Attitude of the Vedic his gods. singer to Higher concep tions of the separate existence in these simple hymns. The names of the dreadful Mahadeva, Dúrga, Kálí, and of the gentler Krishna and Ráma, are alike unknown in the Rig-Veda. The Aryan settlers lived on excellent terms with their bright gods. They asked for protection 'with an assured conviction that it would be granted. The sense of sin, or the idea of spiritual submission, scarcely appears in the Veda. 'Give me cows, or land, or long life, in return for this hymn or offering;' 'slay my enemy, scatter the black-skin, and I will sacrifice to thee,'-such is the ordinary frame of mind of the singer to his gods. But, at the same time, he was deeply stirred by the glory and mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods he can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the Supreme Ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater deities to be the One Supreme: 'Neither gods nor men reach unto thee, O Indra;' Soma is 'king of heaven and earth, the conqueror of all.' To Varuna also it is said, 'Thou art lord of all, of heaven and earth; thou art king of all those who are gods, and of all those who are men.' The more spiritual of the Vedic singers, therefore, may be said to have worshipped One God, although not One Alone. Some beautiful souls among them were filled not only with the splendours of the visible universe, but with the deeper Deity in mysteries of the Unseen, and the powerlessness of man to the Veda. search out God. A Vedic hymn. He was 'In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. the one born lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 'He who gives life, he who gives strength; whose command all the Bright Gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? He who, through his power, is the one king of the breathing and awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 'He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm; he through whom the heaven was established, nay, the highest heaven; he who measured out the light and the air. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 'He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds; he who alone is God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?1 Better The yearning for rest in God, that desire for the wings of a 'The dove, so as to fly away and be at rest, with which noble hearts Land.' have ached in all ages, breathes in several exquisite hymns of the Rig-Veda: 'Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is placed,-in that immortal, imperishable world, place me, O Soma! Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where the worlds are radiant,-there make me immortal! Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasure reside, where our desires are attained, there make me immortal.' 2 of the dead. While the aboriginal races buried their dead under rude Burning stone monuments, the Aryan-alike in India, in Greece, and in Italy-made use of the funeral-pile as the most solemn method of severing the mortal from the immortal part of man. As he derived his natural birth from his parents; and a partial regeneration, or second birth, from the performance of his religious duties; so the fire, by setting free the soul from the body, completed the third or heavenly birth. His friends stood round the pyre as round a natal bed, and commanded his eye to go to the sun, his breath to the wind, his limbs to the earth, the water and plants whence they had been derived. But as for his unborn part, do thou, Lord (Agni), quicken it with thy heat; let thy flame and thy brightness quicken it; convey it to the world of the righteous.' King For the lonely journey of the soul after its separation from Vedic the body, the Aryans, both in Asia and Europe, provided a legend of faithful guide (Sárameyas in Sanskrit, Hermeias in Greek). Yama, or According to the Zend or old Aryan legend in Persia, Yama Death. was a monarch in the old time, when sorrow and sickness were unknown. By degrees sin and disease crept into the world; the slow necessity of death hastened its step; and the old king retired, with a chosen band, from the polluted earth into a better country, where he still reigns. The Indian version of the story makes Yama to be the first man who passed through death into immortality. Having discovered the way to the other world, he leads men thither. Meanwhile his two dogs -'black and spotted,' 'broad of nostril,' and 'with a hunger never to be satisfied'-wander as his messengers among men. 'Worship with an offering King Yama, the Assembler of Men, 1 Rig-Veda, x. 121; translated by Prof. Max Müller, Hist. Anc. Sansk. Lit., p. 569. Chips, vol. i. p. 29 (ed. 1867). 2 Rig-Veda, ix. 113. 7. Max Müller's translation. The Vedic farewell to who departed to the mighty waters, who found out the road for many.'1 Several exquisite hymns bid farewell to the dead :-' Depart the dead, thou, depart thou by the ancient paths to the place whither our Vedic concep tions of immortality. The Aryans advance into the Middle Land. fathers have departed. Meet with the Ancient Ones; meet with the Lord of Death. The hymns of the Rig-Veda were composed, as we have seen, by the Aryans in their colonies along the Indus, and on their march eastwards towards the Jumna and upper Ganges. The growing numbers of the settlers, and the arrival of fresh Aryan tribes from behind, still compelled them to advance. From the Land of the Sacred Singers, Manu describes them as spreading through 'The Middle Land' (Madhyadesha), comprising the whole river-systems of Upper India as far east as 1 Rig-Veda, x. 14. 1. See Dr. John Muir's 'Sanskrit Texts,' and his essay on 'Yama,' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, part ii., 1865, whence many of the above quotations are derived. See also Max Müller's essay on the 'Funeral Rites of the Brahmans,' on which the following paragraph is chiefly based. Oudh and Allahábád, with the Himalayas as its northern, and the Vindhya ranges as its southern boundary. The conquest of the vast new tracts thus included seems not to have commenced till the close of the Rig-Vedic era, and it must have been the work of many generations. During this advance, the simple faith of the Rig-Vedic singers was first adorned with stately rites, and then extinguished beneath them. The race progressed from a loose confederacy of tribes into several well-knit nations, each bound together by the strong central force of kingly power, directed by a powerful priesthood, and organized on a firm basis of caste. tribes families. Whence arose this new constitution of the Aryan tribes into The Aryan nations, with castes, priests, and kings? We have seen that organized although in their earlier colonies on the Indus each father was into priest in his family, yet the Chieftain, or Lord of the Settlers, kingdoms. called in some man specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the great tribal sacrifices. Such men were highly honoured, and the famous quarrel which runs throughout the whole Veda sprang from the claims of two rival sages, Vasishtha and Viswamitra, to perform one of these ceremonies. The art of writing was unknown, and the hymns and sacrificial words had to be handed down by word of mouth from father Origin of to son. It thus happened that the families who learned them priestly by heart became, as it were, the hereditary owners of the liturgies required at the most solemn offerings to the gods. Members of these households were chosen again and again to conduct the tribal sacrifices, to chant the battle-hymn, to implore the divine aid, or to pray away the divine wrath. Even the Rig-Veda recognises the importance of these sacrifices. 'That king,' says a verse, 'before whom marches the priest, he alone dwells well established in his own house, to him the people bow down. The king who gives wealth to the priest, he will conquer, him the gods will protect.' The tribesmen first hoped, then believed, that a hymn or prayer which had once acted successfully, and been followed by victory, would again produce the same results. The hymns became a valuable family property for those who had composed or learned them. The Rig-Veda tells how the prayer of Vasishtha prevailed in the battle of the ten kings,' and how that of Viswamitra 'preserves the tribe of the Bhárats.' The potent prayer was termed bráhma, and he who offered it, bráhman. Woe to him who despised either! Whosoever,' says the Rig-Veda, 'scoffs at the prayer (bráhma) which we have made, may hot Growing numbers of priests. The four (1) The (2) The SámaVeda. plagues come upon him, may the sky burn up that hater of Bráhmans' (bráhma-dvísh).1 Certain families thus came to have not only a hereditary claim to conduct the great sacrifices, but also the exclusive knowledge of the ancient hymns, or at any rate of the traditions. which explained their symbolical meaning. They naturally tried to render the ceremonies solemn and imposing. By degrees a vast array of ministrants grew up around each of the greater sacrifices. There were first the officiating priests and their assistants, who prepared the sacrificial ground, dressed the altar, slew the victims, and poured out the libations; second, the chanters of the Vedic hymns; third, the reciters of other parts of the service; fourth, the superior priests, who watched over the whole, and corrected mistakes. The entire service was derived from the Veda, or 'inspired knowledge,' an old Aryan word which appears in the Latin vid-ere, 'to see or perceive;' in the Greek feido of Homer, and oida, 'I know;' in the Old English, I wit; in the modern German and English, wissen, wisdom, etc. The Rig-Veda Rig Veda. exhibits the hymns in their simplest form, arranged in ten 'circles,' according to the families of their composers, the Rishis. But as the sacrifices grew more elaborate, the hymns were also arranged in three collections (sanhitás) or service-books for the ministering priests. Thus, the second, or Sáma-Veda, was made up of extracts from the Rig-Vedic hymns used at the Soma sacrifice. Some of its verses stamp themselves, by their antiquated grammatical forms, as older than their rendering in the Rig-Veda itself. The third, or Yajur-Veda, consists not only of Rig-Vedic verses, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the sacrifices of the New Full Moon; and at the Great Horse Sacrifice, when 609 animals of various kinds were offered, perhaps in substitution for the earlier Man Sacrifice, which is also mentioned in it. The Yajur-Veda is divided into two editions, the Black and the White Yajur; both belonging to a more modern period than either the Rig or the Sáma Vedas, and composed after the Aryans had spread far to the east of the Indus. The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns of the Rig-Veda, in the tenth book; and from the still later songs of the Brahmans, after they had established their priestly power. It supplies the connecting (3) The YajurVeda; its (a) Black and (b) White editions. (4) The AtharvaVeda. 1 I gladly acknowledge my obligations in several of the following pages to Albrecht Weber's History of Indian Literature (No. iii. of Trübner's Oriental Series, 1878). This book, if really brought up to date, would form an invaluable compendium for the Sanskrit student. |