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Barnett + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + a[name] { position: static; } + a:link {color:#0000ff; background-color:#FFFFFF; + text-decoration:none; } + a:visited {color:#0000ff; background-color:#FFFFFF; + text-decoration:none; } + a:hover { color:#ff0000; background-color:#FFFFFF; } + + table { width:60%; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .tocch { text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} + .tocpg {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} + + .sig { margin-left:75%; } + .sig1 { margin-left:5%; } + .sig2 { margin-left:7%; } + .sig3 { margin-left:10%; } + + + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style:normal; + } /* page numbers */ + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .footnotes {border: solid 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-bottom; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hindu Gods And Heroes, by Lionel D. Barnett + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Hindu Gods And Heroes + Studies in the History of the Religion of India + +Author: Lionel D. Barnett + +Release Date: October 4, 2007 [EBook #22885] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HINDU GODS AND HEROES *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + + +<h2>The Wisdom of the East Series</h2> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Edited by</span></h4> + +<h3>L. CRANMER-BYNG</h3> + +<h3>Dr. S. A. KAPADIA</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + + + + + +<h3>WISDOM OF THE EAST</h3> +<p> </p> +<h1>HINDU GODS AND<br /> +HEROES</h1> +<h3>STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF<br /> +THE RELIGION OF INDIA</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>LIONEL D. BARNETT, M.A., <span class="smcap">Litt</span></h2> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The following pages are taken from the Forlong Bequest lectures which +I delivered in March last at the School of Oriental Studies. Owing to +exigencies of space, much of what I then said has been omitted here, +especially with regard to the worship of Śiva; but enough remains to +make clear my general view, which is that the religion of the Aryans +of India was essentially a worship of spirits—sometimes spirits of +real persons, sometimes imaginary spirits—and that, although in early +days it provisionally found room for personifications of natural +forces, it could not digest them into Great Gods, and therefore they +have either disappeared or, if surviving, remain as mere Struldbrugs. +Thus I am a heretic in relation to both the Solar Theory and the +Vegetation Theory, as everyone must be who takes the trouble to study +Hindu nature without prejudice.</p> + +<p class="sig">L. D. B.</p> + +<p class="sig1"><i>May 29, 1922.</i> </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + + + + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr><td>I.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#HINDU_GODS_AND_HEROES">The Vēdic Age</a></span><a href="#HINDU_GODS_AND_HEROES">:</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>Popular Religion, p. <a href="#Page_9">9</a>—Ṛig-vēda and priestly religion, p. +<a href="#Page_11">11</a>—Dyaus-Zeus, p. <a href="#Page_14">14</a>—Ushās, p. <a href="#Page_18">18</a>—Sūrya, p. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>—Savitā, p. +<a href="#Page_19">19</a>—Mitra and Varuṇa, p. <a href="#Page_19">19</a>—Agni, p. <a href="#Page_22">22</a>—Sōma, p. <a href="#Page_23">23</a>—Indra, p. +<a href="#Page_25">25</a>—The Aśvins, p. <a href="#Page_35">35</a>—Vishṇu, p. <a href="#Page_37">37</a>—Rudra-Siva, p. <a href="#Page_42">42</a>—Summary, p. +<a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td>II.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Age of the Brāhmaṇas</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_II">:</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>Growth of Brahman influence in expanding Aryan society, p. <a href="#Page_45">45</a>—System +of priestly doctrine: theory of Sacrifice and mechanical control of +nature thereby, p. <a href="#Page_48">48</a>—Its antinomianism: partly corrected by the +growing cult of Rudra-Śiva, p. <a href="#Page_53">53</a>—The Upanishads: their relation to +the Brāhmaṇas, p. <a href="#Page_59">59</a>—Brahma the Absolute, p. <a href="#Page_60">60</a>—Karma-Saṃsāra, p. +<a href="#Page_63">63</a>—Results: Śaiva Theism, p. <a href="#Page_65">65</a>—Kṛishṇa: early history and legends, +p. <a href="#Page_66">66</a>—Teachings, p. <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td>III.</td> + <td> </td> + <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Epics, and Later</a></span><a href="#CHAPTER_III">:</a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>I. The Great War and the Pāṇḍavas, p. <a href="#Page_70">70</a>—Vishṇu-Kṛishṇa, p. +<a href="#Page_74">74</a>—Nārāyaṇa, p. <a href="#Page_76">76</a>—Bhagavad-gītā and Nārāyaṇīya, p. <a href="#Page_77">77</a>—Growth of +church of Vishṇu-Kṛishṇa, p. <a href="#Page_79">79</a>—Worship of Pāṇḍavas, p. <a href="#Page_92">92</a>—New +erotic and romantic Kṛishṇaism, p. <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>II. Rāma: legend of Rāma and constitution of Rāmāyaṇa, p. <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>III. Some later Preachers, p. <a href="#Page_103">103</a>—Religions of Vishṇu-Kṛishṇa and +Śiva in Southern India, p. <a href="#Page_103">103</a>—Śaṃkara Āchārya, p. <a href="#Page_105">105</a>—Rāmānuja, p. +<a href="#Page_107">107</a>—Nimbārka, Madhva, Vallabha, p. <a href="#Page_108">108</a>—Jñānadēva, p. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Nāma-dēva, +p. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Tukārām, p. <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Rāmānanda, p. <a href="#Page_110">110</a>—Tulsī Dās, p. <a href="#Page_110">110</a>—Kabīr, +p. <a href="#Page_110">110</a>—Nānak, p. <a href="#Page_110">110</a>—Chaitanya, p. <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>IV. Brahmā and the Trimūrti, p. <a href="#Page_111">111</a>—Dattātrēya, p. <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td></td> + <td> </td> + <td>V. Two Modern Instances, p. <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</td></tr> +<tr><td colspan="3"><span class="smcap"><a href="#CONCLUSION">Conclusion.</a></span></td> +</tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>EDITORIAL NOTE</h2> + + +<p>The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one. They +desire above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall +be the ambassadors of goodwill and understanding between East and +West—the old world of Thought and the new of Action. In this +endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but followers of the +highest example in the land. They are confident that a deeper +knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy of Oriental thought +may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither +despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour.</p> + +<p class="sig">L. CRANMER-BYNG.</p> + +<p class="sig">S. A. KAPADIA.</p> + +<p class="sig1"><span class="smcap">Northbrook Society,</span></p> + +<p class="sig2"><span class="smcap">21 Cromwell Road,</span></p> + +<p class="sig3"><span class="smcap">Kensington, S. W.</span> </p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>HINDU GODS AND HEROES</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="HINDU_GODS_AND_HEROES" id="HINDU_GODS_AND_HEROES"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h2>THE VĒDIC AGE</h2> +<p>Let us imagine we are in a village of an Aryan tribe in the Eastern +Panjab something more than thirty centuries ago. It is made up of a +few large huts, round which cluster smaller ones, all of them rudely +built, mostly of bamboo; in the other larger ones dwell the heads of +families, while the smaller ones shelter their kinsfolk and followers, +for this is a patriarchal world, and the housefather gives the law to +his household. The people are mostly a comely folk, tall and +clean-limbed, and rather fair of skin, with well-cut features and +straight noses; but among them are not a few squat and ugly men and +women, flat-nosed and nearly black in colour, who were once the free +dwellers in this land, and now have become slaves or serfs to their +Aryan conquerors. Around the village are fields where bullocks are +dragging rough ploughs; and beyond these are woods and moors in which +lurk wild men, and beyond these are the lands of other Aryan tribes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +Life in the village is simple and rude, but not uneventful, for the +village is part of a tribe, and tribes are constantly fighting with +one another, as well as with the dark-skinned men who often try to +drive back the Aryans, sometimes in small forays and sometimes in +massed hordes. But the world in which the village is interested is a +small one, and hardly extends beyond the bounds of the land where its +tribe dwells. It knows something of the land of the Five Rivers, in +one corner of which it lives, and something even of the lands to the +north of it, and to the west as far as the mountains and deserts, +where live men of its own kind and tongue; but beyond these limits it +has no knowledge. Only a few bold spirits have travelled eastward +across the high slope that divides the land of the Five Rivers from +the strange and mysterious countries around the great rivers Gaṅgā and +Yamunā, the unknown land of deep forests and swarming dark-skinned +men.</p> + +<p>In the matter of religion these Aryans care a good deal about charms +and spells, black and white magic, for preventing or curing all kinds +of diseases or mishaps, for winning success in love and war and trade +and husbandry, for bringing harm upon enemies or rivals—charms which +a few centuries later will be dressed up in Ṛigvēdic style, stuffed +out with imitations of Ṛigvēdic hymns, and published under the name of +Atharva<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> vēda, "the lore of the Atharvans," by wizards who claim to +belong to the old priestly clans of Atharvan and Aṅgiras. But we have +not yet come so far, and as yet all that these people can tell us is a +great deal about their black and white magic, in which they are hugely +interested, and a fair amount about certain valiant men of olden times +who are now worshipped by them as helpful spirits, and a little about +some vague spirits who are in the sun and the air and the fire and +other places, and are very high and great, but are not interesting at +all.</p> + +<p>This popular religion seems to be a hopeless one, without ideals and +symbols of love and hope. Is there nothing better to be found in this +place? Yes, there is a priestly religion also; and if we would know +something about it we must listen to the chanting of the priests, the +<i>brahmans</i> or men of the "holy spirit," as they are called, who are +holding a sacrifice now on behalf of the rich lord who lives in the +largest house in the village—a service for which they expect to be +paid with a handsome fee of oxen and gold. They are priests by +heredity, wise in the knowledge of the ways of the gods; some of them +understand how to compose <i>ṛiks</i>, or hymns, in the fine speech dear to +their order, hymns which are almost sure to win the gods' favour, and +all of them know how the sacrifices shall be performed with perfect +exactness so that no slip or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> imperfection may mar their efficacy. +Their psalms are called <i>Ṛig-vēda</i>, "lore of the verses," and they set +themselves to find grace in the ears of the many gods whom these +priests worship, sometimes by open praise and sometimes by riddling +description of the exploits and nature of the gods. Often they are +very fine; but always they are the work of priests, artists in ritual. +And if you look heedfully into it you will also mark that these +priests are inclined to think that the act of sacrifice, the offering +of, say, certain oblations in a particular manner with particular +words accompanying them, is in itself potent, quite apart from the +psalms which they sing over it, that it has a magic power of its own +over the machinery of nature.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Really this is no new idea of our +Vēdic priests; ten thousand years before them their remote forefathers +believed it and acted upon it, and if for example they wanted rain +they would sprinkle drops of water and utter magic words. Our Vēdic +priests have now a different kind of symbols, but all the same they +still have the notion that ceremony, <i>ṛita</i> as they call it, has a +magic potency of its own. Let us mark this well, for we shall see much +issuing from it.</p> + + + +<p>Who are the gods to whom these priests offer their prayers and psalms? +They are many, and of various kinds. Most of them are taken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>from the +religion of the people, and dressed in new garb according to the +imagination of the priest; and a few are priestly inventions +altogether. There is Dyaush-pitā, the Sky-father, with Pṛithivī Mātā, +the Earth-mother; there are Vāyu the Wind-spirit, Parjanya the +Rain-god, Sūrya the Sun-god, and other spirits of the sky such as +Savitā; there is the Dawn-goddess, Ushās. All these are or were +originally deified powers of nature: the people, though their +imagination created them, have never felt any deep interest in them, +and the priests who have taken them into their charge, though they +treat them very courteously and sing to them elegant hymns full of +figures of speech, have not been able to cover them with the flesh and +blood of living personality. Then we have Agni the Fire-god, and Sōma +the spirit of the intoxicating juice of the sōma-plant, which is used +to inspire the pious to drunken raptures in certain ceremonies; both +of these have acquired a peculiar importance through their association +with priestly worship, especially Agni, because he, as bearing to the +gods the sacrifices cast into his flames, has become the ideal Priest +and divine Paraclete of Heaven. Nevertheless all this hieratic +importance has not made them gods in the deeper sense, reigning in the +hearts of men. Then we find powers of doubtful origin, Mitra and +Varuṇa and Vishṇu and Rudra, and figures of heroic legend, like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +warrior Indra and the twin charioteers called Aśvinaā and Nāsatyā. All +these, with many others, have their worship in the Ṛig-vēda: the +priests sing their praises lustily, and often speak now of one deity, +now of another, as being the highest divinity, without the least +consistency.</p> + +<p>Some savage races believe in a highest god or first divine Being in +whom they feel little personal interest. They seldom speak of him, and +hardly ever worship him. So it seems to be with Dyaush-pitā. The +priests speak of him and to him, but only in connexion with other +gods; he has not a single whole hymn in his honour, and the only +definite attribute that attaches to him is that of fatherhood. Yet he +has become a great god among other races akin in speech to the Aryans +of India: Dyaush-pitā is phonetically the same as the Greek [Greek: +Zeus patêr] and the Latin <i>Iuppiter</i>. How comes it then that he is +not, and apparently never was, a god in the true sense among the +Indian Aryans? Because, I think, his name has always betrayed him. To +call a deity "Sky-father" is to label him as a mere abstraction. No +mystery, no possibility of human personality, can gather round those +two plain prose words. So long as a deity is known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> by the name of the +physical agency that he represents, so long will he be unable to grow +into a personal God in India. The priests may sing vociferous psalms +to Vāyu the Wind-spirit and Sūrya the Sun-spirit, and even to their +beloved Agni the Fire-god; but sing as much as they will, they never +can make the people in general take them to their hearts.</p> + +<p>Observe what a different history is that of Zeus among the +Greeks—Zeus, Father of Gods and Men, the ideal of kingly majesty and +wisdom and goodness. The reason is patent. Ages and ages before the +days when the Homeric poets sang, the Greeks had forgotten that Zeus +originally meant "sky": it had become to them a personal name of a +great spiritual power, which they were free to invest with the noblest +ideal of personality. But very likely there is also another reason: I +believe that the Olympian Zeus, as modelled by Homer and accepted by +following generations, was not the original [Greek: <i>Zeus patêr</i>] at +all, but a usurper who had robbed the old Sky-father of his throne and +of his title as well, that he was at the outset a hero-king who some +time after his death was raised to the seat and dignity of the old +Sky-father and received likewise his name. This theory explains the +old hero-sagas which are connected with Zeus and the strange fact that +the Cretans pointed to a spot in their island where they believed Zeus +was buried. It explains why legends persistently averred that Zeus +expelled his father Kronos from the throne and suppressed the Titan +dynasty: on my view, Kronos was the original Father Zeus, and his name +of Zeus and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> rank as chief god were appropriated by a deified hero. +How natural such a process was in those days may be seen from the +liturgy of Unȧs on the pyramids at Sakkarah in Egypt.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Here Unȧs +is described as rising in heaven after his death as a supreme god, +devouring his fathers and mothers, slaughtering the gods, eating their +"magical powers," and swallowing their "spirit-souls," so that he thus +becomes "the first-born of the first-born gods," omniscient, +omnipotent, and eternal, identified with the Osiris, the highest god. +Now this Unȧs was a real historical man; he was the last king of the +Fifth Dynasty, and was deified after death, just like any other king +of Egypt. The early Egyptians, like many savage tribes, regarded all +their kings as gods on earth and paid them formal worship after their +death; the later Egyptians, going a step further, worshipped them even +in their lifetime as embodiments of the gods.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> What is said in the +liturgy for the deification of Unȧs is much the same as was said of +other kings. The dead king in early Egypt becomes a god, even the +greatest of the gods, and he assumes the name of that god<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>; he +overcomes the other gods by brute force, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>kills and devours them. +This is very like what I think was the case with Zeus; the main +difference is that in Egypt the <i>character</i> of the deified king was +merged in that of the old god, and men continued to regard the latter +in exactly the same light as before; but among the forefathers of the +Greeks the reverse happened in at least one case, that of Zeus, where +the character of a hero who had peculiarly fascinated popular +imagination partly eclipsed that of the old god whose name and rank he +usurped. The reason for this, I suppose, is that even the early +Egyptians had already a conservative religion with fixed traditions +and a priesthood that forgot nothing,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> whereas among the forefathers +of the Greeks, who were wandering savages, social order and religion +were in a very fluid state. However that may be, a deified hero might +oust an older god and reign under his name; and this theory explains +many difficulties in the legends of Zeus.</p> + + +<p>As to the Roman Iuppiter, I need not say much about him. Like all the +genuine gods of Latium, he never was much more than an abstraction +until the Greeks came with their literature and dressed him in the +wardrobe of their Zeus. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>Coming now to Ushās, the Lady of the Dawn, and looking at her name +from the standpoint of comparative philosophy, we see that the word +<i>ushās</i> is closely connected with the Greek [Greek: heôs] and the +Latin <i>aurora</i>. But when we read the literature, we are astonished to +find that while the Greek Dawn-lady has remained almost always a mere +abstraction, the Indian spirit is a lovely, living woman instinct with +the richest sensuous charms of the East. Some twenty hymns are +addressed to her, and for the most part they are alive with real +poetry, with a sense of beauty and gladness and sometimes withal an +under-note of sadness for the brief joys of life. But when we look +carefully into it we notice a curious thing: all this hymn-singing to +Ushās is purely literary and artistic, and there is practically no +religion at all at the back of it. A few stories are told of her, but +they seem to convince no one, and she certainly has no ritual worship +apart from these hymns, which are really poetical essays more than +anything else. The priestly poets are thrilled with sincere emotion at +the sight of the dawn, and are inspired by it to stately and lively +descriptions of its beauties and to touching reflections upon the +passing of time and mortal life; but in this scene Ushās herself is +hardly more than a model from an artist's studio, in a very Bohemian +quarter. More than once on account of her free display of her charms +she is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> compared to a dancing girl, or even a common harlot! Here the +imagination is at work which in course of time will populate the Hindu +Paradise with a celestial <i>corps de ballet</i>, the fair and frail +Apsarasas. Our Vēdic Ushās is a forerunner of that gay company. A +charming person, indeed; but certainly no genuine goddess.</p> + +<p>As his name shows, Sūrya is the spirit of the sun. We hear a good deal +about him in the Ṛig-vēda, but the whole of it is merely description +of the power of the sun in the order of nature, partly allegorical, +and partly literal. He is only a nature-power, not a personal god. The +case is not quite so clear with Savitā, whose name seems to mean +literally "stimulator," "one who stirs up." On the whole it seems most +likely that he represents the sun, as the vivifying power in nature, +though some<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> think that he was originally an abstraction of the +vivifying forces in the world and later became connected with the sun. +However this may be, Savitā is and remains an impersonal spirit with +no human element in his character.</p> + + +<p>Still more perplexing are the two deities Mitra and Varuṇa, who are +very often associated with one another, and apparently are related. +Mitra certainly is an old god: if we go over the mountains to the west +and north-west of the country of our Indian Aryans, we shall find +their kinsmen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>in Persia and Bactria worshipping him as a power that +maintains the laws of righteousness and guards the sanctity of oaths +and engagements, who by means of his watchmen keeps mankind under his +observation and with his terrible weapons crushes evil powers. The +Indian Aryans tell almost exactly the same tale of their Mitra and his +companion Varuṇa, who perhaps is simply a doublet of Mitra with a +different name, which perhaps is due to a variety of worship. But they +have more to say of Varuṇa than of Mitra. In Varuṇa we have the +highest ideal of spirituality that Hindu religion will reach for many +centuries. Not only is he described as supreme controller of the order +of nature—that is an attribute which these priestly poets ascribe +with generous inconsistency to many others of their deities—but he is +likewise the omniscient guardian of the moral law and the rule of +religion, sternly punishing sin and falsehood with his dreaded noose, +but showing mercy to the penitent and graciously communing with the +sage who has found favour in his eyes.</p> + +<p>But Mitra and Varuṇa will not enjoy this exalted rank for long. Soon +the priests will declare that Mitra rules over the day and Varuṇa over +the night (TS. II. i. 7, 4; VI. iv. 8, 3), and then Varuṇa will begin +to sink in honour. The "noose of Varuṇa" will come to mean merely the +disease of dropsy. His connection with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> darkness of the night will +cause men to think of him with fear; and in their dread they will +forget his ancient attributes of universal righteousness, justice, and +mercy, and remember him chiefly as an avenger of guilt. They will +banish him to the distant seas, whose rivers he now guides over the +earth in his gracious government of nature; and there he will dwell in +exile for ever, remembered only to be feared. And Mitra will become +merely another name for the sun.</p> + +<p>What is the origin of this singular couple? And why are they destined +to this fall? Neither of these questions can be answered by anything +but conjectures. There is no evidence either from Indian or from +Iranian religion that Mitra or his double Varuṇa grew out of the +worship of the sun or the sky, although in their worship they were +sometimes connected with the sun and the sky. However far backwards we +look, we still find them essentially spirits of natural order and +moral law, gods in the higher sense of the word. But their character, +and especially the character of Varuṇa, it seems to me, is rather too +high to survive the competition of rival cults, such as that of the +popular hero Indra and the priests' darling Agni, which tend to +engross the interest of worshippers lay and cleric, and to blunt their +relish for more spiritual ideals. So Mitra and Varuṇa become stunted +in their growth; and at last comes the fatal time when they are +identified<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> with the sky by day and night. This is the final blow. No +deity that is plainly limited to any one phase or form of nature in +India can be or become a great god; and speedily all their real +divinity fades away from Mitra and Varuṇa, and they shrivel into +insignificance.</p> + +<p>Next we turn to a spirit of a very different sort, the Fire-god, Agni. +The word <i>agni</i> is identical with the Latin <i>ignis</i>; it means "fire," +and nothing else but fire, and this fact is quite sufficient to +prevent Agni from becoming a great god. The priests indeed do their +best, by fertile fancy and endless repetition of his praises, to lift +him to that rank; but even they cannot do it. From the days of the +earliest generations of men Fire was a spirit; and the household fire, +which cooks the food of the family and receives its simple oblations +of clarified butter, is a kindly genius of the home. But with all his +usefulness and elfish mystery Fire simply remains fire, and there's an +end of it, for the ordinary man. But the priests will not have it so. +The chief concern of their lives is with sacrifice, and their deepest +interest is in the spirit of the sacrificial fire. All the riches of +their imagination and their vocabulary are lavished upon him, his +forms and his activities. They have devoted to him about 200 hymns and +many occasional verses, in which they dwell with constant delight and +ingenious metaphor upon his splendour, his power, his birth from +wood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> from the two firesticks, from trees of the forest, from stones, +or as lightning from the clouds, his kinship with the sun, his +dwelling in three abodes (viz. as a rule on earth, in the clouds as +lightning, and in the upper heavens as the sun), his place in the +homes of men as a holy guest, a friend and a kinsman, his protection +of worshippers against evil spirits and malignant sorcerers, and +especially his function of conveying the oblation poured into his +flames up to the gods. Thus they are led to represent him as the +divine Priest, the ideal hierophant, in whom are united the functions +of the three chief classes of Ṛigvēdic sacrificial priests, the +<i>hōtā</i>, <i>adhvaryu</i>, and <i>brahman</i>, and hence as an all-knowing sage +and seer. If infinite zeal and ingenuity in singing Agni's praises and +glorifying his activities can avail to raise him to the rank of a +great god, we may expect to find him very near the top. But it is not +to be. The priests cannot convince the plain man of Agni's +super-godhead, and soon they will fail to convince even themselves. +The time will shortly come when they will regard all these gods as +little more than puppets whose strings are pulled by the mysterious +spirit of the sacrifice.</p> + +<p>The priests have another pet deity, Sōma. For the sacred rites include +the pressing and drinking of the fermented yellow juice of the +sōma-plant, an acid draught with intoxicating powers, which when mixed +with milk and drunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> in the priestly rites inspires religious ecstasy. +This drinking of the sōma-juice is already an ancient and important +feature in the worship of our Aryans, as it is also among their +kinsmen in Iran; so it is no wonder that the spirit of the sacred +plant has been made by the priests into an important deity and +celebrated with endless abundance of praise and prayer. As with Agni, +Sōma's appearance and properties are described with inexhaustible +wealth of epithets and metaphors. The poets love to dwell on the +mystic powers of this wonderful potion, which can heal sickness of +soul and body and inspire gods and men to mighty deeds and holy +ecstasy. Most often they tell how the god Indra drank huge potions of +it to strengthen himself for his great fight with the dragon Vṛitra. +Most of this worship is of priestly invention; voluminous as its +rhetoric is, it makes no great impression on the laity, nor perhaps on +the clergy either. Some of the more ingenious of the priests are +already beginning to trace an affinity between Sōma and the moon. The +yellow sōma-stalks swell in the water of the pressing-vat, as the +yellow moon waxes in the sky; the <i>sōma</i> has a magical power of +stimulation, and the moon sends forth a mystic liquid influence over +the vegetation of the earth, and especially over magic plants; the +sōma is an ambrosia drunk by gods and heroes to inspire them to mighty +deeds, and the moon is a bowl of ambrosia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> which is periodically drunk +by the gods and therefore wanes month by month. The next step will +soon be taken, and the priests will say that Sōma <i>is</i> the moon; and +literature will then obediently accept this statement, and, gradually +forgetting nearly everything that Sōma meant to the Ṛigvēdic priests, +will use the name Sōma merely as a secondary name for Chandra, the +moon and its god. A very illuminating process, which shows how a god +may utterly change his nature. Now we turn to the hero-gods.</p> + +<p>Indra and the Aśvinā at the beginning came to be worshipped because +they were heroes, men who were supposed to have wrought marvellously +noble and valiant deeds in dim far-off days, saviours of the +afflicted, champions of the right, and who for this reason were +worshipped after death, perhaps even before death, as divine beings, +and gradually became associated in their legends and the forms of +their worship with all kinds of other gods. Times change, gods grow +old and fade away, but the remembrance of great deeds lives on in +strange wild legends, which, however much they may borrow from other +worships and however much they may be obscured by the phantom lights +of false fancy, still throw a glimmer of true light back through the +darkness of the ages into an immeasurably distant past.</p> + +<p>Indra is a mighty giant, tawny of hair and beard and tawny of aspect. +The poets tell us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> that he bears up or stretches out earth and sky, +even that he has created heaven and earth. He is a monarch supreme +among the gods, the lord of all beings, immeasurable and irresistible +of power. He rides in a golden chariot drawn by two tawny horses, or +many horses, even as many as eleven hundred, and he bears as his chief +weapon the <i>vajra</i>, or thunderbolt, sometimes also a bow with arrows, +a hook, or a net. Of all drinkers of sōma he is the lustiest; he +swills many lakes of it, and he eats mightily of the flesh of bulls +and buffaloes. To his worshippers he gives abundance of wealth and +happiness, and he leads them to victory over hostile tribes of Aryans +and the still more dreaded hordes of dark-skins, the Dāsas and Dasyus. +He guided the princes Yadu and Turvaśa across the rivers, he aided +Divōdāsa Atithigva to discomfit the dark-skinned Śambara, he gave to +Divōdāsa's son Sudās the victory over the armies of the ten allied +kings beside the river Parushṇī. Many are the names of the devils and +demons that have fallen before him; but most glorious of all his deeds +is the conquest of Vṛitra, the dragon dwelling in a mountain fastness +amidst the waters, where Indra, accompanied by the troop of Maruts, or +storm-gods, slew the monster with his bolt and set free the waters, or +recovered the hidden kine. Our poets sing endless variations on this +theme, and sometimes speak of Indra repeating the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> exploit for the +benefit of his worshippers, which is as much as to say that they, or +at least some of them, think it an allegory.</p> + +<p>In all this maze of savage fancy and priestly invention and wild +exaggeration there are some points that stand out clearly. Indra is a +god of the people, particularly of the fighting man, a glorified type +of the fair-haired, hard-fighting, hard-drinking forefathers of the +Indian Aryans and their distant cousins the Hellenes; and therefore he +is the champion of their armies in battles. He is not a fiction of +hieratic imagination, whom priests regale with hyperbolic flattery +qualified only by the lukewarmness of their belief in their own words. +He is a living personality in the faith of the people; the priests +only invent words to express the people's faith, and perhaps add to +the old legends some riddling fancies of their own. Many times they +tell us that after conquering Vṛitra and setting free the waters or +the kine Indra created the light, the dawn, or the sun; or they say +that he produced them without mentioning any fight with Vṛitra; +sometimes they speak of him as setting free "the kine of the Morning," +which means that they understood the cows to signify the light of +morning, and it would seem also that they thought that the waters +mentioned in the story signified the rain. But why do they speak of +these acts as heroic deeds, exploits of a mighty warrior, in the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> +tone and with the same epic fire as when they sing of Indra's battles +in times near to their own, real battles in which their own +forefathers, strong in their faith in the god, shattered the armies of +hostile Aryan tribes or the fortresses of dark-skinned natives? The +personality of Indra and the spirit in which his deeds are recounted +remind us of hero-sagas; the allegories which the poets read into them +are on the other hand quite in the style of the priest. How can we +explain the presence of these two voices? Besides, why should the +setting free of the rain or the daylight be a peculiarly heroic +attribute of Indra? Other gods are said to do the same things as part +of their regular duties: Parjanya, Mitra and Varuṇa, Dyaus, dispense +the rain, others the light.</p> + +<p>The explanation is simple. Indra, it seems to me, is a god of just the +same sort as Zeus, whose nature and history I have already explained +according to my lights. In the far-away past Indra was simply a hero: +very likely he was once a chieftain on earth. The story of his great +deeds so fascinated the imagination of men that they worshipped his +memory and at last raised him to the rank of a chief god. Now they had +previously worshipped two very high gods; one of these was +Dyaush-pitā, the Sky-father, of whom I have spoken before, and another +was Tvashṭā, the All-creator. So some of them, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> the Ṛig-vēda +proves, declared that Dyaus was the father of Indra, and others appear +to have given this honour to Tvashṭā, while others regarded Tvashṭā as +Indra's grandfather; and some even said that in order to obtain the +sōma to inspire him to divine deeds Indra killed his father, which of +course is just an imaginative way of saying that Indra was made into a +god and worshipped in place of the elder god.</p> + +<p>The puzzle now is solved. Indra has remained down to the time of the +Ṛig-vēda true to his early nature, an epic hero and typical warrior; +but he has also borrowed from the old Sky-father the chief attributes +of a sky-spirit, especially the giving of rain and the making of +light, which the priests of the Ṛig-vēda riddlingly describe as +setting free the waters and the cows. He bears the thunderbolt, as +does also Zeus; like Zeus, he has got it from the Sky-father, who had +likewise a thunderbolt, according to some Ṛigvēdic poets, though +others say it was forged for him by Tvashṭā, his other father. I even +venture to think that there is a kernel of heroic legend in the story +of the slaying of Vṛitra; that at bottom it is a tale relating how +Indra with a band of brave fellows stormed a mountain hold surrounded +by water in which dwelt a wicked chieftain who had carried away the +cattle of his people, and that when Indra had risen to the rank of a +great god of the sky men added to this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> plain tale much mythical +decoration appropriate to his new quality, turning the comrades of +Indra into the storm-gods and interpreting the waters and cows to mean +rain and daylight. Since most of us are agreed that stories such as +that of Indra defeating Śambara for the benefit of Divōdāsa refer to +real events, it seems unnatural to suppose that the Vṛitra-legend is a +purely imaginary myth. We can thus explain why the ideas of Indra +setting free the rain and the light fit in so awkwardly with the +heroic element in the legend: for they are merely secondary +attributes, borrowed from the myths of other gods and mechanically +attached to Indra on his elevation in the pantheon. But we can explain +much more. There is a regular cycle of hero-saga connected with Indra +which is visible or half-visible at the back of some of the Vēdic +hymns and of the priestly literature which is destined to follow them.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the priests of the Ṛig-vēda on the whole have not +quite made up their minds about Indra's merits, and we shall find them +a few generations hence equally uncertain. They praise his heroic +deeds lustily and admire his power immensely; but they are keenly +aware that he is a god with a past, and sometimes they dwell on that. +Their favourite method is to relate some of his former questionable +deeds in the form of a reproach, and then to turn the story<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> to his +credit in some way or another; but as time goes on and the priests +think less and less of most of their gods, Indra's character will +steadily sink, and in the end we shall find him playing a subordinate +part, a debauched king in a sensuous paradise, popularly worshipped as +a giver of rain. But this is to anticipate. As yet Indra is to the +Ṛigvēdic priests a very great god; but how did he become so? If we +read carefully the hymn RV. IV. xviii.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> we see at the back of it a +story somewhat like this. Before he was born, Tvashṭā, Indra's +grandfather, knew that Indra would dispossess him of his sovereignty +over the gods, and therefore did his best to prevent his birth (cf. +RV. III. xlviii.); but the baby Indra would not be denied, and he +forced his way into the light of day through the side of his mother +Aditi, who seems to be the same as Mother Earth (cf. <i>Ved. Stud.</i>, ii, +p. 86), killed his father, and drank Tvashṭā's sōma, by which he +obtained divine powers. In v. 12 of this hymn Indra excuses himself by +saying that he was in great straits, and that then the sōma was +brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>to him by an eagle. What these straits were is indicated in +another hymn (IV. xxvii.), which tells us that he was imprisoned, and +escaped on the back of the eagle, which he compelled to carry him; the +watchman Kṛiśānu shot an arrow at the bird, but it passed harmlessly +through its feathers. Evidently in the story Indra had a hard struggle +with rival gods. One poet says (RV. IV. xxx. 3): "Not even all the +gods, O Indra, defeated thee, when thou didst lengthen days into +nights," which apparently refers also to some miracle like that +ascribed to Joshua. Another tradition (MS. I. vi. 12) relates that +while Indra and his brother Vivasvān were still unborn they declared +their resolve to oust the Ādityas, the elder sons of their mother +Aditi; so the Ādityas tried to kill them when born, and actually slew +Vivasvān, but Indra escaped. Another version (TS. II. iv. 13) says +that the gods, being afraid of Indra, bound him with fetters before he +was born; and at the same time Indra is identified with the Rājanya, +or warrior class, as its type and representative.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> This last point +is immensely important, for it really clinches the matter. Not once, +but repeatedly, the priestly literature of the generations that will +follow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>immediately after that of the Ṛig-vēda will be found to treat +Indra as the type of the warrior order.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> They will describe an +imaginary coronation-ceremony of Indra, ending with these words: +"Anointed with this great anointment Indra won all victories, found +all the worlds, attained the superiority, pre-eminence, and supremacy +over all the gods, and having won the overlordship, the paramount +rule, the self rule, the sovereignty, the supreme authority, the +kingship, the great kingship, the suzerainty in this world, +self-existing, self-ruling, immortal, in yonder world of heaven, +having attained all desires he became immortal."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Thus we see that +amidst the maze of obscure legends about Indra there are three points +which stand out with perfect clearness. They are, firstly, that Indra +was a usurper; secondly, that the older gods fought hard but vainly to +keep him from supreme divinity, and that in his struggle he killed his +father; and thirdly, that he was identified with the warrior class, as +opposed to the priestly order, or Brahmans. This antagonism to the +Brahmans is brought out very clearly in some versions of the tales of +his exploits. More than once the poets of the Ṛig-vēda hint that his +slaying of Vṛitra involved some guilt, the guilt of <i>brahma-hatyā</i>, or +slaughter of a being in whom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>the <i>brahma</i>, or holy spirit, was +embodied<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>; and this is explained clearly in a priestly tale (TS. +II. v. 2, 1 ff.; cf. ŚB. I. i. 3, 4, vi. 3, 8), according to which +Indra from jealousy killed Tvashṭā's son Viśvarūpa, who was chaplain +of the gods, and thus he incurred the guilt of <i>brahma-hatyā</i>. Then +Tvashṭā held a sōma-sacrifice; Indra, being excluded from it, broke up +the ceremony and himself drank the sōma. The sōma that was left over +Tvashṭā cast into one of the sacred fires and produced thereby from it +the giant Vṛitra, by whom the whole universe, including Agni and Sōma, +was enveloped (cf. the later version in Mahābhārata, V. viii. f.). By +slaying him Indra again became guilty of <i>brahma-hatyā</i>; and some +Ṛigvēdic poets hint that it was the consciousness of this sin which +made him flee away after the deed was done.</p> + + + +<p>These bits of saga prove, as effectually as is possible in a case like +this, that Indra was originally a warrior-king or chieftain who was +deified, perhaps by the priestly tribe of the Aṅgirasas, who claim in +some of the hymns to have aided him in his fight with Vṛitra, and that +he thus rose to the first rank in the pantheon, gathering round +himself a great cycle of heroic legend based upon those traditions, +and only secondarily and by artificial invention becoming associated +with the control of the rain and the daylight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p><p>The name Aśvinā means "The Two Horsemen"; what their other name, +Nāsatyā, signifies nobody has satisfactorily explained. But even with +the name Aśvinā there is a difficulty. They are described usually as +riding together in a chariot which is sometimes said to be drawn by +horses, and this would suit their name; but more often the poets say +that their chariot is drawn by birds, such as eagles or swans, and +sometimes even by a buffalo or buffaloes, or by an ass. I do not see +how we can escape from this difficulty except by supposing that +popular imagination in regard to this matter varied from very early +times, but preferred to think of them as having horses. At any rate +they are very ancient gods, for the people of Iran also have +traditions about them, and in the far-away land of the Mitanni, in the +north of Mesopotamia, they are invoked together with Indra, Mitra, and +Varuṇa to sanction treaties. In India the Aryans keep them very busy, +for they are more than anything else gods of help. Thrice every day +and thrice every night they sally forth on their patrols through earth +and heaven, in order to aid the distressed<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>: and the poets tell us +the names of many persons whom they have relieved, such as old +Chyavāna, whom they restored to youth and love, Bhujyu, whom they +rescued from drowning in the ocean, Atri, whom they saved from a fiery +pit, Viśpalā, to whom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>when her leg had been cut off they gave one of +iron, and Ghōshā, to whom they brought a husband. Many other helpful +acts are ascribed to them, and it is very likely that at least some of +these stories are more or less true. Another legend relates that they +jointly wedded Sūryā, the daughter of the Sun-god, who chose them from +amongst the other gods.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + + +<p>Amidst the medley of saga and facts and poetical imagination which +surrounds the Aśvinā, can we see the outlines of their original +character? It is hard to say: opinions must differ. The Aryans of +India are inclined to say that they are simply divine kings active in +good works; but the priests are perhaps beginning to fancy that they +may be embodiments of powers of nature—they are not sure which—and +in course of time they will have various theories, partly connected +with their rituals. But really all that is certain in the Vēdic age +about the Aśvins is that they are an ancient pair of saviour-gods who +ride about in a chariot and render constant services to mankind. We +are tempted however to see a likeness between them and the [Greek: +Diòs kórô] of the distant Hellenes, the heroes Kastor and Polydeukes, +Castor and Pollux, the twin Horsemen who are saviours of afflicted +mankind by land and sea. There are difficulties in the way of this +theory; but they are not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>unsurmountable, and I believe that the +Aśvinā of India have the same origin as the Twin Horsemen of Greece. +At any rate both the pairs are hero-gods, whose divinity has been +created by mankind's need for help and admiration for valour. Whether +there was any human history at the back of this process we cannot say.</p> + +<p>Now we may leave the heroes and consider a god of a very different +kind, Vishṇu.</p> + +<p>The Ṛig-vēda has not very much to say about Vishṇu, and what it says +is puzzling. The poets figure him as a beneficent young giant, of +unknown parentage, with two characteristic attributes: the first of +these is his three mystic strides, the second his close association +with Indra. Very often they refer to these three strides, sometimes +using the verb <i>vi-kram</i>, "to step out," sometimes the adjectives +<i>uru-krama</i>, "widely-stepping," and <i>uru-gāya</i>, "wide-going." The +three steps carry Vishṇu across the three divisions of the universe, +in the highest of which is his home, which apparently he shares with +Indra (RV. I. xxxii. 20, cliv. 5-6, III. lv. 10; cf. AB. I. i., etc.). +Some of them are beginning to imagine that these steps symbolise the +passage of the sun through the three divisions of the world, the +earth, sky, and upper heaven; certainly this idea will be held by many +later scholars, though a few will maintain that it denotes the sun at +its rising, at midday, and at its setting. Before long we shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> find +some priests harping on the same notion in another form, saying that +Vishṇu's head was cut off by accident and became the sun; and later on +we shall see Vishṇu bearing as one of his weapons a chakra, or discus, +which looks like a figure of the sun. But really all this is an +afterthought: in the Vēda, and the priestly literature that follows +directly upon the Vēda, Vishṇu is <i>not</i> the sun. Nor do we learn what +he is very readily from his second leading attribute in the Ṛig-vēda, +his association with Indra. Yet it is a very clearly marked trait in +his character. Not only do the poets often couple the two gods in +prayer and praise, but they often tell us that the one performed his +characteristic deeds by the help of the other. They say that Vishṇu +made his three strides by the power of Indra (VIII. xii. 27), or for +the sake of Indra (Vāl. iv. 3), and even that Indra strode along with +Vishṇu (VI. lxix. 5, VII. xcix. 6), and on the other hand they tell us +often that it was by the aid of Vishṇu that Indra overcame Vṛitra and +other malignant foes. "Friend Vishṇu, stride out lustily," cries Indra +before he can strike down Vṛitra (IV. xviii. 11).<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> The answer to +this riddle I find in the Brāhmaṇas, the priestly literature which is +about to follow immediately after the Vēda. In plain unequivocal words +the Brāhmaṇas <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>tell us again and again that <i>Vishṇu is the +sacrifice</i>.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> Evidently when they repeat this they are repeating an +old hieratic tradition; and it is one which perfectly explains the +facts of the case. Vishṇu, I conceive, was originally nothing more or +less than the embodied spirit of the sacrificial rites. His name seems +to be derived from the root <i>vish</i>, meaning stimulation or +inspiration; and this is exactly what the sacrifice is supposed in +priestly theory to do. The sacrifice, accompanied by prayer and +praise, is imagined to have a magic power of its own, by which the +gods worshipped in it are strengthened to perform their divine +functions. One poet says to Indra: "When thy two wandering Bays thou +dravest hither, thy praiser laid within thine arms the thunder" (RV. +I. lxiii. 2); and still more boldly another says: "Sacrifice, Indra, +made thee wax so mighty ... worship helped thy bolt when slaying the +dragon" (III. xxxii. 12). So it would be very natural for the priests +to conceive this spirit of the sacrificial rites as a personal deity; +and this deity, the Brāhmaṇas assure us, is Vishṇu. Then the idea of +the three strides and the association with Indra would easily grow up +in the priestly imagination. The inspiring power of the sacrifice is +supposed to pervade the three realms of the universe, earth, sky, and +upper <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>heavens; this idea is expressed in the common ritual formula +<i>bhūr bhuvas svaḥ</i>, and is symbolised by three steps taken by the +priest in certain ceremonies, which are translated into the language +of myth as the three strides of Vishṇu.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Observe that in the +Ṛig-vēda the upper heaven is not the dwelling-place of Vishṇu only; +Agni the Fire-god, Indra and Sōma have their home in it also (RV. I. +cliv. 6, IV. xxvi. 6, xxvii. 3-4, V. iii. 3, VIII. lxxxix. 8, IX. +lxiii. 27, lxvi. 30, lxviii. 6, lxxvii. 2, lxxxvi. 24, X. i. 3, xi. 4, +xcix. 8, cxliv. 4). Later, however, when their adventitious divinity +begins to fade away from Agni and Sōma, and Indra is allotted a +special paradise of his own, this "highest step" will be regarded as +peculiar to Vishṇu, <i>Vishṇōḥ paramam padam</i>.</p> + + +<p>As soon as this spirit of sacrifice was thus personified, he at once +attached himself to Indra; for Indra is pre-eminently the god of +action, and for his activities he needs to be stimulated by sacrifice +and praise. As the priests will tell us in plain unvarnished words, +"he to whom the Sacrifice comes as portion slays Indra" (AB. I. iv.). +Therefore we are told that Vishṇu aids Indra in his heroic exploits, +that Vishṇu takes his strides and presses Sōma in order that Indra may +be strengthened for his tasks. Now we can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>see the full meaning of +Indra's cry before striking Vṛitra, "Friend Vishṇu, stride out +lustily!"; for until the sacrifice has put forth its mystic energy the +god cannot strike his blow. We are told also that Vishṇu cooks +buffaloes and boils milk for Indra,<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> for buffaloes were no doubt +anciently offered to Indra. The vivid reality of Indra's character has +clothed Vishṇu with some of its own flesh and blood; originally a +priestly abstraction, he has become through association with Indra a +living being, a real god. The blood which has thus been poured into +his veins will enable him to live through a critical period of his +life, until by combination with another deity he will rise to new and +supreme sovereignty. But of that more anon. Meanwhile let us note the +significance of this union of Vishṇu and Indra in the Vēda. Vishṇu, +the spirit of Sacrifice, is in a sense representative of the Brahman +priesthood, and Indra, as I have shown, is commonly regarded as +typical of the warrior order. In the Ṛig-vēda Indra is powerless +without Vishṇu's mystic service, and Vishṇu labours to aid Indra in +his heroic works for the welfare of men and gods. Surely this is an +allegory, though the priests may so far be only dimly conscious of its +full meaning—an allegory <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>bodying forth the priestly ideal of the +reign of righteousness, in which the King is strong by the mystic +power of the Priest, and the Priest lives for the service of the King.</p> + + + +<p>There is another god who is destined to become in future ages Vishṇu's +chief rival—Rudra, "The Tawny," or Śiva, "The Gracious." He belongs +to the realm of popular superstition, a spiteful demon ever ready to +smite men and cattle with disease, but likewise dispensing healing +balms and medicines to those that win his favour. The Ṛigvēdic priests +as yet do not take much interest in him, and for the most part they +leave him to their somewhat despised kinsmen the Atharvans, who do a +thriving trade in hymns and spells to secure the common folk against +his wrath.</p> + +<p>There are many more gods, godlings, and spirits in the Vēdic religion; +but we must pass over them. We have seen enough, I hope, to give us a +fair idea of the nature and value of that religion in general. What +then is its value?</p> + +<p>The Ṛigvēda is essentially a priestly book; but it is not entirely a +priestly book. Much of the thought to which it gives utterance is +popular in origin and sentiment, and is by no means of the lowest +order. On this groundwork the priests have built up a system of +hieratic thought and ritual of their own, in which there is much that +deserves a certain respect. There is a good deal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> of fine poetry in +it. There is also in it some idea of a law of righteousness: in spite +of much wild and unmoral myth and fancy, its gods for the most part +are not capricious demons but spirits who act in accordance with +established laws, majestic and wise beings in whom are embodied the +highest ideals to which men have risen as yet. Moreover, the priests +in the later books have given us some mystic hymns containing vigorous +and pregnant speculations on the deepest questions of existence, +speculations which are indeed fanciful and unscientific, but which +nevertheless have in them the germs of the powerful idealism that is +destined to arise in centuries to come. On the other hand, the priests +have cast their system in the mould of ritualism. Ritual, ceremony, +sacrifice, professional benefit—these are their predominant +interests. The priestly ceremonies are conceived to possess a magical +power of their own; and the fixed laws of ritual by which these +ceremonies are regulated tend to eclipse, and finally even to swallow +up, the laws of moral righteousness under which the gods live. A few +generations more, and the priesthood will frankly announce its ritual +to be the supreme law of the universe. Meanwhile they are becoming +more and more indifferent to the personalities of the gods, when they +have preserved any; they are quite ready to ascribe attributes of one +deity to another, even attributes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> of nominal supremacy, with +unscrupulous inconsistency and dubious sincerity; for the +personalities of the different gods are beginning to fade away in +their eyes, and in their mind is arising the conception of a single +universal Godhead.</p> +<div class="footnotes"><div class="footnote"><h3>FOOTNOTES</h3><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Cf. e.g. RV. III. xxxii. 12.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Sir E. A. W. Budge, <i>Literature of the Ancient +Egyptians</i>, p. 21 ff., and <i>Gods of the Egyptians</i>, i, pp. 32 f., 43.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Erman, <i>Handbook of Egyptian Religion</i>, p. 37 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Budge, <i>Lit. of the Egyptians</i>, p. 21; Erman, <i>ut supra</i>, +p. 37 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It is even possible that in one case, that of Osiris, a +hero in Egypt may have eclipsed by his personality the god whom he +ousted. See Sir J. W. Frazer's <i>Adonis, Attis, Osiris</i>, ii, p. 200, +and Sir W. Ridgeway's <i>Dramas and Dramatic Dances, etc.</i>, p. 94 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> See Oldenberg, <i>Religion des Veda</i>, p. 64 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> I follow in the interpretation of this hymn E. Sieg, <i>Die +Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda</i>, i. p. 76 ff. Cf. on the subject <i>Ved. Stud.</i>, +i. p. 211, ii. pp. 42-54. Charpentier, <i>Die Suparṇasage</i>, takes a +somewhat different view of RV. IV. xxvi.-xxvii., which, however, does +not convince me; I rather suspect that RV. IV. xxvi. 1 and 4, with +their mention of Manu, to whom the sōma was brought, are echoes of an +ancient and true tradition that Indra was once a mortal.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The other legend in MS. II. i. 12, that Aditi bound the +unborn Indra with an iron fetter, with which he was born, and of which +he was able to rid himself by means of a sacrifice, is probably +later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> E.g. AB. VII. xxxi., VIII. xii. Cf. BA. Up. I. iv. +11-13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> AB. VIII. xiv. (Keith's translation).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Cf. Sāyaṇa on RV. I. xciii. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Cf. <i>Ved. Studien</i>, ii. p. 31, RV. I. xxxiv. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Cf. <i>Ved. Studien</i>, i. p. 14 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> A later and distorted version of this myth appears in +AB. VI. xv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> E.g. MS. 1. iv. 14, ŚB. I. i. 1, 2, 13, TB. I. ii. 5, 1, +AB. I. xv., KB. IV. ii., XVIII. viii., xiv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> ŚB. I. ix. 3, 8-11. Cf. the three steps of the +Amesha-spentas from the earth to the sun, imitated in the Avestic +ritual (Avesta, transl. Darmesteter, I. 401).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> RV. VI. xvii. 11, VIII. lxvi. 10; the myth in RV. I. +lxi. 7, VIII. lxvi. 10, and TS. VI. ii. 4, 2-3 is expanded from this +original idea. Cf. Macdonell, <i>Vedic Myth.</i>, p. 41.</p></div></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h2>THE AGE OF THE BRĀHMAṆAS AND UPANISHADS</h2> +<p>Centuries have passed since the hymns of the Ṛig-vēda were composed. +The Aryans have now crossed the fateful ridge on the east of their +former settlements, and have spread themselves over the lands of +Northern Hindostan around the upper basins of the Ganges and Jamna, +reaching eastward as far as Bihar and southward down to the Vindhya +Mountains, and in the course of their growth they have absorbed not a +little of the blood of the dark-skinned natives. The old organisation +of society by tribes has come to an end, though the names of many +ancient tribes are still heard; the Aryans are now divided laterally +by the principle of what we call "caste," which is based upon a +combination of religious and professional distinctions, and vertically +by the rule of kings, while a few oligarchic governments still survive +to remind them of Vēdic days. In these kingdoms the old tribes are +beginning to be fused together; from these combinations new States are +arising, warring with one another, constantly waxing and waning. +Society is ruled politically<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> by kings, spiritually by Brahmans. With +the rise of the kingdom an Established Church has come into existence, +and the Brahman priesthood works out its principles to the bitterest +end of logic.</p> + +<p>The Brahmans are now, more than they ever were before, a close +corporation of race, religion, and profession, a religious fraternity +in the strict sense of the words. While other classes of the Aryans +have mixed their blood to a greater or less degree with that of the +natives, the Brahmans have preserved much of the pure Aryan strain. +They, moreover, have maintained the knowledge of the ancient Vēdic +language in which the sacred hymns of their forefathers were composed, +of the traditions associated with them, and of the priestly lore of +Vēdic ritual. Proud of this heritage and resolved to maintain it +undiminished, they have knitted themselves into a close spiritual and +intellectual aristocracy, which stands fast like a lighthouse amidst +the darkness and storms of political changes. They employ all the arts +of the priest, the thinker, the statesman, and even the magician to +preserve their primacy; and around them the manifold variety of the +other castes, in all their divisions and subdivisions, groups itself +to make up the multi-coloured web of Indian life.</p> + +<p>In course of time this priesthood will spread out octopus-like +tentacles over the whole of India. Becoming all things to all men, it +will find a place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> in its pantheon for all gods and all ideas, +baptising them by orthodox names or justifying them by ingenious +fictions. It will send forth apostles and colonies even to the +furthermost regions of the distant South, which, alien in blood and in +tradition, will nevertheless accept them and surrender its best +intellect to their control. It will even admit into the lower ranks of +its own body men of foreign birth by means of legal fictions, in order +to maintain its control of religion. Though itself splitting up into +scores of divisions varying in purity of blood and tradition, it will +still as a whole maintain its position as against all other classes of +society. That the Brahman is the Deity on earth, and other classes +shall accept this dogma and agree to take their rank in accordance +with it, will become the principle holding together a vast +agglomeration of utterly diverse elements within the elastic bounds of +Catholic Brahmanism.</p> + +<p>But as yet this condition of things has not arrived. The Brahmans are +still comparatively pure in blood and homogeneous in doctrine, and +they have as yet sent forth no colonies south of the Vindhya. They are +established in the lands of the Ganges and Jamna as far to the east as +Benares, and they look with some contempt on their kinsmen in the +western country that they have left behind. They are busily employed +in working out to logical conclusions the ideas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> and principles of +their Ṛigvēdic forefathers. They have now three Vēdas; for to the old +Ṛig-vēda they have added a Yajur-vēda for the use of the sacrificant +orders of priests and a Sāma-vēda or hymnal containing Ṛigvēdic hymns +arranged for the chanting of choristers. The result of these labours +is that they have created a vast and intricate system of sacrificial +ritual, perhaps the most colossal of its kind that the world has ever +seen or ever will see. What is still more remarkable, the logical +result of this immense development of ritualism is that the priesthood +in theory is practically atheistic, while on the other hand a certain +number of its members have arrived at a philosophy of complete +idealism which is beginning to turn its back upon ritualism.</p> + +<p>The atheist is not so much the man who denies the existence of any god +as the man to whom God is not God, who looks upon the Deity as +subordinate to powers void of holiness and nobility, the man who will +not see in God the highest force in the world of nature and in the +realm of the spirit. In this sense the Brahmans are thorough atheists. +According to them, the universe with all that is in it—gods, men, and +lower things—is created and governed by an iron law of soulless +natural necessity. It has arisen by emanation from a cosmic Principle, +Prajāpati, "the Lord of Creatures," an impersonal being who shows no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +trace of moral purpose in his activity. Prajāpati himself is not +absolutely the first in the course of nature. The Brāhmaṇas, the +priestly books composed in this period to expound the rules and mystic +significance of the Brāhmanic ceremonies, give us varying accounts of +his origin, some of them saying that he arose through one or more +intermediate stages from non-existence (TB. II. ii. 9, 1-10, ŚB. VI. +i. 1, 1-5), others deriving him indirectly from the primitive waters +(ŚB. XI. i. 6, 1), others tracing his origin back to the still more +impersonal and abstract Brahma (Sāmav. B. I. 1-3, Gōp. B. I. i. 4). +All these are attempts to express in the form of myth the idea of an +impersonal Principle of Creation as arising from a still more abstract +first principle. We have seen the poets of the Ṛig-vēda gradually +moving towards the idea of a unity of godhead; in Prajāpati this goal +is attained, but unfortunately it is attained by sacrificing almost +all that is truly divine in godhead. The conception of Prajāpati that +we find in the Brāhmaṇas is also expressed in some of the latest hymns +of the Ṛig-vēda. Among these is the famous Purusha-sūkta (RV. X. 90), +which throws a peculiar light on the character of Prajāpati. It is in +praise of a primitive Purusha or Man, who is, of course, the same as +Prajāpati; in some mysterious manner this Purusha is sacrificed, and +from the various parts of his body arise the various parts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> the +world. The idea conveyed by this is that the universe came into +existence by the operation of the mystic laws revealed in the +Brahmanic rituals, and is maintained in its natural order by the same +means. The Brāhmaṇas do not indeed often assert on their own authority +that Prajāpati was himself sacrificed in order to produce the world, +and in fact they usually give other accounts of the creation; but as +their authors live in a rarefied atmosphere of mystical allegory in +which fact and fancy are completely confused with one another and +consistency ceases to have any meaning, none of them would have +difficulty in accepting the Ṛigvēdic statement that he was sacrificed. +Hence they tell us on the one hand that Prajāpati has created the +world from a blind will for generation or increase, producing from +each of his limbs some class of beings corresponding to it (e.g. MS. +IV. vi. 3), or copulating with the earth, atmosphere, sky, and speech +(ŚB. VI. i. 2, 1), or that he brought it into existence indirectly by +entering with the Triple Science or mystic lore of the three Vēdas +into the primeval waters and thence forming an egg from which was +hatched the personal Demiurge Brahmā, who actually created the world +(ŚB. VI. i. 1, 10); and on the other hand they relate that he created +sacrifice and performed it, making of himself a victim in order that +the gods, his offspring, might perform the rites for their own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +benefit, forming an image of himself to be the sacrifice, by which he +redeemed himself from the gods (ŚB. XI. i. 8, 2-4; cf. AB. VII. 19, +KB. XIII. 1, ŚB. III. ii. 1, 11), and that after creation he ascended +to heaven (ŚB. X. ii. 2, 1). The thought that lies underneath these +bewildering flights of fancy is one of mystic pantheism: all created +existence has arisen by emanation from the one Creative Principle, +Prajāpati, and in essence is one with Prajāpati; Prajāpati is an +impersonal being, a creative force, in which are embodied the laws of +Brahmanic ritual, which acts only in these laws, and which is above +the moral influences that affect humanity; and the whole of created +nature, animate and inanimate, is controlled in every process of its +being by these laws, and by the priest who possesses the knowledge of +them. Thus there lies a profound significance in the title of "gods on +earth" which the Brahmans have assumed.</p> + +<p>When we speak of sacrifice in India, we must clear our minds of the +ideas which we have formed from reading the Bible. The Mosaic +conception of sacrifice was that of a religious ceremony denoting a +moral relation between a personal God and His worshippers: in the +sin-offerings and trespass-offerings was symbolised a reconciliation +between man and his God who was angered by man's conscious or +unconscious breach of the laws which had been imposed upon him for +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> spiritual welfare, while meat-offerings and peace-offerings +typified the worshipper's sense of gratitude for the Divine love and +wisdom that guarded him. Of such relations there is to be found in the +Brāhmaṇas no trace. If we may use a modern figure of speech, they +conceive the universe of gods, men, and lower creatures as a single +immense electric battery, and the sacrifice as a process of charging +this battery with ever fresh electricity. The sacrifice is a process, +at once material and mystic, which preserves the order of nature as +established by the prototypic sacrifice performed by Prajāpati. The +gods became divine and immortal through sacrifice (TS. VI. iii. 4, 7, +VI. iii. 10, 2, VII. iv. 2, 1, ŚB. I. vi. 2, 1, MS. III. ix. 4, AB. +VI. i. 1, etc.); and they live on the gifts of earth, as mankind lives +on the gifts of heaven (TS. III. ii. 9, 7, ŚB. I. ii. 5, 24). The +sacrifice is thus the life-principle, the soul, of all gods and all +beings (ŚB. VIII. vi. 1, 10, IX. iii. 2, 7, XIV. iii. 2, 1); or, what +amounts to the same thing, the Triple Science or the knowledge of the +ceremonies of the Three Vēdas is their essence (ŚB. X. iv. 2, 21). As +Prajāpati created the primeval sacrifice, and as the gods by following +this rule obtained their divinity, so man should seek to follow their +example and by means of sacrifice rise to godhead and immortality. As +one Brāhmaṇa puts it, the sacrifice leads the way to heaven; it is +followed by the <i>dakshiṇā</i>, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> fee paid by the sacrificer to the +sacrificant priests, which of course materially strengthens the +efficacy of the sacrifice; and third comes the sacrificer, holding +fast to the <i>dakshiṇā</i>. This ascent of heaven is symbolised in the +ceremony called <i>dūrōhaṇa</i>, or "hard mounting" (AB. IV. 20, 21, KB. +XXV. 7), and it is ensured by the rite of <i>dīkshā</i>, or consecration, +in which the sacrificer is symbolically represented as passing through +a new conception, gestation, and birth, by which he is supposed to +obtain two bodies. One of these bodies is immortal and spiritual; the +other is mortal and material, and is assigned as a victim to all the +gods. He then ransoms his material body from the obligation of being +sacrificed, as did Prajāpati, and thus ranks literally as a "god on +earth," with the certainty of becoming in due course a god in heaven.</p> + +<p>When the student on reading the Brāhmaṇas finds them full of +interminable ceremonial rules with equally interminable commentaries +interpreting them by wildest analogies as symbolical of details of +myths or of laws of nature and hence as conferring mystic powers, +besides all kinds of myths, some forcibly dragged into the +interpretation of the ritual because of some imaginary point of +resemblance, others invented or recast on purpose to justify some +detail of ceremony, and when moreover he observes that many of these +myths and some of the rites are brutally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> and filthily obscene, and +that hardly any of them show the least moral feeling, he may be +excused for thinking the Brāhmaṇas to be the work of madmen. But there +is some method in their madness. However strangely they may express +them, they have definite and strictly logical ideas about the +sacrificial ritual and its cosmic function. It is more difficult to +defend them against the charge of want of morality. It must be +admitted that their supreme Being, Prajāpati, is in the main lines of +his character utterly impersonal, and where incidentally he shows any +human feelings they are as a rule far from creditable to him. He +created the universe from mechanical instinct or blind desire, and +committed or tried to commit incest with his daughter (the accounts +are various). He has begotten both the gods and the demons, <i>dēvas</i> +and <i>asuras</i>, who are constantly at war with one another. The gods, +who are embodiments of "truth" (that is to say, correct knowledge of +the law of ritual), have been often in great danger of being +overwhelmed by the demons, who embody "untruth," and they have been +saved by Prajāpati; but he has done this not from any sense of right, +but merely from blind will or favour, for he can hardly distinguish +one party from the other. The gods themselves, in spite of being of +"truth," are sadly frail. Dozens of myths charge them with falsehood, +hatred, lust, greed, and jealousy, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> only the stress of the danger +threatening them from their adversaries the demons has induced them to +organise themselves into an ordered kingdom under the sovereignty of +Indra, who has been anointed by Prajāpati. True, many of the offensive +features in this mythology and ritual are survivals from a very +ancient past, a pre-historic time in which morals were conspicuously +absent from religion; the priesthood has forgotten very little, and as +a rule has only added new rituals and new interpretations to this +legacy from the days of old. Nevertheless it must be confessed that +there is a tone of ritualistic professionalism in the Brāhmaṇas that +is unpleasing; the priesthood are consciously superior to nature, God, +and morals by virtue of their "Triple Science," and they constantly +emphasise this claim. It is difficult for us to realise that these are +the same men who have created the Brahmanic culture of India, which, +however we may criticise it from the Western point of view, is +essentially a gentle life, a field in which moral feeling and +intellectual effort have born abundance of goodly fruit. Yet if we +look more closely we shall see that even these ritualists, besotted as +they may seem to be with their orgies of priestcraft, are not wholly +untouched by the better spirit of their race. Extremes of sanctity, +whether it be ritualistic or anti-ritualistic sanctity, always tend in +India—and in other countries as well—to produce super<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>men. And if +our priesthood in the Brāhmaṇas feel themselves in the pride of +spiritual power lifted above the rules of moral law, they are not in +practice indifferent to it. Their lives are for the most part gentle +and good. Though "truth" in the Brāhmaṇas usually means only +accordance with the ritual and mystic teachings of the Triple Science, +it sometimes signifies even there veracity and honesty also. +Truthfulness in speech is the hall-mark of the Brahman, says +Hāridrumata Gautama to Satyakāma Jābāla (Chhānd. Up. IV. iv. 5); and +even in the Brāhmaṇas a lie is sometimes a sin. If conservatism +compels the priests to keep obscene old practices in their rituals, +they are not always satisfied with them, and voices begin to be heard +pleading that these rites are really obsolete. In short, a moral sense +is beginning to arise among them.</p> + +<p>Now the moral law, in order that it may be feared, needs to be +embodied in the personality of a god. Most of their gods inspire no +fear at all in the souls of the Brahmans; but there is one of whom +they have a dread, which is all the greater for being illogical. +Prajāpati is a vast impersonality, too remote and abstract to inspire +the soul with either fear or love. The other gods—Indra, Agni, Sōma, +Varuṇa, Vishṇu, and the rest—are his offspring, and are moved like +puppets by the machinery of the ritual of sacrifice created by him. +However much they may seem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> to differ one from another in their +attributes and personalities, they are in essence one and negligible +in the eyes of the master of the ritual lore. In the beginning, say +the Brāhmaṇas, all the gods (except Prajāpati, of course) were alike, +and all were mortal; then they performed sacrifices and thereby became +immortal, each with his peculiar attributes of divinity.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Thus at +bottom they are all the same thing, merely phases of the universal +godhead, waves stirred up by the current of the cosmic sacrifice. They +have no terrors for the priesthood. But there is one deity who +obstinately refuses to accommodate himself to this convenient point of +view, and that is Rudra, or Śiva. By rights and logically he ought to +fall into rank with the rest of the gods; but there is a crossgrained +element in his nature which keeps him out. As we have seen, he comes +from a different source: in origin he was a demon, a power of terror, +whose realm of worship lay apart from that of the gods of higher +class, and now, although it has extended into the domains of orthodox +religion, an atmosphere of dread still broods over it.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Rudra +wields all his ancient terrors over a much widened area. The priests +have assigned him a regular place in their liturgies, and fully +recognise him in his several <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>phases as Bhava, Śarva, Ugra, Mahā-dēva +or the Great God, Rudra, Īśāna or the Lord, and Aśani or the +Thunderbolt (KB. VI. 2-9). Armed with his terrors, he is fit to be +employed in the service of conscience. Hence a myth has arisen that in +order to punish Prajāpati for his incest with his daughter the gods +created Bhūta-pati (who is Paśu-pati or Rudra under a new name), who +stabbed him. The rest of the myth is as immaterial to our purpose as +it is unsavoury; what is important is that the conscience of the +Brahmans was beginning to feel slight qualms at the uncleanness of +some of their old myths and to look towards Rudra as in some degree an +avenger of sin. In this is implied an immense moral advance. +Henceforth there will be a gradual ennoblement of one of the phases of +the god's character. Many of the best minds among the Brahmans will +find their imaginations stirred and their consciences moved by +contemplation of him. To them he will be no more a mere demon of the +mountain and the wild. His destructive wrath they will interpret as +symbolising the everlasting process of death-in-life which is the +keynote of nature; in his wild dances they will see imaged forth the +everlasting throb of cosmic existence; to his terrors they will find a +reverse of infinite love and grace. The horrors of Rudra the deadly +are the mantle of Śiva the gracious. Thus, while the god's character +in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> lower phases remains the same as before, claiming the worship +of the basest classes of mankind, and nowise rising to a higher level, +it develops powerfully and fruitfully in one aspect which attracts +grave and earnest imaginations. The Muni, the contemplative ascetic, +penetrates in meditation through the terrors of Śiva's outward form to +the god's inward love and wisdom, and beholds in him his own divine +prototype. And so Śiva comes to be figured in this nobler aspect as +the divine Muni, the supreme saint and sage.</p> + + +<p>While the worship of Śiva is slowly making its way into the heart of +Brahmanic ritualism, another movement is at work which is gradually +drawing many of the keenest intellects among the Brahmans away from +the study of ritual towards an idealistic philosophy which views all +ritual with indifference. Its literature is the Upanishads.</p> + +<p>The passing of the Ṛigvēdic age has left to the Brahmans a doctrinal +legacy, which may be thus restated: a single divine principle through +a prototypic sacrifice has given birth to the universe, and all the +processes of cosmic nature are controlled by sacrifices founded upon +that primeval sacrifice. In short, the ritual symbolises and in a +sense actually <i>is</i> the whole cosmic process. The ritual implies both +the knowledge of the law of sacrifice and the proper practice of that +law, <i>both understanding and works</i>. This is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> standpoint of the +orthodox ritualist. But there has also arisen a new school among the +Brahmans, that of the Aupanishadas, which has laid down for its first +doctrine that <i>works are for the sake of understanding</i>, that the +practice of ritual is of value only as a help to the mystic knowledge +of the All. But here they have not halted; they have gone a further +step, and declared that <i>knowledge once attained, works become +needless</i>. Some even venture to hint that perhaps the highest +knowledge is not to be reached through works at all. And the knowledge +that the Aupanishadas seek is of Brahma, and <i>is</i> Brahma.</p> + +<p>The word <i>brahma</i> is a neuter noun, and in the Ṛig-vēda it means +something that can only be fully translated by a long circumlocution. +It may be rendered as "the power of ritual devotion"; that is to say, +it denotes the mystic or magic force which is put forth by the +poet-priest of the Ṛig-vēda when he performs the rites of sacrifice +with appropriate chanting of hymns—in short, ritual magic. This +mystic force the Ṛigvēdic poets have represented in personal form as +the god Bṛihaspati, in much the same way as they embodied the spirit +of the sacrifice in Vishṇu. Their successors, the orthodox ritualists +of the Brāhmaṇas, have not made much use of this term; but sometimes +they speak of Brahma as an abstract first principle, the highest and +ultimate source of all being, even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> of Prajāpati (Sāmav. B. I. 1, Gōp. +B. I. i. 4); and when they speak of Brahma they think of him not as a +power connected with religious ceremony but as a supremely +transcendent and absolutely unqualified and impersonal First +Existence. But the school of the Aupanishadas has gone further. +Seeking through works mystic knowledge as the highest reality, they +see in Brahma the perfect knowledge. To them the absolute First +Existence is also transcendently full and unqualified Thought. As +knowledge is power, the perfect Power is perfect Knowledge.</p> + +<p>Brahma then is absolute knowledge; and all that exists is really +Brahma, one and indivisible in essence, but presenting itself +illusively to the finite consciousness as a world of plurality, of +most manifold subjects and objects of thought. The highest wisdom, the +greatest of all secrets, is to know this truth, to realise with full +consciousness that there exists only the One, Brahma, the infinite +Idea; and the sage of the Upanishads is he who has attained this +knowledge, understanding that he himself, as individual subject of +thought, is really identical with the universal Brahma. He has +realised that he is one with the Infinite Thought, he has raised +himself to the mystic heights of transcendental Being and Knowledge, +immeasurably far above nature and the gods. He knows all things at +their fountain-head, and life can nevermore bring harm to him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> in his +knowledge he has salvation, and death will lead him to complete union +with Brahma.</p> + +<p>The Aupanishadas have thus advanced from the pantheism of the orthodox +ritualists to a transcendental idealism. The process has been gradual. +It was only by degrees that they reached the idea of salvation in +knowledge, the knowledge that is union with Brahma; and it was +likewise only through slow stages that they were able to conceive of +Brahma in itself. Many passages in the Upanishads are full of +struggles to represent Brahma by symbols or forms perceptible to the +sense, such as ether, breath, the sun, etc. Priests endeavoured to +advance through ritual works to the ideas which these works are +supposed to symbolise: the ritual is the training-ground for the +higher knowledge, the leading-strings for infant philosophy. Gradually +men become capable of thinking without the help of these symbols: +philosophy grows to manhood, and looks with a certain contempt upon +those supports of its infancy.</p> + +<p>The nature of Brahma as conceived in the Upanishads is a subject on +which endless controversies have raged, and we need not add to them. +Besides, the Upanishads themselves are not strictly consistent on this +point, or on others, for that matter; for they are not a single +homogeneous system of philosophy, but a number of speculations, from +often varying standpoints, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> they are frequently inconsistent. But +there are some ideas which are more or less present in all of them. +They regard Brahma as absolute and infinite Thought and Being at once, +and as such it is one with the consciousness, soul or self, of the +individual when the latter rids himself of the illusion of a manifold +universe and realises his unity with Brahma. Moreover, Brahma is +bliss—the joy of wholly perfect and self-satisfied thought and being. +Since Brahma as universal Soul is really identical with each +individual soul or <i>ātmā</i>, and vice versa, it follows that each +individual soul contains within itself, <i>qua</i> Brahma, the whole of +existence, nature, gods, mankind, and all other beings; it creates +them all, and all depend upon it. Our Aupanishadas are thoroughgoing +idealists.</p> + +<p>Another new idea also appears for the first time in the early +Upanishads, and one that henceforth will wield enormous influence in +all Indian thought. This is the theory of <i>karma</i> and <i>saṃsāra</i>, +rebirth of the soul in accordance with the nature of its previous +works. Before the Upanishads we find no evidence of this doctrine: the +nearest approach to it is in some passages of the Brāhmaṇas which +speak of sinful men dying again in the next world as a punishment for +their guilt. But in the Upanishads the doctrine appears full-fledged, +and it is fraught with consequences of immense importance. Saṃsāra<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +means literally a "wandering to and fro," that is, the cycle of births +through which each soul must everlastingly pass from infinite time, +and Karma means the "acts" of each soul. Each work or act performed by +a living being is of a certain degree of righteousness or +unrighteousness, and it is requited by a future experience of +corresponding pleasure or pain. So every birth and ultimately every +experience of a soul is determined by the righteousness of its +previous acts; and there is no release for the soul from this endless +chain of causes and effects unless it can find some supernatural way +of deliverance. The Aupanishadas point to what they believe to be the +only way: it is the Brahma-knowledge of the enlightened sage, which +releases his soul from the chain of natural causation and raises him +to everlasting union with Brahma.</p> + +<p>The teaching of the Upanishads has had two very different practical +results. On the one hand, it has moved many earnest thinkers to cast +off the ties of the world and to wander about as homeless beggars, +living on alms and meditating and discoursing upon the teachings of +the Upanishads, while they await the coming of death to release their +souls from the prison of the flesh and bring it to complete and +eternal union with Brahma. These wandering ascetics—<i>sannyāsīs</i>, +<i>bhikshus</i>, or <i>parivrājakas</i> they are called—form a class by +themselves, which is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> destined to have an immense influence in +moulding the future thought of India. The teaching of Brahmanism is +beginning to recognise them, too. It has already divided the life of +the orthodox man into three stages, or <i>āśramas</i>, studentship, the +condition of the married householder, and thirdly the life of the +hermit, or <i>vānaprastha</i>, to which the householder should retire after +he has left a son to maintain his household; and now it is beginning +to add to these as fourth stage the life of the homeless ascetic +awaiting death and release. But this arrangement is for the most part +a fiction, devised in order to keep the beggar-philosophers within the +scheme of Brahmanic life; in reality they themselves recognise no such +law.</p> + +<p>The other current among the Aupanishadas is flowing in a very +different direction. We have seen how the worship of Rudra-Śiva has +grown since the old Ṛigvēdic days, and how some souls have been able +to see amidst the terrors of the god a power of love and wisdom that +satisfies their deepest hopes and longings, as none of the orthodox +rituals can do. A new feeling, the spirit of religious devotion, +<i>bhakti</i> as it is called, is arising among them. To them—and they +number many Brahmans as well as men of other orders—Śiva has thus +become the highest object of worship, Īśvara or "the Lord"; and having +thus enthroned him as supreme in their hearts,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> they are endeavouring +to find for him a corresponding place in their intellects. To this end +they claim that Śiva as Īśvara is the highest of all forms of +existence; and this doctrine is growing and finding much favour. Among +the Aupanishadas there are many who reconcile it with the teaching of +the Upanishads by identifying Śiva with Brahma. Thus a new light +begins to flicker here and there in the Upanishads as the conception +of Śiva, a personal god wielding free grace, colours the pale +whiteness of the impersonal Brahma; and at last in the Śvētāśvatara, +which though rather late in date is not the least important of the +Upanishads, this theistic movement boldly proclaims itself: the +supreme Brahma, identified with Śiva, is definitely contrasted with +the individual soul as divine to human, giver of grace to receiver of +grace. Later Upanishads will take up this strain, in honour of Śiva +and other gods, and finally they will end as mere tracts of this or +that theistic church.</p> + +<p>Yet another current is now beginning to stir men's minds, and it is +one that is also destined to a great future. It starts from Kṛishṇa.</p> + +<p>The teaching of the Upanishads, that all being is the One Brahma and +that Brahma is the same as the individual soul, has busied many men, +not only Brahmans but also Kshatriyas, noblemen of the warrior order. +Some even say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> it arose among the Kshatriyas; and at any rate it +is likely that they, being less obsessed with the forms of ritual than +the Brahmans and therefore able to think more directly and clearly, +have helped the Brahmans in their discussions to clear their minds of +ritual symbolism, and to realise more definitely the philosophic ideas +which hitherto they had seen only dimly typified in their ceremonies.</p> + +<p>Kṛishṇa was one of these Kshatriyas. He belonged to the Sātvata or +Vṛishṇi tribe, living in or near the ancient city of Mathurā. +Sometimes in early writings he is styled Kṛishṇa Dēvakīputra, Kṛishṇa +Dēvakī's son, because his mother's name was Dēvakī; sometimes again he +is called Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, or simply Vāsudēva, which is a patronymic +said to be derived from the name of his father Vasudēva. In later +times we shall find a whole cycle of legend gathering round him, in +which doubtless there is a kernel of fact. Omitting the miraculous +elements in these tales, we may say that the outline of the +Kṛishṇa-legend is as follows: Kṛishṇa's father Vasudēva and his mother +Dēvakī were grievously wronged by Dēvakī's cousin Kaṃsa, who usurped +the royal power in Mathurā and endeavoured to slay Kṛishṇa in his +infancy; but the child escaped, and on growing to manhood killed +Kaṃsa. But Kaṃsa had made alliance with Jarāsandha king of Magadha, +who now threatened Kṛishṇa; so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> Kṛishṇa prudently retired from Mathurā +and led a colony of his tribesmen to Dvārakā, on the western coast in +Kathiawar, where he founded a new State. There seems to be no valid +reason for doubting these statements. Sober history does not reject a +tale because it is embroidered with myth and fiction.</p> + +<p>Now this man Kṛishṇa in the midst of his stirring life of war and +government found time and taste also for the things that are of the +spirit. He talked with men learned in the Upanishads about Brahma and +the soul and the worship of God; and apparently he set up a little +Established Church of his own, in which was combined something of the +idealism of the Upanishads with the worship of a supreme God of grace +and perhaps too a kind of religious discipline, about which we shall +say more later on. It must be confessed that we know sadly little +about his actual doctrine from first hand. All that we hear about it +is a short chapter in the Chhāndōgya Upanishad (iii. 17), where the +Brahman Ghōra Āṅgirasa gives a sermon to Kṛishṇa, in which he compares +the phases of human life to stages in the <i>dīkshā</i> or ceremony of +consecration, and the moral virtues that should accompany them to the +<i>dakshiṇā</i> or honorarium paid to the officiating priests, and he +concludes by exhorting his hearer to realise that the Brahma is +imperishable, unfailing, and spiritual, and quoting two verses from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +the Ṛig-vēda speaking of the Sun as typifying the supreme bliss to +which the enlightened soul arises. This does not tell us very much, +and moreover we should remember that here our author, being an +Aupanishada, is more interested in what Ghōra preached to Kṛishṇa than +in what Kṛishṇa accepted from Ghōra's teaching. But we shall find +centuries later in the Bhagavad-gītā, the greatest textbook of the +religion of Kṛishṇa, some distant echoes of this paragraph of the +Chhāndōgya.</p> + +<p>The beginnings of the religion of Kṛishṇa are thus very uncertain. But +as we travel down the ages we find it growing and spreading. We see +Kṛishṇa himself regarded as a half-divine hero and teacher, and +worshipped under the name of <i>Bhagavān</i>, "the Lord," in association +with other half-divine heroes. We see him becoming identified with old +gods, and finally rising to the rank of the Supreme Deity whose +worship he had himself taught in his lifetime, the Brahma of the +philosophers and the Most High God of the theists. As has happened +many a time, the teacher has become the God of his Church.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES</h3><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> For the original mortality of the gods see TS. VII. iv. +2, 1, ŚB. X. iv. 33 f., XI. i. 2, 12, ii. 3, 6; for their primitive +non-differentiation, TS. VI. vi. 8, 2, ŚB. IV. v. 4, 1-4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Cf. e.g. KB. III. 4 & 6, VI. 2-9, and Āp. ŚS. VI. xiv. +11-13.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h2>THE EPICS, AND LATER</h2> +<h2>I. VISHṆU-KṚISHṆA</h2> +<p>We now enter upon an age in which the old gods, Indra and Brahmā, +retire to the background, while Vishṇu and Śiva stand in the forefront +of the stage.</p> + +<p>The Hindus are of the same opinion as the Latin poet: <i>ferrea nunc +aetas agitur</i>. We are now living in an Iron Age, according to them; +and it began in the year 3102 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, shortly after the great war +described in the Mahābhārata. The date 3102, I need hardly remark, is +of no historical value, being based merely upon the theories of +comparatively late astronomers; but the statement as a whole is +important. The Great War marks an epoch. It came at the end of what +may be called the pre-historic period, and was followed by a new age. +To be strictly correct, we must say that the age which followed the +Great War was not new in the sense that it introduced any startling +novelties that had been unknown previously; but it was new in the +sense that after the Great War India speedily became the India that we +know from historical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> records. A certain fusion of different races, +cultures, and ideals had to take place in order that the peculiar +civilisation of India might unfold itself; and this fusion was +accomplished about the time of the Great War, and partly no doubt by +means of the Great War, some ten centuries before the Christian era.</p> + +<p>The story of the Great War is told with a wild profusion of mythical +and legendary colouring in the Mahābhārata, an epic the name of which +means literally "The Great Tale of the Bharata Clan." It relates how +the blind old King Dhṛitarāshṭra of Hastināpura had a hundred sons, +known as the Kuru or Kaurava princes, the eldest of whom was +Duryōdhana, and Dhṛitarāshṭra's brother Pāṇḍu had five sons, the +Pāṇḍava brethren; how the Pāṇḍavas were ousted by the Kauravas from +the kingdom, the eldest Pāṇḍava prince Yudhishṭhira having been +induced to stake the fortunes of himself and his brethren on a game of +dice, in which he was defeated; how the five Pāṇḍavas, with their +common wife Draupadī (observe this curious and ugly feature of +polyandry, which is quite opposed to standard Hindu morals, but is by +no means unparalleled in early Indian literature<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a>) retired into +exile for thirteen years, and then came back with a great army of +allies, and after fierce and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>bloody battles with the Kauravas and +their supporters in the plain of Kurukshētra at last gained the +victory, slew the Kauravas, and established Yudhishṭhira as king in +Hastināpura. Among the Pāṇḍavas the leading part is played by the +eldest, Yudhishṭhira, and the third, Arjuna; of the others, Bhīma, the +second, is a Hercules notable only for his strength, courage, and +fidelity, while the twins Nakula and Sahadēva are colourless figures. +Kṛishṇa plays an important part in the story; for on the return of +the Pāṇḍavas to fight the Kauravas he accompanies Arjuna as his +charioteer, and on the eve of the first battle delivers to him a +discourse on his religion, the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song, which +has become one of the most famous and powerful of all the sacred books +of India.</p> + + + +<p>Now if the Mahābhārata were as homogeneous even as the Iliad and +Odyssey, which give us a fairly consistent and truthful picture of a +single age, we should be in a very happy position. Unfortunately this +is not the case. Our epic began as a Bhārata, or Tale of the Bharata +Clan, probably of very moderate bulk, not later than 600 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, and +perhaps considerably earlier; and from that time onward it went on +growing bigger and bigger for over a thousand years, as editors +stuffed in new episodes and still longer discourses on nearly all the +religious and philosophic doc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>trines admitted within the four walls of +Hinduism, until it grew to its present immense bulk, which it claims +to amount to 100,000 verses. Thus it pictures the thought not of one +century but of more than ten, and we cannot feel sure of the date of +any particular statement in it. Nevertheless we can distinguish in a +general way between the old skeleton of the story, in which the theme +is treated in simple epic fashion, society is far freer than in later +days and no one objects to eating beef, from the additional matter, in +which the tale is recast in a far more grandiose vein and is padded +out with enormous quantities of moral, religious, and philosophic +sermons. The religion too is different in the different parts. In the +older portions the gods who are most popular are Indra, Agni, and +Brahmā—not the neuter abstract Brahma, but the masculine Brahmā, the +Demiurge, who corresponds more or less to Prajāpati of the Brāhmaṇas +and is represented in classical art as a four-headed old man reciting +the Vēdas—and Kṛishṇa seems to figure only as a hero or at best as a +demigod; but the later parts with fine impartiality claim the +supremacy of heaven variously for Śiva, Brahmā, and Vishṇu; and +Vishṇu, as we have seen, is sometimes identified with Kṛishṇa, notably +in the chapters known as the Bhagavad-gītā.</p> + +<p>The gods have changed somewhat since earlier days. Indra has settled +down in the constitu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>tional monarchy of Paradise assigned to him by +the Brāhmaṇas; he now figures as the prototype of earthly kings, +leading the armies of the gods to war against the demons when occasion +requires, and passing the leisure of peace in the enjoyment of +celestial dissipation. His morals have not improved: he is a debonair +debauchee. Brahmā the Creator, a more popular version of Prajāpati, is +still too impersonal to have much hold on the popular imagination; the +same is the case with Agni the Fire-god. Plainly there was a vacancy +for a supreme deity whose character was powerful enough to move men's +souls, either through awe or love; and for this vacancy there were two +strong candidates, Vishṇu and Śiva, who in course of time succeeded to +the post and divided the supremacy between them.</p> + +<p>Vishṇu has altered immensely since last we met him. First, after an +extraordinary change in his own character, he has been identified with +Nārāyaṇa, and then both of them have been equated with Kṛishṇa. The +development is so portentous that it calls for a little study.</p> + +<p>We have seen that in the Vēdas Vishṇu appears to be, and in the +Brāhmaṇas certainly is, the embodied Spirit of the Sacrifice, and that +ritual mysticism has invented for him a supreme home in the highest +heaven. But in the Epics he has developed into a radiant and gracious +figure of ideal divinity, an almighty saviour with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> a long record of +holy works for the salvation of mankind, a god who delights in moral +goodness as well as in ritual propriety, and who from time to time +incarnates himself in human or animal form so as to maintain the order +of righteousness. Symbolism has further endowed him with a consort, +the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, typifying fortune; sometimes also he is +represented with another wife, the Earth-goddess. The divine hawk or +kite Garuḍa, who seems to have been originally the same as the eagle +who in the Ṛigvēdic legend carried off the sōma for Indra, has been +pressed into his service; he now rides on Garuḍa, and bears his figure +upon his banner. I have already suggested a possible explanation of +this evolution (above, p. 41): owing to his close association with +Indra, the most truly popular of Ṛigvēdic deities, the laic +imagination transfused some of the live blood of Indra into the veins +of the priestly abstraction Vishṇu. To the plain man Indra was very +real; and as he frequently heard tales of Indra being aided in his +exploits by Vishṇu, he came to regard Vishṇu as a very present helper +in trouble. The friend of Indra became the friend of mankind. The post +of Indra had already been fixed for him by the theologians; but the +functions of Vishṇu, outside the rituals, were still somewhat vaguely +defined, and were capable of considerable expansion. Here was a great +opportunity for those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> souls who were seeking for a supreme god of +grace, and were not satisfied to find him in Śiva; and they made full +use of it, and wholly transformed the personality of Vishṇu.</p> + +<p>One of the stages in this transformation was the absorption of +Nārāyaṇa in Vishṇu. Nārāyaṇa was originally a god of a different kind. +The earliest reference to him is in a Brāhmaṇa which calls him Purusha +Nārāyaṇa, which means that it regards him as being the same as the +Universal Spirit which creates from itself the cosmos; it relates that +Purusha Nārāyaṇa pervaded the whole of nature (ŚB. XII. iii. 4, 1), +and that he made himself omnipresent and supreme over all beings by +performing a <i>pañcha-rātra sattra</i>, or series of sacrifices lasting +over five days (ib. XIII. vi. 1, 1). Somewhat later we find prayers +addressed to Nārāyaṇa, Vāsudēva, and Vishṇu as three phases of the +same god (Taitt. Āraṇ. X. i. 6). But was Nārāyaṇa in origin merely a +variety of the Vēdic Purusha or our old acquaintance Prajāpati? His +name must give us pause. The most simple explanation of it is that it +is a family name: as Kārshṇāyaṇa means a member of the Kṛishṇa-family +and Rāṇāyana a man belonging to the family of Raṇa, so Nārāyaṇa would +naturally denote a person of the family of Nara. But Nara itself +signifies a <i>man</i>: is the etymology therefore reduced to absurdity? +Not at all: Nara is also used as a proper name, as we shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> see.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +Probably the name really means what naturally it would seem to mean, +"a man of the Nara family"; that Nārāyaṇa was originally a divine or +deified saint, a <i>ṛishi</i>, as the Hindus would call him; and that +somehow he became identified with Vishṇu and the Universal Spirit.</p> + + + +<p>This theory really is not by any means as wild as at first sight it +may seem to be. Divine saints are sometimes mentioned in the Ṛig-vēda +and Brāhmaṇas as being the creators of the universe<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a>; and they +appear again and again in legend as equals of the gods, attaining +divine powers by their mystic insight into the sacrificial lore. But +there is more direct evidence than this.</p> + + + +<p>In the Mahābhārata there are incorporated two documents of first-rate +importance for the doctrines of the churches that worshipped Vishṇu. +One of these is the Bhagavad-gītā, or Lord's Song (VI. xxv.-xlii.); +the other is the Nārāyaṇīya, or Account of Nārāyaṇa (XII. +cccxxxvi.-cccliii.). <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Their teachings are not the same in details, +though on most main points they agree; for they belong to different +sections of the one religious body. Leaving aside the Bhagavad-gītā +for the moment, we note that the Nārāyaṇīya relates a story that there +were born four sons of Dharma, or Righteousness, viz. Nara, Nārāyaṇa, +Hari or Vishṇu, and Kṛishṇa. In other places (I. ccxxx. 18, III. xii. +45, xlvii. 10, V. xlviii. 15, etc.) we are plainly told that Nara is a +previous incarnation of Arjuna the Pāṇḍava prince, and Nārāyaṇa is, of +course, the supreme Deity, who in the time of Arjuna was born on earth +as Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, and that in his earlier birth Nara and Nārāyaṇa +were both ascetic saints. This tradition is very important, for it +enables us to see something of the early character of Nārāyaṇa. He was +an ancient saint of legend, who was connected with a hero Nara, just +as Kṛishṇa was associated with Arjuna; and the atmosphere of +saintliness clings to him obstinately. Tradition alleges that he was +the <i>ṛishi</i>, or inspired seer, who composed the Purusha-sūkta of the +Ṛig-vēda (X. 90), and represents him by choice as lying in a +<i>yōga-nidrā</i>, or mystic sleep, upon the body of the giant serpent +Śēsha in the midst of the Ocean of Milk. Thus the worship of Vishṇu, +like the worship of Śiva, has owed much to the influence of live yōgīs +idealised as divine saints; though it must be admitted that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> the yōgīs +of the Vaishṇava orders have usually been more agreeable and less +ambiguous than those of the Śaiva community.</p> + +<p>We must briefly consider now the religious teachings of the +Bhagavad-gītā and the Nārāyaṇīya, and then turn to the inscriptions +and contemporary literature to see whether we can find any sidelights +in them. We begin with the Bhagavad-gītā, or The Lord's Song.</p> + +<p>The Bhagavad-gītā purports to be a dialogue between the Pāṇḍava prince +Arjuna and Kṛishṇa, who was serving him as his charioteer, on the eve +of the great battle. In order to invent a leading motive for his +teaching, the poet represents Arjuna as suddenly stricken with +overwhelming remorse at the prospect of the fratricidal strife which +he is about to begin. "I will not fight," he cries in anguish. Then +Kṛishṇa begins a long series of arguments to stimulate him for the +coming battle. He points out, with quotations from the Upanishads, +that killing men in battle does not destroy their souls; for the soul +is indestructible, migrating from body to body according to its own +deserts. The duty of the man born in the Warrior-caste is to fight; +fighting is his caste-duty, his <i>dharma</i>, and as such it can entail +upon him no guilt if it be performed in the right spirit. But how is +this to be done? The answer is the leading motive of Kṛishṇa's +teaching. For the maintenance of the world it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> is necessary that men +should do the works of their respective castes, and these works do not +operate as <i>karma</i> to the detriment of the future life of their souls +if they perform them not from selfish motives but as offerings made in +perfect unselfishness to the Lord. This is the doctrine of +<i>Karma-yōga</i>, discipline of works, which is declared to lead the soul +of the worshipper to salvation in the Lord as effectually as the +ancient intellectualism preached in the Upanishads and the Sāṃkhya +philosophy. But there is also a third way to salvation, the way +through loving devotion, or <i>bhakti</i>, which is as efficacious as +either of the other two; the worshippers of Śiva had already preached +this for their own church in the Śvētāśvatara Upanishad. Besides +treating without much consistency or method of many incidental +questions of religious theory and practice, Kṛishṇa reveals himself +for a few instants to Arjuna in his form as Virāj, the universal being +in which all beings are comprehended and consumed. Finally Arjuna is +comforted, and laying the burden of all his works upon Kṛishṇa, he +prepares in quiet faith for the coming day of battle.</p> + +<p>There are four main points to notice in this teaching. (1) The Supreme +God, superior to Brahma, he who rules by grace and comprehends in his +universal person the whole of existence, is Vishṇu, or Hari, +represented on earth for the time being by Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva. The +author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> makes no attempt to reconcile the fatalism implied in the old +theory of <i>karma-saṃsāra</i> with his new doctrine of special and general +grace: he allows the two principles to stand side by side, and leaves +for future generations of theologians the delicate task of harmonising +them. (2) Three roads to salvation are recognised in principle, the +intellectual gnosis of the old Upanishads and the Sāṃkhya, the "way of +works" or performance of necessary social duties in a spirit of +perfect surrender to God, and the "way of devotion," continuous loving +worship and contemplation of God. In practice the first method is +ignored as being too severe for average men; the second and third are +recommended, as being suitable for all classes. (3) The way of +salvation is thus thrown open directly to men and women of all castes +and conditions. The Bhagavad-gītā fully approves of the orthodox +division of society into castes; but by its doctrine that the +performance of caste-duties in a spirit of sacrifice leads to +salvation it makes caste an avenue to salvation, not a barrier. (4) +The Bhagavad-gītā has nothing to say for the animal-sacrifices of the +Brahmans. It recognises only offerings of flowers, fruits, and the +like. The doctrine of <i>ahiṃsā</i>, "thou shalt do no hurt," was making +much headway at the time, and the wholesale animal-sacrifices of the +Brahmans roused general disgust, of which the Buddhists and Jains +took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> advantage for the propagation of their teachings.</p> + +<p>I have previously spoken of the solitary passage in the Chhāndōgya +Upanishad in which Kṛishṇa's name is mentioned, as receiving the +teachings of Ghōra Āṅgirasa, and it will now be fitting to see how far +these teachings are reflected in the Bhagavad-gītā. Ghōra compares the +functions of life to the ceremonies of the <i>dīkshā</i> (see above, p.68): +and this is at bottom the same idea as the doctrine of <i>karma-yōga</i> +preached again and again in the Bhagavad-gītā. "Whatever be thy work, +thine eating, thy sacrifice, thy gift, thy mortification, make of it +an offering to me," says Kṛishṇa (IX. 27); all life should be regarded +as a sacrifice freely offered. Then Ghōra continues: "In the hour of +death one should take refuge in these three thoughts: 'Thou art the +Indestructible, Thou art the Unfailing, Thou art instinct with +Spirit.' On this there are these two verses of the Ṛig-vēda:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus upward from the primal seed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From out the darkness all around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We, looking on the higher light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, looking on the higher heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have come to Sūrya, god midst gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him that is the highest light, the highest light."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the Bhagavad-gītā (IV. 1 ff.) Kṛishṇa announces that he preached +his doctrine to Vivasvān the Sun-god, who passed it on to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> son the +patriarch Manu; elsewhere in the Mahābhārata (XII. cccv. 19) the +Sātvata teaching is said to have been announced by the Sun. Ghōra in +his list of moral virtues enumerates "mortification, charity, +uprightness, harmlessness, truthfulness"; exactly the same attributes, +with a few more, are said in the Bhagavad-gītā to characterise the man +who is born to the gods' estate (XVI. 1-3). Ghōra's exhortation to +think of the nature of the Supreme in the hour of death is balanced by +Kṛishṇa's words: "He who at his last hour, when he casts off the body, +goes hence remembering me, goes assuredly into my being" (VIII. 5; cf. +10). These parallels are indeed not very close; but collectively they +are significant, and when we bear in mind that the author of the +Bhagavad-gītā is eager to associate his doctrine with those of the +Upanishads, and thus to make it a new and catholic Upanishad for all +classes, we are led to conclude that its fundamental ideas, +sanctification of works (<i>karma-yōga</i>), worship of a Supreme God of +Grace (<i>bhakti</i>) by all classes, and rejection of animal sacrifices +(<i>ahiṃsā</i>) arose among the orthodox Kshatriyas, who found means to +persuade their Brahmanic preceptors to bring it into connection with +their Upanishads and embellish it with appropriate texts from those +sources. Very likely Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, if not the first inventor of +these doctrines, was their most vigorous propagator.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now what are the teachings of the Nārāyaṇīya? It appears to contain +two accounts. In the first we have the story of king Vasu Uparichara, +who is said to have worshipped the Supreme God Hari (Vishṇu) in +devotion without any animal-sacrifices, in accordance with doctrines +ascribed to the Āraṇyakas, i.e. the later sections of the Brāhmaṇas, +including the older Upanishads. This fully agrees with the standpoint +of the Bhagavad-gītā. The second account gives the story of a visit +paid by the divine saint Nārada to a mysterious "White Island," +Śvēta-dvīpa, inhabited by holy worshippers of God who are, strangely +enough, described as having heads shaped like umbrellas and feet like +lotus-leaves and as making a sound like that of thunder-clouds<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>; +they are radiant like the moon, have no physical senses, eat nothing, +and concentrate their whole soul on rapturous adoration of the spirit +of God, which shines there in dazzling brightness to the eye of +perfect faith. Nārāyaṇa there reveals himself to Nārada, and sets +forth to him the doctrine of Vāsudēva. According to this, Nārāyaṇa has +four forms, called <i>mūrtis</i> or <i>vyūhas</i>. The first of these is +Vāsudēva, who is the highest soul and creator and inwardly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>controls +all individual souls. From him arose Saṃkarshaṇa, who corresponds to +the individual soul; from Saṃkarshaṇa issued Pradyumna, to whom +corresponds the organ of mind, and from Pradyumna came forth +Aniruddha, representing the element of self-consciousness. Observe in +passing that these are all names of heroes of legend: Saṃkarshaṇa is +Vāsudēva's brother Bala-rāma, Pradyumna was the son and Aniruddha the +grandson of Vāsudēva. Nārāyaṇa then goes on to speak of the creation +of all things from himself and their dissolution into himself, and of +his incarnations in the form of the Boar who lifted up on his tusk the +earth when submerged under the ocean, Narasiṃha the Man-lion who +destroyed the tyrant Hiraṇya-kaśipu, the Dwarf who overthrew Balī, +Rāma Bhārgava who destroyed the Kshatriyas, Rāma Dāśarathi, of whom we +shall have something to say later. Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva the slayer of +Kaṃsa of Mathurā, the Tortoise, the Fish, and Kalkī. Then follow some +further details, among them a statement that this doctrine was +revealed to Arjuna at the beginning of the Great War—a clear +reference to the Bhagavad-gītā—that at the beginning of every age it +was promulgated by Nārāyaṇa, that it requires activity in pious works, +that at the commencement of the present age it passed from him to +Brahmā, from him to Vivasvān the Sun-god, from him to the patriarch +Manu, etc.,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> that it does not allow the sacrifice of animals, and that +for salvation the co-operative grace of Nārāyaṇa is necessary. Most of +this doctrine is already in the Bhagavad-gītā; what is not found in +the latter is the account of the mysterious White Island, the theory +of <i>vyūhas</i> or emanations, which represents Vāsudēva as issuing from +Nārāyaṇa and so forth, and the details of Nārāyaṇa's incarnations. It +is therefore a distinct textbook of the Sātvata or Pāñcharātra church, +not much later than the Bhagavad-gītā. According to it, the Supreme +Being is Nārāyaṇa, the Almighty God who reveals himself as highest +teacher and saintly sage, whose legendary performance of a five-days' +sacrifice (above, p. 76) has gained for his doctrine the title of +Pāñcharātra. Next in order of divinity is Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whose +tribal name of Sātvata has furnished the other name of this church; +then follow in due order Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, all of +his family; and with Vāsudēva is closely associated the epic hero +Arjuna, a prototype for this mortal pair being discovered in the +legendary Nara and Nārāyaṇa.</p> + + + +<p>Comparing then the Bhagavad-gītā with the Nārāyaṇīya, we see that in +all essentials they agree, but in two points they differ. Both preach +a doctrine of activity in pious works, <i>pravṛitti</i>, in conscious +opposition to the inactivity of the Aupanishadas and Sāṃkhyas; but +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> Nārāyaṇīya does not dwell much on this topic, and limits activity +to strictly religious duties, while the Bhagavad-gītā develops the +idea so as to include everything, thus sketching out a bold system for +the sanctification of all sides of life, which enables it to open the +door of salvation directly to all classes of mankind. Secondly, the +Bhagavad-gītā says nothing about the theory of emanations or <i>vyūhas</i> +in connection with Vāsudēva; probably its author knew the legends of +Saṃkarshaṇa, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, but he apparently did not know +or at least did not accept the view that these persons were related as +successive emanations from Vāsudēva. We must therefore look round for +sidelights which may clear up the obscurities in the history of this +church.</p> + +<p>Our first sidelight glimmers in the famous grammar of Pāṇini, who +probably lived in the fifth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, or perhaps early in the +fourth century. Pāṇini informs us (IV. iii. 98) that from the names of +Vāsudēva and Arjuna the derivative nouns <i>Vāsudēvaka</i> and <i>Arjunaka</i> +are formed to denote persons who worship respectively Vāsudēva and +Arjuna. Plainly then in the fifth century Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and Arjuna +were worshipped by some, probably in the same connection as is shown +in the Mahābhārata. Perhaps Vāsudēva had not yet been raised to the +rank of the Almighty; it is more likely that he was still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> a deified +hero and teacher, and Arjuna his noblest disciple. But both of them +were receiving divine honours; they had been men, and were now gods, +with bands of adorers.</p> + +<p>Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of +a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior +State,<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> and must have been engraved soon after 200 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> It reads as +follows: "This Garuḍa-column of Vāsudēva the god of gods was erected +here by Heliodorus, a worshipper of the Lord [<i>bhāgavata</i>], the son of +Diya [Greek <i>Dion</i>] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as +ambassador of the Greeks from the Great King Aṃtalikita [Greek +<i>Antialcidas</i>] to King Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra the Saviour, who was +flourishing in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are +two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal +steps ... when practised lead to heaven—self-control, charity, and +diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably +forming part of the Śuṅga empire, Vāsudēva is worshipped not as a +minor hero or teacher, but as the god of gods, <i>dēva-dēva</i>; and he is +worshipped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>the place as an +ambassador from Antialcidas, a Hellenic king of the lineage of +Eucratides, who was reigning in the North-West of India. Doubtless the +act of Heliodorus was a diplomatic courtesy, in order to please King +Kāśīputra Bhāgabhadra. But observe the nature of his act. He caused to +be erected a Garuḍa-column, that is, a pillar engraved with the figure +of Garuḍa, the sacred bird of Vishṇu; and he added a verse about +"three immortal steps" (<i>trini amutapadāni</i>), as leading to heaven, +which sounds suspiciously like an attempt to moralise the old mythical +feature of the three Steps of Vishṇu. Plainly Vāsudēva had now risen +in this part of the country from being the teacher of a church of +Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa to the rank of its chief god, with which he had become +fully identified.</p> + + + +<p>Another inscription, a few years later in date, has been found in +Besnagar. It is a mere fragment, but it supplements the other; for it +states that a certain <i>bhāgavata</i>, or "worshipper of the Lord," named +Gōtama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garuḍa-column for +the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King +Bhāgavata. This king is perhaps the same as the person of that name +who appears in some genealogical lists as the last but one of the +Śuṅga Kings.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + + + +<p>Next in date is an inscription on a stone slab <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>found at Ghasundi, +about four miles north-east of Nagari, in Udaipur State. It was +engraved about 150 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, and records that a certain <i>bhāgavata</i>, or +"worshipper of the Lord," named Gājāyana, son of Pārāśarī, caused to +be erected in the Nārāyaṇa-vāṭa, or park of Nārāyaṇa, a stone chapel +for the worship of the Lords Saṃkarshaṇa and Vāsudēva.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> Here their +worship is associated with that of Nārāyaṇa.</p> + + + +<p>Passing over an inscription at Mathurā which records the building of a +part of a sanctuary to the Lord Vāsudēva about 15 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> by the great +Satrap Sōḍāsa,<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> we note that the grammarian Patañjali, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>who wrote +his commentary the Mahābhāshya upon Pāṇini's grammar about 150 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, +has something to say about Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, whom he recognises as a +divine being (on IV. iii. 98). He quotes some verses referring to him. +The first (on II. ii. 23) is to the following effect: "May the might +of Kṛishṇa accompanied by Saṃkarshaṇa increase!" Another (on VI. iii. +6) speaks of "Janārdana with himself as fourth," that is to say, +Kṛishṇa with three companions: the three may be Saṃkarshaṇa, +Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, or they may not. Another verse (on II. ii. +34) speaks of musical instruments being played at meetings in the +temples of Rāma and Kēśava. Rāma is Bala-rāma or Bala-bhadra, who is +the same as Saṃkarshaṇa, and Kēśava is a title of Kṛishṇa, which was +applied also to Vishṇu or Nārāyaṇa according to the +Bōdhāyana-dharma-sūtra, which may be assigned to the second century +<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> The Ovavāī, or Aupapātika-sūtra, a Jain scripture which may +perhaps belong to the same period, mentions (§ 76) <i>Kaṇha-parivvāyā</i>, +wandering friars who worshipped Kṛishṇa. Thus literature as well as +inscriptions shows that Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva and his brother Saṃkarshaṇa +were in many places worshipped as saints of a church of +Vishṇu-Nārāyaṇa about 150 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, and that in some parts Vāsudēva was +recognised as the Almighty himself about 200 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span></p> + + +<p>In another passage (on III. i, 26) Patañjali<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> describes dramatic and +mimetic performances representing the killing of Kaṃsa by Vāsudēva. +Altogether his references show that the legend and worship of Vāsudēva +bulked largely in the popular mind at this time in India north of the +Vindhya mountains. Vāsudēva was adored as the great teacher and +hero-king, in whom the gods Vishṇu and Nārāyaṇa were incarnated; and +he was associated with two great cycles of legend, the one that +related his birth at Mathurā, his victory over the tyrant Kaṃsa, his +establishment of the colony at Dvārakā, and his adventures until his +death and translation to heaven, and the other telling of his share in +the Great War as ally of the five Pāṇḍava brethren. Both cycles +represented him as supported by princely heroes. The Mathurā-Dvārakā +legend gave him his brother Bala-bhadra or Saṃkarshaṇa, his son +Pradyumna, and his grandson Aniruddha, whom theologians about the +beginning of the Christian era fitted into their philosophical schemes +by representing them as successive emanations from him; and the +Mahābhārata furnished him with the Pāṇḍavas, whose heroic tale soon +created for them a worship everywhere. As we have seen, there were +adorers of Arjuna already in the fifth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>; and in the first +century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> there seems to be evidence for a worship of all the five +together with Vāsudēva, for an inscription has been found at Mora +which apparently mentions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> a son of the great Satrap Rājuvula, +probably the well-known Satrap Sōḍāsa, and an image of the "Lord +Vṛishṇi," probably Vāsudēva, and of the "Five Warriors."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Already +the poets of the Mahābhārata have taken the first step towards the +deification of the Pāṇḍavas by finding divine fathers for each of +them, making Yudhishṭhira the son of Dharma or Yama, the god of the +nether world, Arjuna son of Indra, Bhīma son of Vāyu the Wind-god, and +Nakula and Sahadēva offspring of the Aśvins. Hundreds of caverns +throughout India are declared by popular legend to have been their +dwellings during their wanderings; and a noble monument to their +memory has been raised by one of the great Pallava kings of Conjevaram +who in the seventh century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> carved out of the solid rock on the +seashore at Mamallapuram the fine chapels that bear their names. +Doubtless all these heroes from both cycles were once worshipped in +the usual manner, with offerings of food, incense, lights, flowers, +etc., and singing of hymns on their exploits—chiefly in connection +with Vāsudēva; but all this worship is now utterly forgotten, except +where echoes of it linger in popular legend.</p> + + + +<p>Our survey of the religion of Vāsudēva has brought us down to a date +which cannot indeed be exactly fixed, but which may be placed +approximately in the second century of our era. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>This religion, as we +have seen, arose and grew great in the fertile soil of the spiritual +needs and experiences of India. It began by moulding a personal God +out of ancient figures of myth and legend, and it surrounded him with +a hierarchy of godly heroes. Though its doctrines were often +philosophically incongruous and incoherent, its foundation was a true +religious feeling; it gave scope to the mystic raptures of the ascetic +and the simple righteousness of the laic; and it claimed for its +heroes, Vāsudēva and his kindred and his friends the Pāṇḍava brethren, +a grave and dignified hero-worship. In short, it is a serious Indian +religion with an epic setting.</p> + +<p>And now suddenly and most unexpectedly an utterly new spirit begins to +breathe in it. To the old teachings and legends are added new ones of +a wholly different cast. The old epic spirit of grave and manly +chivalry and godly wisdom is overshadowed by a new passion—adoration +of tender babyhood and wanton childhood, amorous ecstasies, a hectic +fire of erotic romance.</p> + +<p>Of this new spirit there is no trace in the epic, except in one or two +late interpolations. But the Hari-vaṃśa, which was added as an +appendix to the Mahābhārata not very long before the fourth century +<span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, is already instinct with it. It adds to the epic story of +Kṛishṇa a fluent verse account of his miraculous preservation from +Kaṃsa at his birth, his childhood among the herdsmen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> and herdswomen +of Vraja (the Doab near Mathurā) with its marvellous freaks and +wonderful exploits, his amorous sports with the herdswomen, in fact +all the sensuous emotionalism on which the later church of Kṛishṇa has +ever since battened. About the same time appeared the Vishṇu-purāṇa, +which includes most of the same matter as the Hari-vaṃśa; and some +centuries later, probably about the tenth century, there was written a +still more remarkable book, the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, of which a great +part is taken up with the romance of Kṛishṇa's babyhood and childhood, +and especially his amorous sports. In the Bhāgavata the later worship +of Kṛishṇa found its classic expression. In the Hari-vaṃśa and +Vishṇu-purāṇa religious emotion is still held under a certain +restraint; but in the Bhāgavata it has broken loose and runs riot. It +is a romance of ecstatic love for Kṛishṇa, who is no longer, as in the +Vishṇu-purāṇa, the incarnation of a portion of the Supreme Vishṇu, but +very God become man, wholly and utterly divine in his humanity. It +dwells in a rapture of tenderness upon the God-babe, and upon the +wanton play of the lovely child who is delightful in his naughtiness +and marvellous in his occasional displays of superhuman power; it +figures him as an ideal of boyish beauty, decked with jewels and +crested with peacock's feathers, wandering through the flowering +forests of Vraja, dancing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> and playing on his flute melodies that fill +the souls of all that hear them with an irresistible passion of love +and delight; it revels in tales of how the precocious boy made wanton +sport with the herdswomen of Vraja, and how the magic of his fluting +drew them to the dance in which they were united to him in a rapture +of love. The book thrills with amorous, sensuous ecstasy; the thought +of Kṛishṇa stirs the worshipper to a passion of love in which tears +gush forth in the midst of laughter, the speech halts, and often the +senses fail and leave him in long trances. Erotic emotionalism can go +no further.</p> + +<p>Where did this new spirit come from? Some have laboured to prove that +it had its source in Christianity; others have argued that it was +Christianity that was the debtor to India in this respect. Both +theories are in the main impossible. This cult of the child Kṛishṇa +arose in India, and, with the possible exception of a few obscure +tales, it never spread outside the circle of Indian religion. But how +and where did it arise? That is a question hard to answer; there is no +direct evidence, and we can only balance probabilities. Now what are +the probabilities?</p> + +<p>The worship of Kṛishṇa as a babe, a boy, and a young man among the +herdsfolk of Vraja seems to have no relation with the older form of +the religion as set forth in the epic textbooks. It is a new element, +imported from without. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> most natural conclusion then is that it +came from the people who are described in it, some tribe that pastured +their herds in the woodlands near Mathurā. Perhaps these herdsfolk +were Ābhīras, ancestors of the modern Āhīr tribes. If so, it would be +natural that their cult should attract attention; for sometimes +Ābhīras counted for something in society, and we even find a +short-lived dynasty of Ābhīra kings reigning in Nasik in the third +century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span><a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> Be this as it may, it seems very likely that some +pastoral tribe had a cult of a divine child blue or black of hue, and +perhaps actually called by them Kṛishṇa or Kaṇha, "Black-man" (observe +that henceforth Kṛishṇa is regularly represented with a blue skin), a +cult in which gross rustic fantasy had free play; that it came in some +circles to be linked on to the epic cycle of Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva; and +that some Bhāgavatas, seeing in it latent possibilities, gave it +polished literary expression and thereby established it as a part of +the Vāsudēva legend. It quickly seized upon the popular imagination +and spread like wild-fire over India. For it satisfied many needs. The +tenderness of the father and still more of the mother for the little +babe, their delight in the sports of childhood, the amorist's pleasure +in erotic adventure, and, not by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>any means least, the joy in the +romantic scenery of the haunted woodlands—all these instincts found +full play in it, and were sanctified by religion.</p> + + + + +<h2>II. <span class="smcap">Rāma</span></h2> +<p>Rāma is the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa, the great epic ascribed to Vālmīki, +a poet who in course of time has passed from the realm of history into +that of myth, like many other Hindus. The poem, as it has come down to +us, contains seven books, which relate the following tale. Daśa-ratha, +King of Ayōdhyā (now Ajodhya, near Faizabad), of the dynasty which +claimed descent from the Sun-god, had no son, and therefore held the +great <i>Aśva-mēdha</i>, or horse-sacrifice, as a result of which he +obtained four sons, Rāma by his queen Kauśalyā, Bharata by Kaikēyī, +and Lakshmaṇa and Śatrughna by Sumitrā. Rāma, the eldest, was also +pre-eminent for strength, bravery, and noble qualities of soul. +Visiting in his early youth the court of Janaka, king of Vidēha, Rāma +was able to shoot an arrow from Janaka's bow, which no other man could +bend, and as a reward he received as wife the princess Sītā, whom +Janaka had found in a furrow of his fields and brought up as his own +daughter. So far the first book, or Bāla-kāṇḍa. The second book, or +Ayōdhyā-kāṇḍa, relates how Queen Kaikēyī induced Daśa-ratha, sorely +against his will, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> banish Rāma to the forests in order that her son +Bharata might succeed to the throne; and the Araṇya-kāṇḍa then +describes how Rāma, accompanied by his wife Sītā and his faithful +brother Lakshmaṇa, dwelt in the forest for a time, until the demon +King Rāvaṇa of Laṅkā, by means of a trick, carried off Sītā to his +city. The Kishkindhā-kāṇḍa tells of Rāma's pursuit of Rāvaṇa and his +coming to Kishkindhā, the city of Sugrīva, the king of the apes, who +joined him as an ally in his expedition; and the Sundara-kāṇḍa +describes the march of their armies to Laṅkā, which is identified with +Ceylon, and their crossing over the straits. Then comes the +Yuddha-kāṇḍa, which narrates the war with Rāvaṇa, his death in battle, +the restoration of Sītā, the return of Rāma and Sītā to Ayōdhyā, and +the crowning of Rāma in place of Daśa-ratha, who had died of grief +during his exile. Finally comes the Uttara-kāṇḍa, which relates that +Rāma, hearing some of the people of Ayōdhyā spitefully casting +aspersions on the virtue of Sītā during her imprisonment in the palace +of Rāvaṇa, gave way to foolish jealousy and banished her to the +hermitage of Vālmīki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Kuśa and +Lava; when these boys had grown up, Vālmīki taught them the Rāmāyaṇa +and sent them to sing it at the court of Rāma, who on hearing it sent +for Sītā, who came to him accompanied by Vālmīki, who assured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> him of +her purity; and then Sītā swore to it on oath, calling upon her mother +the Earth-goddess to bear witness; and the Earth-goddess received her +back into her bosom, leaving Rāma bereaved, until after many days he +was translated to heaven.</p> + +<p>Such is the tale of Rāma as told in the Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa—a clean, +wholesome story of chivalry, love, and adventure. But clearly the +Vālmīki-rāmāyaṇa is not the work of a single hand. We can trace in it +at least two strata. Books II.-VI. contain the older stratum; the rest +is the addition of a later poet or series of poets, who have also +inserted some padding into the earlier books. This older stratum, the +nucleus of the epic, gives us a picture of heroic society in India at +a very early date, probably not very long after the age of the +Upanishads; perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say it was +composed some time before the fourth century <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> In it Rāma is simply +a hero, miraculous in strength and goodness, but nevertheless wholly +human; but in the later stratum—Books I. and VII. and the occasional +insertions in the other books—conditions are changed, and Rāma +appears as a god on earth, a partial incarnation of Vishṇu, exactly as +in the Bhagavad-gītā and other later parts of the Mahābhārata the hero +Kṛishṇa has become an incarnation of Vishṇu also. The parallel may +even be traced further. Kṛishṇa stands to Arjuna in very much the same +relation as Rāma<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> to his brother Lakshmaṇa—a greater and a lesser +hero, growing into an incarnate god and his chief follower. This is +thoroughly in harmony with Hindu ideas, which regularly conceive the +teacher as accompanied by his disciple and abhor the notion of a voice +crying in the wilderness; indeed we may almost venture to suspect that +this symmetry in the epics is not altogether uninfluenced by this +ideal. This, however, is a detail: the main point to observe is that +Rāma was originally a local hero of the Solar dynasty, a legendary +king of Ayōdhyā, and as the Purāṇas give him a full pedigree, there is +no good reason to doubt that he really existed "once upon a time." But +the story with which he is associated in the Rāmāyaṇa is puzzling. Is +it a pure romance? Or is it a glorified version of some real +adventures? Or can it be an old tale, perhaps dating from the early +dawn of human history, readapted and fitted on to the person of an +historical Rāma? The first of these hypotheses seems unlikely, though +by no means impossible. The second suggestion has found much favour. +Many have believed that the story of the expedition of Rāma and his +army of apes to Laṅkā represents a movement of the Aryan invaders from +the North towards the South; and this is supported to some extent by +Indian tradition, which has located most of the places mentioned in +the Rāmāyaṇa, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> particular has identified Laṅkā with Ceylon. In +support of this one may point to the Iliad of Homer, which has a +somewhat similar theme, the rape and recovery of Helen by the armies +of the Achæans, the basis of which is the historical fact of an +expedition against Troy and the destruction of that city. But there +are serious difficulties in the way of accepting this analogy, the +most serious of all being the indubitable fact that there is not a +tittle of evidence to show that such an expedition was ever made by +the Aryans. True, there were waves of emigration from Aryan centres +southward in early times; but those that travelled as far as Ceylon +went by sea, either from the coasts of Bengal or Orissa or Bombay. +Besides, the expedition of Rāma is obviously fabulous, for his army +was composed not of Aryans but of apes. All things considered, there +seems to be most plausibility in the third hypothesis<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>. Certainly +Rāma was a local hero of Ayōdhyā, and probably he was once a real +king; so it is likely enough that an old saga (or sagas) attached +itself early to his memory. And as his fame spread abroad, principally +on the wings of Vālmīki's poem, the honours of semi-divinity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>began to +be paid to him in many places beyond his native land, and about the +beginning of our era he was recognised as an incarnation of Vishṇu +sent to establish a reign of righteousness in the world. In Southern +India this cult of Rāma, like that of Kṛishṇa, has for the most part +remained subordinate to the worship of Vishṇu, though the Vaishṇava +church there has from early times recognised the divinity of both of +them as embodiments of the Almighty. But its great home is the North, +where millions worship Rāma with passionate and all-absorbing love.</p> + + + + +<h2>III. <span class="smcap">Some Later Preachers</span></h2> +<p>With all its attractions and success, the new Kṛishṇaism did not +everywhere overgrow the older stock upon which it had been engrafted. +There were many places in which the early worship of Vishṇu and +Vāsudēva remained almost unchanged. The new legends of Kṛishṇa's +childhood might indeed be accepted in these centres of conservatism, +but they made little difference in the spirit and form of the worship, +which continued to follow the ancient order. In some of them the +Bhagavad-gītā, Nārāyaṇīya, and other epic doctrinals still remained +the standard texts, which theologians connected with the ancient +Upanishads and the Brahma-sūtra summarising the latter; in other +centres there arose, beginning perhaps about the seventh century <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>, +a series<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> of Saṃhitās, or manuals of doctrine and practice for the +Pāñcharātra<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> sect, which, though in essentials agreeing with the +Nārāyaṇīya, taught a different theory of cosmogony and introduced the +worship of the goddess Śrī or Lakshmī, the consort of Vishṇu, as the +agency or energy through which the Supreme Being becomes active in +finite existence; and in yet other places other texts were followed, +such as those of the Vaikhānasa school. This worship of +Vishṇu-Vāsudēva on the ancient lines was peculiarly vigorous among the +representatives of Aryan culture in the South, who had introduced the +cults of Vishṇu and Śiva with the rest of the Aryan pantheon into the +midst of Dravidian animism. Hinduism, transplanted into the Dravidian +area, has there remained more conservative than anywhere else, and has +clung firmly to its ancient traditions. There is nothing of Dravidian +origin in the South Indian worship of Vishṇu and Śiva; they are +entirely Aryan importations. But they have become thoroughly +assimilated in their southern home, and each of them has produced a +huge mass of fine devotional literature in the vernaculars. In the +Tamil country the church of Vishṇu boasts of the Nāl-āyira-prabandham, +a collection of Tamil psalms numbering about 4,000 stanzas composed by +twelve poets called Ālvārs, which were collected about 1000 <span class="smcap">a.d.</span>; +and the worship <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>of 'Siva is equally well expressed in the Tiru-muṛai, +compiled about the twelfth century, of which one section, the Dēvāram, +was put together about the same time as the Nāl-āyira-prabandham. Both +the Tiru-muṛai and the Nāl-āyira-prabandham breathe the same spirit of +ecstatic devotion as the Bhāgavata-purāṇa; they are the utterances of +wandering votaries who travelled from temple to temple and poured +forth the passionate raptures of their souls in lyrical praise of +their deities. Through these three main channels the stream of +devotion spread far and wide through the land. Like most currents of +what we call "revivalism," it usually had an erotic side; and the +larger temples frequently have attached to them female staffs of +attendant votaries and <i>corps de ballet</i> of very easy virtue. But this +aspect was far more marked in neo-Kṛishṇaism, which often tends to +intense pruriency, than in the other two cults. The Ālvārs pay +little regard to the legends of Kṛishṇa, and concentrate their +energies upon the worship of Vishṇu as he is represented in the great +temples of Srirangam, Conjevaram, Tirupati, and similar sanctuaries.</p> + + +<p>About the beginning of the ninth century the peaceful course of +Vaishṇava religion was rudely disturbed by the preaching of Śaṃkara +Āchārya. Śaṃkara, one of the greatest intellects that India has ever +produced, was a Brahman of Malabar,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> and was born about the year 788. +Taking his stand upon the Upanishads, Brahma-sūtra, and Bhagavad-gītā, +upon which he wrote commentaries, he interpreted them as teaching the +doctrine of Advaita, thorough monistic idealism, teaching that the +universal Soul, Brahma, is absolutely identical with the individual +Soul, the <i>ātmā</i> or Self, that all being is only one, that salvation +consists in the identification of these two, and is attained by +knowledge, the intuition of their identity, and that the phenomenal +universe or manifold of experience is simply an illusion (<i>māyā</i>) +conjured up in Brahma by his congenital nature, but really alien to +him—in fact, a kind of disease in Brahma. This was not new: it had +been taught by some ancient schools of Aupanishadas, and was very like +the doctrine of some of the Buddhist idealists; but the vigour and +skill with which Śaṃkara propagated his doctrines threatened ruin to +orthodox Vaishṇava theologians, and roused them to counter-campaigns. +Among the Vaishṇava Brahmans of the South who won laurels in this +field was Yāmunāchārya, who lived about 1050, and was the grandson of +Nātha Muni, who collected the hymns of the Ālvārs in the +Nāl-āyira-prabandham and founded the great school of Vaishṇava +theology at Srirangam. In opposition to Śaṃkara's monism, Yāmunāchārya +propounded the doctrine of his school, the so-called Viśishṭādvaita, +which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> was preached with still greater skill and success by his famous +successor Rāmānuja, who died in 1137. Rāmānuja's greatest works are +his commentaries on the Brahma-sūtra and Bhagavad-gītā. In them he +expounds with great ability the principles of his school, namely, that +God, sentient beings or souls, and insentient matter form three +essentially distinct classes of being; that God, who is the same as +Brahma, Vishṇu, Nārāyaṇa, or Kṛishṇa, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and +possessed of all good qualities; that matter forms the body of souls, +and souls form the body of God; that the soul attains salvation as a +result of devout and loving meditation upon God, worship of him, and +study of the scriptures; and that salvation consists in eternal union +of the soul with God, but not in identity with him, as Śaṃkara taught. +The scriptures on which Rāmānuja took his stand were mainly the +Upanishads, Brahma-sūtra, and Bhagavad-gītā; but he also acknowledged +as authoritative the Pāñcharātra Saṃhitās, in spite of their +divergences in details of doctrine, and it is from them that his +church has derived the worship of Śrī or Lakshmī as consort of Vishṇu, +which is a very marked feature of their community and has gained for +them the title of Śrī-vaishṇavas. But Rāmānuja was much more than a +scholar and a writer of books; he was also a man of action, a +"practical mystic." Like Śaṃkara, he organ<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>ised a body of <i>sannyāsīs</i> +or ascetic votaries, into which, however, he admitted only Brahmans, +whereas Śaṃkara opened some of the sections of his devotees to +non-Brahmans; but on the other hand he was far more liberal than +Śaṃkara in the choice of his congregations, for he endeavoured to +bring men of the lowest castes, Śūdras and even Pariahs, within the +influence of his church, though he kept up the social barrier between +them and the higher castes, and he firmly upheld the principle of the +Bhagavad-gītā that it is by the performance of religious and social +duties of caste, and not by knowledge alone, that salvation is most +surely to be won. He established schools and monasteries, reorganised +the worship of the temples, usually in accordance with the Pāñcharātra +rules, and thus placed his church in a position of such strength in +Southern India that its only serious rival is the church of Śiva.</p> + +<p>Nimbārka, who probably flourished about the first half of the twelfth +century, preached for the cult of Kṛishṇa a doctrine combining monism +with dualism, which is followed by a small sect in Northern India. +Ānanda-tīrtha or Madhva, in the first three quarters of the thirteenth +century, propounded for the same church a theory of thorough dualism, +which has found many admirers, chiefly in the Dekkan. Vallabhāchārya, +born in 1479, founded a school of Kṛishṇa-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>worshippers which claims a +"pure monism" without the aid of the theory of <i>māyā</i>, or illusion, +which is a characteristic of Śaṃkara's monism. This community has +become very influential, chiefly in Bombay Presidency; but in recent +times it has been under a cloud owing to the scandals arising from a +tendency to practise immoral orgies and from the claims of its +priesthood, as representing the god, to enjoy the persons and property +of their congregations.</p> + +<p>Besides these and other schools which were founded on a basis of +Sanskrit scholastic philosophy, there have been many popular religious +movements, which from the first appealed directly to the heart of the +people in their own tongues.</p> + +<p>The first place in which we see this current in movement is the +Maratha country. Here, about 1290, Jñānēśvara or Jñānadēva, popularly +known as Jñānōbā, composed his Jñanēśvarī, a paraphrase of the +Bhagavad-gītā in about 10,000 Marathi verses, as well as a number of +hymns to Kṛishṇa and a poem on the worship of Śiva. To the same period +belonged Nāmadēva, who was born at Pandharpur, according to some in +1270 and according to others about a century later. Then came +Ēkanātha, who is said to have died in 1608, and composed some hymns +and Marathi verse-translations from the Bhāgavata. The greatest of all +was Tukārām, who was born<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> about 1608.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> In the verses of these +poets the worship of Kṛishṇa is raised to a level of high +spirituality. Rāmānanda, who apparently lived between 1400 and 1470 +and was somehow connected with the school of Rāmānuja, preached +salvation through Rāma to all castes and classes of Northern India, +with immense and enduring success. To his spiritual lineage belongs +Tulsī Dās (1532-1623), whose Rāma-charita-mānasa, a poem in Eastern +Hindi on the story of Vālmīki's Rāmāyana, has become the Bible of the +North. The same influences are visible in the poems of Kabīr, a Moslem +by birth, who combined Hindu and Muhammadan doctrines into an eclectic +monotheism, and is worshipped as an incarnation of God by his sect. He +died in 1518. A kindred spirit was Nānak, the founder of the Sikh +church (1469-1538).<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + + + +<p>By the side of these upward movements there have been many which have +remained on the older level of the Bhāgavata. The most important is +that of Viśvambhara Miśra, who is better known by his titles of +Chaitanya and Gaurānga (1485-1533); he carried on a "revival" of +volcanic intensity in Bengal and Orissa, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>church founded by +him is still powerful, and worships him as an incarnation of Kṛishṇa.</p> + + +<h2>IV. <span class="smcap">Brahmā and the Trimūrti</span></h2> +<p><i>Brahmā</i>, the Creator, a masculine noun, must be carefully +distinguished from the neuter <i>Brahma</i>, the abstract First Being. The +latter comes first in the scale of existence, while the former appears +at some distance further on as the creator of the material world (see +above, p. 60 f.). In modern days Brahmā has been completely eclipsed +by Vishṇu and Śiva and even by some minor deities, and has now only +four temples dedicated to his exclusive worship.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> But there was a +time when he was a great god. In the older parts of the Mahābhārata +and Rāmāyaṇa he figures as one of the greater deities, perhaps the +greatest. But in the later portions of the epic he has shrunk into +comparative insignificance as compared to Vishṇu and Śiva, and +especially to Vishṇu. This change faithfully reflects historical +facts. During the last four or five centuries of the millennium which +ended with the Christian era the orthodox Vēdic religion of the +Brahmans had steadily lost ground, and the sects worshipping Vishṇu +and Śiva had correspondingly grown in power and finally had come to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>be recognised as themselves orthodox. Brahmā, as his name implies, is +the ideal Brahman sage, and typifies Vēdic orthodoxy. He is +represented as everlastingly chanting the four Vēdas from his four +mouths (for he has four heads), and he bears the water-pot and rosary +of eleocarpus berries, the symbols of the Brahman ascetic. But Vēdic +orthodoxy had to make way for more fascinating cults, and the Vēdic +Brahman typified in the god Brahmā sank into comparative unimportance +beside the sectarian ascetics. Still the old god, though shorn of much +of his glory, was by no means driven from the field. The new churches +looked with reverence upon his Vēdas, and often claimed them as divine +authority for their doctrines; and though each of them asserted that +its particular god, Śiva or Vishṇu, was the Supreme Being, and +ultimately the only being, both of them allowed Brahmā to retain his +old office of creator, it being of course understood that he held it +as a subordinate of the Supreme, Śiva or Vishṇu as the case might be. +Meanwhile, at any rate between the third and the sixth centuries, +there existed a small fraternity who regarded Brahmā as the Supreme, +and therefore as identical with the abstract Brahma; but although they +have left a record of their doctrines in the Mārkaṇḍēya-purāṇa and the +Padma-purāṇa, they have had little influence on Indian religion in +general.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> + + + +<p>A love of system—unfortunately not always effectual—is a notable +feature of the Hindu mind in dealing with most subjects, from grammar +to <i>Ars Amoris</i>; and this instinct inspired some unknown theologian +with the idea of harmonising the three gods into a unity by +representing in one compound form or <i>Trimūrti</i> Brahmā as creator, +Vishṇu as the sustaining power in the universe, and Śiva as the force +of dissolution which periodically brings the cosmos to an end and +necessitates in due course new cycles of being.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> This ingenious +plan has the advantage that it is without prejudice to the religion of +any of the gods concerned, for all the three members of this trinity +are subordinate to the Supreme Being, or Param Brahma, whom the +Vaishṇavas identify with Vishṇu in his highest phase, Para-Vāsudēva, +and distinguish from his lower phase, the Vishṇu of this compound, +while the Śaivas draw a corresponding distinction between Parama-Śiva, +the god in his transcendent nature, and the Śiva who figures in the +Trimūrti. So the most orthodox Vaishṇava and the most bigoted Śaiva +can adore this three-headed image of the Trimūrti side by side with +easy consciences.</p> + + +<p>This idea of the three gods in one, though it is embodied in some +important works of sculpture such as the famous Trimūrti in the Caves +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>Elephanta, has not had much practical effect upon Hindu religion. +But it has given birth to at any rate one interesting little sect, the +worshippers of Dattātrēya, who are to be found mainly in the Maratha +country. The legend of the saint Dattātrēya, which is already found in +the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas and is repeated with some modifications +and amplifications in modern works of the sect,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> relates that when +the holy Ṛishi Atri subjected himself to terrific austerities in order +to obtain worthy progeny, the gods Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Śiva visited +him and promised him the desired boon; accordingly his wife Anasūyā +gave birth to three sons, of whom the first was the Moon, an +incarnation of Brahmā, the second Dattātrēya, an incarnation of +Vishṇu, and the third the holy but irascible saint Durvāsas, +representing Śiva. Dattātrēya dwelt in a hermitage in the Dekkan: he +indulged in marriage and wine-drinking, which however were not +detrimental to his miraculous sanctity and wisdom, and he became +famous as a benefactor to humanity. He is said to have lived in the +time of Kārtavīrya Arjuna, the Haihaya king, and to have counselled +the latter to remain on his throne when he wished to resign it. In +older works of plastic art he is sometimes represented by the simple +expedient of placing the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>three gods side by side, sometimes by +figuring him as Vishṇu in the guise of a Yōgī with some of the +attributes of the other two; but in modern times he usually appears as +a single figure with three heads, one for each of the great gods, and +four or six arms bearing their several attributes (usually the rosary +and water-pot of Brahmā, the conch and discus of Vishṇu, and the +trident and drum of Śiva), while he is accompanied by four dogs of +different colours, supposed to represent the four Vēdas, and a +bull.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Observe that in all these types Dattātrēya is conceived as +an embodiment of the three gods, which is comparatively a later idea, +for in the oldest version of the legend he was simply an incarnation +of Vishṇu; but as Vishṇu was regarded not only as a member of the +Trinity but also the Supreme Being over and above it, Dattātrēya as +his representative has come to include in his personality the nature +of all the trio. There is, moreover, something curious in his +character. His love of wine and woman is a singular trait, and is +quite incompatible with the nature of an ideal saint. It smells of +reality, and strongly suggests that he was not a figment of the +religious imagination but an actual man; and this is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>supported by the +tradition of his association with Kārtavīrya Arjuna, who, in spite of +all the mythical tales that are related of him, really seems to have +been a king of flesh and blood. Thus we may venture to see in him yet +another example of the metamorphosis so common in India from a saint +to an incarnation of the god worshipped by him.</p> + + + + +<h2>V. <span class="smcap">Two Modern Instances</span></h2> +<p>In Northern India, and especially in Bengal, you will often find +Hindus worshipping a god whom they call Satya-nārāyaṇa and believe to +be an embodiment of Vishṇu himself. The observance of this ritual is +believed to bring wealth and all kinds of good fortune; a Sanskrit +sacred legend in illustration of this belief has been created, and you +may buy badly lithographed copies of it in most of the bazaars if you +like, besides which you will find elegant accounts of the god's career +on earth written by quite a number of distinguished Bengali poets of +the last three centuries. But curiously enough this "god," though +quite real, was not a Hindu at all; he was a Bengali Moslem, a fakir, +and the Muhammadans of Bengal, among whom he is known as Satya Pīr, +have their own versions of his career, which seem to be much nearer +the truth than those of the Hindus. In their stories he figures simply +as a saint, who busied himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> in performing miracles for the benefit +of pious Moslems in distress; and as one legend says that he was the +son of a daughter of [H.]usain Shāh, the Emperor of Gaur, and another +brings him into contact with Mān Singh, it is evident that tradition +ascribed him to the sixteenth century, which is probably quite near +enough to the truth.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p> + + + +<p>The next instance belongs to the twentieth century. A few years ago +there died in the village of Eral, in Tinnevelly District, a local +gentleman of the Shanar caste named Aruṇāchala Nāḍār. There was +nothing remarkable about his career: he had lived a highly respectable +life, scrupulously fulfilled his religious duties, and served with +credit as chairman of the municipal board in his native village. If he +had done something prodigiously wicked, one might have expected him to +become a local god at once, in accordance with Dravidian precedent; +but he being what he was, his post-mortem career is rather curious. +For a legend gradually arose that his kindly spirit haunted a certain +place, and little by little it has grown until now there is a regular +worship of him in Eral, and pilgrims travel thither to receive his +blessings, stimulated by a lively literary propaganda. He is +worshipped under the name of "The Chairman God," in affectionate +memory of his municipal career, and as Jagadīśa, or "Lord of the +Universe," a phase of the god Śiva.</p> +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES</h3><div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See H. Raychaudhuri, <i>Materials for the Study of the +Early History of the Vaishnava Sect, p. 27</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> It must be admitted that ancient writers give different +etymologies of the name: thus, a poet in the Mahābhārata (III. +clxxxix. 3) derives it from <i>nārāḥ</i>, "waters," and <i>ayanam</i>, "going," +understanding it to mean "one who has the waters for his +resting-place"; Manu (I. 10, with Mēdhātithi's commentary), accepting +the same etymology, interprets it as "the dwelling-place of all the +Naras"; and in the Mahābhārata XII. cccxli. 39, it is also explained +as "the dwelling-place of mankind." But these interpretations are +plainly artificial concoctions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> RV. X. cxxix. 5, ŚB. VI. i. 1, 1-5. Cf. Charpentier, +<i>Suparṇasage</i>, p. 387.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It is obvious that this island lies in a latitude +somewhere between that of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, and that the +professors who have endeavoured to locate it on the map of Asia have +wasted their time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> See Rapson, <i>Ancient India</i>, p. 156 ff., <i>Cambridge +Hist. India</i>, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, <i>Materials for +the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect</i>, p. 59, and +Ramaprasad Chanda, <i>Archæology and Vaishnava Tradition</i> in <i>Memoirs of +the Archæological Survey of India</i>, No. 5, p. 151 ff., etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> See R. Chanda, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 152 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> It is noteworthy that Saṃkarshaṇa is here mentioned +first, as is also the case in the Nanaghat inscription of about 100 +<span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, which mentions them as descendants of the Moon in a list of +various deities. This order may possibly be due to the fact that in +ancient legend Saṃkarshaṇa, or Bala-bhadra, is the elder brother of +Kṛishṇa Vāsudēva, and it does not entitle us to draw the inference +that he ever received equal honour with Vāsudēva. Special devotees of +Saṃkarshaṇa are mentioned in the Kauṭilīya, the famous treatise on +polity ascribed to Chāṇakya, the minister of Chandra-gupta Maurya, who +came to the throne about 320 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> (Engl. transl. 1st edn., p. 485). I +suspect that in its present form the Kauṭilīya is considerably later +than 320 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>; but in any case the existence of special votaries of +Saṃkarshaṇa is no proof that he ever ranked as equal to Vāsudēva, just +as the presence of special worshippers of Arjuna is no proof that +Arjuna was ever considered a peer of Vāsudēva. On the Ghasundi +inscription see R. Chanda, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 163 ff., etc.; for the +Nanaghat inscription, <i>ibidem</i> and <i>Memoirs of the Arch. Survey of +India</i>, No. 1, with H. Raychaudhuri's <i>Materials, etc.</i>, p. 68 ff.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> R. Chanda, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 169 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> R. Chandra, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 165 f.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Rapson, <i>Catal. of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, +etc.</i>, pp. xliv, lxii, lxix, cxxxiii-cxxxvi, clxii; <i>Indian Antiq.</i>, +xlvii, p. 85, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> I regret that I cannot accept the ingenious hypothesis +lately put forward by Rai Saheb Dineshchandra Sen in his <i>Bengali +Ramayanas</i>. The story of the Dasaratha-jātaka seems to me to be a +garbled and bowdlerised snippet cut off from a possibly pre-Vālmīkian +version of the old Rāma-saga; the rest of the theory appears to be +quite mistaken.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> On this name see above, p. 86.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> The student may refer to Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's +<i>Vaiṣṇavas and Śaivas</i> (in Bühler's <i>Grundriss</i>, p. 74 ff.,) J. N. +Farquhar's <i>Outline of the Relig. Liter. of India</i>, p. 234 f., 298 +ff., and my <i>Heart of India</i>, p. 60 ff., for some details on these +poets.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> See Farquhar, <i>ut supra</i>, p. 323 ff.; <i>Heart of India</i>, +p. 49 f., etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Those are at Pushkar in Rajputana, Dudahi in +Bundelkhand, Khed Brahma in Idar State, and Kodakkal in Malabar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> This idea in germ is already suggested in Maitr. Upan., +IV. 5 f., and V. 2.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> See Vāsudēvānanda Sarasvatī's <i>Datta-purāṇa</i> and Gaṇēśa +Nārāyaṇa Karve's <i>Dattātrēya-sarvasva</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> On these figures see Gopinatha Rau, <i>Elements of Hindu +Iconography</i>, i. p. 252 ff. The dogs seem to be connected with the +Vēdic Saramā, on whom see Charpentier, <i>Die Suparṇasage</i>, p. 91.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> See Dineshchandra Sen, <i>Folk-literature of Bengal</i>, p. +99 ff.</p></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION</h2> + + +<p>Can we trace any uniform principle running through the bewildering +variety of changes that we have observed?</p> + +<p>Consider the changes through which Vishṇu has passed. At the beginning +a spirit of vaguely defined personality, he appears successively as a +saviour-god, as the mystic saint Nārāyaṇa, as the epic warriors +Kṛishṇa and Rāma, as a wanton blue-skinned herd-boy fluting and +dancing amidst a crowd of wildly amorous women, and as the noble ideal +of God preached by the great Maratha and Rāmānandī votaries, not to +mention the many other incarnations that have delighted the Hindu +imagination. What does all this mean? It means that the history of a +god is mainly moulded by two great factors, the growth of the people's +spiritual experience and the character of its religious teachers. As +the stream of history rolls on, it fills men's souls with deeper and +wider understanding of life. Old conceptions are pondered upon, +explored, tested, sometimes rejected, sometimes accepted with a new +and profounder content, and thus enlarged they are applied to the old +ideals of godhead. When Indian society had organised itself out of +tribal chaos and settled down under an established<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> monarchical +government, it made Indra the king of the gods, ruling with the same +forms and under the same conditions as a human sovereign. When men of +finer cast realised that the kingdom of the spirit is higher than +earthly royalty, they turned away from Indra and set their souls upon +greater conceptions, ideals of vaster spiritual forces, mystic +infinitudes. Attracted thus to worships such as those of Śiva and +Vishṇu, they filled them with their own visions and imparted to these +gods the ideals of their own strivings, making them into Yōgīśvaras, +Supreme Mystics. And so the sequence of change has gone on through the +generations. Most potently it has been effected by the characters of +the preachers and teachers of religion. Almost every teacher who has a +personality of his own, whose soul contains thoughts other than those +of the common sort, stamps something of his own type upon the ideal of +his god which he imparts to his followers, and which may thereby come +to be authoritatively recognised as a canonical character of the god. +India is peculiarly liable to this transference of personality from +the guru to the god whom the guru preaches, because from immemorial +times India has regarded the guru as representative of the god, and +often deifies him as a permanent phase of the deity. Śaivas declare +that in the guru who teaches the way of salvation Śiva himself is +manifested: Vaishṇavas tell the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> tale, and find a short road to +salvation by surrendering their souls to him. We have seen cases of +apotheosis of the guru in modern and medieval times; reasoning from +the known to the unknown, we may be sure that it took place no less +regularly in ancient ages, and brought about most of the surprising +changes in the character of gods which we have noticed. Sometimes the +gurus have only preached some new features in the characters of their +gods; sometimes, as is the Hindu fashion, they have also exhibited in +their own persons, their dress and equipment, their original ideas of +divinity, as, for example, Lakulīśa with his club; and their sanctity +and apotheosis have ratified their innovations in theology and +iconology, which have spread abroad as their congregations have grown. +Thus the gurus and their congregations have made the history of their +deities, recasting the gods ever anew in the mould of man's hopes and +strivings and ideals. There is much truth in the saying of the +Brāhmaṇas: "In the beginning the gods were mortal."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Hindu Gods And Heroes, by Lionel D. Barnett + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HINDU GODS AND HEROES *** + +***** This file should be named 22885-h.htm or 22885-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/8/22885/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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