The Religions of India Part 27

2. 21: "V[=a]c ([Greek: Adgos]) is the Unborn one; from V[=a]c the all-maker made creatures." See Weber, _Ind.

Stud_. IX. 477 ff.]

[Footnote 17: Compare J.U.B. i. 56. 1, 'Water (alone) existed in the beginning.' This is the oldest and latest Hindu explanation of the matter of the physical universe.

From the time of the Vedas to mediaeval times, as is recorded by the Greek travellers, water is regarded as the original element.]

[Footnote 18: The Gandh[=a]ra might indicate a late geographical expansion as well as an early heritage, so that this is not conclusive.]

[Footnote 19: Gough, _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, has sought to show that the pure Vedantism of cankara is the only belief taught in the Upanishads, ignoring the weight of those pa.s.sages that oppose his (in our view) too sweeping a.s.sertion.]

[Footnote 20: See the Parimara described, _[=A]it. Br_.

VIII. 28. Here _brahma_ is wind, around which die five divinities--lightning in rain, rain in moon, moon in sun, sun in fire, fire in wind--and they are reborn in reverse order. The 'dying' is used as a curse. The king shall say, 'When fire dies in wind then may my foe die,' and he will die; so when any of the other G.o.ds dies around _brahma_.]

[Footnote 21: Compare sterben, starve.]

[Footnote 22: The androgynous creator of the Br[=a]hmanas.]

[Footnote 23: We cannot, however, quite agree with Whitney who, _loc. cit._ p. 92, and Journal, xiii, p. ciii ff., implies that belief in h.e.l.l comes later than this period.

This is not so late a teaching. h.e.l.l is Vedic and Brahmanic.]

[Footnote 24: This, in pantheistic style, is expressed thus (cvet. 4): "When the light has arisen there is no day no night, neither being nor not-being; the Blessed One alone exists there. There is no likeness of him whose name is Great Glory."]

[Footnote 25: Brihad [=A]ranyaka Upanishad, 2.4; 4. 5.]

[Footnote 26: _Na pretya sa[.m]jn[=a] 'sti._]

[Footnote 27: Some of the Upanishads have been tampered with, so that all of the contradictions may not be due to the composers. Nevertheless, as the uncertainty of opinion in regard to cosmogony is quite as great as that in respect of absorption, all the vagueness cannot properly be attributed to the efforts of later systematizers to bring the Upanishads into their more or less orthodox Vedantism.]

[Footnote 28: In 4. 10. 5 _kam_ is pleasure, one with ether as _brahma_, not as wrongly above, p. 222, the G.o.d Ka.]

[Footnote 29: This Upanishad appears to be sectarian, perhaps an early civaite tract (dualistic), if the allusion to Rudra civa, below, be accepted as original.]

[Footnote 30: As is foreshadowed in the doctrine of grace by V[=a]c in the Rig Veda, in the _cvet_, the _Katha_, and the _Mund_. Upanishads (_K. 2. 23; M_. 3. 2. 3), but nowhere else, there enters, with the sectarian phase, that radical subversion of the Upanishad doctrine which becomes so powerful at a later date, the teaching that salvation is a gift of G.o.d. "This Spirit is not got by wisdom; the Spirit chooses as his own the body of that man whom He chooses."]

[Footnote 31: See above. As descriptive of the immortal conscious Spirit, there is the famous verse: "If the slayer thinks to slay, if the slain thinks he is slain; they both understand not; this one (the Spirit) slays not, and is not slain" (_Katha_, 2. 19); loosely rendered by Emerson, 'If the red slayer think he slays,' etc.]

[Footnote 32: The fact remarked by Thibaut that radically different systems of philosophy are built upon the Upanishads is enough to show how ambiguous are the declarations of the latter.]

[Footnote 33: Compare Barth, _Religions_, p. 76.]

CHAPTER XI.

THE POPULAR BRAHMANIC FAITH

For a long time after the Vedic age there is little that gives one an insight into the views of the people. It may be presumed, since the orthodox systems never dispensed with the established cult, that the form of the old Vedic creed was kept intact. Yet, since the real belief changed, and the cult became more and more the practice of a formality, it becomes necessary to seek, apart from the inherited ritual, the faith which formed the actual religion of the people.

Inasmuch as this phase of Hindu belief has scarcely been touched upon elsewhere, it may be well to state more fully the object of the present chapter.

We have shown above that the theology of the Vedic period had resulted, before its close, in a form of pantheism, which was accompanied, as is attested by the Atharva Veda, with a demonology and witch-craft religion, the latter presumably of high antiquity.

Immediately after this come the esoteric Br[=a]hmanas, in which the G.o.ds are, more or less, figures in the eyes of the priests, and the form of a Father-G.o.d rises into chief prominence, being sometimes regarded as the creative force, but at all times as the moral authority in the world. At the end of this period, however, and probably even before this period ended, there is for the first time, in the Upanishads, a new religion, that, in some regards, is esoteric.

Hitherto the secrets of religious mysteries had been treated as hidden priestly wisdom, not to be revealed. But, for the most part, this wisdom is really nonsense; and when it is said in the Br[=a]hmanas, at the end of a bit of theological mystery, that it is a secret, or that 'the G.o.ds love that which is secret,' one is not persuaded by the examples given that this esoteric knowledge is intellectually valuable. But with the Upanishads there comes the ant.i.thesis of inherited belief and right belief. The latter is public property, though it is not taught carelessly. The student is not initiated into the higher wisdom till he is drilled in the lower. The most unexpected characters appear in the role of instructors of priests, namely, women, kings, and members of the third caste, whose deeper wisdom is promulgated oftentimes as something quite new, and sometimes is whispered in secret. Pantheism, _sams[=a]ra_,[1] and the eternal bliss of the individual spirit when eventually it is freed from further transmigration,--these three fundamental traits of the new religion are discussed in such a way as to show that they had no hold upon the general public, but they were the intellectual wealth of a few. Some of the Upanishads hide behind a veil of mystery; yet many of them, as Windisch has said, are, in a way, popular; that is, they are intended for a general public, not for priests alone. This is especially the case with the pantheistic Upanishads in their more p.r.o.nounced form.

But still it is only the very wise that can accept the teaching. It is not the faith of the people.

Epic literature, which is the next living literature of the Brahmans, after the Upanishads, takes one, in a trice, from the beginnings of a formal pantheism, to a pantheism already disintegrated by the newer wors.h.i.+p of sectaries. Here the impersonal _[=a]tm[=a]_, or nameless Lord, is not only an anthropomorphic civa, as in the late Upanishads, where the philosophic _brahma_ is equated with a long recognized type of divinity, but _[=a]tm[=a]_ is identified with the figure of a theomorphic man.

Is there, then, nothing with which to bridge this gulf?

In our opinion the religion of the law-books, as a legitimate phase of Hindu religion, has been too much ignored. The religion of Upanishad and Ved[=a]nta, with its attractive a.n.a.logies with modern speculation, has been taken as ill.u.s.trative of the religion of a vast period, to the discrediting of the belief represented in the manuals of law. To these certainly the name of literature can scarcely be applied, but in their rapport with ordinary life they will be found more apt than are the profounder speculations of the philosophers to reflect the religious belief taught to the ma.s.ses and accepted by them.

The study of these books casts a broad light upon that interval between the Vedic and epic periods wherein it is customary to imagine religion as being, in the main, cult or philosophy. Nor does the interest cease with the yield of necessarily scanty yet very significant facts in regard to eschatological and cosmogonic views.

The G.o.ds themselves are not what they are in the rites of the cunning priests or in the dogmas of the sages. In the Hindu law there is a reversion to Vedic belief; or rather not a reversion, but here one sees again, through the froth of rites and the murk of philosophy, the under-stream of faith that still flows from the old fount, if somewhat discolored, and waters the heart of the people.

At just what time was elaborated the stupendous system of rites, which are already traditional in the Br[=a]hmanas, can never be known. Some of these rites have to do with special ceremonies, such as the royal inauguration, some are stated _soma_-sacrifices.[2] Opposed to these _soma_-feasts is the simpler and older fire-cult, which persists in the house-rituals. All of these together make up a sightly array of sacrifices.[3] The _soma_-ritual is developed in the Br[=a]hmanas. But with this cla.s.s of works there must have been from ancient times another which treated of the fire-ritual, and of which the more modern representatives are the extant S[=u]tras. It is with S[=u]tras that legal literature begins, but these differ from the ritualistic S[=u]tras. Yet both are full of religious meat. In these collections, even in the more special, there is no arrangement that corresponds to western ideas of order. In a completed code, for example, there is a rough distribution of subjects under different heads, but the attempt is only tentative, and each work presents the appearance of a heterogeneous ma.s.s of regulations and laws, from which one must pick out the law for which he is seeking. The earlier legal works were in prose; the later evolved codes, of which there is a large number, in metre. It is in these two cla.s.ses of house-ritual and law-ritual, which together const.i.tute what is called Smriti, tradition-ritual (in distinction from the so-called cruti, revelation-ritual), that one may expect to find the religion of the time; not as inculcated by the promoters of mystery, nor yet as disclosed by the philosopher, but as taught (through the priest) to the people, and as accepted by them for their daily guidance in matters of every-day observance. We glance first at the religious observances, for here, as in the case of the great sacrifices, a detailed examination would be of no more value than a collective impression; unless, indeed, one were hunting for folk-lore superst.i.tions, of which we can treat now only in the ma.s.s.

It is sufficient to understand that, according to the house-ritual (_g[r.]hya-s[=u]tra_) and the law-ritual (_dharma-s[=u]tra_, and _dharma-c[=a]stra_),[4] for every change in life there was an appropriate ceremony and a religious observance; for every day, oblations (three at least); for every fortnight and season, a sacrifice. Religious formulae were said over the child yet unborn.

From the moment of birth he was surrounded with observances.[5] At such and such a time the child's head was shaved; he was taken out to look at the sun; made to eat from a golden spoon; invested with the sacred cord, etc, etc. When grown up, a certain number of years were pa.s.sed with a Guru, or tutor, who taught the boy his Veda; and to whom he acted as body-servant (a study and office often cut short in the case of Aryans who were not priests). Of the sacraments alone, such as the observances to which we have just alluded, there are no less than forty according to Gautama's laws (the name-rite, eating-rite, etc.).

The pious householder who had once set up his own fire, that is, got married, must have spent most of his time, if he followed directions, in attending to some religious ceremony. He had several little rites to attend to even before he might say his prayers in the morning; and since even to-day most of these personal regulations are dutifully observed, one may a.s.sume that in the full power of Brahmanhood they were very straitly enforced.[6]

It is, therefore, important to know what these works, so closely in touch with the general public, have to say in regard to religion. What they inculcate will be the popular theology of completed Brahmanism.

For these books are intended to give instruction to all the Aryan castes, and, though this instruction filtrates through the hands of the priest, one may be sure that the understanding between king and priest was such as to make the code the real norm of justice and arbiter of religious opinions. For instance, when one reads that the king is a prime divinity, and that, _quid pro quo_, the priest may be banished, but never may be punished corporally by the king, because the former is a still greater divinity, it may be taken for granted that such was received opinion. When we come to take up the Hinduism of the epic we shall point out that that work contains a religion more popular even than that of the legal literature, for one knows that this latter phase of religion was at first not taught at all, but grew up in the face of opposition. But for the present, before the rise of epic 'Hinduism,' and before taking up the heretical writings, it is a great gain to be able to scan a side of religion that may be called popular in so far as it evidently is the faith which not only was taught to the ma.s.ses, but which, as is universally a.s.sumed in the law, the ma.s.ses accept; whereas philosophers alone accept the _[=a]tm[=a]_ religion of the Upanishads, and the Br[=a]hmanas are not intended for the public at all, but only for initiated priests.

What, then, is the religious belief and the moral position of the Hindu law-books? In how far has philosophy affected public religion, and in what way has a reconciliation been affected between the contradictory beliefs in regard to the G.o.ds; in regard to the value of works on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other; in regard to h.e.l.l as a means of punishment for sin on the one hand, and reincarnation (_sams[=a]ra_) on the other; in regard to heaven as a reward of good deeds on the one hand, and absorption into G.o.d on the other; in regard to a personal creator on the one hand, and a First Cause without personal attributes on the other?

For the philosophical treatises are known and referred to in the early codes; so that, although the completed systems post-dated the S[=u]tras, the cosmical and theological speculations of the earlier Upanishads were familiar to the authors of the legal systems.

The first general impression produced by a perusal of the law-books is that the popular religion has remained unaffected by philosophy. And this is correct in so far as that it must be put first in describing the codes, which, in the main, in keeping the ancient observances, reflect the inherited faith. When, therefore, one says that pantheism[7] succeeded polytheism in India, he must qualify the a.s.sertion. The philosophers are pantheists, but what of the vulgar? Do they give up polytheism; are they inclined to do so, or are they taught to do so? No. For there is no formal abatement in the rigor of the older creed. Whatever the wise man thought, and whatever in his philosophy was the instruction which he imparted to his peers, when he dealt with the world about him he taught his intellectual inferiors a scarcely modified form of the creed of their fathers. How in his own mind this wise man reconciled the two sets of opinion has been shown above. The works of sacrifice, with all the inherited belief implied by them, were for him preparatory studies. The elasticity of his philosophy admitted the whole world of G.o.ds, as a temporary reality, into his pantheistic scheme. It was, therefore, neither the hypocrisy of the Roman augur, nor the fear of results that in his teaching held him to the inheritance he had received. G.o.ds, ghosts, demons, and consequently sacrifices, rites, ordeals, and formulae were not incongruous with his philosophical opinions. He himself believed in these spiritual powers and in the usefulness of serving them. It is true that he believed in their eventual doom, but so far as man was concerned they were practically real. There was, therefore, not only no reason why the sage should not inculcate the old rites, but there was every reason why he should. Especially in the case of pious but ignorant people, whose wisdom was not yet developed to a full appreciation of divine relativity, was it inc.u.mbent on him to keep them, the lower castes, to the one religion that they could comprehend.

It is thus that the apparent inconsistency in exoteric and esoteric beliefs explains itself. For the two are not contradictory. They do not exclude each other. Hindu pantheism includes polytheism with its attendant patrolatry, demonology, and consequent ritualism.[8]

With rare exceptions it was only the grosser religion that the vulgar could understand; it was only this that they were taught and believed.

Thus the old Vedic G.o.ds are revered and wors.h.i.+pped by name. The Sun, Indra, and all the divinities embalmed in ritual, are placated and 'satiated' with offerings, just as they had been satiated from time immemorial. But no hint is given that this is a form; or that the Vedic G.o.ds are of less account than they had been. Moreover, it is not in the inherited formulae of the ritual alone that this view is upheld. To be sure, when philosophical speculation is introduced, the Father-G.o.d comes to the fore; Brahm[=a][9] sits aloft, indulgently advising his children, as he does in the intermediate stage of the Br[=a]hmanas; and _[=a]tm[=a] (brahma)_ too is recognized to be the real being of Brahm[=a], as in the Upanishads.[10] But none of this touches the practice of the common law, where the ordinary man is admonished to fear Yama's h.e.l.l and Varuna's bonds, as he would have been admonished before the philosopher grew wiser than the Vedic seers. Only personified Right, Dharma, takes his seat with shadowy Brahm[=a] among the other G.o.ds.[11]

What is the speech which the judge on the bench is ordered to repeat to the witnesses? Thus says the law-giver Manu: "When the witnesses are collected together in the court, in the presence of the plaintiff and defendant, the (Brahman) judge should call upon them to speak, kindly addressing them in the following manner: 'Whatever you know has been done in this affair ... declare it all. A witness who in testifying speaks the truth reaches the worlds where all is plenty ...

such testimony is honored by Brahm[=a]. One who in testifying speaks an untruth is, all unwilling, bound fast by the cords of Varuna,[12]

till an hundred births are pa.s.sed.' ... (Then, speaking to one witness): 'Spirit (soul) is the witness for the Spirit, and the Spirit is likewise the refuge of the Spirit. Despise not, therefore, thine own spirit (or soul), the highest witness of man. Verily, the wicked think 'no one sees us,' but the G.o.ds are looking at them, and also the person within (conscience). _Dyaus, Earth, the Waters_, (the person in the) heart, _Moon, Sun, Fire, Yama, Wind, Night, the twin Twilights_, and Dharma know the conduct of all corporeal beings.... Although, O good man, thou regardest thyself, thinking, 'I am alone,' yet the holy one (saint) who sees the evil and the good, stands ever in thy heart.

It is in truth G.o.d Yama, the son of Vivasvant, who resideth in thy heart; if thou beest not at variance with him (thou needest) not (to) go to the Ganges and to the (holy land of) the Kurus (to be purified).'"

Here there is no abatement in Vedic polytheism, although it is circled round with a thin mist from later teachings. In the same way the ordinary man is taught that at death his spirit (soul) will pa.s.s as a manikin out of his body and go to Yama to be judged; while the feasts to the Manes, of course, imply always the belief in the individual activity of dead ancestors. Such expressions as 'The seven daughters of Varuna' (_sapta v[=a]ru[n.][=i]r im[=a]s,_ [=A]cv. _Grih. S_. 2. 3. 3) show that even in detail the old views are still retained. There is no advance, except in superst.i.tions,[13] on the main features of the old religion. So the same old fear of words is found, resulting in new euphemisms. One must not say 'scull,' _kap[=a]la_, but call it _bhag[=a]la_, 'lucky' (Gaut. 9. 21); a factor in the making of African languages also, according to modern travellers. Images of the G.o.ds are now over-recognized by the priest, for they must be revered like the G.o.ds themselves (_ib_. 12; P[=a]r. _Grih. S_. 3. 14. 8. etc.). Among the developed objects of the cult serpents now occupy a prominent place. They are mentioned as wors.h.i.+pful in the Br[=a]hmanas. In the S[=u]tra period offerings are made to snakes of earth, air, and heaven; the serpents are 'satiated' along with G.o.ds, plants, demons, etc. (c[=a][.n]kh. 4. 9. 3; 15. 4; [=A]cv. 2. 1. 9; 3. 4. 1; P[=a]rask. 2. 14. 9) and blood is poured out to them ([=A]cv. 4. 8.

27.).[14] But other later divinities than those of the earliest Veda, such as Wealth (Kubera), and Dharma, have crept into the ritual. With the Vedic G.o.ds appears as a divinity in Kh[=a]d. 1. 5. 31 the love-G.o.d K[=a]ma, of the Atharvan; while on the other hand Rudra the beast-lord (Pacupati, Lord of Cattle), the 'kindly' civa, appears as 'great G.o.d,'

whose names are cankara, Prish[=a]taka, Bhava, carva, Ugra, Ic[=a]na (Lord); who has all names and greatness, while he yet is described in the words of the older text as 'the G.o.d that desires to kill' ([=A]cv.

2. 2. 2; 4. 8. 9, 19,[15] 29, 32; _[=A]it. Br_. 3. 34). On the other hand Vishnu is also adored, and that in connection with the [Greek: logos], or V[=a]c (_ib_. 3. 3. 4). Quite in Upanishad manner--for it is necessary to show that these were then really known--is the formula 'thou art a student of _pr[=a][n.]a_ (Breath,) and art given over to Ka' (_ib_. 1. 20. 8.), or _'whom?'_ In [=A]cval[=a]yana no Upanishads are given in the list of literature, which includes the 'Eulogies of men,' Itih[=a]sas, Pur[=a]nas, and even the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata (3. 3.

1; 4. 4). But in 1. 13. 1, _Upanishad-rites_ (and that of a very domestic nature) are recognized, which would corroborate the explanation of Upanishad given above, as being at first a subsidiary work, dealing with minor points.[16] Something of the sciolism of the Upanishads seems to lie in the prayer that of the four paths on which walk the G.o.ds the mortal may be led in that which bestows 'freedom from death' (P[=a]r. 3. 1. 2); and many of the teachers famous in the Upanishads are now revered by name like G.o.ds ([=A]cv. 3. 4. 4, etc.).

On turning from these domestic S[=u]tras to the legal S[=u]tras it becomes evident that the pantheistic doctrine of the Upanishads, and in part the Upanishads themselves, were already familiar to the law-makers, and that they influenced, in some degree, the doctrines of the law, despite the retention of the older forms. Not only is _sams[=a]ra_ the accepted doctrine, but the _[=a]tm[=a]_, as if in a veritable Upanishad, is the object of religious devotion. Here, however, this quest is permitted only to the ascetic, who presumably has performed all ritualistic duties and pa.s.sed through the stadia that legally precede his own.