CHAPTER VI
THE RIGVEDIC AGE
The survey of the poetry of the Rigveda presented in the foregoing pages will perhaps suffice to show that this unique monument of a long-vanished age contains, apart from its historical interest, much of aesthetic value, and well deserves to be read, at least in selections, by every lover of literature. The completeness of the picture it supplies of early religious thought has no parallel. Moreover, though its purely secular poems are so few, the incidental references contained in the whole collection are sufficiently numerous to afford material for a tolerably detailed description of the social condition of the earliest Aryans in India. Here, then, we have an additional reason for attaching great importance to the Rigveda in the history of civilisation.
In the first place, the home of the Vedic tribes is revealed to us by the geographical data which the hymns yield. From these we may conclude with certainty that the Aryan invaders, after having descended into the plains, in all probability through the western pa.s.ses of the Hindu Kush, had already occupied the north-western corner of India which is now called by the Persian name of Panjab, or "Land of Five Rivers." [6] Mention is made in the hymns of some twenty-five streams, all but two or three of which belong to the Indus river system. Among them are the five which water the territory of the Panjab, and, after uniting in a single stream, flow into the Indus. They are the Vitasta (now Jhelum), the Asikni (Chenab), the Parushni (later called Iravati, "the refreshing," whence its present name, Ravi), the Vipac (Beas), and the largest and most easterly, the cutudri (Sutlej). Some of the Vedic tribes, however, still remained on the farther side of the Indus, occupying the valleys of its western tributaries, from the Kubha (Kabul), with its main affluent to the north, the Suvastu, river "of fair dwellings" (now Swat), to the Krumu (Kurum) and Gomati, "abounding in cows" (now Gomal), farther south.
Few of the rivers of the Rigveda are mentioned more than two or three times in the hymns, and several of them not more than once. The only names of frequent occurrence are those of the Indus and the Sarasvati. One entire hymn (x. 75) is devoted to its laudation, but eighteen other streams, mostly its tributaries, share its praises in two stanzas. The mighty river seems to have made a deep impression on the mind of the poet. He speaks of her as the swiftest of the swift, surpa.s.sing all other streams in volume of water. Other rivers flow to her as lowing cows hasten to their calf. The roar and rush of her waters are described in enthusiastic strains:--
From earth the sullen roar swells upward to the sky, With brilliant spray she dashes up unending surge; As when the streams of rain pour thund"ring from the cloud, The Sindhu onward rushes like a bellowing bull.
The Sindhu (now Sindh), which in Sanskrit simply means the "river,"
as the western boundary of the Aryan settlements, suggested to the nations of antiquity which first came into contact with them in that quarter a name for the whole peninsula. Adopted in the form of Indos, the word gave rise to the Greek appellation India as the country of the Indus. It was borrowed by the ancient Persians as Hindu, which is used in the Avesta as a name of the country itself. More accurate is the modern Persian designation Hindustan, "land of the Indus,"
a name properly applying only to that part of the peninsula which lies between the Himalaya and Vindhya ranges.
Mention is often made in the Rigveda of the sapta sindhavah, or "seven rivers," which in one pa.s.sage at least is synonymous with the country inhabited by the Aryan Indians. It is interesting to note that the same expression hapta hindu occurs in the Avesta, though it is there restricted to mean only that part of the Indian territory which lay in Eastern Kabulistan. If "seven" is here intended for a definite number, the "seven rivers" must originally have meant the Kabul, the Indus, and the five rivers of the Panjab, though later the Sarasvati may have been subst.i.tuted for the Kabul. For the Sarasvati is the sacred river of the Rigveda, more frequently mentioned, generally as a G.o.ddess, and lauded with more fervour than any other stream. The poet"s descriptions are often only applicable to a large river. Hence Roth and other distinguished scholars concluded that Sarasvati is generally used by the poets of the Rigveda simply as a sacred designation of the Indus. On the other hand, the name in a few pa.s.sages undoubtedly means the small river midway between the Sutlej and the Jumna, which at a later period formed, with the Drishadvati, the eastern boundary of the sacred region called Brahmavarta, lying to the south of Ambala, and commencing some sixty miles south of Simla.
This small river now loses itself in the sands of the desert, but the evidence of ancient river-beds appears to favour the conclusion that it was originally a tributary of the cutudri (Sutlej). It is therefore not improbable that in Vedic times it reached the sea, and was considerably larger than it is now. Considering, too, the special sanct.i.ty which it had already acquired, the laudations supposed to be compatible only with the magnitude of the Indus may not have seemed too exaggerated when applied to the lesser stream. It is to be noted that the Drishadvati, the "stony" (now Ghogra or Ghugger), in the only pa.s.sage in which the name occurs in the Rigveda, is a.s.sociated with the Sarasvati, Agni being invoked to flame on the banks of these rivers. This is perhaps an indication that even in the age of the Rigveda the most easterly limit of the Indus river system had already acquired a certain sanct.i.ty as the region in which the sacrificial ritual and the art of sacred poetry were practised in the greatest perfection. There are indications showing that by the end at least of the Rigvedic period some of the Aryan invaders had pa.s.sed beyond this region and had reached the western limit of the Gangetic river system. For the Yamuna (now Jumna), the most westerly tributary of the Ganges in the north, is mentioned in three pa.s.sages, two of which prove that the Aryan settlements already extended to its banks. The Ganges itself is already known, for its name is mentioned directly in one pa.s.sage of the Rigveda and indirectly in another. It is, however, a noteworthy fact that the name of the Ganges is not to be found in any of the other Vedas.
The southward migration of the Aryan invaders does not appear to have extended, at the time when the hymns of the Rigveda were composed, much beyond the point where the united waters of the Panjab flow into the Indus. The ocean was probably known only from hearsay, for no mention is made of the numerous mouths of the Indus, and fishing, one of the main occupations on the banks of the Lower Indus at the present day, is quite ignored. The word for fish (matsya), indeed, only occurs once, though various kinds of animals, birds, and insects are so frequently mentioned. This accords with the character of the rivers of the Panjab and Eastern Kabulistan, which are poor in fish, while it contrasts with the intimate knowledge of fishing betrayed by the Yajurveda, which was composed when the Aryans had spread much farther to the east, and, doubtless, also to the south. The word which later is the regular name for "ocean" (sam-udra), seems therefore, in agreement with its etymological sense ("collection of waters"), to mean in the Rigveda only the lower course of the Indus, which, after receiving the waters of the Panjab, is so wide that a boat in mid-stream is invisible from the bank. It has been noted in recent times that the natives in this region speak of the river as the "sea of Sindh;" and indeed the word sindhu ("river") itself in several pa.s.sages of the Rigveda has practically the sense of "sea." Metaphors such as would be used by a people familiar with the ocean are lacking in the Rigveda. All references to navigation point only to the crossing of rivers in boats impelled by oars, the main object being to reach the other bank (para). This action suggested a favourite figure, which remained familiar throughout Sanskrit literature. Thus one of the poets of the Rigveda invokes Agni with the words, "Take us across all woes and dangers as across the river (sindhu) in a boat;" and in the later literature one who has accomplished his purpose or mastered his subject is very frequently described as "having reached the farther sh.o.r.e" (paraga). The Atharva-veda, on the other hand, contains some pa.s.sages showing that its composers were acquainted with the ocean.
Mountains are constantly mentioned in the Rigveda, and rivers are described as flowing from them. The Himalaya ("abode of snow") range in general is evidently meant by the "snowy" (himavantah) mountains which are in the keeping of the Creator. But no individual peak is mentioned with the exception of Mujavat, which is indirectly referred to as the home of Soma. This peak, it is to be inferred from later Vedic literature, was situated close to the Kabul Valley, and was probably one of the mountains to the south-west of Kashmir. The Atharva-veda also mentions two other mountains of the Himalaya. One of these is called Trikakud, the "three-peaked" (in the later literature Trikuta, and even now Trikota), through the valley at the foot of which flows the Asikni (Chenab). The other is Navaprabhramcana ("sinking of the ship"), doubtless identical with the Naubandhana ("binding of the ship") of the epic and the Manoravasarpana of the catapatha Brahmana, on which the ship of Manu is said to have rested when the deluge subsided. The Rigveda knows nothing of the Vindhya range, which divides Northern India from the southern triangle of the peninsula called the Dekhan; [7] nor does it mention the Narmada River (now Nerbudda), which flows immediately south of and parallel to that range.
From these data it may safely be concluded that the Aryans, when the hymns of the Rigveda were composed, had overspread that portion of the north-west which appears on the map as a fan-shaped territory, bounded on the west by the Indus, on the east by the Sutlej, and on the north by the Himalaya, with a fringe of settlements extending beyond those limits to the east and the west. Now the Panjab of the present day is a vast arid plain, from which, except in the north-west corner at Rawal Pindi, no mountains are visible, and over which no monsoon storms break. Here there are no grand displays of the strife of the elements, but only gentle showers fall during the rainy season, while the phenomena of dawn are far more gorgeous than elsewhere in the north. There is, therefore, some probability in the contention of Professor Hopkins, that only the older hymns, such as those to Varuna and Ushas, were composed in the Panjab itself, while the rest arose in the sacred region near the Sarasvati, south of the modern Ambala, where all the conditions required by the Rigveda are found. This is more likely than the a.s.sumption that the climate of the Panjab has radically changed since the age of the Vedic poets.
That the home of the Aryans in the age of the Rigveda was the region indicated is further borne out by the information the poems yield about the products of the country, its flora and fauna. Thus the soma, the most important plant of the Rigveda, is described as growing on the mountains, and must have been easily obtainable, as its juice was used in large quant.i.ties for the daily ritual. In the period of the Brahmanas it was brought from long distances, or subst.i.tutes had to be used on account of its rarity. Thus the ident.i.ty of the original plant came to be lost in India. The plant which is now commonly used is evidently quite another, for its juice when drunk produces a nauseating effect, widely different from the feeling of exhilaration dwelt on by the poets of the Rigveda. Nor can the plant which the Parsis still import from Persia for the Haoma rite be identical with the old soma. Again, rice, which is familiar to the later Vedas and regarded in them as one of the necessaries of life, is not mentioned in the Rigveda at all. Its natural habitat is in the south-east, the regular monsoon area, where the rainfall is very abundant. Hence it probably did not exist in the region of the Indus river system when the Rigveda was composed, though, in later times, with the practice of irrigation, its cultivation spread to all parts of India. Corn (yava) was grown by the tillers of the Rigveda, but the term is probably not restricted, as later, to the sense of barley.
Among large trees mentioned in the Rigveda, the most important is the Acvattha ("horse-stand") or sacred fig-tree (Ficus religiosa). Its fruit (pippala) is described as sweet and the food of birds. Its sacredness is at least incipient, for its wood was used for soma vessels, and, as we learn from the Atharva-veda, also for the drill (later-called pramantha) employed in producing the sacred fire. The latter Veda further tells us that the G.o.ds are seated in the third heaven under an Acvattha, which may indeed have been intended in the Rigveda itself by the "tree with fair foliage," in whose shade the blessed revel with Yama. This tree, now called Peepal, is still considered so sacred that a Hindu would be afraid to utter a falsehood beside it. But the Rigveda does not mention at all, and the Atharva-veda only twice, the tree which is most characteristic of India, and shades with its wide-spreading foliage a larger area than any other tree on the face of the earth--the Nyagrodha ("growing downwards") or banyan (Ficus indica). With its lofty dome of foliage impenetrable to the rays of the sun and supported by many lesser trunks as by columns, this great tree resembles a vast temple of verdure fashioned by the hand of Nature. What the village oak is in England, that and much more is the banyan to the dwellers in the innumerable hamlets which overspread the face of agricultural India.
Among wild animals, one of the most familiar to the poets of the Rigveda is the lion (simha). They describe him as living in wooded mountains and as caught with snares, but the characteristic on which they chiefly dwell is his roaring. In the vast desert to the east of the Lower Sutlej and of the Indus, the only part of India suited for its natural habitat, the lion was in ancient times no doubt frequent, but he now survives only in the wooded hills to the south of the peninsula of Gujarat. The king of beasts has, however, remained conventionally familiar in Indian literature, and his old Sanskrit designation is still common in Hindu names in the form of Singh.
The tiger is not mentioned in the Rigveda at all, its natural home being the swampy jungles of Bengal, though he is now found in all the jungly parts of India. But in the other Vedas he has decidedly taken the place of the lion, which is, however, still known. His dangerous character as a beast of prey is here often referred to. Thus the White Yajurveda compares a peculiarly hazardous undertaking with waking a sleeping tiger; and the Atharva-veda describes the animal as "man eating" (purushad). The relation of the tiger to the lion in the Vedas therefore furnishes peculiarly interesting evidence of the eastward migration of the Aryans during the Vedic period.
Somewhat similar is the position of the elephant. It is explicitly referred to in only two pa.s.sages of the Rigveda, and the form of the name applied to it, "the beast (mriga) with a hand (hastin)," shows that the Rishis still regarded it as a strange creature. One pa.s.sage seems to indicate that by the end of the Rigvedic period attempts were made to catch the animal. That the capture of wild elephants had in any case become a regular practice by 300 B.C. is proved by the evidence of Megasthenes. To the Atharva- and the Yajur-vedas the elephant is quite familiar, for it is not only frequently mentioned, but the adjective hastin, "possessing a hand" (i.e. trunk), has become sufficiently distinctive to be used by itself to designate the animal. The regular home of the elephant in Northern India is the Terai or lowland jungle at the foot of the Himalaya, extending eastward from about the longitude of Cawnpore.
The wolf (vrika) is mentioned more frequently in the Rigveda than the lion himself, and there are many references to the boar (varaha), which was hunted with dogs. The buffalo (mahisha), in the tame as well as the wild state, was evidently very familiar to the poets, who several times allude to its flesh being cooked and eaten. There is only one reference to the bear (riksha). The monkey (kapi) is only mentioned in a late hymn (x. 86), but in such a way as to show that the animal had already been tamed. The later and ordinary Sanskrit name for monkey, vanara ("forest-animal"), has survived in the modern vernaculars, and is known to readers of Mr. Rudyard Kipling in the form of Bunder-log ("monkey-people").
Among the domestic animals known to the Rigveda those of lesser importance are sheep, goats, a.s.ses, and dogs. The latter, it may be gathered, were used for hunting, guarding, and tracking cattle, as well as for keeping watch at night. Cattle, however, occupy the chief place. Cows were the chief form of wealth, and the name of the sacrificial "fee," [8] dakshina, is properly an adjective meaning "right," "valuable," with the ellipse of go, "cow." No sight gladdened the eye of the Vedic Indian more than the cow returning from the pasture and licking her calf fastened by a cord; no sound was more musical to his ear than the lowing of milch kine. To him therefore there was nothing grotesque in the poet exclaiming, "As cows low to their calves near the stalls, so we will praise Indra with our hymns," or "Like unmilked kine we have called aloud (lowed) to thee, O hero (Indra)." For greater security cows were, after returning from pasture, kept in stalls during the night and let out again in the morning. Though the cow-killer is in the White Yajurveda already said to be punishable with death, the Rigveda does not express an absolute prohibition, for the wedding-hymn shows that even the cow was slaughtered on specially solemn occasions, while bulls are several times described as sacrificed to Indra in large numbers. Whilst the cows were out at pasture, bulls and oxen were regularly used for the purpose of ploughing and drawing carts.
Horses came next in value to cattle, for wealth in steeds is constantly prayed for along with abundance of cows. To a people so frequently engaged in battle, the horse was of essential value in drawing the war-car; he was also indispensable in the chariot-race, to which the Vedic Indian was devoted. He was, however, not yet used for riding. The horse-sacrifice, moreover, was regarded as the most important and efficacious of animal sacrifices.
Of the birds of the Rigveda I need only mention those which have some historical or literary interest. The wild goose or swan (hamsa), so familiar to the cla.s.sical poets, is frequently referred to, being said to swim in the water and to fly in a line. The curious power of separating soma from water is attributed to it in the White Yajurveda, as that of extracting milk from water is in the later poetry. The latter faculty belongs to the curlew (krunch), according to the same Veda.
The chakravaka or ruddy goose, on the fidelity of which the post-Vedic poets so often dwell, is mentioned once in the Rigveda, the Acvins being said to come in the morning like a couple of these birds, while the Atharva-veda already refers to them as models of conjugal love. Peahens (mayuri) are spoken of in the Rigveda as removing poison, and parrots (cuka) are alluded to as yellow. By the time of the Yajurveda the latter bird had been tamed, for it is there described as "uttering human speech."
A good ill.u.s.tration of the dangers of the argumentum ex silentio is furnished by the fact that salt, the most necessary of minerals, is never once mentioned in the Rigveda. And yet the Northern Panjab is the very part of India where it most abounds. It occurs in the salt range between the Indus and the Jhelum in such quant.i.ties that the Greek companions of Alexander, according to Strabo, a.s.serted the supply to be sufficient for the wants of the whole of India.
Among the metals, gold is the one most frequently mentioned in the Rigveda. It was probably for the most part obtained from the rivers of the north-west, which even at the present day are said to yield considerable quant.i.ties of the precious metal. Thus the Indus is spoken of by the poets as "golden" or "having a golden bed." There are indications that kings possessed gold in abundance. Thus one poet praises his royal benefactor for bestowing ten nuggets of gold upon him besides other bountiful gifts. Gold ornaments of various kinds, such as ear-rings and armlets, are often mentioned.
The metal which is most often referred to in the Rigveda next to gold is called ayas (Latin, aes). It is a matter of no slight historical interest to decide whether this signifies "iron" or not. In most pa.s.sages where it occurs the word appears to mean simply "metal." In the few cases where it designates a particular metal, the evidence is not very conclusive; but the inference which may be drawn as to its colour is decidedly in favour of its having been reddish, which points to bronze and not iron. The fact that the Atharva-veda distinguishes between "dark" ayas and "red," seems to indicate that the distinction between iron and copper or bronze had only recently been drawn. It is, moreover, well known that in the progress of civilisation the use of bronze always precedes that of iron. Yet it would be rash to a.s.sert that iron was altogether unknown even to the earlier Vedic age. It seems quite likely that the Aryans of that period were unacquainted with silver, for its name is not mentioned in the Rigveda, and the knowledge of silver goes hand in hand with that of iron, owing to the manner in which these metals are intermingled in the ore which produces them. These two metals, moreover, are not found in any quant.i.ty in the north-west of India.
The evidence of the topography, the climate, and the products of the country thus shows that the people by whose poets the Rigveda was composed were settled in the north-west of India, from the Kabul to the Jumna. But they were still engaged in conflict with the aborigines, for many victories over them are referred to. Thus Indra is said to have bound 1000 or slain 30,000 of them for his allies. That the conquerors were bent on acquiring new territory appears from the rivers being frequently mentioned as obstacles to farther advance. The invaders, though split up into many tribes, were conscious of a unity of race and religion. They styled themselves Aryas or "kinsmen," as opposed to the aborigines, to whom they gave the name of Dasyu or Dasa, "fiends,"
in later times also called anarya, or non-Aryans. The characteristic physical difference between the two races was that of colour (varna), the aborigines being described as "black" (krishna) or "black-skins,"
and as the "Dasa colour," in contrast with the "Aryan colour" or "our colour." This contrast undoubtedly formed the original basis of caste, the regular name for which in Sanskrit is "colour."
Those of the conquered race who did not escape to the hills and were captured became slaves. Thus one singer receives from his royal patron a hundred a.s.ses, a hundred sheep, and a hundred Dasas. The latter word in later Sanskrit regularly means servant or slave, much in the same way as "captive Slav" to the German came to mean "slave." When thoroughly subjected, the original inhabitants, ceasing to be called Dasyus, became the fourth caste under the later name of cudras. The Dasyus are described in the Rigveda as non-sacrificing, unbelieving, and impious. They are also doubtless meant by the phallus-worshippers mentioned in two pa.s.sages. The Aryans in course of time came to adopt this form of cult. There are several pa.s.sages in the Mahabharata showing that civa was already venerated under the emblem of the phallus when that epic was composed. Phallus-worship is widely diffused in India at the present day, but is most prevalent in the south. The Dasyus appear to have been a pastoral race, for they possessed large herds, which were captured by the victorious Aryans. They fortified themselves in strongholds (called pur), which must have been numerous, as Indra is sometimes said to have destroyed as many as a hundred of them for his allies.
The Rigveda mentions many tribes among the Aryans. The most north-westerly of these are the Gandharis, who, judged by the way they are referred to, must have been breeders of sheep. They were later well known as Gandharas or Gandharas. The Atharva-veda mentions as contiguous to the Gandharis the Mujavats, a tribe doubtless settled close to Mount Mujavat; evidently regarding these two as the extreme limit of the Aryan settlements to the north-west.
The most important part, if not the whole, of the Indian Aryans is meant by the "five tribes," an expression of frequent occurrence in the Rigveda. It is not improbable that by this term were meant five tribes which are enumerated together in two pa.s.sages, the Purus, Turvacas, Yadus, a.n.u.s, and Druhyus. These are often mentioned as engaged in intertribal conflicts. Four of them, along with some other clans, are named as having formed a coalition under ten kings against Sudas, chief of the Tritsus. The opposing forces met on the banks of the Parushni, where the great "battle of the ten kings" was fought. The coalition, in their endeavours to cross the stream and to deflect its course, were repulsed with heavy loss by the Tritsus.
The Purus are described as living on both banks of the Sarasvati. A part of them must, however, have remained behind farther west, as they were found on the Parushni in Alexander"s time. The Rigveda often mentions their king, Trasadasyu, son of Purukutsa, and speaks of his descendant Trikshi as a powerful prince. The Turvacas are one of the most frequently named of the tribes. With them are generally a.s.sociated the Yadus, among whom the priestly family of the Kanvas seems to have lived. It is to be inferred from one pa.s.sage of the Rigveda that the a.n.u.s were settled on the Parushni, and the priestly family of the Bhrigus, it would appear, belonged to them. Their relations to the Druhyus seem to have been particularly close. The Matsyas, mentioned only in one pa.s.sage of the Rigveda, were also foes of the Tritsus. In the Mahabharata we find them located on the western bank of the Yamuna.
A more important name among the enemies of Sudas is that of the Bharatas. One hymn (iii. 33) describes them as coming to the rivers Vipac and cutudri accompanied by Vicvamitra, who, as we learn from another hymn (iii. 53), had formerly been the chief priest of Sudas, and who now made the waters fordable for the Bharatas by his prayers. This is probably the occasion on which, according to another hymn (vii. 33), the Bharatas were defeated by Sudas and his Tritsus, who were aided by the invocations of Vasishtha, the successor and rival of Vicvamitra. The Bharatas appear to be specially connected with sacrificial rites in the Rigveda; for Agni receives the epithet Bharata, "belonging to the Bharatas," and the ritual G.o.ddess Bharati, frequently a.s.sociated with Sarasvati, derives her name from them. In a hymn to Agni (iii. 23), mention is made of two Bharatas named Devacravas and Devavata who kindled the sacred fire on the Drishadvati, the Apaya, and the Sarasvati, the very region which is later celebrated as the holy land of Brahmanism under the names of Brahmavarta and Kurukshetra. The family of the Kucikas, to whom Vicvamitra belonged, was closely connected with the Bharatas.
The Tritsus appear to have been settled somewhere to the east of the Parushni, on the left bank of which Sudas may be supposed to have drawn up his forces to resist the coalition of the ten kings attempting to cross the stream from the west. Five tribes, whose names do not occur later, are mentioned as allied with Sudas in the great battle. The Srinjayas were probably also confederates of the Tritsus, being, like the latter, described as enemies of the Turvacas.
Of some tribes we learn nothing from the Rigveda but the name, which, however, survives till later times. Thus the Ucinaras, mentioned only once, were, at the period when the Aitareya Brahmana was composed, located in the middle of Northern India; and the Chedis, also referred to only once, are found in the epic age settled in Magadha (Southern Behar). Krivi, as a tribal name connected with the Indus and Asikni, points to the north-west. In the catapatha Brahmana it is stated to be the old name of the Panchalas, who inhabited the country to the north of the modern Delhi.
The Atharva-veda mentions as remote tribes not only the Gandharis and Mujavats, but also the Magadhas (Behar) and the Angas (Bengal). We may therefore conclude that by the time that Veda was completed the Aryans had already spread to the Delta of the Ganges.
The Panchalas are not mentioned in either Veda, and the name of the Kurus is only found there indirectly in two or three compounds or derivatives. They are first referred to in the White Yajurveda; yet they are the two most prominent peoples of the Brahmana period. On the other hand, the names of a number of the most important of the Rigvedic tribes, such as the Purus, Turvacas, Yadus, Tritsus, and others, have entirely or practically disappeared from the Brahmanas. Even the Bharatas, though held in high regard by the composers of the Brahmanas, and set up by them as models of correct conduct, appear to have ceased to represent a political ent.i.ty, for there are no longer any references to them in that sense, as to other peoples of the day. Their name, moreover, does not occur in the tribal enumerations of the Aitareya Brahmana and of Manu, while it is practically altogether ignored in the Buddhistic literature.
Such being the case, it is natural to suppose that the numerous Vedic tribes, under the altered conditions of life in vast plains, coalesced into nations with new names. Thus the Bharatas, to whom belonged the royal race of the Kurus in the epic, and from whom the very name of the Mahabharata, which describes the great war of the Kurus, is derived, were doubtless absorbed in what came to be called the Kuru nation. In the genealogical system of the Mahabharata the Purus are brought into close connection with the Kurus. This is probably an indication that they too had amalgamated with the latter people. It is not unlikely that the Tritsus, whose name disappears after the Rigveda, also furnished one of the elements of the Kuru nation.
As to the Panchalas, we have seen that they represent the old Krivis. It is, however, likely that the latter combined with several small tribes to make up the later nation. A Brahmana pa.s.sage contains an indication that the Turvacas may have been one of these. Perhaps the Yadus, generally a.s.sociated with the Turvacas in the Rigveda, were also one of them. The epic still preserves the name, in the patronymic form of Yadava, as that of the race in which Krishna was born. The name of the Panchalas itself (derived from pancha, five) seems to indicate that this people consisted of an aggregate of five elements.
Some of the tribes mentioned in the Rigveda, however, maintained their individual ident.i.ty under their old names down to the epic period. These were the Ucinaras, Srinjayas, Matsyas, and Chedis.
It is interesting to note that the Rigveda refers to a rich and powerful prince called Ikshvaku. In the epic this name recurs as that of a mighty king who ruled to the east of the Ganges in the city of Ayodhya (Oudh) and was the founder of the Solar race.
It is clear from what has been said that the Vedic Aryans were split up into numerous tribes, which, though conscious of their unity in race, language, and religion, had no political cohesion. They occasionally formed coalitions, it is true, but were just as often at war with one another. The tribe, in fact, was the political unit, organised much in the same way as the Afghans are at the present day, or the Germans were in the time of Tacitus. The tribe (jana) consisted of a number of settlements (vic), which again were formed of an aggregate of villages (grama). The fighting organisation of the tribe appears to have been based on these divisions. The houses forming the village seem to have been built entirely of wood, as they still were in the time of Megasthenes. In the midst of each house the domestic fire burnt. For protection against foes or inundations, fortified enclosures (called pur) were made on eminences. They consisted of earthworks strengthened with a stockade, or occasionally with stone. There is nothing to show that they were inhabited, much less that pur ever meant a town or city, as it did in later times.
The basis of Vedic society being the patriarchal family, the government of the tribe was naturally monarchical. The king (raja) was often hereditary. Thus several successive members of the same family are mentioned as rulers of the Tritsus and of the Purus. Occasionally, however, the king was elected by the districts (vic) of the tribe; but whether the choice was then limited to members of the royal race, or was extended to certain n.o.ble families, does not appear. In times of peace the main duty of the king was to ensure the protection of his people. In return they rendered him obedience, and supplied him with voluntary gifts--not fixed taxes--for his maintenance. His power was by no means absolute, being limited by the will of the people expressed in the tribal a.s.sembly (samiti). As to the const.i.tution and functions of the latter, we have unfortunately little or no information. In war, the king of course held the chief command. On important occasions, such as the eve of a battle, it was also his duty to offer sacrifice on behalf of his tribe, either performing the rites himself, or employing a priest to do so.
Every tribe doubtless possessed a family of singers who attended the king, praising his deeds as well as composing hymns to accompany the sacrifice in honour of the G.o.ds. Depending on the liberality of their patrons, these poets naturally did not neglect to lay stress on the efficacy of their invocations, and on the importance of rewarding them well for their services. The priest whom a king appointed to officiate for him was called a purohita or domestic chaplain. Vasishtha occupied that position in the employ of King Sudas; and in one of his hymns (vii. 33) he does not fail to point out that the victory of the Tritsus was due to his prayers. The panegyrics on liberal patrons contain manifest exaggerations, partly, no doubt, intended to act as an incentive to other princes. Nevertheless, the gifts in gold, cows, horses, chariots, and garments bestowed by kings on their chief priests must often have been considerable, especially after important victories. Under the later Brahmanic hierarchy liberality to the priestly caste became a duty, while the amount of the sacrificial fee was fixed for each particular rite.
The employment of Purohitas by kings as their subst.i.tutes in the performance of sacrificial functions is to be regarded as the beginning and the oldest form of the priesthood in India. It became the starting-point of the historically unique hierarchical order in which the sacerdotal caste occupied the supreme position in society, and the State was completely merged in the Church. Such, indeed, was the ideal of the Catholic Church in the West during the Middle Ages, but it never became an accomplished fact in Europe, as it did in India. No sooner had the priesthood become hereditary than the development of a caste system began, which has had no parallel in any other country. But during the period represented by Sudas and Vasishtha, in which the older portion of the Rigveda was composed, the priesthood was not yet hereditary, still less had the warrior and sacerdotal cla.s.ses became transformed into castes among the Aryan tribes settled in the Panjab. This is confirmed by the fact that in the epic age the inhabitants of Madhyadeca or Mid-land, where the Brahmanic caste system grew up, regarded the people of the north-west as semi-barbarians.
In the simple social organisation of the Vedic tribes of this region, where occupations were but little differentiated, every man was a soldier as well a civilian, much as among the Afghans of to-day. As they moved farther to the east, society became more complex, and vocations tended to become hereditary. The population being now spread over wider tracts of territory, the necessity arose for something in the nature of a standing army to repel sudden attacks or quell risings of the subject aborigines. The nucleus would have been supplied by the families of the chiefs of lesser tribes which had amalgamated under some military leader. The agricultural and industrial part of the population were thus left to follow their pursuits without interruption. Meanwhile the religious ceremonial was increasing in complexity; its success was growing more dependent on correct performance, while the preservation of the ancient hymns was becoming more urgent. The priests had, therefore, to devote all their time and energies to the carrying out of their religious duties and the handing down of the sacred tradition in their families.
Owing to these causes, the three main cla.s.ses of Aryan society became more and more separated. But how were they transformed into castes or social strata divided from one another by the impa.s.sable barriers of heredity and the prohibition of intermarrying or eating together? This rigid mutual exclusiveness must have started, in the first instance, from the treatment of the conquered aborigines, who, on accepting the Aryan belief, were suffered to form a part of the Aryan polity in the capacity of a servile cla.s.s. The gulf between the two races need not have been wider than that which at the present day, in the United States, divides the whites from the negroes. When the latter are described as men of "colour," the identical term is used which, in India, came to mean "caste." Having become hereditary, the sacerdotal cla.s.s succeeded in securing a position of sanct.i.ty and inviolability which raised them above the rest of the Aryans as the latter were raised above the Dasas. When their supremacy was established, they proceeded to organise the remaining cla.s.ses in the state on similar lines of exclusiveness. To the time when the system of the three Aryan castes, with the cudras added as a fourth, already existed in its fundamental principles, belong the greater part of the independent portions of the Yajurveda, a considerable part of the Atharva-veda (most of books viii. to xiii.), but of the Rigveda, besides the one (x. 90) which distinctly refers to the four castes by name, only a few of the latest hymns of the first, eighth, and tenth books. The word brahmana, the regular name for "man of the first caste," is still rare in the Rigveda, occurring only eight times, while brahman, which simply means sage or officiating priest, is found forty-six times.
We may now pa.s.s on to sketch rapidly the social conditions which prevailed in the period of the Rigveda. The family, in which such relationships as a wife"s brother and a husband"s brother or sister had special names, was clearly the foundation of society. The father was at its head as "lord of the house" (grihapati). Permission to marry a daughter was asked from him by the suitor through the mediation of an intimate friend. The wedding was celebrated in the house of the bride"s parents, whither the bridegroom, his relatives, and friends came in procession. Here they were entertained with the flesh of cows slain in honour of the occasion. Here, too, the bridegroom took the bride"s hand and led her round the nuptial fire. The Atharva-veda adds that he set down a stone on the ground, asking the bride to step upon it for the obtainment of offspring. On the conclusion of the wedding festivities, the bride, anointed and in festal array, mounted with her husband a car adorned with red flowers and drawn by two white bulls. On this she was conducted in procession to her new home. The main features of this nuptial ceremony of 3000 years ago still survive in India.