name also, _K_andrabhaga, which means "streak of the moon." The Greeks,
however, pronounced that [Greek: Sandarophagos], and this had the
unlucky meaning of "the devourer of Alexander." Hesychius tells us that
in order to avert the bad omen Alexander changed the name of that river
into [Greek: Akesines], which would mean "the Healer;" but he does not
tell, what the Veda tells us, that this name [Greek: Akesines] was a
Greek adaptation of another name of the same river, namely Asikni, which
had evidently supplied to Alexander the idea of calling the Asikni
[Greek: Akesines]. It is the modern Chinab.
Next to the Akesines we have the Vedic Vitasta, the last of the rivers
of the Punjab, changed in Greek into Hydaspes. It was to this river
that Alexander retired, before sending his fleet down the Indus and
leading his army back to Babylon. It is the modern Behat or Jilam.
I could identify still more of these Vedic rivers, such as, for
instance, the Kubha, the Greek Cophen, the modern Kabul river;[220]
but the names which I have traced from the Veda to Alexander, and in
many cases from Alexander again to our own time, seem to me sufficient
to impress upon us the real and historical character of the Veda.
Suppose the Veda were a forgery--suppose at least that it had been put
together after the time of Alexander--how could we explain these
names? They are names that have mostly a meaning in Sanskrit, they are
names corresponding very closely to their Greek corruptions, as
pronounced and written down by people who did not know Sanskrit. How
is a forgery possible here?
I selected this hymn for two reasons. First, because it shows us the
widest geographical horizon of the Vedic poets, confined by the snowy
mountains in the north, the Indus and the range of the Suleiman
mountains in the west, the Indus or the seas in the south, and the
valley of the Jumna and Ganges in the east. Beyond that, the world,
though open, was unknown to the Vedic poets. Secondly, because the
same hymn gives us also a kind of historical background to the Vedic
age. These rivers, as we may see them to-day, as they were seen by
Alexander and his Macedonians, were seen also by the Vedic poets. Here
we have an historical continuity--almost living witnesses, to tell us
that the people whose songs have been so strangely, ay, you may almost
say, so miraculously preserved to us, were real people, lairds with
their clans, priests, or rather, servants of their gods, shepherds
with their flocks, dotted about on the hills and valleys, with
inclosures or palisades here and there, with a few strongholds, too,
in case of need--living their short life on earth, as at that time
life might be lived by men, without much pushing and crowding and
trampling on each other--spring, summer, and winter leading them on
from year to year, and the sun in his rising and setting lifting up
their thoughts from their meadows and groves which they loved, to a
world in the East, from which they had come, or to a world in the
West, to which they were gladly hastening on. They had what I call
religion, though it was very simple, and hardly reduced as yet to the
form of a creed. "There is a Beyond," that was all they felt and knew,
though they tried, as well as they could, to give names to that
Beyond, and thus to change religion into _a_ religion. They had not as
yet a name for God--certainly not in our sense of the word--or even a
general name for the gods; but they invented name after name to enable
them to grasp and comprehend by some outward and visible tokens powers
whose presence they felt in nature, though their true and full essence
was to them, as it is to us, invisible and incomprehensible.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 150: Wilson, Lectures, p. 9.]
[Footnote 151: As it has been doubted, and even denied, that the
publication of the Rig-Veda and its native commentary has had some
important bearing on the resuscitation of the religious life of India,
I feel bound to give at least one from the many testimonials which I
have received from India. It comes from the Adi Brahma Samaj, founded
by Ram Mohun Roy, and now represented by its three branches, the Adi
Brahma Samaj, the Brahma Samaj of India, and the Sadharano Brahma
Samaj. "The Committee of the Adi Brahma Samaj beg to offer you their
hearty congratulations on the completion of the gigantic task which
has occupied you for the last quarter of a century. By publishing the
Rig-Veda at a time when Vedic learning has by some sad fatality become
almost extinct in the land of its birth, you have conferred a boon
upon us Hindus, for which we cannot but be eternally grateful."]
[Footnote 152: Rig-Veda X. 114, 5.]
[Footnote 153: Rig-Veda X. 121.]
[Footnote 154: Muir, iv. 9.]
[Footnote 155: Rig-Veda I. 139, 11.]
[Footnote 156: Rig-Veda III. 6, 9.]
[Footnote 157: The following names of Devapatnis or wives of the gods
are given in the Vaitana Sutra XV. 3 (ed. Garbe): P_ri_thivi, the wife
of Agni, Va_k_ of Vata, Sena of Indra, Dhena of B_ri_haspati, Pathya
of Pushan, Gayatri of Vasu, Trish_t_ubh of Rudra, _G_agati of Aditya,
Anush_t_ubh of Mitra, Vira_g_ of Varu_n_a, Pankti of Vish_n_u, Diksha
of Soma.]
[Footnote 158: Rig-Veda III. 9, 9.]
[Footnote 159: Grimm showed that Thorr is sometimes the supreme god,
while at other times he is the son of Odinn. This, as Professor Zimmer
truly remarks, need not be regarded as the result of a revolution, or
even of gradual decay, as in the case of Dyaus and Tyr, but simply
as inherent in the character of a nascent polytheism. See Zeitschrift
fuer D. A., vol. xii. p. 174.]
[Footnote 160: "Among not yet civilized races prayers are addressed to
a god with a special object, and to that god who is supposed to be
most powerful in a special domain. He becomes for the moment the
highest god to whom all others must give place. He may be invoked as
the highest and the only god, without any slight being intended for
the other gods."--Zimmer, l. c. p. 175.]
[Footnote 161: "Es handelt sich hier nicht um amerikanische oder
afrikanische Zersplitterung, sondern eine ueberraschende
Gleichartigkeit dehnt sich durch die Weite und Breite des Stillen
Oceans, und wenn wir Oceanien in der vollen Auffassung nehmen mit
Einschluss Mikro-und Mela-nesiens (bis Malaya), selbst weiter. Es
laesst sich sagen, dass ein einheitlicher Gedankenbau, in etwa 120
Laengen und 70 Breitegraden, ein Viertel unsers Erdglobus
ueberwoelbt."--Bastian, Die Heilige Sage der Polynesier, p. 57.]
[Footnote 162: Henry S. King & Co., London, 1876.]
[Footnote 163: P. 58.]
[Footnote 164: There is a second version of the story even in the
small island of Mangaia; see "Myths and Songs," p. 71.]
[Footnote 165: See before, p. 158.]
[Footnote 166: This explanation is considered altogether inadequate by
many scholars. It is, of course, not altogether a question of
learning, but also one of judgment.--AM. PUBS.]
[Footnote 167: "The Sacred Books of the East," vol. i. p. 249: "The first
half is the earth, the second half the heaven, their uniting the rain, the
uniter Par_g_anya." And so it is when it (Par_g_anya) rains thus
strongly--without ceasing, day and night together--then they say also,
"Heaven and earth have come together."--From the Aitareya-Ara_n_yaka, III.
2, 2.--A. W.]
[Footnote 168: Bastian, Heilige Sage der Polynesier, p. 36.]
[Footnote 169: Bergaigne, "La Religion Vedique," p. 240.]
[Footnote 170: Ait. Br. IV. 27; Muir, iv. p. 23.]
[Footnote 171: See Muir, iv. p. 24.]
[Footnote 172: Homer, Hymn xxx. 17.]
[Footnote 173: [Greek: Chaire theon meter, haloch Onranon asteroentos.]]
[Footnote 174: Euripides, Chrysippus, fragm. 6 (edit. Didot, p. 824):
[Greek: Gaia megiste kai Dios aither,
o men anthropon kai theon genetor,
he d' ugrobolous stagonas notious
paradexamene tiktei thnatous,
tiktei de Boran, phula te theron,
hothen onk hadikos
meter panton nenomistai.]]
[Footnote 175: Dionysius Halic., vol. v. p. 355; Muir, v. p. 27.]
[Footnote 176: Rig-Veda I. 22, 15.]
[Footnote 177: See "Lectures on the Science of Language," vol. ii. p.
468.]
[Footnote 178: Rig-Veda I. 160, 4.]
[Footnote 179: L. c. IV. 56, 3.]
[Footnote 180: L. c. VIII. 6, 5.]
[Footnote 181: L. c. III. 30, 5.]
[Footnote 182: L. c. III. 34, 8.]
[Footnote 183: L. c. III. 34, 8.]
[Footnote 184: L. c. VIII. 36, 4.]
[Footnote 185: L. c. X. 54, 3.]
[Footnote 186: Cf. IV. 17, 4, where Dyaus is the father of Indra; see
however Muir, iv. 31, note.]
[Footnote 187: Rig-Veda VI. 30, 1.]
[Footnote 188: L. c. I. 131, 1.]
[Footnote 189: L. c. IV. 17, 2.]
[Footnote 190: L. c. II. 40, 1.]
[Footnote 191: L. c. X. 121, 9.]
[Footnote 192: L. c. X. 190, 3.]
[Footnote 193: L. c. X. 81, 2.]
[Footnote 194: Rig-Veda VI. 70, 1.]
[Footnote 195: Rig-Veda X. 75. See Hibbert Lectures, Lect. iv.]
[Footnote 196: Vivasvat is a name of the sun, and the seat or home of
Vivasvat can hardly be anything but the earth, as the home of the sun,
or, in a more special sense, the place where a sacrifice is offered.]
[Footnote 197: I formerly translated yat va_g_an abhi adrava_h_ tvam by
"when thou rannest for the prizes." Grassman had translated similarly,
"When thou, O Sindhu, rannest to the prize of the battle," while Ludwig
wrote, "When thou, O Sindhu, wast flowing on to greater powers." Va_g_a,
connected with vegeo, vigeo, vigil, wacker (see Curtius, Grundzuege, No.
159), is one of the many difficult words in the Veda the general meaning
of which may be guessed, but in many places cannot yet be determined
with certainty. Va_g_a occurs very frequently, both in the singular and
the plural, and some of its meanings are clear enough. The Petersburg
Dictionary gives the following list of them--swiftness, race, prize of
race, gain, treasure, race-horse, etc. Here we perceive at once the
difficulty of tracing all these meanings back to a common source, though
it might be possible to begin with the meanings of strength, strife,
contest, race, whether friendly or warlike, then to proceed to what is
won in a race or in war, viz. booty, treasure, and lastly to take
vaga_h_ in the more general sense of acquisitions, goods, even goods
bestowed as gifts. We have a similar transition of meaning in the Greek
[Greek: athlos], contest, contest for a prize, and [Greek: athlon], the
prize of contest, reward, gift, while in the plural [Greek: ta athla]
stands again for contest, or even the place of combat. The Vedic
va_g_ambhara may in fact be rendered by [Greek: athlophoros], va_g_asati
by [Greek: athlosyne].
The transition from fight to prize is seen in passages such as:
Rig-Veda VI. 45, 12, va_g_an indra _s_ravayyan tvaya _g_eshna hitam
dhanam, "May we with thy help, O Indra, win the glorious fights, the
offered prize" (cf. [Greek: athlothetes]).
Rig-Veda VIII. 19, 18, te it va_g_ebhi_h_ _g_igyu_h_ mahat dhanam,
"They won great-wealth by battles."
What we want for a proper understanding of our verse, are passages
where we have, as here, a movement toward va_g_as in the plural. Such
passages are few; for instance: X. 53, 8, atra _g_ahama ye asan
a_s_evah _s_ivan vayam ut tarema abhi va_g_an, "Let us leave here
those who were unlucky (the dead), and let us get up to lucky toils."
No more is probably meant here when the Sindhu is said to run toward
her va_g_as, that is, her struggles, her fights, her race across the
mountains with the other rivers.]
[Footnote 198: On _s_ushma, strength, see Rig-Veda, translation, vol.
i. p. 105. We find _s_ubhram _s_ushmam II. 11, 4; and iyarti with
_s_ushmam IV. 17, 12.]
[Footnote 199: See Muir, Santkrit Texts, v. p. 344.]
[Footnote 200: "O Marudv_ri_dha with Asikni, Vitasta; O Ar_g_ikiya,
listen with the Sushoma," _Ludwig_. "Asikni and Vitasta and
Marudv_ri_dha, with the Sushoma, hear us, O Ar_g_ikiya," _Grassman._]
[Footnote 201: Marudv_ri_dha, a general name for river. According to
Roth the combined course of the Akesines and Hydaspes, _before_ the
junction with the Hydraotes; according to Ludwig, the river _after_
the junction with Hydraotes. Zimmer (Altindisches Leben, p. 12) adopts
Roth's, Kiepert in his maps follows Ludwig's opinion.]
[Footnote 202: According to Yaska, the Ar_g_ikiya is the Vipa_s_.
Vivien de Saint-Martin takes it for the country watered by the Suwan,
the Soanos of Megasthenes.]
[Footnote 203: According to Yaska the Sushoma is the Indus. Vivien de
Saint-Martin identifies it with the Suwan. Zimmer (l. c. p. 14) points
out that in Arrian, Indica, iv. 12, there is a various reading Soamos
for Soanos.]
[Footnote 204: "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. p. 157.]
[Footnote 205: Va_g_inivati is by no means an easy word. Hence all
translators vary, and none settles the meaning. Muir translates,
"yielding nutriment;" Zimmer, "having plenty of quick horses;" Ludwig,
"like a strong mare." Va_g_in, no doubt, means a strong horse, a
racer, but va_g_ini never occurs in the Rig-Veda in the sense of a
mare, and the text is not va_g_inivat, but va_g_inivati. If va_g_ini
meant mare, we might translate rich in mares, but that would be a mere
repetition after sva_s_va, possessed of good horses. Va_g_inivati is
chiefly applied to Ushas, Sarasvati, and here to the river Sindhu. It
is joined with va_g_ebhi_h_, Rig-Veda I. 3, 10, which, if va_g_ini
meant mare, would mean "rich in mares through horses." We also read,
Rig-Veda I. 48, 16, sam (na_h_ mimikshva) va_g_ai_h_ va_g_inivati,
which we can hardly translate by "give us horses, thou who art
possessed of mares;" nor, Rig-Veda I. 92, 15, yukshva hi va_g_inivati
a_s_van, "harness the horses, thou who art rich in mares." In most of
the passages where va_g_inivati occurs, the goddess thus addressed is
represented as rich, and asked to bestow wealth, and I should
therefore prefer to take va_g_ini, as a collective abstract noun, like
tretini, in the sense of wealth, originally booty, and to translate
va_g_inivati simply by rich, a meaning well adapted to every passage
where the word occurs.]
[Footnote 206: Ur_n_avati, rich in wool, probably refers to the flocks
of sheep for which the North-West of India was famous. See Rig-Veda I.
126, 7.]
[Footnote 207: Silamavati does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Muir
translates, "rich in plants;" Zimmer, "rich in water;" Ludwig takes it
as a proper name. Saya_n_a states that silama is a plant which is made
into ropes. That the meaning of silamavati was forgotten at an early
time we see by the Atharva-Veda III. 12, 2, substituting
sun_ri_tavati, for silamavati, as preserved in the _S_ankhayana
G_ri_hya-sutras, 3, 3. I think silama means straw, from whatever plant
it may be taken, and this would be equally applicable to a _s_ala, a
house, a sthu_n_a, a post, and to the river Indus. It may have been,
as Ludwig conjectures, an old local name, and in that case it may
possibly account for the name given in later times to the Suleiman
range.]
[Footnote 208: Madhuv_ri_dh is likewise a word which does not occur
again in the Rig-Veda. Saya_n_a explains it by nirgu_n_di and similar
plants, but it is doubtful what plant is meant. Gu_n_da is the name of a
grass, madhuv_ri_dh therefore may have been a plant such as sugar-cane,
that yielded a sweet juice, the Upper Indus being famous for sugar-cane;
see Hiouen-thsang, II. p. 105. I take adhivaste with Roth in the sense
"she dresses herself," as we might say "the river is dressed in
heather." Muir translates, "she traverses a land yielding sweetness;"
Zimmer, "she clothes herself in Madhuv_ri_dh;" Ludwig, "the Silamavati
throws herself into the increaser of the honey-sweet dew." All this
shows how little progress can be made in Vedic scholarship by merely
translating either words or verses, without giving at the same time a
full justification of the meaning assigned to every single word.]
[Footnote 209: See Petersburg Dictionary, s. v. virap_s_in.]
[Footnote 210: "Among the Hottentots, the Kunene, Okavango, and Orange
rivers, all have the name of Garib, _i.e._ the Runner."--Dr. Theoph.
Hahn, _Cape Times_, July 11, 1882.]
[Footnote 211: _Deh_li, not _Del_-high.--A. W.]
[Footnote 212: Cunningham, "Archaeological Survey of India," vol. xii.
p. 113.]
[Footnote 213: Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 20, 71: "Indus incolis Sindus
appellatus."]
[Footnote 214: The history of these names has been treated by
Professor Lassen, in his "Indische Alterthumskunde," and more lately
by Professor Kaegi, in his very careful essay, "Der Rig-Veda," pp.
146, 147.]
[Footnote 215: Ptol. vii. 1, 29.]
[Footnote 216: Arrian, Indica, viii. 5.]
[Footnote 217: Rig-Veda III. 33, 1: "From the lap of the mountains
Vipa_s_ and _S_utudri rush forth with their water like two lusty mares
neighing, freed from their tethers, like two bright mother-cows
licking (their calf).
"Ordered by Indra and waiting his bidding you run toward the sea like
two charioteers; running together, as your waters rise, the one goes
into the other, you bright ones."]
[Footnote 218: Other classical names are Hypanis, Bipasis, and
Bibasis. Yaska identifies it with the Ar_g_ikiya.]
[Footnote 219: Cf. Nirukta IX. 26.]
[Footnote 220: "The first tributaries which join the Indus before its
meeting with the Kubha or the Kabul river cannot be determined. All
travellers in these northern countries complain of the continual
changes in the names of the rivers, and we can hardly hope to find
traces of the Vedic names in existence there after the lapse of three
or four thousand years. The rivers intended may be the Shauyook,
Ladak, Abba Seen, and Burrindu, and one of the four rivers, the Rasa,
has assumed an almost fabulous character in the Veda. After the Indus
has joined the Kubha or the Kabul river, two names occur, the Gomati
and Krumu, which I believe I was the first to identify with the modern
rivers the Gomal and Kurrum. (Roth, Nirukta, Erlaeuterungen, p. 43,
Anm.) The Gomal falls into the Indus, between Dera Ismael Khan and
Paharpore, and although Elphinstone calls it a river only during the
rainy season, Klaproth (Foe-koue-ki, p. 23) describes its upper course
as far more considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le
Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi,
et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de
Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se
remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il
rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The
Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, according to
the poet, we should expect it south. It might be urged that poets are
not bound by the same rules as geographers, as we see, for instance,
in the verse immediately preceding. But if it should be taken as a
serious objection, it will be better to give up the Gomati than the
Krumu, the latter being the larger of the two, and we might then take
Gomati, 'rich in cattle,' as an adjective belonging to Krumu."--From a
review of General Cunningham's "Ancient Geography of India," in
_Nature_, 1871, Sept. 14.]
LECTURE VI.
VEDIC DEITIES.
The next important phenomenon of nature which was represented in the
Veda as a terrestrial deity is Fire, in Sanskrit Agni, in Latin
_ignis_. In the worship which is paid to the Fire and in the high
praises bestowed on Agni we can clearly perceive the traces of a
period in the history of man in which not only the most essential
comforts of life, but life itself, depended on the knowledge of
producing fire. To us fire has become so familiar that we can hardly
form an idea of what life would be without it. But how did the ancient
dwellers on earth get command and possession of fire? The Vedic poets
tell us that fire first came to them from the sky, in the form of
lightning, but that it disappeared again, and that then Matari_s_van,
a being to a certain extent like Prometheus, brought it back and
confided it to the safe keeping of the clan of the Bh_r_igus
(Phlegyas).[221]
In other poems we hear of the mystery of fire being produced by
rubbing pieces of wood; and here it is a curious fact that the name of
the wood thus used for rubbing is in Sanskrit Pramantha, a word which,
as Kuhn has shown, would in Greek come very near to the name of
Prometheus. The possession of fire, whether by preserving it as sacred
on the hearth, or by producing it at pleasure with the fire-drill,
represents an enormous step in early civilization. It enabled people
to cook their meat instead of eating it raw; it gave them the power of
carrying on their work by night; and in colder climates it really
preserved them from being frozen to death. No wonder, therefore, that
the fire should have been praised and worshipped as the best and
kindest of gods, the only god who had come down from heaven to live on
earth, the friend of man, the messenger of the gods, the mediator
between gods and men, the immortal among mortals. He, it is said,
protects the settlements of the Aryans, and frightens away the
black-skinned enemies.
Soon, however, fire was conceived by the Vedic poets under the more
general character of light and warmth, and then the presence of Agni was
perceived, not only on the hearth and the altar, but in the Dawn, in the
Sun, and in the world beyond the Sun, while at the same time his power was
recognized as ripening, or as they called it, as cooking, the fruits of
the earth, and as supporting also the warmth and the life of the human
body. From that point of view Agni, like other powers, rose to the rank of
a Supreme God.[222] He is said to have stretched out heaven and
earth--naturally, because without his light heaven and earth would have
been invisible and undistinguishable. The next poet says that Agni held
heaven aloft by his light, that he kept the two worlds asunder; and in the
end Agni is said to be the progenitor and father of heaven and earth, and
the maker of all that flies, or walks, or stands, or moves on earth.
Here we have once more the same process before our eyes. The human
mind begins with being startled by a single or repeated event, such as
the lightning striking a tree and devouring a whole forest, or a
spark of fire breaking forth from wood being rubbed against wood,
whether in a forest, or in the wheel of a carriage, or at last in a
fire-drill, devised on purpose. Man then begins to wonder at what to
him is a miracle, none the less so because it is a fact, a simple,
natural fact. He sees the effects of a power, but he can only guess at
its cause, and if he is to speak of it, he can only do so by speaking
of it as an agent, or as something like a human agent, and, if in some
respects not quite human, in others more than human or superhuman.
Thus the concept of Fire grew; and while it became more and more
generalized, it also became more sublime, more incomprehensible, more
divine. Without Agni, without fire, light, and warmth, life would have
been impossible. Hence he became the author and giver of life, of the
life of plants and animals and of men; and his favor having once been
implored for "light and life and all things," what wonder that in the
minds of some poets, and in the traditions of this or that
village-community he should have been raised to the rank of a supreme
ruler, a god above all gods, their own true god!
* * * * *