It has been possible to ascertain that the first words pronounced by
the most ancient members of the Aryan family are connected by a thread
of continuity to those which we use to-day in all languages, whether
living or dead; our family would not be a portion of the entire human
race, if this continuity of thought did not form a constituent part
of the mental equipment of all the other families; but as no others
possess in an equal degree with ourselves the archives sufficiently
extensive to contain indication of the gradual development of human
speech, such as the Veda furnishes, that is the authority to which
Max Müller appeals in all his works. And it is precisely because
there has been no cessation in the continuity of human thought, that
the historical method is the only one capable of linking us with the
primitive Aryans; our work will consist in collecting tokens of the
long pilgrimage undertaken by our ancestors, and with which we desire
to be associated, and which those who come after us must also undertake.
“No doubt, between the first daybreak of human thought and the first
hymns of praise of the Rig-Veda, composed in the most perfect metre and
the most polished language, there may be, nay, there must be a gap that
can only be measured by generations, by hundreds, aye, by thousands of
years.”[72] The exodus and separation of the Aryan family, belonging
as it does to a prehistoric epoch and therefore unchronicled, and the
Vedic Hymns--the work of many centuries--having been completed and
collected together some hundreds of years before our present era, thus
at a time relatively recent, that which constitutes their chief claim
to great antiquity in our eyes is that the Hindoo poets or rishis
incorporated certain thoughts and words in them whose roots threw out
shoots in the primitive Aryan soil before the dispersion of its members.
The period of the life of humanity into which the hymns enable us to
penetrate, is the most ancient of which mention is made. The rishis
sing in Sanscrit of thoughts conceived in the hidden recesses of souls
before they awoke to the consciousness of that concept to which the
name of God alone can be applied, before these same people pictured in
their imagination those whom they named gods, before the appearance of
myths and mythological fables, and before the Sanscrit language existed.
Our Aryan ancestors had not left the cradle of their race when their
language, whatever it may have been, possessed the root _dyu_ and
_div_, two cognate words meaning to shine. The Veda shows that many
things were bright to the Vedic poets, the heaven, dawn, the stars
and several other things, such as the rivers, spring, the fields, the
eyes of man, all that would have the effect on us of being smiling,
flourishing, and rejoicing in life; and from this root the word _deva_
was formed. Neither in Greek nor in Latin, nor in any living language
can a word be found which exactly expresses _deva_; Greek dictionaries
translate it by Theos, in the same way as we translate Theos by God;
but if--dictionary in hand--we put the word God in certain passages in
the hymns where this word is found, we should sometimes commit a mental
anachronism of a thousand years. At the time of the first Aryans, gods,
in one sense of the word, did not exist; they were slowly struggling
into being; it was therefore impossible for man to form any conception
of them even in dreams. As this word _deva_ changes its signification
so frequently, not only in the most ancient Brahmanic poems, but also
in works of a later date, we can only obtain even an approximate idea
of its meaning by writing its history, beginning from its etymology and
ending with its latest definition; but it is not necessary to undertake
this philological labour, and I shall content myself by showing that
originally _deva_ denoted a quality common to many natural phenomena,
that of light, and therefore _deva_ was a general term.
Man at first received this impression passively, as animals would, but
by his nature he could not rest there; all the phenomena surrounding
him were animated, the most marvellous and those of peculiar intensity
moved in the upper regions of the firmament; in the midst of these
general movements the mind of man could not alone be inactive, and
thought and speech--that is reason--inevitably vindicated their right
to activity; names were given to all things. The Aryan root _svar_ or
_sval_, which signified to shine, to sparkle, and to heat, produced a
Sanscrit substantive meaning sometimes sun and sometimes the sky.
The Hindoo poets, the authors of these hymns, gave various names to the
sun, according to the task it accomplished; and each name reproduced
the salient feature of the task. The sun when rising was Mitra =
friend; as it advances on its journey, giving new life, it is Savitar
= bringing forth, or leading day; the vivifying sun; when it collects
the clouds and sends rain on the earth, it is Indra, from _ind-u_ =
drops; and it continues to be Indra when its rays attain their zenith
and reach their greatest splendour; for no plant flourishes without
the combined action of light and humidity; the sun is Vishnu when
it makes “its three strides” in the vault of heaven, its position
in the morning, at noon, and in the evening; it is Varuna--the all
embracing--when it envelops itself in clouds as in a shroud, and
the sky darkens. Some phenomena descended on man from above, such
as thunder-bolts, winds, storms; the storms that came unexpectedly,
dealing destruction as they passed received the name of Maruts--from
the root _Mar_--and with the meaning of those who strike or beat to
death; the thunder was called Rudra = he who roars; the wind was Vayu =
he who blows.
All these names indicated that which could be seen and that which could
be heard; the invisible things remained unnamed; how was it possible
for man to name that of which he was ignorant (except that they had a
real existence), he who could only conceive a name after having seen a
certain feature or quality in the object? They made use therefore of
the names they already knew, and they rang the changes on the storm,
the fire, and the firmament, which names they borrowed. Jacob’s prayer,
which arose in the darkness when he was wrestling with a great Unknown,
“Tell me, I pray thee, thy name,” must have been, in the early ages,
the question of all humanity; but uttered under a thousand varying
forms, and as, at the beginning, each name was imperfect, since it
expressed only one side of the object, every additional name denoted
a step forward, and every fresh check experienced by the mind in its
search after accurate names only stimulated it to look elsewhere.
The first germ of the concept of law and order appears in the minds of
the poets, and to this they give the name of _Rita_. This word has no
equivalent in our languages, and translators are uncertain as to the
meaning attached to it by the rishis. Pliant and full of capability,
there seems no word more fitted to reflect new shades of thought;
and in our efforts to understand it conjecture is much called into
play, from the fact that we have to transfuse ancient thought into
modern forms; in that process some violence is inevitable. Max Müller
supposes, from etymological reasons, that Rita originally was used
to express the regular movement of the heavenly bodies, and the path
which they followed daily, from the one point of the heavens to the
other, and he translates _Rita_ by the “right path.” “If we remember
how many of the ancient sacrifices in India depended on the course of
the sun, how there were daily sacrifices, at the rising of the sun, at
noon, and at the setting of the sun; how there were offerings for the
full moon and the new moon, we may well understand how the sacrifice
itself came in time to be called the path of Rita.”[73] Rita expresses
all that is right, good, and true, and Anrita was used for whatever
is false, evil, and untrue; thus the Hindoos laid it down as an axiom
that there was an universal law in the world equally binding on the
physical phenomena and on conscious beings, such as themselves; and
it was this law which ruled the times of the sacrifices to be offered
to the divine powers; and this intuitive perception of law and order,
which is the foundation of the ancient faith of the Asiatic Aryans, is
far more important than all the histories of Savitar, Mitra, Rudra, and
Indra, which are recounted at a later period of the gods of India. This
belief in Rita, in law and order, as revealed in the unvarying movement
of the stars, or manifested in the unvarying number of the petals, and
stamens, and pistils of the smallest plant, was a grand thing; it was
all the difference between a chaos and a cosmos, between the blind
play of chance and a well defined plan. We have become so familiarised
with the idea of a fundamental law, that it now often occupies us less
than many of the secondary laws or causes; and yet our philosophers
often find themselves at fault when they endeavour to give an exact
idea of this primary law; but to the ancient prophets it must have been
infinitely more perplexing, though also infinitely more important in
their gropings after _terra firma_ on which to plant their feet. The
rishis are indefatigable in pointing to the straight path, or Rita,
followed by the day and night; and because the gods have themselves
followed this path, they have the strength to triumph over the powers
of darkness, and to those who ask for it they grant the grace to walk
in the same road.
“O Indra, lead us on the path of Rita, on the right path over all
evils.”[74]
To walk with regularity in the path of duty, imitating the example
of the astral bodies, or following step by step the sun which never
deviates from its orbit, cannot be an idea foreign to humanity since
it is equally familiar to the primitive races and the most elevated
minds. Cicero said of himself that he was born not only to contemplate
the order of the heavenly bodies, but to imitate this order in his own
conduct; this great orator, although he was ignorant of the existence
of the Vedic hymns, spoke after the same manner as the rishis; and the
Maoris are inspired neither by Cicero nor the Hindoo poets, when they
send forth their energetic cry, “Wait, wait, O sun, we will go with
thee.”
To our first ancestors nothing in nature could have been indifferent;
all that they perceived must have come upon them as a continual
surprise; the Vedic hymns show that our surmise is correct. An
irresistible force led them continually to investigate and interrogate
those apparitions which, by their strangeness and grandeur, were
so striking, and to which they gave the names of the thunderers,
the rainers, the pounders or storm gods; no voice replied to their
questions; absolute silence reigned around them; the limits of the
known confronted them. Gradually a different perception forced itself
upon them, whether consciously or unconsciously; all limits have two
sides, the one towards ourselves, the other towards the beyond; they
were ignorant of what existed beyond, but they believed it to be there,
since the further boundaries came in contact with it. They wished to
draw near to it in order to examine it close at hand, but in what
direction should they advance?
The sentiments which the sun and its forerunners awoke in our ancestors
must remain for ever beyond our powers of imagination; the rising
of this luminary is to us the result of a physical law, and is not
considered more extraordinary than the birth of a child in a large
family; we know that the dawn is the reflection of the sun’s rays in
the matutinal vapours; we have even learnt to calculate the time of its
duration in different climates; but the assurance with which we say,
“The sun will rise to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, every day,” our
ancestors never possessed, and it was this vast unknown domain, behind
the known, that from the very first supplied the human mind with the
impetus required to cause it to seek, to discover, what there could be
beyond the visible world.
As nothing seems to be so far apart as the two points of the horizon
where the light of day appears and where he sets, it is there that the
rishis look for a solution of the problem of the beyond.[75]
“That whence the sun rises, and that where he sets, that I believe is
the oldest, and no one goes beyond.”[76]
The poets gave the name Aditi to the dawn. Aditi is derived from
_diti_, binding and bond, with the negative particle _a_; thus at first
_Aditi_ meant that which is without bonds, not chained, not enclosed,
infinite. But their imagination soon carried the poets beyond the dawn
itself, that came and went, but there remained always behind the dawn
that heaving sea of light or fire from which she springs; thus Aditi
herself could not be grasped by the senses. Was not this the visible
infinite?
At this point the mind of the rishis conceived an original and
striking idea, at the sight of the sun following his path and touching
two opposite points of the horizon; they said that arrived at the
centre of its course at the zenith, Indra from thence could see at
the same time Diti and Aditi--“That is what is yonder and what is
here, what is infinite and what is finite, what is mortal and what is
immortal.”[77]
Whilst searching increasingly for what he had not yet found, man had
mastered two ideas, those of law, and the beyond or the infinite,
though not understanding the accurate meaning of these words; on these
two points his mind was at rest. These two possessions once acquired
could not be taken from him; in Aditi--which is limitless--could be
found a home for things which had no bounds, and it could furnish an
answer to all questions; and Rita, the order which rules the movements
of the celestial bodies, is at the same time an incentive and a
promise. A violent convulsion of nature may have alarmed the hearts of
men, but the thought occurs to them, “This cannot last always.”[78]
“Sun and moon move in regular succession--that we may see, Indra, and
believe.”[79]
Without fear there could have been no hope, without hope there could
have been no faith.
Śraddhâ, an ancient Aryan word used before the dispersion of the
various members of the family, is the same as the Latin Credo. Where
the Romans said _credidi_ the Brahmans said _śraddadhau_; where the
Romans said _creditum_, the Brahmans said _śraddhitam_. The germ of
the faculty of faith, therefore, must have existed in the earliest
strata of thought and language, since without the first glimpses of
faith in the soul, there could have been no word for “to believe.”
As auxiliary verbs were lacking at first, the early Aryans found
it very difficult to say of a thing that it is or is not; but they
possessed the root _as_, which originally meant _to breathe_, and its
simplest derivation was _as-u_--breath. Man having discovered in all
the natural phenomena an activity resembling his own, said of the
moon that it measures, of the river that it runs, of the sun that it
rises and sets; thus each of these had certain activities peculiar to
itself. Was there nothing common to all? Doubtless, since an action can
be found which is shared equally by man and all animals, the act of
breathing is common to all, so that our fathers when wishing to affirm
that something existed said that it breathed.
Man turns his gaze from the things that surround him to himself;
he feels superior to the physical phenomena, to the rivers, to the
mountains. He possesses another nature to that of the sun, of the
stars. He has discovered something in himself that is more than his
body. What is it? how is he to name it? He saw his father or his
mother, who had formerly been in every respect like himself, prostrate,
without motion, without speech. What had happened? What was it that
had left them? Knowing the root _as_, and its derivative _as-u_, he
called it from the first breath, then spirit, which originally meant
nothing more than the air absorbed by the lungs, from which it is
exhaled as breath. Nothing constrained our ancestors to believe that
because they had seen their parents die and their bodies decay, it
must follow that what had hitherto animated them was now annihilated.
This notion may have entered the brain of a philosopher, but man in
his primitive simplicity, though doubtless terrified at the sight of
death, would naturally incline to the belief that what he had known
and loved, and had called by the names of father and mother, must
still exist somewhere, although not in the body. The breath had not
been seen to decay. What had become of it? Various answers were given
to this question, at divers times and in divers countries. They were
all equally probable; no objections could be made to them, but neither
was there proof; they are beyond the reach of proof. “The best answer
was perhaps that contained in the most ancient Greek language and
mythology, that the souls had gone to the house of the Invisible, of
_Aides_. No one has ever said anything truer.”
From the depths of the eastern sky Aditi arises each morning. To the
eyes of the ancient seers the dawn seemed to open the gates of another
world into which they begged to enter--into the abode of the gods. We
can understand that as the sun and all the solar deities rise from the
east, Aditi was said to be the mother of Mitra, Vishnu, Savitar, and
Varuna. Another conception also arose, that the east being the abode
of the bright gods, would also become the home of those parents and
friends who died, “the blessed departed who would join the company of
the gods that they might be transferred to the east.”[80] Aditi thus
embodied the mystery of life and death; and was the “Mot de l’Énigme”
of our existence. All the theogony and primitive philosophy of the
Aryan were concentrated in the dawn. Those souls who participate with
Aditi in the “birthplace of the Immortals” sometimes share the worship
offered by their children who are still on the earth. One off-shoot of
this ancient worship still survives, and the popularity of the festival
of the 1st of November in certain countries testifies that the homage
rendered to the memory of the dead is a necessity of the human heart.
And certainly those whom we are accustomed to speak of as dead are most
surely living. The rishis desired to contemplate their faces, and one
of them, speaking for all, cried: “Who will give us back to the great
Aditi, that I may see father and mother?”[81]
All peoples have desired to know which part of the human body is the
seat of the soul and of life; the dictionaries of all languages,
whether spoken by civilised or uncivilised people, show that the words
blood, heart, chest, reins and breath have all been used to indicate
the seat of life, soul, thought, and the affections. Amongst the
Maoris, the words used for the internal organs mean at the same time
the heart, and the centre of joy and sorrow; the seat of conscience and
of desires and the will; it is strange that the brain, which we often
look upon as the cradle of thought, is not found in the psychological
nomenclature of the ancient world. The expression which we find in the
Bible, “The blood is the life,” and in other languages besides Hebrew,
inspired many religious and superstitious acts. It is singular that
in one of the dialects spoken in the south of India, Tamil, the word
used for soul has the sense of leaper or dancer; these are efforts to
express that which moves within us. We are here not amongst learned
metaphysicians, but concerned with simple children of nature; but the
greatest philosophers have at no time more clearly defined the soul
than by describing it as that which moves of itself, but is not moved.
Our language is so rich in abstract terms, derived from a small number
of concrete words, that we are not aware how often we use the old
material words to express purely mental states or conditions; for
instance we speak of taking things to heart, or learning verses by
heart, without thinking of the heart that beats within our breasts.
Fire has always occupied a prominent position in the imagination of
all people, of all nations; but with the exception of the Hindoos none
have left traditions which enable us to transport ourselves to the
simplest beginnings of the fire upon the hearth, and nothing more.
Heracleitus already mentions fire as everlasting or immortal, and the
“origin of all things, a higher conception than that of the gods of
the populace whom Heracleitus tolerated, though he did not believe in
them. ‘Neither one of the gods,’ he declares, ‘nor of men has made this
world, ... it always was and will be, ever-living fire, catching forms
and consuming them.’”[82] Heracleitus imagined that he knew what was
fire; but the rishis speak with less assurance; at first they express
their astonishment at the appearance of fire, it is one of the physical
apparitions which impressed them the most, although of all the devas
fire seemed the one most readily known, since it had its dwelling with
men, it was within reach of the hand, could be touched, but as it burnt
the fingers the experiment was only made once. Although seen so near at
hand fire remained a great enigma; our ancestors could not understand
how it could unite in itself at the same time such good and such
destructive qualities. It warmed the members numbed by cold, at night
it lighted the hut as if the sun were in it, yet at times it destroyed
suddenly whole forests; it seemed everywhere; when the thunder rolled,
fire escaped from a dark cloud like a flash; it appeared as a spark
when two flints were struck or two branches of wood rubbed together;
but its chief characteristic was its excessive mobility, nothing in
nature could compare with the velocity of its movements.
The Aryans at that time possessed a root _ag_, which meant going,
marching, leading, running, forcing, pushing, chasing, and jumping,
and gives generally an idea of quick movement, and as fire moved
perpetually, our ancestors made use of this root _ag_, and called
fire _agni_; this Sanscrit word--which amongst many others was the
most popular--still survives in the Latin, as _ignis_, in Lithuania
as _ugni_, in old Slavonic, as _ogni_; another Sanscrit name for fire
is _vah-ni_, coming from the same root which we have in _veho_ and
_vehemens_, and it meant originally what moves about quickly.
I have collected a few of the characteristic traits attributed by the
rishis to the deva Agni.
“How did he come--living--from pieces of dead wood? How is he produced
from two stones? His mother does not nourish him, how does he grow
so rapidly, and proceed at once to do his work? He whom nothing
resists--like the heavenly thunderbolt--like a hurled weapon. Agni,
in a moment, does violence to the trees of the forest; he prostrates
them--all that moves--that which stands, trembles before him--making
the herbs his food--he licks the garment of the earth--he nourishes
himself. Turning about with his tongues of fire, Agni flares up in the
forests. Roused by the wind, he moves about among the tall trees, and
eats them with his sharpened teeth; he never tires; coming again and
again; turning about on all sides; resounding with his sickle; laughing
with his light.”
“Professor Tyndal asks quite rightly: ‘Is it in the human mind to
imagine motion, without at the same time imagining something moved?
Certainly not. The very conception of motion includes that of a
moving body. What then is the thing moved in the case of sunlight?
The undulatory theory replies that it is a substance of determinate
mechanical properties, a body which may or may not be a form of
ordinary matter, but to which, whether it is or not, we give the name
of Ether.’ May not the ancient Aryas say with the same right (had he
been wise enough to put the question), ‘Is it in the human mind to
imagine motion without at the same time imagining some one that moves?’
Certainly not. The very conception of motion includes that of a mover,
and, in the end, of a prime mover.”[83] And if, in the presence of
fire, the early Aryas had asked who then is the mover, he would have
been told (if any had been there wise enough to answer the question)
that it is a subject of determinate properties, a person who may or may
not be like ordinary persons, but to whom, whether he be or not, the
name Agni has been given.
Thus the rishis spoke of Agni as of an agent, as well as of Indra,
Vayu, Rudra, and the Maruts; but we must always remember that they knew
nothing definite of these agents any more than we do when we speak
of physical phenomena as elements, or forces of nature, or certain
movements.
This striking deva, Agni, manifested at first in the lightning and in
the spark, became as time went on, the most popular, and most desired
of all the powers; the fire on the hearth rendered winter bearable,
cooked herbs and roots, and transformed the devourer of raw flesh into
the eater of roast meat; caused the smoke of sacrifices offered to the
higher Powers to ascend up to heaven. What precautions were necessary
to prevent the capricious and uncertain fire from becoming extinct at
an inopportune moment, or in its rage from destroying men and things.
Fire was for the rishis a being more and more inexplicable. Becoming
increasingly impressed by his beneficence, they seek to call him by
some new name which shall express more perfectly this later impression;
the name deva--bright, shining--no longer satisfies them; they use
words such as invincible, almighty; even these do not suffice them; at
last they find the word Amartya--immortal.
“Immortal amongst Mortals.”
This expression may be understood in more ways than one; it is enough
for me that the Hindoos made use of it. It is possible to recognise
in it the first attempt to bridge over the gulf which human language
and human thought had themselves created between the visible and the
invisible, between the mortal and the immortal, between the finite
and the infinite. For the right appreciation of our intellectual
organisation, it is important to discover and distinguish the coarse
threads that form the woof of our most abstract thoughts.
It must be noticed that the use of the word _immortal_ in this passage
does not imply that Agni is considered otherwise than as natural fire.
The Rig-Veda does not seem to acknowledge the presence of supernatural
beings; all the names given to the striking aspects of nature, even
those used to designate the unknown powers in general, such as Asura--a
living thing; Deva-asura--the living gods; Amartya--the immortal, still
retain physical elements in the most ancient hymns.
Beings without definite attributes did not occur to the imagination of
those who supplied these names, and believed in the existence of those
which these names represented.
That which has often been called the adoration of fire was at first its
application to the necessities of domestic life, and afterwards its use
in all mechanical and artistic pursuits. If we transfer ourselves to
that early stage of life, and picture the difficulties there were in
primitive times of procuring fire at a moment’s notice, and the dangers
which would menace a whole community deprived of fire in the midst of
winter, and plunged suddenly in darkness, we require no far-fetched
explanation for a number of time-hallowed customs throughout the world
connected with the lighting, and still more with the guarding of the
fire. The natural desire for possessing so useful an object, and the no
less natural terror of being deprived of it, would lead men to adopt
the practices for maintaining it, afterwards called superstitions, but
which during the infancy of humanity, were perfectly natural, and which
developed into a sacred rite; at a later period vestal virgins were
appointed to guard it in the temples; and the fires of St John, which
are still lighted annually on the tops of certain mountains, are the
last remains of these ancient customs.
The Vedic hymns give us the many different channels whence the
phenomenon of fire proceeds, at one time coming in one way and then in
another, to attract man’s attention and to awaken his drowsy faculties.
Fire comes from the skies where it shines as the sun, from the waters,
since it comes as lightning, from the moist and rain-laden clouds, from
the stones, and from wood, in the shape of sparks, from dried leaves
and herbs placed on the altar to receive and nourish the sacrificial
flame. Ceaselessly fire applied at the door of each habitation.
Apparently it said to man, whose slowness of comprehension it seemed to
understand, “To you men, I come, that I may awake you from sleep, and
cause you to know what I am.”
At last man understood, and the rishis reply to the fire.
“Thou, O Agni, art born from the skies--thou from the waters--thou from
the stone--thou from the wood--thou from the herbs--thou, king of men,
the bright one.”[84]
At the same time the mind of the poet seems illuminated with a new
thought.
“If we have committed any sin against thee through human weakness,
through thoughtlessness, make us sinless before Aditi, O Agni, loosen
our misdeeds from us on every side.”[85]
Of Agni, the fire, there would seem to be nothing left in that supreme
god whose laws must be obeyed, and who can forgive those who have
broken his laws. Between this transformed Being of whom the Aryans
implore mercy, and Him whom we call God, we can perceive no difference,
and yet, so mysterious are human speech and thought, the Hindoos, who
thought in ancient Sanscrit, declare that Agni has not yet thrown off
his physical characteristics, that he is not yet, and cannot be God;
they add that it is impossible to give the true Vedic impression in
its fulness, since no modern language possesses phrases in which to
express it.
I read in another hymn addressed to Agni a curious verse.
“O Heaven and Earth, I proclaim this truthful fact, that the child, as
soon as born, eats his parents. I, a mortal, do not understand this
fact of a god; Agni indeed understands, for he is wise.”[86]
Are the rishis who utter this exclamation ignorant of the fact that the
parents of fire are two dry sticks? Or is it that the act of a god in
eating its father and mother is abhorrent to them?
“If we, O gods--ignorant among the wise--transgress your commandments,
whatever of the sacrifice weak mortals with their feeble intellect do
not comprehend, Agni, the priest, who knows all rights, comprehends it,
makes it all good.”[87]
The whole question of sacrifices is still hotly discussed; whether
they preceded or followed prayer. Did the Vedic poets wait till the
ceremonial was fully developed before they invoked the Powers, or did
their prayers suggest the performance of sacrificial acts?
“Agni, accept this branch that I offer. Accept this my service--listen
well to these my songs. Whosoever sacrifices to Agni with a stick of
wood, with a libation, with a bundle of herbs, or with an inclination
of his head, he will be blessed.”[88]
We nowhere hear of a mute sacrifice. That which we call a sacrifice the
ancients called simply _karma_, an act; a simple prayer, preceded by a
washing of the hands, or accompanied by an inclination of the head, may
constitute a _karma_, an act; to light the fire on the hearth, to bow
the head and utter the name of Agni with some kind epithet, might also
be termed an act. At first the sacrifice may only have been a prayer
accompanied by a gift. They may originally have been inseparable, but
in all this there is nothing opposed to the idea that it would be in
accordance with human nature that prayer should come first. In time the
act of sacrifice assumed a sacred and solemn character. In the earlier
vocabularies of the Aryan tongues the word sacrifice does not occur;
the Sanscrit and Zend root of the word are almost identical, and these
languages furnish many words indicative of minute detail of ancient
ceremonial. From this may be inferred that a hymn full of allusions to
the celebrations of sacrifices must date from a period posterior to the
separation of the families.
“Agni, drive away from us the enemies--tribes who keep no fire came to
attack us.”[89]
When the Aryans of Asia abandoned their first habitation, and advanced
southwards plundering as they went, they encountered some of the
aborigines of the country, whose territory they coveted. They were
wild tribes; the descriptions given by the rishis evidently refer to
the aborigines of India, whose descendants survive to the present day,
speaking non-Aryan dialects. The epithets of devil and demon are freely
used concerning them in the hymns. But apparently in their encounters
Agni, who opposes these hostile foes, by appearing under the form of
flaming torches, is not successful in overcoming them, since the Aryans
implore the aid of other allies. They invoke the help of the two chief
warlike powers, Indra and Soma, to destroy those “who worship other
gods, who do not speak the truth, and who eat raw meat.”[90]
“O Indra and Soma, burn the devils, throw them down--they who grow in
darkness--tear them off, the madmen, kill them, slay the gluttons.
O Indra and Soma, up against the cursing demon--may he burn like
an oblation in the fire. Pour your everlasting hatred upon the
villain who hates the Brahman, who eats raw flesh, and who looks
abominable.”[91]
Of Soma, who lends such capable aid to Agni when repulsing the enemies
of the Aryans, the Hindoos have four different conceptions. Soma is
sometimes the moon, the abode of the fathers. Soma is also the lord of
the moon. Soma is the bowl containing the drink of the gods, ambrosia.
Soma is sometimes ambrosia itself. The etymology of the word indicates
homonymy; originally it meant rain and the moon. Ambrosia was a type
of the rain fertilising the earth, yet being at the same time a
strengthening draught. It is sometimes quite impossible to decide of
which Soma the rishis are speaking, especially as they seem to find
pleasure in confounding the terms. This play upon words fills almost
the whole of one book of the _Rig-Veda_.
“Meditate on the wisdom of Soma (moon) in all its greatness--yesterday
it was dead, to-day it is living.”
“The poet has swallowed Soma (the juice), he has felt an overpowering
inspiration--he has found his hymn.”
The exalted virtues of Soma have raised it to the rank of those
divinities who dispense immortality.
“Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed, in
that immortal, imperishable world place me, O Soma, where life is free,
in the third heaven of heavens, there make me immortal.”[92]
What is the third heaven? It is an expression with which we are
familiar, but what does it mean? The Aryans also call the children of
Rudra to their help; they are allied to Indra and are called Maruts.
They fill the air with alarming sounds; these noise-producing beings
are the representatives of storms and tempests, they never appear alone
in the Veda, they traverse space in groups of from twenty-five to
eighty in number, and they make the earth tremble.
“Where are you going? towards whom do you go when you descend from
on high like a blast of fire? May power be with thee and thy race, O
Rudra. Come to us, Maruts, come and help us as quickly as lightning
before the rain! Let loose, O devourer, your anger like an arrow
against the proud enemy of the poets.”[93]
* * * * *
A deep problem now presents itself. What was there before anything
existed? Two contradictory ideas appear in the hymns, and the conflict
must have been trying.
“Sages have said: In the beginning the world was--a single world--there
was not a second. Others have said: In the beginning this world had no
existence, and out of nothing, what now is, came.”
Much confusion of thought reigned in the human mind. The world must
surely have been made from something, and by certain agents; but then,
how were the agents themselves formed? and what material served them
for the making of the world?
Other questions followed. “Who has seen the firstborn? Where was the
life, the blood, the soul of the world? Who went to ask this from any
that knew it? What was the forest? what was the tree out of which they
shaped heaven and earth? Ye wise, seek in your mind on what he stood
when he held the world.”[94]
Our ancestors would not have been human if they had not yielded to
the temptation of representing the invisible makers of the world by
some personality. They therefore speak of carpenters and workmen
“who have cunning hands; clever artificers who forge the lightning.”
Is it those who have made all that is visible? They know not. It is
certain that in speaking of carpenters, workmen, thunderers, tearers,
rainers, men approached, perhaps unconsciously, the domain of causes,
which from the beginning has been the ancient foundation of all that
is transcendental in our knowledge. It could not be otherwise, since
our reason is so constituted that it admits nothing but what is either
cause or effect.
There are thoughts to be found in the Veda which are excessively
infantine, but again there are others of astonishing subtlety; perhaps
they date from different epochs; but individualities are apparent in
these hymns, and they anticipated by many centuries the greater number
of contemporary writers who followed at a slower pace. The rishis
who said, “There is one Being only, although the poets call him by a
thousand names,” perfectly expressed this truth; and the Hindoos for
centuries have invoked Indra, Mitra, Agni, and Savitar, though the more
profound thinkers have protested against the traditional use of these
names, just as Heracleitus 500 years before our era objected to the
thousand names, the thousand temples, and the thousand legends of the
Greek mythology.
The rishis in asking themselves how all things began were not content
with representing the world as coming from the hands of clever workmen,
were they even invisible; it was no great labour to discover that; but
at times they had profounder thoughts. The sacred literatures of many
ancient peoples have reached us, in fragments more or less complete;
but the meditations which can equal those in the hymn 129 are rare.
“The One in the form of the Un-born was not--the luminous firmament
existed not--nor the great vault of heaven--where was he hidden? Was
it in the bottomless abyss? Death existed not--nor immortality. There
was no distinction between day and night. The One breathed breathless
by itself. Other than it there nothing since has been. There was
darkness then; everything in the beginning was hidden in gloom--all
was like the ocean, without a light. Then that germ which was covered
by the husk--the One--was brought forth by the power of heat. On this
germ was love--the springtime of the spirit--yes. And the poets
whilst meditating upon it, discovered in their soul the link between
created things and things not created. This spark, comes it from the
earth--piercing all--penetrating through all--or comes it from the sky?
There seeds were scattered, and powerful forces came into being; nature
beneath, will and power above. Who knows the secret--who proclaimed
whence this manifold creation sprang? The gods themselves came later
into being; who knows whence this great creation sprang? He from whom
all this great creation came--whether his will created or was mute.
He, the most high seer, that is in highest heaven, he knows it--or
perchance even he knows not.”
“Who knows whence this great creation sprang?” the Hindoos asked
themselves, thousands of years before our era; and again, “What was the
forest, what was the tree, from which they cut out heaven and earth?
What was there before anything existed?” These questions, differently
expressed, are found in many places in the Veda; every kind of problem
is presented to us under the form of enigmas. The Hindoos seem to have
had an idea that the visible world was preceded by something invisible,
yet much more real than the world of phenomena in which we live;
and that before apparitions existed, there was that which appeared
afterwards in time and space.
These same questions will constantly be repeated in changing terms,
through the coming centuries, whilst a heaven and earth remain.
The problem which occupied the powerful intellects of Hume and Kant,
and which these philosophers named the principle of causality, was
already exercising the brains of our fathers when they gave names for
the first time to the sky, the sun, the dawn, and the other physical
phenomena, by means of roots indicating activity; for the principle of
causality manifested itself in the beginning, not in the direct search
for a cause, but in the assertion of the existence of an agent. This
mental labour, commenced and accomplished thousands of centuries ago by
millions of human beings, deserves at least as much attention from us
as the learned speculations of two modern philosophers, be they Hume or
Kant.
So striking an object as the sun, even before possessing a definite
name, must have been designated in some special way; perhaps as a
simple circle, such as we find in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, in the
Chinese writing, and in our astronomical almanacs; this symbol would
give little opportunities to the mythologists; but when the idea arose
that the sun was a ball, and that an analogy was found between a ball
and an eye, man began to speak of the sun as the eye of the sky. We say
readily in all languages, “God is omniscient,” but Hesiod, to express
the same truth said, “The sun is the eye of Zeus who sees and knows
all.” If the language appears childish to us, we must remember that it
was the expression of a poet who lived long before the philosophers of
Greece, we shall then be less struck by its harshness than by the happy
and pure thought which has been expressed.
The sun has been an object of adoration with many of the primitive
nations; it seems uncertain whether as the divinity himself or as
his representative; most of the mythologists assure us that the
ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun’s disc itself. The first step is
invariably followed by a second, and a good example of development in
religious belief is afforded by a Mexican legend. The story is told of
the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, who, though reputed a son of the sun, began
to doubt the divine omnipotence of his divine ancestor. At a great
religious council, held at the consecration of the newly built temple
of the sun at Cuzco, he rose before the assembled multitude to deny
the divinity of the sun. “Many say,” he began, “that the sun is the
maker of all things. But he who makes should abide by what he has made.
Now many things happen when the sun is absent; therefore he cannot be
the universal Creator. And that he is alive at all, is doubtful, for
his journeys do not tire him. He is like a tethered beast who makes
a daily round; he is like an arrow which must go whither it is sent,
not whither it wishes. I tell you that he, our father and maker--the
sun--must have a lord and master more powerful than himself, who
constrains him to his daily circuit without pause or rest.”[95]
We can follow in the Vedic hymns the gradual development which changes
the sun from a simple luminary, and the giver of daily light and life,
to the preserver and ruler of the world. He who brings life and light
to-day, is the same who brought life and light on the first of days; as
he drives away the darkness of night, and as “the stars flee before the
all-seeing sun, like thieves,” the eye fixed on men--the sun--sees the
right and wrong and knows their thoughts.
Almost all peoples have raised their eyes to the sky, the abode of the
invisible Powers; and our ancestors, who addressed such fervent prayers
to all the phenomena of nature could not fail to invoke it. But the
sky shows itself under very varying aspects, it is sometimes the sky
dazzling with light, then there is the lowering sky, or the sky that
thunders, that rains; each time that it varies it changes its name; and
these names must be known to man since it is always invoked under the
special denomination of the power he is about to address. Varuna is one
of the names of the sky, his physical characteristic reflects it, it
is the vast vault or covering which protects the whole earth and its
inhabitants; it is also the sky which is itself obscured when the sun
disappears. In the Veda, Varuna is associated with Mitra, the light,
thus giving rise to a concept of correlative gods representing night
and day, morning and evening, heaven and earth.
“He who should flee far beyond the sky--even he would not be rid of
Varuna, the king. King Varuna sees all this, what is between heaven
and earth, and what is beyond. This earth, too, belongs to Varuna,
the king, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas are
Varuna’s loins; he is also contained in this small drop of water.”
“The great lord of these worlds sees as if he were near: if a man
stands or walks, if he goes to lie down or to get up, if he thinks he
is walking by stealth, the god Varuna knows it all. What two people
sitting together whisper, King Varuna knows it, he is there as the
third.”[96]
The prayers of the rishis overflow with the acknowledgment of their
sins, and their belief that the gods have the power to deliver them
from the burden of their faults.
“Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay (earth). Have
mercy, Almighty, have mercy. If I move along trembling, like a cloud
driven by the wind, have mercy. Through want of strength, have I gone
astray, thou strong and bright god, have mercy. Thirst came upon the
worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters--have mercy,
Almighty, have mercy.”[97]
It is noticeable that in the Hindoo mind the sun, in its many
manifestations, is sometimes synonymous with the firmament: Indra, as
the illuminator of the zenith; Savitar, as the bestower of life; Mitra,
as the friend of humanity; the indefatigable Agni, so modest but so
active, in cooking the food and smelting iron, so powerful when it
bears the smoke of the sacrifices heavenwards, and so exalted when it
takes its place in the sun and descends in the form of lightning; and
the spacious firmament which holds them all in its bosom; they are all
one to the adorer of the divine powers; all are equally marvellous, it
is a galaxy of brilliance. What innumerable gods, and not one to whom
it could be said, “Deliver us from evil.”
Urged on by an irresistible curiosity the rishis ceaselessly probe into
the unknown and the distant.
“Beyond the sky, beyond the earth, beyond the Devas and the Asuras,
what was the first germ which the waters bore, wherein all gods were
seen? The waters bore that first germ in which all the gods came
together. That _one_ thing in which all creatures rested was placed
in the lap of the unborn. You will never know him who created these
things, something else stands between you and Him. Enveloped in mist
and with faltering voices, the poets walk along rejoicing in life.”[98]
How was it that in the midst of the magnificence of their immense
Pantheon, the poets succeeded in obtaining glimpses of the _One_. Who
was He? The mists surround Him and prevent Him being clearly discerned.
If there was one thing in nature more adapted than another to satisfy
the desire of bridging over the limits of the visible world, it was
certainly the vault of heaven; above the storms and clouds which are
temporary, beyond all that is changeable; amongst all the changing
objects which meet the eyes, surely the firmament was the most exalted,
the most extended, and immovable. We know the genealogy of the name
of the sky, Dyaus, which enables us to trace the transformations
and subsequent applications; and as we advance we shall glean some
particulars of that science which at a later date was called grammar.
It is known that in the Aryan languages some of the oldest words are
without gender; speaking grammatically, pater is not a masculine,
nor mater a feminine; nor do the oldest words for river, mountain,
tree, or sky, disclose any outward sign of grammatical gender. But
though without any signs of gender, all ancient nouns expressed
activity. The distinction of gender began, not with the introduction
of masculine nouns, but with the setting apart of certain derivative
suffixes for feminine words; thus when _bona_ was introduced, _bonus_
became masculine; when _puella_ could be applied to a girl, _puer_,
which formerly meant both boy and girl, became restricted to the
meaning of boy. Therefore, whenever it happens that we have a female
representative of a natural phenomenon by the side of a male, the
female may almost always be taken as the later form. This rule, which
has been strictly applied to the name of Dyaus, dates from so remote a
time that its origin is lost in the mists of ages.
Dyaus, like _deva_, shining, comes from the root _div_ or _dyu_, but
this root bifurcates at once. In the Rig-Veda forms derived from the
base _div_ are masculine or feminine as the case may be, whilst those
which are derived from _dyu_ are always masculine; thus _dyaus_ from
_div_, is the firmament, the expanse above our heads, and is the later
feminine form; whereas _dyaus_ from _dyu_, is the sky considered as
a power, an active force, and is masculine, and consequently is the
earlier conception. These two words, _dyaus_, nominative singular, and
its base, _dyu_, being almost synonymous may be used indifferently.
All vegetable cells are destined to become plants, though sometimes
different plants, this, observation of nature teaches us. All verbal
cells are destined to become words, though differing, that is, with
different meanings; the small amount of philological study to which we
have already devoted ourselves in these pages shows us this. All cells,
whatever their nature, possess a transitive movement; the French word
_éclater_ has the meaning of to disperse in brilliancy; if we imagine
scintillations of light escaping from a central luminary we obtain the
idea of a transitive luminous movement. Whilst a cell preserves its
primary condition it is not possible to predict its future; no human
intelligence could have foretold that the root _div_ and _dyu_ would
produce the Sanscrit word deva, which means to shine, and deva would
in time develop into deus, which now no longer means to shine, but God.
It is a curious characteristic of Vedic Sanscrit that this uncertainty
of meaning of such words as deva, which expresses equally the half
physical and half spiritual intention, is an evidence of its rays
having proceeded from the same source of light and heat.
Human reason, in finding its way amongst crooked paths, often wanders;
the representations it makes of things are coloured by rays projected
by mythological or dogmatic mirages. We may recognise in the manner in
which our ancestors have viewed the supernatural powers the prototype
of our own errors of judgment. From the time that Dyaus became the
warming, life-giving sky and thus active, the rishis were authorised to
call him pitar, father, and to place by his side Prithvi, the earth,
who is the mother, and they then spoke of Dyaus as the father of the
dawn, and of day and night. These were thus considered as the first
attributes of the sky in Aryan mythology.
We are inclined to ascribe these excursions of thought to the flights
of poetic fancy, but they are rather the results of the poverty of
language, which make it impossible not only to express abstract ideas,
but even to describe accurately the phenomena of the physical world.
Religion and language in those days were so closely allied that it
is possible to say of a religious idea in its infancy that it was a
fragment of ancient language; for in order to describe his impressions
the Aryan depended entirely on the words with which it furnished him.
For this reason many of the hymns, incoherent though they may appear,
are of inestimable value. Every one of their words weighs and tells,
but for the translator who endeavours to present the Vedic thought in
modern idioms, the results are so discouraging that he is tempted to
give up in despair.
When at a later date the name of Dyaus became the centre of fabulous
tales, it still remained in the Sanscrit language of that time one
of the many traditional and unmeaning words for sky; but we must
understand clearly that in the most ancient hymns of the _Rig-Veda_
this name is the incarnation of the Power which is beyond and above
conception, whose existence had been obscurely indicated from the
beginning, and who remained unnamed long after the beasts of the
forests and the birds of the air had received their appellations.
From the time of their exodus the Aryan family, going in different
directions, were naturally divided into branches; vast distances
separated them, and they forgot that the same cradle, the same hearth,
had sheltered them at birth. But the ties which connected them
originally were not snapped at all points, since they brought away with
them words belonging to their mother-tongue, and certain intuitions
were the common property of all. Before the Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, and
German languages became separated, the name of a sovereign Power was
implied in those of the divinity which at a much later time occupied so
large a space in the history of Greece, Rome, India, and of Germany.
Coupled with the word _pitar_ the name Dyaus appears in the most
ancient Aryan prayers as Dyaush-pitar, Zeus-pater, and Ju-piter.
These composite names are no invention of the poets; they are the
results of certain laws of language to which our minds--if they would
not turn from the right path--must submit. The initial _dy_ in Dyaus
is represented in Latin by _j_; Ju in Jupiter corresponds exactly
with Dyaus. The name of the Teutonic god Tyr, genitive Tys, also
corresponds, and as exactly, with Dyaus; in Gothic it would be Tius,
and in Anglo-Saxon Tiw, preserved in Tiwsdæg, the day of the god Tyr,
and Zio in Old High-German, where we find Ziestac for the modern
Dienstag, the day of the god Mars. Tius, Tiw, Tyr, and Zio are forms
that exist side by side, all of which of course proceed from that
wonderful root _div_, and represent the bright sky, day, and god. No
etymological interpretation would be satisfying which did not embrace
all these forms, since they are all dialectic variations of Dyaus, the
same name in different languages. All names truly related have but one
root, in the same way as living beings who are brothers have but one
mother.
If another proof were needed of the uninterrupted continuity of speech
and thought amongst the chief of the Aryan people, the following fact
will afford it:--
At the time when the schools flourished in Athens, and when the Greeks
were hardly conscious of the existence of India, it would have been
possible, I suppose, to see young pupils seated before tables on which
the master had written the declensions which composed the task for the
day. There might be read:--
_Nom._ Zeús
_Gen._ Dios
_Dat._ Dii
_Acc._ Dia
_Voc._ Zeû
Thus the young Athenians wrote the name of Zeus with an acute accent in
the nominative, and a circumflex in the vocative.
At the same time the pupils of the Brahmans at Benares, when declining
the name of their supreme deity, accented the syllables exactly in the
same way as the Greeks, and they wrote:--
_Nom._ Dyaús
_Gen._ Dyvas
_Dat._ Divi
_Acc._ Divam
_Voc._ Dyaûs
But there was this difference between the Grecian pupils and the
Hindoos, that the former were ignorant of the reason of these changes
of accent, since the explanation was lacking in the Greek grammar,
whereas the Sanscrit grammar explained to the latter the general
principles of accentuation on which the changes rested.
The name of Dyaus was the source from which sprang an unique name,
coined once and for ever, adopted by our entire family; the Greeks
have no more borrowed it from the Hindoos, than the Romans and the
Teutons from the Greeks; for it was pronounced before the separation
of our ancestors with regard to language or religion; its meaning was
Heaven-Father.
Our missionaries who go from one end of the earth to the other,
reciting the Lord’s Prayer in all the dialects of the world, do
not doubt the historical fact that this prayer was said one day at
Jerusalem for the first time; we also may feel as profoundly convinced
that under the name of Heaven-Father, the Supreme Being has been
worshipped on the Himalayan mountains, under the oaks of Dodona, on the
Capitol, and in the forests of Germany. It has required millions of men
to fashion this name alone, which is the most ancient prayer of the
Aryan race.
“Five thousand years have passed, perhaps more, since the Asiatic
Aryans, speaking as yet neither Sanscrit, Greek, nor Latin, called upon
the All-Father as Dyu-patar, Heaven-Father. Four thousand years ago,
or it may be earlier, the Aryans who had travelled southwards to the
rivers of the Punjaub called him Dyaush-pita, the Heaven-Father. Three
thousand years ago, or it may be earlier, the Aryans on the shores
of the Hellespont called him Zeus-pater, Heaven-Father. Two thousand
years ago the Aryans of Italy looked up to that bright Heaven above and
called it Ju-piter, the Heaven-Father. And a thousand years ago the
same Heaven-Father was invoked in the dark forests of Germany, since
the Teutonic Aryans sacrificed to the same Heaven-Father; and his old
name of Tyr, Tiu, or Zio resounded then perhaps for the last time.
“But no thought, no name, has ever been entirely lost.”[99]
Some thousands of years have elapsed since these families have spread
abroad on all sides; each branch has formed its own language, its own
nationality, its mode of viewing life, and its philosophies; temples
have been built and razed to the ground; since then all have aged,
all are wiser, perhaps better, but the name which they gave to the
Invisible Power who enfolds them is still the same, “Our Father which
art in Heaven.”
This name, whose unity has always been perfect, is a magical formula,
which brings our ancestors, even the most remote, within touch, and
enables us to see them as they were, as they spoke and felt, thousands
of years before Homer and the Hindoo poets. Guided by the science
of language and following the path in the Vedic hymns taken by the
humanity preceding us, we see how the concept of God, in its germ in
the name Deva, grew from the idea of light, to active light, the one
who wakens, the giver of daily light, of warmth and new life.
It is easy to understand the difference between these two
assertions--first of this one--that the early Aryans called the
phenomena of nature themselves by the name of God; and the other--that
the Aryan mind distilled from the concept of these phenomena the
general idea of God.
“If I were asked,” said Max Müller, “which is the most wonderful
discovery of the nineteenth century in the history of humanity, I
should reply it is that of the etymological equation of the Sanscrit
Dyaush-pitar, the Greek Zeus-pater, the Latin Ju-piter, and Tyr, Tiw,
and Zio of the Germans.”
That the generality of people should be inconsequent is not a matter
of surprise. He may well be pardoned who does not at once, on the
word of another, credit a number of facts of which no proofs are
forthcoming, and who at the same time shows himself unwilling to
accept the deductions of a science of which he knows nothing, that of
etymology; but what does seem strange is that learned scholars who are
perfectly capable of following the progress made by philology, refuse
to recognise the identity of the different names given to the supreme
deity of the Aryan race. Certain positivists are in this case; nothing
irritates them more than to offer them grammatical proof that all the
Aryan families had, before their separation, the same belief; and they
try to demonstrate that the name of Dyaus at the first meant nothing
more than the sky; and that only at a later period people had changed
the name of sky and of firmament--physical phenomena only--into proper
names which transformed _nomina_ into _numina_.
It is worthy of note that this assertion is founded on a fact, but a
fact not well understood. In the later literature of India which was
known before the Veda became so much studied, the name of Dyaus was
only known as a feminine; it was the recognised name for sky and day,
and implied nothing divine. The ancient Aryan Dyaus after a time paled
before Indra--a god of Indian soil; Indra, formerly the rain-giver--the
ally of Rudra--ceased to reside exclusively in the more menacing
phenomena of the atmosphere, and it is the pure light in which he is
worshipped. He is now supreme.
“Before Indra the divine Dyu bowed, before Indra bowed the great
Prithivi.”[100]
In order duly to celebrate Indra, the rishis did not content themselves
with the praises they considered fitting for the other gods. They
laboured hard to find the right expression and every hymn is a heroic
feat.
“The other gods were sent away like shrivelled up old men; thou, O
Indra, becamest the king. No one is beyond thee, no one is better than
thou art, no one is like unto thee. Keep silence well! we offer our
praises to the great Indra in the house of the sacrificer. Does he find
treasure for those who are like sleepers? Mean praise is not valued
among the munificent.”[101]
It is strange that it is in connection with the great Indra, the most
popular of all the gods of India, that indications of a struggle
between faith and doubt are apparent in the praises addressed to him.
The existence of the other divinities was as firmly established as
the splendour of the sun and stars, as the appearances of fire, the
movements of the winds, the impressions made by heat and cold; and
the confidence they inspired was too firmly established to require
stimulating; and then suddenly we find the rishis discoursing on and
enumerating the reasons that exist for man’s belief in Indra.
“When the fiery Indra hurls down the thunder-bolt, then people put
faith in him. Look at this his great and mighty work, and believe in
his great power.”
Whence came this insistence to recall the great power of Indra? It
almost suggests the thought that the rishis felt the approach of a
change in their conception of the omnipotence of some of the gods of
nature.
“Offer praise to Indra, if you desire booty; true praise, if he truly
exists. One and the other says, There is no Indra, who has seen him?
Whom shall we praise? The terrible one of whom they ask where he
is.”[102]
But the poet at once introduces Indra on the scene, and makes him say:--
“Here I am, O worshipper! behold me here.
In might I overcome all creatures.”--Id.
In reading the Rig-Veda attentively, in spite of these efforts to
revive the ancient faith, here and there can be discovered slight
traces of scepticism, so slight as to be scarcely perceptible, and
these apart from the incredulity exhibited concerning the powerful
Indra. The Hindoo was by nature profoundly believing, but his intellect
was subtle and scrutinising, and he considered it due to himself to
give exact explanations of all; the rishis make the following true
remarks.
“Fire is quenched by water, a cloud hides the sun, the sun also
disappears behind the sea;” and from these observations they draw the
following conclusions.
“Water must not be worshipped, since a cloud can carry it away; nor the
cloud, since the wind can disperse it.”
* * * * *
The positivists have made too much of the fact that Dyaus, at one time
in India, meant simply the sky and day; a rock is not more immovable
than grammar, and it is moreover quite indifferent to all blows aimed
at truths other than it holds.
Certain scholars in their researches after the origin of Aryan
divinities, were surprised and somewhat disconcerted at a gap which
confronted them and prevented further progress; nowhere in the later
literature of India could any trace be found of Dyaus as a god who
could correspond to the supreme divinity of the other branches of the
family. However, the very rational conviction that this deity must have
existed gradually strengthened in the minds of the learned. They were
thus at a standstill, when the Veda appeared under the strong light
of modern investigation and brought to view the name of Dyaus totally
different from the feminine dyaus, a Dyaus presenting in itself, not
merely the masculine substantive, but joined with pita--father. Amongst
the Hindoos it had paled before Indra, who was a god of later date,
but the other Aryan races had been uninfluenced by this. Dyaus, the
chief god, had accompanied them in their migrations, and Zeus-pater,
Ju-piter, Tyr, Tiw, and Zio, became the exact representative of him,
each in a different country; this discovery of Dyaush-pita, was like
finding at last a star in the very place of the heavens which had been
fixed before by calculation, but where previously there had been a void.
This was not the only discovery due to the study of the Veda. No one
could ignore the fact, that amongst the Hindoos dyaus was the name of
the sky, since it bears in itself the root which attests this; but
it would have been impossible to discover the radical or predicative
meaning of Zeus by the help of Greek alone; it possesses no certificate
of birth, and the Greeks had no traditions connected with it that could
have taught us. With the help of comparative philology all is made
plain; Zeus was born when Dyaus was recognised as masculine and called
father, Dyaush-pitar, Ju-piter, Zeus-pater, and from the moment that
we are made acquainted with the origin of Zeus, the rest of his career
unrolls before us.
Our ancestors, however, had still a long time to wander in the
wilderness of error, and lost themselves many times.
The Hindoos thought for a time that they had found in Dyaus the object
of their search; but the supernatural light and the light of day became
confounded; when the word Dyaus was pronounced, the many natural bright
objects it might signify all vibrated in response and melted into one;
they became--as a double star does--one object, and Dyu, the god of
light, was eclipsed behind dyu the sky.
When the question was asked for the first time whence came the rain,
the lightning, and the thunder, those who inhabited Italy replied that
rain came from Jupiter Pluvius, the lightning from Jupiter fulminator
and fulgurator, the thunder from Jupiter tonans. In Greece all that
concerned the higher regions of the atmosphere was attributed to Zeus;
it was Zeus who rained, who snowed, thundered, gathered the clouds,
let loose the tempests, held the rainbow in his hand; many legends were
grouped around these divine names; the more incomprehensible they were,
the more eagerly were they heard, until it is very doubtful whether any
trace remains of that Being who at the first gave to the name of the
sky its highest signification.
A characteristic trait of the Hindoos, which is noticeable in the
hymns, is a tendency to praise all by which they are surrounded. Not
satisfied with celebrating the virtues of the invisible beings, which
they imagine to be behind the semi-tangible and intangible objects such
as mountains, rivers, trees, fire, the sun, storms, etc., the rishis,
carried away by the ardour of their feelings, glorify objects which are
perfectly tangible, even those which they may have made with their own
hands, or those which at least have nothing mysterious in them; these
are termed _devatas_, and the commentator explains that by this word is
meant the person or thing addressed; thus the victims to be offered, or
a sacrificial vessel, or a battle-axe or shield, all these are called
devatas; in some dialogues found in the hymns whoever speaks is called
the rishi, whoever is spoken to is the devata.
“The late Herbert Spencer relates that even in our days the Hindoo
offers prayers to the objects which he uses; a woman adores the basket
which she takes to the market and offers sacrifices to it, as well as
to the other implements which assist her in her household labours. A
carpenter pays the like homage to his hatchet, the mason to his trowel,
and the Brahman to the style with which he is going to write. The
question is, in what sense did the author of _Principles of Sociology_
use the word adore?”[103]
The desire to have an exact account of what is happening alternates
with the prayers and adoration; the questions and praises interlace
like the threads of a web.
“Unsupported, not fastened, how does he (the sun) rising up, not fall
down?”
The poet is also anxious to know how the dawn and the sun appear each
morning; how there is so much rain, also such an abundance of rivers
and streams.
“How many fires are there, how many dawns, how many suns, and how many
waters? I do not say this, O fathers, to worry you; I ask you, O seers,
that I may know.”
The explanation also is desired by these enquirers how it is that a
red or brown cow can give white milk.[104] The rishis are rigorous
logicians, and consider that the powerful divinities who made the
world such as it is might have done better; and they do not scruple to
communicate their opinion to whom it concerns. “If we were as rich as
you we should not allow our worshippers to beg their bread.”
* * * * *
It has been asked whether humanity commenced by having a monotheistic
or a polytheistic religion. This is not the first time that this
question has been propounded; it has as an antecedent a very ancient
opinion, developed in the schools of theology in the Middle Ages; the
Fathers of the Church gave it as their opinion that a faith in one God,
from the days of the greatest antiquity, had been the glorious heritage
of the Semitic family, coming in a direct line from the first man. But
these same theologians considered Hebrew to be the primitive language
of the human race, an assertion now known to be erroneous.[105] We may
therefore subject the first assertion to an examination.
The learned writers who dispute on the original form of religious
thought forget that the ancient Aryans could not have been either
monotheistic or polytheistic. The Vedic hymns show us that though there
were many gods, and that they were equal, yet whilst the worshipper
was addressing one, the rest were excluded from his mind, and were as
though they did not exist; each god became in turn the Supreme Power,
and received the highest praise; the rishis, who had represented the
sun under the names of Vishnu, Varuna, Mitra, Savitar as the creator
of the world, spoke of it immediately afterwards as the child of the
waters, born of the dawn, a god among other gods, neither better nor
worse; it is this characteristic of the Aryan religion, this worship
offered alternately to different divinities to which Max Müller has
given the name of Henotheism.
“Among you, O gods, there is none that is great, and none that is
little--none old or young--you are all great indeed.”
The religion of humanity in its entirety at the beginning was this
intuition of the divine, whose formula is that article of faith,
at once the simplest and the most important--God is God--the want
of definiteness in it making it the more applicable to the dawn of
thought. This primitive intuition of God was in itself neither
monotheistic nor polytheistic, though it might become either according
to the expression which it took in the language of man; in no language
does the plural exist before the singular; no human mind could have
conceived the idea of gods without having previously conceived the idea
of one God. “It would be, however, quite as great a mistake to imagine,
because the idea of a god must exist previously to that of gods, that
therefore a belief in one God preceded everywhere the belief in many
gods. A belief in God, as exclusively One, involves a distinct negation
of more than one God, and that negation is possible only after the
conception, whether real or imaginary, of many gods.”[106] If therefore
an expression had been given to this primitive intuition of the Deity,
which is the mainspring of all later religion, it would have been,
“There is a God,” but certainly not yet, “There is but one God.”
These fine distinctions require close attention to grasp them; the fact
that in our modern tongues we have derived the singular _Theos_ from
the Greek plural _Theoi_ has caused confusion; from a historical point
of view, no doubt Theos has come from Theoi; but putting this aside,
the meaning of the word has gone through as complete a transformation
as that of the acorn to the oak; the evidence of this change has been
so deeply impressed even on our outward senses that as soon as our
intellect has attained some measure of development the sound of the
word God used in the plural jars on our ears as if we heard of two
universes or one twin.
The Hindoo mind, however, oscillated between the representation of many
gods and of one only God; and the rishis appear to have attempted to
establish a sort of priority amongst their numerous deities.
“That which is one, the seers call in many ways; they speak of Indra,
Mitra, Agni, and Varuna--they call it by various names--that which is,
and is one.”
“In the evening Agni becomes Varuna--he becomes Mitra when rising in
the mornings; having become Savitri, he passes through the sky--having
become Indra he warms the heaven in the centre.”[107]
This attempt, which might have led to monotheism, came to nothing; on
this point the Hindoos were behind the Greeks and Romans, who with
their polytheism had a presiding deity, viz., Zeus and Jupiter.
“When we thus see the god Dyaus antiquated by Indra, and Indra himself
almost denied, we might expect in India the same catastrophe which in
Iceland the poets of the Edda always predicted--the twilight of the
gods preceding the destruction of the world. We seem to have reached
the stage when henotheism, after trying in vain to grow into an
organised polytheism on the one side, or into an exclusive monotheism
on the other, would by necessity end in atheism; yet atheism is not the
last word of the Indian religion.”[108]
What is atheism?
FOOTNOTES:
[72] Max Müller, _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 231.
[73] Max Müller, _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 250.
[74] _Rig-Veda_, X. 133. 6.
[75] “To the ancient seers the dawn seemed to open the golden gates of
another world, and while these gates were open for the sun to pass in
triumph, their eyes and their minds strove in their childish way to
pierce beyond the limits of this finite world.”--_Origin and Growth of
Religion_, p. 235.
[76] _Atharva-Veda_, X. 8. 16.
[77] _Rig-Veda_, I. 35. 2.
[78] Max Müller’s words on the subject are as follows: “These two
concepts (the infinite, and order and law), which sooner or later
must be taken in and minded by every human being, were at first no
more than an impulse, but their impulsive force would not rest till
it had beaten into the minds of the fathers of our race the deep and
indelible impression that ‘all is right,’ and filled them with a hope,
and more than a hope, that ‘all will be right.’”--_Origin and Growth of
Religion_, p. 259.
[79] _Rig-Veda_, I. 102. 2.
[80] _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 238.
[81] _Rig-Veda_, I. 24. 1.
[82] _Physical Religion_, p. 245.
[83] _Physical Religion_, p. 127.
[84] _Rig-Veda_, II. 1. 1.
[85] _Ibid._, IV. 12. 4.
[86] _Rig-Veda_, X. 79. 4.
[87] _Ibid._, X. 2. 4, 5.
[88] _Ibid._, II. 6. 1; VIII. 19. 5.
[89] _Rig-Veda_, I. 189. 3.
[90] _Ibid._, VII. 104.
[91] _Rig-Veda_, VII. 104.
[92] _Ibid._, IX. 113. 7.
[93] _Rig-Veda_, I. 39.
[94] _Ibid._, I. 164; X. 81. 4.
[95] _Physical Religion_, pp. 183-4.
[96] _Atharva_, IV. 16.
[97] _Rig-Veda_, VII. 89.
[98] _Rig-Veda_, X. 82.
[99] _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 223.
[100] _Rig-Veda_, I. 131. 1.
[101] _Rig-Veda_, I. 153; IV. 19. 2.
[102] _Ibid._, VIII. 100. 3.
[103] _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 205 note.
[104] Max Müller says: “There is also a common saying or riddle in
German which you may hear repeated to the present day:--
‘O sagt mir doch wie geht es zu
Dass weis die milch der rothen Kuh?’”
--_Physical Religion_, p. 101.
[105] Dante at one time was of this opinion. “In his _Il Volgare
Eloquio_, lib. 1, cvi. p. 155, he says: ‘It was the Hebrew idiom which
was uttered by the lips of the first man who ever spoke in this world!’
This idea was afterwards relinquished by him, as in the _Paradiso_ he
puts these words into the mouth of Adam:--
‘The language I did use
Was worn away or ever Nimrod’s race
Their unaccomplishable work began.’
“The oldest form of human speech still remains lost in the darkness of
antiquity.”--Quoted from _Dante in Ravenna_ by Miss Phillimore.
[106] _Chips from a German Workshop_, vol. i. p. 354.
[107] _Atharva_, XIII. 3. 13.
[108] _Origin and Growth of Religion_, p. 310.