_Veda_, _i.e._, Knowledge, in the widest sense of the word--a
considerable mass of literature, yet evidently a wreck only, saved out
of a general deluge; _secondly_, the works collected in the Buddhist
Tripi_t_aka, now known to us chiefly in what is called the Pali
dialect, the Gatha dialects, and Sanskrit, and probably much added to
in later times.
The second period of Sanskrit literature comprehends everything else.
Both periods may be subdivided again, but this does not concern us at
present.
Now I am quite willing to admit that the literature of the second
period, the modern Sanskrit literature, never was a living or national
literature. It here and there contains remnants of earlier times,
adapted to the literary, religious, and moral tastes of a later
period; and whenever we are able to disentangle those ancient
elements, they may serve to throw light on the past, and, to a certain
extent, supplement what has been lost in the literature of the Vedic
times. The metrical Law-books, for instance, contain old materials
which existed during the Vedic period, partly in prose, as Sutras,
partly in more ancient metres, as Gathas. The Epic poems, the
Mahabharata and Ramaya_n_a, have taken the place of the old Itihasas
and Akhyanas. The Pura_n_as, even, may contain materials, though much
altered, of what was called in Vedic literature the Pura_n_a.[103]
But the great mass of that later literature is artificial or
scholastic, full of interesting compositions, and by no means devoid
of originality and occasional beauty; yet with all that, curious only,
and appealing to the interests of the Oriental scholar far more than
the broad human sympathies of the historian and the philosopher.
It is different with the ancient literature of India, the literature
dominated by the Vedic and the Buddhistic religions. That literature
opens to us a chapter in what has been called the Education of the
Human Race, to which we can find no parallel anywhere else. Whoever
cares for the historical growth of our language, that is, of our
thoughts; whoever cares for the first intelligible development of
religion and mythology; whoever cares for the first foundation of what
in later times we call the sciences of astronomy, metronomy, grammar,
and etymology; whoever cares for the first intimations of
philosophical thought, for the first attempts at regulating family
life, village life, and state life, as founded on religion,
ceremonial, tradition and contract (samaya)--must in future pay the
same attention to the literature of the Vedic period as to the
literatures of Greece and Rome and Germany.
As to the lessons which the early literature of Buddhism may teach us,
I need not dwell on them at present. If I may judge from the numerous
questions that are addressed to me with regard to that religion and
its striking coincidences with Christianity, Buddhism has already
become a subject of general interest, and will and ought to become so
more and more.[104] On that whole class of literature, however, it is
not my intention to dwell in this short course of Lectures, which can
hardly suffice even for a general survey of Vedic literature, and for
an elucidation of the principal lessons which, I think, we may learn
from the Hymns, the Brahma_n_as, the Upanishads, and the Sutras.
It was a real misfortune that Sanskrit literature became first known
to the learned public in Europe through specimens belonging to the
second, or, what I called, the Renaissance period. The Bhagavadgita,
the plays of Kalidasa, such as _S_akuntala or Urva_s_i, a few episodes
from the Mahabharata and Ramaya_n_a, such as those of Nala and the
Ya_gn_adattabadha, the fables of the Hitopadesa, and the sentences of
Bhart_ri_hari are, no doubt, extremely curious; and as, at the time
when they first became known in Europe, they were represented to be of
extreme antiquity, and the work of a people formerly supposed to be
quite incapable of high literary efforts, they naturally attracted the
attention of men such as Sir William Jones in England, Herder and
Goethe in Germany, who were pleased to speak of them in terms of
highest admiration. It was the fashion at that time to speak of
Kalidasa, as, for instance, Alexander von Humboldt did even in so
recent a work as his Kosmos, as "the great contemporary of Virgil and
Horace, who lived at the splendid court of Vikramaditya," this
Vikramaditya being supposed to be the founder of the Samvat era, 56
B.C. But all this is now changed. Whoever the Vikramaditya was who is
supposed to have defeated the _S_akas, and to have founded another
era, the Samvat era, 56 B.C., he certainly did not live in the first
century B.C. Nor are the Indians looked upon any longer as an
illiterate race, and their poetry as popular and artless. On the
contrary, they are judged now by the same standards as Persians and
Arabs, Italians or French; and, measured by that standard, such works
as Kalidasa's plays are not superior to many plays that have long been
allowed to rest in dust and peace on the shelves of our libraries.
Their antiquity is no longer believed in by any critical Sanskrit
scholar. Kalidasa is mentioned with Bharavi as a famous poet in an
inscription[105] dated A.D. 585-6 (507 _S_aka era), and for the
present I see no reason to place him much earlier. As to the Laws of
Manu, which used to be assigned to a fabulous antiquity,[106] and are
so still sometimes by those who write at random or at second-hand, I
doubt whether, in their present form, they can be older than the
fourth century of our era, nay I am quite prepared to see an even
later date assigned to them. I know this will seem heresy to many
Sanskrit scholars, but we must try to be honest to ourselves. Is there
any evidence to constrain us to assign the Manava-dharma-_s_astra,
such as we now possess it, written in continuous _S_lokas, to any date
anterior to 300 A.D.? And if there is not, why should we not openly
state it, challenge opposition, and feel grateful if our doubts can be
removed?
That Manu was a name of high legal authority before that time, and
that Manu and the Manavam are frequently quoted in the ancient legal
Sutras, is quite true; but this serves only to confirm the conviction
that the literature which succeeded the Turanian invasion is full of
wrecks saved from the intervening deluge. If what we call the _Laws of
Manu_ had really existed as a code of laws, like the Code of
Justinian, during previous centuries, is it likely that it should
nowhere have been quoted and appealed to?
Varahamihira (who died 587 A.D.) refers to Manu several times, but not
to a Manava-dharma-_s_astra; and the only time where he seems actually
to quote a number of verses from Manu, these verses are not to be met
with in our text.[107]
I believe it will be found that the century in which Varahamihara
lived and wrote was the age of the literary Renaissance in India.[108]
That Kalidasa and Bharavi were famous at that time, we know from the
evidence of inscriptions. We also know that during that century the
fame of Indian literature had reached Persia, and that the King of
Persia, Khosru Nushirvan, sent his physician, Barzoi, to India, in
order to translate the fables of the Pa_nk_atantra, or rather their
original, from Sanskrit into Pahlavi. The famous "Nine Gems," or
"the nine classics," as we should say, have been referred, at least in
part, to the same age,[109] and I doubt whether we shall be able to
assign a much earlier date to anything we possess of Sanskrit
literature, excepting always the Vedic and Buddhistic writings.
Although the specimens of this modern Sanskrit literature, when they
first became known, served to arouse a general interest, and serve
even now to keep alive a certain superficial sympathy for Indian
literature, more serious students had soon disposed of these
compositions, and while gladly admitting their claim to be called
pretty and attractive, could not think of allowing to Sanskrit
literature a place among the world-literatures, a place by the side of
Greek and Latin, Italian, French, English, or German.
There was indeed a time when people began to imagine that all that was
worth knowing about Indian literature was known, and that the only
ground on which Sanskrit could claim a place among the recognized
branches of learning in a university was its usefulness for the study
of the Science of Language.
At that very time, however, now about forty years ago, a new start was
made, which has given to Sanskrit scholarship an entirely new
character. The chief author of that movement was Burnouf, then
professor at the _College de France_ in Paris, an excellent scholar,
but at the same time a man of wide views and true historical
instincts, and the last man to waste his life on mere Nalas and
_S_akuntalas. Being brought up in the old traditions of the classical
school in France (his father was the author of the well-known Greek
Grammar), then for a time a promising young barrister, with
influential friends such as Guizot, Thiers, Mignet, Villemain, at his
side, and with a brilliant future before him, he was not likely to
spend his life on pretty Sanskrit ditties. What he wanted when he
threw himself on Sanskrit was history, human history, world-history,
and with an unerring grasp he laid hold of Vedic literature and
Buddhist literature, as the two stepping-stones in the slough of
Indian literature. He died young, and has left a few arches only of
the building he wished to rear. But his spirit lived on in his pupils
and his friends, and few would deny that the first impulse, directly
or indirectly, to all that has been accomplished since by the students
of Vedic and Buddhist literature, was given by Burnouf and his
lectures at the _College de France_.
What then, you may ask, do we find in that ancient Sanskrit literature
and cannot find anywhere else? My answer is: We find there the Aryan
man, whom we know in his various characters, as Greek, Roman, German,
Celt, and Slave, in an entirely new character. Whereas in his
migrations northward his active and political energies are called out
and brought to their highest perfection, we find the other side of the
human character, the passive and meditative, carried to its fullest
growth in India. In some of the hymns of the Rig-Veda we can still
watch an earlier phase. We see the Aryan tribes taking possession of
the land, and under the guidance of such warlike gods as Indra and the
Maruts, defending their new homes against the assaults of the
black-skinned aborigines as well as against the inroads of later Aryan
colonists. But that period of war soon came to an end, and when the
great mass of the people had once settled down in their homesteads,
the military and political duties seem to have been monopolized by
what we call a _caste_,[110] that is by a small aristocracy, while the
great majority of the people were satisfied with spending their days
within the narrow spheres of their villages, little concerned about
the outside world, and content with the gifts that nature bestowed on
them, without much labor. We read in the Mahabharata (XIII. 22):
"There is fruit on the trees in every forest, which every one
who likes may pluck without trouble. There is cool and sweet
water in the pure rivers here and there. There is a soft bed
made of the twigs of beautiful creepers. And yet wretched
people suffer pain at the door of the rich!"
At first sight we may feel inclined to call this quiet enjoyment of
life, this mere looking on, a degeneracy rather than a growth. It
seems so different from what _we_ think life ought to be. Yet, from a
higher point of view it may appear that those Southern Aryans have
chosen the good part, or at least the part good for them, while we,
Northern Aryans, have been careful and troubled about many things.
It is at all events a problem worth considering whether, as there is
in nature a South and a North, there are not two hemispheres also in
human nature, both worth developing--the active, combative, and
political on one side, the passive, meditative, and philosophical on
the other; and for the solution of that problem no literature
furnishes such ample materials as that of the Veda, beginning with the
Hymns and ending with the Upanishads. We enter into a new world--not
always an attractive one, least of all to us; but it possesses one
charm, it is real, it is of natural growth, and like everything of
natural growth, I believe it had a hidden purpose, and was intended to
teach us some kind of lesson that is worth learning, and that
certainly we could learn nowhere else. We are not called upon either
to admire or to despise that ancient Vedic literature; we have simply
to study and to try to understand it.
There have been silly persons who have represented the development of
the Indian mind as superior to any other, nay, who would make us go
back to the Veda or to the sacred writings of the Buddhists in order
to find there a truer religion, a purer morality, and a more sublime
philosophy than our own. I shall not even mention the names of these
writers or the titles of their works. But I feel equally impatient
when I see other scholars criticising the ancient literature of India
as if it were the work of the nineteenth century, as if it represented
an enemy that must be defeated, and that can claim no mercy at our
hands. That the Veda is full of childish, silly, even to our minds
monstrous conceptions, who would deny? But even these monstrosities
are interesting and instructive; nay, many of them, if we can but make
allowance for different ways of thought and language, contain germs of
truth and rays of light, all the more striking because breaking upon
us through the veil of the darkest night.
Here lies the general, the truly human interest which the _ancient_
literature of India possesses, and which gives it a claim on the
attention, not only of Oriental scholars or of students of ancient
history, but of every educated man and woman.
There are problems which we may put aside for a time, ay, which we
must put aside while engaged each in our own hard struggle for life,
but which will recur for all that, and which, whenever they do recur,
will stir us more deeply than we like to confess to others, or even to
ourselves. It is true that with us one day only out of seven is set
apart for rest and meditation, and for the consideration of what the
Greeks called [Greek: ta megista]--"the greatest things."
It is true that that seventh day also is passed by many of us either
in mere church-going routine or in thoughtless rest. But whether on
week-days or on Sundays, whether in youth or in old age, there are
moments, rare though they be, yet for all that the most critical
moments of our life, when the old simple questions of humanity return
to us in all their intensity, and we ask ourselves, What are we? What
is this life on earth meant for? Are we to have no rest here, but to
be always toiling and building up our own happiness out of the ruins
of the happiness of our neighbors? And when we have made our home on
earth as comfortable as it can be made with steam and gas and
electricity, are we really so much happier than the Hindu in his
primitive homestead?
With us, as I said just now, in these Northern climates, where life is
and always must be a struggle, and a hard struggle too, and where
accumulation of wealth has become almost a necessity to guard against
the uncertainties of old age or the accidents inevitable in our
complicated social life--with us, I say, and in our society, hours of
rest and meditation are but few and far between. It was the same as
long as we know the history of the Teutonic races; it was the same
even with Romans and Greeks. The European climate, with its long cold
winters, in many places also the difficulty of cultivating the soil,
the conflict of interests between small communities, has developed the
instinct of self-preservation (not to say self-indulgence) to such an
extent that most of the virtues and most of the vices of European
society can be traced back to that source. Our own character was
formed under these influences, by inheritance, by education, by
necessity. We all lead a fighting-life; our highest ideal of life is a
fighting-life. We work till we can work no longer, and are proud, like
old horses, to die in harness. We point with inward satisfaction to
what we and our ancestors have achieved by hard work, in founding a
family or a business, a town or a state. We point to the marvels of
what we call civilization--our splendid cities, our high-roads and
bridges, our ships, our railways, our telegraphs, our electric light,
our pictures, our statues, our music, our theatres. We imagine we have
made life on earth quite perfect--in some cases so perfect that we are
almost sorry to leave it again. But the lesson which both Brahmans and
Buddhists are never tired of teaching is that this life is but a
journey from one village to another, and not a resting-place. Thus we
read:[111]
"As a man journeying to another village may enjoy a night's
rest in the open air, but, after leaving his resting-place,
proceeds again on his journey the next day, thus father,
mother, wife, and wealth are all but like a night's rest to
us--wise people do not cling to them forever."
Instead of simply despising this Indian view of life, might we not
pause for a moment and consider whether their philosophy of life is
entirely wrong, and ours entirely right; whether this earth was really
meant for work only (for with us pleasure also has been changed into
work), for constant hurry and flurry; or whether we, sturdy Northern
Aryans, might not have been satisfied with a little less of work, and
a little less of so-called pleasure, but with a little more of thought
and a little more of rest. For, short as our life is, we are not mere
may-flies, that are born in the morning to die at night. We have a
past to look back to and a future to look forward to, and it may be
that some of the riddles of the future find their solution in the
wisdom of the past.
Then why should we always fix our eyes on the present only? Why should
we always be racing, whether for wealth or for power or for fame? Why
should we never rest and be thankful?
I do not deny that the manly vigor, the silent endurance, the public
spirit, and the private virtues too, of the citizens of European
states represent one side, it may be a very important side, of the
destiny which man has to fulfil on earth.
But there is surely another side of our nature, and possibly another
destiny open to man in his journey across this life, which should not
be entirely ignored. If we turn our eyes to the East, and particularly
to India, where life is, or at all events was, no very severe
struggle, where the climate was mild, the soil fertile, where
vegetable food in small quantities sufficed to keep the body in health
and strength, where the simplest hut or cave in a forest was all the
shelter required, and where social life never assumed the gigantic, ay
monstrous proportions of a London or Paris, but fulfilled itself
within the narrow boundaries of village-communities--was it not, I
say, natural there, or, if you like, was it not _intended_ there, that
another side of human nature should be developed--not the active, the
combative, and acquisitive, but the passive, the meditative, and
reflective? Can we wonder that the Aryans, who stepped as strangers
into some of the happy fields and valleys along the Indus or the
Ganges, should have looked upon life as a perpetual Sunday or holiday,
or a kind of long vacation, delightful so long as it lasts, but which
must come to an end sooner or later? Why should they have accumulated
wealth? why should they have built palaces? why should they have
toiled day and night? After having provided from day to day for the
small necessities of the body, they thought they had the right, it may
be the duty, to look round upon this strange exile, to look inward
upon themselves, upward to something not themselves, and to see
whether they could not understand a little of the true purport of that
mystery which we call life on earth.
Of course _we_ should call such notions of life dreamy, unreal,
unpractical, but may not _they_ look upon our notions of life as
short-sighted, fussy, and, in the end, most unpractical, because
involving a sacrifice of life for the sake of life?
No doubt these are both extreme views, and they have hardly ever been
held or realized in that extreme form by any nation, whether in the
East or in the West. We are not always plodding--we sometimes allow
ourselves an hour of rest and peace and thought--nor were the ancient
people of India always dreaming and meditating on [Greek: ta megista],
on the great problems of life, but, when called upon, we know that they
too could fight like heroes, and that, without machinery, they could by
patient toil raise even the meanest handiwork into a work of art, a real
joy to the maker and to the buyer.
All then that I wish to put clearly before you is this, that the Aryan
man, who had to fulfil his mission in India, might naturally be
deficient in many of the practical and fighting virtues, which were
developed in the Northern Aryans by the very struggle without which
they could not have survived, but that his life on earth had not
therefore been entirely wasted. His very view of life, though we
cannot adopt it in this Northern climate, may yet act as a lesson and
a warning to us, not, for the sake of life, to sacrifice the highest
objects of life.
The greatest conqueror of antiquity stood in silent wonderment before
the Indian Gymnosophists, regretting that he could not communicate
with them in their own language, and that their wisdom could not reach
him except through the contaminating channels of sundry interpreters.
That need not be so at present. Sanskrit is no longer a difficult
language, and I can assure every young Indian civil servant that if he
will but go to the fountain-head of Indian wisdom, he will find there,
among much that is strange and useless, some lessons of life which are
worth learning, and which we in our haste are too apt to forget or to
despise.
Let me read you a few sayings only, which you may still hear repeated
in India when, after the heat of the day, the old and the young
assemble together under the shadow of their village tree--sayings
which to them seem truth; to us, I fear, mere truism!
"As all have to sleep together laid low in the earth, why do
foolish people wish to injure one another?[112]
"A man seeking for eternal happiness (moksha) might obtain it
by a hundredth part of the sufferings which a foolish man
endures in the pursuit of riches.[113]
"Poor men eat more excellent bread than the rich: for hunger
gives it sweetness.[114]
"Our body is like the foam of the sea, our life like a bird,
our company with those whom we love does not last forever;
why then sleepest thou, my son?[115]
"As two logs of wood meet upon the ocean and then separate
again, thus do living creatures meet.[116]
"Our meeting with wives, relations, and friends occurs on our
journey. Let a man therefore see clearly where he is, whither
he will go, what he is, why tarrying here, and why grieving
for anything.[117]
"Family, wife, children, our very body and our wealth, they
all pass away. They do not belong to us. What then is ours?
Our good and our evil deeds.[118]
"When thou goest away from here, no one will follow thee.
Only thy good and thy evil deeds, they will follow thee
wherever thou goest.[119]
"Whatever act, good or bad, a man performs, of that by
necessity he receives the recompense.[120]
"According to the Veda[121] the soul (life) is eternal, but
the body of all creatures is perishable. When the body is
destroyed, the soul departs elsewhere, fettered by the bonds
of our works.
"If I know that my own body is not mine, and yet that the
whole earth is mine, and again that it is both mine and
thine, no harm can happen then.[122]
"As a man puts on new garments in this world, throwing aside
those which he formerly wore, even so the Self[123] of man
puts on new bodies which are in accordance with his
acts.[124]
"No weapons will hurt the Self of man, no fire will burn it,
no water moisten it, no wind will dry it up.