In speaking of the extension of Buddhism we showed that its growth was influenced in no small degree by the fact that this caste-less and, therefore, democratic religion was adopted by post-Alexandrine rulers in the Graeco-Bactrian period. At this time the Aryans were surrounded with foreigners and pagans. To North and South spread savage or half Hinduized native tribes, while soldiers of Greece and Bactria encamped in the valley of the Ganges. Barbarians had long been active in the North, and some scholars have even claimed that Buddha's own family was of Turanian origin. The Brahmans then as now retained their prestige only as being repositories of ancient wisdom; and outside of their own 'holy land' their influence was reduced to a minimum by the social and political tendencies that accompanied the growth of Buddhism. After the fourth century B.C. the heart of India, the 'middle district,' between the Himālaya and Vindhya mountains from Delhi to Benares,[2] was trampled upon by one Graeco-Bactrian horde after another. The principal effect of this rude dominion was eventually to give political equality to the two great rival religions. The Buddhist and the Brahman lived at last if not harmoniously, at least pacifically, side by side. Members of the same reigning family would profess Buddhism or Brahmanism indifferently. One king would sometimes patronize both religions. And this continued to be the case till Buddhism faded out, replaced by that Hinduism which owed its origin partly to native un-Aryan influence (paganism), partly to this century-long fusion of the two state religions.

To review these events: In the first decades of the fourth century (320 or 315-291 B.C.) Candragupta, Sandrocottos, had built up a monarchy in Behār[3] on the ruins left by the Greek invasion, sharing his power with Seleucus in the Northwest, and had thus prepared the way for his grandson, Acoka, the great patron of Buddhism (264 or 259). This native power fell before the hosts of Northern barbarians, which, after irruptions into India in the second century, got a permanent foothold there in the first century B.C. These Northern barbarians (their nationality is uncertain), whose greatest king was Kanishka, 78 A.D., ruled for centuries the land they had seized; but they were vanquished at last in the sixth century, probably by Vikramāditya,[4] and were driven out. The breathing-space between Northern barbarian and Mohammedan was nominally not a long one, but since the first Moslem conquests had no definitive result the new invaders did not quite overthrow Hindu rule till the end of the tenth century. During this period the native un-Aryan tribes, with their Hinduizing effect, were more destructive as regards the maintenance of the old Brahmanic cult than were outsiders.[5]

When Tamerlane invaded India his was the fourth invasion after the conquest of the Punjāb by the Moslem in 664.[6] In 1525 the fifth conqueror, Baber, fifth too in descent from Tamerlane, founded the Mogul empire that lasted till the fall of this dynasty (nominally till 1857). But it must be remembered that each new conqueror from 997 till 1525 merely conquered old Mohammedan dynasties with new invasions. It was all one to the Hindu. He had the Mohammedan with him all this time only each new rival's success made his lot the harder, But Baber's grandson, the Great Mogul, Akbar (who reigned from 1556 to 1605), gave the land not only peace but kindness; and under him Jew, Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan at last forgot to fear or fight. After this there is only the overthrow of the Mohammedan power to record; and the rise of the Mahratta native kingdoms. A new faith resulted from the amalgamation of Hinduism with Mohammedism (after 1500), as will be shown hereafter. [8] In the pauses before the first Mohammedan invasion, and between the first defeat of the Mohammedans and their successful second conquest, the barbarians being now expelled and Buddhism being decadent, Brahmanism rallied. In the sixth century there was toleration for all faiths. In the seventh century Kumārila renewed the strength of Brahmanism on the ritualistic side with attacks on Buddhism, and in the ninth century Cankara placed the philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary on the Vedānta Sūtra.[7] These two men are the re-makers of ancient Brahmanism, which from this time on continued in its stereotyped form, adopting Hindu gods very coyly, and only as spirits of small importance, while relying on the laws as well as the gods of old, on holy ācāra or 'custom,' and the now systematized exposition of its old (Upanishad) philosophy.[8] Its creative force was already spent. Buddhism, on the other hand, was dying a natural death. The time was ripe for Hinduism, which had been gathering strength for centuries. After the sixth century, and perhaps even as late as 1500, or later, were written the modern Purānas, which embody the new belief.[9] They cannot, on account of the distinct advance in their cult, have appeared before the end of the epic age. The breathing spell (between barbarian and complete Mohammedan conquest) which gave opportunity to Kumārila to take a high hand with Buddhism, was an opportunity also for the codification of the new creeds. It is, therefore, to this era that one has probably to refer the first of the modern sectarian Purānas, though the ritualistic Tantras and Āgamas of the lower Civaite sects doubtless belong rather to the end than to the beginning of the period. We are strengthened in this belief by the fact that the oldest of these works do not pretend to antedate Kumārila's century, though the sects mentioned in the epic are known in the first centuries of the Christian era. The time from the first to the seventh centuries one may accordingly suppose to have been the era during which was developing the Brahmanized form of the early Hindu sects, the literature of these and subsequent sects being composed in the centuries succeeding the latter term. These sects again divide into many subdivisions, of which we shall speak below. At present we take up the character of the Purānas and their most important points of difference as compared with the sectarian parts of the earlier pseudo-epic, examining especially the trinitarian doctrine, which they inculcate, and its history.

Save in details, even the special 'faith-scriptures' called Tantras go no further than go the Purānas in advocating the cult of their particular divinities. And to this advocacy of special gods all else in this class of writings is subordinated. The ideal Purāna is divided into five parts, cosmogony, new creations, genealogies of gods and heroes, manvantaras (descriptions of periodic 'ages,' past and future), and dynasties of kings. But no extant Purāna is divided thus. In the epic the doctrine of trinitarianism is barely formulated. Even in the Harivanca, or Genealogy, vaṅca, of Vishnu, there is no more than an inverted triunity, 'one form, three gods,' where, in reality, all that is insisted upon is the identity of Vishnu and Civa, Brahmā being, as it were, perfunctorily added.[10] In the Purānas, on the other hand, while the trinity is acknowledged, religion is resolved again into a sort of sectarian monotheism, where the devotee seems to be in the midst of a squabbling horde of temple-priests, each fighting for his own idol. In the calmer aspects of religion, apart from sectarian schism, these writings offer, indeed, much that is of second-rate interest, but little that is of real value. The idle speculations in regard to former divinities are here made cobweb thin. The philosophy is not new, nor is the spirit of religion raised, even in the most inspired passages, to the level which it has reached in the Divine Song. Some of these Purānas, of which eighteen chief are cited, but with an unknown number of subordinate works,[11] may claim a respectable age; many of them are the most wretched stuff imaginable, bearing about the same literary and historical relation to earlier models as do the later legal Smritis. In fact, save for their religious (sectarian) purport, the Purānas for sections together do not differ much in content from legal Smritis, out of which some may have been evolved, though, probably, they were from their inception legendary rather than didactic. It is more probable, therefore, that they appropriated Smriti material just as they did epic material; and though it is now received opinion that legal Smritis are evolved out of Sūtras, this yet can be the case only with the oldest, even if the statement then can be accepted in an unqualified form. In our own opinion it is highly probable that Purānas and later legal Smritis are divergent developments from the same source.[12] One gives an account of creation, and proceeds to tell about the social side; the other sticks to the accounts of creation, goes on to theology, takes up tales of heroes, introduces speculation, is finally wrenched over to and amplified by sectarian writers, and so presents a composite that resembles epic and law, and yet is generally religious and speculative.

A striking instance of this may be seen in the law-book of 'Vishnu.' Here there is an old base of legal lore, Sūtra, interlarded with Puranic material, and built up with sectarianism. The writer is a Vishnuite, and while recognizing the trinity, does not hesitate to make his law command offerings to Krishna Vāsudeva, and his family (Pradyumna, Aniruddha), along with the regular Brahmanic oblations to older spirits.[13] Brahmanism recognized Hindu deities as subordinate powers at an early date, at least as early as the end of the Sūtra period; while Manu not only recognizes Vishnu and Civa (Hara), but recommends an oblation to Crī and Kālī (Bhadrakāli, here, as elsewhere, is Durgā).[14]

In their original form the Purānas were probably Hesiodic in a great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the works that are come down as Purānas are in general of later sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and descriptions of battles are more likely taken straight from the epic than preserved from ante-epic times. Properly speaking one ought to give first place to the Purānas that are incorporated into the epic. The epic Mārkandeya Purāna, for instance, is probably a good type of one of the earlier works that went by this name. That the present Purānas are imitations of the epic, in so far as they treat of epic topics, may be presumed from the fact that although they often have the formulae intact of the battlefield,[15] yet do they not remain by epic descriptions but add weapons, etc., of more modern date than are employed in the original.[16]

The sectarian monotheism of the Purānas never resulted in dispensing with the pantheon. The Hindu monotheist is a pantheist, and whether sectarian or philosophical, he kept and added to his pantheon.[17] Indra is still for warriors, Maruts for husbandmen, although old views shift somewhat. So for example, in the Kūrma Purāna the Gandharvas are added for the Cūdras.[18] The fourfoldness, which we have shown in the epic to be characteristic of Vishnu, is now represented by the military epithet caturvyūhas (agmen quadratum), in that the god represents peace, wisdom, support, and renunciation; though, as a matter of fact, he is avyūha, i.e., without any of these.[19] Starting with the physical 'god of the four quarters,' one gets even in the epic the 'controller of four,' or perfect person, conceived like [Greek: aner tetragonos]. Tennyson's 'four-square to all the winds that blow' is a good connecting link in the thought. The Purānas are a mine of legend, although most of the stories seem to be but epic tales, more or less distorted. Nala 'the great-great-grandson of Rāma' is described after the history of Rāma himself; the installation of Pūru, when his father had passed over his eldest son, and such reminiscences of the epic are the stock in trade of the legendary writers.[20]

The origin of the four castes;[21] the descriptions of hell, somewhat embellished,[22] where the 'sinful are cooked in fire';[23] the exaltation of Vishnu as Krishna or Kāma in one, and that of Civa in another—these and similar aspects are reflections of epic matter, spirit, tone, and language, only the faith is still fiercer in religious matters, and the stories are fainter in historical references. According to the Purāna last cited: "There is no expiation for one that bows to a phallic emblem," i.e., Civaite, and "all the Bāuddhas are heretics";[24] and according to the Kūrma Purāna: "Vishnu is the divinity of the gods; Civa, of the devils," although the preceding verses teach, in the spirit of the Divine Song, that each man's divinity is that which he conceives to be the divinity. Such is the concluding remark made by Vasistha in adjudicating the strife between the Vishnuite and Civaite sectaries of the epic heroes.[25] The relation that the Puranic literature bears to religion in the minds of its authors is illustrated by the remark of the Nāradīya to the effect that the god is to be honored "by song, by music, by dance, and by recounting the Purānas" (xvii. 9).

Some of the epic religious ceremonies which there are barely alluded to are here described with almost the detail of a technical handbook. So the Nāndīya (xix.) gives an elaborate account of the raising of a dhvaja or standard as a religious ceremony.[26] The legal rules affecting morality and especially caste-intercourse[27] show a laxity in regard to the rules as formerly preached. Even the old Puranic form of the epic is reproduced, as when Mārkandeya converses again with Yudhistris, exactly as he does in the epic.[28] The duration of the ages; the fruit of sacrifices, among which are still mentioned the rājasūya, acvamedha, and other ancient rites;[29] the virtue of holy-places;[30] the admixture of pure pantheism with the idea of a personal creation[31]—these traits are again just those which have been seen already in the epic, nor is the addition of sections on temple-service, or other more minute details of the cult, of particular importance in a history of religious ideas.

The Purānas for our present purpose may all be grouped with the remark that what is ancient in them is a more or less fugitive resemblance to the epic style and matter;[32] what is new is the more pronounced sectarianism with its adventitious growth of subordinate spiritualities and exaggerated miracles. Thus for instance in the Varāha Purāna there are eleven, in the Bhāgavat Purāna twenty (instead of the older ten) avatars of Vishnu. So too the god of love—although Kāma and his dart are recognized in the late Atharvan—as a petty spirit receives homage only in the latest Sūtra (as Cupid, Āpastamba, ii, 2. 4. 1), and in late additions to the epic he is a little god; whereas in the drama he is prominent, and in the Purānas his cult is described at length (though to-day he has no temple). The 'mother'-fiend Pūtanā, who suckles babes to slay them, is scarcely known to the early epic, but she is a very real personality in the late epic and Purānas.

The addition to the trinity of the peculiar inferior godhead that is advocated in any one Purāna, virtually making four divinities, is characteristic of the period.

In proportion as sectarian ardor is heightened religious tone is lowered. The Puranic votary clinging to his one idea of god curses all them that believe in other aspects of the divinity. Blind bigotry fills the worshipper's soul. Religion becomes mere fanaticism. But there is also tolerance. Sometimes in one and the same Purāna rival forms are honored. The modern Hindu sects are in part the direct development of Puranic doctrine. But most of the sects of to-day are of very recent date, though their principles are often of respectable antiquity, as are too their sectarian signs, as well as the animals of their gods, some of which appear to be totems of the wild tribes, while others are merely objects of reverence among certain tribes. Thus the ram and the elephant are respectively the ancient beasts of Agni and Indra. Civa has the bull; his spouse, the tiger. Earth and Skanda have appropriated the peacock, Skanda having the cock also. Yama has the buffalo (compare the Khond, wild-tribe, substitution of a buffalo for a man in sacrifice). Love has the parrot, etc; while the boar and all Vishnu's animals in avatars are holy, being his chosen beasts.[33]

EARLY SECTS.

A classification of older sects (the unorthodox) than those of the present remains to us from the works of Cankara's reputed disciple, Ānanda Giri, and of Mādhava Ācārya, the former a writer of the ninth, the latter of the fourteenth century. According to the statements made by these writers there were a great number of sects, regarded as partly heterodox or wholly so, and it is interesting in examining the list of these to see that some of the epic sects (their names at least) are still in full force, while on the other hand the most important factions of to-day are not known at all; and that many sects then existed which must have been at that time of great antiquity, although now they have wholly passed away.[34] These last are indeed to the author of the critique of the sects not wholly heterodox. They are only too emphatic, in worshipping their peculiar divinity, to suit the more modern conceptions of the Hindu reviewer. But such sects are of the highest importance, for they show that despite all the bizarre bigotry of the Purānas the old Vedic gods (as in the epic) still continue to hold their own, and had their own idols and temples apart from other newer gods. The Vedic divinities, the later additions in the shape of the god of love, the god of wealth, Kubera,[35] the heavenly bird, Garuda, the world-snake, Cesha, together with countless genii, spirits, ghosts, the Manes, the heavenly bodies, stars, etc., all these were revered, though of less importance than the gods of Vishnuite and Civaite sects. Among these latter the Civaite sects are decidedly of less interest than the corresponding Vishnuite heresies, while the votaries of Brahmā (exclusively) are indeed mentioned, but they cannot be compared with those of the other two great gods.[36] To-day there is scarcely any homage paid to Brahmā, and it is not probable that there ever was the same devotion or like popularity in his case as in the case of his rivals. Other interesting sects of this period are the Sun-worshippers, who still exist but in no such numbers as when Ānandā Giri counted six formal divisions of them. The votaries of these sub-sects worshipped some, the rising sun, some, the setting sun, while some again worshipped the noonday sun, and others, all three as a tri-mūrti. Another division worshipped the sun in anthropomorphic shape, while the last awakens the wrath of the orthodox narrator by branding themselves with hot irons.[37]

Ganeca,[38] the lord of Civa's hosts, had also six classes of worshippers; but he has not now as he then had a special and peculiar cult, though he has many temples in Benares and elsewhere. Of the declared Civaite sects of that day, six are mentioned, but of these only one survives, the 'wandering' Jangamas of South India, the Civaite Rāudras, Ugras, Bhāktas, and Pācupatis having yielded to more modern sectaries.

Some at least among the six sects of the Vishnuite sects, which are described by the old writers, appear to have been more ancient. Here too one finds Bhāktas, and with them the Bhāgavatas, the old Pāncarātras, the 'hermit' Vāikhānasas, and Karmahīnas, the latter "having no rites." Concerning these sects one gets scanty but direct information. They all worshipped Vishnu under one form or another, the Bhāktas as Vāsudeva, the Bhāgavatas[39] as Bhagavat. The latter resembled the modern disciples of Rāmānuja and revered the holy-stone, appealing for authority to the Upanishads and to the Bhagavad Gitā, the Divine Song. Some too worshipped Vishnu exclusively as Nārāyana, and believed in a heaven of sensual delights. The other sects, now extinct, offer no special forms of worship. What is historically most important is that in this list of sects are found none that particularly worship the popular divinities of to-day, no peculiar cult of Krishna as an infant and no monkey-service.

Infidel sects are numerous in this period, of which sects the worst in the old writers' opinion is the sensual Cārvāka. Then follow the (Buddhist) Cūnyavāds, who believe in 'void,' and Sāugatas, who believe that religion consists only in kindness, the Kshapanakas, and the Jains. The infamous 'left-hand' sectaries are also well known.

To one side of the Puranic religions, from the earlier time of which comes this account of heresies, reference has been made above: the development of the fables in regard to the infant Krishna. That the cult is well known in the later Purānas and is not mentioned in this list of wrong beliefs seems to show that the whole cult is of modern growth, even if one does not follow Weber in all his signs of modification of the older practice.

RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS.

For the history of the cult there is in these works much to interest one in the description and determination of popular festivals in honor of the great sectarian gods. Further details of more specific nature are given in other works which need not here be regarded. By far the most important of these festivals are those that seem to have been absorbed by the sectarian cults, although they were originally more popular. Weber in the paper on the rājasūya, to which we have had occasion several times to refer, has shown that a popular element abided long in the formal celebrations of the Brahmanic ritual.[40] is soundly beaten; that gaming creeps into the ceremony as a popular aspect; that there was a special ceremony to care katsenjammer caused by over-drinking; and that the whole ceremony was a popular spring festival, such as is found to-day (but without the royal part in the play).

Undoubtedly the original celebration was a popular one. Today the most interesting of these popular fetes is in all respects the New Year's Festival and the Spring Festival. The latter has been cut up into several parts, and to show the whole intent of the original ceremonial it is necessary to take up the disjecta membra and place them side by side, as has been done by Wilson, whose sketch of these two festivals, together with that by Gover of the New Year's Feast called Pongol, we give in abstract, premising that, however close be the comparison with European festivals of like nature, we doubt whether there is any historical connection between them and the Hindu celebrations.

We begin with the more popular New Year's, the Pongol:[41] The interesting feature of this South India festival is that the Hindus have done their best to alter its divinities and failed. They have, indeed, for Indra and Agni got Krishna formally accepted as the god in whose honor it is supposed to be held, but the feast remains a native festival, and no one really thinks of the Puranic gods in connection with it. Europe also has seen such dynamic alterations of divinities in cases where feasts would insist till patrons of an orthodox kind were foisted upon them to give an air of propriety to that which remained heathenish.[42] The Pongol is a New Year's festival lasting for three days. The first day is for Indra; the second, for (Agni) Sūrya;[43] the third (to which is added, as a wind-up, a fourth day), for cattle. The whole feast is a harvest-home and celebration of cattle. The chief ceremony is the cooking of rice, which is put to boil with great solemnity, and luck for the next year is argued from its boiling well. If it does so a universal shout arises,[44] all rush about, congratulate, and give presents to each other, and merry-making follows. On the cattle-days the beasts are led about with painted horns and decorated with ribbons, and are then chased and robbed by the boys. The image of Ganeca is the only one seen, and his worship is rather perfunctory. On the evening of the last day the women have a party, paying obeisance to a peacock, and indulging in a family reunion of very simple character. On this occasion the girl-wife may return for a few hours to her mother. It is the only general fete for women during the year.

Not unlike this festival of the extreme south is the New Year's celebration at the mouth of the Ganges. Here there is a grand fair and jewels are cast into the river as propitiation to the river-goddess. Not long ago it was quite customary to fling children also into the river, but this usage has now been abolished.[45] Offerings are made to the Manes, general and particular, and to the All-gods. As with the Pongol, the feast is one of good-fellowship where presents are distributed, and its limit is the end of the third day. After this the festivities have no religious character. Thousands of pilgrims assemble for this fete. Wilson, who gives an account of this celebration, compares the ancient Roman New Year's, with the mutui amoris pignora which were sent at that season. The gifts in India are sweetmeats and other delicacies, ominous of good for the next year.[46]

On the 2d of February occurs a feast to Crī, or Lakshmī, Vishnu's bride, patroness of all prosperity to her worshippers. At present it is a literary festival on which all books, inkstands, pens, etc., are cleaned and worshipped, as adjuncts to Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning. This is rather significant, for Sarasvatī is properly the wife of Brahmā, but the Vishnuites of Bengal have made her the wife of Vishnu, and identified her with Crī. It is to be noticed that in this sole celebration of abstract learning and literature there is no recognition of Civa, but rather of his rival. Civa and Ganeca are revered because they might impede, not because, as does Sarasvatī, they further literary accomplishment. Sarasvatī is almost the only fair goddess. She is represented not as a horror, but as a beautiful woman sitting on a lotus, graceful in shape, a crescent on her brow.[47] The boys, too, celebrate the day with games, bat and ball, prisoner's base, and others "of a very European character." The admixture of sectarian cults is shown by the transference to this Vishnuite feast of the Civaite (Durgā) practice of casting into the river the images of the goddess.[48] When applied distinctly to Sarasvatī the feast is observed in August-September; when to Lakshmī, in October-November, or in February. There is, however, another feast, celebrated in the North and South, which comes on the exact date fixed by the Romans for the beginning of spring, and as an ending to this there is a feast to Kāma, Cupid, and his bride Rati ('Enjoyment'). This is the Vasanta, or spring festival of prosperity and love, which probably was the first form of the Lakshmī-Sarasvatī feast.

Another traditional feast of this month is the 10th[49] (the eleventh lunar day of the light half of Māgha). The eleventh lunar day is particularly holy with the Vishnuites, as is said in the Brahma Purāna, and this is a Vishnuite festival. It is a day of fasting and prayer, with presents to priests.[50] It appears to be a mixture of Vedic prayers and domestic Vishnu-worship. On the 11th of February the fast is continued, and in both the object is expiation of sin. The latter is called the feast of 'six sesamum acts,' for sesamum is a holy plant, and in each act of this rite it plays a part. Other rites of this month are to the Manes on the 14th, 22d, and 24th of February. Bathing and oblation are requisite, and all are of a lustral and expiatory nature. Wilson remarks on the fact that it is the same time of year in which the Romans gave oblations to the Manes, and that Februus is the god of purification. "There can be no reasonable doubt that the Feralia of the Romans and the Crāddha (feast to the Manes) of the Hindus, the worship of the Pitris and of the Manes, have a common character, and had a common origin."[51]

The 27th of February is the greatest Civaite day in the year. It celebrates Civa's first manifestation of himself in phallic form. To keep this day holy expiates from all sin, and secures bliss hereafter. The worshipper must fast and revere the Linga. Offerings are made to the Linga. It is, of course, a celebration formed of unmeaning repetitions of syllables and the invocation of female Caktis, snapping the fingers, gesticulating, and performing all the humbug called for by Civaite worship. The Linga is bathed in milk, decorated, wrapped in bilva leaves, and prayed to; which ceremony is repeated at intervals with slight changes. All castes, even the lowest, join in the exercises. Even women may use the mantras.[52] Vigil and fasting are the essentials of this worship.[53]

The next festival closes these great spring celebrations. It bears two names, and originally was a double feast, the first part being the Dolā Yātrā, or 'Swing-procession,' the second part being the execrable Holi. They are still kept distinct in some places, and when this occurs the Dolotsava, or Dolā Yātrā, follows the Holi. They are both spring festivals, and answer roughly to May-day, though in India they come at the full moon of March. We have followed Wilson's enumeration of all the minor spring feasts, that they may be seen in their entirety. But in ancient times there was probably one long Vasantotsava (spring-festival), which lasted for weeks, beginning with a joyous celebration (2d of February) and continuing with lustral ceremonies, as indicated by the now detached feast days already referred to. The original cult, in Wilson's opinion, has been changed, and the Dolā Yātrā is now given over to the Krishna-cult, while the Holī divinity is a hobgoblin. The Dolā Yatrā begins with fasting and ends (as Holī) with fire-worship. An image of Krishna is sprinkled with red powder (abīr), and after this (religious) ceremony a bonfire[54] is made, and an effigy, Holikā, is put upon it and burned. The figure is carried to the fire in a religious procession headed by Vishnuite or Brahman priests, of course accompanied with music and song. After seven circumambulations of the fire the figure is burned. This is the united observance of the first day. At dawn on the morning of the second day the image of Krishna is placed in a swing, dolā, and swung back and forth a few times, which ceremony is repeated at noon and at sunset. During the day, wherever a swing is put up, and in the vicinity, it is the common privilege to sprinkle one's friend with the red powder or red rose-water. Boys and common people run about the streets sprinkling red water or red powder over all passengers, and using abusive (obscene) language. The cow-herd caste is conspicuous at this ceremony. The cow-boys, collecting in parties under a koryphaios, hold, as it were, a komos, leaping, singing, and dancing[55] through the streets, striking together the wands which they carry. These cow-boys not only dress (as do others) in new clothes on this occasion,[56] but they give their cattle new equipments, and regard the whole frolic as part of a religious rite in honor of Krishna, the cow-herd. But all sects take part in the performance (that is to say, in the Holī portion), both Civaites and Vishnuites. When the moon is full the celebration is at its height. Holī songs are sung, the crowd throws abīr the chiefs feast, and an all-night orgy ends the long carousal.[57] In the south the Dolā takes place later, and is distinct from the Holī. The burning here is of Kāma, commemorating the love-god's death by the fire of Civa's eye, when the former pierced the latter's heart, and inflamed him with love. For this reason the bonfire is made before a temple of Civa. Kāma is gone from the northern cult, and in upper India only a hobgoblin, Holī, a foul she-devil, is associated with the rite. The whole performance is described and prescribed in one of the late Purānas.[58] In some parts of the country the bonfire of the Holī is made about a tree, to which offerings are made, and afterwards the whole is set on fire. For a luminous account of the Holī, which is perhaps the worst open rite of Hinduism, participated in by all sects and classes, we may cite the words of the author of Ante-Brahmanical Religions: "It has been termed the Saturnalia or Carnival of the Hindus. Verses the most obscene imaginable are ordered to be read on the occasion. Figures of men and women, in the most indecent and disgusting attitudes, are in many places openly paraded through the streets; the most filthy words are uttered by persons who, on other occasions, would think themselves disgraced by the use of them; bands of men parade the street with their clothes all bespattered with a reddish dye; dirt and filth are thrown upon all that are seen passing along the road; all business is at a stand, all gives way to license and riot."[59]

Besides these the most brilliant festivals are the Rās Yātrā in Bengal (September-October), commemorating the dance of Krishna with the gopīs or milk-maids, and the 'Lamp-festival' (Dīpālā), also an autumnal celebration.

The festivals that we have reviewed cover but a part of the year, but they will suffice to show the nature of such fetes as are enjoined in the Purānas. There are others, such as the eightfold[60] temple-worship of Krishna as a child, in July or August; the marriage of Krishna's idol to the Tulasi plant; the Awakening of Vishnu, in October, and so forth. But no others compare in importance with the New Year's and Spring festivals, except the Bengal idol-display of Jagannāth, the Rath Yātrā of 'Juggernaut'; and some others of local celebrity, such as the Dūrgā-pūjā.[61] The temples, to which reference has often been made, have this in common with the great Civaite festivals, that to describe them in detail would be but to translate into words images and wall-paintings, the obscenity of which is better left undescribed. This, of course, is particularly true of the Civa temples, where the actual Linga is perhaps, as Barth has said, the least objectionable of the sights presented to the eye of the devout worshipper. But the Vishnu temples are as bad. Architecturally admirable, and even wonderful, the interior is but a display of sensual immorality.[62]

HISTORY OF THE HINDU TRINITY.

In closing the Puranic period (which name we employ loosely to cover such sects as are not clearly modern) we pause for a moment to cast a glance backwards over the long development of the trinity, to the units of which are devoted the individual Purānas. We have shown that the childhood-tales of Krishna are of late (Puranic) origin, and that most of the cow-boy exploits are post-epic. Some are referred to in the story of Cicupāla in the second book of the Mahābhārata, but this scene has been touched up by a late hand. The Vishnu Purāna, typical of the best of the Purānas, as in many respects it is the most important and interesting, represents Krishnaite Vishnuism as its height. Here is described the birth of the man-god as a black, kṛṣṇa, baby, son of Nanda, and his real title is here Govinda, the cow-boy.[63] 'Cow-boy' corresponds to the more poetical, religious shepherd; and the milk-maids, gopis with whom Govinda dallies as he grows up, may, perhaps, better be rendered shepherdesses for the same reason. The idyllic effect is what is aimed at in these descriptions. Here Krishna plays his rude and rustic tricks, upsetting wagons, overthrowing trees and washermen, occasionally killing them he dislikes, and acting altogether much like a cow-boy of another sort. Here he puts a stop to Indra-worship, over-powers Civa, rescues Aniruddha, marries sixteen thousand princesses, burns Benares, and finally is killed himself, he the one born of a hair of Vishnu, he that is Vishnu himself, who in 'goodness' creates, in 'darkness' destroys,[64] under the forms of Brahmā and Civa.[65]

In Vishnu, as a development of the Vedic Vishnu; in Civa, as affiliated to Rudra; in Brahmā, as the Brahmanic third to these sectarian developments, the trinity has a real if remote connection with the triune fire of the Rig Veda, a two-thirds connection, filled out with the addition of the later Brahmanic head of the gods.

To ignore the fact that Vishnu and Rudra-Civa developed inside the Brahmanic circle and increased in glory before the rise of sectaries, and to asseverate, as have some, that the two chief characters of the later trinity are an unmeaning revival of decadent gods, whose names are used craftily to veil the modernness of Krishnaism and Civaism,—this is to miscalculate the waxing dignity of these gods in earlier Brahmanic literature. To say with Burnouf that the Vishnu of the Veda is not at all the Vishnu of the mythologists, is a statement far too sweeping. The Vishnu of the Veda is not only the same god with the Vishnu of the next era, but in that next era he has become greatly magnified. The Puranic All-god Vishnu stands in as close a relation to his Vedic prototype as does Milton's Satan to the snaky slanderer of an age more primitive.

Civa-worship appears to have been adapted from a local cult in the mountainous West, and at an early date to have been amalgamated with that of his next resemblance, the Vedic Rudra; while Krishna-worship flourished along the Ganges. These are those Dionysos and Herakles of whom speak the old Greek authorities. One cult is possibly as venerable as the other, but while Civaism became Brahmanized early, Krishnaism was adopted much later, and it is for this reason, amongst others, that despite its modern iniquities Civa has appealed more to the Brahman than has Krishna.

Megasthenes tells us a good deal about these Hindu representatives of Herakles and Dionysos. According to him there were Dionysiac festivals in honor of the latter god (Civa),[66] who belongs where flourishes the wine, in the Acvaka district, north of the Kabul river. From this place Civa's worship extended into the East, Māgadha (Behār), around Gokarna in the West, and even to the Kalinga country in the extreme Southeast. But it was especially native to the mountainous Northwest, about the 'Gate of Ganges' (north of Delhi, near Saharampur), and still further north in Kashmeer. In the epic, Civa has his throne on Kāilāsa,[67] the Northern mountain, in the Himālayas, and Ganges descend from the sky upon his head.

On the other hand, Herakles, of the Ganges land, where grows no wine, is plainly Krishna, who carries club, discus, and conch. The Greek cities Methora and Kleisobora are Mathurā and Krishna-pur, 'Krishna-town'; the latter on the Jumna, the former near it on the same river, capital of the clan which venerated Krishna as its chief hero and god, the Yādavas. Megasthenes says, also, that Herakles' daughter is Pandaie, and this agrees with the Pāndya, a southern development of the epic Gangetic Pāndavas, who especially worship Krishna in conjunction with the Yādavas. Their South-Indic town, Mathurā, still attests their origin.

In speaking of the relative antiquity of Vishnuism and Civaism one must distinguish the pantheistic form of these gods from the single forms. While Civaism,per se, that is, the worship of Civa as a great and terrible god, preceded the same exaltation of Krishna, as is shown by their respective literary appearance, and even by Megasthenes' remark that the worship of Dionysos preceded that of Herakles by fifteen generations, yet did Krishnaism, as a popular pantheism, come before Civaism as such. Although in the late Cvetācvatara Upanishad Civa is pantheistic, yet is he not so in the epic till some of the latest passages make him the All, in imitation of Krishna as All-god. Probably Civaism remained by the first philosophy, Sankhyan dualism, and was forced into Krishna's Vedantic pantheism, as this became popular. At first neither was more than a single great god without any philosophy.[68]

In one of the early exegetical works, which is occupied somewhat with philosophical matter, there is evidence that a triad existed between the Vedic triad of fires and the Puranic triad. Fire, Wind (or Indra), and the Sun (Sūrya), are stated in a famous passage to be the only real gods, all the others being but names of these. But, although in form this triad (Nirukta, vii. 4, 5) is like the Vedic triad,[69] it is essentially a triad in a pantheistic system like that of the epic and Purānas, for it is added that "all the gods are parts of one soul." In explanation it is said: "Fire is the earth-god, Wind, or Indra, is the god of the atmosphere, and the sun is the god of the sky." Now in the Rig Veda Indra is closely united not only with Agni but with Vishnu, albeit in this period Vishnu is his subordinate. The nearest approach of this Vishnu to his classical descendant is in one of the latest hymns of the Rig Veda, where it is said that the seven seeds of creation are Vishnu's, as in later times he comprises seven males. In the philosophy of the Tāittirīya Samhitā the three places of Vishnu are not, as in the Rig Veda, the two points of the horizon (where the sun sets) and the zenith, but 'earth, air, and sky.'[70] That is to say, in the Brahmanic period Vishnu is already a greater god than he had been. Nay, more, he is explicitly declared to be "the best of the gods."[71] That best means greatest may be shown from the same work, where in savage fable it is recited that all the gods, including Indra, ran up to him to get his strength.[72] But especially in the Upanishads is Vishnu the one great god left from the Rig Veda. And it is with the philosophical (not with the ritualistic) Vishnu that Krishna is equated.

Of Civa, on the other hand, the prototype is Rudra ('red'), his constant sobriquet. In the Rig Veda he is the god of red lightning, who is the father of the Maruts, the storm-gods. His attributes of a fulgurant god are never lost. Even as Civa the All-god he is still the god of the blue neck, whose three-forked trident and home among the mountains remind us of his physical origin. He is always the fairest of the gods, and both early and late he is terrible, to be averted by prayer, even where his magic 'medicines' are asked for. To him are addressed the most suppliant cries: "O Rudra, spare us, strike not the men, slay not the kine." In the Atharva Veda at every step one finds characteristics which on the one hand are but exaggerations of the type formulated in the Rig Veda, and on the other precursors of the signs of the later god. In Civaism, in contradistinction to Vishnuism, there is not a trace of the euhemerism which has been suspected in the Krishna-Vishnu cult. The Rudra of the Rig Veda already begins to be identified with the triune fire, for he bears the standing epithet of fire, "he of three mothers."[73] And this name he keeps, whether as Rudra, who is "brilliant as the sun" (RV. i. 43. 5), whose weapon is "the shining one that is emitted from the sky and passes along the earth" (ib. vii. 46. 3); or again, as the "red boar of the sky," the "holder of the bolt" (ib. ii. 33. 3), and, above all gods, "the terrible" (x. 126. 5).

Coming to the Brahmanic period one finds him a dweller in the mountain tops, of a red color, with a blue neck, the especial lord of the mountains, and so of robbers; while he is also the 'incantation-god,' the 'god of low people.' Some of these are Rudra's attributes; but here his name is already Civa, so that one may trace the changes down the centuries till he finds again in the epic that Civa is the lord of mountains, the patron of thieves (Hara, robber?), and endowed with the trident, the blue neck,[74] and the three mothers of old. In the middle period he has so many titles that one probably has to accept in the subsequent Civa not only the lineal descendant of the Vedic Rudra, but also a combination of other local cults, where clan gods, originally diverse, were worshipped as one in consequence of their mutual likeness. One of the god's especial names is here Bhava, while in the earlier period Bhava and Rudra are distinct, but they are invoked as a pair (AV).[75] What gives Civa his later tremendous popularity, however, is the feature to which we have alluded in the chapter on the epic. In the epic, all the strength of Civa lies in the Linga.[76] Both Bhava and Rudra, as Carva, the archer—his local eastern name—are represented as hurling the lightning, and it is simply from identity of attributes that they have become identified in person (AV. x. i. 23). Rudra's title of Pacupati, or 'lord of cattle'[77] goes back to the Vedic age: "Be kind to the kine of him who believes in the gods" is a prayer of the Atharva Veda (xi. 2. 28). Agni and Rudra, in the Rig-Veda, are both called 'cattle-guarding,' but not for the same reason. Agni represents a fire-stockade, while Rudra in kindness does not strike with his lightning-bolt. The two ideas, with the identification of Rudra and Agni, may have merged together. Then too, Rudra has healing medicines (his magical side), and Agni is kindest to men. All Agni's names are handed over in the Brāhmanas to Rudra-Civa, just as Rudra previously had taken the epithets of Pūshan (above), true to his robber-name. To ignore the height to which at this period is raised the form of Rudra-Civa is surely unhistorical; so much so that we deem it doubtful whether Civa-invocations elsewhere, as in the Sūtra referred to above, should be looked upon as interpolations. In the Māitrāyanī Collection, the Rudrajapas, the invocations to Rudra as the greatest god, the highest spirit, the lord of beings (Bhava), are expressly to Civa Girica, the mountain-lord (2. 9; Schroeder, p. 346). In the Āitareya Brāhmana it evidently is Rudra-Civa, the god of ghastly forms (made by the gods, it is said, as a composite of all the 'most horrible parts' of all the gods), who is deputed to slay the Father-god (when the latter, as a beast, commits incest with his daughter), and chooses as his reward for the act the office of 'lord of cattle.'[78] This is shown clearly by the fact that the fearsome Rudra is changed to the innocuous Rudriya in the next paragraph. As an example of how in the Brāhmanas Rudra-Civa has taken to himself already the powers of Agni, the great god of the purely sacrificial period, may be cited Cat. Br. vi. 1. 3. 10 and 2. 1. 12. Here Agni is Kumāra, Rudra, Carva (Sarva)[79], Pacupati (lord of beasts), Bhāirava (terrible), Acani (lightning), Bhava (lord of beings), Mahādeva (great god), the Lord—his 'thrice three names.' But where the Brāhmana assumes that these are names of Agni it is plain that one has Rudra-Civa in process of absorbing Agni's honors.

The third element in the Purānic trinity,[80] identified with the Father-god, genealogically deserves his lower position. His rivals are of older lineage. The reason for his inferior position is, practically, that he has little to do with man. Being already created, man takes more interest in the gods that preserve and destroy.[81] Even Brahmā's old exploits are, as we have shown, stolen from him and given over to Vishnu. The famous (totemistic) tortoise legend was originally Brahmā's, and so with others of the ten 'forms' of Vishnu, for instance the boar-shape, in which Vishnu manifests himself, and the fish-shape of Brahmā (epic) in the flood-story. The formal trimūrti or trāipurusha ('three persons') is a late figure. It would seem that a Harihara (Vishnu and Civa as one) preceded the trinity, though the dual name is not found till quite late.[82] But, as we showed above, the epic practically identifies Vishnu and Civa as equals, before it unites with these Brahmā as an equal third.

There arises now the further question whether sectarian Vishnuism be the foisting of Krishnaism upon a dummy Vishnu. We think that, stated in this way, such scarcely can have been the case. Neither of the great sects is professedly of priestly origin, but each, like other sects, claims Vedic authority, and finds Brahmanical support. We have said that Vishnu is raised to his position without ictic suddenness. He is always a god of mystic character, in short, a god for philosophy to work upon. He is recognized as the highest god in one of the oldest Upanishads. And it is with the philosopher's Vishnu that Krishna is identified. Krishna, the real Vāsudeva (for a false Vāsudeva is known also in the epic), is the god of a local cult. How did he originate? The king of serpents is called Krishna, 'the black,' and Vishnu reposes upon Cesha Ananta, the world-snake; but a more historical character than this can be claimed for Krishna. This god-man must be the same with the character mentioned in the Chāndogya Upanishad, 3. 17. 6. One may notice the similarities between this Krishna and him of the epic cult. Krishna, son of Devakī, was taught by his teacher, Ghora Āngirasa, that sacrifice may be performed without objective means; that generosity, kindness, and other moral traits are the real signs of sacrifice; and it is then said: "The priest Ghora Āngirasa having said this to Krishna, the son of Devakī—and the latter was thereby freed from (thirst) desire—said: "When a man is about to die let him resort to this triad: 'the imperishable art thou,' 'the unmoved art thou,' 'breath's firmness art thou'; in regard to which are these two verses in the Rig-Veda:[83] 'till they see the light of the old seed which is kindled in the sky,' and 'perceiving above the darkness the higher light, the sun, god among gods, we come to the highest light.'" Krishna thus learned the abolition of sacrifice, and the worship of the sun, the highest light (Vishnu), as true being—for this is the meaning of the philosophical passage taken with its context. Kings and priests discuss philosophy together in this period,[84] and it would conform to later tradition to see in the pupil the son of a king. It is, moreover, significant that the priest, Ghora Āngirasa, is named specially as priest of the sun-god elsewhere (Kāush. Br. 30. 6), as well as that Krishna Āngirasa is also the name of a teacher. It is said in this same Upanishad (3. 1. 1) that the sun is the honey, delight, of the gods; and this chapter is a meditation on the sun,[85] of which the dark (kṛṣṇa) form is that which comes from the Itihāsas and Purānas, the fore-runners of the epic (3. 4. 3). This is taught as a brahma-upanishad, a teaching of the absolute, and it is interesting to see that it is handed down through Brahmā, Prajāpati, and Manu, exactly as Krishna says in the Divine Song that his own doctrine has been promulgated; while (it is said further) for him that knows the doctrine 'there is day,' his sun never sets (3. 11. 3-4). It is a doctrine to be communicated only to the eldest son or a good student, and to no one else (ib. 5), i.e., it was new, esoteric, and of vital importance. Here, too, one finds Sanatkumāra, the 'ever young,' as Skanda,[86] yet as an earthly student also (7. 1; 26. 2), just like Krishna.

It cannot be imagined, however, that the cult of the Gangetic Krishna originated with that vague personage whose pupilage is described in the Upanishad. But this account may still be connected with the epic Krishna. The epic describes the overthrow of an old Brahmanic Aryan race at the hands of the Pāndavas, an unknown folk, whose king's polyandrous marriage (his wife is the spouse of his four brothers as well as of himself) is an historical trait, connecting the tribe closely with the polyandrous wild tribes located north of the Ganges. This tribe attacked the stronghold of Brahmanism in the holy land about the present Delhi; and their patron god is the Gangetic Krishna. In the course of the narrative a very few tales are told of Krishna's early life, but the simple original view of Krishna is that he is a god, the son of Devakī. The few other tales are late and adventitious additions, but this is a consistent trait. Modern writers are fain to see in the antithesis presented by the god Krishna and by the human hero Krishna, late and early phases. They forget that the lower side of Krishna is one especially Puranic. In short, they read history backwards, for theirs is not the Indic way of dealing with gods. In Krishna's case the tricky, vulgar, human side is a later aspect, which comes to light most prominently in the Genealogy of Vishnu and in the Vishnu Purāna, modern works which in this regard contrast strongly with the older epic, where Krishna, however he tricks, is always first the god. It is not till he becomes a very great, if not the greatest, god that tales about his youthful performances, when he condescended to be born in low life, begin to rise. An exact parallel may be seen in the case of Civa, who at first is a divine character, assuming a more or less grotesque likeness to a man; but subsequently he becomes anthropomorphized, and is fitted out with a sheaf of legends which describe his earthly acts.[87] And so with Krishna. As the chief god, identified with the All-god, he is later made the object of encomiums which degrade while they are meant to exalt him. He becomes a cow-boy and acts like one, a god in a mask. But in the epic he is the invading tribe's chief god, in process of becoming identified with that god in the Brahmanic pantheon who most resembles him. For this tribe, the (Yadavas) Pāndavas, succeeded in overthrowing the Brahmanic stronghold and became absorbed into the Brahmanic circle. Their god, who, like most of the supreme gods of this region among the wild tribes, was the tribal hero as sun-god, became recognized by the priests as one with Vishnu. In the Upanishad the priest-philosopher identifies Krishna with the sun as the 'dark side' (kṛṣṇa, 'dark') of Vishnu, the native name probably being near enough to the Sanskrit word to be represented by it. The statement that this clan-god Krishna once learned the great truth that the sun is the All-god, at the mouth of a Brahman, is what might be expected. 'Krishna, the son of Devaki,' is not only the god, but he is also the progenitor of the clan, the mystic forefather, who as usual is deified as the sun. To the priest he is merely an avatar of Vishnu. The identity of Krishna with the Gangetic god described by Megasthenes can scarcely be disputed. The latter as represented by the Greek is too great a god to have passed away without a sign except for a foreigner's account. And there is no figure like his except that of Krishna.

The numerous avatars[88] of Vishnu are first given as ten, then as twenty, then as twenty-two,[89] and at last become innumerable. The ten, which are those usually referred to, are as follows: First come the oldest, the beast-avatars, viz., as a fish; as a tortoise;[90] as a boar (rescuing earth from a flood); and as a man-lion (slaying a demon). Next comes the dwarf-avatar, where Vishnu cheats Bali of earth by asking, as a dwarf, for three steps of it, and then stepping out over all of it (the 'three strides' of the Rig Veda). Then come the human avatars, that of Paracu-Rāma (Rāma with the axe), Krishna, Rāma[91] (hero of the Rāmāyana epic), Buddha, and Kalki (who is still to come).

The parallels between the latest Krishna cult and the Biblical narrative are found only in the Purānas and other late works, and undoubtedly, as we have said in the last chapter, are borrowed from Christian sources. Krishna is here born in a stable, his father, like Joseph, going with his virgin spouse to pay taxes. His restoring of a believing woman's son is narrated only in the modern Jāimini Bhārata, These tales might have been received through the first distant Christian mission in the South in the sixth century, but it is more likely that they were brought directly to the North in the seventh century; for at that time a Northern king of the Vāicya caste, Cilāditya (in whose reign the Chinese pilgrim, Hiouen Thsang, visited India), made Syrian Christians welcome to his court (639 A.D.).[92] The date of the annual Krishna festival, which is a reflex of Christmastide, is variously fixed by the Purānas as coming in July or August.[93]

As Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu[94] in the Bhārata, and as the axe-Rāma is another avatar in legend (here Vishnu in the form of Paracu-Rāma raises up the priestly caste, and destroys the warrior-caste), so in the Rāmāyana the hero Rāma (not Paracu-Rāma) is made an avatar of Vishnu. He is a mythical prince of Oude (hence a close connection between the Rāmāyana and Buddhism), who is identified with Vishnu. Vishnu wished to rid earth of the giant Rāvana,[95] and to do so took the form of Rāma. As Krishnaism has given rise to a number of sects that worship Krishna as Vishnu, so Ramaism is the modern cult of Rāma as Vishnu. Both of these sects oppose the Vishnuite that is not inclined to be sectarian; all three oppose the Civaite; and all four of these oppose the orthodox Brahman, who assigns supreme godship to Civa or Vishnu as little as does the devotee of these gods in unsectarian form to Krishna or Rāma.

Civa is on all sides opposed to Vishnu. The Greek account of the third century B.C. says that he taught the Hindus to dance the kordax, but at this time there appears to have been no such phallic worship in his honor as is recorded in the pseudo-epic. Civa is known in early Brahmanic and in Buddhistic writings, and even as the bearer-of-the-moon, Candracekhara, he contrasts with Vishnu, as his lightning-form and mountain-habitat differ from the sun-form and valley-home of his rival. This dire god is conceived of as ascetic partly because he is gruesome, partly because he is magical in power. Hence he is the true type of the awful magical Yogi, and as such appealed to the Brahman. Originally he is only a fearful magical god, great, and even all-pervading, but, as seen in the Brahmanic Catarudriya hymn, he is at first in no sense a pantheistic deity. In this hymn there is a significant addition made to the earlier version. In the first form of the hymn it is said that Rudra, who is here Civa, is the god of bucolic people; but the new version adds 'and of all people.' Here Civa appears as a wild, diabolical figure, 'the god of incantations,' whose dart is death; and half of the hymn is taken up with entreaties to the god to spare the speaker. He is praised, in conjunction with trees, of which he is the lord, as the one 'clad in skins,' the 'lord of cattle,' the 'lord of paths,' the 'cheater,' the 'deceiver.' When he is next clearly seen, in the epic, he is the god to whom are offered human sacrifices, and his special claim to worship is the phallus; while the intermediate literature shows glimpses of him only in his simple Brahmanic form of terror. It has long been known that Civaite phallic worship was not borrowed from the Southerners, as was once imagined, and we venture with some scholars to believe that it was due rather to late Greek influence than to that of any native wild tribe.[96]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Parts of the epic are called Purānas, as other parts are called Upanishads. These are the forerunners of the extant Purānas. The name, indeed, is even older than the epic, belonging to the late Vedic period, where are grouped together Purānas and Itihāsas, 'Ancient History' and 'Stories'; to which are added 'Eulogies.' Weber has long since pointed out that even when the 'deeds of kings' were sung at a ceremony they were wont to be so embroidered as to be dubbed 'fiction' by the Hindus themselves. India has neither literary history (save what can be gleaned from genealogies of doubtful worth), nor very early inscriptions. The 'archaeology' of the Purānas was probably always what it is in the extant specimens, legendary material of no direct historical value.]

[Footnote 2: Strictly speaking to the present Allahābād, where is the Prayāga, or confluence of Yamunā and Gangā (Jumna and Ganges).]

[Footnote 3: Māgadha; called Behār from its many monasteries, vihāras, in Acoka's time.]

[Footnote 4: So, plausibly, Mueller, loc. cit. below.]

[Footnote 5: The tribes became Hinduized, their chiefs became Rājputs; their religions doubtless affected the ritual and creed of the civilized as much as the religion of the latter colored their own. Some of these un-Aryan peoples were probably part native, part barbaric. There is much doubt in regard to the dates that depend on accepted eras. It is not certain, for instance, that, as Mueller claims, Kanishka's inauguration coincides with the Caka era, 78 A.D. A great Buddhist council was held under him. Some distinguished scholars still think with Buehler that Vikramāditya's inauguration was 57 B.C. (this date that used to be assigned to him). From our present point of view it is of little consequence when this king himself lived. He is renowned as patron of arts and as a conqueror of the barbarians. If he lived in the first century B.C. his conquest amounted to nothing permanent. What is important, however, is that all Vikramāditya stands for in legend must have been in the sixth century A.D. For the drama, of which he is said to have been patron, represents a religion distinctly later than that of the body of the epic (completed in the sixth or seventh century, Buehler, Indian Studies, No. ii.). The dramatic and astronomical era was but introductory to Kumārila's reassertion of Brahmanism in the seventh century, when the Northern barbarian was gone, and the Mohammedan was not yet rampant. In the rest of Northern India there were several native dynasties in different quarters, with different eras; one in Surāshtra (Gujarāt), one again in the 'middle district' or 'North Western Provinces,' one in Kutch; overthrown by Northern barbarians (in the fifth century) and by the Mohammedans (in the seventh and eighth centuries), respectively. Of these the Guptas of the 'middle district,' and the Valabhīs of Kutch, had neither of the eras just mentioned. The former dated from 320-321 (perhaps 319), the latter from 190 (A.D.). The word samvat, 'year,' indicates that the time is dated from either the Caka or Vikramāditya era. See IA. xvii. 362; Fergusson, JRAS. xii. 259; Mueller, India, What Can It Teach Us? p. 282; Kielhorn, IA. xix. 24; xxii. 111. The Northern barbarians are called Scythians, or Huns, or Turanians, according to fancy. No one really knows what they were.]

[Footnote 6: The first host was expelled by the Hindus in 750. After a period of rest Mahmud was crowned in 997, who overran India more than a dozen times. In the following centuries the land was conquered and the people crushed by the second great Mohammedan, Ghori, who died in 1206, leaving his kingdom to a vassal, Kutab, the 'slave sultan' of Delhi. In 1294, thus slave dynasty having been recently supplanted, the new successor to the throne was slain by his own nephew, Allah-ud-din, who is reckoned as the third Mohammedan conqueror of India. His successor swept even the Dekhan of all its Hindu (temple) wealth; but his empire finally broke down under its own size; preparing the way for Timur (Tamerlane), who entered India in 1398.]

[Footnote 7: Cankara himself was not a pure Brahman. Both Vishnuites and Civaites lay claim to him.]

[Footnote 8: Coy as was the Brahman in the adoption of the new gods he was wise enough to give them some place in his pantheon, or he would have offended his laity. Thus he recognizes Kālī as well as Crī; in fact he prefers to recognize the female divinities of the sects, for they offer less rivalry.]

[Footnote 9: There was a general revival of letters antedating the Brahmanic theological revival. The drama, which reflects equally Hinduism and Brahmanism, is now the favorite light literature of the cultured. In the sixth century the first astronomical works are written (Varāhamihira, who wrote the Bṛhat Saṁhitā), and the group of writers called the Nine Gems (reckoned of Vikramāditya's court) are to be referred to this time. The best known among them is Kālidāsa, author of the Cakuntalā. An account of this Renaissance, as he calls it, will be found in Mueller's India, What Can It Teach Us? The learned author is perhaps a little too sweeping in his conclusions. It is, for instance, tolerably certain that the Bhārata was completed by the time the 'Renaissance' began; so that there is no such complete blank as he assumes prior to Vikramāditya. But the general state of affairs is such as is depicted in the ingenious article referred to. The sixth and seventh centuries were eras that introduced modern literature under liberal native princes, who were sometimes not Rājputs at all. Roughly speaking, one may reckon from 500 B.C. to the Christian era as a period of Buddhistic control, Graeco-Bactrian invasion, and Brahmanic decline. The first five centuries after the Christian see the two religions in a state of equilibrium, under Scythian control, and the Mahā-Bhārata, the expanded Bhārata, is written. From 500 to 1000 is an era of native rulers, Brahmanic revival in its pure form, and Hindu growth, with little trouble from the Mohammedans. Then for five centuries the horrors of Moslem conquest.]

[Footnote 10: Har. 10,662. Compare the laudation of 'the two gods' in the same section.]

[Footnote 11: As the Jains have Angas and Upāngas, and as the pseudo-epic distinguishes Nishads and Upanishads, so the Brahman has Purānas and Upapurānas (Kūrma Purāna, i. p. 3). Some of the sects acknowledge only six Purānas as orthodox.]

[Footnote 12: As an example of a Puranic Smriti (legal) we may cite the trash published as the Vṛddha-Hārita-Saṁhitā. Here there is polemic against Civa; one must worship Jagannāth with flowers, and every one must be branded with the Vishnu disc (cakra). Even women and slaves are to use mantras, etc.]

[Footnote 13: The lateness of this law-book is evident from its advocacy of suttee (XXV. 14), its preference for female ancestors (see below), etc.]

[Footnote 14: Manu, III. 89; XII. 121.]

[Footnote 15: As, for example, in Kūrma Purāna, XVI. p. 186, where is found a common epic verse description of battle.]

[Footnote 16: A good instance of this is found in Brihan Nāradīya Purāna, X., where the churikā and drughaṇa (24) appear in an imitative scene of this sort; one of these being later, the other earlier, than the epic vocabulary.]

[Footnote 17: Perhaps the most striking distinction between Vedic and Puranic, or one may say, Indic Aryan and Hindu religions, is the emphasis laid in the former upon Right; in the latter, upon idols. The Vedic religion insists upon the law of right (order), that is, the sacrifice; but it insists also upon right as rectitude, truth, holiness. Puranic Hinduism insists upon its idols; only incidentally does it recommend rectitude, truth, abstract holiness.]

[Footnote 18: KP. i. p. 29.]

[Footnote 19: Kūrma, xii. p. 102. Contrast ib. xxii. p. 245, caturvyūhadhara Vishnur avyūhas procyate (elsewhere navavyūha). Philosophically, in the doctrine of the epic Pāncarātras (still held by some sectaries), Vishnu is to be revered as Krishna, Balarāma, Pradymana, Aniruddha (Krishna's brother, son, and grandson), representing, respectively, ātmā, jīva, supreme and individual spirit, perception, and consciousness. Compare Mbhā. xii. 340. 8, 72.]

[Footnote 20: KP. xxi. p. 236; xxii. p. 238, etc.]

[Footnote 21: ib. I, p. 23.]

[Footnote 22: Compare Brihan Nāradiya Purāna, xiv. 10, bahūni kāṣṭhayāntrāṇi (torture machines) in hell. The old tale of Nāciketas is retold at great length in the Varāha Purana. The oldest Purāna, the Mārkandeya, has but seven hells, a conception older than Manu's twenty-one (compare on MP. x. 80 ff., Scherman, loc. cit. p. 33), or the later lists of thousands. The Padma Purāna, with celebrates Rāma, has also seven hells, and is in part old, for it especially extols Pushkara (Brahmā's lone shrine); but it recommends the taptamudra, or branding with hot iron.]

[Footnote 23: Nar. xiv. 2.]

[Footnote 24: xiv. 54 and 70.]

[Footnote 25: KP. xxii. pp, 239-241.]

[Footnote 26: As will be shown below, it is possible that this may be a ceremony first taken from the wild tribes. See the 'pole' rite described above in the epic.]

[Footnote 27: Compare for instance ib. xxviii. 68, on the strange connection of a Cūdrā wife of a Guru.]

[Footnote 28: KP. xxxvi. It is of course impossible to say how much epic materials come from the literary epic and how much is drawn from popular poetry, for the vulgar had their own epoidic songs which may have treated of the same topics. Thus even a wild tribe (Gonds) is credited with an 'epic.' But such stuff was probably as worthless as are the popular songs of today.]

[Footnote 29: KP. xxx. p. 305; xxxvii. p. 352.]

[Footnote 30: ib. p. 355.]

[Footnote 31: Compare Nāradīya, xi. 23,27,31 'the one whom no one knows,' 'he that rests in the heart,' 'he that seems to be far off because we do not know,' 'he whose form is Civa, lauded by Vishnu,' xiii. 201.]

[Footnote 32: Even Vishnu as a part of a part of the Supreme Spirit in VP. is indicated by Vishnu's adoration of ātmā in the epic (see above).]

[Footnote 33: Compare Williams' Brahmanism and Hinduism.]

[Footnote 34: Cankara's adherents are chiefly Civaite, but he himself was not a sectary. Williams says that at the present day few worship Civa exclusively, but he has more partial adherents than has Vishnu. Religious Thought and Life, pp. 59, 62.]

[Footnote 35: The two last are just recognized in Brahmanic legal works.]

[Footnote 36: See Wilson's sketch of Hindu sects. The author says that there were in his day two shrines to Brahmā, one in Ājmīr (compare Pushkara in the epic), and one on the Ganges at Bithur. The Brahma Purāna is known also as Sāura (sun). This is the first in the list; in its present state it is Vishnuite.]

[Footnote 37: Sun-worship (Iranian?) is especially pronounced in the Bhavīshya(t) Purāna. Of the other Purānas the Līnga is especially Civaite (linga is phallus), as are the Matsya and older Vāyu. Sometimes Civa is androgynous, ardhanārīcvara, 'half-female.' But most of the Purānas are Vishnuite.]

[Footnote 38: On the Ganeca Purāna see JRAS. 1846, p. 319.]

[Footnote 39: The worshippers of Bhagavat were originally distinct from the Pāncarātras, but what was the difference between them is unknown. The sect of this name in the pseudo-epic is not Cākta in expression but only monotheistic. Probably the names of many sects are retained with altered beliefs and practices. The Vishnu Purāna, i. 11. 54, gives a model prayer which may be taken once for all as the attitude of the Vishnuite: "Glory to Vāsudeva, him of perfected wisdom, whose unrevealed form is (known as) Brahmā, Vishnu, and Civa" (Hiraṇyagarbha, Purusha, Pradhāna).]

[Footnote 40: Weber shows for instance, loc. cit., that Indra takes the place of older Varuna; that the house-priest yields to the Brahmā; that in this feast in honor of the king he]

[Footnote 41: Gover, JRAS. v. 91; IA. xx. 430.]

[Footnote 42: In Hinduism itself there is a striking example of this. The Jagannāth ('Juggernaut') temple was once dedicated to Buddha as loka-nāth or jagan-nāth, 'saviour of the world' Name, temple, and idol-car are now all Vishnu's!]

[Footnote 43: That is, Rain and Sun, for all Indra's warlike qualities are forgotten, absorbed into those of Civa and his son, the battle-god. The sun crosses the equator at noon of the second day, the 'Mahā Pongol.']

[Footnote 44: "Now every neck is bent, for the surface of the waters disturbed. Then with a heave, a hiss, and a surge of bubbles, the seething milk mounts to the top of the vessel. Before it has had time to run down the blackened sides, the air resounds with the sudden joyous cry of 'Pongol, oh Pongol, Sūrya, Sūrya, oh Pongol,' The word Pongol means "boiling," from the Tamil word pongu, to boil; so that the joyous shout is, 'It boils, oh Sūrya, it boils.' In a moment a convulsion of greetings animates the assembly. Every one seizes his neighbor and asks, 'Has it boiled?' Both faces gleam with delight as the answer comes—'It has boiled.' Then both shout at the top of their voices—'Oh Pongol, Pongol, oh Sūrya, oh Indra, Pongol, Pongol.'" Gorer, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 45: The Crocodile, makara, like the parrot, is sacred to Kāmadeva, Love. But as Ganges also is holy it is difficult to say for which divinity the offering was intended. Some, indeed, interpret makara as dolphin.]

[Footnote 46: A feast now neglected, though kept up by strict Brahmans, occurs on or about the 20th January. The orthodox adherents of the Civaite sects and Cāktas also observe it. It is a Crāddha, or funeral feast to the Manes. Also on the 26th and 30th January there are rites nearly obsolete, the first being signalized by offerings to Yama; the second, a Civaite feast (to his spouse, as 'giver of bridegrooms'). The list is more celebrated in the South than in the North. It is interesting chiefly as a parallel to St. Valentine's day, or, as Wilson says, the nearer feast of St. Agnes (21st January) on the eve of which divination is practiced to discover future husbands. It is this time also that the Greeks call 'marriage-month' (Gamelion); and the fourth day from the new moon (which gives the name to this Hindu festival, caturthī, "fourth day") is the day when Hesiod recommends the bringing home of the bride.]

[Footnote 47: In case any writing has to be done on this day it is done with chalk, not with the pens, "which have a complete holiday" (Wilson).]

[Footnote 48: The invocations show very well how the worship of Brahmā has been driven out in honor of his more powerful rivals. For Sarasvatī is invoked first as "Thou without whom Brahmā never lives"; but again as "Thou of eight forms, Lakshmī, Medhā, Dhavā, Pushtī, Gāurī, Tushtī, Prabhā, Dhriti, O Sarasvatī." The great festivals, like the great temples, are not very stricly sectarian. Williams says that in Civa's temple in Benares are kept monkeys (sacred to Vishnu).]

[Footnote 49: Between this and the last occur minor holidays, one to avert small-pox; one (February the 4th) sacred to the sun (Sunday, the seventh day of each lunar fortnight, is strictly observed); and one to the Manes.]

[Footnote 50: Fasting is not necessarily a part of civilized religion alone. It is found in the Brahmanic and Hindu cults, but it obtains also among the American Indians. Thus the Dacotahs fast for two or three days at the worship of sun and moon. Schoolcraft, Histor. and Statist., iii. 227.]

[Footnote 51: The last clause (meaning 'common historical origin') were better omitted.]

[Footnote 52: Except the mystic syllable Ōm, supposed to represent the trinity (Ōm is a, u, m), though probably it was originally only an exclamation.]

[Footnote 53: A small Vishnu festival in honor of Vishnu as 'man-lion' (one of his ten avatars) is celebrated on the 13th of March; but in Bengal in honor of the same god as a cow-boy. On the 15th of March there is another minor festival in Bengal, but it is to Civa, or rather to one of his hosts, under the form of a water pot (that is to preserve from disease).]

[Footnote 54: The bonfire is made of fences, door posts, furniture, etc. Nothing once seized and devoted to the fire may be reclaimed, but the owner may defend his property if he can. Part of the horse-play at this time consists in leaping over the fire, which is also ritualistic with same of the hill-tribes.]

[Footnote 55: Compare the Nautch dances on Rāmacandra's birthday. Religious dances, generally indecent, are also a prominent feature of the religions of the wild tribes (as among American and African savages, Greeks, etc., etc.).]

[Footnote 56: The 'Easter bonnet' in Indic form.]

[Footnote 57: In sober contrast stands the yearly orthodox Craddha celebration (August-September), though Brahmans join in sectarian fetes.]

[Footnote 58: Wilson draws an elaborate parallel between the Holī and the Lupercalia, etc. (Carnival). But the points of contact are obvious. One of the customs of the Holī celebration is an exact reproduction of April-Fool's day. Making "Holī fools" is to send people on useless errands, etc. (Festum Stultorum, at the Vernal Equinos, transferred by the Church to the first of November, "Innocents' Day").]

[Footnote 59: Stevenson, JRAS. 1841, p. 239; Williams, loc. cit.; Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, ch. III.]

[Footnote 60: The daily service consists in dressing, bathing, feeding, etc It is divided into eight ridiculous ceremonies, which prolong the worship through the day.]

[Footnote 61: The brilliant displays attracted the notice of the Greeks, who speak of the tame tigers and panthers, the artificial trees carried in wagons, the singing, instrumental music, and noise, which signalized a fete procession. See Williams, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 62: Such, for instance, is the most holy temple of South India, the great temple of Crīrangam at Trichinopoly. The idol car, gilded and gaudy, is carved with obscenity; the walls and ceilings are frescoed with bestiality. It represents Vishnu's heaven.]

[Footnote 63: From this name or title comes the Gita Govinda, a mystic erotic poem (in praise of the cow-boy god) exaltedly religious as it is sensual (twelfth century).]

[Footnote 64: VP.l. 2. 63. The 'qualities' or 'conditions' of God's being are referred to by 'goodness' and 'darkness.']

[Footnote 65: All this erotic vulgarity is typical of the common poetry of the people, and is in marked contrast to the chivalrous, but not love-sick, Bhārata.]

[Footnote 66: Compare Duncker, LII^5. p. 327, More doubtful is the identification of Nysian and Nishādan, ib. note. Compare, also, Schroeder, loc. cit. p. 361. Arrian calls (Civa) Dionysos the [Greek: oitou dotera Iudeis] (Schwanbeck, Fig. 1.).]

[Footnote 67: This remains always as Civa's heaven in distinction from Goloka or Vāikuntha, Vishnu's heaven. Nowadays Benares is the chief seat of Civaism.]

[Footnote 68: The doctrine of the immaculate conception, common to Vishnuism and Buddhism (above, p.431), can have no exact parallel in Civaism, for Civa is not born as a child; but it seems to be reflected in the laughable ascription of virginity to Umā (Civa's wife), when she is revered as the emblem of motherhood.]

[Footnote 69: In RV. v. 41. 4, the Vedic triad is Fire, Wind, and (Trīta of the sky) Indra; elsewhere Fire, Wind, and Sun (above, p. 42), distinct from the triune fire.]

[Footnote 70: In the Rig Veda the three steps are never thus described, but in the later age this view is common. It is, in fact, only on the 'three steps' that the identity with the sun is established. In RV. 1. 156. 4, Vishnu is already above Varuna.]

[Footnote 71: Cat. Br. xiv. 1. 1. 5.]

[Footnote 72: For other versions see Mulr, Original Sanskrit Texts, iv. p. 127 ff.]

[Footnote 73: Later interpreted as wives or eyes.]

[Footnote 74: For an epic guess at the significance of the title nīlakaṇṭha, 'blue-throated,' see Mbhā i. 18. 43.]

[Footnote 75: AV. iv. 28; viii. 2; xi. 2. Thus even in the Rig Veda pairs of gods are frequently besung as one, as if they were divinities not only homogeneous but even monothelous.]

[Footnote 76: Brahmā's mark in the lotus; Vishnu's, the discus (sun); Civa's, the Linga, phallic emblem.]

[Footnote 77: The grim interpretation of later times makes the cattle (to be sacrificed) men. The theological interpretation is that Civa is the lord of the spirit, which is bound like a beast.]

[Footnote 78: The commenter, horrified by the murder of the Father-god, makes Rudra kill 'the sin'; but the original shows that it is the Father-god who was shot by this god, who chose as his reward the lordship over kine; and such exaltation is not improbable (moreover, it is historical!). The hunting of the Father-god by Rudra is pictured in the stars (Orion), Ait. Br. iii. 33.]

[Footnote 79: See Weber. Ind. St. ii. 37; Muir, iv. 403. Carva (Caurva) is Avestan, but at the same time it is his 'eastern' name, while Bhava is his western name. Cat. Br. i. 7. 3. 8.]

[Footnote 80: The epic (loc. cit. above), the Purānas, and the very late Atharva Ciras Upanishad and Māitr. Up. (much interpolated). Compare Muir, loc. cit. pp. 362-3.]

[Footnote 81: According to the epic, men honor gods that kill, Indra, Rudra, and so forth; not gods that are passive, such as Brahmā, the Creator, and Pūshan (xii. 15. 18), ya eva devā hantāras tāl loko 'rcayate bh[=r.]ca[=.m], na Brahmāṇam.]

[Footnote 82: Barth seems to imply that Harihara (the name) is later than the trimūrti (p. 185), but he has to reject the passage in the Hari-vaṅca to prove this. On Ayenār, a southern god said to be Hari-Hara (Vishnu-Civa), see Williams, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 83: RV. viii. 6. 30; 1. 50. 10. Weber refers Krishna further back to a priestly Vedic poet of that name, to whom are attributed hymns of the eighth and tenth books of the Rig Veda (Janmāṣṭamī, p. 316). He interprets Krishna's mother's name, Devakī, as 'player' (ib) But the change of name in a Vedic hymn has no special significance. The name Devakī is found applied to other persons, and its etymology is rather deva, divine, as Weber now admits (Berl. Ak. 1890, p. 931).]

[Footnote 84: In the epic, also, kings become hermits, and perform great penance just as do the ascetic priests. Compare the heroes themselves, and i. 42. 23 raja mahātapās; also ii. 19, where a king renounces his throne, and with his two wives becomes a hermit in the woods. In i. 41. 31 a king is said to be equal to ten priests!]

[Footnote 85: In fact, the daily repetition of the Sāvitrī is a tacit admission of the sun god as the highest type of the divine; and Vishnu is the most spiritualized form of the sun-god, representing even in the Rig-Veda the goal of the departing spirit.]

[Footnote 86: Skanda (Subrahmanya) and Ganeca are Civa's two sons, corresponding to Krishna and Rāma. Skanda's own son is Vicākha, a graha (above, p. 415).]

[Footnote 87: Civa at the present day, for instance, is represented now and then as a man, and he is incarnate as Vīrabhadra. But all this is modern, and contrasts with the older conception. It is only in recent times, in the South, that he is provided with an earthly history. Compare Williams, Thought and Life, p. 47.]

[Footnote 88: Ava-tāra, 'descent,' from ava, 'down,' and tar, 'pass' (as in Latin in-trare).]

[Footnote 89: In the Bhāgavata Purāna.]

[Footnote 90: The tortoise avatar had a famous temple two centuries ago, where a stone tortoise received prayer. How much totemism lies in these avatars it is guess-work to say.]

[Footnote 91: Balarāma (or Baladeva), Krishna's elder brother, is to be distinguished from Rāma. The former is a late addition to the Krishna-cult, and belongs with Nanda, his reputed father. Like Krishna, the name is also that of a snake, Naga, and it is not impossible that Naga worship may be the foundation of the Krishna-cult, but it would be hard to reconcile this with tradition. In the sixth century Varāhamihira recognizes both the brothers.]

[Footnote 92: Edkins, cited by Mueller, India, p. 286.]

[Footnote 93: Weber, Janmāṣṭamī, pp. 259, 318. Weber describes in full the cult of the "Madonna with the Child," according to the Purānas.]

[Footnote 94: On the subsequent deification of the Pandus themselves see 1A. VII. 127.]

[Footnote 95: Hence the similarity with Herakles, with whom Megasthenes identifies him. The man-lion and hero-forms are taken to rid earth of monsters.]

[Footnote 96: Greek influence is clearly reflected in India's architecture. Hellenic bas-reliefs representing Bacchic scenes and the love-god are occasionally found. Compare the description of Civa's temple in Orissa, Weber, Literature, p. 368; Berl. Ak., 1890, p, 912. Civa is here associated with the Greek cult of Eros and Aphrodite.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVII.

MODERN HINDU SECTS.[1]

Although the faith of India seems to have completed a circle, landing at last in a polytheism as gross as was that of the Vedic age, yet is this a delusive aspect, as will appear if one survey the course of the higher intellectual life of the people, ignoring, as is right, the invariable factor introduced by the base imaginings of the vulgar. The greater spirituality has always expressed itself in independent movement, and voiced itself in terms of revolution. But in reality each change has been one of evolution. To trace back to the Vedic period the origin of Hindu sectarianism would, indeed, be a nice task for a fine scholar, but it would not be temerarious to attempt it. We have failed of our purpose if we have not already impressed upon the reader's mind the truth that the progress of Brahmanic theology (in distinction from demonology) has been one journey, made with rests and halts, it is true, and even with digressions from the straight path; but without abatement of intent, and without permanent change of direction. Nor can one judge otherwise even when he stands before so humiliating an exhibition of groundling bigotry as is presented by some of the religious sects of the present day. The world of lower organisms survives the ascent of the higher. There is always undergrowth; but before the fall of a great tree its seeds sprout, withal in the very soil of the weedy thicket below. So out of the rank garden of Hindu superstitions arise, one after another, lofty trees of an old seed, which is ever renewed, and which cultivation has gradually improved.

We have shown, especially in the chapters on the Atharva Veda and on Hinduism, as revealed in epic poetry, how constant in India is the relation between these two growths. If surprised at the height of early Hindu thought, one is yet more astonished at the permanence of the inferior life which flourishes beneath the shady protection of the superior. Even here one may follow the metaphor, for the humbler life below is often a condition of the grander growth above.

In the Rig Veda there is an hymn of faith and doubt

To INDRA.[2]

He who, just born, with thought endowed, the foremost, Himself a god hemmed in the gods with power; Before whose breath, and at whose manhood's greatness, The two worlds trembled; he, ye folk, is Indra.

He who the earth made firm as it was shaking, And made repose the forward tottering mountains; Who measured wide the inter-space aerial, And heaven established; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who slew the dragon, loosed the rivers seven, And drove from Vala's hiding place the cattle;[3] Who fire between the two stones[4] hath engendered, Conqueror in conflicts; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who all things here, things changeable, created; Who lowered and put to naught the barbarous color,[5] And, like victorious gambler, took as winnings His foe's prosperity; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Whom, awful, they (yet) ask about: 'where is he?' And speak thus of him, saying, 'he exists not'— He makes like dice[6] his foe's prosperity vanish; Believe on him; and he, ye folk, is Indra.

In whose direction horses are and cattle; In whose, the hosts (of war) and all the chariots; Who hath both Sūrya and the Dawn engendered, The Waters' leader; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Both heaven and earth do bow themselves before him, And at his breath the mountains are affrighted; Who bolt in arms is seen, the soma-drinker, And bolt in hand; ('tis) he, ye folk, is Indra.

Who helps the soma-presser, (soma)-cooker, The praiser (helps), and him that active serveth; Of whom the increase brahma is and soma, And his this offering; he, ye folk, is Indra.

Here brahma, which word already in the Yajur Veda has taken to itself the later philosophical signification, is merely prayer, the meaning which in the Rig Veda is universal.

The note struck in this hymn is not unique:

(THE POET.)

Eager for booty proffer your laudation To Indra; truth (is he),[7] if truth existeth; 'Indra is not,' so speaketh this and that one; 'Who him hath seen? To whom shall we give praises?'

(THE GOD.)

I am, O singer, he; look here upon me; All creatures born do I surpass in greatness. Me well-directed sacrifices nourish, Destructive I destroy existent beings.[8]

These are not pleas in behalf of a new god. It is not the mere god of physical phenomena who is here doubted and defended. It is the god that in the last stage of the Rig Veda is become the Creator and Destroyer, and, in the light of a completed pantheism, is grown too great to retain his personality. With such a protest begins the great revolt that is the sign of an inner evolution extending through the Brāhmanas and Upanishads. Indra, like other gods,[9] is held by the rite; to the vulgar he is still the great god;[10] to the philosopher, a name. The populace respect him, and sacerdotalism conserves him, that same crafty, priestly power, which already at the close of the Rig Vedic period dares to say that only the king who is subject to the priest is sure of himself, and a little later that killing a priest is the only real murder. We have shown above how the real divinity of the gods was diminished even at the hands of the priests that needed them for the rites and baksheesh, which was the goal of their piety. Even Prajāpati, the Father-god, their own creation, is mortal as well as immortal.[11] We have shown, also, how difficult it must have been to release the reason from the formal band of the rite. Socially it was impossible to do so. He that was not initiated was excommunicated, an outcast. But, on the other hand, the great sacrifices gradually fell over from their own weight. Cumbersome and costly, they were replaced by proxy works of piety; vidhānas were established that obviated the real rite; just as to-day, 'pocket altars' take the place of real altars.[12] There was a gradual intrusion of the Hindu cult; popular features began to obtain; the sacrifice was made to embrace in its workings the whole family of the sacrificer (instead of its effect being confined to him alone, as was the earlier form); and finally village celebrations became more general than those of the individual. Slowly Hinduism built itself a ritual,[13] which overpowered the Brahmanic rite. Then, again, behind the geographical advance of Brahmanism[14] lay a people more and more prone to diverge from the true cult (from the Brahmanic point of view). In the latter part of the great Brāhmana[15] there is already a distrust of the Indus tribes, which marks the breaking up of Aryan unity; not that breaking up into political division which is seen even in the Rig Veda, where Aryan fights against Aryan as well as against the barbarian, but the more serious dismemberment caused by the hates of priests, for here there was no reconciliation.

The cynical scepticism of the Brahmanic ritualists, as well as the divergence of opinions in regard to this or that sacrificial pettiness, shows that even where there was overt union there was covert discord, the disagreement of schools, and the difference of faith. But all this does but reflect the greater difference in speculation and theology which was forming above the heads of the ritualistic bigots. For it is not without reason that the Upanishads are more or less awkwardly laid in as the top-stone on the liturgical edifice. They belong to the time but they are of it only in part. Yet to dissociate the mass of Brahmanic priestlings from the Upanishad thinkers, as if the latter were altogether members of a new era, would be to lose the true historical perspective. The vigor of protest against the received belief continues from the Rig Veda to Buddha, from Buddha till to-day.

The Vedic cult absorbed a good deal of Hinduism, for instance the worship of Fate,[16] just as Hinduism absorbed a good deal of Vedic cult. Nor were the popular works obnoxious to the priest. In the Chāndogya Upanishad[17] the Itihāsas and Purānas (fore-runners of the epic) are already reckoned as a fifth Veda, being recognized as a Veda almost as soon as was the Atharvan,[18] which even in Manu is still called merely 'texts of Atharvan and Angiras' (where texts of Bhrigu might as well have been added). Just as the latter work is formally recognized, and the use of its magical formulas, if employed for a good purpose, is enjoined in epic[19] and law (e.g. Manu, xi. 33), so the Hinduistic rites crept gradually into the foreground, pushing back the soma-cult. Idols are formally recognized as venerable by the law-makers;[20] even before their day the 'holy pool,' which we have shown to be so important to Hinduism, is accepted by Brahmanism.[21] Something, too, of the former's catholicity is apparent in the cult at an early date, only to be suppressed afterwards. Thus in Āit. Br. II. 19, the slave's son shares the sacrifice; and the slave drinks soma in one of the half-Brahmanical, half-popular festivals.[22] Whether human sacrifice, sanctioned by some modern sects, is aught but pure Hinduism, Civaism, as affected by the cult of the wild-tribes, it is hard to say. At any rate, such sacrifices in the Brahmanic world were obsolete long before one finds them in Hinduism. Of Buddhistic, Brahmanic, and Hinduistic reciprocity we have spoken already, but we may add one curious fact, namely, that the Buddhism of Civaism is marked by its holy numbers. The Brahmanic Rudra with eight names[23] and eight forms[24] is clearly Civaite, and the numbers are as clearly Buddhistic[25] Thus, as Feer has shown, Buddhist hells are eight, sixteen, etc, while the Brahmanic hells are seven, twenty-one, etc. Again, the use of the rosary was originally Civaite, not Buddhisttc;[26] and Buddha in Bali, where they live amicably side by side, is regarded as Civa's brother.[27]