universe is comprehended; and the seeming polytheism which it exhibits offers the elements, and the stars and planets, as gods. The three principal manifestations of the divinity, with other personified attributes and energies, and most of the other gods of Hindu mythology, are, indeed, mentioned, or, at least, indicated, in the Vedas. But the worship of deified heroes is no part of that system; nor are the incarnations of deities suggested in any other portion of the text which I have yet seen; though such are sometimes hinted at by the commentators." Some of these statements may, perhaps, require modification; for, without a careful examination of all the prayers of the Vedas, it would be hazardous to assert that they contain no indication whatever of hero-worship; and, certainly, they do appear to allude, occasionally, to the Avatáras, or incarnations, of Vishnu. Still, however, it is true that the prevailing character of the ritual of the Vedas is the worship of the personified elements; of Agni or fire; Indra, the firmament; Váyu, the air; Varuna, the water; of Áditya, the sun; Soma, the moon; and other elementary and planetary personages. It is also true that the worship of the Vedas is, for the most part, domestic worship, consisting of prayers and oblations offered— in their own houses, not in temples-by individuals, for individual good, and addressed to unreal presences, not to visible types. In a word, the religion of the Vedas was not idolatry.

1 As. Res., Vol. VIII., p. 474.*

* Or Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. I., pp. 110 and 111.

1

It is not possible to conjecture when this more simple and primitive form of adoration was succeeded by the worship of images and types, representing Brahmá, Vishnu, Śiva, and other imaginary beings, constituting a mythological pantheon of most ample extent; or when Ráma and Krishna, who appear to have been, originally, real and historical characters, were elevated to the dignity of divinities. Image-worship is alluded to by Manu, in several passages, but with an intimation that those Brahmans who subsist by ministering in temples are an inferior and degraded class. The story of the Rámáyana and Mahábhárata turns wholly upon the doctrine of incarnations; all the chief dramatis persona of the poems being impersonations of gods, and demigods, and celestial spirits. The ritual appears to be that of the Vedas; and it be doubted if any allusion to image-worship occurs. But the doctrine of propitiation by penance and praise prevails throughout; and Vishnu and Siva are the especial objects of panegyric and invocation. In these two works, then, we trace unequivocal indications of a departure from the elemental worship of the Vedas, and the origin or elaboration of legends which form the great body of the mythological religion of the Hindus. How far they only improved upon the cosmogony and chronology of their predecessors, or in what degree the traditions of families and dynasties may originate with them, are questions that can only be determined when the Vedas and the two works in question shall have been more thoroughly examined.

1 B. III., 152, 164. B. IV., 214.

may

The different works known by the name of Puránas are evidently derived from the same religious system as the Rámáyańa and Mahábhárata, or from the mythoheroic stage of Hindu belief. They present, however, peculiarities which designate their belonging to a later period, and to an important modification in the progress of opinion. They repeat the theoretical cosmogony of the two great poems; they expand and systematize the chronological computations; and they give a more definite and connected representation of the mythological fictions and the historical traditions. But, besides these and other particulars, which may be derivable from an old, if not from a primitive, era, they offer characteristic peculiarities of a more modern description, in the paramount importance which they assign to individual divinities, in the variety and purport of the rites and observances addressed to them, and in the invention of new legends illustrative of the power and graciousness of those deities, and of the efficacy of implicit devotion to them. Śiva and Vishnu, under one or other form, are almost the sole objects that claim the homage of the Hindus, in the Puráńas; departing from the domestic and elemental ritual of the Vedas, and exhibiting a sectarial fervour and exclusiveness not traceable in the Rámáyana, and only to a qualified extent in the Mahábhárata. They are no longer authorities for Hindu belief, as a whole: they are special guides for separate and, sometimes, conflicting branches of it; compiled for the evident purpose of promoting the preferential, or, in some cases, the sole, worship of Vishnu, or of Śiva.1

1 Besides the three periods marked by the Vedas, Heroic

That the Puráňas always bore the character here given of them may admit of reasonable doubt: that it correctly applies to them as they now are met with, the following pages will irrefragably substantiate. It is possible, however, that there may have been an earlier class of Puráňas, of which those we now have are but the partial and adulterated representatives. The identity of the legends in many of them, and, still more, the identity of the words-for, in several of them, long passages are literally the same—is a sufficient proof that, in all such cases, they must be copied either from some other similar work, or from a common and prior original. It is not unusual, also, for a fact to be stated upon the authority of an 'old stanza', which is cited accordingly; showing the existence of an earlier source of information: and, in very many instances, legends are alluded to, not told; evincing acquaintance with their prior narration somewhere else. The name itself, Purána, which implies 'old', indicates the object of the compilation to be the preservation of ancient traditions; a purpose, in the present condition of the Puráñas, very imperfectly fulfilled. Whatever weight may be attached to these considerations, there is no disputing evidence to the like effect, afforded by other and unquestionable authority. The description given, by Mr. Colebrooke,' of the contents of a Purána is

Poems, and Puránas, a fourth may be dated from the influence exercised by the Tantras upon Hindu practice and belief: but we are yet too little acquainted with those works, or their origin, to speculate safely upon their consequences.

1 As. Res., Vol. VII., p. 202.*

* Or Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. II., pp. 4 and 5, foot-note.

taken from Sanskrit writers. The Lexicon of Amara Simha gives, as a synonym of Purána, Pancha-lakshana, 'that which has five characteristic topics'; and there is no difference of opinion, amongst the scholiasts, as to what these are. They are, as Mr. Colebrooke mentions: I. Primary creation, or cosmogony; II. Secondary creation, or the destruction and renovation of worlds, including chronology; III. Genealogy of gods and patriarchs; IV. Reigns of the Manus, or periods called Manwantaras; and, V. History, or such particulars as have been preserved of the princes of the solar and lunar races, and of their descendants to modern times.1 Such, at any rate, were the constituent and characteristic portions of a Purána, in the days of Amara Simha,* fifty-six years before the Christian era; and, if the

1

The following definition of a Purána is constantly quoted: it is found in the Vishnu, Matsya, Váyu, and other Puránas: सर्गश्च प्रतिसर्गश्च वंशो मन्वन्तराणि च । वंशानुचरितं चैव पुराणं पञ्चलक्षणम् ॥

A variation of reading in the beginning of the second line is noticed by Rámáśrama, the scholiast on Amara, nfzdeni, 'Destruction of the earth and the rest, or final dissolution;' in which case the genealogies of heroes and princes are comprised in those of the patriarchs.

†That Amarasimha lived at that time, though possible, has not been proved. Professor Wilson-Sanskrit Dictionary, first edition, Preface, p. v. asserts that "all tradition concurs in enumerating him amongst the learned men who, in the metaphorical phraseology of the Hindus, are denominated the 'nine gems' of the court of Vikramaditya. Authorities which assert the contemporary existence of Amara and Vikramaditya might be indefinitely multiplied; and those are equally numerous which class him amongst the 'nine gems"." In the second

*