Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume II Part 14

[Footnote 333: But see the instances quoted above from Kashmir and Nepal.]

BOOK V

HINDUISM

The present book deals with Hinduism and includes the period just treated in Book IV. In many epochs the same mythological and metaphysical ideas appear in a double form, Brahmanic and Buddhist, and it is hard to say which form is the earlier.

Any work which like the present adopts a geographical and historical treatment is bound to make Buddhism seem more important than Hinduism and rightly, for the conversion and transformation of China, j.a.pan and many other countries are a series of exploits of great moment for the history not merely of religion but of civilization. Yet when I think of the antiquity, variety and vitality of Hinduism in India--no small sphere--the nine chapters which follow seem very inadequate. I can only urge that though it would be easy to fill an encyclopaedia with accounts of Indian beliefs and practices, yet there is often great similarity under superficial differences: the main lines of thought are less numerous than they seem to be at first sight and they tend to converge.

CHAPTER XXV

SIVA AND VISHN?U

1

The striking difference between the earlier and later phases of Indian religious belief, between the Vedic hymns, Brahman?as, Upanishads and their accessory treatises on the one hand, and the epics, Puran?as, Tantras and later literature on the other, is due chiefly to the predominance in the latter of the great G.o.ds Siva and Vishn?u, with the attendant features of sectarian wors.h.i.+p and personal devotion to a particular deity. The difference is not wholly chronological, for late writers sometimes take the Vedic standpoint and ignore the wors.h.i.+p of these deities, but still their prominence in literature, and probably in popular mythology, is posterior to the Vedic period. The change created by their appearance is not merely the addition of two imposing figures to an already ample pantheon; it is a revolution which might be described as the introduction of a new religion, except that it does not come as the enemy or destroyer of the old. The wors.h.i.+p of the new deities grows up peacefully in the midst of the ancient rites; they receive the homage of the same population and the ministrations of the same priests. The transition is obscured but also was facilitated by the strength of Buddhism during the period when it occurred. The Brahmans, confronted by this formidable adversary, were disposed to favour any popular religious movement which they could adapt to their interests.

When the Hindu revival sets in under the Guptas, and Buddhism begins to decline, we find that a change has taken place which must have begun several centuries before, though our imperfect chronology does not permit us to date it. Whereas the Vedic sacrificers propitiated all the G.o.ds impartially and regarded ritual as a sacred science giving power over nature, the wors.h.i.+pper of the later deities is generally sectarian and often emotional. He selects one for his adoration, and this selected deity becomes not merely a great G.o.d among others but a gigantic cosmical figure in whom centre the philosophy, poetry and pa.s.sion of his devotees. He is almost G.o.d in the European sense, but still Indian deities, though they may have a monopoly of adoration in their own sects, are never entirely similar to Jehovah or Allah. They are at once more mythical, more human and more philosophical, since they are conceived of not as creators and rulers external to the world, but as forces manifesting themselves in nature. An exuberant mythology bestows on them monstrous forms, celestial residences, wives and offspring: they make occasional appearances in this world as men and animals; they act under the influence of pa.s.sions which if t.i.tanic, are but human feelings magnified. The philosopher accommodates them to his system by saying that Vishn?u or Siva is the form which the Supreme Spirit a.s.sumes as Lord of the visible universe, a form which is real only in the same sense that the visible world itself is real.

Vishn?u and Rudra are known even to the R?ig Veda but as deities of no special eminence. It is only after the Vedic age that they became, each for his own wors.h.i.+ppers, undisputed Lords of the Universe. A limiting date to the antiquity of Sivaism and Vishnuism, as their cults may be called, is furnished by Buddhist literature, at any rate for north-eastern India. The Pali Pit?akas frequently[334] introduce popular deities, but give no prominence to Vishn?u and Siva. They are apparently mentioned under the names of Ven?hu and Isana, but are not differentiated from a host of spirits now forgotten. The Pit?akas have no prejudices in the matter of deities and their object is to represent the most powerful of them as admitting their inferiority to the Buddha. If Siva and Vishn?u are not put forward in the same way as Brahma and Indra, the inference seems clear: it had not occurred to anyone that they were particularly important.

The suttas of the Digha Nikaya in which these lists of deities occur were perhaps composed before 300 B.C.[335] About that date Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at Pataliputra, describes two Indian deities under the names of Dionysus and Herakles. They are generally identified with Kr?ishn?a and Siva. It might be difficult to deduce this ident.i.ty from an a.n.a.lysis of each description and different authorities have identified both Siva and Kr?ishn?a with Dionysus, but the fact remains that a somewhat superficial foreign observer was impressed with the idea that the Hindus wors.h.i.+pped two great G.o.ds. He would hardly have derived this idea from the Vedic pantheon, and it is not clear to what G.o.ds he can refer if not to Siva and Vishn?u. It thus seems probable that these two cults took shape about the fourth century B.C. Their apparently sudden appearance is due to their popular character and to the absence of any record in art. The statuary and carving of the Asokan period and immediately succeeding centuries is exclusively Buddhist. No temples or images remain to ill.u.s.trate the first growth of Hinduism (as the later form of Indian religion is commonly styled) out of the earlier Brahmanism. Literature (on which we are dependent for our information) takes little account of the early career of popular G.o.ds before they win the recognition of the priesthood and aristocracy, but when that recognition is once obtained they appear in all their majesty and without any hint that their honours are recent.

As already mentioned, we have evidence that in the fifth or sixth century before Christ the Vedic or Brahmanic religion was not the only form of wors.h.i.+p and philosophy in India. There were popular deities and rites to which the Brahmans were not opposed and which they countenanced when it suited them. What takes place in India to-day took place then. When some aboriginal deity becomes important owing to the prosperity of the tribe or locality with which he is connected, he is recognized by the Brahmans and admitted to their pantheon, perhaps as the son or incarnation of some personage more generally accepted as divine. The prestige of the Brahmans is sufficient to make such recognition an honour, but it is also their interest and millennial habit to secure control of every important religious movement and to incorporate rather than suppress. And this incorporation is more than mere recognition: the parvenu G.o.d borrows something from the manners and attributes of the olympian society to which he is introduced. The greater he grows, the more considerable is the process of fusion and borrowing. Hindu philosophy ever seeks for the one amongst the many and popular thought, in a more confused way, pursues the same goal. It combines and identifies its deities, feeling dimly that taken singly they are too partial to be truly divine, or it piles attributes upon them striving to make each an adequate divine whole.

Among the processes which have contributed to form Vishn?u and Siva we must reckon the invasions which entered India from the north-west.[336] In Bactria and Sogdiana there met and were combined the art and religious ideas of Greece and Persia, and whatever elements were imported by the Yueh-chih and other tribes who came from the Chinese frontier. The personalities of Vishn?u and Siva need not be ascribed to foreign influence. The ruder invaders took kindly to the wors.h.i.+p of Siva, but there is no proof that they introduced it. But Persian and Graeco-Bactrian influence favoured the creation of more definite deities, more personal and more pictorial. The G.o.ds of the Vedic hymns are vague and indistinct: the Supreme Being of the Upanishads altogether impersonal, but Mithra and Apollo, though divine in their majesty, are human in their persons and in the appeal they make to humanity. The influence of these foreign conceptions and especially of their representation in art is best seen in Indian Buddhism. Hinduism has not so ancient an artistic record and therefore the Graeco-Bactrian influence on it is less obvious, for the sculpture of the Gupta period does not seem due to this inspiration.

Neither in outward form nor in character do Vishn?u and Siva show much more resemblance to Apollo and Mithra than to the Vedic G.o.ds. Their exuberant, fantastic shapes, their many heads and arms, are a symbol of their complex and multiple attributes. They are not restricted by the limits of personality but are great polymorphic forces, not to be indicated by the limits of one human shape.[337]

2

Though alike in their grandeur and multiplicity, Vishn?u and Siva are not otherwise similar. In their completely developed forms they represent two ways of looking at the world. The main ideas of the Vaishn?avas are human and emotional. The deity saves and loves: he asks for a wors.h.i.+p of love. He appears in human incarnations and is known as well or better by these incarnations than in his original form. But in Sivaism the main current of thought is scientific and philosophic rather than emotional.[338] This statement may seem strange if one thinks of the wild rites and legends connected with Siva and his spouse. Nevertheless the fundamental conception of Sivaism, the cosmic force which changes and in changing both destroys and reproduces, is strictly scientific and contrasts with the human, pathetic, loving sentiments of Vishnuism. And scandalous as the wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle may become, the potency of this impulse in the world scheme cannot be denied. Agreeably to his character of a force rather than an emotion Siva does not become incarnate[339] as a popular hero and saviour like Rama or Kr?ishn?a, but he a.s.sumes various supernatural forms for special purposes. Both wors.h.i.+ps, despite their differences, show characteristics which are common to most phases of Indian religion. Both seek for deliverance from transmigration and are penetrated with a sense of the sorrow inherent in human and animal life: both develop or adopt philosophical doctrines which rise high above the level usually attained by popular beliefs, and both have erotic aspects in which they fall below the standard of morality usually professed by important sects whether in Asia or Europe.

The name Siva is euphemistic. It means propitious and, like Eumenides, is used as a deprecating and complimentary t.i.tle for the G.o.d of terrors. It is not his earliest designation and does not occur as a proper name in the R?ig Veda where he is known as Rudra, a word of disputed derivation, but probably meaning the roarer. Comparatively few hymns are addressed to Rudra, but he is clearly distinguished from the other Vedic G.o.ds. Whereas they are cheerful and benevolent figures, he is maleficent and terrible: they are G.o.ds of the heaven but he is a G.o.d of the earth. He is the "man-slayer" and the sender of disease, but if he restrains these activities he can give safety and health. "Slay us not, for thou art gracious," and so the Destroyer comes to be the Gracious One.[340] It has been suggested that the name Siva is connected with the Tamil word _civappu_ red and also that Rudra means not the roarer but the red or s.h.i.+ning one. These etymologies seem to me possible but not proved. But Rudra is different in character from the other G.o.ds of the R?ig Veda. It would be rash to say that the Aryan invaders of India brought with them no G.o.d of this sort but it is probable that this element in their pantheon increased as they gradually united in blood and ideas with the Dravidian population. But we know nothing of the beliefs of the Dravidians at this remote period. We only know that in later ages emotional religion, finding expression as so-called devil-dancing in its lower and as mystical poetry in its higher phases, was prevalent among them.

The White Yajur Veda[341] contains a celebrated prayer known as the Satarudriya addressed to Rudra or the Rudras, for the power invoked seems to be now many and now one. This deity, who is described by a long string of epithets, receives the name of San?kara (afterwards a well-known epithet of Siva) and is blue-necked. He is begged to be _Siva_ or propitious, but the word is an epithet, not a proper name.

He haunts mountains and deserted, uncanny places: he is the patron of violent and lawless men, of soldiers and robbers (the two are evidently considered much the same), of thieves, cheats and pilferers,[342] but also of craftsmen and huntsmen and is himself "an observant merchant": he is the lord of hosts of spirits, "ill-formed and of all forms." But he is also a great cosmic force who "dwells in flowing streams and in billows and in tranquil waters and in rivers and on islands ... and at the roots of trees ...": who "exists in incantations, in punishments, in prosperity, in the soil, in the thres.h.i.+ng-floor ... in the woods and in the bushes, in sound and in echo ... in young gra.s.s and in foam ... in gravel and in streams ... in green things and in dry things.... Reverence to the leaf and to him who is in the fall of the leaf, the threatener, the slayer, the vexer and the afflicter." Here we see how an evil and disreputable G.o.d, the patron of low castes and violent occupations, becomes a.s.sociated with the uncanny forces of nature and is on the way to become an All-G.o.d.[343]

Rudra is frequently mentioned in the Atharva Veda. He is conceived much as in the Satarudriya, and is the lord of spirits and of animals.

"For thee the beasts of the wood, the deer, swans and various winged birds are placed in the forest: thy living creatures exist in the waters: for thee the celestial waters flow. Thou shootest at the monsters of the ocean, and there is to thee nothing far or near."[344]

These pa.s.sages show that the main conceptions out of which the character of the later Siva is built existed in Vedic times. The Rudra of the Yajur and Atharva Vedas is not Brahmanic: he is not the G.o.d of priests and orderly ritual, but of wild people and places. But he is not a petty provincial demon who afflicts rustics and their cattle.

Though there is some hesitation between one Rudra and many Rudras, the destructive forces are unified in thought and the destroyer is not opposed to creation as a devil or as the principle of evil, but with profounder insight is recognized as the Lord and Law of all living things.

But though the outline of Siva is found in Vedic writings, later centuries added new features to his cult. Chief among these is the wors.h.i.+p of a column known as the Linga, the emblem under which he is now most commonly adored. It is a phallic symbol though usually decent in appearance. The Vedas do not countenance this wors.h.i.+p and it is not clear that it was even known to them.[345] It is first enjoined in the Mahabharata and there only in two pa.s.sages[346] which appear to be late additions. The inference seems to be that it was accepted as part of Hinduism just about the time that our edition of the Mahabharata was compiled.[347] The old theory that it was borrowed from aboriginal and especially from Dravidian tribes[348] is now discredited. In the first place the instances cited of phallic wors.h.i.+p among aboriginal tribes are not particularly numerous or striking. Secondly, linga wors.h.i.+p, though prevalent in the south, is not confined to it, but flourishes in all parts of India, even in a.s.sam and Nepal. Thirdly, it is not connected with low castes, with orgies, with obscene or bloodthirsty rites or with anything which can be called un-Aryan. It forms part of the private devotions of the strictest Brahmans, and despite the significance of the emblem, the wors.h.i.+p offered to it is perfectly decorous.[349] The evidence thus suggests that this cultus grew up among Brahmanical Hindus in the early centuries of our era.

The idea that there was something divine in virility and generation already existed. The choice of the symbol--the stone pillar--may have been influenced by two circ.u.mstances. Firstly, the Buddhist veneration of stupas, especially miniature stupas, must have made familiar the idea that a cone or column is a religious emblem,[350] and secondly the linga may be compared to the carved pillars or stone standards erected in honour of Vishn?u. Some lingas are carved and bear one or four faces, thus entirely losing any phallic appearance. The wide extension of this cult, though its origin seems late, is remarkable.

Something similar may be seen in the wors.h.i.+p of Gan?esa: the first records of it are even later, but it is now universal in India.

It may seem strange that a religion whose outward ceremonies though una.s.suming and modest consist chiefly of the wors.h.i.+p of the linga, should draw its adherents largely from the educated cla.s.ses and be under no moral or social stigma. Yet as an idea, as a philosophy, Sivaism possesses truth and force. It gives the best picture which humanity has drawn of the Lord of this world, not indeed of the ideal to which the saint aspires, nor of the fancies with which hope and emotion people the spheres behind the veil, but of the force which rules the Universe as it is, which reproduces and destroys, and in performing one of these acts necessarily performs the other, seeing that both are but aspects of change. For all animal and human existence[351] is the product of s.e.xual desire: it is but the temporary and transitory form of a force having neither beginning nor end but continually manifesting itself in individuals who must have a beginning and an end. This force, to which European taste bids us refer with such reticence, is the true creator of the world. Not only is it unceasingly performing the central miracle of producing new lives but it accompanies it by unnumbered accessory miracles, which provide the new born child with nourishment and make lowly organisms care for their young as if they were gifted with human intelligence.

But the Creator is also the Destroyer, not in anger but by the very nature of his activity. When the series of changes culminates in a crisis and an individual breaks up, we see death and destruction, but in reality they occur throughout the process of growth. The egg is destroyed when the chicken is hatched: the embryo ceases to exist when the child is born; when the man comes into being, the child is no more. And for change, improvement and progress death is as necessary as birth. A world of immortals would be a static world.

When once the figure of Siva has taken definite shape, attributes and epithets are lavished on it in profusion. He is the great ascetic, for asceticism in India means power, and Siva is the personification of the powers of nature. He may alternate strangely between austerities and wild debauch, but the sentimentality of some Kr?ishn?aite sects is alien to him. He is a magician, the lord of troops of spirits, and thus draws into his circle all the old animistic wors.h.i.+p. But he is also identified with Time (Mahakala) and Death (Mr?ityu) and as presiding over procreation he is Ardhanaresvara, half man, half woman.

Stories are invented or adapted to account for his various attributes, and he is provided with a divine family. He dwells on Mount Kailasa: he has three eyes: above the central one is the crescent of the moon and the stream of the Ganges descends from his braided hair: his throat is blue and encircled by a serpent and a necklace of skulls. In his hands he carries a three-p.r.o.nged trident and a drum. But the effigy or description varies, for Siva is adored under many forms. He is Mahadeva, the Great G.o.d, Hara the Seizer, Bhairava the terrible one, Pasupati, the Lord of cattle, that is of human souls who are compared to beasts. Local G.o.ds and heroes are identified with him.

Thus Gor Baba,[352] said to be a deified ghost of the aboriginal races, reappears as Goresvara and is counted a form of Siva, as is also Khandoba or Khande Rao, a deity connected with dogs. Gan?esa, "the Lord of Hosts," the G.o.d who removes obstacles and is represented with an elephant's head and accompanied by a rat, is recognized as Siva's son. Another son is Skanda or Kartikeya, the G.o.d of War, a great deity in Ceylon and southern India. But more important both for the absorption of aboriginal cults and for its influence on speculation and morality is the part played by Siva's wife or female counterpart.

The wors.h.i.+p of G.o.ddesses, though found in many sects, is specially connected with Sivaism. A figure a.n.a.logous to the Madonna, the kind and compa.s.sionate G.o.ddess who helps and pities all, appears in later Buddhism but for some reason this train of thought has not been usual in India. Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Sita are benevolent, but they hold no great position in popular esteem,[353] and the being who attracts millions of wors.h.i.+ppers under such names as Kali, Durga, or Mahadevi, though she has many forms and aspects, is most commonly represented as a terrible G.o.ddess who demands offerings of blood. The wors.h.i.+p of this G.o.ddess or G.o.ddesses, for it is hard to say if she is one or many, is treated of in a separate chapter. Though in shrines dedicated to Siva his female counterpart or energy (Sakti) also receives recognition, yet she is revered as the spouse of her lord to whom honour is primarily due. But in Saktist wors.h.i.+p adoration is offered to the Sakti as being the form in which his power is made manifest or even as the essential G.o.dhead.

3

Let us now pa.s.s on to Vishn?u. Though not one of the great G.o.ds of the Veda, he is mentioned fairly often and with respect. Indian commentators and comparative mythologists agree that he is a solar deity. His chief exploit is that he took (or perhaps in the earlier version habitually takes) three strides. This was originally a description of the sun's progress across the firmament but grew into a myth which relates that when the earth was conquered by demons, Vishn?u became incarnate as a dwarf and induced the demon king to promise him as much s.p.a.ce as he could measure in three steps. Then, appearing in his true form, he strode across earth and heaven and recovered the world for mankind. His special character as the Preserver is already outlined in the Veda. He is always benevolent: he took his three steps for the good of men: he established and preserves the heavens and earth. But he is not the princ.i.p.al solar deity of the R?ig Veda: Surya, Savitri and Pushan receive more invocations. Though one hymn says that no one knows the limits of his greatness, other pa.s.sages show that he has no pre-eminence, and even in the Mahabharata and the Vishn?u-Puran?a itself he is numbered among the adityas or sons of Aditi. In the Brahman?as, he is somewhat more important than in the R?ig Veda,[354] though he has not yet attained to any position like that which he afterwards occupies.

Just as for Siva, so for Vishn?u we have no clear record of the steps by which he advanced from a modest rank to the position of having but one rival in the popular esteem. But the lines on which the change took place are clear. Even in his own Church, Vishn?u himself claims comparatively little attention. He is not a force like Siva that makes and mars, but a benevolent and retiring personality who keeps things as they are. His wors.h.i.+p, as distinguished from that of his incarnations, is not conspicuous in modern India, especially in the north. In the south he is less overshadowed by Kr?ishn?a, and many great temples have been erected in his honour. In Travancore, which is formally dedicated to him as his special domain, he is adored under the name of Padmanabha. But his real claim to reverence, his appeal to the Indian heart, is due to the fact that certain deified human heroes, particularly Rama and Kr?ishn?a, are identified with him.

Deification is common in India.[355] It exists to the present day and even defunct Europeans do not escape its operation. In modern times, when the idea of reincarnation had become familiar, eminent men like Caitanya or Vallabhacarya were declared after their death to be embodiments of Kr?ishn?a without more ado, but in earlier ages the process was probably double. First of all the departed hero became a powerful ghost or deity in his own right, and then this deity was identified with a Brahmanic G.o.d. Many examples prove that a remarkable man receives wors.h.i.+p after death quite apart from any idea of incarnation.

The incarnations of Vishn?u are most commonly given as ten[356] but are not all of the same character. The first five, namely, the Fish, Tortoise, Boar, Man-Lion and Dwarf, are mythical, and due to his identification with supernatural creatures playing a benevolent role in legends with which he had originally no connection. The sixth, however, Parasu-rama or Rama with the axe, may contain historical elements. He is represented as a militant Brahman who in the second age of the world exterminated the Kshatriyas, and after reclaiming Malabar from the sea, settled it with Brahmans. This legend clearly refers to a struggle for supremacy between the two upper castes, though we may doubt if the triumphs attributed to the priestly champion have any foundation in fact. The Ramayan?a[357] contains a singular account of a contest between this Rama and the greater hero of the same name in which Parasu-rama admits the other's superiority.

That is to say an epic edited under priestly supervision relates how the hero-G.o.d of the warriors vanquishes the hero-G.o.d of the priests, and this hero-G.o.d of the warriors is then wors.h.i.+pped by common consent as the greater divinity, but under priestly patronage. The tenacity and vitality of the Brahmans enabled them ultimately to lead the conqueror captive, and Ramacandra became a champion of Brahmanism as much as Parasu-rama.

Very interesting too is the ninth avatara (to leave for a moment the strict numerical order) or Buddha.[358] The reason a.s.signed in Brahmanic literature for Vishn?u's appearance in this character is that he wished to mislead the enemies of the G.o.ds by false teaching, or that out of compa.s.sion for animals he preached the abolition of Vedic sacrifices. Neither explanation is very plausible and it is pretty clear that in the period when degenerate Buddhism offered no objection to deification and mythology, the Brahmans sanctioned the wors.h.i.+p of the Buddha under their auspices. But they did so only in a half-hearted way. The Buddha was so important a personage that he had to be explained by the intervention, kindly or hostile, of a deity.[359]

In his tenth incarnation or Kalki,[360] which has yet to take place, Vishn?u will appear as a Messiah, a conception possibly influenced by Persian ideas. Here, where we are in the realm of pure imagination, we see clearly what the signs of his avataras are supposed to be. His mission is to sweep away the wicked and to ensure the triumph of the pious, but he comes as a warrior and a horseman, not as a teacher, and if he protects the good he does so by destroying evil. He has thus all the attributes of a Kshatriya hero, and that is as a matter of fact the real character of the two most important avataras to which we now turn, Rama and Kr?ishn?a.

Rama, often distinguished as Ramacandra, is usually treated as the seventh incarnation and anterior to Kr?ishn?a, for he was born in the second age of this rapidly deteriorating world, whereas Kr?ishn?a did not appear until the third. But his deification is later than that of Kr?ishn?a and probably an imitation of it. He was the son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh, but was driven into banishment by a palace intrigue. He married Sita, daughter of the King of Mithila.

She was carried off by Ravana, the demon tyrant of Ceylon, and Rama re-captured her with the aid of Hanuman, King of the Monkeys, and his hosts.[361] Is there any kernel of history in this story? An examination of Hindu legends suggests that they usually preserve names and genealogies correctly but distort facts, and fantastically combine independent narratives. Rama was a semi-divine hero in the tales of ancient Oudh, based on a real personality, and Ceylon was colonized by Indians of Aryan speech.[362] But can we a.s.sume that a king of Oudh really led an expedition to the far south, with the aid of ape-like aborigines? It is doubtful, and the narrative of the Ramayan?a reads like poetic invention rather than distorted history. And yet, what can have prompted the legend except the occurrence of some such expedition? In Rama's wife Sita, seem to be combined an agricultural G.o.ddess and a heroine of ancient romance, embodying the Hindu ideal of the true wife.

We have no record of the steps by which Rama and Kr?ishn?a were deified, although in different parts of the epic they are presented in very different aspects, sometimes as little more than human, sometimes as nothing less than the Supreme Deity. But it can hardly be doubted that this deification owes something to the example of Buddhism. It may be said that the development of both Buddhism and Hinduism in the centuries immediately preceding and following our era gives parallel manifestations of the same popular tendency to deify great men. This is true, but the non-Buddhist forms of Indian religion while not objecting to deification did not particularly encourage it. But in this period, Buddhism and Jainism were powerful: both of them sanctioned the veneration of great teachers and, as they did not recognize sacrifice or adoration of G.o.ds, this veneration became the basis of their ceremonies and easily pa.s.sed into wors.h.i.+p. The Buddhists are not responsible for the introduction of deification, but the fact that it was to some extent the basis of their public ceremonies must have gone far to make the wors.h.i.+p of Rama and Kr?ishn?a seem natural.

It is commonly said that whereas the whole divine nature of Vishn?u was embodied in Kr?ishn?a, Rama was only a partial incarnation. Half the G.o.d's essence took human form in him, the other half being distributed among his brothers. Kr?ishn?a is a greater figure in popular esteem and receives the exclusive devotion of more wors.h.i.+ppers. The name of Rama commands the reverence of most Hindus, and has a place in their prayers, but his figure has not been invested with the attributes (often of dubious moral value) which most attract sectarian devotion. His wors.h.i.+p combines easily with the adoration of other deities. The great temple of Ramesvaram on Adam's Bridge is dedicated not to Rama himself but to the linga which he erected there, and Tulsi Das, the author of the Hindi Ramayan?a, while invoking Rama as the Supreme Lord and redeemer of the world, emphatically states[363] that his wors.h.i.+p is not antagonistic to that of Siva.

No inscriptions nor ancient references testify to the wors.h.i.+p of Rama before our era and in the subsequent centuries two phases can be distinguished. First, Rama is a great hero, an incarnation of Vishn?u for a particular purpose and a.n.a.logous to the Vamana or any other avatara: deserving as such of all respect but still not the object of any special cult. This is the view taken of Rama in the Mahabharata, the Puran?as, the Raghuvam?sa, and those parts of the Ramayan?a which go beyond it are probably late additions.[364] But secondly Rama becomes for his wors.h.i.+ppers the supreme deity. Ramanuja (on the Vedanta sutras, II. 42) mentions him and Kr?ishn?a as two great incarnations in which the supreme being became manifest, and since Kr?ishn?a was certainly wors.h.i.+pped at this period as identical with the All-G.o.d, it would appear that Rama held the same position. Yet it was not until the fourteenth or fifteenth century that he became for many sects the central and ultimate divine figure.

In the more liberal sects the wors.h.i.+p of Rama pa.s.ses easily into theism and it is the direct parent of the Kabirpanth and Sikhism, but unlike Kr?ishn?aism it does not lead to erotic excess. Rama personifies the ideal of chivalry, Sita of chast.i.ty. Less edifying forms of wors.h.i.+p may attract more attention, but it must not be supposed that Rama is relegated to the penumbra of philosophic thought. If anything so multiplex as Hinduism can be said to have a watchword, it is the cry, Ram, Ram. The story of his adventures has travelled even further than the hero himself, and is known not only from Kashmir to Cape Comorin but from Bombay to Java and Indo-China where it is a common subject of art. In India the Ramayan?a is a favourite recitation among all cla.s.ses, and dramatized versions of various episodes are performed as religious plays. Though two late Upanishads, the Ramapurvatapaniya and Ramauttaratapaniya extol Rama as the Supreme Being, there is no Ramapuran?a. The fact is significant, as showing that his wors.h.i.+p did not possess precisely those features of priestly sectarianism which mark the Puran?as and perhaps that it is later than the Puran?as. But it has inspired a large literature, more truly popular than anything that the Puran?as contain. Thus we have the Sanskrit Ramayan?a itself, the Hindi Ramayan?a, the Tamil Ramayan?a of Kamban, and works like the Adhyatma-Ramayan?a and Yoga-Vasishth?a-Ramayan?a.[365] Of all these, the Ramayan?a of Tulsi Das is specially remarkable and I shall speak of it later at some length.

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