_S_raddha is in modern times, took evidently the same view. "The first
set of funeral ceremonies," he writes, "is adapted to effect, by means
of oblations, the re-embodying of the soul of the deceased, after
burning his corpse. The apparent scope of the second set is to raise
his shade from this world, where it would else, according to the
notions of the Hindus, continue to roam among demons and evil spirits,
up to heaven, and then deify him, as it were, among the manes of
departed ancestors. For this end, a _S_raddha should regularly be
offered to the deceased on the day after the mourning expires; twelve
other _S_raddhas _singly_ to the deceased in twelve successive months;
similar obsequies at the end of the third fortnight, and also in the
sixth month, and in the twelfth; and the oblation called Sapi_nd_ana
on the first anniversary of his decease.[324] At this Sapi_nd_ana
_S_raddha, which is the last of the ekoddish_t_a _s_raddhas, four
funeral cakes are offered to the deceased and his three ancestors,
that consecrated to the deceased being divided into three portions and
mixed with the other three cakes. The portion retained is often
offered to the deceased, and the act of union and fellowship becomes
complete."[325]
When this system of _S_raddhas had once been started, it seems to have
spread very rapidly. We soon hear of the monthly _S_raddha, not only
in memory of one person lately deceased, but as part of the
Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, and as obligatory, not only on householders (agnimat),
but on other persons also, and, not only on the three upper castes,
but even, without hymns, on _S_udras,[326] and as to be performed, not
only on the day of New-Moon, but on other days also,[327] whenever
there was an opportunity. Gobhila seems to look upon the
Pi_nd_apit_ri_ya_gn_a, as itself a _S_raddha,[328] and the commentator
holds that, even if there are no pi_nd_as or cakes, the Brahmans ought
still to be fed. This _S_raddha, however, is distinguished from the
other, the true _S_raddha, called Anvaharya, which follows it,[329]
and which is properly known by the name of Parva_n_a _S_raddha.
The same difficulties which confront us when we try to form a clear
conception of the character of the various ancestral ceremonies, were
felt by the Brahmans themselves, as may be seen from the long
discussions in the commentary on the _S_raddha-kalpa[330] and from the
abusive language used by _K_andrakanta Tarkalankara against
Raghunandana. The question with them assumes the form of what is
pradhana (primary) and what is anga (secondary) in these sacrifices,
and the final result arrived at is that sometimes the offering of
cakes is pradhana, as in the Pi_nd_apit_ri_ya_gn_a, sometimes the
feeding of Brahmans only, as in the Nitya-_s_raddha, sometimes both,
as in the Sapi_nd_ikara_n_a.
We may safely say, therefore, that not a day passed in the life of the
ancient people of India on which they were not reminded of their
ancestors, both near and distant, and showed their respect for them,
partly by symbolic offerings to the Manes, partly by charitable gifts
to deserving persons, chiefly Brahmans. These offertories varied from
the simplest, such as milk and fruits, to the costliest, such as gold
and jewels. The feasts given to those who were invited to officiate or
assist at a _S_raddha seem in some cases to have been very
sumptuous,[331] and what is very important, the eating of meat, which
in later times was strictly forbidden in many sects, must, when the
Sutras were written, have been fully recognized at these feasts, even
to the killing and eating of a cow.[332]
This shows that these _S_raddhas, though, possibly of later date than
the Pit_ri_ya_gn_as, belong nevertheless to a very early phase of
Indian life. And though much may have been changed in the outward form
of these ancient ancestral sacrifices, their original solemn character
has remained unchanged. Even at present, when the worship of the
ancient Devas is ridiculed by many who still take part in it, the
worship of the ancestors and the offering of _S_raddhas have
maintained much of their old sacred character. They have sometimes
been compared to the "communion" in the Christian Church, and it is
certainly true that many natives speak of their funeral and ancestral
ceremonies with a hushed voice and with real reverence. They alone
seem still to impart to their life on earth a deeper significance and
a higher prospect. I could go even a step further and express my
belief, that the absence of such services for the dead and of
ancestral commemorations is a real loss in our own religion. Almost
every religion recognizes them as tokens of a loving memory offered to
a father, to a mother, or even to a child, and though in many
countries they may have proved a source of superstition, there runs
through them all a deep well of living human faith that ought never to
be allowed to perish. The early Christian Church had to sanction the
ancient prayers for the Souls of the Departed, and in more southern
countries the services on All Saints' and on All Souls' Day continue
to satisfy a craving of the human heart which must be satisfied in
every religion.[333] We, in the North, shrink from these open
manifestations of grief, but our hearts know often a deeper
bitterness; nay, there would seem to be a higher truth than we at
first imagine in the belief of the ancients that the souls of our
beloved ones leave us no rest, unless they are appeased by daily
prayers, or, better still, by daily acts of goodness in remembrance of
them.[334]
But there is still another Beyond that found expression in the
ancient religion of India. Besides the Devas or Gods, and besides the
Pit_ri_s or Fathers, there was a third world, without which the
ancient religion of India could not have become what we see it in the
Veda. That third Beyond was what the poets of the Veda call the
_R i_ t a, and which I believe meant originally no more than "the
straight line." It is applied to the straight line of the sun in its
daily course, to the straight line followed by day and night, to the
straight line that regulates the seasons, to the straight line which,
in spite of many momentary deviations, was discovered to run through
the whole realm of nature. We call that _Ri_ta, that straight, direct,
or right line, when we apply it in a more general sense, _the Law of
Nature_; and when we apply it to the moral world, we try to express
the same idea again by speaking of the _Moral Law_, the law on which
our life is founded, the eternal Law of Right and Reason, or, it may
be, "that which makes for righteousness" both within us and
without.[335]
And thus, as a thoughtful look on nature led to the first perception
of bright gods, and in the end of a God of light, as love of our
parents was transfigured into piety and a belief in immortality, a
recognition of the straight lines in the world without, and in the
world within, was raised into the highest faith, a faith in a law that
underlies everything, a law in which we may trust, whatever befall, a
law which speaks within us with the divine voice of conscience, and
tells us "this is _ri_ta," "this is right," "this is true," whatever
the statutes of our ancestors, or even the voices of our bright gods,
may say to the contrary.[336]
These three Beyonds are the three revelations of antiquity; and it is
due almost entirely to the discovery of the Veda that we, in this
nineteenth century of ours, have been allowed to watch again these
early phases of thought and religion, which had passed away long
before the beginnings of other literatures.[337] In the Veda an
ancient city has been laid bare before our eyes which, in the history
of all other religions, is filled up with rubbish, and built over by
new architects. Some of the earliest and most instructive scenes of
our distant childhood have risen once more above the horizon of our
memory which, until thirty or forty years ago, seemed to have
vanished forever.
* * * * *
Only a few words more to indicate at least how this religious growth
in India contained at the same time the germs of Indian philosophy.
Philosophy in India is, what it ought to be, not the denial, but the
fulfilment of religion; it is the highest religion, and the oldest
name of the oldest system of philosophy in India is V e d a n t a, that is,
the end, the goal, the highest object of the Veda.
Let us return once more to that ancient theologian who lived in the
fifth century B.C., and who told us that, even before his time, all
the gods had been discovered to be but three gods, the gods of the
_Earth_, the gods of the _Air_, and the gods of the _Sky_, invoked
under various names. The same writer tells us that in reality there is
but _one_ God, but he does not call him the Lord, or the Highest God,
the Creator, Ruler, and Preserver of all things, but he calls him
A t m a n, THE SELF. The one Atman or Self, he says, is praised in many
ways owing to the greatness of the godhead. And then he goes on to
say: "The other gods are but so many members of the one Atman, Self,
and thus it has been said that the poets compose their praises
according to the multiplicity of the natures of the beings whom they
praise."
It is true, no doubt, that this is the language of a philosophical
theologian, not of an ancient poet. Yet these philosophical
reflections belong to the fifth century before our era, if not to an
earlier date; and the first germs of such thoughts may be discovered
in some of the Vedic hymns also. I have quoted already from the hymns
such passages as[338]--"They speak of Mitra, Varu_n_a, Agni; then he
is the heavenly bird Garutmat; _that which is and is one_ the poets
call in various ways; they speak of Yama, Agni, Matari_s_van."
In another hymn, in which the sun is likened to a bird, we read: "Wise
poets represent by their words the bird who is one, in many
ways."[339]
All this is still tinged with mythology; but there are other passages
from which a purer light beams upon us, as when one poet asks:[340]
"Who saw him when he was first born, when he who has no bones
bore him who has bones? Where was the breath, the blood, the
Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any that knew
it?"
Here, too, the expression is still helpless, but though the flesh is
weak, the spirit is very willing. The expression, "He who has bones"
is meant for that which has assumed consistency and form, the Visible,
as opposed to that which has no bones, no body, no form, the
Invisible, while "breath, blood, and self of the world" are but so
many attempts at finding names and concepts for what is by necessity
inconceivable, and therefore unnamable.
In the second period of Vedic literature, in the so-called
Brahma_n_as, and more particularly in what is called the Upanishads,
or the Vedanta portion, these thoughts advance to perfect clearness
and definiteness. Here the development of religious thought, which
took its beginning in the hymns, attains to its fulfilment. The circle
becomes complete. Instead of comprehending the One by many names, the
many names are now comprehended to be the One. The old names are
openly discarded; even such titles as Pra_g_apati, lord of creatures,
Vi_s_vakarman, maker of all things, Dhat_ri_, creator, are put aside
as inadequate. The name now used is an expression of nothing but the
purest and highest subjectiveness--it is A t m a n, the Self, far more
abstract than our E g o--the Self of all things, the Self of all the old
mythological gods--for they were not _mere_ names, but names intended
for something--lastly, the Self in which each individual self must
find rest, must come to himself, must find his own true Self.
You may remember that I spoke to you in my first lecture of a boy who
insisted on being sacrificed by his father, and who, when he came to
Yama, the ruler of the departed, was granted three boons, and who then
requested, as his third boon, that Yama should tell him what became of
man after death. That dialogue forms part of one of the Upanishads, it
belongs to the Vedanta, the end of the Veda, the highest aim of the
Veda. I shall read you a few extracts from it.
Yama, the King of the Departed, says:
"Men who are fools, dwelling in ignorance, though wise in
their own sight, and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round
and round, staggering to and fro, like blind led by the
blind.
"The future never rises before the eyes of the careless
child, deluded by the delusions of wealth. _This_ is the
world, he thinks; there is no other; thus he falls again and
again under my sway (the sway of death).
"The wise, who by means of meditating on his _Self_,
recognizes the Old (the old man within) who is difficult to
see, who has entered into darkness, who is hidden in the
cave, who dwells in the abyss, as God, he indeed leaves joy
and sorrow far behind.
"That Self, the Knower, is not born, it dies not; it came
from nothing, it never became anything. The Old man is
unborn, from everlasting to everlasting; he is not killed,
though the body be killed.
"That Self is smaller than small, greater than great; hidden
in the heart of the creature. A man who has no more desires
and no more griefs, sees the majesty of the Self by the grace
of the creator.
"Though sitting still, he walks far; though lying down, he
goes everywhere. Who save myself is able to know that God,
who rejoices, and rejoices not?
"That Self cannot be gained by the Veda; nor by the
understanding, nor by much learning. He whom the Self
chooses, by him alone the Self can be gained.
"The Self chooses him as his own. But he who has not first
turned away from his wickedness, who is not calm and subdued,
or whose mind is not at rest, he can never obtain the Self,
even by knowledge.
"No mortal lives by the breath that goes up and by the breath
that goes down. We live by another, in whom both repose.
"Well then, I shall tell thee this mystery, the eternal word
(Brahman), and what happens to the _Self_, after reaching
death.
"Some are born again, as living beings, others enter into
stocks and stones, according to their work, and according to
their knowledge.
"But he, the Highest Person, who wakes in us while we are
asleep, shaping one lovely sight after another, he indeed is
called the Light, he is called Brahman, he alone is called
the Immortal. All worlds are founded on it, and no one goes
beyond. _This is that._
"As the one fire, after it has entered the world, though one,
becomes different according to what it burns, thus the One
Self within all things, becomes different, according to
whatever it enters, but it exists also apart.
"As the sun, the eye of the world, is not contaminated by the
external impurities seen by the eye, thus the One Self within
all things is never contaminated by the sufferings of the
world, being himself apart.
"There is one eternal thinker, thinking non-eternal thoughts;
he, though one, fulfils the desires of many. The wise who
perceive Him within their Self, to them belongs eternal life,
eternal peace.[341]
"Whatever there is, the whole world, when gone forth (from
Brahman), trembles in his breath. That Brahman is a great
terror, like a drawn sword. Those who know it, become
immortal.
"He (Brahman) cannot be reached by speech, by mind, or by the
eye. He cannot be apprehended, except by him who says, _He
is._
"When all desires that dwell in the heart cease, then the
mortal becomes immortal, and obtains Brahman.
"When all the fetters of the heart here on earth are broken,
when all that binds us to this life is undone, then the
mortal becomes immortal--here my teaching ends."
This is what is called Vedanta, the Veda-end, the end of the Veda, and
this is the religion or the philosophy, whichever you like to call it,
that has lived on from about 500 B.C. to the present day. If the
people of India can be said to have now any system of religion at
all--apart from their ancestral sacrifices and their _S_raddhas, and
apart from mere caste-observances--it is to be found in the Vedanta
philosophy, the leading tenets of which are known, to some extent in
every village.[342] That great revival of religion, which was
inaugurated some fifty years ago by Ram-Mohun Roy, and is now known as
the Brahma-Sama_g_, under the leadership of my noble friend Keshub
Chunder Sen, was chiefly founded on the Upanishads, and was Vedantic
in spirit. There is, in fact, an unbroken continuity between the most
modern and the most ancient phases of Hindu thought, extending over
more than three thousand years.
To the present day India acknowledges no higher authority in matters
of religion, ceremonial, customs, and law than the _Veda_, and so long
as India is India, nothing will extinguish that ancient spirit of
Vedantism which is breathed by every Hindu from his earliest youth,
and pervades in various forms the prayers even of the idolater, the
speculations of the philosopher, and the proverbs of the beggar.
For purely practical reasons therefore--I mean for the very practical
object of knowing something of the secret springs which determine the
character, the thoughts and deeds of the lowest as well as of the
highest among the people in India--an acquaintance with their
religion, which is founded on the Veda, and with their philosophy,
which is founded on the Vedanta, is highly desirable.
It is easy to make light of this, and to ask, as some statesmen have
asked, even in Europe, What has religion, or what has philosophy, to
do with politics? In India, in spite of all appearances to the
contrary, and notwithstanding the indifference on religious matters so
often paraded before the world by the Indians themselves, religion,
and philosophy too, are great powers still. Read the account that has
lately been published of two native statesmen, the administrators of
two first-class states in Saurash_t_ra, Junagadh, and Bhavnagar,
Gokulaji and Gauri_s_ankara,[343] and you will see whether the Vedanta
is still a moral and a political power in India or not.
But I claim even more for the Vedanta, and I recommend its study, not
only to the candidates for the Indian Civil Service, but to all true
students of philosophy. It will bring before them a view of life,
different from all other views of life which are placed before us in
the History of Philosophy. You saw how behind all the Devas or gods,
the authors of the Upanishads discovered the Atman or Self. Of that
Self they predicated three things only, that it is, that it perceives,
and that it enjoys eternal bliss. All other predicates were negative:
it is not this, it is not that--it is beyond anything that we can
conceive or name.
But that Self, that Highest Self, the Paramatman, could be discovered
after a severe moral and intellectual discipline only, and those who
had not yet discovered it were allowed to worship lower gods, and to
employ more poetical names to satisfy their human wants. Those who
knew the other gods to be but names or persons--_personae_ or masks,
in the true sense of the word--pratikas, as they call them in
Sanskrit--knew also that those who worshipped these names or persons,
worshipped in truth the Highest Self, though ignorantly. This is a
most characteristic feature in the religious history of India. Even in
the Bhagavadgita, a rather popular and exoteric exposition of Vedantic
doctrines, the Supreme Lord or Bhagavat himself is introduced as
saying: "Even those who worship idols, worship me."[344]
But that was not all. As behind the names of Agni, Indra, and
Pra_g_apati, and behind all the mythology of nature, the ancient sages
of India had discovered the Atman--let us call it the objective
Self--they perceived also behind the veil of the body, behind the
senses, behind the mind, and behind our reason (in fact behind the
mythology of the soul, which we often call psychology), another
Atman, or the subjective Self. That Self too was to be discovered by a
severe moral and intellectual discipline only, and those who wished to
find it, who wished to know, not themselves, but their Self, had to
cut far deeper than the senses, or the mind, or the reason, or the
ordinary Ego. All these too were Devas, bright apparitions--mere
names--yet names meant for something. Much that was most dear, that
had seemed for a time their very self, had to be surrendered, before
they could find the Self of Selves, the Old Man, the Looker-on, a
subject independent of all personality, an existence independent of
all life.
When that point had been reached, then the highest knowledge began to
dawn, the Self within (the Pratyagatman) was drawn toward the Highest
Self (the Paramatman), it found its true self in the Highest Self, and
the oneness of the subjective with the objective Self was recognized
as underlying all reality, as the dim dream of religion--as the pure
light of philosophy.
This fundamental idea is worked out with systematic completeness in
the Vedanta philosophy, and no one who can appreciate the lessons
contained in Berkeley's philosophy, will read the Upanishads and the
Brahmasutras, and their commentaries without feeling a richer and a
wiser man.
I admit that it requires patience, discrimination, and a certain
amount of self-denial before we can discover the grains of solid gold
in the dark mines of Eastern philosophy. It is far easier and far more
amusing for shallow critics to point out what is absurd and ridiculous
in the religion and philosophy of the ancient world than for the
earnest student to discover truth and wisdom under strange disguises.
Some progress, however, has been made, even during the short span of
life that we can remember. The Sacred Books of the East are no longer
a mere butt for the invectives of missionaries or the sarcasms of
philosophers. They have at last been recognized as historical
documents, ay, as the most ancient documents in the history of the
human mind, and as palaeontological records of an evolution that begins
to elicit wider and deeper sympathies than the nebular formation of
the planet on which we dwell for a season, or the organic development
of that chrysalis which we call man.
If you think that I exaggerate, let me read you in conclusion what one
of the greatest philosophical critics[345]--and certainly not a man
given to admiring the thoughts of others--says of the Vedanta, and
more particularly of the Upanishads. Schopenhauer writes:
"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so
elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace
of my life--it will be the solace of my death."[346]
* * * * *
I have thus tried, so far as it was possible in one course of
lectures, to give you some idea of ancient India, of its ancient
literature, and, more particularly, of its ancient religion. My object
was, not merely to place names and facts before you, these you can
find in many published books, but, if possible, to make you see and
feel the general human interests that are involved in that ancient
chapter of the history of the human race. I wished that the Veda and
its religion and philosophy should not only seem to you curious or
strange, but that you should feel that there was in them something
that concerns ourselves, something of our own intellectual growth,
some recollections, as it were, of our own childhood, or at least of
the childhood of our own race. I feel convinced that, placed as we are
here in this life, we have lessons to learn from the Veda, quite as
important as the lessons we learn at school from Homer and Virgil, and
lessons from the Vedanta quite as instructive as the systems of Plato
or Spinoza.
I do not mean to say that everybody who wishes to know how the human
race came to be what it is, how language came to be what it is, how
religion came to be what it is, how manners, customs, laws, and forms
of government came to be what they are, how we ourselves came to be
what we are, must learn Sanskrit, and must study Vedic Sanskrit. But I
_do_ believe that not to know what a study of Sanskrit, and
particularly a study of the Veda, has already done for illuminating
the darkest passages in the history of the human mind, of that mind on
which we ourselves are feeding and living, is a misfortune, or, at all
events, a loss, just as I should count it a loss to have passed
through life without knowing something, however little, of the
geological formation of the earth, or of the sun, and the moon, and
the stars--and of the thought, or the will, or the law, that govern
their movements.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 260: On the early use of letters for public inscriptions,
see Hayman, _Journal of Philology_, 1879, pp. 141, 142, 150; Hicks,
"Manual of Greek Historical Inscriptions," pp. 1 seqq.]
[Footnote 261: Herod, (v. 59) says: "I saw Phenician letters on
certain tripods in a temple of the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes in
Boeotia, the most of them like the Ionian letters."]
[Footnote 262: Munch, "Die Nordisch Germanischen Voelker," p. 240.]
[Footnote 263: Herod. (v. 58) says: "The Ionians from of old call
[Greek: byblos diphtherai], because once, in default of the former, they
used to employ the latter. And even down to my own time, many of the
barbarians write on such diphtherae."]