Introduction to the History of Religions Part 18

(??????).[1202]

+703+. _Aryan._ Among the Aryans of India the G.o.d Kama (desire) appears to be identical with Cupido. Some other abstractions, such as Piety and Infinity, are akin to Mazdean conceptions.[1203] Brahma, originally 'magical formula,' then 'prayer,' and later 'pious thought,' becomes finally Brahma, the all-embracing G.o.d. ?ta (arta), 'order,' at first, perhaps, the proper order of the sacrificial ritual, becomes finally 'moral order or righteousness' and 'cosmic order.' This conception is still more prominent in the Avesta,[1204] in which Asha (Order) is one of the Amesha-spentas, only inferior to the supreme G.o.d; the other companions of Ahura Mazda have similar t.i.tles and may equally be regarded as the personalization of abstract ideas.[1205] In the same category may be included the Mazdean conceptions Endless Time (Zrvan Akarana) and Endless s.p.a.ce (Thwasha), which appear to be treated in the Avesta as personal deities.[1206] The organizers of the Mazdean faith, having discarded almost all the old G.o.ds, invested the supreme G.o.d with certain moral qualities, and these, by a natural process of thought, were concretized (Ahura Mazda is sometimes included in the list of Amesha-spentas). Thus arose a sort of pantheon, an echo of the old polytheism; but the history of the process of formulation is obscure.[1207]

+704+. Most, if not all, of the abstract conceptions mentioned above are also placed, in the various theistic systems, under the control of great G.o.ds. Thus, for example, Jupiter is the guardian of boundaries and has the epithet "Terminus," and Zeus is the patron of freedom (Eleutherios).[1208] It is, however, not necessary to suppose that the abstractions in question are taken from the functions of the great G.o.ds.

Rather these epithets of the G.o.ds are to be explained from the same tendency that produced G.o.ds of abstractions. It was the sense of the importance of the boundary in early life that led both to the creation of the G.o.d Terminus and to the a.s.signment of the epithet "Terminus" to Jupiter. The desire or love that was so important an element in human life both fas.h.i.+oned itself into a personality and was put under the guardians.h.i.+p of a special deity. Public safety was a cherished idea of the Romans and was doubtless held to be maintained by every local or national G.o.d, yet could none the less become an independent deity. The data are not sufficient to enable us to determine in all cases the question of chronological precedence between the deification of the abstraction and the a.s.signment of the epithet to a G.o.d. We know that in the later Roman period abstractions were personalized, but this procedure was often poetical or rhetorical.[1209]

+705+. A general relation may be recognized between the intellectual character of a people and the extent to which it creates abstract G.o.ds.

The Semitic peoples, among whom the development of such G.o.ds is the feeblest, are characterized by objectiveness of thought, indisposition to philosophical or psychological a.n.a.lysis, and a maintenance of local political and religious organization; it is natural that they should construct concrete deities exclusively or almost exclusively. Egypt also was objective, and carried its demand for visible objects of wors.h.i.+p to the point of incarnating its G.o.ds in living animals; such living G.o.ds tend to banish pale abstractions, and such conceptions played an insignificant part in Egyptian religion. In India, with its genius for philosophical refinement, we might expect to find this latter cla.s.s of G.o.ds; but Indian thought speedily pa.s.sed into the large pantheistic and other generalizations that absorbed the lesser abstractions. Greece appears to have had the combination of philosophy and practicalness that favors the production of a certain sort of abstract G.o.ds, and a considerable number of these it did produce;[1210] but here also philosophy, in the form of large theories of the const.i.tution and life of man, got the upper hand and repressed the other development. The Romans had no pretensions to philosophic or aesthetic thought, but they had a keen sense of the value of family and civic life, and great skill in using religion for social purposes. It is they among whom specialized deities, including abstractions, had the greatest significance for the life of the people--family and State.

+706+. With the growth of general culture all specialized divinities tend to disappear, absorbed by the great G.o.ds and displaced by better knowledge of the laws governing the bodily and mental growth of men.[1211] The divinities of abstractions, so far as they were really alive, had the effect of making great civic and religious ideas familiar to the people. Later (as in modern life) such ideas were cherished as the outcome of reflection on domestic and national relations--in the earlier period they were invested with sacredness and with personal power to inspire and guide. Exactly what their ethical influence on the ma.s.ses was it is hardly possible to determine; but it may be regarded as probable that they helped to keep alive certain fundamental conceptions at a time when reflection on life was still immature.

NATURE G.o.dS

+707+. The term "nature G.o.ds" may be taken as designating those deities that are distinguished on the one hand from natural objects regarded as divine and wors.h.i.+ped, and on the other hand from the great G.o.ds, who, whatever their origin, have been quite dissociated from natural objects; in distinction from these cla.s.ses nature G.o.ds are independent deities who yet show traces of their origin in the cult of natural objects.[1212]

+708+. These three cla.s.ses often shade into one another, and it is not always easy to draw the lines between them. It is worth while, however, to keep them separate, because they represent different stadia of religious and general culture; the nature G.o.ds are found in societies which have risen above the old crude naturalism, but have not yet reached the higher grade of intellectual and ethical distinctness. But as they are in a real sense dissociated from natural objects, they tend to expand as society grows, and it is unnecessary to attempt to deduce all their functions from the characteristics of the objects with which they were originally connected. In some cases, doubtless, they coalesce with the local clan G.o.ds whose functions are universal; and in general, when a G.o.d becomes the recognized deity of his community, the tendency is to ascribe to him a great number of functions suggested by the existing social conditions. In some cases the particular function of the G.o.d may be derived from the function of the natural object whence he is supposed to spring; but the number and variety of functions that we often find a.s.signed to one deity, and the number of deities that are connected with a single function, indicate the complexity of the processes of early religious thought and make it difficult to trace its history in detail.

+709+. Among natural objects the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars, and particularly the sun and moon, have very generally attracted men's attention and become objects of wors.h.i.+p. The deification of the sun may be traced through all stadia of development, from the crudest objectivism to a highly developed monolatry or a virtual monotheism.[1213] Veneration of the physical sun, or a conception of it as a supernatural man, is found in many parts of the world.[1214] It has not been observed, apparently, in Australia, Melanesia, Indonesia, and on the North American Pacific Coast;[1215] these regions are all backward in the creation of G.o.ds--devoting themselves to the elaboration of social organization they have contented themselves largely with an apparatus of spirits and divine animals. In Central and Northern Asia and among the Ainu of Jesso, while there appears to be a recognition of the sun as divine, it is difficult to distinguish real solar divinities.[1216] In j.a.pan mention is made of a sun-G.o.ddess but she plays an insignificant part in the religious system.[1217]

+710+. The cult is more developed in Eastern and Central North America, particularly in the former region. The Navahos (in the center of the continent) have a vague deity of the sun, but the cult is most prominent among the Algonkin (Lenape) and Natchez tribes; the last-named especially have an elaborate cult in which the sun as deity seems to be distinct from the physical form.[1218]

+711+. The highest development of this cult in America was reached in Mexico and Peru. In both these countries, which had worked out a noteworthy civilization, the solar cult became supreme, and in Peru it attained an ethical and universalistic form which ent.i.tles it to rank among the best religious systems of the lower civilized nations.[1219]

+712+. The Egyptians, with their more advanced civilization, finally carried sun-wors.h.i.+p to a very high point of perfection. The hymns to Ra, the sun-G.o.d, reached the verge of monotheism and are ethically high, yet traces of the physical side of the sun appear throughout.[1220] The same thing is true of the old Semitic sun-cult. The Babylonian and a.s.syrian Shamash is in certain respects an independent deity with universal attributes, but retains also some of the physical characteristics of the sun.[1221] In Africa, outside of Egypt, the only trace of an independent sun-G.o.d appears to be in Dahomi, where, however, he is not prominent; why such a G.o.d should not be found in the neighboring countries of Ashanti and Yoruba is not clear; climatic conditions would affect all these countries alike.[1222]

+713+. In the Veda the sun-G.o.d Savitar has a very distinguished position as ethical deity, but earlier than he the similar figure Surya represents more nearly the physical sun, and this is true perhaps also of Mitra.[1223] With the latter it is natural to compare the Avestan Mithra; he is held by some to have been originally a G.o.d of light, but he seems also to have characteristics of the sun in the Avesta,[1224]

and in late Persian the word _mihr_ ('sun') indicates that he was at any rate finally identified with the sun. It is noteworthy that a distinct sun-wors.h.i.+p is reported among certain non-Aryan tribes of India, particularly the Khonds;[1225] this cult may be compared with that of the Natchez mentioned above,[1226] though the Khonds are less socially advanced than these American tribes.

+714+. The cultic history of the moon is similar to that of the sun, but in general far less important. In addition to its charm as illuminer of the night, it has been prominent as a measurer of time--lunar calendars appear among many tribes and nations, uncivilized (Maoris, Hawaiians, Dahomi, Ashanti and Yorubans, Nandi, Congo tribes, Bantu, Todas, and others) and civilized (the early Babylonians, a.s.syrians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, perhaps the early Egyptians, and now all Mohammedan peoples). Naturally it has been a.s.sociated with the sun in myths, standing to it in the relation of brother or sister, husband or wife.

Among existing noncivilized peoples it sometimes receives wors.h.i.+p as a G.o.d[1227] or as connected with a G.o.d.[1228] In these cases it retains to a great extent its character as an object of nature. So the Greek Selene and the Roman Luna, standing alongside of the lunar G.o.ds proper, probably indicate an early imperfect deification of the moon.

+715+. Though the stars were generally regarded, both among savages and in ancient civilized communities, as animated (possessed of souls), and in a sort divine,[1229] instances of the deification proper of particular stellar bodies are rare. In Egypt they were reverenced, but apparently not wors.h.i.+ped.[1230] The Babylonian astronomers and astrologers began early to connect the planets with the great G.o.ds (Jupiter with Marduk, Venus with Ishtar, etc.), and stars, like other heavenly bodies, were held by them to be divine, but a specific divinization of a star or planet does not appear in the known literature.[1231] The same thing is true of China, where, it may be supposed, reverence for the stars was included in the general high position a.s.signed to Heaven.[1232] In the Aryan Hindu cults stars were revered, and by the non-Aryan Gonds were wors.h.i.+ped, but there is no star-G.o.d proper.[1233]

+716+. In the Old Testament and the Apocrypha there are pa.s.sages in which stars and planets are referred to in a way that indicates some sort of a conception of them as divine: they are said to have fought against Israel's enemies, and in the later literature they are (perhaps by a poetical figure of speech) identified with foreign deities or with angels.[1234] But there is no sign of Israelite wors.h.i.+p offered them till the seventh century B.C., when, on the irruption of a.s.syrian cults, incense is said to have been burned in the Jerusalem temple to the mazzalot (probably the signs of the zodiac) and to all the host of heaven (the stars);[1235] and there is still no creation of a star-G.o.d.[1236] The early Hebrews may have practiced some sort of star-wors.h.i.+p; there are traces of such a cult among their neighbors the Arabs.

+717+. The Arab personal name Abd ath-thuraiya, 'servant (wors.h.i.+per) of the Pleiades,' testifies to a real cult,[1237] though how far it involves a conception of the constellation as a true individual deity it may be difficult to say. It has been supposed that the pre-Islamic Arabs wors.h.i.+ped the planet Venus under the name Al-Uzza,[1238] but this is not certain. It is true that they wors.h.i.+ped the morning star, and that ancient non-Arab writers identified the planet with Al-Uzza because it was with this G.o.ddess that the Roman G.o.ddess Venus was generally identified by foreigners. But Al-Uzza was an old Arabian local deity who gradually a.s.sumed great power and influence, and it is certain that she could not have been originally a star. It must, therefore, be considered doubtful whether the Arabs had a true star-G.o.d.

+718+. A well-defined instance of such a G.o.d is the Avestan Tistrya.[1239] His origin as an object of nature appears plainly in his functions--he is especially a rain-G.o.d, and, as such, a source of all blessings. Alongside of him stand three less well defined stellar Powers. The Greeks and Romans adopted from Chaldean astronomy the nominal identification of the planets with certain G.o.ds (their own divine names being subst.i.tuted for the Babylonian); this did not necessarily carry with it stellar wors.h.i.+p,[1240] but at a late period there was a cult of the constellations.[1241]

To some savage and half-civilized peoples the rainbow has appeared to be a living thing, capable of acting on man's life, sometimes friendly, sometimes unfriendly.[1242] It figures largely in myths, but is not treated as a G.o.d.

THE GREAT G.o.dS

+719+. Along with the deities described above there is a cla.s.s of higher G.o.ds with well-defined personalities, standing quite outside physical nature and man, with definite characters, and humanized in the higher sense. In contrast with the bizarre or barbarous anthropomorphic forms of the earlier deities these have the shape of refined humanity, capable of taking part in the life of the best men; they are the embodiment of a reflective conception of the relations between men and the great world.

Inchoate divine forms of this sort may be recognized among certain half-civilized communities, but in their full form they are found only among civilized peoples, being indeed the product of civilization; and among such peoples they exist in varying degrees of approach to completeness.

+720+. The process of growth from the clan deities and the nature G.o.ds up to these higher forms may be traced with some definiteness in the great civilized nations of antiquity. We can see that there has been a scientific movement of separation of G.o.ds from phenomena. There is the distinct recognition not only of the difference between man and physical nature, but also of the difference between phenomena and the powers that control them.[1243] At the same time there is an increasing belief in the predominance of reason in the government of the world, and along with this a larger conception of the greatness of the world and finally of its unity. Artistic feeling cooperates in the change of the character of divine beings--the necessity of giving symmetry and clearness to their persons, whereby they more and more a.s.sume the form of the highest human ideals. Necessarily the ethical element advances hand in hand with the intellectual and artistic; it becomes more and more difficult to conceive of G.o.ds as controlled by motives lower than those recognized by the best men.

+721+. This general progress of thought is in some cases embodied in the conception of a succession of dynasties--one set of G.o.ds is overthrown or succeeded by another set; the most extreme form of the overthrow appears in the conception of the death of a whole community of G.o.ds, but this occurs not in the form of natural development, but only when one stadium or phase of religion is overmastered and expelled by another.

+722+. In Babylonia the earliest pair of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, vague forms, were succeeded by a second pair, Anshar and Kishar, somewhat less vague, and these in their turn yielded to the more definite group represented by Ea, Bel, and Marduk--deities who became the embodiments of the highest Babylonian culture; in a.s.syria Ashur and Ishtar occupied a similar position. In the long religious history of the Hindus many of the G.o.ds prominent in the Veda disappear or sink into subordinate positions, and deities at first unimportant become supreme.

The Greek succession of dynasties resembles the Babylonian. The ancient Heaven and Earth are followed by Kronos,[1244] and he is dethroned by Zeus, who represents governmental order and a higher ethical scheme of society. The Romans appear to have borrowed their chronology of the G.o.ds from the Greeks: the combination of Saturnus with Ops (who belongs rather with Consus), the identification of these two respectively with Kronos and Rhea, and the dynastic succession Caelus,[1245] Saturnus, Jupiter, seem not to be earlier than the h.e.l.lenizing period in Rome.

+723+. These changes, when original, may have been due partly to the s.h.i.+fting of political power--the G.o.ds of a particular dominant region may have come into prominence and reigned for a time, giving place then to deities of some other region which had secured the hegemony; the history of the earliest G.o.ds lies far back in a dim region without historical records and therefore is not to be reconstructed definitely now. But such light as we get from literary records of later times rather suggests that the dynastic changes are the product of changes in the conception of the world, and these are as a rule in the direction of sounder and more humane thought.

+724+. There is a general similarity between the great deities that have been created by the various civilized peoples, since civilization has been practically the same everywhere. But the G.o.ds differ among themselves according to the special characters, needs, and endowments of the various peoples, so that no deity can be profitably studied without a knowledge of the physical and mental conditions of the community in which he arose. But everywhere we find that any one G.o.d may become practically supreme. Here again the political element sometimes comes in--a dominant city or state will impose its special G.o.d on a large district. There is also the natural tendency among men to concentrate on an individual figure. As legendary material has always gathered around particular men, so the great attributes of divinity gather about the person of a particular G.o.d who, for whatever reason, is the most prominent divine figure in a given community. Such a G.o.d becomes for the moment supreme, to the exclusion of other deities who under different circ.u.mstances might have had similar claims to precedence; and under favorable conditions a deity thus raised to the highest position may maintain himself and end by becoming the sole deity of his people and of the world. In any case such a divine figure becomes an ideal, and thus influences more or less the life of his wors.h.i.+pers.

+725+. In Oriental polytheistic systems the desire to secure completeness in the representation of divine activity shows itself in the combination of two or more forms into a unity of action. On the lower level we have the composite figures of Egypt and Babylonia, congeries of bodies, heads, and limbs, human and nonhuman--the result partly of the survival of ancient (sometimes outgrown) forms or the fusion of local deities, partly of the imaginative collocation of attributes. Many compound names may be explained in this way; in some cases they seem to arise from accidental local relations of cults.

As ill.u.s.trations of lines of growth in divine figures we may take brief biographies of some of the greater G.o.ds. It is in comparatively few cases that the development of a G.o.d's character can be satisfactorily traced. There are no records of beginnings--we can only make what may be judged to be probable inferences from names, cults, and functions. The difficulty of the subject is increased by the fact that mythologians and theologians have obscured early conceptions by new combinations and interpretations, often employing familiar divine figures simply as vehicles of late philosophical ideas or some other sort of local dogmas.

+726+. _Egypt._[1246] The cult of the sun in Egypt issued in the creation of a group of solar divinities, the most important of whom are Horus (Har or Hor) and Ra (or Re).

Horus appears to have been the great G.o.d of united Egypt in the earliest times about which we have information. The kings of the predynastic and early dynastic periods are called "wors.h.i.+pers of Horus," a t.i.tle that was adopted by succeeding monarchs, who had each his "Horus name."[1247]

He was also the special patron of some small communities--a fact that has been variously interpreted as indicating that the G.o.d's movement was from local to general patron,[1248] or that it was in the opposite direction[1249]; the former of these hypotheses is favored by what appears elsewhere in such changes in the positions of deities. As Horus is always connected with light he may have been originally a local sun-G.o.d; it is possible, however, that he was a clan G.o.d with general functions, who was brought into a.s.sociation with the sun by the natural progress of thought. In any case he became a great sun-G.o.d, but yielded his position of eminence to Ra. The myth of his conflict with Set, the representative of darkness, is probably a priestly dualistic construction, resting, perhaps, on a political situation (the struggle between the North and the South of the Egyptian territory).[1250]

+727+. The general development of Ra is plain, though details are lacking. It may be inferred from his name (which means 'sun') that he was originally the physical sun. Traces of his early crudeness appear in the stories of his destruction of mankind, and of the way in which Isis, by a trick, got from him his true name and, with it, his power.[1251]

With the growth of his native land (Lower Egypt) he became the great lord of the sun, and finally universal lord;[1252] his supremacy was doubtless due in part to the political importance of On (Heliopolis), the seat of his chief shrine. What other circ.u.mstances contributed to his victory over Horus are not recorded; in general it may be supposed that political changes occasioned the recedence of the latter.

The primacy of Ra is ill.u.s.trated by the fact that Amon was identified with him. Amon, originally the local G.o.d of Thebes,[1253] became great in the South as Ra became great in the North, rising with the growth of the Theban kingdom. His hold on the people, and particularly (as was natural) on the priests, is shown in a noteworthy way by the episode of Amenhotep IV's attempt to supplant him by establis.h.i.+ng a substantially monotheistic cult of the sun-G.o.d Aton; the attempt was successful only during the king's life--after his death Amon, under the vigorous leaders.h.i.+p of the Theban priests, resumed his old position and maintained it until the first break-up of the national Egyptian government. But it was Amon-Ra that became supreme from the fourteenth century onward. The combination of the names was made possible by the social and political union of the two divisions of the land, and it was Ra who gave special glory to Amon.[1254]

+728+. A different line of growth appears in the history of Osiris--he owed his eminence mainly to his connection with the dead. Where his cult arose is not known; he was a very old G.o.d, possibly prominent in the predynastic period;[1255] at a later time the importance of Abydos, the chief seat of his wors.h.i.+p, may have added to his reputation. But the ceremonies of his cult and the myths that grew up about his name indicate that he was originally a deity of vegetation, the patron of the underground productive forces of the earth, and so, naturally, he became the lord of the Underworld,[1256] and eventually (as ethical conceptions of life became more definite in Egypt) the embodiment of future justice, the determiner of the moral character and the everlasting fate of men.

Why he and not some other underground G.o.d became Underworld judge the data do not make clear. His a.s.sociation with the death and revivification of plants gave a peculiarly human character to his mythical biography and a dramatic and picturesque tone to his cult.[1257] Of all ancient lords of the Otherworld it is Osiris that shows the most continuous progress and reaches the highest ethical plane--a fact that must be referred to the intense interest of the Egyptians in the future.[1258]

+729+. The three most prominent female deities of the Egyptian pantheon, Hathor of Dendera, Neith (Nit, Neit) of Sais, and Isis of Buto, exhibit one and the same type of character, and each is occasionally identified with one of the others. Hathor was widely wors.h.i.+ped, but was not otherwise especially noteworthy. The famous inscription said to have stood in the temple of Neith at Sais ("What is and what shall be and what has been am I--my veil no one has lifted"[1259]) seems not to be immediately connected with any important religious movement, though it is in keeping with the liberal and mystical tendency of the later time.

The third G.o.ddess, Isis, had a more remarkable history. Her beginnings are obscure, and she appears in the inscriptions later than the other two. She may have been a local deity,[1260] brought into a.s.sociation with Osiris (as his sister or his wife) through the collocation of their cults, and thus sharing his popularity; or she may have been a late theological creation.[1261] Whatever her origin, as early as the sixteenth century B.C. she appears as a great magician (poisoning and healing Ra by magic arts),[1262] then (along with Osiris) as civilizer, and finally as model wife and mother, and as serene and beneficent mistress of the land. It was, apparently, in this last character that she became the gathering-point for the higher religious and ethical ideas of the time, and the central figure in a religious scheme that was widely adopted in and out of Egypt and seemed to be a formidable rival of Christianity.[1263]

+730+. _India._ It is in India that we find the most varied and most sweeping development in the functions and positions of deities--a result due in part to the long-continued movement of philosophic thought, partly to changes in the popular religious point of view occasioned by modifications of the social life.[1264]

The etymology of the name Varuna is doubtful, but the representation of him in the Rig-Veda points to the sky as his original form--he is a clear example of a sky-G.o.d who becomes universal. Of his earliest history we have no information--in the most ancient records he is already fully formed. In the Rig-Veda he embraces the whole of life--he is absolute ruler and moral governor, he punishes sin and forgives the penitent. In conjunction with Mitra he is the lord of order.[1265]

Mitra, originally the physical sun, is naturally a.s.sociated with Varuna, but in the Rig-Veda occupies a generally subordinate position, though he appears sometimes to have the attributes of his a.s.sociate; the two together embody a lofty ethical conception. In accordance with the Hindu fondness for metaphysical abstractions and generalizations the nature G.o.d Varuna in the course of time yielded the primacy to Praj.a.pati, 'lord of beings,'[1266] who in his turn gave way to the impersonal Brahma. In the popular cults as well as in philosophical systems Varuna sank (or perhaps returned) to the position of patron of phenomena of nature--there was no longer need of him.

+731+. A G.o.d of somewhat uncertain moral character is Indra, who as a nature G.o.d is closely connected with the violent phenomena of the air (rain, thunder, and lightning). In this relation he is often terrible, often beneficent, but with low tastes that it is difficult to explain.

His fondness for soma, without which he attempts nothing, is perhaps a priestly touch, a glorification of the drink that played so important a part in the ritual; or he may herein be an expression of popular tastes.

The sensuous character of the heaven of which he (as air-G.o.d) is lord arose doubtless in response to early conceptions of happiness;[1267] it is not unlike the paradise of Mohammed, which is to be regarded not as immoral, but only as the embodiment of the existing conception of happy family life. Yet Indra also became a universal G.o.d, the controller of all things, and it was perhaps due to his multiform human character as warrior and rain-giver[1268] (in his victorious conflict with the cloud-dragon), and as representative of bodily enjoyment, that he became the favorite G.o.d of the people. It is not hard to understand why Agni, fire, should be a.s.sociated with him and share his popularity to some extent; but the importance of fire in the sacrifice gave Agni a peculiar prominence in the ritual.

+732+. The most curious case of transformation and exaltation is found in the history of Soma, at first a plant whose juice was intoxicating, then a means of ecstatic excitement, a gift to the G.o.ds, the drink of the G.o.ds, and finally itself a G.o.d invested with the greatest attributes. This divinization of a drink was no doubt mainly priestly--it is a striking ill.u.s.tration of the power of the a.s.sociation of ideas, and belongs in the same general category with the deification of abstractions spoken of above.[1269]

+733+. An example of a G.o.d leaping from an inferior position to the highest place in the pantheon is afforded by Vishnu, a nature G.o.d of some sort, described in the early doc.u.ments as traversing the universe in three strides. Relatively insignificant in the earlier period and in the Upanishads, he appears in the epic, and afterwards, as the greatest of the G.o.ds, and, in the form of his avatar Krishna, becomes the head of a religion which has often been compared with Christianity in the purity of its moral conceptions. By his side in this later time stands his rival civa, the chief figure in a sect or system which shared with Vishnuism the devotion of the later Hindus. The rise of these two G.o.ds is to be referred probably to the dissatisfaction in the later times with the phenomenal character which still clung, in popular feeling, to the older deities. Varuna, once supreme, sank after a while to the position of a G.o.d of rain, and Indra, Agni, and Soma were frankly naturalistic, while the impersonal Brahma was too vague to meet popular demands. What the later generation wanted was a G.o.d personal and divorced from physical phenomena, supreme, ethically high, but invested with warm humanity. These conditions were fulfilled by Vishnu and civa, and particularly by Krishna; that is, the later thought constructed these new deities in accordance with the demand of the higher and the lower religious feeling of the time: the two sides of the human demand, the genial and the terrible, are embodied, the first in Vishnu, the second in civa.

+734+. The primeval pair, Heaven and Earth, though represented as the parents of many G.o.ds and wors.h.i.+ped with sacrifices, play no great part in the Hindu religious system. Dyaus, the Sky, never attained the proportions of the formally identical Zeus and Jupiter. His attributes are distinctly those of the physical sky. The higher role is a.s.signed to Varuna, who is the sky conceived of as a divine Power divorced from merely physical characteristics;[1270] the ma.s.s of phenomena connected with the sky (thunder, lightning, and such like) are isolated and referred to various deities. Prithivi, the Earth, in like manner, retains her physical attributes, and does not become the nouris.h.i.+ng mother of all things.[1271]

With a partial exception in the case of Ushas[1272] (Dawn) the early Hindu pantheon contains no great female figure; there are female counterparts of male deities, but no such transcendent personages as Isis, Athene, and Demeter. Whether this fact is to be explained from early Hindu views of the social position of women, or from some other idea, is uncertain. In certain modern religious cults, however, the wors.h.i.+p of the female principle (cakti) is popular and influential. It is probable that in early times every tribe or district had its female divine representative of fertility, an embryonic mother-G.o.ddess. If the Aryan Hindus had such a figure, she failed to grow into a great divinity. But the wors.h.i.+p of such deities came into Aryan India at a relatively recent date, apparently from non-Aryan sources, and has been incorporated in Hindu systems. Various forms of cakti have been brought into relation with various G.o.ds, the most important being those that have become attached to the wors.h.i.+p of civa.[1273] To him is a.s.signed as wife the frightful figure called Durga or Kali (and known by other names), a blood-loving monster with an unspeakably licentious cult.

Other cakti deities are more humane, and there is reason to suppose that the ground of the devotion shown to Kali, especially by women, is in many cases simply reverence for the female principle in life, or more particularly for motherhood.[1274]

+735+. The original character of the Hindu lord of the Otherworld, Yama, is obscured by the variety of the descriptions of him in the doc.u.ments.

In the Rig-Veda he appears both as G.o.d and (as it seems) as man. He is the son of the solar deity Vivashant (Vivashat); he is named in enumerations of G.o.ds, and Agni is his friend and his priest; he receives wors.h.i.+p, and is besought to come to the sacrifice.[1275] On the other hand, he is never called "G.o.d," but only "king";[1276] he is spoken of as the "only mortal," and is said to have chosen death; he is a.s.sociated in heaven with the "fathers."[1277] The modern interpretations of his origin have followed these two sets of data. By some writers he has been identified with the sun (particularly the setting sun), and with the moon.[1278] But these identifications are set aside for the Veda by the fact that in lists of G.o.ds he is distinguished from sun and moon.[1279]