CHAPTER I. of the Dravidian religion was originally based upon ideas associated with the sexes. Traces of the linga worship are still lingering throughout the greater part of India, but they are already dying away before the development of spiritual ideas; and but little now remains beyond an archaic symbolism, which has ceased to exercise any unhallowed influence upon the masses."

their origin.

The invasion of the Aryans is a still more important stand-point in the history of India. This Vedic Aryans: intellectual people migrated from the cold region of Iran or Aryana, and were a cognate race with the ancient Persians. They were, in fact, an offshoot of the same Indo-European stem, which sent forth other branches under the names of Greeks, Italians, Germans, Slaves, and Celts, to conquer the western world. They originally settled in the Punjab, but subsequently crossed the river Saraswatí, which separates the Punjab from Hindustan, and began to colonize the upper valleys of the Ganges and Jumna. During this advance they encountered many non

6 The religion of the Dravidian people, which lies under the crust of Brahmanism, is interesting from its extreme simplicity. "Snake worship," says Dr Balfour, "is general throughout Peninsular India, both of the sculptured form and of the living creature. The sculpture is invariably of the form of the Nág or cobra, and almost every hamlet has its serpent deity. Sometimes this is a single snake, the hood of the cobra being spread open. Occasionally the sculptured figures are nine in number, and this form is called the 'Nao nág,' and is intended to represent a parent and eight of its young; but the prevailing form is that of two snakes twining in the manner of the Esculapian rod." Speaking of the village gods, Colonel Meadows Taylor says: "The worship of Gráma Devatas, or village divinities, is universal all over the Dekhan, and indeed, I believe, throughout India. These divinities have no temples nor priests. Sacrifice and oblation are made to them at sowing time and harvest, for rain or fair weather, in time of cholera, malignant fever, or other disease or pestilence. The Nág is always one of the Gráma Devatas, the rest being known by local names. The Gráma Devatas are known as heaps of stones, generally in a grove or quiet spot near every village, and are smeared some with black and some with red colour." See Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, Appendix D.

Vedic populations, and especially engaged in alter- CHAPTER I. nate wars and alliances with a powerful people known as Nágas, who were possibly of Dravidian origin. These Nágas were apparently so called, from their having worshipped the serpent or Nága. The progress of the Aryan conquest, and the characteristics of the Nágas, will be brought under review hereafter. For the present it will suffice to say that the Aryans gradually made themselves masters of the greater part of Hindustan; and then filtered towards the south, and carried Aryan civilization and culture amongst the Dravidian populations of the Peninsula.

religion.

The religion of the Aryans had a different origin Vedic Aryan to that of the Dravidian people. The Aryan religion may possibly have been a development of the ancient worship of the genii loci,-the spirits of the hills, forests, glens, and streams. To this day many of the hill tribes in eastern India, between Bengal and Arakan, still practise this simple worship in its most primitive form. They people the little world around them with unseen beings, the guardians of their village, tribe, and dwelling; and they propitiate these spirits or genii with offerings of fowls and pigs, served up with boiled rice and fermented liquors. Again, the Dravidians, as already seen, worship village and household deities. But the religion of the Vedic Aryans was of a far more intellectual character. It finds its highest expression in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, which are the composition of Aryan bards known as Rishis. In these ancient Sanskrit hymns the genii loci, or guardian deities, scarcely appear, and the gods that are worshipped are deified conceptions of the spirits who

Vedic deities.

CHAPTER I. pervaded fire, water, and sky; the sun, the rivers, and the early dawn. Moreover these deities comprised both matter and spirit; and both were often blended in the same conception. The elements were worshipped as well as the genii of the elements; and the sun, the rivers, and even the early dawn, were propitiated as substantive existences, as well as spiritual existences. Agni was the deity of fire, which illuminates the universe and lights up the domestic household. Varuna was the

deity of water, and ruling spirit of the deep seas. Indra was the god of the sky, who pierced the rain cloud and brought down the waters, and was thus especially the god of harvests. Súrya was the sun god, and subsequently became involved in the conception of Agni. The rivers were all worshipped as individual deities; and the river Saraswatí, which was a kind of frontier between the Punjab and Hindustan, was especially hymned by the ancient Rishis. Ushas was the deity of the early dawn, and was perhaps the most poetical of all the Vedic conceptions, for she was arrayed as a whiterobed maiden, who awakens a sleeping world, as a mother awakens her children. But the great deity of the Rishis was Agni, the deity of fire and light, who ultimately became the incarnation of justice and purity.?

The religious worship of the Rishis consisted of praise, propitiation, and prayer. They praised their

7 A large number of the Hymns of the Rig-Veda were translated by the late Professor H. H. Wilson, and published in 4 vols. 8vo. The translation, however, is based upon the Brahmanical interpretation of Sáyana Achárya, the commentator, who flourished as late as the fourteenth century of the Christian era. Another and more trustworthy translation of the original hymns is being carried out by Professor Max Müller.

Forms of wor

ship amongst the Rishis.

gods as men laud their sovereign. They propitiated CHAPTER I. them with so-called sacrifices, which were simply portions of their daily meals, and consisted of rice, milk, butter, cakes, grain, and curds; and sometimes of a fermented liquor known as soma juice. In return for these simple offerings, they prayed for material blessings, such as health, strength, prosperity, brimming harvests, plenty of sons, and abundance of cattle and horses. When the meal was prepared, they strewed the eating-place with sacred grass, and invited the make-believe gods to take their seats and eat and drink their fill. They then poured a portion of their food upon the sacred fire, which was personified as a divine messenger who carried the sacrifice to the several deities; and when this was done the family apparently sat down and feasted on the remainder. The ideas connected with this religious ceremonial may perhaps be inferred from the following brief paraphrase, in which an attempt is made to indicate the spirit of the Vedic hymns:

Vedic hymus.

"We praise thee, O Agni, for thy presence in our dwell- Spirit of the ing is as welcome as that of a wife or a mother: Consume our sacrifice and grant our prayers, or carry away our offerings to the other gods. We praise thee, O Varuna, for thou art mighty to save: Have mercy upon us on the deep seas. We praise thee, O Indra, for thou art our god and our protector: Drive hither with thy champing, foaming steeds, and eat and drink the good things we have provided; and then, O strong and valiant god, fix thy mind on the good things thou art to give to us: Give us riches! Give us long life! Give us vigorous sons! Give us plentiful harvests, and abundance of cattle and horses. We praise thee, O Súrya, for thou art the god who illuminates the universe. We praise thee, O Saraswatí, for thou art the best and purest of

CHAPTER I. rivers; we pray thee to fertilize our lands and cherish us with blessings. O Ushas, daughter of heaven, dawn upon us with riches: O diffuser of light, dawn upon us with abundant food: O beautiful goddess, dawn upon us with wealth of cattle."8

The Vedic hymns, however, are not the product of a single age. Their composition extended over many centuries, and they therefore refer to many widely different stages in the progress of civilization. Thus some belong to a pastoral or agricultural period, when men lived a half-savage life in scattered settlements, and were threatened on all sides by barbarous enemies, cattle-lifters, and night-plunderers. Others, again, were produced in an age when men dwelt in luxury in fortified cities, when merchants traded to distant lands, when ladies were decked with silks and jewels, and when Rajas dwelt in palaces, drove in chariots, and indulged in polygamy. Again, the hymns represent different phases of religious development. Some are the mere childlike outpourings of natural piety; whilst others are the expression of intellectual and spiritual yearnings after a higher conception of deity, until all the gods are resolved into one spiritual Being, the divine Sun, the Supreme Soul who pervades and governs the universe."

The Vedic pantheon was not confined to the deities named, but comprised a vast number of other spiritual existences. Indeed the Vedic people imagined deities to reside in every object, animate

• Hymns of the Rig-Veda, translated by Professor H. H. Wilson, passim.

9 This idea of a Supreme Soul does not appear to have been an original Vedic idea. It was more probably grafted on the Vedic hymns by the later Brahmanical commentators. The point will be further treated in dealing with the religion of the Brahmans.