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CHIPS
FROM A GERMAN WORKSHOP.
BY
MAX MUeLLER, M.A.
FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD.
VOLUME I.
Essays on the Science of Religion.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1867
* * * * *
_To the Memory_
OF
BARON BUNSEN,
MY FRIEND AND BENEFACTOR.
_et quanto diutius
Abes, magis cupio tanto et magis desidero._
* * * * *
PREFACE.
More than twenty years have passed since my revered friend Bunsen
called me one day into his library at Carlton House Terrace, and
announced to me with beaming eyes that the publication of the Rig-veda
was secure. He had spent many days in seeing the Directors of the
East-India Company, and explaining to them the importance of this
work, and the necessity of having it published in England. At last his
efforts had been successful, the funds for printing my edition of the
text and commentary of the Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans had been
granted, and Bunsen was the first to announce to me the happy result
of his literary diplomacy. 'Now,' he said, 'you have got a work for
life--a large block that will take years to plane and polish.' 'But
mind,' he added, 'let us have from time to time some chips from your
workshop.'
I have tried to follow the advice of my departed friend, and I have
published almost every year a few articles on such subjects as had
engaged my attention, while prosecuting at the same time, as far as
altered circumstances would allow, my edition of the Rig-veda, and of
other Sanskrit works connected with it. These articles were chiefly
published in the 'Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly Reviews,' in the 'Oxford
Essays,' in 'Macmillan's' and 'Fraser's Magazines,' in the 'Saturday
Review,' and in the 'Times.' In writing them my principal endeavour
has been to bring out even in the most abstruse subjects the points of
real interest that ought to engage the attention of the public at
large, and never to leave a dark nook or corner without attempting to
sweep away the cobwebs of false learning, and let in the light of real
knowledge. Here, too, I owe much to Bunsen's advice, and when last
year I saw in Cornwall the large heaps of copper ore piled up around
the mines, like so many heaps of rubbish, while the poor people were
asking for coppers to buy bread, I frequently thought of Bunsen's
words, 'Your work is not finished when you have brought the ore from
the mine: it must be sifted, smelted, refined, and coined before it
can be of real use, and contribute towards the intellectual food of
mankind.' I can hardly hope that in this my endeavour to be clear and
plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to
place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I
have always been successful. Several of the subjects treated in these
essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult: but there is no subject,
I believe, in the whole realm of human knowledge, that cannot be
rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have perfectly
mastered it. And now while the two last volumes of my edition of the
Rig-veda are passing through the press, I thought the time had come
for gathering up a few armfulls of these chips and splinters, throwing
away what seemed worthless, and putting the rest into some kind of
shape, in order to clear my workshop for other work.
The first and second volumes which I am now publishing contain essays
on the early thoughts of mankind, whether religious or mythological,
and on early traditions and customs. There is to my mind no subject
more absorbing than the tracing the origin and first growth of human
thought;--not theoretically, or in accordance with the Hegelian laws
of thought, or the Comtian epochs; but historically, and like an
Indian trapper, spying for every footprint, every layer, every broken
blade that might tell and testify of the former presence of man in his
early wanderings and searchings after light and truth.
In the languages of mankind, in which everything new is old and
everything old is new, an inexhaustible mine has been discovered for
researches of this kind. Language still bears the impress of the
earliest thoughts of man, obliterated, it may be, buried under new
thoughts, yet here and there still recoverable in their sharp original
outline. The growth of language is continuous, and by continuing our
researches backward from the most modern to the most ancient strata,
the very elements and roots of human speech have been reached, and
with them the elements and roots of human thought. What lies beyond
the beginnings of language, however interesting it may be to the
physiologist, does not yet belong to the history of man, in the true
and original sense of that word. Man means the thinker, and the first
manifestation of thought is speech.
But more surprising than the continuity in the growth of language, is
the continuity in the growth of religion. Of religion, too, as of
language, it may be said that in it everything new is old, and
everything old is new, and that there has been no entirely new
religion since the beginning of the world. The elements and roots of
religion were there, as far back as we can trace the history of man;
and the history of religion, like the history of language, shows us
throughout a succession of new combinations of the same radical
elements. An intuition of God, a sense of human weakness and
dependence, a belief in a Divine government of the world, a
distinction between good and evil, and a hope of a better life, these
are some of the radical elements of all religions. Though sometimes
hidden, they rise again and again to the surface. Though frequently
distorted, they tend again and again to their perfect form. Unless
they had formed part of the original dowry of the human soul, religion
itself would have remained an impossibility, and the tongues of
angels would have been to human ears but as sounding brass or a
tinkling cymbal. If we once understand this clearly, the words of St.
Augustine which have seemed startling to many of his admirers, become
perfectly clear and intelligible, when he says:[1] 'What is now called
the Christian religion, has existed among the ancients, and was not
absent from the beginning of the human race, until Christ came in the
flesh: from which time the true religion, which existed already, began
to be called Christian.' From this point of view the words of Christ
too, which startled the Jews, assume their true meaning, when He said
to the centurion of Capernaum: 'Many shall come from the east and the
west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the
kingdom of heaven.'
[Footnote 1: August. Retr. 1, 13. 'Res ipsa, quae nunc religio
Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio
generis humani, quousque Christus veniret in carnem, unde vera
religio, quae jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana.']
During the last fifty years the accumulation of new and authentic
materials for the study of the religions of the world, has been most
extraordinary; but such are the difficulties in mastering these
materials that I doubt whether the time has yet come for attempting to
trace, after the model of the Science of Language, the definite
outlines of the Science of Religion. By a succession of the most
fortunate circumstances, the canonical books of three of the
principal religions of the ancient world have lately been recovered,
the Veda, the Zend-Avesta, and the Tripi_t_aka. But not only have we
thus gained access to the most authentic documents from which to study
the ancient religion of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, and the
Buddhists, but by discovering the real origin of Greek, Roman, and
likewise of Teutonic, Slavonic, and Celtic mythology, it has become
possible to separate the truly religious elements in the sacred
traditions of these nations from the mythological crust by which they
are surrounded, and thus to gain a clearer insight into the real faith
of the ancient Aryan world.
If we turn to the Semitic world, we find that although no new
materials have been discovered from which to study the ancient
religion of the Jews, yet a new spirit of inquiry has brought new life
into the study of the sacred records of Abraham, Moses, and the
Prophets; and the recent researches of Biblical scholars, though
starting from the most opposite points, have all helped to bring out
the historical interest of the Old Testament, in a manner not dreamt
of by former theologians. The same may be said of another Semitic
religion, the religion of Mohammed, since the Koran and the literature
connected with it were submitted to the searching criticism of real
scholars and historians. Some new materials for the study of the
Semitic religions have come from the monuments of Babylon and
Nineveh. The very images of Bel and Nisroch now stand before our
eyes, and the inscriptions on the tablets may hereafter tell us even
more of the thoughts of those who bowed their knees before them. The
religious worship of the Phenicians and Carthaginians has been
illustrated by Movers from the ruins of their ancient temples, and
from scattered notices in classical writers; nay, even the religious
ideas of the Nomads of the Arabian peninsula, previous to the rise of
Mohammedanism, have been brought to light by the patient researches of
Oriental scholars.
There is no lack of idols among the ruined and buried temples of Egypt
with which to reconstruct the pantheon of that primeval country: nor
need we despair of recovering more and more of the thoughts buried
under the hieroglyphics of the inscriptions, or preserved in hieratic
and demotic MSS., if we watch the brilliant discoveries that have
rewarded the patient researches of the disciples of Champollion.
Besides the Aryan and Semitic families of religion, we have in China
three recognised forms of public worship, the religion of Confucius,
that of Lao-tse, and that of Fo (Buddha); and here, too, recent
publications have shed new light, and have rendered an access to the
canonical works of these religions, and an understanding of their
various purports, more easy, even to those who have not mastered the
intricacies of the Chinese language.
Among the Turanian nations, a few only, such as the Finns, and the
Mongolians, have preserved some remnants of their ancient worship and
mythology, and these too have lately been more carefully collected and
explained by d'Ohson, Castren, and others.
In America the religions of Mexico and Peru had long attracted the
attention of theologians; and of late years the impulse imparted to
ethnological researches has induced travellers and missionaries to
record any traces of religious life that could be discovered among the
savage inhabitants of Africa, America, and the Polynesian islands.
It will be seen from these few indications, that there is no lack of
materials for the student of religion; but we shall also perceive how
difficult it is to master such vast materials. To gain a full
knowledge of the Veda, or the Zend-Avesta, or the Tripi_t_aka, of the
Old Testament, the Koran, or the sacred books of China, is the work of
a whole life. How then is one man to survey the whole field of
religious thought, to classify the religions of the world according to
definite and permanent criteria, and to describe their characteristic
features with a sure and discriminating hand?
Nothing is more difficult to seize than the salient features, the
traits that constitute the permanent expression and real character of
a religion. Religion seems to be the common property of a large
community, and yet it not only varies in numerous sects, as language
does in its dialects, but it really escapes our firm grasp till we can
trace it to its real habitat, the heart of one true believer. We speak
glibly of Buddhism and Brahmanism, forgetting that we are generalizing
on the most intimate convictions of millions and millions of human
souls, divided by half the world and by thousands of years.
It may be said that at all events where a religion possesses canonical
books, or a definite number of articles, the task of the student of
religion becomes easier, and this, no doubt, is true to a certain
extent. But even then we know that the interpretation of these
canonical books varies, so much so that sects appealing to the same
revealed authorities, as, for instance, the founders of the Vedanta
and the Sankhya systems, accuse each other of error, if not of wilful
error or heresy. Articles too, though drawn up with a view to define
the principal doctrines of a religion, lose much of their historical
value by the treatment they receive from subsequent schools; and they
are frequently silent on the very points which make religion what it
is.
A few instances may serve to show what difficulties the student of
religion has to contend with, before he can hope firmly to grasp the
facts on which his theories are to be based.
Roman Catholic missionaries who had spent their lives in China, who
had every opportunity, while staying at the court of Pekin, of
studying in the original the canonical works of Confucius and their
commentaries, who could consult the greatest theologians then living,
and converse with the crowds that thronged the temples of the capital,
differed diametrically in their opinions as to the most vital points
in the state religion of China. Lecomte, Fouquet, Premare, and Bouvet
thought it undeniable that Confucius, his predecessors and his
disciples, had entertained the noblest ideas on the constitution of
the universe, and had sacrificed to the true God in the most ancient
temple of the earth. According to Maigrot, Navarette, on the contrary,
and even according to the Jesuit Longobardi, the adoration of the
Chinese was addressed to inanimate tablets, meaningless inscriptions,
or, in the best case, to coarse ancestral spirits and beings without
intelligence.[2] If we believe the former, the ancient deism of China
approached the purity of the Christian religion; if we listen to the
latter, the absurd fetichism of the multitude degenerated amongst the
educated, into systematic materialism and atheism. In answer to the
peremptory texts quoted by one party, the other adduced the glosses of
accredited interpreters, and the dispute of the missionaries who had
lived in China and knew Chinese, had to be settled in the last
instance by a decision of the see of Rome.
[Footnote 2: Abel Remusat, 'Melanges,' p. 162.]
There is hardly any religion that has been studied in its sacred
literature, and watched in its external worship with greater care
than the modern religion of the Hindus, and yet it would be extremely
hard to give a faithful and intelligible description of it. Most
people who have lived in India would maintain that the Indian
religion, as believed in and practised at present by the mass of the
people, is idol worship and nothing else. But let us hear one of the
mass of the people, a Hindu of Benares, who in a lecture delivered
before an English and native audience defends his faith and the faith
of his forefathers against such sweeping accusations. 'If by
idolatry,' he says, "is meant a system of worship which confines our
ideas of the Deity to a mere image of clay or stone, which prevents
our hearts from being expanded and elevated with lofty notions of the
attributes of God, if this is what is meant by idolatry, we disclaim
idolatry, we abhor idolatry, and deplore the ignorance or
uncharitableness of those that charge us with this grovelling system
of worship.... But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the omnipresence
of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of an
image any of his glorious manifestations, ought we to be charged with
identifying them with the matter of the image, whilst during those
moments of sincere and fervent devotion, we do not even think of
matter? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated
friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with
sentiments of love and reverence; if we fancy him present in the
picture, still looking upon us with his wonted tenderness and
affection, and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should
we be charged with offering the grossest insult to him--that of
fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper?... We
really lament the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who confound
our representative worship with the Phenician, Grecian, or Roman
idolatry as represented by European writers, and then charge us with
polytheism in the teeth of thousands of texts in the Pura_n_as
declaring in clear and unmistakable terms that there is but one God
who manifests Himself as Brahma, Vish_n_u, and Rudra (Siva), in His
functions of creation, preservation, and destruction."[3]
[Footnote 3: The modern pandit's reply to the missionary who accuses
him of polytheism is: "O, these are only various manifestations of the
one God; the same as, though the sun be one in the heavens, yet he
appears in multi-form reflections upon the lake. The various sects are
only different entrances to the one city." See W. W. Hunter, _Annals
of Rural Bengal_, p. 116.]
In support of these statements, this eloquent advocate quotes numerous
passages from the sacred literature of the Brahmans, and he sums up
his view of the three manifestations of the Deity in the words of
their great poet Kalidasa, as translated by Mr. Griffith:--
"In those Three Persons the One God was shown:
Each First in place, each Last,--not one alone;
Of Siva, Vish_n_u, Brahma, each may be
First, second, third, among the Blessed Three."
If such contradictory views can be held and defended with regard to
religious systems still prevalent amongst us, where we can
cross-examine living witnesses, and appeal to chapter and verse in
their sacred writings, what must the difficulty be when we have to
deal with the religions of the past? I do not wish to disguise these
difficulties which are inherent in a comparative study of the
religions of the world. I rather dwell on them strongly, in order to
show how much care and caution is required in so difficult a subject,
and how much indulgence should be shown in judging of the shortcomings
and errors that are unavoidable in so comprehensive a study. It was
supposed at one time that a comparative analysis of the languages of
mankind must transcend the powers of man: and yet by the combined and
well directed efforts of many scholars, great results have here been
obtained, and the principles that must guide the student of the
Science of Language are now firmly established. It will be the same
with the Science of Religion. By a proper division of labor, the
materials that are still wanting will be collected and published and
translated, and when that is done, surely man will never rest till he
has discovered the purpose that runs through the religions of mankind,
and till he has reconstructed the true _Civitas Dei_ on foundations as
wide as the ends of the world. The Science of Religion may be the last
of the sciences which man is destined to elaborate; but when it is
elaborated, it will change the aspect of the world, and give a new
life to Christianity itself.
The Fathers of the Church, though living in much more dangerous
proximity to the ancient religions of the Gentiles, admitted freely
that a comparison of Christianity and other religions was useful. "If
there is any agreement," Basilius remarked, "between their (the
Greeks') doctrines and our own, it may benefit us to know them: if
not, then to compare them and to learn how they differ, will help not
a little towards confirming that which is the better of the two."[4]
[Footnote 4: Basilius, _De legendis Graec._ libris, c. v. [Greek: Ei men oun
esti tis oikeiotes pros allelous tois logois, prourgou an hemin auton he
gnosis genoito. ei de me, alla to ge parallela thentas katamathein to
diaphoron, ou mikron eis bebaiosis beltionos.]]
But this is not the only advantage of a comparative study of
religions. The Science of Religion will for the first time assign to
Christianity its right place among the religions of the world; it will
show for the first time fully what was meant by the fulness of time;
it will restore to the whole history of the world, in its unconscious
progress towards Christianity, its true and sacred character.
Not many years ago great offence was given by an eminent writer who
remarked that the time had come when the history of Christianity
should be treated in a truly historical spirit, in the same spirit in
which we treat the history of other religions, such as Brahmanism,
Buddhism, or Mohammedanism. And yet what can be truer? He must be a
man of little faith, who would fear to subject his own religion to the
same critical tests to which the historian subjects all other
religions. We need not surely crave a tender or merciful treatment
for that faith which we hold to be the only true one. We should rather
challenge for it the severest tests and trials, as the sailor would
for the good ship to which he entrusts his own life, and the lives of
those who are most dear to him. In the Science of Religion, we can
decline no comparisons, nor claim any immunities for Christianity, as
little as the missionary can, when wrestling with the subtle Brahman,
or the fanatical Mussulman, or the plain speaking Zulu. And if we send
out our missionaries to every part of the world to face every kind of
religion, to shrink from no contest, to be appalled by no objections,
we must not give way at home or within our own hearts to any
misgivings, that a comparative study of the religions of the world
could shake the firm foundations on which we must stand or fall.
To the missionary more particularly a comparative study of the
religions of mankind will be, I believe, of the greatest assistance.
Missionaries are apt to look upon all other religions as something
totally distinct from their own, as formerly they used to describe the
languages of barbarous nations as something more like the twittering
of birds than the articulate speech of men. The Science of Language
has taught us that there is order and wisdom in all languages, and
that even the most degraded jargons contain the ruins of former
greatness and beauty. The Science of Religion, I hope, will produce a
similar change in our views of barbarous forms of faith and worship;
and missionaries, instead of looking only for points of difference,
will look out more anxiously for any common ground, any spark of the
true light that may still be revived, any altar that may be dedicated
afresh to the true God.
And even to us at home, a wider view of the religious life of the
world may teach many a useful lesson. Immense as is the difference
between our own and all other religions of the world--and few can know
that difference who have not honestly examined the foundations of
their own as well as of other religions--the position which believers
and unbelievers occupy with regard to their various forms of faith is
very much the same all over the world. The difficulties which trouble
us, have troubled the hearts and minds of men as far back as we can
trace the beginnings of religious life. The great problems touching
the relation of the Finite to the Infinite, of the human mind as the
recipient, and of the Divine Spirit as the source of truth, are old
problems indeed; and while watching their appearance in different
countries, and their treatment under varying circumstances, we shall
be able, I believe, to profit ourselves, both by the errors which
others committed before us, and by the truth which they discovered. We
shall know the rocks that threaten every religion in this changing and
shifting world of ours, and having watched many a storm of religious
controversy and many a shipwreck in distant seas, we shall face with
greater calmness and prudence the troubled waters at home.
If there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places in
the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every religion
is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism, that no religion can
continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its founder and its
first apostles. Yet it is but seldom borne in mind that without
constant reformation, i. e. without a constant return to its
fountain-head, every religion, even the most perfect, nay the most
perfect on account of its very perfection, more even than others,
suffers from its contact with the world, as the purest air suffers
from the mere fact of its being breathed.
Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first beginnings, we find
it free from many of the blemishes that offend us in its later phases.
The founders of the ancient religions of the world, as far as we can
judge, were minds of a high stamp, full of noble aspirations, yearning
for truth, devoted to the welfare of their neighbours, examples of
purity and unselfishness. What they desired to found upon earth was
but seldom realised, and their sayings, if preserved in their original
form, offer often a strange contrast to the practice of those who
profess to be their disciples. As soon as a religion is established,
and more particularly when it has become the religion of a powerful
state, the foreign and worldly elements encroach more and more on the
original foundation, and human interests mar the simplicity and purity
of the plan which the founder had conceived in his own heart, and
matured in his communings with his God. Even those who lived with
Buddha, misunderstood his words, and at the Great Council which had to
settle the Buddhist canon, Asoka, the Indian Constantine, had to
remind the assembled priests that 'what had been said by Buddha, that
alone was well said;' and that certain works ascribed to Buddha, as,
for instance, the instruction given to his son, Rahula, were
apocryphal, if not heretical.[5] With every century, Buddhism, when it
was accepted by nations, differing as widely as Mongols and Hindus,
when its sacred writings were translated into languages as wide apart
as Sanskrit and Chinese, assumed widely different aspects, till at
last the Buddhism of the Shamans in the steppes of Tatary is as
different from the teaching of the original _S_ama_n_a, as the
Christianity of the leader of the Chinese rebels is from the teaching
of Christ. If missionaries could show to the Brahmans, the Buddhists,
the Zoroastrians, nay, even to the Mohammedans, how much their present
faith differs from the faith of their forefathers and founders, if
they could place into their hands and read with them in a kindly
spirit the original documents in which these various religions
profess to be founded, and enable them to distinguish between the
doctrines of their own sacred books and the additions of later ages,
an important advantage would be gained, and the choice between Christ
and other Masters would be rendered far more easy to many a
truth-seeking soul. But for that purpose it is necessary that we too
should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between
the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ.
If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not
win as many hearts in India and China as it ought, let us remember
that it was the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic
simplicity, but with its overpowering love of God and man, that
conquered the world and superseded religions and philosophies, more
difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of
Hindus and Buddhists. If we can teach something to the Brahmans in
reading with them their sacred hymns, they too can teach us something
when reading with us the Gospel of Christ. Never shall I forget the
deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real martyr to his faith, who
had pictured to himself from the pages of the New Testament what a
Christian country must be, and who when he came to Europe found
everything so different from what he had imagined in his lonely
meditations at Benares! It was the Bible only that saved him from
returning to his old religion, and helped him to discern beneath
theological futilities, accumulated during nearly two thousand years,
beneath pharisaical hypocrisy, infidelity, and want of charity, the
buried, but still living seed, committed to the earth by Christ and
his Apostles. How can a missionary in such circumstances meet the
surprise and questions of his pupils, unless he may point to that
seed, and tell them what Christianity was meant to be; unless he may
show that like all other religions, Christianity, too, has had its
history; that the Christianity of the nineteenth century is not the
Christianity of the Middle Ages, that the Christianity of the Middle
Ages was not that of the early Councils, that the Christianity of the
early Councils was not that of the Apostles, and 'that what has been
said by Christ that alone was well said?'
[Footnote 5: See Burnouf, 'Lotus de la bonne Loi,' Appendice, No. x. Sec.
4.]
The advantages, however, which missionaries and other defenders of the
faith will gain from a comparative study of religions, though
important hereafter, are not at present the chief object of these
researches. In order to maintain their scientific character, they must
be independent of all extraneous considerations: they must aim at
truth, trusting that even unpalatable truths, like unpalatable
medicine, will reinvigorate the system into which they enter. To
those, no doubt, who value the tenets of their religion as the miser
values his pearls and precious stones, thinking their value lessened
if pearls and stones of the same kind are found in other parts of the
world, the Science of Religion will bring many a rude shock; but to
the true believer, truth, wherever it appears, is welcome, nor will
any doctrine seem to be less true or less precious, because it was
seen, not only by Moses or Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Lao-tse.
Nor should it be forgotten that while a comparison of ancient
religions will certainly show that some of the most vital articles of
faith are the common property of the whole of mankind, at least of all
who seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him,
the same comparison alone can possibly teach us what is peculiar to
Christianity, and what has secured to it that pre-eminent position
which now it holds in spite of all obloquy. The gain will be greater
than the loss, if loss there be, which I, at least, shall never admit.
There is a strong feeling, I know, in the minds of all people against
any attempt to treat their own religion as a member of a class, and,
in one sense, that feeling is perfectly justified. To each individual,
his own religion, if he really believes in it, is something quite
inseparable from himself, something unique, that cannot be compared to
anything else, or replaced by anything else. Our own religion is, in
that respect, something like our own language. In its form it may be
like other languages; in its essence and in its relation to ourselves,
it stands alone and admits of no peer or rival.
But in the history of the world, our religion, like our own language,
is but one out of many; and in order to understand fully the position
of Christianity in the history of the world, and its true place among
the religions of mankind, we must compare it, not with Judaeism only,
but with the religious aspirations of the whole world, with all, in
fact, that Christianity came either to destroy or to fulfil. From this
point of view Christianity forms part, no doubt, of what people call
profane history, but by that very fact, profane history ceases to be
profane, and regains throughout that sacred character of which it had
been deprived by a false distinction. The ancient Fathers of the
Church spoke on these subjects with far greater freedom than we
venture to use in these days. Justin Martyr, in his 'Apology' (A.D
139), has this memorable passage ('Apol.' i. 46): 'One article of our
faith then is, that Christ is the first begotten of God, and we have
already proved Him to be the very Logos (or universal Reason), of
which mankind are all partakers; and therefore those who live
according to the Logos are Christians, notwithstanding they may pass
with you for Atheists; such among the Greeks were Sokrates and
Herakleitos and the like; and such among the Barbarians were Abraham,
and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others,
whose actions, nay whose very names, I know, would be tedious to
relate, and therefore shall pass them over. So, on the other side,
those who have lived in former times in defiance of the Logos or
Reason, were evil, and enemies to Christ and murderers of such as
lived according to the Logos; but _they who have made or make the
Logos or Reason the rule of their actions are Christians_, and men
without fear and trembling.'[5_1]
[Footnote 5_1:
[Greek: Ton christon prothotokon tou Theou einai edidhachthemen, kai
proemenhysamen Lhogon onta, ou pan ghenos anthrhopon methesche kai oi
meta Lhogou bihosantes christianohi eisi, kan atheoi enomhisthesan,
oion en Ellesi men Sokrhates kai Erhakleitos kai oi homoioi autois, en
barbarois de Abraam kai Ananias kai Asarias kai Misael kai Elhias kai
alloi polloi, on tas praxets e ta onomata katalegein makron einai
epistamenoi, tanyn paraitoymetha. oste kai oi progenomenoi aneu Ldgou
bihosantes, acrestoi ka.]]
'God,' says Clement,[6] 'is the cause of all that is good: only of
some good gifts He is the primary cause, as of the Old and New
Testaments, of others the secondary, as of (Greek) philosophy. But
even philosophy may have been given primarily by Him to the Greeks,
before the Lord had called the Greeks also. For that philosophy, like
a teacher, has guided the Greeks also, as the Law did the Hebrews,
towards Christ. Philosophy, therefore, prepares and opens the way to
those who are made perfect by Christ.'
[Footnote 6: Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. I, cap. v, Sec. 28.
[Greek: Panton
men gar aitios ton kalon d theos, alla ton men kata proegoumenon, hos
tes te diathekes tes palaias kai tes neas, ton de kat epakolouthema, hos
tes philosophias tacha de kai proegoumenos tois Ellesin edothe tote
prin e ton kurion kalesai kai tous Elleuas. Epaidagogei gar kai aute
to Ellenikon hos o nomos tous Ebraious eis Christon. proparaskeuixei
toinun e philosophia proodopoiousa ton hupo Christou teleioumenon.]]
And again: 'It is clear that the same God to whom we owe the Old and
New Testaments, gave also to the Greeks their Greek philosophy by
which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks.'[7]
[Footnote 7: Strom, lib. VI, cap. V, Sec. 42.
[Greek: Eros de kai oti o
autos theos amphoin tain diathekain choregos, o kai tes Ellenikes
philosophias doter tois Ellesin, di es o pantokrator par Ellesi
doxazetai, parestesen, delon de kanthede.]]
And Clement was by no means the only one who spoke thus freely and
fearlessly, though, no doubt, his knowledge of Greek philosophy
qualified him better than many of his contemporaries to speak with
authority on such subjects.
St. Augustine writes: 'If the Gentiles also had possibly something
divine and true in their doctrines, our Saints did not find fault with
it, although for their superstition, idolatry, and pride, and other
evil habits, they had to be detested, and, unless they improved, to be
punished by divine judgment. For the apostle Paul, when he said
something about God among the Athenians, quoted the testimony of some
of the Greeks who had said something of the same kind: and this, if
they came to Christ, would be acknowledged in them, and not blamed.
Saint Cyprian, too, uses such witnesses against the Gentiles. For when
he speaks of the Magians, he says that the chief among them, Hostanes,
maintains that the true God is invisible, and that true angels sit at
His throne; and that Plato agrees with this, and believes in One God,
considering the others to be angels or demons; and that Hermes
Trismegistus also speaks of One God, and confesses that He is
incomprehensible.' (Augustinus, 'De Baptismo contra Donatistas,' lib.
VI, cap. xliv.)
Every religion, even the most imperfect and degraded, has something
that ought to be sacred to us, for there is in all religions a secret
yearning after the true, though unknown, God. Whether we see the Papua
squatting in dumb meditation before his fetish, or whether we listen
to Firdusi exclaiming: 'The heighth and the depth of the whole world
have their centre in Thee, O my God! I do not know Thee what Thou art:
but I know that Thou art what Thou alone canst be,'--we ought to feel
that the place whereon we stand is holy ground. There are
philosophers, no doubt, to whom both Christianity and all other
religions are exploded errors, things belonging to the past, and to be
replaced by more positive knowledge. To them the study of the
religions of the world could only have a pathological interest, and
their hearts could never warm at the sparks of truth that light up,
like stars, the dark yet glorious night of the ancient world. They
tell us that the world has passed through the phases of religious and
metaphysical errors, in order to arrive at the safe haven of positive
knowledge of facts. But if they would but study positive facts, if
they would but read, patiently and thoughtfully, the history of the
world, as it is, not as it might have been: they would see that, as in
geology, so in the history of human thought, theoretic uniformity does
not exist, and that the past is never altogether lost. The oldest
formations of thought crop out everywhere, and if we dig but deep
enough, we shall find that even the sandy desert in which we are asked
to live, rests everywhere on the firm foundation of that primeval, yet
indestructible granite of the human soul,--religious faith.
There are other philosophers again who would fain narrow the limits of
the Divine government of the world to the history of the Jewish and of
the Christian nations, who would grudge the very name of religion to
the ancient creeds of the world, and to whom the name of natural
religion has almost become a term of reproach. To them, too, I should
like to say that if they would but study positive facts, if they would
but read their own Bible, they would find that the greatness of Divine
Love cannot be measured by human standards, and that God has never
forsaken a single human soul that has not first forsaken Him. 'He hath
made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of
the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the
bounds of their habitation: that they should seek the Lord, if haply
they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from
every one of us,' If they would but dig deep enough, they too would
find that what they contemptuously call natural religion, is in
reality the greatest gift that God has bestowed on the children of
man, and that without it, revealed religion itself would have no firm
foundation, no living roots in the heart of man.
If by the essays here collected I should succeed in attracting more
general attention towards an independent, yet reverent study of the
ancient religions of the world, and in dispelling some of the
prejudices with which so many have regarded the yearnings after truth
embodied in the sacred writings of the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians, and
the Buddhists, in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, nay, even in
the wild traditions and degraded customs of Polynesian savages, I
shall consider myself amply rewarded for the labour which they have
cost me. That they are not free from errors, in spite of a careful
revision to which they have been submitted before I published them in
this collection, I am fully aware, and I shall be grateful to any one
who will point them out, little concerned whether it is done in a
seemly or unseemly manner, as long as some new truth is elicited, or
some old error effectually exploded. Though I have thought it right in
preparing these essays for publication, to alter what I could no
longer defend as true, and also, though rarely, to add some new facts
that seemed essential for the purpose of establishing what I wished to
prove, yet in the main they have been left as they were originally
published. I have added to each the dates when they were written,
these dates ranging over the last fifteen years, and I must beg my
readers to bear these dates in mind when judging both of the form and
the matter of these contributions towards a better knowledge of the
creeds and prayers, the legends and customs of the ancient world.
M. M.
PARKS END, OXFORD:
_October_, 1867.
CONTENTS OF FIRST VOLUME.
I. LECTURE ON THE VEDAS OR THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS,
DELIVERED AT LEEDS, 1865
II. CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS, 1858
III. THE VEDA AND ZEND-AVESTA, 1853
IV. THE AITAREYA-BRAHMANA, 1864
V. ON THE STUDY OF THE ZEND-AVESTA IN INDIA, 1862
VI. PROGRESS OF ZEND SCHOLARSHIP, 1865
VII. GENESIS AND THE ZEND-AVESTA, 1864
VIII. THE MODERN PARSIS, 1862
IX. BUDDHISM, 1862
X. BUDDHIST PILGRIMS, 1857
XI. THE MEANING OF NIRVANA, 1857
XII. CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF SANSKRIT TEXTS, 1861
XIII. THE WORKS OF CONFUCIUS, 1861
XIV. POPOL VUH, 1862
XV. SEMITIC MONOTHEISM, 1860
* * * * *
I.
LECTURE ON THE VEDAS
OR THE
SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMANS,[8]
DELIVERED AT THE
PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION, LEEDS, MARCH, 1865.
I have brought with me one volume of my edition of the Veda, and I
should not wonder if it were the first copy of the work which has ever
reached this busy town of Leeds. Nay, I confess I have some misgivings
whether I have not undertaken a hopeless task, and I begin to doubt
whether I shall succeed in explaining to you the interest which I feel
for this ancient collection of sacred hymns, an interest which has
never failed me while devoting to the publication of this voluminous
work the best twenty years of my life. Many times have I been asked,
But what is the Veda? Why should it be published? What are we likely
to learn from a book composed nearly four thousand years ago, and
intended from the beginning for an uncultivated race of mere heathens
and savages,--a book which the natives of India have never published
themselves, although, to the present day, they profess to regard it as
the highest authority for their religion, morals, and philosophy? Are
we, the people of England or of Europe, in the nineteenth century,
likely to gain any new light on religious, moral, or philosophical
questions from the old songs of the Brahmans? And is it so very
certain that the whole book is not a modern forgery, without any
substantial claims to that high antiquity which is ascribed to it by
the Hindus, so that all the labour bestowed upon it would not only be
labour lost, but throw discredit on our powers of discrimination, and
make us a laughing-stock among the shrewd natives of India? These and
similar questions I have had to answer many times when asked by
others, and some of them when asked by myself, before embarking on so
hazardous an undertaking as the publication of the Rig-veda and its
ancient commentary. And, I believe, I am not mistaken in supposing
that many of those who to-night have honoured me with their presence
may have entertained similar doubts and misgivings when invited to
listen to a Lecture 'On the Vedas or the Sacred Books of the
Brahmans.'
[Footnote 8: Some of the points touched upon in this Lecture have been
more fully treated in my 'History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.' As
the second edition of this work has been out of print for several
years, I have here quoted a few passages from it in full.]
I shall endeavour, therefore, as far as this is possible within the
limits of one Lecture, to answer some of these questions, and to
remove some of these doubts, by explaining to you, first, what the
Veda really is, and, secondly, what importance it possesses, not only
to the people of India, but to ourselves in Europe,--and here again,
not only to the student of Oriental languages, but to every student of
history, religion, or philosophy; to every man who has once felt the
charm of tracing that mighty stream of human thought on which we
ourselves are floating onward, back to its distant mountain-sources;
to every one who has a heart for whatever has once filled the hearts
of millions of human beings with their noblest hopes, and fears, and
aspirations;--to every student of mankind in the fullest sense of that
full and weighty word. Whoever claims that noble title must not
forget, whether he examines the highest achievements of mankind in our
own age, or the miserable failures of former ages, what man is, and in
whose image and after whose likeness man was made. Whether listening
to the shrieks of the Shaman sorcerers of Tatary, or to the odes of
Pindar, or to the sacred songs of Paul Gerhard: whether looking at the
pagodas of China, or the Parthenon of Athens, or the cathedral of
Cologne: whether reading the sacred books of the Buddhists, of the
Jews, or of those who worship God in spirit and in truth, we ought to
be able to say, like the Emperor Maximilian, 'Homo sum, humani nihil a
me alienum puto,' or, translating his words somewhat freely, 'I am a
man, nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.' Yes, we must
learn to read in the history of the whole human race something of our
own history; and as in looking back on the story of our own life, we
all dwell with a peculiar delight on the earliest chapters of our
childhood, and try to find there the key to many of the riddles of our
later life, it is but natural that the historian, too, should ponder
with most intense interest over the few relics that have been
preserved to him of the childhood of the human race. These relics are
few indeed, and therefore very precious, and this I may venture to
say, at the outset and without fear of contradiction, that there
exists no literary relic that carries us back to a more primitive, or,
if you like, more child-like state in the history of man[9] than the
Veda. As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient
type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but
varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings
contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual
growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the
ancestors of the Aryan race,--with those very people who at the rising
and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of
the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come
after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening.
Those men were the true ancestors of our race; and the Veda is the
oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our
language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature
Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to
be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany; not in Mesopotamia,
Egypt, or Palestine. This is a fact that ought to be clearly
perceived, and constantly kept in view, in order to understand the
importance which the Veda has for us, after the lapse of more than
three thousand years, and after ever so many changes in our language,
thought, and religion.
[Footnote 9: 'In the sciences of law and society, old means not old in
chronology, but in structure: that is most archaic which lies nearest
to the beginning of human progress considered as a development, and
that is most modern which is farthest removed from that
beginning.'--J. F. McLennan, 'Primitive Marriage,' p. 8.]