The composition of this anthology probably extended over several centuries and comprised a period of lively mental growth. It is therefore natural that it should represent stages of religious development which are not contemporaneous. But though thought is active and exuberant in these poems they are not altogether an intellectual outburst excited by the successful advance into India. The calm of settlement as well as the fire of conquest have left their mark on them and during the period of composition religion grew more boldly speculative but also more sedentary, formal and meticulous. The earliest hymns bear traces of quasi-nomadic life, but the writers are no longer nomads. They follow agriculture as well as pasturage, but they are still contending with the aborigines: still expanding and moving on. They mention no states or capitals: they revere rivers and mountains but have no shrines to serve as religious centres, as repositories and factories of tradition. Legends and precepts have of course come down from earlier generations, but are not very definite or cogent: the stories of ancient sages and warriors are vague and wanting in individual colour.
2
The absence of sculpture and painting explains much in the character of the Vedic deities. The hymn-writers were devout and imaginative, not content to revere some undescribed being in the sky, but full of mythology, metaphor and poetry and continually singling out new powers for worship. Among many races the conceptions thus evolved acquire solidity and permanence by the aid of art. An image stereotypes a deity, worshippers from other districts can see it and it remains from generation to generation as a conservative and unifying force. Even a stone may have something of the same effect, for it connects the deity with the events, rites and ideas of a locality. But the earliest stratum of Vedic religion is worship of the powers of nature-such as the Sun, the Sky, the Dawn, the Fire-which are personified but not localized or depicted. Their attributes do not depend at all on art, not much on local or tribal custom but chiefly on imagination and poetry, and as this poetry was not united in one collection until a later period, a bard was under no obligation to conform to the standards of his fellows and probably many bards sang without knowing of one another"s existence.
Such a figure as Agni or Fire-if one can call him a figure-ill.u.s.trates the fluid and intangible character of Vedic divinities. He is one of the greatest in the Pantheon, and in some ways his G.o.dhead is strongly marked. He blesses, protects, preserves, and inspires: he is a divine priest and messenger between G.o.ds and men: he "knows all generations."
Yet we cannot give any definite account of him such as could be drawn up for a Greek deity. He is not a G.o.d of fire, like Vulcan, but the Fire itself regarded as divine. The descriptions of his appearance are not really anthropomorphic but metaphorical imagery depicting shining, streaming flames. The hymns tell us that he has a tawny beard and hair: a flaming head or three heads: three tongues or seven: four eyes or a thousand. One poem says that he faces in all directions: another that he is footless and headless. He is called the son of Heaven and Earth, of Tvash?ri and the Waters, of the Dawn, of Indra-Vishnu. One singer says that the G.o.ds generated him to be a light for the Aryans, another that he is the father of the G.o.ds. This multiple origin becomes more definite in the theory of Agni"s three births: he is born on earth from the friction of fire sticks, in the clouds as lightning, and in the highest heavens as the Sun or celestial light. In virtue of this triple birth he a.s.sumes a triune character: his heads, tongues, bodies and dwellings are three, and this threefold nature has perhaps something to do with the triads of deities which become frequent later and finally develop into the Trimurti or Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. But there is nothing fixed or dogmatic in this idea of Agni"s three births. In other texts he is said to have two, one in Heaven and one on Earth, and yet another turn of fancy ascribes to him births innumerable because he is kindled on many hearths. Some of the epithets applied to him become quasi-independent.
For instance, Agni Vaisvanara-All men"s fire-and Agni Tanunapat, which seems to mean son of himself, or fire spontaneously generated, are in a later period treated almost as separate deities. Matarisvan is sometimes a name of Agni and sometimes a separate deity who brings Agni to mankind.
In the same way the Rig Veda has not one but many solar deities. Mitra, Surya, Savitri, and perhaps Pusan, Bhaga, Vivasvat and Vishnu, are all loose personifications of certain functions or epithets of the sun.
Deities are often thought of in cla.s.ses. Thus we have the Maruts, Rudras and Vasus. We hear of Praj.a.pati in the singular, but also of the Praj.a.patis or creative forces.
Not only does Agni tend to be regarded as more than one: he is identified with other G.o.ds. We are told he is Varu?a and Mitra, Savitri and Indra. "Thou art Varu?a when born," says one hymn, "thou becomest Mitra when kindled. In thee, O son of strength, are all the G.o.ds[147]."
Such identifications are common in the Vedas. Philosophically, they are an early manifestation of the mental bias which leads to pantheism, metempsychosis, and the feeling that all things and persons are transitory and partial aspects of the one reality. But evidently the mutability of the Vedic G.o.ds is also due to their nature: they are bundles of epithets and functions without much personal or local centre.
And these epithets and functions are to a large extent, the same. All the G.o.ds are bright and swift and helpful: all love sacrifices and bestow wealth, sons and cows. A figure like Agni enables us to understand the many-sided, inconsistent presentment of Siva and Vishnu in later times. A richer mythology surrounds them but in the fluidity of their outline, their mutability and their readiness to absorb or become all other deities they follow the old lines. Even a deity like Ga?esa who seems at first sight modern and definite ill.u.s.trates these ancient characteristics. He has one or five heads and from four to sixteen arms: there are half a dozen strange stories of his birth and wonderful allegories describing his adventures. Yet he is also identified with all the G.o.ds and declared to be the creator, preserver and destroyer of the Universe, nay the Supreme Spirit itself[148].
In Soma, the sacred plant whose juice was offered in the most solemn sacrifices, we again find the combination of natural phenomena and divinity with hardly any personification. Soma is not a sacred tree inhabited by some spirit of the woods but the Lord of immortality who can place his worshippers in the land of eternal life and light. Some of the finest and most spiritual of the Vedic hymns are addressed to him and yet it is hard to say whether they are addressed to a person or a beverage. The personification is not much more than when French writers call absinthe "La fee aux yeux verts." Later, Soma was identified with the moon, perhaps because the juice was bright and shining. On the other hand Soma worship is connected with a very ancient but persistent form of animism, for the Vedic poets celebrate as immortal the stones under which the plant is pressed and beg them to bestow wealth and children.
Just so at the present day agricultural and other implements receive the salutations and prayers of those who use them. They are not G.o.ds in any ordinary sense but they are potent forces.
But some Vedic deities are drawn more distinctly, particularly Indra, who having more character has also lasted longer than most of his fellows, partly because he was taken over by Buddhism and enrolled in the retinue of the Buddha. He appears to have been originally a G.o.d of thunder, a phenomenon which lends itself to anthropomorphic treatment.
As an atmospheric deity, he conquers various powers of evil, particularly Vritra, the demon of drought. The Vedas know of evil spirits against whom the G.o.ds wage successful war but they have no single personification of evil in general, like our devil, and few malevolent deities. Of these latter Rudra, the prototype of Siva, is the most important but he is not wholly malevolent for he is the G.o.d of healing and can take away sickness as well as cause it. Indian thought is not inclined to dualism, which is perhaps the outcome of a practical mind desiring a certain course and seeing everywhere the difficulties which the Evil One puts in the way of it, but rather to that pantheism which tends to subsume both good and evil under a higher unity.
Indra was the tutelary deity of the invading Aryans. His principles would delight a European settler in Africa. He protects the Aryan colour and subjects the black skin: he gave land to the Aryans and made the Dasyus (aborigines) subject to them: he dispersed fifty thousand of the black race and rent their citadels[149]. Some of the events with which he is connected, such as the battles of King Sudas, may have a historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size and vigour and of gross pa.s.sions. He feasts on the flesh of bulls and buffaloes roasted by hundreds, his potations are counted in terms of lakes, and not only nerve him for the fray but also intoxicate him[150].
Under the name of Sakka, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sutras, and seems to have been the chief popular deity in the Buddha"s lifetime.
He was adopted into the new creed as a sort of archangel and heavenly defender of the faith. In the epics he is still a mighty deity and the lord of paradise. Happiness in his heaven is the reward of the pious warrior after death. The Mahabharata and the Puranas, influenced perhaps by Buddhism, speak of a series of Indras, each lasting for a cycle, but superseded when a new heaven and earth appear. In modern Hinduism his name is familiar though he does not receive much worship. Yet in spite of his long pre-eminence there is no disposition to regard him as the supreme and only G.o.d. Though the Rig Veda calls him the creator and destroyer of all things[151], he is not G.o.d in our sense any more than other deities are. He is the personification of strength and success, but he is not sufficiently spiritual or mystical to hold and satisfy the enquiring mind.
3
One of the most interesting and impressive of Vedic deities is Varu?a, often invoked with a more shadowy double called Mitra. No myths or exploits are related of him but he is the omnipotent and omniscient upholder of moral and physical law. He established earth and sky: he set the sun in heaven and ordained the movements of the moon and stars: the wind is his breath and by his law the heavens and earth are kept apart.
He perceives all that exists in heaven and earth or beyond, nor could a man escape him though he fled beyond the sky. The winkings of men"s eyes are all numbered by him[152]: he knows all that man does or thinks. Sin is the infringement of his ordinances and he binds sinners in fetters.
Hence they pray to him for release from sin and he is gracious to the penitent. Whereas the other deities are mainly asked to bestow material boons, the hymns addressed to Varu?a contain pet.i.tions for forgiveness.
He dwells in heaven in a golden mansion. His throne is great and lofty with a thousand columns and his abode has a thousand doors. From it he looks down on the doings of men and the all-seeing sun comes to his courts to report.
There is much in these descriptions which is unlike the attributes ascribed to any other member of the Vedic pantheon and recalls Ahura Mazda of the Avesta or Semitic deities. No proof of foreign influence is forthcoming, but the opinion of some scholars that the figure of Varu?a somehow reflects Semitic ideas is plausible. It has been suggested that he was originally a lunar deity, which explains his a.s.sociation with Mitra (the Persian Mithra) who was a sun G.o.d, and that the group of deities called adityas and including Mitra and Varu?a were the sun, moon and the five planets known to the ancients. This resembles the Babylonian worship of the heavenly bodies and, though there is no record whatever of how such ideas reached the Aryans, it is not difficult to imagine that they may have come from Babylonia either to India[153] or to the country where Indians and Iranians dwelt together. There is a Semitic flavour too in the Indian legend of the Churning of the Ocean[154]. The G.o.ds and Asuras effect this by using a huge serpent as a rope to whirl round a mountain and from the turmoil there arise various marvellous personages and substances including the moon. This resembles in tone if not in detail the Babylonian creation myths, telling of a primaeval abyss of waters and a great serpent which is slain by the G.o.ds who use its body as the material for making the heavens and the earth[155].
Yet Varu?a is not the centre of a monotheistic religion any more than Indra, and in later times he becomes a water G.o.d of no marked importance. The Aryans and Semites, while both dissatisfied with polytheism and seeking the one among the many, moved along different paths and did not reach exactly the same goal. Semitic deities were representations of the forces of nature in human form but their character was stereotyped by images, at any rate in a.s.syria and Babylonia, and by the ritual of particular places with which they were identified. Semitic polytheism is mainly due to the number of tribes and localities possessing separate deities, not to the number of deities worshipped by each place and tribe. As villages and small towns were subordinate to great towns, so the deities of minor localities were subordinate to those of the greater. Hence the Semitic G.o.d was often thought of as a king who might be surrounded by a court and then became the head of a pantheon of inferior deities, but also might be thought of as tolerating no rivals. This latter conception when combined with moral earnestness gives us Jehovah, who resembles Varu?a, except that Varu?a is neither jealous nor national. Indian polytheism also originated in the personification of various phenomena, the sun, thunder, fire, rivers, and so forth, but these deities unlike the Semitic G.o.ds had little to do with special tribes or localities and the philosophic Indian easily traced a connection between them. It is not difficult to see that sun, fire and lightning have something in common. The G.o.ds are frequently thought of as joined in couples, triads or larger companies and early worship probably showed the beginnings of a feature which is prominent in the later ritual, namely, that a sacrifice is not an isolated oblation offered to one particular G.o.d but a series of oblations presented to a series of deities. There was thus little disposition to exalt one G.o.d and annihilate the others, but every disposition to identify the G.o.ds with one another and all of them with something else. Just as rivers, mountains and plains are dimly seen to be parts of a whole which later ages call nature, so are the G.o.ds seen to be parts of some divine whole which is greater than any of them. Even in the Rig Veda we find such sentiments as "The priests speak of the One Being in many ways: they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan[156]." Hence it is not surprising that when in the later Vedic period a tendency towards monotheism (but monotheism of a pantheistic type) appears, the supreme position is given to none of the old deities but to a new figure, Praj.a.pati. This word, meaning Lord of living creatures, occurs in the Rig Veda as an epithet of the sun and is also occasionally used as the name of the Being by whom all G.o.ds and worlds were generated and by whose power they continue to exist. In the Brahma?as and later ritual literature he is definitely recognized as the supreme deity, the Creator, the first sacrificer and the sacrifice itself. It is perhaps owing to his close connection with ceremonial that enquiring and speculative minds felt Praj.a.pati not to be a final or satisfactory explanation of the universe. He is identified with Brahma, the active personal creator, and this later name gradually ousts the other but he does not, any more than Indra or Varu?a, become the atman or supreme universal Being of the Upanishads.
The princ.i.p.al Vedic deities are male and the few G.o.ddesses that are mentioned such as Ushas. the Dawn, seem to owe their s.e.x to purely dramatic reasons. Greece and Rome as well as India felt it appropriate to represent the daybreak as a radiant nymph. But though in later times such G.o.ddesses as Durga a.s.sumed in some sects a paramount position, and though the Veda is familiar with the idea of the world being born, there are few traces in it of a G.o.ddess corresponding to the Great Mother, Cybele or Astarte.
In an earlier period of Vedic studies many deities were identified with figures in the cla.s.sical or Teutonic mythology chiefly on philological grounds but most of these identifications have now been abandoned. But a few names and figures seem to be found among both the Asiatic and European Aryans and to point to a common stock of ideas. Dyaus, the Sky G.o.d, is admittedly the same as Zeus and Jupiter. The Asvins agree in character, though not in name, with the Dioscuri and other parallels are quoted from Lettish mythology. Bhaga, the bountiful giver, a somewhat obscure deity, is the same word as the Slavonic Bog, used in the general sense of G.o.d, and we find _deva_ in Sanskrit, _deus_ in Latin, and _devas_ in Lithuanian. Ushas, the Dawn, is phonetically related to [Greek: "ehos] and Aurora who, however, are only half deities. Indra, if he cannot be scientifically identified with Thor, is a similar personage who must have grown out of the same stock of ideas. By a curious transference the Prophet Elias has in south-eastern Europe inherited the attributes of the thunder G.o.d and is even now in the imagination of the peasantry a jovial and riotous being who, like Indra, drives a noisy chariot across the sky.
The connection with ancient Persian mythology is closer. The Avestan religion was a reformation due to the genius of Zoroaster and therefore comparable with Buddhism rather than Hinduism, but the less systematic polytheism which preceded it contained much which reminds us of the Vedic hymns. It can hardly be doubted that the ancestors of the Indians and Iranians once practised almost identical forms of religion and had even a common ritual. The chief features of the fire cult and of the Soma or Haoma sacrifice appear in both. The sacrifice is called Yajna in the Veda, Yasna in the Avesta: the Hotri priest is Zaotar, Atharvan is Athravan, Mitra is Mithra. Vayu and apa? (the divine waters) meet us in the Avesta in almost the same forms and Indra"s epithet of Vritrahan (the slayer of Vritra) appears as Verethragna. Ahura Mazda seems to be a development of the deity who appears as Varu?a in India though he has not the same name, and the main difference between Indian and Iranian religion lies in this, that the latter was systematized by a theistic reformer who exalted one deity above the others, whereas in India, where there was more religious vitality, polytheistic and pantheistic fancies flourished uncurbed and the greatest reformer, the Buddha, was not a theist.
One peculiarity of Indians in all ages is that they put more into religion than other races. It received most of the energy and talent which, elsewhere, went into art, politics and philosophy. Hence it became both intense and manifold, for deities and creeds were wanted for every stage of intelligence and variety of taste, and also very tolerant, for sects in India, though mult.i.tudinous, are not so sharply divided or mutually hostile as in Europe. Connected with the general interest which religion inspired is its strongly marked speculative character. The Rig Veda asks whether in the beginning there was being or not being, and the later Vedas and Brahma?as are filled with discussions as to the meaning of ceremonies, which show that the most dreary formalism could not extinguish the innate propensity to seek for a reason. In the Upanishads we have the same spirit dealing with more promising material. And throughout the long history of Hinduism religion and philosophy are seldom separated: we rarely find detached metaphysicians: philosophers found new sects or support old ones: religion absorbs philosophy and translates it into theology or myths.
4
To the age of the Vedas succeeds that of the Brahma?as or sacrificial treatises. The two periods are distinct and have each a well-marked tone, but they pa.s.s into one another, for the Yajur and Sama Vedas pre-suppose the ritual of the Brahma?as. These treatises introduce us to one feature of Indian religion mentioned above, namely the extraordinary elaboration of its ritual. To read them one would suppose that the one occupation of all India was the offering of sacrifices. The accounts are no doubt exaggerated and must often be treated as specimens of sacerdotal imagination, like the Biblical descriptions of the rites performed in the Tabernacle during the wanderings of the Israelites. But making all allowance for priestly enthusiasm, it still remains true that the intellect of India, so far as it is preserved in literature, was occupied during two centuries or so with the sacrificial art and that philosophy had difficulty in disentangling itself from ceremonies. One has only to compare Greek and Sanskrit literature to see how vast are the proportions a.s.sumed by ritual in India. Our information about the political inst.i.tutions, the wars and chronology of ancient Greece is full, but of the details of Greek worship we hear little and probably there was not much to tell. But in India, where there are no histories and no dates, we know every prayer and gesture of the officiants throughout complicated sacrifices and possess a whole library describing their correct performance.
In most respects these sacrifices which absorbed so much intellect and energy belong to ancient history. They must not be confounded with the ceremonies performed in modern temples, which have a different origin and character. A great blow was struck at the sacrificial system by Buddhism. Not only did it withdraw the support of many kings and n.o.bles (and the greater ceremonies being very costly depended largely on the patronage of the wealthy), but it popularized the idea that animal sacrifices are shocking and that attempts to win salvation by offerings are crude and unphilosophic. But though, after Buddhism had leavened India for a few centuries, we no longer find the religious world given over to sacrificing as it had been about 600 B.C., these rites did not die out. Even now they are occasionally performed in South India and the Deccan. There are still many Brahmans in these regions who, if they have not the means or learning to perform the greater Vedic ceremonies, at any rate sympathize with the mental att.i.tude which they imply, and this att.i.tude has many curious features.
The rite of sacrifice, which in the simple form of an offering supposed to be agreeable to the deity is the princ.i.p.al ceremony in the early stages of most religions, persists in their later stages but gives rise to clouds of theory and mystical interpretations. Thus in Christianity, the Jewish sacrifices are regarded as prototypes of the death of Christ and that death itself as a sacrifice to the Almighty, an offering of himself to himself, which in some way acts as an expiation for the sins of the world. And by a further development the sacrifice of the ma.s.s, that is, the offering of portions of bread and wine which are held to be miraculously transformed into the body and blood of Christ by the manipulations of a qualified priest, is believed to repeat every day the tragedy of Calvary. The prevalence of this view in Europe should make us chary of stigmatizing Hindu ideas about sacrifice as mental aberrations.
They represent the fancies of acute intellects dealing with ancient ceremonies which they cannot abandon but which they transform into something more congenial to their own transitional mode of thought.
Though the Brahma?as and Upanishads mix up ritual with physical and metaphysical theories in the most extraordinary fashion, their main motive deserves sympathy and respect. Their weakness lies in their inability to detach themselves (as the Buddha succeeded in doing) from a ritual which though elaborate was neither edifying nor artistic: they seem unable to see the great problems of existence except through the mists of altar smoke. Their merit is their evident conviction that this formalism is inadequate. Their wish is not to distort and cramp nature by bringing it within the limits of the ritual, but to enlarge and expand the ritual until it becomes cosmic. If they regard the whole universe as one long act of prayer and sacrifice, the idea is grandiose rather than pedantic, though the details may not always be to our taste[157]. And the Upanishads pa.s.s from ritual and theology to real speculation in a way unknown to Christian thought. To imagine a parallel, we must picture Spinoza beginning with an exposition of the Trinity and transubstantiation and proceeding to develop his own system without becoming unorthodox.
The conception of the sacrifice set forth in the Brahma?as is that it is a scientific method of acquiring immortality as well as temporal blessings. Though originally a mere offering in the _do ut des_ principle, it has a.s.sumed a higher and more mysterious position[158]. We are told that the G.o.ds obtained immortality and heaven by sacrifice, that they created the universe by sacrifice, that Praj.a.pati, the creator, _is_ the sacrifice. Although some writers are disposed to distinguish magic sharply from religion, the two are not separated in the Vedas. Sacrifice is not merely a means of pleasing the G.o.ds: it is a system of authorized magic or sacred science controlling all worlds, if properly understood. It is a mysterious cosmic force like electricity which can be utilized by a properly trained priest but is dangerous in unskilful hands, for the rites, if wrongly performed, bring disaster or even death on bunglers. Though the Vedic sacrifices fell more and more out of general use, this notion of the power of rites and formulae did not fade with them but has deeply infected modern Hinduism and even Buddhism, in both of which the lore of spells and gestures a.s.sumes monstrous proportions. The Vedic and modern tantric rituals are different but they are based on the same supposition that the universe (including the G.o.ds which are part of it) is regulated by some permeating principle, and that this principle can be apprehended by sacred science and controlled by the use of proper methods[159]. So far as these systems express the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe by knowledge, they offer an example of the bold sweep of the Hindu intellect, but the methods prescribed are often fatuous.
The belief in the potency of words and formulae, though amplified and embellished by the Hindus, is not an Indian invention but a common aspect of early thought which was less emphasized in other countries. It is found in Persia and among the tribes of Central and Northern Asia and of Northern Europe, and attained a high development in Finland where _runot_ or magical songs are credited with very practical efficacy. Thus the Kalevala relates how Wainamoinen was building a boat by means of songs when the process came to a sudden stop because he had forgotten three words. This is exactly the sort of thing that might happen in the legends of a Vedic sacrifice if the priest had forgotten the texts he ought to recite.
The external features of Vedic rites are remarkable and unlike what we know of those performed by other nations of antiquity. The sacrifice is not as a rule a gift presented to a single G.o.d to win his favour.
Oblations are made to most members of the pantheon in the course of a prolonged ceremony, but the time, manner and recipients of these oblations are fixed rather by the mysteries of sacrificial science, than by the sacrificer"s need to propitiate a particular deity. Also the sacrifice is not offered in a temple and it would appear that in pre-Buddhist times there were no religious edifices. It is not even a.s.sociated with sacred spots, such as groves or fountains haunted by a deity. The scene of operations requires long and careful preparation, but it is merely an enclosure with certain sheds, fireplaces and mounds.
It has no architectural pretensions and is not a centre round which shrines can grow for it requires reconsecration for each ceremony, and in many cases must not be used twice. There is little that is national, tribal or communal about these rites. Some of them, such as the Asvamedha or horse sacrifice and the Rajasaya, or consecration of a king, may be attended by games and sports, but that is because they are connected with secular events. In their essence sacrifices are not popular festivals or holidays but private services, performed for the benefit of the sacrificer, that is, the person who pays the fees of the priests. Usually they have a definite object and, though ceremonies for the attainment of material blessings are not wanting, this object is most frequently supramundane, such as the fabrication of a body in the heavenly world. It is in keeping with these characteristics that there should be no pomp or spectacular effect: the rites resemble some complicated culinary operation or scientific experiment, and the sacrificial enclosure has the appearance of a laboratory rather than a place of worship.
Vedic ritual includes the sacrifice of animals, and there are indications of the former prevalence of human sacrifice. At the time when the Brahma?as were composed the human victims were released alive, but afterwards the practice of real sacrifice was revived, probably owing to the continual incorporation into the Hindu community of semi-barbarous tribes and their savage deities. Human victims were offered to Mahadevi the spouse of Siva until the last century, and would doubtless be offered now, were legal restrictions removed. But though the sporadic survival of an old custom in its most primitive and barbarous form is characteristic of Hinduism, the whole tendency of thought and practice since the rise of Buddhism has been adverse to religious bloodshed, even of animals. The doctrine of subst.i.tution and atonement, of offering the victim on behalf of the sacrificer, though not absent, plays a smaller part than in the religions of Western Asia.
Evidently it was not congenial: the Hindu has always been inclined to think that the individual earns his future in another world by his own thoughts and acts. Even the value of the victim is less important than the correct performance of the ceremony. The teaching of the Brahma?as is not so much that a good heart is better than lavish alms as that the ritually correct sacrifice of a cake is better than a hecatomb not offered according to rule.
The offerings required by the Vedic ritual are very varied. The simplest are cakes and libations of melted b.u.t.ter poured on the fire from two wooden spoons held one over the other while Vedic verses are recited.
Besides these there was the animal sacrifice, and still more important the Soma[160] sacrifice. This ceremony is very ancient and goes back to the time when the Hindus and Iranians were not divided. In India the sacrifice lasted at least five days and, even in its simpler forms, was far more complicated than any ceremony known to the Greeks, Romans or Jews. Only professional priests could perform it and as a rule a priest did not attempt to master more than one branch and to be for instance either a reciter (Hotri) or singer (Udgatri). But the five-day sacrifices are little more than the rudiments of the sacrificial art and lead on to the Ahinas or sacrifices comprising from two to twelve days of Soma pressing which last not more than a month. The Ahinas again can be combined into sacrificial sessions lasting a year or more[161], and it would seem that rites of this length were really performed, though when we read of such sessions extending over a hundred years, we may hope that they are creations of a fancy like that of the hymn-writer who celebrated the state
Where congregations ne"er break up And Sabbaths never end.
The ritual literature of India is enormous and much of it has been edited and translated by European scholars with a care that merited a better object. It is a mine of information respecting curious beliefs and practices of considerable historical interest, but it does not represent the main current of religious ideas in post-Buddhist times.
The Brahmans indeed never ceased to give the sacrificial system their theoretical and, when possible, their practical approval, for it embodies a principle most dear to them, namely, that the other castes can obtain success and heaven only under the guidance of Brahmans and by rites which only Brahmans can perform. But for this very reason it incurred the hostility not only of philosophers and morally earnest men, but of the military caste and it never really recovered from the blow dealt it by Buddhism, the religion of that caste. But with every Brahmanic revival it came to the front and the performance of the Asvamedha or horse sacrifice[162] was long the culminating glory of an orthodox king.
CHAPTER V
ASCETICISM AND KNOWLEDGE
1
As sacrifice and ceremonial are the material accompaniments of prayer, so are asceticism and discipline those of thought. This is less conspicuous in other countries, but in India it is habitually a.s.sumed that the study of what we call metaphysics or theology needs some kind of physical discipline and it will be well to elucidate this point before describing the beginnings of speculation.
Tapas, that is asceticism or self-mortification, holds in the religious thought and practice of India as large a place as sacrifice. We hear of it as early, for it is mentioned in the Rig Veda[163], and it lasts longer, for it is a part of contemporary Hinduism just as much as prayer or worship. It appears even in creeds which disavow it theoretically, _e.g._ in Buddhism, and evidently has its root in a deep-seated and persistent instinct.
Tapas is often translated penance but the idea of mortification as an expiation for sins committed, though not unknown in India, is certainly not that which underlies the austerities of most ascetics. The word means literally heat, hence pain or toil, and some think that its origin should be sought in practices which produced fever, or tended to concentrate heat in the body. One object of Tapas is to obtain abnormal powers by the suppression of desires or the endurance of voluntary tortures. There is an element of truth in this aspiration. Temperance, chast.i.ty and mental concentration are great aids for increasing the force of thought and will. The Hindu believes that intensity and perseverance in this road of abstinence and rapture will yield correspondingly increased results. The many singular phenomena connected with Indian asceticism have been imperfectly investigated but a psychological examination would probably find that subjective results (such as visions and the feeling of flying through the air) are really produced by the discipline recommended and there may be elements of much greater value in the various systems of meditation. But this is only the beginning of Tapas. To the idea that the soul when freed from earthly desires is best able to comprehend the divine is superadded another idea, namely that self-mortification is a process of productive labour akin to intellectual toil. Just as the whole world is supposed to be permeated by a mysterious principle which can be known and subdued by the science of the sacrificing priests, so the ascetic is able to control G.o.ds and nature by the force of his austerities. The creative deities are said to have produced the world by Tapas, just as they are said to have produced it by sacrifice and Hindu mythology abounds in stories of ascetics who became so mighty that the very G.o.ds were alarmed. For instance Rava?a, the Demon ruler of Lanka who carried off Sita, had acquired his power by austerities which enabled him to extort a boon from Brahma. Thus there need be nothing moral in the object of asceticism or in the use of the power obtained. The epics and dramas frequently portray ascetics as choleric and unamiable characters and modern Yogis maintain the tradition.
Though asceticism resembles the sacrifice in being a means by which man can obtain his wishes whether religious or profane, it differs in being comparatively easy. Irksome as it may be, it demands merely strength of will and not a scientific training in ritual and Vedic texts. Hence in this sphere the supremacy of the Brahman could be challenged by other castes and an instructive legend relates how Rama slew a Sudra whom he surprised in the act of performing austerities. The lowest castes can by this process acquire a position which makes them equal to the highest[164].
Of the non-Brahmanic sects, the Jains set the highest value on Tapas, but chiefly as a purification of the soul and a means of obtaining an unearthly state of pure knowledge[165]. In theory the Buddha rejected it; he taught a middle way, rejecting alike self-indulgence and self-mortification. But even Pali Buddhism admits such practices as the Dhutangas and the more extravagant sects, for instance in Tibet, allow monks to entomb themselves in dark cells. According to our standards even the ordinary religious life of both Hindus and Buddhists is severely ascetic. It is a.s.sumed as a _sine qua non_ that strict chast.i.ty must be observed, nourishment be taken only to support life and not for pleasure, that all gratification coming from the senses must be avoided and the mind kept under rigid discipline. This discipline receives systematic treatment in the Yoga school of philosophy but it is really common to all varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism; all agree that the body must be subdued by physical training before the mind can apprehend the higher truths. The only question is how far asceticism is directly instrumental in giving higher knowledge. If some texts speak slightingly of it, we must remember that the life of a hermit dwelling in the woods without possessions or desires might not be regarded by a Hindu as _tapas_ though we should certainly regard it as asceticism. It is also agreed that supernatural powers can be acquired by special forms of asceticism. These powers are sometimes treated as mere magic and spiritually worthless but their reality is not questioned.