The Religions of India Part 52

[Footnote 94: So the P[=a]cupata doctrine is that the individual spirit is different to the supreme lord and also to matter (_p[=a]ca_, the fetter that binds the individual spirit, _pacu_, and keeps it from its Lord, _pacupat[=i]_).

The fact is that every sectary is more a monotheist than a pantheist. Especially is this true of the civaite. The supreme is to him civa.]

[Footnote 95: Wilson gives a full account of this sect in the _As[=i]atick Researches_, xvi, p. 100.]

[Footnote 96: Of the Kab[=i]r Panth[=i]s Wilson says: "It is no part of their faith to wors.h.i.+p any Hindu deity." A glance at the Dabist[=a]n will preclude the possibility of claiming much originality for the modern deism of India. This work was written in 1645, and its Persian author describes, as a matter of every-day occurrence, religious debates between 'Jews, Nazarines, Mussulmen, and Hindus,' who meet more to criticise than to examine, but yet to hear explained in full the doctrines of their opponents, in just such tourneys of argument as we showed to be popular among the priests of the Upanishads and epic. Speaking of the Vedas, the author says that every one derives from them arguments in favor of his own creed, whether it be philosophical, mystical, unitarian, atheistic, Judaic, or Christian. Dabist[=a]n, vol. II, p.

45.]

[Footnote 97: Before election the Guru must be examined. If the faithful are not satisfied, they may reject him. but, having elected him, they are bound to obey him implicitly.

He can excommunicate, but he may not punish corporally. This deification of the Guru was retained by the Sikhs, and the office was made hereditary among them (by Arjun), till Govind, the tenth pontiff, who left no successor, declared that after his death the Granth (bible) should be the sole authority of the church.]

[Footnote 98: The 'half' contributor was a woman, and hence was not reckoned as a complete unit.]

[Footnote 99: The word Sikh means 'disciple' (of N[=a]nak).

The name the Sikhs a.s.sumed as a nation was Singhs (_si[.m]has_), 'Lions of the Punj[=a]b.']

[Footnote 100: The 'true name,' _sat n[=a]m_, is the appellation of G.o.d.]

[Footnote 101: JRAS. 1846, p. 43, Prinsep's compilation (Wilson). Compare Trumpp, ib. V. 197 (1871); and [=A]digranth, 1877.]

[Footnote 102: This sect was founded by a descendant of N[=a]nak.]

[Footnote 103: It was not till Mohammedan persecution influenced them that the religious Sikhs of N[=a]nak became the political haters and fighters of Govind.]

[Footnote 104: It is said that Govind sacrificed to Durg[=a]

the life of one of his own disciples to prepare himself for his ministry. Trumpp, [=A]digranth; Barth, p. 204. The lives of the later Gurus will be found in Elphinstone's history and Prinsep's sketch (a _resume_ by Barth, p. 248 ff.).]

[Footnote 105: With some small verbal alterations.]

[Footnote 106: The conclusion of this extract shows the narrower polemic spirit: "Pundits and Q[=a]z[=i]s are fools.

What avails it to collect a heap of books? Let your minds freely meditate on the spirit of G.o.d. Wear not away your lives by studying the Vedas."]

[Footnote 107: For the data of the following paragraphs on the deistic reformers of to-day we are indebted to an article of Professor Williams, which first appeared in the thirteenth volume of the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,_ and has since been published in the same author's _Brahmanism and Hinduism._]

[Footnote 108: Born in 1818.]

[Footnote 109: _ekam[=a]tr[=a]dvit[=i]ya_ (masculine); with this form contrast below, in the Br[=a]hma Dharma (religion) of Debendran[=a]th, the neuter _ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam_. The only G.o.d of the first Sam[=a]j; is a person; that of the reform is exoterically Nature.]

[Footnote 110: But, as will be noticed in the four articles (which are in part a compilation of phrases from the Upanishads) the personality of Brahm[=a] is not insisted on for the outer church. For this reason, although the inner church doubtless understands It as He, yet this neuter should be preserved in the translation. The articles are so drawn up as to enable any deist to subscribe (without Vedantic belief as a condition of acceptance) to the essential creed of the Congregation. One or two sentences in the original will reveal at a glance the origin of the phraseology: _brahma_ (being) _v[=a] ekam idam-agra [=a]s[=i]t; tad ida[.m] sarvam as[r.]jal; tad eva nityam, ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam; tasmia pr[=i]tis ...

tadup[=a]sanam_. Compare Ch[=a]ndogya Upanishad: _sad_ (being) _idam agra [=a]s[=i]d ekam ev[=a]dvit[=i]yam_; and the V[=a]jasaney[=i]-Br[=a]hmana Upanishad: _brahma v[=a]

idam-agra [=a]s[=i]t_, etc.]

[Footnote 111: It is interesting to see this fervor, or ecstatic delirium, surviving from the time of the Rig Veda, where already (albeit only in the latest hymns, which are quite Brahmanic) flourishes the mad _muni:_ and fervid ascetism ('heat,'_tapas_) begins to appear as a means of salvation. RV. x. 109, 136.]

[Footnote 112: "I regard myself as Christ and C[=a]itanya,"

reported by Sen's own missionary as the words of the former.

Sen's disciples deny some of these a.s.sertions, but they seem to be substantiated, and Sen's own language shows that he claimed miraculous powers. Compare the discussions on this point, JRAS. xiii. 281 ff.]

[Footnote 113: This was afterwards excused on the ground that the marriage would not have been legal without these rites. But Sen presumably was aware of this in advance. From the performance of the rites he had the decency to absent himself. It should be said, however, in Sen's behalf, that the marriage itself had nothing revolting about it, and though in consenting to it Sen violated his faith, as is evident from the protest of the Sam[=a]j, yet was the marriage not an extreme case of child-marriage, for both the 'children' were sixteen. Sen's own excuse (he thought excuse necessary) was that he was inspired when he consented to the nuptials.]

[Footnote 114: The theistic tendency in the Hindu mind is so exaggerated that even now it is with the greatest difficulty that the vulgar can be restrained from new idolatry. Not only priests, but even poets are regarded as G.o.ds.

Jn[=a]ndev and Tuk[=a]r[=a]m, the hymn-makers of the Mahratta Vi[t.]h[t.]hals, are demi-G.o.ds to-day (IA. xi. 56.

149). A few striking examples are almost requisite to make an Occidental reader understand against what odds the deism of India has to contend. In 1830 an impudent boy, who could train snakes, announced that he could also work miracles.

The boy was soon accepted as Vishnu's last _avatar_; hymns, _abhangs_, were sung to him, and he was wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d even after his early demise (from a snake-bite). A weaver came soon after to the temple, where stood the boy's now vacant shrine, and fell asleep there at night. In the morning he was perplexed to find himself a G.o.d. The people had accepted him as their snake-conquering G.o.d in a new form. The poor weaver denied his divinity, but that made no difference. In 1834 the dead boy-G.o.d was still receiving flowers and prayers. Another case: In the eighties some Englishmen on entering a temple were amazed to see revered as an _avatar_ of Vishnu the bra.s.s castings of the arms of the old India Co. This G.o.d was washed and anointed daily.

Even a statue of Buddha (with the inscription still upon it) was revered as Vishnu. In 1880 a meteorite fell in Beh[=a]r.

In 1882 its cult was fully established, and it was wors.h.i.+pped as the 'miraculous G.o.d.' A Mohammedan inscription has also been found deified and regularly wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d, JRAS. 1842, p. 109; 1884, pt. III, pp. I, LIX.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

RELIGIOUS TRAITS OF THE WILD TRIBES.

Besides the phases of pure Aryan and modified Aryan religions which have already been examined, there are represented in India several other aspects of civilized religion; for, apart from Brahmanic and sectarian wors.h.i.+ps, and apart from Tamil (southern) imitations of these, there are at present in the country believers of the Jewish religion to the number of seventeen thousand; of Zoroastrianism, eighty-seven thousand; of Christianity, two and a quarter millions; of Mohammedanism, more than fifty-seven millions. But none of these faiths, however popular, comes into an historical account of India's religions in a greater extent than we have brought them into it already, that is, as factors of minor influence in the development of native faiths till, within the last few centuries, Mohammedanism, which has been the most important of them all in transfiguring the native theistic sects, draws a broad line across the progress of India's religious thought.

All these religions, however, whether aboriginal or imported, must again be separated from the more general phenomena of superst.i.tion which are preserved in the beliefs of the native wild tribes. One descends here to that lowest of rank undergrowth which represents a type of religious life so base that its undifferentiated form can be mated with like growths from all over the world. These secondary religions are, therefore, important from two points of view, that of their universal aspect, and, again, that of their historical connection with the upper Indic growth above them;[1] for it is almost certain that some of their features have conditioned the development of the latter.

The native wild tribes of India (excluding the extreme Northern Tibeto-Burman group) fall into two great cla.s.ses, that of the Kolarians and that of the Dravidians, sometimes distinguished as the Yellow and the Black races respectively. The former, again, are called Indo-Chinese by some writers, and the geographical location of this cla.s.s seems, indeed, to show that they have generally displaced the earlier blacks, and represent historically a yellow wave of immigration from the Northeast (through Tibet) prior to the Aryan white wave (from the Northwest), which latter eventually treated them just as they had treated the aboriginal black Dravidians.[2] Of the Kolarians the foremost representatives are the Koles, the Koches, the Sunth[=a]ls, and the Sav[=a]ras (Sauras), who are all regarded by Johnston as the yellow Dasyus, barbarians, of the earliest period; while he sees in the V[=a]icyas, or third caste of the Hindu political divisions, the result of a union of the Northwest and Northeast conquerors. But, although the V[=a]icyas are called 'yellow,' yet, since they make the most important numerical factor of the Aryans, this suggestion can scarcely be accepted, for there is no evidence to show that the yellow Mongoloid barbarians were amalgamated so early with the body politic of the Aryans. The chief representatives of the Dravidians, on the other hand, are the Khonds and Gonds of the middle of the peninsula, together with the Or[=a]ons and the Todas of the extreme South.[3] All of these tribes are of course sub-divided, and in some degree their religious practices have followed the bent of their political inclinations. We shall examine first the religions of the older tribes, the Dravidians, selecting the chief features or such traits as have peculiar interest.

THE DRAVIDIANS.

Gonds: These savages, mentioned in early literature, are the most numerous and powerful of the wild tribes, and appear to have been less affected by outside belief than were any other, except the related Khonds. Their religion used to consist in adoring a representation of the sun, to which were offered human sacrifices.[4] As among the Or[=a]ons, a man of straw (literally) is at the present day subst.i.tuted for the human victim. Besides the sun, the moon and stars are wors.h.i.+pped by them. They have stones for idols, but no temples.[5]

Devils, witchcraft, and the evil eye also are feared. They sacrifice animals, and, with the exception of the R[=a]j Gonds,[6] have been so little affected by Hindu respect for that holiest of animals, that they slaughter cows at their wedding-feasts, on which occasion the baccha.n.a.lian revels in which they indulge are accompanied with such excess as quite to put them upon the level of civaite b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. The pure Gonds are junglemen, and have the virtues usually found among the lowest savages, truth, honesty, and courage. Murder is no crime, but lying and stealing are sinful; for cowardice is the greatest crime, and lying and stealing (instead of straightforward and courageous robbery and murder) are regarded as indications of lack of courage.

But the 'impure,' that is the mixed Gonds that have been corrupted by mingling with Hindus and other tribes, lie and steal like civilized people. In fact, the mixed Gonds are particularly noted for servility and dishonesty. The uncivilized Gonds of the table-lands are said still to cut up and eat their aged relatives and friends, not to speak of strangers unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. Among the pure Gonds is found the practice of carrying an axe, which is the sign of their religious devotion to the sacrifice-G.o.d.[7] The favorite religious practice used to be to take a prisoner alive, force him to bow before the G.o.d-stone, and at the moment when he bent his head, to cut it off. To this and to self-defence against other G.o.ds (wild beasts) the hatchet is devoted, while for war are used the bow and knife. One particular celebration of the Gonds deserves special notice. They have an annual feast and wors.h.i.+p of the snake. The service is entirely secret, and all that is known of it is that it is of esoteric, perhaps phallic character. Both at the sun-feast and snake-feast[8] licentious and baccha.n.a.lian wors.h.i.+p are combined, and the latter trait is also the chief feature of wedding and funeral sports. In the former case (the natives of the same tribe intermarry, but with the same pretence of running off with the bride that is found in the Hindu ritual)[9] there is given a wedding feast by the bridegroom's father, and the feast ends with a _causerie de lundi_ (the favorite drink of the Gonds is called _lundi_); while on the latter occasion there is a mourning feast, or wake, which also ends in general drunkenness.

The Khonds: Even more striking is the religion of the Khonds. Their chief rite is human sacrifice to the earth-G.o.ddess,[10] Tari; but, like the Gonds, they wors.h.i.+p the sun as chief divinity. Other G.o.ds among them are the river-G.o.d, rain-G.o.d, spring, wealth, hill-G.o.d, and smallpox-G.o.d. All their religious feasts are excuses for excess both in drinking and otherwise. One of their beliefs is that there is a river of h.e.l.l, which flows around a slippery rock, up which climbs the one that would escape torment. Their method of sacrificing a human victim is to put him into the cleft of a tree, where he is squashed, or into fire. They seem to have an odd objection to shedding blood for this purpose, and in this respect may be compared with the Thugs.

Another very interesting trait is the religion which is intertwined with business, and its peculiar features. Victims offered either to the sun or to the war-G.o.d serve to mark boundary lines. Great is the patience with which these victims, called _merias_, are waited for. The sacrificer captures fit specimens when they are young, and treats them with particular kindness till they are almost grown up. Indeed, they are treated thus by the whole village. At the appointed time they are slowly crushed to death or smothered in a mud bath, and bits of their flesh are then cut out and strewn along the boundary lines. Boys are preferred, but either boys or girls may be used. This sacrifice is sometimes made directly to the 'Boundary-G.o.d,'[11] an abstraction which is not unique; for, besides the divinities recorded above, mention is made also of a 'Judgment-G.o.d.' Over each village and house preside the Manes of good men gone; while the 'father is G.o.d on earth'

to every one. They used to destroy all their female children, and this, together with their national custom of offering human sacrifices, has been put down with the greatest difficulty by the British, who confess that there is every probability that in reality the crime still *obtains among the remoter clans. These Khonds are situate in the Madras presidency, and are aborigines of the Eastern Gh[=a]ts. The most extraordinary views about them have been published.

Despite their acknowledged barbarity, savageness, and polytheism, they have been soberly credited with a belief in One Supreme G.o.d, 'a theism embracing polytheism,' and other notions which have been abstracted from their wors.h.i.+p of the sun as 'great G.o.d.'

Since these are by far the most original savages of India, a completer sketch than will be necessary in the case of others may not be unwelcome. The chief G.o.d is the light-or sun-G.o.d. "In the beginning the G.o.d of light created a wife, the G.o.ddess of earth, the source of evil." On the other hand, the sun-G.o.d is a good G.o.d. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent Bella[12] Pennu (sun-G.o.d) from creating man. But he cast behind him a handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark G.o.ddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and these became G.o.ds, but the corrupt no longer found favor in Bella (or Boora) Pennu's eyes. He guarded them no more. So death came to man.

Meanwhile Bella and Tari contended for superiority, with comets, whirlwinds, and mountains, as weapons. According to one belief, Bella won; but others hold that Tari still maintains the struggle. The sun-G.o.d created all inferior deities, of rain, fruit, *hunt, boundaries, etc., as well as all tutelary local divinities.[13] Men have four kinds of fates. The soul goes to the sun, or remains in the tribe (each child is declared by the priest to be N.N. deceased and returned), or is re-born and suffers punishments, or is annihilated.[14] The G.o.d of judgment lives on Grippa Valli, the 'leaping rock,' round which flows a black river, and up the rock climb the souls with great effort. The Judgment-G.o.d decides the fate of the soul); sending it to the sun (the sun-soul), or annihilating it, etc. The chief sins are, to be inhospitable, to break an oath, to lie except to save a guest, to break an old custom, to commit incest, to contract debts (for which the tribe has to pay), to be a coward, to betray council. The chief virtues are, to kill in battle, to die in battle, to be a priest, to be the victim of a sacrifice. Some of the Khonds wors.h.i.+p the sun-G.o.d; some the earth-G.o.ddess, and ascribe to her all success and power, while they hold particularly to human sacrifice in her honor. They admit (theoretically) that Bella is superior, but they make Tari the chief object of devotion, and in her honor are held great village festivals. They that do not wors.h.i.+p Tari do not practice human sacrifice. Thus the civaite sacrifice of man to the G.o.d's consort is very well paralleled by the usage that obtains among them. The Khond priests may indulge in any occupation except war; but some exercise only their priestcraft and do nothing else. The chief feast to the sun-G.o.d is Salo Kallo (the former word means 'cow-pen'; the latter, a liquor), somewhat like a _soma_-feast. It is celebrated at harvest time with dancing, and drinking, "and every kind of licentious enjoyment." Other festivals of less importance celebrate the subst.i.tution of a buffalo for human sacrifice (not celebrated, of course, by the Tari wors.h.i.+ppers). The invocation at the harvest is quite Brahmanic: "O G.o.ds, remember that our increase of rice is your increase of wors.h.i.+p; if we get little Rice we wors.h.i.+p little." Among lesser G.o.ds the 'Fountain-G.o.d' is especially wors.h.i.+pped, with a sheep or a hog as sacrifice. Female infanticide springs from a feeling that intermarriage in the same tribe is incest (this is the meaning of the incest-law above; it might be rendered 'to marry in the tribe').

Of the Or[=a]ons, or Dhangars,[15] we shall mention but one or two good parallels to what is found in other religions. These Dravidians live in Bengal, and have two annual festivals, a harvest feast and one celebrating the marriage of heaven and earth. Like the Khonds, they recognize a supreme G.o.d in the sun, but, just as we showed was the case with the Hindus, who ignore Brahm[=a] because they do not fear him, so here, the Or[=a]ons do not pray to the sun, on the ground that he does them no harm; but they sacrifice to evil spirits because the latter are evil-doers. These savages, like the Burmese Mishmis, have no idea of a future life in heaven; but in the case of people killed in a certain way they believe in a sort of metempsychosis; thus, for instance, a man eaten by a tiger becomes a tiger. In the case of unfortunates they believe that they will live as unhappy ghosts; in the case of other men they a.s.sume only annihilation as their fate.[16] It is among this tribe that the mouse-totem is found, which is civa's beast and the sign of Ganeca.[17]

THE KOLARIANS.

The Sunth[=a]ls: These are immigrants into the West Bengal jungles, and have descended from the North to their present site. They are called the finest specimens of the native savage. The guardian of the tribe is its deceased ancestor, and his ghost is consulted as an oracle. Their race-G.o.d is the 'Great Mountain,' but the sun represents the highest spirit; though they wors.h.i.+p spirits of every sort, and regard beasts as divine; the men revering the tiger, and the women, elephants. The particularly nasty festival called the _bandana_, which is celebrated annually by this tribe, is exactly like the 'left-hand' cult of the caktas, only that in this case it is a preliminary to marriage. All unmarried men and women indulge together in an indescribable orgie, at the end of which each man selects the woman he prefers.[18]

The Koles ('pig-stickers'): Like the last, this tribe wors.h.i.+p the sun, but with the moon as his wife, and the stars as their children.

Besides these they revere Manes, and countless local and sylvan deities. Like Druids, they sacrifice only in a grove, but without images.[19]

All these tribes wors.h.i.+p snakes and trees,[25]] and often the only oath binding upon them is taken under a tree.[21] The sun-wors.h.i.+p, which is found alike in Kolarian and Dravidian tribes, may be traced through all the ramifications of either. In most of the tribes the only form of wors.h.i.+p is sacrifice, but oaths are taken on rice, beasts, ants, water, earth, etc. (among some P[=a]h[=a]riahs on the arrow). Some have a sort of belief in the divinity of the chief, and among the Lurka Koles this dignity is of so much importance that at a chief's death the divine dignity goes to his eldest son, while the youngest son gets the property. In regard to funeral rites, the Koles first burn and then bury the remains, placing a stone over the grave.