INDIA. PART I. Poetry of the conception of Ushas. Associations connected with the dawn in India. HISTORY OF World as a young wife awakens her children. This poetical conception seems to have had peculiar charms for the old Vedic bards; and, in truth, the dawn of early morning in India is singularly grateful to the feelings, and in the mind of the Vedic worshipper was associated with early prayer as well as with early duties. In addition to the refreshing coolness and delightful stillness of the hour, there is a peculiar whiteness in the atmosphere, not so expressive as moonlight, but infinitely more delicate and more suggestive of innocence and purity. Thus the night with all the horrors of darkness-the fear of ghosts, demons, snakes, tigers, and midnight robbers-is supposed to have passed away before the rising of this white-robed maiden, the first in all the world who is awake, and the first to appear at the invocation of the gods. But notwithstanding the unsubstantial character of the original personification, it nevertheless became in many hymns a Vedic hymns al vivid conception of a deity. As a mere female, Ushas is likened to a young bride, with perhaps more warmth of painting than would suit modern taste: dressed to Ushas as a maiden. Vedic ideas of Goddess, manifest in person like a maiden, thou goest to the resplendent and beautiful sun; and, like a youthful bride before her husband, thou uncoverest thy bosom with a smile." 9 35 But as a divinity, the language respecting Ushas is much more elevated : -- "Ushas, daughter of heaven, dawn upon us with riches; diffuser of light, dawn upon us with abundant food; beautiful goddess, dawn upon us with wealth of cattle." 36 35 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 123, v. 1. "This auspicious Ushas has harnessed her vehicles from HISTORY OF afar, above the rising of the sun, and she comes gloriously upon man with a hundred chariots." 37 "First of all the world is she awake, triumphing over transitory darkness; the mighty, the giver of light, from on high she beholds all things; ever youthful, ever reviving, she comes first to the invocation." 38 INDIA. ties the mere of poetry. Such were the chief gods of the Aryans, and to Minor Vedicdeithem may be added some others less prominent, personifications such as the personifications of Food, of Day and Night, and of the Seasons. These require no special description, inasmuch as they are little more than poetical personifications; and probably at the period of their composition they were as little connected with religious worship as the songs of Hafiz were connected with the sentiments of Mahomedan devotion. These creations of the fancy have ever been Comparison of the favourite product of the Aryan mind, and thus dern personifithe Vedic "Hymn to Pitri, the Divinity of Food,"39 is even surpassed in intensity of personification by Burns's ballad of "John Barleycorn," and Tennyson's exquisite poem on the "Death of the Old Year,"40 ancient and mo cations. tion of one Su Having thus sketched generally the individual Vedic concepcharacter of the leading deities of the Aryans as preme Being. they appear in the Rig-Veda, it may be advisable to glance at that conception of One Supreme Being, as in all and above all, which finds full expression 37 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 48, v. 7. 3 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 123, v. 2. 29 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 187. 40 The great master in the power of personifying abstractions, until they become objects of actual interest, is John Bunyan; an interest however which is derived more from the religious experiences of the author than from a large knowledge of human nature. HISTORY OF in the Vedic hymns. Upon this point the following passages will be found very significant : INDIA. PART I. Monotheistic verses. Grand monothe istic hymn "Who has seen the primeval being at the time of his being born; what is that endowed with substance which the unsubstantial sustains; from earth are the breath and blood, but where is the soul; who may repair to the sage to ask this?"41 "What is that One alone, who has upheld these six spheres in the form of an unborn?" 42 The following hymn, translated by Professor Max Müller, still further expresses the conception of monotheism, and indeed seems to indicate that the idea itself is a necessary idea forced upon the mind by a thoughtful consideration of the phenomena of the universe.43 "In the beginning there arose the Source of golden translated by light: He was the only born lord of all that is. He established the earth, and this sky :-Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? Professor Max "He who gives life, He who gives strength; whose blessing all the bright gods desire; 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 only 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 whose power these snowy mountains, whose power 41 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 144, v. 4. 42 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 144, v. 6. 43 The translation which follows has been borrowed from Mr Max Müller's History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 569. That eloquent scholar is perhaps mistaken in alluding to the idea as "an instinctive monotheism." The theory that the Aryan nations may possess an instinct which is denied to the Turanian peoples seems untenable. An instinct is an element of human nature, and not a mere characteristic of a race; and it appears more probable that what are called characteristics of a race, arise from peculiarities of development and history rather than from any original diversity in human nature. the sea proclaims, with the distant river: He whom these HISTORY OF regions are as it were His two arms:-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 in the air: -Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? "He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by his will, look up, trembling inwardly: He over whom the rising sun shines forth :-Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? "Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the only life of the bright gods:-Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? "He who by his might looked even over the waterclouds, the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice, He who is God above all gods :-Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? "May He not destroy us, He, the creator of the earth; or He, the righteous, who created the heaven; He who also created the bright and mighty waters :-Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" INDIA. tion of marriage. The true conception of marriage, involving the Vedic concepidea of the union of one woman to one man, also finds expression in the Vedas. Husbands and wives in twos and twos are described as presenting their oblations together; and in one hymn which dwells upon the duality of the two Aswins, the pair of deities are compared with pairs of almost everything that runs in couples, including a husband and a wife, and two lips uttering sweet sounds.45 44 Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 131, v. 3. Also Mand. Hymn 43. 45 Rig-Veda, Mand. II. Hymn 39. There is however an exceptional passage in which a young Rishi named Kakshivat celebrates the generosity of a Raja who had given him his ten daughters in marriage. (Rig-Veda, Mand. I. Hymn 126.) This reference to polygamy as well as two hymns relating to a horse sacrifice, will be considered hereafter. HISTORY OF INDIA. cay of the Vedic Brahmanic age. cumstances and sition. upon Such, then, were the leading characteristics of PART I. the principal deities of the Aryans in the old Vedic age, when the new colonists were still dwelling in Subsequent de- the neighbourhood of the five rivers. During the religion in the subsequent age of Brahmanism, the spiritual conceptions and aspirations passed in a great measure away; a new dynasty of deities arose; and the gods of the Vedas lost their hold the national sympathies, and shrivelled more and more into human Changes in cir- heroes with human instincts and passions. Meangeographical po- time the circumstances of the people, and their geographical position, had undergone a great and significant change. In the Vedic age the Aryan people were a band of agriculturists and herdsmen, and were still dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Punjab; but in the Brahmanic age they had become a conquering power, and had made their way down the fertile valleys of the Ganges and Jumná, and established kingdoms which are still famous in anExistence of a cient story. This period of conquest implies the and institution existence of a large military class; and in connection with this subject it may be remarked that the most significant change which appears to have taken place about this time was the institution of caste. In the Vedic age there appears to have been no direct traces of a caste system; but in the Brahmanic age the distribution of the people into castes is one of the most prominent features, and this caste system has prevailed more or less down to the present day. Thus the caste system seems to have the period be arisen in the period which intervened between the and Brahmanic Vedic and Brahmanic age; in other words, between the time when the Aryans appeared as simple colonists in the land of the five rivers, and the time military class of caste. Origin of the caste system in tween the Vedic ages. |