INDIA. PART I. festations of fire. HISTORY OF charms of female beauty. In its higher manifestations it becomes identified with the light of the sun Higher mani- and moon; with the lightning which shoots from the sky and shatters the loftiest trees and strikes down the strong man; with the deity who covers the field with grain and ripens the harvest; with the divine messenger who licks up the sacrifice and carries it Presence of fire to the gods. Thus fire was regarded by the Vedic Aryans as in every way a sacred thing; and, as if to associate this deity with all that is nearest and dearest to the human heart, a fire was considered to be indispensable to the due performance of the marriage ceremony; and the presence of fire as a divine witness was deemed in some instances sufficient to sanctify the union of an impatient and impassioned pair. necessary at the marriage cere mony. Agni, or Fire, represented in various forms. mortal being. Thus Agni, or Fire, is depicted in the Vedas in a variety of forms: as a priest, a divine messenger, a devouring element, and a deity who is the source and diffuser of light throughout the universe. In Agni as an im- some hymns he is personified as an immortal being enjoying perpetual youth, and travelling in a car drawn by red horses.18 He is frequently invoked as Agni as a priest a priest, and like an officiating priest he is said to have brought prosperity to the worshipper. As a divine messenger he was implored to bring the gods to the sacrifice, 19 and the loving wives of the gods to Agni as the de- partake of the soma juice. As a devouring element he is invoked as the bright and purifying deity who Character of the was charged with all the invocations of the gods; dressed to Agni. whilst the mere operations of Agni as a consuming and divine messenger. vouring ele ment. Vedic hymns ad 20 18 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 36, v. 15; Mand. IV. v. 8. 19 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 31, v. 17. 20 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 22, v. 9. 22 23 INDIA. Agni as a de Agni in his do fire are frequently described in language eminently HISTORY OF poetical. "When generated from the rubbing of PART I. sticks, the radiant Agni bursts forth from the wood Invocations to like a fleet courser." 21 "When excited by the wind, stroyer. he rushes amongst the trees like a bull, and consumes the forest as a Raja destroys his enemies." "His path is blackened, and the birds are terrified at his roaring." " In his more domestic capacity, Agni is Invocations to described as an ornament in the sacrificial chamber, mestic capacity. like a woman in a dwelling.' He is young and golden-haired, the domestic guardian, the protector against evil spirits, malevolent men, and noxious animals.24 Like the divine Sun he is the supporter Invocations to of the universe, but he abides on earth like a prince surrounded by faithful friends, and men sit down in his presence like sons in the dwelling of a father. "Such as thou art, Agni, men preserve thee constantly kindled in their dwellings, and offer upon thee abundant food: Do thou, in whom is all existence, be the bearer of riches." 25 But still there are Invocations to passages referring to Agni, as indeed there are verses preme Being. referring to almost every other Vedic deity, in which that individual god is represented as supreme and absolute. Thus in two particular hymns, Agni is 21 Rig-Veda, Mand. V. Hymn 29, v. 6. 22 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 58, v. 4; Hymn 65, v. 4; Hymn 94, v. 10 and 11. 23 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 66, v. 3. 24 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 36, v. 5, 15. 25 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 73. The whole of this hymn is singularly illustrative of the worship of Agni. 26 This coexistence of Monotheism and Polytheism is very clearly explained by Prof. Max Müller in the following very eloquent passage:-"When these individual gods are invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the supplicant as good as all the gods. He is felt, at the time, as a real divinity-as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from the vision Agni as a deity. Agni as the Su INDIA. PART I. Language of praise to be dis the expression of thought. HISTORY OF called the ruler of the universe, the lord of men, the wise king, the father, the brother, the son, the friend of men; whilst the powers and even the names of the other deities are distinctly applied to this god.27 Care must however be taken not to confound the tinguished from language of praise with the expression of thought. The extravagance of Oriental adulation will permit an Asiatic courtier to address some petty chief or Raja as the king of kings, but this by no means implies an idea of universal empire. At the same time, the language of praise, eager to propitiate and boundless in expression, may have to some extent originated that later conception of the one Supreme Being, the God above all gods, which is undoubtedly to be found in the Vedas. Indra and Agni, the chief gods of These two deities-Indra and Agni, Rain and the Rig-Veda. Fire-are the chief gods which were worshipped by the Vedic Aryans. In the hymns they are sometimes identified with each other, and sometimes they are associated in the same hymn; but even as individuals more hymns were apparently addressed to each than to any other divine being in the Vedic pantheon. The remaining gods, however, though less prominent and perhaps less popular, are still well worthy of attention. They comprise the personifications of water, and the sun and moon, air and the winds, all of which were associated with the ideas of deity. Characteristics of Varuna, or Water. The god of waters was named Varuna.28 Next of the poet, and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light before the Comp. Max Müller, Hist. of Sanskrit 28 Upon this point there is some obscurity. Varuna was undoubtedly regarded as the deity of water, but the name is in some verses applied to the sun and even INDIA. tributes of as water. Water a purifier of and a household necessity. by the currents rivers generally separated into individual abstractions. god of the ocean. to fire, perhaps water has always occupied the most HISTORY OF prominent place in the religious worship of nations PART I. in general. It purifies, and it is an emblem of Mysterious at purity; and is as necessary in every household fire. At the same time, the ever-flowing current a great river awakens ideas of life and infinity; of Ideas awakened a past and a future; of going on ever and ever, we of great rivers. know not whence and we know not where, but ever flowing. Springs and rivers, however, are generally Springs and separated into individual abstractions, which are personified as divine beings; and the highest conception of one universal god of the waters seems to Conception of a have been gathered from a familiarity with the sea. Thus amongst a maritime people, the god of the ocean, the lord of tempests, the ruler of the rushing, boiling waves, ever occupies an important place in the sphere of religious thought; and here it should be remarked that the Vedic Aryans were evidently acquainted with the sea, for the hymns contain allusions to merchants, to sea voyages, and to ships with a hundred oars. In a more material or credulous Distinction beage this deity might be depicted as a mere monster, conception of a half fish and half human; but in the higher Aryan conception he is represented as a spiritual existence, powerful to destroy but mighty to save, that could sink the strong man into the depths of the sea, or bear him in safety to the shore. In a later stage the conception rises higher and higher, until a deity is shadowed forth that rewards goodness and punishes sin. The following hymn to Varuna, felicit- Deep religious ously translated by Prof. Max Müller, exhibits this to Varuna. deity in the two-fold character of controlling tem to the personification of day. In the Epics he is invariably regarded as water, and is emphatically the god of the ocean. tween a material ception of a spi the Aryan con ritual existence. Varuna congoodness and sidered as a deity who rewards punishes sin. feeling in a HISTORY OF pests and punishing sin; and in so doing indicates INDIA. a tone of religious feeling not so far removed from modern ideas as might have been expected: PART I. Characteristics of Surya, or the Sun. "Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! "If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! "Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, have I gone to the wrong shore; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! "Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters; have mercy, almighty, have mercy! "Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly host, whenever we break thy law through thoughtlessness; have mercy, almighty, have mercy."29 Súrya, or the Sun, is another important Vedic deity; and indeed seems under different names Prominence of to have always held a high place amongst the cient religions. primitive gods of every nation, by virtue of its pro the Sun in allan minence in the heavens, and the extent to which its influence is felt upon earth. Its daily course and its annual course, its welcome rising in the morning and its glorious setting in the evening, must all have excited the keenest curiosity amongst a child-like and inquisitive people; and, at the same time, the imagination alone was left to account for the existence of phenomena which in a non-scientific age Personification are altogether beyond human ken. Thus it seems of the earliest extremely probable that one of the earliest efforts of poetical genius was to personify the Sun as the deity of light, travelling through the blue ether in a The golden cha- golden chariot which all men might see, drawn ble steeds.; however by steeds which were invisible to the out of the Sun one bards. riot and invisi 29 Max Müller, History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 540. |