THE ARYAN RELIGION
The science of language has placed it beyond dispute that the
languages of the leading European peoples are genealogically related
to each other, and that the languages of India and of Persia also
belong to the same family of speech. The Indo-European languages,
those, namely, of the higher race in India, and of the Persians, and
those of the Greeks, Italians, Celts, Germans, Slavs, Letts, and
Albanians, approach each other always more nearly as they are traced
upwards. Sanscrit is not the source of these tongues but an older
sister of the group; the mother language, which the facts prove to
have at one time existed, was a highly-inflected speech, and is
perhaps more nearly represented by Lettic than by Sanscrit; but it
can now be known only by a study of the common features of its
surviving children.
The fact that the peoples named above are related to each other in
point of language led at once, when it was discovered, to the
conclusion that they were also of the same race, and must have come
originally from the same quarter of the world. Where, then, was the
early home of the undivided Aryan[1] race, from which the swarms
first issued which were to conquer and rule the various lands? At
first it was found in the East; the fact that Indian civilisation was
much earlier in time than that of any other Aryan people, naturally
suggested this. Professor Max Mueller described in a very poetical way
how the European as well as the Indian must find in the East the
cradle of his race. From the high tableland of Asia, it was held, the
superior races came who were to rule nearly the whole of Europe,
while another migration descended towards Persia and the plains of
India.
[Footnote 1: "Aryan" was the name of the conquering race of India.
The title "Indo-European" tells us that the race now dwells in India
and in Europe. "Indo-Germanic" describes the group by its Eastern,
and what is supposed to be its principal Western, member.]
The theory, however, which placed the home of the Aryans on the
inhospitable steppes, the "high Pamere," of Asia, did not long
command assent; and attempts were made to place that home elsewhere,
in the valley of the Danube, on the south shores of the Baltic, or
even in the Scandinavian peninsula. The conquest, it is argued,
cannot have come from the East; it is much more probable that Aryan
speech and custom originated in the West, where it has the larger
number of representatives, and that it spread eastward. The more
extreme step has also been taken of denying that the Aryans are
related to each other at all in point of race. Unity of language, it
is argued, is no proof of unity of race--a glance over the British
Empire or even the British Islands is enough to show this. It is
maintained, therefore, that the relationship of the Aryan peoples is
not one of race but only of language and of culture; the word Aryan
denotes no more than a certain type of speech, and of accompanying
civilisation, which spread over all the peoples in question at a very
early time. Aryan language and civilisation laid hold of a number of
races not otherwise related to each other.
The view, however, still prevails that the various lands where Aryan
speech and culture prevail were settled from one centre. When society
was in the nomadic stage, it may naturally be presumed that a
superior civilisation which had established itself in any one quarter
of the world would be carried by wandering hordes in various
directions, and that the bearers of the new civilisation would become
the conquerors and masters of the countries to which their wanderings
led them. And there is now some agreement on the part of leading
authorities as to the quarter of the world from which the migrations
of the Aryans proceeded. In the Southern Steppes of Russia, in the
great plains north of the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of
Aral, there dwelt, we are told, in times far before the dawn of
history, hordes rather than tribes of men, who, though they had
originally spoken the same language, were coming to differ from each
other in speech and culture. These hordes were peoples in the process
of formation. It was natural to them to wander, and as each wandered
farther from the centre, it came to differ more markedly from the
common type. Some of these went southwards and eastwards to Persia
and India; others went westward, to conquer and possess the countries
of Europe.[2]
[Footnote 2: _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_; Schrader
and Jevons (Griffin, 1890). This is the English of Schrader's
_Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_. Compare Dr. E. Meyer's
_History of Antiquity_, vol. i. book vi. Dr. Isaac Taylor's _Origin
of the Aryans_ gives a compendious account of the question,
concluding against the unity of the Aryans in point of race.]
The Aryan question lies at the threshold of the history of each of
the Aryan peoples, and has to be met in the study of each of the
religions. It must be confessed that the world now knows less on this
point than it thought it did a generation ago. The difference between
the Semitic and the Aryan spirit is real and substantial, as will
appear from the study of the Aryan religions, but it is more
important as well as more possible to know these well in their
individual character than to have a correct theory of their
historical relation to each other. The student ought, however, to be
informed as to the course of a deeply interesting enquiry.
The civilisation of the Aryans was primitive enough. The following is
from Dr. Taylor:--
The undivided Aryans were a pastoral people, who wandered with
their herds as the Hebrew patriarchs wandered in Canaan. Dogs,
cattle, and sheep had been domesticated, but not the pig, the
horse, the goat, or the ass; and domestic poultry were unknown. The
fibres of certain plants were plaited into mats, but wool was not
woven, and the skins of beasts were scraped with stone knives, and
sewed together into garments with sinews by the aid of needles of
bone, wood, or stone.
Their food consisted of flesh and milk, which was not yet made into
cheese or butter. Mead, prepared from the honey of wild bees, was
the only intoxicating drink, both beer and wine being unknown. Salt
was unknown to the Asiatic branch of the Aryans, but its use had
spread rapidly among the European branches of the race. In winter
they lived in pits dug in the earth and roofed over with poles
covered with turf, or plastered with cow dung. In summer they lived
in rude waggons or in huts made of the branches of trees. Of
metals, native copper may have been beaten into ornaments, but
tools and weapons were mostly of stone. Bows were made of the wood
of the yew, ... trees were hollowed out for canoes by stone axes,
aided by the use of fire.
According to Hehn, the old or sick were killed, wives were obtained
by purchase or capture, infants were exposed or killed. After a
time, with tillage, came the possession of property, and
established custom grew slowly into law. Their religious ideas were
based on magic and superstitious terrors, the powers of nature had
as yet assumed no anthropomorphic forms, the great name of Dyaus,
which afterwards came to mean God, signified only the bright sky.
They counted on their fingers, but they had not attained to the
idea of any number higher than one hundred.[3]
[Footnote 3: _Origin of the Aryans_, p. 188.]
These sketches of the early Aryan certainly attest more vigour than
refinement; and it takes some effort to realise that those who lived
in this way had already made much progress, and that these early arts
and institutions were full of promise. Savage as the early Aryan is,
he is better than his neighbours, and has made a good start in the
way of civilisation. His family arrangements, especially, are fitted
to survive and to develop. The early domestic architecture of the
Aryan countries, while it belongs to a much later period, yet gives
good evidence that the patriarchal ideal of the family was part of
the common inheritance. In every country they conquered the Aryans
lived in large patriarchal households. The sons, with their wives and
children, remained under their father's roof, the father being judge
and priest of this domestic community. We can specify other features
of the society connected with this type of household. As the family
increases and becomes too large to dwell under one roof, another
house is built, in which son or grandson, with his wife, founds a new
family. Thus a group of families arises, all related to each other by
blood, and in a position of equality, but looking to the original
house as their centre. This type of society must have been carried to
India by the Aryan invaders, who there set up patriarchal
establishments in houses which are similar in arrangement to those of
North Holland, of Iceland, or of early England. The men who lived in
this way were not agriculturists, they were shepherds and huntsmen,
and when they settled in a district they were wont to force the
former dwellers in it to till the land for them as their
inferiors.[4]
[Footnote 4: See two recent works by Mr. G. L. Gomme, _The Village
Community_ and _Ethnology in Folklore_; also Hearn's _Aryan
Household_.]
It is this type of civilisation which overspread the lands in early
times, and by its coming created in most instances a new world. Some
of the Aryan peoples made more rapid progress than others. They
passed early into the age of metals, and appear before us at the dawn
of history with fully-formed institutions, which bear the impress of
patriarchal ideas. Others remained longer in the stone age, and only
in historic times received the impulse which caused them to advance
to the rank of nations. The arts and inventions which are found in
many or in all of them are not necessarily a common inheritance from
the undivided Aryan age. Many of them may have come into being in
each of the lands independently, or one Aryan people may have
borrowed them from another at a later time. Starting from the common
stock of civilisation, the various races worked it out each in a way
of its own, and often, as we shall see, with wonderful similarities.
Is it possible to give any description of the religion the Aryans had
in common before they developed it in different ways in their various
lands? We can no longer, following Mr. Max Mueller, look to India to
tell us what was the common Aryan religion. Indian religion, when we
first become acquainted with it, has already grown into an elaborate
priestly system, and is evidently at a much later stage of Aryan
development than the rustic cults, with which we have a good deal of
acquaintance, in various European lands. If, however, we cannot
follow the great German scholar in this, we gladly use his words on
another aspect of the subject, when he is showing the etymological
identity of the chief god of the Aryan peoples.
In his _Lectures on the Science of Language_, vol. ii. p. 468, he
tells us that "Zeus, the most sacred name in Greek mythology, is the
same word as Dyaus in Sanscrit, Jovis or Ju in Jupiter in Latin, Tiw
in Anglo-Saxon, preserved in Tiwsdaeg, Tuesday, the day of the Eddic
god Tyr; Zio in old High-German.
"This word was framed," he says, "once and once only; it was not
borrowed by the Greeks from the Hindus, nor by the Romans and Germans
from the Greeks. It must have existed before the ancestors of those
primeval races became separate in language and religion; before they
left their common pastures to migrate to the right hand and to the
left.... Here, then, in this venerable word, we may look for some of
the earliest religious thoughts of our race."[5]
[Footnote 5: See also Mr. Mueller's _Hibbert Lectures_, and his
_Biographies of Words_.]
In this instance etymology admittedly points out one of the principal
features of the common Aryan religions. But if we hope that etymology
will reveal to us many further instances of the same kind, and
introduce us to the whole Pantheon of the Aryans, we shall be
disappointed. There are one or two more cases of etymological
agreement between the gods of India and those of Europe,[6] but the
agreement is in some of these cases no more than etymological. The
Tiw or Tyr of the Teutonic mythology does not correspond in office or
character with Zeus or Jupiter, though the names are etymologically
akin. The agreement does not extend to all the religions in question,
nor does it extend in any two religions to all their gods; most of
the gods of Europe have no parallels in India. The evidence of
etymology, therefore, tells us but little of that early religion of
which we are in search. But if we consider the views and habits of
the barbarous shepherd-huntsman, who is now seen to be the typical
figure of common Aryanism, we need not seek long before we find
something that was common to all the Aryan faiths. The patriarchal
household has a religion which belongs to itself, and which is the
working bond of union of its members. The hearth is its altar,
because the forefathers of the house lie buried under it, or for
another reason. These forefathers certainly are its gods. This
hearth-cult has for its priest the father of the family; he in his
turn will be gathered to his fathers if he has a legitimate son to do
the last rites for him. No one but members of the family can partake
in the domestic worship, all unconnected with the family by blood
must be kept at a distance from these rites. This is not a religion
in which the individual counts anything for his own sake, any more
than totemistic religion is; in both it is the community alone that
serves the deity, in the one case, those acknowledging the same
totem, in the second, those united by blood in the same family. In
totemism the individual sacrifices himself to the tribe; here he is
nothing apart from his family. Aryan piety is family religion pure
and simple. It fosters sentiments which have been the strength of
Aryan society in all lands. It makes family life a sacred thing,
lends to all domestic ties the highest sanction, and causes the mere
mention of "hearth and home" to be the strongest incentive to valour
and self-denial. Even in the wild-beast ferocity with which early
men defend their homes against the intrusion of strangers, the
germs of lofty domestic and patriotic virtues may be seen. Thus
ancestor-worship, which is a part of the very beginnings of human
religion, is a more effective force among the Aryans than anywhere
else. In Egypt and China that worship is a highly artificial thing,
and has lost much of its original force. In Egypt it is the fortunes
of the dead that are most thought of; in China the cult has been
smoothed down and deprived, according to the character of the people,
of its intenser motives. Among the Aryans it combines actively with
strong family feeling, causing them to cling with an extreme tenacity
to their own gods and their own worship.[7]
[Footnote 6: The principal are the following:--
1. Dyaus, god of the sky, see above.
2. Sans. Ushas, goddess of dawn; Gr. [Greek: heos]; Lat. aurora;
Lith. auszra; A.-S. eostra.
3. Sans. Agni, fire, god of fire; Lat. ignis; Lith. ugnis; O.-S.
ogni.
4. Sans. Surya, sun; Lat. sol; Gr. [Greek: helios], also [Greek:
Seirios]; Cymr. seul.
5. Sans. Mas, moon; Gr. [Greek: mene]; Lat. mena; Lith. menu.
Mars=Maruts, Manu=Minos=Mannus, Varuna=Ouranos, and other equations
formerly brought forward, are not now relied on by etymologists.]
[Footnote 7: The comparative absence of ancestor-worship among the
Greeks leads Dr. Schrader to doubt whether their religion is Aryan.
The Semites and the Greeks occupy the same position in this respect
(see chapter x., chapter xvi.).]
But those of whom we are speaking worshipped other gods besides those
of the household. The second great characteristic of Aryan religion
is its adoration of gods who are neither local nor tribal, but
universal. Dyaus, the sky, the heaven-god, can be worshipped
anywhere; so can the earth, so can the heavenly twins, who were
objects of early Aryan religion, so can the sun and moon. Not that
the Aryans always remembered that these beings were not local or
tribal. The god of heaven could be the god of a particular place too,
having a special name there; or he could be appropriated by a tribe
who gave him a title as their own particular patron. Each family
could have its own heaven-god as well as its own hearth-god. Nor are
we to think that when they worshipped beings who could be found in
every place, the Aryans overlooked the sacred places, and the sacred
objects worshipped formerly. They had themselves risen out of
savagery, and still held many of the ideas of savages. Though they
had a few great gods they could still believe in a large number of
smaller ones. The tree, the stream, still had its spirit for them,
the cave or the dark fissure its bad demon. And many a piece of magic
did they practise, such as the rain-charm which would cause even the
highest god to send what was needed. The world was well peopled with
gods, and to keep on good terms with them all was, no doubt, a matter
that required much attention and skill.
Other features which have been stated to be characteristic of Aryan
religion are its non-priestly character, and the fact that its gods
are generally arranged in a monarchical pantheon. But neither of
these constitutes a specific difference of the kind we are in search
of. All primitive religions are non-priestly; a religion becomes
priestly at a certain stage of its growth, when it is organised
separately from the state. The monarchical pantheon, too, such as
that of Homer and of the Eddas, is an indication, not of the genius
of a religion, but of its having reached the systematising stage, and
of the political ideas according to which the system is drawn up. The
Aryan religions, it is true, arrange their gods when the time comes
to do so, after the pattern of an Aryan patriarchal establishment,
the father at the head, his sons and daughters near him, the servants
in attendance, the unorganised host of spirits, nymphs and elves,
outside. But to know the original character of the religion it is
less important to ask how the pantheon is arranged, than what gods
are worshipped, and how they are related to man. And the point which
stands out clearly is that while Semitic religion is purely tribal
and local, there is an element in Aryan religion which naturally
transcends these limits. On Semitic ground the body with whom the god
transacts is the tribe, the link is that of blood which connects all
the members of the tribe with their divine head or ancestor. In Aryan
religion also blood counts for much. The family altar is the seat of
worship, and he who has been cast out of his own family cannot
worship anywhere. The family gods are most thought of, no doubt, and
exercise immense power in the ways we have mentioned. But the worship
of which blood is the tie is not to the Aryan, as to the Semite, the
whole of religion. There are beings aloft as well as beings on the
earth and under the earth, and the worship of these beings is wider
than the family. The family may address Heaven by a special private
name, or at a particular spot, but Heaven itself was above all these
titles and places. The spirits of the household made, as all the
Semitic gods do, for separation, but the gods above made for union,
and as any community grew, the upper gods, who were worshipped by all
its members alike, became more lofty and more important. Thus we may
agree with Mr. Gomme when he speaks (_Ethnology of Folklore_, p. 68)
of the emancipation of the Aryans from the principle of local
worship, and says that the rise of the conception of gods who could
and did accompany the tribes wheresoever they travelled, was "the
greatest triumph of the Aryan race."
Farther than this it may be dangerous to go in a field so full of
uncertainty. In all Aryan worships there are sacrifices of various
kinds and degrees of importance. The horse sacrifice appears in
several of the nations as one of distinction, but human sacrifice was
most important of all, though in each of the Aryan lands commutations
are made for it at a very early stage. The strife of Aryan with
non-Aryan religions gave rise to many superstitions; after the
conquest the gods of the latter often became the bad gods or demons
of the former, the ministers of the defeated cult were regarded as
sorcerers or witches, the dethroned gods made many an attempt to come
back to their seats, and to revive disused practices. But a religion
based, as we have seen the Aryan to be, in the family affections is
destined to rise as civilisation advances. It will be found that the
Aryan draws a less absolute distinction than the Semite between the
human and the divine. To the Semite God is, broadly speaking, a
master, or Lord, whose word is a command, in regard to whom man is a
subject, a slave. To the Aryan the relation is a freer one. His god
is more human, and art and imagination can do more in his service.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED
E. Siecke, _Die religion d. Indogermanen_, 1897.
C. F. Keary, _Outlines of Primitive Belief among the Indo-European
Races_, 1882.