The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 16

12. SARASWATi makes manifest by her acts a mighty river, and (in her own form) enlightens all understandings.

III.

1. Come, INDRA, and be regaled with all viands and libations, and thence, mighty in strength, be victorious (over thy foes)!

2. The libation being prepared, present the exhilarating and efficacious (draught) to the rejoicing INDRA, the accomplisher of all things.

3. INDRA, with the handsome chin, be pleased with these animating praises: do thou, who art to be reverenced by all mankind, (come) to these rites (with the G.o.ds)!

4. I have addressed to thee, INDRA, the showerer (of blessings), the protector (of thy wors.h.i.+ppers), praises which have reached thee, and of which thou hast approved!

5. Place before us, INDRA, precious and multiform riches, for enough, and more than enough, are a.s.suredly thine!

6. Opulent INDRA, encourage us in this rite for the acquirement of wealth, for we are diligent and renowned!

7. Grant us, INDRA, wealth beyond measure or calculation, inexhaustible, the source of cattle, of food, of all life.

8. INDRA, grant us great renown and wealth acquired in a thousand ways, and those (articles) of food (which are brought from the field) in carts!

9. We invoke, for the preservation of our property, INDRA, the lord of wealth, the object of sacred verses, the repairer (to the place of sacrifice), praising him with our praises!

10. With libations repeatedly effused, the sacrificer glorifies the vast prowess of INDRA, the mighty, the dweller in (an eternal mansion)!

IV.

1. The MARUTS who are going forth decorate themselves like females: they are gliders (through the air), the sons of RUDRA, and the doers of good works, by which they promote the welfare of earth and heaven: heroes, who grind (the solid rocks), they delight in sacrifices!

2. They, inaugurated by the G.o.ds, have attained majesty, the sons of RUDRA have established their dwelling above the sky: glorifying him (INDRA) who merits to be glorified, they have inspired him with vigour: the sons of PRISNI have acquired dominion!

3. When the sons of the earth embellish themselves with ornaments, they s.h.i.+ne resplendent in their persons with (brilliant) decorations; they keep aloof every adversary: the waters follow their path!

4. They who are worthily wors.h.i.+pped s.h.i.+ne with various weapons: incapable of being overthrown, they are the overthrowers (of mountains): MARUTS, swift as thought, intrusted with the duty of sending rain, yoke the spotted deer to your cars!

5. When MARUTS, urging on the cloud, for the sake of (providing) food, you have yoked the deer to your chariots, the drops fall from the radiant (sun), and moisten the earth, like a hide, with water!

6. Let your quick-paced smooth-gliding coursers bear you (hither), and, moving swiftly, come with your hands filled with good things: sit, MARUTS, upon the broad seat of sacred gra.s.s, and regale yourselves with the sweet sacrificial food!

7. Confiding in their own strength, they have increased in (power); they have attained heaven by their greatness, and have made (for themselves) a s.p.a.cious abode: may they, for whom VISHNU defends (the sacrifice) that bestows all desires and confers delight, come (quickly) like birds, and sit down upon the pleasant and sacred gra.s.s!

8. Like heroes, like combatants, like men anxious for food, the swift-moving (MARUTS) have engaged in battles: all beings fear the MARUTS, who are the leaders (of the rain), and awful of aspect, like princes!

9. INDRA wields the well-made, golden, many-bladed thunderbolt, which the skilful TWASHTRI has framed for him, that he may achieve great exploits in war. He has slain VRITRA, and sent forth an ocean of water!

10. By their power, they bore the well aloft, and clove asunder the mountain that obstructed their path: the munificent MARUTS, blowing upon their pipe, have conferred, when exhilarated by the _soma_ juice, desirable (gifts upon the sacrificer)!

11. They brought the crooked well to the place (where the _Muni_ was), and sprinkled the water upon the thirsty GOTAMA: the variously-radiant (MARUTS) come to his succour, gratifying the desire of the sage with life-sustaining waters!

12. Whatever blessings (are diffused) through the three worlds, and are in your gift, do you bestow upon the donor (of the libation), who addresses you with praise; bestow them, also, MARUTS, upon us, and grant us, bestowers of all good, riches, whence springs prosperity!

If we investigate the antiquity of these hymns we shall find no definite and unimpeachable date. Their epoch is a.s.signed on the score of internal evidence. The language is so much more archaic than that of the Inst.i.tutes, and the mythology so much simpler; whilst the Inst.i.tutes themselves are similarly circ.u.mstanced in respect to the Epics. Fixing these at about 200, B.C.; we allow so many centuries for the archaisms of Menu, and so many more for those of the Vedas. For the whole, eleven hundred has not been thought too little, which places the Vedas in the fourteenth century, B.C., and makes them the earliest, or nearly the earliest records in the world.

It is clear that this is but an approximation, and, although all inquirers admit that creeds, languages, and social conditions present the phenomena of _growth_, the opinions as to the _rate_ of such growths are varied, and none of much value. This is because the particular induction required for the formation of anything better than a mere impression has yet to be undertaken--till when, one man's guess is as good as another's. The age of a tree may be reckoned from its concentric rings, but the age of a language, a doctrine, or a polity, has neither bark nor wood, neither teeth like a horse, nor a register like a child.

Now the antiquity of the Vedas, as inferred from the archaic character of their language, has been shaken by the discovery of the structure of the Persepolitan dialect of the arrow-headed inscriptions. It approaches that of the Vedas; being, in some points, older than the Sanskrit of Menu. Yet its date is less than 500, B.C. Again, the Pali is less archaic than the Sanskrit; yet the Pali is the language of the oldest inscriptions in India, indeed, of the oldest Indian records of any sort, with a definite date.

One of the few cases where the phenomena of _rate_ have been studied with due attention, is in the evolution of the three languages of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden out of the Icelandic. What does this tell us? The last has altered so slowly that a modern Icelander can read the oldest works of his language. In Sweden, however, the speech _has_ altered. So it has in Denmark; whilst both these languages are unintelligible to the Icelander, and _vice versa_. As to their respective changes, Petersen shows that the Danish was always about a hundred years forwarder than the Swedish, having attained that point at (say) 1200, which the Swedish did not reach till 1300. Both, however, changed; and that, at a uniform rate; the Danish having, as it were, the start of a century. The Norwegian, however, comported itself differently. Until the Reformation it hardly changed at all; less than the stationary Icelandic itself. Fifty years, however, of sudden and rapid transformation brought it, at once, to the stage which the Danish had been three hundred years in reaching. How many times must the observation of such phenomena be multiplied before we can strike an average as to the rate of change in languages, creeds, and polities?

Again--it is by no means certain that the Inst.i.tutes and the Vedas represent a contemporary state of things. All doctrinal writings contain something appertaining to a period older than that of their composition.

Lastly,--the proof that all the writings in question belong to the same linear series, and represent the growth of _the same phenomena in the same place_ is deficient. The aegyptologist believes that contemporary kings are mistaken for successive ones; the philologist, that difference of dialects simulates a difference of age. Doubts of a more specific nature dawn upon us when we attempt to realize the alphabet in which an Indian MS. of even only eight hundred years B.C., was written. No Indian MS. is fifteen hundred years old; no inscription older than Alexander's time. Nevertheless,--though I write upon this subject with diffidence--the Devanagari characters of the Sanskrit MSS. can be deduced from the alphabet of the inscriptions; whilst these inscriptions themselves approach the alphabets of the Semitic character in proportion to their antiquity: so that the oldest alphabet of the Vedas is referable to that of the inscriptions, and that of the inscriptions betrays an origin external to India. Its introduction _may_ be very early; nevertheless its epoch must be investigated with a full recognition of the comparatively modern date of even the earliest alphabets of Persia, and the parts westward; early as compared with such a date as 1400, B.C., the accredited epoch of the Vedas; an epoch, perhaps, a thousand years too early.

Nevertheless, the existence of an alphabet, an architecture, a coinage, and an algebra at a period which no scepticism puts much later than 250, B.C., is so undoubted, that they may pa.s.s as ethnological facts, _i.e._, facts sufficiently true to be not merely admitted with what is called an _otiose_ belief, but to be cla.s.sed with the most unexceptionable _data_ of history, and to be used as effects from which we may argue backwards--_more ethnologico_--to their antecedent causes; the appreciation of these requiring a philosophy and an induction of its own.

We cannot detract from the antiquity of Indian civilization without impugning its indigenous origin, nor doubt this without stirring the question as to the countries from which it was introduced. These have been Persia, a.s.syria, Egypt, and Greece; the introduction being direct or indirect as the case might be.

In this way are contrasted the views of the general ethnologist, with those of the special orientalist, in respect to the great and difficult question of Indian antiquity. Yet, how far does the scepticism of the former affect our views concerning the descent of the Hindus, the Mahrattas, the Bengali, and those other populations, to the languages whereof they applied? Not much. Whichever way we decide, the population may still be Tamulian; only, in case we make the language Sanskritic, it is Tamulian in the same way as the Cornish are Welsh; _i.e._, Tamulian with a change of tongue.

The doubts, too, as to the antiquity of the Sanskrit literature unsettle but little. They merely make the introduction of certain foreign elements some centuries later.

Whatever may be the oldest of the great Hindu creeds, that of the _Sikhs_ is the newest. Its founder, Nanuk, in the fifteenth century, was a contemplative enthusiast; his successor, Govind, a zealous man of action; himself succeeded by similar _gurus_, or priests, who eventually, by means of fanaticism, organization, and union with the state raised the power of the _Khalsa_ to the formidable height from which it has so lately fallen. _Truth_ is the great abstraction of the Sikh creeds; and the extent to which it is at once intolerant and eclectic may be seen from the following extracts.[48] They certainly present the doctrine in a favourable light.

I.

The true name is G.o.d; without fear, without enmity; the Being without death; the Giver of salvation; the Gooroo and Grace.

Remember the primal truth; truth which was before the world began.

Truth which is, and truth, O Nanuk! which will remain.

By reflection it cannot be attained, how much soever the attention be fixed.

A hundred wisdoms, even a hundred thousand, not one accompanies the dead.

How can truth be told, how can falsehood be unravelled?

O Nanuk! by following the will of G.o.d, as by Him ordained.

II.

Time is the only G.o.d; the First and the Last, the Endless Being; the Creator, the Destroyer; He who can make and unmake.

G.o.d who created angels and demons, who created the East and the West, the North and the South; How can He be expressed by words?

III.

Numerous Mahomets have there been, and mult.i.tudes of Bruhmas, Vishnoos, and Sivas.

Thousands of Peers and Prophets, and tens of thousands of saints and holy men: But the chief of Lords is the one Lord, the true name of G.o.d.

O Nanuk! of G.o.d, His qualities, without end, beyond reckoning, who can understand?