 13), this refers, not to the grave, but to heaven. And it is
said that 'Yama's seat is what is called the gods' home' (X. 135.
7)[3]. But Yama does not remain in the sky. He comes, as do other
Powers, to the sacrifice, and is invited to seat himself 'with
Angirasas and the fathers' at the feast, where he rejoices with them
(X. 14. 3-4; 15. 8). And either because Agni devours corpses for Yama,
or because of Agni's part in the sacrifice which Yama so joyfully
attends, therefore Agni is especially mentioned as Yama's friend (X.
21. 5), or even his priest (_ib_. 52. 3). Yama stands in his relation
to the dead so near to death that 'to go on Yama's path' is to go on
the path of death; and battle is called 'Yama's strife.' It is even
possible that in one passage Yama is directly identified with death
(X. 165. 4, 'to Yama be reverence, to death'; I. 38. 5; _ib_. 116.
2)[4]. There is always a close connection between Varuna and Yama, and
perhaps it is owing to this that parallel to 'Varuna's fetters' is
found also 'Yama's fetter,' i.e., death (x. 97. 16).
As Yama was the first to die, so was he the first to teach man the
road to immortality, which lies through sacrifice, whereby man attains
to heaven and to immortality. Hence the poet says, 'we revere the
immortality born of Yama' (i. 83. 5). This, too, is the meaning of the
mystic verse which speaks of the sun as the heavenly courser 'given by
Yama,' for, in giving the way to immortality, Yama gives also the
sun-abode to them that become immortal. In the same hymn the sun is
identified with Yama as he is with Trita (i. 163. 3). This particular
identification is due, however, rather to the developed pantheistic
idea which obtains in the later hymns. A parallel is found in the next
hymn: "They speak of Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni ... that which is one,
the priests speak of in many ways, and call him Agni, Yama, Fire" (or
Wind, i. 164. 46).
Despite the fact that one Vedic poet speaks of Yama's name as 'easy to
understand' (x. 12. 6), no little ingenuity has been spent on it, as
well as on the primitive conception underlying his personality.
Etymologically, his name means Twin, and this is probably the real
meaning, for his twin sister Yami is also a Vedic personage. The later
age, regarding Yama as a restrainer and punisher of the wicked,
derived the name from _yam_ the restrainer or punisher, but such an
idea is quite out of place in the province of Vedic thought. The
Iranian Yima also has a sister of like name, although she does not
appear till late in the literature.
That Yama's father is the sun, Vivasvant (Savitar, 'the artificer,'
Tvashtar, x. 10. 4-5),[5] is clearly enough stated in the
Rik; and that he was the first mortal, in the Atharvan. Men come from
Yama, and Yama comes from the sun as 'creator,' just as men elsewhere
come from Adam and Adam comes from the Creator. But instead of an
Hebraic Adam and Eve there are in India a Yama and Yam[=i], brother
and sister (wife), who, in the one hymn in which the latter is
introduced _(loc. cit.),_ indulge in a moral conversation on the
propriety of wedlock between brother and sister. This hymn is
evidently a protest against a union that was unobjectionable to an
older generation. In the Yajur Veda Yami is wife and sister both. But
sometimes, in the varying fancies of the Vedic poets, the artificer
Tvashtar is differentiated from Vivasvant, the sun; as he is in
another passage, where Tvashtar gives to Vivasvant his daughter, and
she is the mother of Yama[6].
That men are the children of Yama is seen in X. 13. 4, where it is
said, 'Yama averted death for the gods; he did not avert death for
(his) posterity.' In the Brahmanic tradition men derive from the sun
(T[=a]itt. S. VI. 5. 6. 2[7]) So, in the Iranian belief, Yima is
looked upon, according to some scholars, as the first man. The funeral
hymn to Yama is as follows:
Him who once went over the great mountains[8] and spied out
a path for many, the son of Vivasvant, who collects men,
King Yama, revere ye with oblations. Yama the first found us
a way ... There where our old fathers are departed.... Yama
is magnified with the Angirasas.... Sit here, O Yama, with
the Angirasas and with the fathers.... Rejoice, O king, in
this oblation. Come, O Yama, with the venerable Angirasas. I
call thy father, Vivasvant, sit down at this sacrifice.
And then, turning to the departed soul:
Go forth, go forth on the old paths where are gone our old
fathers; thou shalt see both joyous kings, Yama and God
Varuna. Unite with the fathers, with Yama, with the
satisfaction of desires, in highest heaven.... Yama will
give a resting place to this spirit. Run past, on a good
path, the two dogs of Saram[=a], the four-eyed, spotted
ones; go unto the fathers who rejoice with Yama.
Several things are here noteworthy. In the first place, the Atharva
Veda reads, "who first of mortals died[9]," and this is the meaning of
the Rig Veda version, although, as was said above, the mere fact that
Varuna is called a god and Yama a king proves nothing[10]. But it is
clearly implied here that he who crossed the mountains and 'collected
men,' as does Yima in the Iranian legend, is an ancient king, as it is
also implied that he led the way to heaven. The dogs of Yama are
described in such a way as to remind one of the dogs that guard the
path the dead have to pass in the Iranian legend, and of Kerberus,
with whose very name the adjective 'spotted' has been compared[11].
The dogs are elsewhere described as white and brown and as barking
(VII. 55. 2), and in further verses of the hymn just quoted (X. 14)
they are called "thy guardian dogs, O Yama, the four-eyed ones who
guard the path, who look on men ... broad-nosed, dark messengers of
Yama, who run among the people."
These dogs are due to the same fantasy that creates a Kerberus, the
Iranian dogs[12], or other guardians of the road that leads to heaven.
The description is too minute to make it probable that the Vedic poet
understood them to be 'sun and moon,' as the later Brahmanical
ingenuity explains them, and as they have been explained by modern
scholarship. It is not possible that the poet, had he had in mind any
connection between the dogs and the sun and moon (or 'night and day'),
would have described them as 'barking' or as 'broad-nosed and dark';
and all interpretation of Yama's dogs must rest on the interpretation
of Yama himself[13].
Yama is not mentioned elsewhere[14] in the Rig Veda, except in the
statement that 'metres rest on Yama,' and in the closing verses of the
burial hymn: "For Yama press the _soma_, for Yama pour oblation; the
sacrifice goes to Yama; he shall extend for us a long life among the
gods," where the pun on Yama (_yamad á_), in the sense of 'stretch
out,' shows that as yet no thought of 'restrainer' was in the poet's
mind, although the sense of 'twin' is lost from the name.
In recent years Hillebrandt argues that because the Manes are
connected with Soma (as the moon), and because Yama was the first to
die, therefore Yama was the moon. Ehni, on the other hand, together
with Bergaigne and some other scholars, takes Yama to be the sun.
Müller calls him the 'setting-sun[15].' The argument from the Manes
applies better to the sun than to the moon, but it is not conclusive.
The Hindus in the Vedic age, as later, thought of the Manes living in
stars, moon, sun, and air; and, if they were not good Manes but dead
sinners, in the outer edge of the universe or under ground. In short,
they are located in every conceivable place[17].
The Yama, 'who collects people,' has been rightly compared with the
Yima, who 'made a gathering of the people,' but it is doubtful whether
one should see in this an Aryan trait; for [Greek: Aidaes Agaesilaos]
is not early and popular, but late (Aeschylean), and the expression
may easily have arisen independently in the mind of the Greek poet.
From a comparative point of view, in the reconstruction of Yama there
is no conclusive evidence which will permit one to identify his
original character either with sun or moon. Much rather he appears to
be as he is in the Rig Veda, a primitive king, not historically so,
but poetically, the first man, fathered of the sun, to whom he
returns, and in whose abode he collects his offspring after their
inevitable death on earth. In fact, in Yama there is the ideal side of
ancestor-worship. He is a poetic image, the first of all fathers, and
hence their type and king. Yama's name is unknown outside of the
Indo-Iranian circle, and though Ehni seeks to find traces of him in
Greece and elsewhere,[18] this scholar's identifications fail, because
he fails to note that similar ideas in myths are no proof of their
common origin.
It has been suggested that in the paradise of Yama over the mountains
there is a companion-piece to the hyperboreans, whose felicity is
described by Pindar. The nations that came from the north still kept
in legend a recollection of the land from whence they came. This
suggestion cannot, of course, be proved, but it is the most probable
explanation yet given of the first paradise to which the dead revert.
In the late Vedic period, when the souls of the dead were not supposed
to linger on earth with such pleasure as in the sky, Yama's abode is
raised to heaven. Later still, when to the Hindu the south was the
land of death, Yama's hall of judgment is again brought down to earth
and transferred to the 'southern district.'
The careful investigation of Scherman[19] leads essentially to the
same conception of Yama as that we have advocated. Scherman believes
that Yama was first a human figure, and was then elevated to, if not
identified with, the sun. Scherman's only error is in disputing the
generally-received opinion, one that is on the whole correct, that
Yama in the early period is a kindly sovereign, and in later times
becomes the dread king of horrible hells. Despite some testimony to
the contrary, part of which is late interpolation in the epic, this is
the antithesis which exists in the works of the respective periods.
The most important gods of the era of the Rig Veda we now have
reviewed. But before passing on to the next period it should be
noticed that no small number of beings remains who are of the air,
devilish, or of the earth, earthy. Like the demons that injure man by
restraining the rain in the clouds, so there are _bh[=u]ts_, ghosts,
spooks, and other lower powers, some malevolent, some good-natured,
who inhabit earth; whence demonology. There is, furthermore, a certain
chrematheism, as we have elsewhere[20] ventured to call it, which
pervades the Rig Veda, the worship of more or less personified things,
differing from pantheism in this,[21] that whereas pantheism assumes a
like divinity in all things, this kind of theism assumes that
everything (or anything) has a separate divinity, usually that which
is useful to the worshipper, as, the plough, the furrow, etc. In later
hymns these objects are generally of sacrificial nature, and the
stones with which _soma_ is pressed are divine like the plant. Yet
often there is no sacrificial observance to cause this veneration.
Hymns are addressed to weapons, to the war-car, as to divine beings.
Sorcery and incantation is not looked upon favorably, but nevertheless
it is found.
Another class of divinities includes abstractions, generally female,
such as Infinity, Piety, Abundance, with the barely-mentioned
Gung[=u], R[=a]k[=a], etc. (which may be moon-phases). The
most important of these abstractions[22] is 'the lord of strength,' a
priestly interpretation of Indra, interpreted as religious strength or
prayer, to whom are accredited all of Indra's special acts.
Hillebrandt interprets this god, Brahmanaspati or Brihaspati, as the
moon; Müller, somewhat doubtfully, as fire; while Roth will not allow
that Brihaspati has anything to do with natural phenomena, but
considers him to have been from the beginning 'lord of prayer.' With
this view we partly concur, but we would make the important
modification that the god was lord of prayer only as priestly
abstraction Indra in his higher development. It is from this god is
come probably the head of the later trinity, Brahm[=a], through
personified _brahma_, power; prayer, with its philosophical
development into the Absolute. Noteworthy is the fact that some of the
Vedic Aryans, despite his high pretensions, do not quite like
Brihaspati, and look on him as a suspicious novelty. If one study
Brihaspati in the hymns, it will be difficult not to see in him simply
a sacerdotal Indra. He breaks the demon's power; crushes the foes of
man; consumes the demons with a sharp bolt; disperses darkness; drives
forth the 'cows'; gives offspring and riches; helps in battle;
discovers Dawn and Agni; has a band (like Maruts) singing about him;
he is red and golden, and is identified with fire. Although 'father of
gods,' he is begotten of Tvashtar, the artificer.[23]
Weber has suggested (V[=a]japeya Sacrifice, p. 15), that Brihaspati
takes Indra's place, and this seems to be the true solution, Indra as
interpreted mystically by priests. In RV. i. 190, Brihaspati is looked
upon by 'sinners' as a new god of little value. Other minor deities
can be mentioned only briefly, chiefly that the extent of the pantheon
may be seen. For the history of religion they are of only collective
importance. The All-gods play an important part in the sacrifice, a
group of 'all the gods,' a priestly manufacture to the end that no god
may be omitted in laudations that would embrace all the gods. The
later priests attempt to identify these gods with the clans, 'the
All-gods are the clans' (_Çat. Br._ v. 5. 1.10), on the basis of a
theological _pun_, the clans, _viças_, being equated with the word for
all, _viçve_. Some modern scholars follow these later priests, but
without reason. Had these been special clan-gods, they would have had
special names, and would not have appeared in a group alone.
The later epic has a good deal to say about some lovely nymphs called
the Apsarasas, of whom it mentions six as chief (Urvaç[=i], Menak[=a],
etc.).[24] They fall somewhat in the epic from their Vedic estate, but
they are never more than secondary figures, love-goddesses, beloved of
the Gandharvas who later are the singing guardians of the moon, and,
like the lunar stations, twenty-seven in number. The Rik knows at
first but one Gandharva (an inferior genius, mentioned in but one
family-book), who guards Soma's path, and, when Soma becomes the moon,
is identified with him, ix. 86. 36. As in the Avesta, Gandharva is
(the moon as) an evil spirit also; but always as a second-rate power,
to whom are ascribed magic (and madness, later). He has virtually no
cult except in _soma_-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan
conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and
associated with waters.
Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified.
Primitive belief generally deifies rivers. But in the great river-hymn
in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer. The
Vedic poet half believed in the rivers' divinity, and sings how they
'rush forth like armies,' but it will not do to inquire too strictly
in regard to his belief.
He was a poet, and did not expect to be catechized. Of female
divinities there are several of which the nature is doubtful. As Dawn
or Storm have been interpreted Saram[=a] and Sarany[=u], both meaning
'runner.' The former is Indra's dog, and her litter is the dogs of
Yama. One little poem, rather than hymn, celebrates the 'wood-goddess'
in pretty verses of playful and descriptive character.
Long before there was any formal recognition of the dogma that all
gods are one, various gods had been identified by the Vedic poets.
Especially, as most naturally, was this the case when diverse gods
having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and
Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky.
From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of
invoking two gods as one. But even in the case of gods not so
radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate,
each in turn became credited with his neighbor's acts. If the traits
were similar which characterized each, if the circles of activity
overlapped at all, then those divinities that originally were tangent
to each other gradually became concentric, and eventually were united.
And so the lines between the gods were wiped out, as it were, by their
conceptions crowding upon one another. There was another factor,
however, in the development of this unconscious, or, at least,
unacknowledged, pantheism. Aided by the likeness or identity of
attributes in Indra, Savitar, Agni, Mitra, and other gods, many of
which were virtually the same under a different designation, the
priests, ever prone to extravagance of word, soon began to attribute,
regardless of strict propriety, every power to every god. With the
exception of some of the older divinities, whose forms, as they are
less complex, retain throughout the simplicity of their primitive
character, few gods escaped this adoration, which tended to make them
all universally supreme, each being endowed with all the attributes of
godhead. One might think that no better fate could happen to a god
than thus to be magnified. But when each god in the pantheon was
equally glorified, the effect on the whole was disastrous. In fact, it
was the death of the gods whom it was the intention of the seers to
exalt. And the reason is plain. From this universal praise it resulted
that the individuality of each god became less distinct; every god was
become, so to speak, any god, so far as his peculiar attributes made
him a god at all, so that out of the very praise that was given to him
and his confreres alike there arose the idea of the abstract godhead,
the god who was all the gods, the one god. As a pure abstraction one
finds thus Aditi, as equivalent to 'all the gods,'[25] and then the
more personal idea of the god that is father of all, which soon
becomes the purely personal All-god. It is at this stage where begins
conscious premeditated pantheism, which in its first beginnings is
more like monotheism, although in India there is no monotheism which
does not include devout polytheism, as will be seen in the review of
the formal philosophical systems of religion.
It is thus that we have attempted elsewhere[26] to explain that phase
of Hindu religion which Müller calls henotheism.
Müller, indeed, would make of henotheism a new religion, but this, the
worshipping of each divinity in turn as if it were the greatest and
even the only god recognized, is rather the result of the general
tendency to exaltation, united with pantheistic beginnings. Granting
that pure polytheism is found in a few hymns, one may yet say that
this polytheism, with an accompaniment of half-acknowledged
chrematheism, passed soon into the belief that several divinities were
ultimately and essentially but one, which may be described as
homoiotheism; and that the poets of the Rig Veda were unquestionably
esoterically unitarians to a much greater extent and in an earlier
period than has generally been acknowledged. Most of the hymns of the
Rig Veda were composed under the influence of that unification of
deities and tendency to a quasi-monotheism, which eventually results
both in philosophical pantheism, and in the recognition at the same
time of a personal first cause. To express the difference between
Hellenic polytheism and the polytheism of the Rig Veda the latter
should be called, if by any new term, rather by a name like
pantheistic polytheism, than by the somewhat misleading word
henotheism. What is novel in it is that it represents the fading of
pure polytheism and the engrafting, upon a polytheistic stock, of a
speculative homoiousian tendency soon to bud out as philosophic
pantheism.
The admission that other gods exist does not nullify the attitude of
tentative monotheism. "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?"
asks Moses, and his father-in-law, when converted to the new belief,
says: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods."[27] But
this is not the quasi-monotheism of the Hindu, to whom the other gods
were real and potent factors, individually distinct from the one
supreme god, who represents the All-god, but is at once abstract and
concrete.
Pantheism in the Rig Veda comes out clearly only in one or two
passages: "The priests represent in many ways the (sun) bird that is
one"; and (cited above) "They speak of him as Indra, Mitra, Varuna,
Agni, ... that which is but one they call variously." So, too, in the
Atharvan it is said that Varuna (here a pantheistic god) is "in the
little drop of water,"[28] as in the Rik the spark of material fire is
identified with the sun.
The new belief is voiced chiefly in that portion of the Rig Veda which
appears to be latest and most Brahmanic in tone.
Here a supreme god is described under the name of "Lord of Beings,"
the "All-maker," "The Golden Germ," the "God over gods, the spirit of
their being" (x. 121). The last, a famous hymn, Müller entitles "To
the Unknown God." It may have been intended, as has been suggested,
for a theological puzzle,[29] but its language evinces that in
whatever form it is couched--each verse ends with the refrain, 'To
what god shall we offer sacrifice?' till the last verse answers the
question, saying, 'the Lord of beings'--it is meant to raise the
question of a supreme deity and leave it unanswered in terms of a
nature-religion, though the germ is at bottom fire: "In the beginning
arose the Golden Germ; as soon as born he became the Lord of All. He
established earth and heaven--to what god shall we offer sacrifice? He
who gives breath, strength, whose command the shining gods obey; whose
shadow is life and death.... When the great waters went everywhere
holding the germ and generating light, then arose from them the one
spirit (breath) of the gods.... May he not hurt us, he the begetter of
earth, the holy one who begot heaven ... Lord of beings, thou alone
embracest all things ..."
In this closing period of the Rig Veda--a period which in many ways,
the sudden completeness of caste, the recognition of several Vedas,
etc., is much farther removed from the beginning of the work than it
is from the period of Brahmanic speculation--philosophy is hard at
work upon the problems of the origin of gods and of being. As in the
last hymn, water is the origin of all things; out of this springs
fire, and the wind which is the breath of god. So in the great hymn of
creation: "There was then neither not-being nor being; there was no
atmosphere, no sky. What hid (it)? Where and in the protection of
what? Was it water, deep darkness? There was no death nor immortality.
There was no difference between night and day. That One breathed ...
nothing other than this or above it existed. Darkness was concealed in
darkness in the beginning. Undifferentiated water was all this
(universe)." Creation is then declared to have arisen by virtue of
desire, which, in the beginning was the origin of mind;[30] and "the
gods," it is said further, "were created after this." Whether entity
springs from non-entity or vice versa is discussed in another hymn of
the same book.[31] The most celebrated of the pantheistic hymns is
that in which the universe is regarded as portions of the deity
conceived as the primal Person: "Purusha (the Male Person) is this
all, what has been and will be ... all created things are a fourth of
him; that which is immortal in the sky is three-fourths of him." The
hymn is too well known to be quoted entire. All the castes, all gods,
all animals, and the three (or four) Vedas are parts of him.[32]
Such is the mental height to which the seers have raised themselves
before the end of the Rig Veda. The figure of the Father-god,
Praj[=a]pati, 'lord of beings,' begins here; at first an epithet of
Savitar, and finally the type of the head of a pantheon, such as one
finds him to be in the Br[=a]hmanas. In one hymn only (x. 121) is
Praj[=a]pati found as the personal Father-god and All-god. At a time
when philosophy created the one Universal Male Person, the popular
religion, keeping pace, as far as it could, with philosophy, invented
the more anthropomorphized, more human, Father-god--whose name is
ultimately interpreted as an interrogation, God Who? This trait lasts
from now on through all speculation. The philosopher conceived of a
first source. The vulgar made it a personal god.
One of the most remarkable hymns of this epoch is that on V[=a]c,
Speech, or The Word. Weber has sought in this the prototype of the
Logos doctrine (below). The Word, V[=a]c (feminine) is introduced as
speaking (x. 125):
I wander with the Rudras, with the Vasus,[33] with the
[=A]dityas, and with all the gods; I support Mitra,
Va['r]una, Indra-Agni, and the twin Açvins ... I give wealth
to him that gives sacrifice, to him that presses the _soma_.
I am the queen, the best of those worthy of sacrifice ...
The gods have put me in many places ... I am that through
which one eats, breathes, sees, and hears ... Him that I
love I make strong, to be a priest, a seer, a wise man. 'Tis
I bend Rudra's bow to hit the unbeliever; I prepare war for
the people; I am entered into heaven and earth. I beget the
father of this (all) on the height; my place is in the
waters, the sea; thence I extend myself among all creatures
and touch heaven with my crown. Even I blow like the wind,
encompassing all creatures. Above heaven and above earth, so
great am I grown in majesty.
This is almost Vedantic pantheism with the Vishnuite doctrine of
'special grace' included.
The moral tone of this period--if period it may be called--may best be
examined after one has studied the idea which the Vedic Hindu has
formed of the life hereafter. The happiness of heaven will be typical
of what he regards as best here. Bliss beyond the grave depends in
turn upon the existence of the spirit after death, and, that the
reader may understand this, we must say a few words in regard to the
Manes, or fathers dead. "Father Manu," as he is called,[34] was the
first 'Man.' Subsequently he is the secondary parent as a kind of
Noah; but Yama, in later tradition his brother, has taken his place as
norm of the departed fathers, Pitaras.
These Fathers (Manes), although of different sort than the gods, are
yet divine and have many godly powers, granting prayers and lending
aid, as may be seen from this invocation: "O Fathers, may the
sky-people grant us life; may we follow the course of the living" (x.
57. 5). One whole hymn is addressed to these quasi-divinities (x. 15):
Arise may the lowest, the highest, the middlemost Fathers,
those worthy of the _soma_, who without harm have entered
into the spirit (-world); may these Fathers, knowing the
seasons, aid us at our call. This reverence be to-day to the
Fathers, who of old and afterwards departed; those who have
settled in an earthly sphere,[35] or among peoples living in
fair places (the gods?). I have found the gracious Fathers,
the descendant(s) and the wide-step[36] of Vishnu; those
who, sitting on the sacrificial straw, willingly partake of
the pressed drink, these are most apt to come hither....
Come hither with blessings, O Fathers; may they come hither,
hear us, address and bless us.... May ye not injure us for
whatever impiety we have as men committed.... With those who
are our former Fathers, those worthy of _soma_, who are come
to the _soma_ drink, the best (fathers), may Yama rejoicing,
willingly with them that are willing, eat the oblations as
much as is agreeable (to them). Come running, O Agni, with
these (fathers), who thirsted among the gods and hastened
hither, finding oblations and praised with songs. These
gracious ones, the real poets, the Fathers that seat
themselves at the sacrificial heat; who are real eaters of
oblation; drinkers of oblation; and are set together on one
chariot with Indra and the gods. Come, O Agni, with these, a
thousand, honored like gods, the ancient, the original
Fathers who seat themselves at the sacrificial heat....
Thou, Agni, didst give the oblations to the Fathers, that
eat according to their custom; do thou (too) eat, O god, the
oblation offered (to thee). Thou knowest, O thou knower (or
finder) of beings, how many are the Fathers--those who are
here, and who are not here, of whom we know, and of whom we
know not. According to custom eat thou the well-made
sacrifice. With those who, burned in fire or not burned,
(now) enjoy themselves according to custom in the middle of
the sky, do thou, being the lord, form (for us) a spirit
life, a body according to (our) wishes.[37]
Often the Fathers are invoked in similar language in the hymn to the
"All-gods" mentioned above, and occasionally no distinction is to be
noticed between the powers and attributes of the Fathers and those of
the gods. The Fathers, like the luminous gods, "give light" (x. 107.
1). Exactly like the gods, they are called upon to aid the living, and
even 'not to harm' (iii. 55. 2; x. 15. 6). According to one verse, the
Fathers have not attained the greatness of the gods, who impart
strength only to the gods.[38]
The Fathers are kept distinct from the gods. When the laudations
bestowed upon the former are of unequivocal character there is no
confusion between the two.[39]
The good dead, to get to the paradise awaiting them, pass over water
(X. 63. 10), and a bridge (ix. 41. 2). Here, by the gift of the gods,
not by inherent capacity, they obtain immortality. He that believes on
Agni, sings: "Thou puttest the mortal in highest immortality, O Agni";
and, accordingly, there is no suggestion that heavenly joys may cease;
nor is there in this age any notion of a _Götterdämmerung_.
Immortality is described as "continuing life in the highest sky,"
another proof that when formulated the doctrine was that the soul of
the dead lives in heaven or in the sun.[40]
Other cases of immortality granted by different gods are recorded by
Muir and Zimmer. Yet in one passage the words, "two paths I have heard
of the Fathers (exist), of the gods and of mortals," may mean that the
Fathers go the way of mortals or that of gods, rather than, as is the
usual interpretation, that mortals have two paths, one of the Fathers
and one of the gods,[41] for the dead may live on earth or in the air
as well as in heaven. When a good man dies his breath, it is said,
goes to the wind, his eye to the sun, etc.[42]--each part to its
appropriate prototype--while the "unborn part" is carried
"to the world of the righteous," after having been burned and heated
by the funeral fire. All these parts are restored to the soul,
however, and Agni and Soma return to it what has been injured. With
this Muir compares a passage in the Atharva Veda where it is said that
the Manes in heaven rejoice with all their limbs.[43] We dissent,
therefore, wholly from Barth, who declares that the dead are conceived
of as "resting forever in the tomb, the narrow house of clay." The
only passage cited to prove this is X. 18. 10-13, where are the words
(addressed to the dead man at the burial): "Go now to mother earth ...
she shall guard thee from destruction's lap ... Open wide, O earth, be
easy of access; as a mother her son cover this man, O earth," etc.
Ending with the verse quoted above: "May the Fathers hold the pillar
and Yama there build thee a seat."[44] The following is also found in
the Rig Veda bearing on this point: the prayer that one may meet his
parents after death; the statement that a generous man goes to the
gods; and a suggestion of the later belief that one wins immortality
by means of a son.[45]
The joys of paradise are those of earth; and heaven is thus described,
albeit in a late hymn:[46] "Where is light inexhaustible; in the world
where is placed the shining sky; set me in this immortal, unending
world, O thou that purifiest thyself (Soma); where is king (Yama), the
son of Vivasvant, and the paradise of the sky;[47] where are the
flowing waters; there make me immortal. Where one can go as he will;
in the third heaven, the third vault of the sky; where are worlds full
of light, there make me immortal; where are wishes and desires
and the red (sun)'s highest place; where one can follow his own habits
[48] and have satisfaction; there make me immortal; where exist
delight, joy, rejoicing, and joyance; where wishes are obtained, there
make me immortal."[49] Here, as above, the saints join the Fathers,
'who guard the sun.'
There is a 'bottomless darkness' occasionally referred to as a place
where evil spirits are to be sent by the gods; and a 'deep place' is
mentioned as the portion of 'evil, false, untruthful men'; while Soma
casts into 'a hole' (abyss) those that are irreligious.[50]
As darkness is hell to the Hindu, and as in all later time the demons
are spirits of darkness, it is rather forced not to see in these
allusions a misty hell, without torture indeed, but a place for the
bad either 'far away,' as it is sometimes said _(par[=a]váti)_, or
'deep down,' 'under three earths,' exactly as the Greek has a hell
below and one on the edge of the earth. Ordinarily, however, the gods
are requested simply to annihilate offenders. It is plain, as Zimmer
says, from the office of Yama's dogs, that they kept out of paradise
unworthy souls; so that the annihilation cannot have been imagined to
be purely corporeal. But heaven is not often described, and hell
never, in this period. Yet, when the paradise desired is described, it
is a place where earthly joys are prolonged and intensified. Zimmer
argues that a race which believes in good for the good hereafter must
logically believe in punishment for the wicked, and Scherman,
strangely enough, agrees with this pedantic opinion.[51] If either of
these scholars had looked away from India to the western Indians he
would have seen that, whereas almost all American Indians believe in a
happy hereafter for good warriors, only a very few tribes have any
belief in punishment for the bad. At most a Niflheim awaits the
coward. Weber thinks the Aryans already believed in a personal
immortality, and we agree with him. Whitney's belief that hell was not
known before the Upanishad period (in his translations of the _Katha
Upanishad_) is correct only if by hell torture is meant, and if the
Atharvan is later than this Upanishad, which is improbable.
The good dead in the Rig Veda return with Yama to the sacrifice to
enjoy the _soma_ and viands prepared for them by their descendants.
Hence the whole belief in the necessity of a son in order to the
obtaining of a joyful hereafter. What the rite of burial was to the
Greek, a son was to the Hindu, a means of bliss in heaven. Roth
apparently thinks that the Rig Veda's heaven is one that can best be
described in Dr. Watt's hymn:
There is a land of pure delight
Where saints immortal reign,
Eternal day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain;
and that especial stress should be laid on the word 'pure.' But there
is very little teaching of personal purity in the Veda, and the poet
who hopes for a heaven where he is to find 'longing women,' 'desire
and its fulfillment' has in mind, in all probability, purely impure
delights. It is not to be assumed that the earlier morality surpassed
that of the later day, when, even in the epic, the hero's really
desired heaven is one of drunkenness and women _ad libitum_. Of the
'good man' in the Rig Veda are demanded piety toward gods and manes
and liberality to priests; truthfulness and courage; and in the end of
the work there is a suggestion of ascetic 'goodness' by means of
_tapas_, austerity.[52] Grassman cites one hymn as dedicated to
'Mercy.' It is really (not a hymn and) not on mercy, but a poem
praising generosity. This generosity, however (and in general this is
true of the whole people), is not general generosity, but liberality
to the priests.[53] The blessings asked for are wealth (cattle,
horses, gold, etc.), virile power, male children ('heroic offspring')
and immortality, with its accompanying joys. Once there is a tirade
against the friend that is false to his friend (truth in act as well
as in word);[54] once only, a poem on concord, which seems to partake
of the nature of an incantation.
Incantations are rare in the Rig Veda, and appear to be looked upon as
objectionable. So in VII. 104 the charge of a 'magician' is furiously
repudiated; yet do an incantation against a rival wife, a mocking hymn
of exultation after subduing rivals, and a few other hymns of like
sort show that magical practices were well known.[55]
The sacrifice occupies a high place in the religion of the Rig Veda,
but it is not all-important, as it is later. Nevertheless, the same
presumptuous assumption that the gods depend on earthly sacrifice is
often made; the result of which, even before the collection was
complete (IV. 50), was to teach that gods and men depended on the will
of the wise men who knew how properly to conduct a sacrifice, the
key-note of religious pride in the Brahmanic period.
Indra depends on the sacrificial _soma_ to accomplish his great works.
The gods first got power through the sacrificial fire and _soma_.[56]
That images of the gods were supposed to be powerful may be inferred
from the late verses, "who buys this Indra," etc. (above), but
allusions to idolatry are elsewhere extremely doubtful.[57]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Compare T[=a]itt. S. VII. 4.2.1. The gods win
immortality by means of 'sacrifice' in this later
priest-ridden period.]
[Footnote 2: Ludwig (IV. p. 134) wrongly understands a hell
here.]
[Footnote 3: 'Yama's seat' is here what it is in the epic,
not a chapel (Pischel), but a home.]
[Footnote 4: This may mean 'to Yama (and) to death.' In the
Atharva Veda, V. 24. 13-14, it is said that Death is the
lord of men; Yama, of the Manes.]
[Footnote 5: It is here said, also, that the 'Gandharva in
the waters and the water-woman' are the ties of
consanguinity between Yama and Yam[=i], which means,
apparently, that their parents were Moon and Water; a late
idea, as in viii. 48. 13 (unique).]
[Footnote 6: The passage, X. 17, 1-2, is perhaps meant as a
riddle, as Bloomfield suggests (JAOS. XV. p. 172). At any
rate, it is still a dubious passage. Compare Hillebrandt,
_Vedische Mythologie_, I. p. 503.]
[Footnote 7: Cited by Scherman, _Visionslitteratur_, p.
147.]
[Footnote 8: Possibly, 'streams.']
[Footnote 9: AV. XVIII. 3. 13.]
[Footnote 10: Compare AV. VI. 88. 2: "King Varuna and God
Brihaspati," where both are gods.]
[Footnote 11: [Greek: Kerberos](=Çabala)=_Ç[=a]rvara_.
Saram[=a] is storm or dawn, or something else that means
'runner.']
[Footnote 12: Here the fiend is expelled by a four-eyed dog
or a white one which has yellow ears. See the _Sacred Books
of the East_, IV. p. IXXXVII.]
[Footnote 13: Scherman proposes an easy solution, namely to
cut the description in two, and make only part of it refer
to the dogs! (_loc. cit_. p. 130).]
[Footnote 14: The dogs may be meant in I. 29. 3, but compare
II. 31. 5. Doubtful is I. 66. 8, according to Bergaigne,
applied to Yama as fire.]
[Footnote 15: _India_, p. 224.]
[Footnote 17: Barth, p. 23, cites I. 123. 6; X. 107. 2; 82.
2, to prove that stars are souls of dead men. These passages
do not prove the point, but it may be inferred from X. 68.
11. Later on it is a received belief. A moon-heaven is found
only in VIII. 48.]
[Footnote 18: Especially with Ymir in Scandinavian
mythology.]
[Footnote 19: _Visionslitteratur_, 1892.]
[Footnote 20: _Henotheism in the Rig Veda_, p. 81.]
[Footnote 21: This religious phase is often confounded
loosely with pantheism, but the distinction should be
observed. Parkman speaks of (American) Indian 'pantheism';
and Barth speaks of ritualistic 'pantheism,' meaning thereby
the deification of different objects used in sacrifice (p.
37, note). But chrematheism is as distinct from pantheism as
it is from fetishism.]
[Footnote 22: Some seem to be old; thus Aramati, piety, has
an Iranian representative, [=A]rma[=i]t[=i]. As masculine
abstractions are to be added Anger, Death, etc.]
[Footnote 23: Compare iv. 50; ii. 23 and 24; v. 43. 12; x.
68. 9; ii. 26. 3; 23. 17; x. 97. 15. For interpretation
compare Hillebrandt, _Ved. Myth._ i. 409-420; Bergaigne, _La
Rel, Vèd._ i. 304; Muir, OST, v. 272 ff. (with previous
literature).]
[Footnote 24: _Mbh[=a]_.i. 74. 68. Compare Holtzmann, ZDMG.
xxxiii. 631 ff.]
[Footnote 25: i. 89. 10: "Aditi is all the gods and men;
Aditi is whatever has been born; Aditi is whatever will be
born."]
[Footnote 26: _Henotheism in the Rig Veda_ (Drisler
Memorial).]
[Footnote 27: Ex. xv. 11; xviii. 11.]
[Footnote 28: RV. x. 114. 5; i. 164. 46; AV. iv. 16. 3.]
[Footnote 29: Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 184.]
[Footnote 30: "Desire, the primal seed of mind," x. 129. 4.]
[Footnote 31: x. 72 (contains also the origin of the gods
from Aditi).]
[Footnote 32: x. 90, Here _chand[=a][.m]si_, carmina, is
probably the Atharvan.]
[Footnote 33: Rudras, Vasus, and [=A]dityas, the three
famous groups of gods. The Vasus are in Indra's train, the
'shining,' or, perhaps, 'good' gods.]
[Footnote 34: ii. 33. 13; x. 100. 5, etc. If the idea of
manus=bonus be rejected, the Latin _manes_ may be referred
to _m[=a]navas_, the children of Manu.]
[Footnote 35: Or: "in an earthly place, in the atmosphere,
or," etc.]
[Footnote 36: That is where the Fathers live. This is the
only place where the Fathers are said to be _náp[=a]t_
(descendants) of Vishnu, and here the sense may be "I have
discovered _Náp[=a]t_ (fire?)" But in i. 154. 5 Vishnu's
worshippers rejoice in his home.]
[Footnote 37: Or: "form as thou wilt this body (of a corpse)
to spirit life."]
[Footnote 38: x. 56. 4; otherwise, Grassmann.]
[Footnote 39: vi. 73. 9 refers to ancestors on earth, not in
heaven.]
[Footnote 40: Compare Muir, OST. v. 285, where i. 125. 5 is
compared with x. 107. 2: "The gift-giver becomes immortal;
the gift-giver lives in the sky; he that gives horses lives
in the sun." Compare Zimmer, _Altind. Leben_ p. 409; Geiger,
_Ostiran. Cultur_, p. 290.]
[Footnote 41: x. 88. 15, word for word: "two paths heard of
the Fathers I, of the gods and of mortals." Cited as a
mystery, Brih. [=A]ran. Up. vi. 2. 2.]
[Footnote 42: x. 16. 3: "if thou wilt go to the waters or to
the plants," is added after this (in addressing the soul of
the dead man). Plant-souls occur again in x. 58. 7.]
[Footnote 43: A V. XVIII.4.64; Muir, Av. _loc. cit._ p. 298.
A passage of the Atharvan suggests that the dead may have
been exposed as in Iran, but there is no trace of this in
the Rig Veda (Zimmer, _loc. cit._ p. 402).]
[Footnote 44: Barth, _Vedic Religions_, p. 23; _ib._, the
narrow 'house of clay,' RV. VII. 89. 1.]
[Footnote 45: I. 24. 1; I. 125.6; VII. 56.24; cited by
Müller, _Chips_, I. p. 45.]
[Footnote 46: IX. 113. 7 ff.]
[Footnote 47: _Avar[=o]dhana[.m] divás_, 'enclosure of the
sky.']
[Footnote 48: Literally, 'where custom' (obtains), _i.e._,
where the old usages still hold.]
[Footnote 49: The last words are to be understood as of
sensual pleasures (Muir, _loc. cit._ p. 307, notes 462,
463).]
[Footnote 50: RV. II. 29. 6; VII. 104. 3, 17; IV. 5. 5; IX.
73. 8. Compare Mulr, _loc. cit_. pp. 311-312; and Zimmer,
_loc. cit._ pp. 408, 418. Yama's 'hero-holding abode' is not
a hell, as Ludwig thinks, but, as usual, the top vault of
heaven.]
[Footnote 51: _loc. cit._ p. 123.]
[Footnote 52: X. 154. 2; 107. 2. Compare the mad ascetic,
_múni_, VIII. 17. 14.]
[Footnote 53: X. 117. This is clearly seen in the seventh
verse, where is praised the 'Brahman who talks,' _i.e._, can
speak in behalf of the giver to the gods (compare verse
three).]
[Footnote 54: X. 71. 6.]
[Footnote 55: Compare X. 145; 159. In X. 184 there is a
prayer addressed to the goddesses Sin[=i]v[=a]l[=i] and
Sarasvat[=i] (in conjunction with Vishnu, Tvashtar, the
Creator, Praj[=a]pati, and the Horsemen) to make a woman
fruitful.]
[Footnote 56: II. 15. 2; X. 6. 7 (Barth, _loc. cit._ p. 36).
The sacrifice of animals, cattle, horses, goats, is
customary; that of man, legendary; but it is implied in X.
18.8 (Hillebrandt, ZDMG. Xl p. 708), and is ritualized in
the next period (below).]
[Footnote 57: Phallic worship may be alluded to in that of
the 'tail-gods,' as Garbe thinks, but it is deprecated. One
verse, however, which seems to have crept in by mistake, is
apparently due to phallic influence (VIII. 1. 34), though
such a cult was not openly acknowledged till Çiva-worship
began, and is no part of Brahmanism.]
* * * * *