[Footnote 54: The Jemidar, captain, gives the order to the Buttoat, strangler, who takes the rumal (yard of cotton) with a knot tied in the left end, and, holding his right hand a few inches further up, passes it from behind over the victim's head. As the latter falls the strangler's hands are crossed, and if done properly the Thugs say that "the eyes stand out of the head and life becomes extinct, before the body falls to the ground" (Notes on the 'Thags, Thugs, or Thegs,' by Lieutenant Reynolds; of whom Lieutenant-Colonel Smythe says that he knew more than any other European about the Thugs, 1836). The Buttoat received eight annas extra for his share. Each actor in the scene had a title; the victim was called Rosy. For their argot see the Rāmaseeana.]

[Footnote 55: Thugs (defined as 'knaves' by Sherwood, more probably 'throttlers') must be distinguished from Decoits. The latter (Elphinstone, i. 384) are irreligious gangs, secretly bound together to sack villages. Peaceable citizens by day, the Decoits rise at night, attack a village, slay, torture, rob, and disappear before morning, 'melting into the population' and resuming honest toil. When the police are weak enough they may remain banded together; otherwise they are ephemerally honest and nocturnally assassins. The Thugs or Phānsīgars (phānsī, noose) killed no women, invoked Kāli (as Jayī), and attacked individuals only, whom the decoys, called Tillais, lured very cleverly to destruction. They never robbed without strangling first, and always buried the victim. They used to send a good deal of what they got to Kāli's temple, in a village near Mirzāpur, where the establishment of priests was entirely supported by them. Kāli (or Bhavānī) herself directed that victims should be strangled, not bled (so the Thug legend). Their symbol was a pick, emblem of the goddess, unto whom a religious ceremony was performed before and after the murder was committed. Local small bankers often acted as fence for them.]

[Footnote 56: This is called either Pūrva-mīmāmsā (Karma-mīmāmsā) or simply Mīmāmsā.]

[Footnote 57: Or Cārīraka-mīmāmsa, or Brahma-mīmāmsā (mīmā[=m.]sa, reflexion, philosophy).]

[Footnote 58: Kapila's system, usually known as the Sānkhya.]

[Footnote 59: And attributed to Pata[=n.]jali. Compare Deussen, System des Vedānta, p. 20.]

[Footnote 60: Born In 788. But some scholars refer him to the seventh century. See IA. xiii. 95; xvi. 41. His name, a title of Civa, indicates his nominal sect.]

[Footnote 61: For the meaning of Vedānta (whether 'end of Veda,' or 'goal of Veda') compare Deussen, loc. cit. p. 3, note (above, p. 253, note).]

[Footnote 62: The Supreme Spirit or All-Spirit is either purely non-dualistic or qualifiedly non-dualistic; in the latter event he is, says the sectary, identical with Vishnu, who may be represented either by Krishna or Rāma (sub-sects). Pure non-duality (unconditioned ātmā) was taught by Cankara.]

[Footnote 63: Gough, Philosophy of the Upanishads.. Compare Williams, loc. cit. In our own view the unsystematic Upanishads teach both doctrines (above, p. 228, note).]

[Footnote 64: Before Kāmānuja it was taught by Cāndilya that brahma (and the individual spirit) was conditioned, a doctrine supposed to be that of the old Bhāgavatas or Pāṅcarātras; but this is quite uncertain. The Cāndilyan chapter of the Chāndogya Upanishad (above, p. 221) may be thus interpreted, vis, that the (conditioned) individual spirit is identical with brahma.]

[Footnote 65: Thibaut, Introduction to the Vedānta Sūtras, SBE. XXXIV. p. XXXI; Deussen, System des Vedānta, p.469.]

[Footnote 66: Philosophical illusion, mānā, appears first in late Upanishads.]

[Footnote 67: The author of the Dabistān (seventeenth century) tells a Berkeleyan story in regard to Cankara's doctrine of illusion. His enemies wished to test his belief in his own philosophy; so they drove an elephant at him, on which the philosopher ran away. "Ho!" they jeered, "Did you not maintain that all was a mere illusion? Then an elephant is illusion. Yet you take to flight before it." "Yes," replied the philosopher, "all is illusion; there was no elephant, and there was no flight" (II. 4).]

[Footnote 68: The Smārta (orthodox) Brahman believes, on the other hand, that Vishnu, Civa, and Brahmā are all mere forms of the Supreme Ālmā.]

[Footnote 69: If Mohammed were regarded as one with Allah there would be an Occidental parallel to the Krishna and Rāma sects.]

[Footnote 70: Whether the Hindu trinitarianism derives from the Occident or not (the former view being historically probable, but not possible to prove) the importance of the dogma and its place in Hindu theology is very different to the condition of things in the Christian church. In India trinitarianism is merely a convenience in adjusting the claims of two heterodox sects and orthodoxy, each believer being willing to admit that the god of the other is his own god, only with the understanding that the last is a superior manifestation. In late Civaism both Vishnu and Brahmā are indeed called the 'sons of God' (Civa). but in the sense that they are distinctly subordinate creatures of Civa (JAOS. iv. 147).]

[Footnote 71: But some Hindus worship both Vishnu and Civa without insisting that one is higher than the other. Moreover, there is a Mahratta sect of Vishnuites who complacently worship Buddha (Vishnu's ninth avatar) as Viṭhṭhala or Pānduraṅga. These are simply eclectic, and their god is without or with quality. Buddha is here not a deceiver, but an instructor (JRAS. 1842, p. 66; IA. XI. 56, 149).]

[Footnote 72: The Civaites, too, are divided on the questions both of predestination and of free grace. The greater body of them hold to the 'monkey doctrine'; the Pacupatas, to the 'cat.']

[Footnote 73: Sanskrit kalā, school (markaṭa-nyāya and m rjāra-nyāya). The Southern school has its own Veda written in Tamil. Williams, JRAS. xiv. 301. According to the same writer the Ten-galais hold that Vishnu's wife is finite, created, and a mediator; the Vada-galais, that she is infinite, and uncreated.]

[Footnote 74: All Vishnuites have the vertical sign; Civaites have a horizontal sign (on the forehead).]

[Footnote 75: Proceed. AOS. 1894, p. iii. The Vada-school may be affected by Civaism.]

[Footnote 76: A divine monkey appears in the Rig Veda, but not as an object of devotion.]

[Footnote 77: The teachers of the Ramaites are generally Brahmans, but no disciples are excluded because of their caste. Rāmānuja adopted the monastic system, which Cankara is said to have taken from the Buddhists and to have introduced into Brahmanic priestly life. Both family priests and cenobites are admitted into his order.]

[Footnote 78: What the Linga is to Civaite the Cālagrāma is to the Vishnuite (who also reveres the tulasī wood). The Cālagrāma is a black pebble; the Līnga is a white pebble or glass (Williams). The Civaites have appropriated the dūrvā grass as sacred to Ganeca. Sesamum seeds and dūrvā are, however, Brahmanically holy. Compare Cat. Br. iv. 5-10, where dūrvā grass is even holier than kuca-grass. The rosaries used by the sects have been the subject of a paper by Leumann, and are described by Williams. Thirty-two or sixty-four berries of eleocapus ganitrus (rudrāksha) make the Civaite rosary. That of the Vishnuite is made of lotus-seeds or of tulsā wood in one hundred and eight pieces.]

[Footnote 79: For an account and list of the works of Tulasīdāsā (Tulsīdās), compare IA. xxii. 89, 122, 227. Jayadeva (twelfth century), the author of the Gīta Govinda (translated by Jones, Lassen, and Ruckert), is sometimes reckoned falsely to the adherents of Rāmānand, but he is really a Krishnaite.]

[Footnote 80: The bhakti doctrine is that of the extant Cāndilya Sūtras, which make faith and not works or knowledge a condition of salvation. They are modern, as Cowell, in his preface to the work, has shown. Cowell here identifies Kācyapa with Kaṇāda, the Vāiceshika philosopher, his school holding that the individual spirits are infinite in number, distinct from the Supreme Spirit.]

[Footnote 81: The infant-cult is of course older than these sects. For an account of the ritual, as well as its intrusion into the earlier cult of the Purānas, with the accompanying resemblances to Madonna-cult, and the new features (the massacre of the innocents, the birth in the stable, the three wise men, etc.) that show borrowing from Christianity, compare Weber's exhaustive treatise referred to above, the K[=r.][=s.]ṇajanmā[=s.][=t.]amī, Krishna's Geburtsfest.]

[Footnote 82: Williams, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 83: 'Gosain' means shepherd, like Gopāla. Some of the sects, like the Kartābhājs, recognize only the Teacher as God. Williams states that in Bengal a fourth member has been added to this sect-trinity. On Dancing-girls see IA. XIII-165.]

[Footnote 84: The philosophical tenet of this sect 'pure advāita' (non-duality) distinguishes it from the qualified duality taught by Rāmānuja. This is a reversion to Cankara. The Cāitanya sect teaches not absorption but individual existence in a heaven of sensuous (sensual) pleasure.]

[Footnote 85: "In the temples where the Mahārājas (priests) do homage to the idols men and women do homage to the Mahārājas.... The best mode of propitiating the god Krishna is by ministering to the sensual appetites of his vicars upon earth. Body and soul are literally made over to them, and women are taught to deliver up their persons to Krishna's representatives," Williams, loc. cit. p. 309.]

[Footnote 86: On these sects see Wilson, Hunter (Statistical Account), Williams, JRAS. xiv. 289. The festival verses in honor of the Madonna are: "Honor to thee, Devakī, who hast borne Krishna; may the goddess who destroys sin be satisfied, revered by me. Mother of God art thou, Aditī, destroying sin. I will honor thee as the gods honor thee," etc. (Weber, Janmāṣṭamī, p. 286). The birth-day celebration is not confined to Krishnaites; but in the Rāma sect, though they celebrate the birth, they do not represent the man-god as a suckling. In other respects this feast is imitated from that of Krishna (Weber, p. 310, note). The Rāmacandra celebration takes place in the spring. The birth-day of Ganeca is also celebrated by the Civaites (in August-September).]

[Footnote 87: He himself claimed to be an incarnate god. He adopted the qualified non-duality of Rāmānuja. See Williams' account of him and of the two great temples of the sect, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 88: From Williams, loc. cit. p. 291 ff. The three qualities (sometimes interpreted as activity, purity, and indifference) are met with for the first time in the Atharva Veda, where are found the Vedantic 'name' and 'form' also; Muir, v. p. 309. The three qualities that condition the idealist Vedantist's personal Lord in his causal body are identical with those that constitute the 'nature,' prak[=r.]ti, of the Sānkhya dualist.]

[Footnote 89: Among the Vallabhas (above, p. 505). The Teacher is the chief god of most of the Vallabhas (Barth, p. 235}. For the Viṭhṭhal view of caste see 1A. XI.152.]

[Footnote 90: It is true of other sectaries also, Ramaites and Civaites, that the mere repetition of their god's name is a means of salvation.]

[Footnote 91: Now chiefly in the South. The Dabistān gives several divisions of sun-worshippers. For more details see Barth, p. 258. Apollonius of Tyana saw a sun-temple at Taxila, JRAS. 1859, p. 77.]

[Footnote 92: More direct than in the form of Vishnu, who at first is merely the sun. Of the relation with Iranian sun-worship we have spoken above.]

[Footnote 93: They brand themselves with the Vishnu-mark, are generally high-caste, live in monasteries, and profess celibacy. They are at most unknown in the North. They are generally known by their founder's name, but are also called Brahma-Sampradāyins, 'Brahma-adherents.']

[Footnote 94: So the Pācupata doctrine is that the individual spirit is different to the supreme lord and also to matter (pāca, the fetter that binds the individual spirit, pacu, and keeps it from its Lord, pacupatī). The fact is that every sectary is more a monotheist than a pantheist. Especially is this true of the Civaite. The supreme is to him Civa.]

[Footnote 95: Wilson gives a full account of this sect in the Asīatick Researches, xvi, p. 100.]

[Footnote 96: Of the Kabīr Panthīs Wilson says: "It is no part of their faith to worship any Hindu deity." A glance at the Dabistān will preclude the possibility of claiming much originality for the modern deism of India. This work was written in 1645, and its Persian author describes, as a matter of every-day occurrence, religious debates between 'Jews, Nazarines, Mussulmen, and Hindus,' who meet more to criticise than to examine, but yet to hear explained in full the doctrines of their opponents, in just such tourneys of argument as we showed to be popular among the priests of the Upanishads and epic. Speaking of the Vedas, the author says that every one derives from them arguments in favor of his own creed, whether it be philosophical, mystical, unitarian, atheistic, Judaic, or Christian. Dabistān, vol. II, p. 45.]

[Footnote 97: Before election the Guru must be examined. If the faithful are not satisfied, they may reject him. but, having elected him, they are bound to obey him implicitly. He can excommunicate, but he may not punish corporally. This deification of the Guru was retained by the Sikhs, and the office was made hereditary among them (by Arjun), till Govind, the tenth pontiff, who left no successor, declared that after his death the Granth (bible) should be the sole authority of the church.]

[Footnote 98: The 'half' contributor was a woman, and hence was not reckoned as a complete unit.]

[Footnote 99: The word Sikh means 'disciple' (of Nānak). The name the Sikhs assumed as a nation was Singhs (siṁhas), 'Lions of the Punjāb.']

[Footnote 100: The 'true name,' sat nām, is the appellation of God.]

[Footnote 101: JRAS. 1846, p. 43, Prinsep's compilation (Wilson). Compare Trumpp, ib. V. 197 (1871); and Ādigranth, 1877.]

[Footnote 102: This sect was founded by a descendant of Nānak.]

[Footnote 103: It was not till Mohammedan persecution influenced them that the religious Sikhs of Nānak became the political haters and fighters of Govind.]

[Footnote 104: It is said that Govind sacrificed to Durgā the life of one of his own disciples to prepare himself for his ministry. Trumpp, Ādigranth; Barth, p. 204. The lives of the later Gurus will be found in Elphinstone's history and Prinsep's sketch (a resume by Barth, p. 248 ff.).]

[Footnote 105: With some small verbal alterations.]

[Footnote 106: The conclusion of this extract shows the narrower polemic spirit: "Pundits and Qāzīs are fools. What avails it to collect a heap of books? Let your minds freely meditate on the spirit of God. Wear not away your lives by studying the Vedas."]

[Footnote 107: For the data of the following paragraphs on the deistic reformers of to-day we are indebted to an article of Professor Williams, which first appeared in the thirteenth volume of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and has since been published in the same author's Brahmanism and Hinduism.]

[Footnote 108: Born in 1818.]

[Footnote 109: ekamātrādvitīya (masculine); with this form contrast below, in the Brāhma Dharma (religion) of Debendranāth, the neuter ekam evādvitīyam. The only God of the first Samāj; is a person; that of the reform is exoterically Nature.]

[Footnote 110: But, as will be noticed in the four articles (which are in part a compilation of phrases from the Upanishads) the personality of Brahmā is not insisted on for the outer church. For this reason, although the inner church doubtless understands It as He, yet this neuter should be preserved in the translation. The articles are so drawn up as to enable any deist to subscribe (without Vedantic belief as a condition of acceptance) to the essential creed of the Congregation. One or two sentences in the original will reveal at a glance the origin of the phraseology: brahma (being) vā ekam idam-agra āsīt; tad idaṁ sarvam asṛjal; tad eva nityam, ekam evādvitīyam; tasmia prītis ... tadupāsanam. Compare Chāndogya Upanishad: sad (being) idam agra āsīd ekam evādvitīyam; and the Vājasaneyī-Brāhmana Upanishad: brahma vā idam-agra āsīt, etc.]

[Footnote 111: It is interesting to see this fervor, or ecstatic delirium, surviving from the time of the Rig Veda, where already (albeit only in the latest hymns, which are quite Brahmanic) flourishes the mad muni: and fervid ascetism ('heat,'tapas) begins to appear as a means of salvation. RV. x. 109, 136.]

[Footnote 112: "I regard myself as Christ and Cāitanya," reported by Sen's own missionary as the words of the former. Sen's disciples deny some of these assertions, but they seem to be substantiated, and Sen's own language shows that he claimed miraculous powers. Compare the discussions on this point, JRAS. xiii. 281 ff.]

[Footnote 113: This was afterwards excused on the ground that the marriage would not have been legal without these rites. But Sen presumably was aware of this in advance. From the performance of the rites he had the decency to absent himself. It should be said, however, in Sen's behalf, that the marriage itself had nothing revolting about it, and though in consenting to it Sen violated his faith, as is evident from the protest of the Samāj, yet was the marriage not an extreme case of child-marriage, for both the 'children' were sixteen. Sen's own excuse (he thought excuse necessary) was that he was inspired when he consented to the nuptials.]

[Footnote 114: The theistic tendency in the Hindu mind is so exaggerated that even now it is with the greatest difficulty that the vulgar can be restrained from new idolatry. Not only priests, but even poets are regarded as gods. Jnāndev and Tukārām, the hymn-makers of the Mahratta Viṭhṭhals, are demi-gods to-day (IA. xi. 56. 149). A few striking examples are almost requisite to make an Occidental reader understand against what odds the deism of India has to contend. In 1830 an impudent boy, who could train snakes, announced that he could also work miracles. The boy was soon accepted as Vishnu's last avatar; hymns, abhangs, were sung to him, and he was worshipped as a god even after his early demise (from a snake-bite). A weaver came soon after to the temple, where stood the boy's now vacant shrine, and fell asleep there at night. In the morning he was perplexed to find himself a god. The people had accepted him as their snake-conquering god in a new form. The poor weaver denied his divinity, but that made no difference. In 1834 the dead boy-god was still receiving flowers and prayers. Another case: In the eighties some Englishmen on entering a temple were amazed to see revered as an avatar of Vishnu the brass castings of the arms of the old India Co. This god was washed and anointed daily. Even a statue of Buddha (with the inscription still upon it) was revered as Vishnu. In 1880 a meteorite fell in Behār. In 1882 its cult was fully established, and it was worshipped as the 'miraculous god.' A Mohammedan inscription has also been found deified and regularly worshipped as a god, JRAS. 1842, p. 109; 1884, pt. III, pp. I, LIX.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XVIII.

RELIGIOUS TRAITS OF THE WILD TRIBES.

Besides the phases of pure Aryan and modified Aryan religions which have already been examined, there are represented in India several other aspects of civilized religion; for, apart from Brahmanic and sectarian worships, and apart from Tamil (southern) imitations of these, there are at present in the country believers of the Jewish religion to the number of seventeen thousand; of Zoroastrianism, eighty-seven thousand; of Christianity, two and a quarter millions; of Mohammedanism, more than fifty-seven millions. But none of these faiths, however popular, comes into an historical account of India's religions in a greater extent than we have brought them into it already, that is, as factors of minor influence in the development of native faiths till, within the last few centuries, Mohammedanism, which has been the most important of them all in transfiguring the native theistic sects, draws a broad line across the progress of India's religious thought.

All these religions, however, whether aboriginal or imported, must again be separated from the more general phenomena of superstition which are preserved in the beliefs of the native wild tribes. One descends here to that lowest of rank undergrowth which represents a type of religious life so base that its undifferentiated form can be mated with like growths from all over the world. These secondary religions are, therefore, important from two points of view, that of their universal aspect, and, again, that of their historical connection with the upper Indic growth above them;[1] for it is almost certain that some of their features have conditioned the development of the latter.

The native wild tribes of India (excluding the extreme Northern Tibeto-Burman group) fall into two great classes, that of the Kolarians and that of the Dravidians, sometimes distinguished as the Yellow and the Black races respectively. The former, again, are called Indo-Chinese by some writers, and the geographical location of this class seems, indeed, to show that they have generally displaced the earlier blacks, and represent historically a yellow wave of immigration from the Northeast (through Tibet) prior to the Aryan white wave (from the Northwest), which latter eventually treated them just as they had treated the aboriginal black Dravidians.[2] Of the Kolarians the foremost representatives are the Koles, the Koches, the Sunthāls, and the Savāras (Sauras), who are all regarded by Johnston as the yellow Dasyus, barbarians, of the earliest period; while he sees in the Vāicyas, or third caste of the Hindu political divisions, the result of a union of the Northwest and Northeast conquerors. But, although the Vāicyas are called 'yellow,' yet, since they make the most important numerical factor of the Aryans, this suggestion can scarcely be accepted, for there is no evidence to show that the yellow Mongoloid barbarians were amalgamated so early with the body politic of the Aryans. The chief representatives of the Dravidians, on the other hand, are the Khonds and Gonds of the middle of the peninsula, together with the Orāons and the Todas of the extreme South.[3] All of these tribes are of course sub-divided, and in some degree their religious practices have followed the bent of their political inclinations. We shall examine first the religions of the older tribes, the Dravidians, selecting the chief features or such traits as have peculiar interest.

THE DRAVIDIANS.

Gonds: These savages, mentioned in early literature, are the most numerous and powerful of the wild tribes, and appear to have been less affected by outside belief than were any other, except the related Khonds. Their religion used to consist in adoring a representation of the sun, to which were offered human sacrifices.[4] As among the Orāons, a man of straw (literally) is at the present day substituted for the human victim. Besides the sun, the moon and stars are worshipped by them. They have stones for idols, but no temples.[5] Devils, witchcraft, and the evil eye also are feared. They sacrifice animals, and, with the exception of the Rāj Gonds,[6] have been so little affected by Hindu respect for that holiest of animals, that they slaughter cows at their wedding-feasts, on which occasion the bacchanalian revels in which they indulge are accompanied with such excess as quite to put them upon the level of Civaite bestiality. The pure Gonds are junglemen, and have the virtues usually found among the lowest savages, truth, honesty, and courage. Murder is no crime, but lying and stealing are sinful; for cowardice is the greatest crime, and lying and stealing (instead of straightforward and courageous robbery and murder) are regarded as indications of lack of courage. But the 'impure,' that is the mixed Gonds that have been corrupted by mingling with Hindus and other tribes, lie and steal like civilized people. In fact, the mixed Gonds are particularly noted for servility and dishonesty. The uncivilized Gonds of the table-lands are said still to cut up and eat their aged relatives and friends, not to speak of strangers unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. Among the pure Gonds is found the practice of carrying an axe, which is the sign of their religious devotion to the sacrifice-god.[7] The favorite religious practice used to be to take a prisoner alive, force him to bow before the god-stone, and at the moment when he bent his head, to cut it off. To this and to self-defence against other gods (wild beasts) the hatchet is devoted, while for war are used the bow and knife. One particular celebration of the Gonds deserves special notice. They have an annual feast and worship of the snake. The service is entirely secret, and all that is known of it is that it is of esoteric, perhaps phallic character. Both at the sun-feast and snake-feast[8] licentious and bacchanalian worship are combined, and the latter trait is also the chief feature of wedding and funeral sports. In the former case (the natives of the same tribe intermarry, but with the same pretence of running off with the bride that is found in the Hindu ritual)[9] there is given a wedding feast by the bridegroom's father, and the feast ends with a causerie de lundi (the favorite drink of the Gonds is called lundi); while on the latter occasion there is a mourning feast, or wake, which also ends in general drunkenness.

The Khonds: Even more striking is the religion of the Khonds. Their chief rite is human sacrifice to the earth-goddess,[10] Tari; but, like the Gonds, they worship the sun as chief divinity. Other gods among them are the river-god, rain-god, spring, wealth, hill-god, and smallpox-god. All their religious feasts are excuses for excess both in drinking and otherwise. One of their beliefs is that there is a river of hell, which flows around a slippery rock, up which climbs the one that would escape torment. Their method of sacrificing a human victim is to put him into the cleft of a tree, where he is squashed, or into fire. They seem to have an odd objection to shedding blood for this purpose, and in this respect may be compared with the Thugs. Another very interesting trait is the religion which is intertwined with business, and its peculiar features. Victims offered either to the sun or to the war-god serve to mark boundary lines. Great is the patience with which these victims, called merias, are waited for. The sacrificer captures fit specimens when they are young, and treats them with particular kindness till they are almost grown up. Indeed, they are treated thus by the whole village. At the appointed time they are slowly crushed to death or smothered in a mud bath, and bits of their flesh are then cut out and strewn along the boundary lines. Boys are preferred, but either boys or girls may be used. This sacrifice is sometimes made directly to the 'Boundary-god,'[11] an abstraction which is not unique; for, besides the divinities recorded above, mention is made also of a 'Judgment-god.' Over each village and house preside the Manes of good men gone; while the 'father is god on earth' to every one. They used to destroy all their female children, and this, together with their national custom of offering human sacrifices, has been put down with the greatest difficulty by the British, who confess that there is every probability that in reality the crime still *obtains among the remoter clans. These Khonds are situate in the Madras presidency, and are aborigines of the Eastern Ghāts. The most extraordinary views about them have been published. Despite their acknowledged barbarity, savageness, and polytheism, they have been soberly credited with a belief in One Supreme God, 'a theism embracing polytheism,' and other notions which have been abstracted from their worship of the sun as 'great god.'

Since these are by far the most original savages of India, a completer sketch than will be necessary in the case of others may not be unwelcome. The chief god is the light-or sun-god. "In the beginning the god of light created a wife, the goddess of earth, the source of evil." On the other hand, the sun-god is a good god. Tari, the earth-divinity, tried to prevent Bella[12] Pennu (sun-god) from creating man. But he cast behind him a handful of earth, which became man. The first creation was free of evil; earth gave fruit without labor (the Golden Age); but the dark goddess sowed in man the seed of sin. A few were sinless still, and these became gods, but the corrupt no longer found favor in Bella (or Boora) Pennu's eyes. He guarded them no more. So death came to man. Meanwhile Bella and Tari contended for superiority, with comets, whirlwinds, and mountains, as weapons. According to one belief, Bella won; but others hold that Tari still maintains the struggle. The sun-god created all inferior deities, of rain, fruit, *hunt, boundaries, etc., as well as all tutelary local divinities.[13] Men have four kinds of fates. The soul goes to the sun, or remains in the tribe (each child is declared by the priest to be N.N. deceased and returned), or is re-born and suffers punishments, or is annihilated.[14] The god of judgment lives on Grippa Valli, the 'leaping rock,' round which flows a black river, and up the rock climb the souls with great effort. The Judgment-god decides the fate of the soul); sending it to the sun (the sun-soul), or annihilating it, etc. The chief sins are, to be inhospitable, to break an oath, to lie except to save a guest, to break an old custom, to commit incest, to contract debts (for which the tribe has to pay), to be a coward, to betray council. The chief virtues are, to kill in battle, to die in battle, to be a priest, to be the victim of a sacrifice. Some of the Khonds worship the sun-god; some the earth-goddess, and ascribe to her all success and power, while they hold particularly to human sacrifice in her honor. They admit (theoretically) that Bella is superior, but they make Tari the chief object of devotion, and in her honor are held great village festivals. They that do not worship Tari do not practice human sacrifice. Thus the Civaite sacrifice of man to the god's consort is very well paralleled by the usage that obtains among them. The Khond priests may indulge in any occupation except war; but some exercise only their priestcraft and do nothing else. The chief feast to the sun-god is Salo Kallo (the former word means 'cow-pen'; the latter, a liquor), somewhat like a soma-feast. It is celebrated at harvest time with dancing, and drinking, "and every kind of licentious enjoyment." Other festivals of less importance celebrate the substitution of a buffalo for human sacrifice (not celebrated, of course, by the Tari worshippers). The invocation at the harvest is quite Brahmanic: "O gods, remember that our increase of rice is your increase of worship; if we get little Rice we worship little." Among lesser gods the 'Fountain-god' is especially worshipped, with a sheep or a hog as sacrifice. Female infanticide springs from a feeling that intermarriage in the same tribe is incest (this is the meaning of the incest-law above; it might be rendered 'to marry in the tribe').

Of the Orāons, or Dhangars,[15] we shall mention but one or two good parallels to what is found in other religions. These Dravidians live in Bengal, and have two annual festivals, a harvest feast and one celebrating the marriage of heaven and earth. Like the Khonds, they recognize a supreme god in the sun, but, just as we showed was the case with the Hindus, who ignore Brahmā because they do not fear him, so here, the Orāons do not pray to the sun, on the ground that he does them no harm; but they sacrifice to evil spirits because the latter are evil-doers. These savages, like the Burmese Mishmis, have no idea of a future life in heaven; but in the case of people killed in a certain way they believe in a sort of metempsychosis; thus, for instance, a man eaten by a tiger becomes a tiger. In the case of unfortunates they believe that they will live as unhappy ghosts; in the case of other men they assume only annihilation as their fate.[16] It is among this tribe that the mouse-totem is found, which is Civa's beast and the sign of Ganeca.[17]

THE KOLARIANS.

The Sunthāls: These are immigrants into the West Bengal jungles, and have descended from the North to their present site. They are called the finest specimens of the native savage. The guardian of the tribe is its deceased ancestor, and his ghost is consulted as an oracle. Their race-god is the 'Great Mountain,' but the sun represents the highest spirit; though they worship spirits of every sort, and regard beasts as divine; the men revering the tiger, and the women, elephants. The particularly nasty festival called the bandana, which is celebrated annually by this tribe, is exactly like the 'left-hand' cult of the Caktas, only that in this case it is a preliminary to marriage. All unmarried men and women indulge together in an indescribable orgie, at the end of which each man selects the woman he prefers.[18]

The Koles ('pig-stickers'): Like the last, this tribe worship the sun, but with the moon as his wife, and the stars as their children. Besides these they revere Manes, and countless local and sylvan deities. Like Druids, they sacrifice only in a grove, but without images.[19]

All these tribes worship snakes and trees,[25]] and often the only oath binding upon them is taken under a tree.[21] The sun-worship, which is found alike in Kolarian and Dravidian tribes, may be traced through all the ramifications of either. In most of the tribes the only form of worship is sacrifice, but oaths are taken on rice, beasts, ants, water, earth, etc. (among some Pāhāriahs on the arrow). Some have a sort of belief in the divinity of the chief, and among the Lurka Koles this dignity is of so much importance that at a chief's death the divine dignity goes to his eldest son, while the youngest son gets the property. In regard to funeral rites, the Koles first burn and then bury the remains, placing a stone over the grave.

Besides the Orāons' totem of the mouse, the Sunthāls have a goose-totem, and the Garos and Kassos (perhaps not to be included in either of the two groups), together with many other tribes, have totems, some of them avatars, as in the case of the tortoise. The Garos, a tribe between Assam and Bengal, are in many respects noteworthy. They believe that their vessels are immortal; and, like the Bhārs, set up the bamboo pole, a religious rite which has crept into Hinduism (above, p. 378). They eat everything but their totem, immolate human victims, and are divided into 'motherhoods,' Māhāris, particular Māhāris intermarrying. A man's sister marries into the family from which comes his wife, and that sister's daughter may marry his son, and, as male heirs do not inherit, the son-in-law succeeds his father-in-law in right of his wife, and gets his wife's mother (that is, his father's sister) as an additional wife.[22] The advances are always made by the girl. She and her party select the groom, go to his house, and carry him off, though he modestly pretends to run away. The sacrifice for the wedding is that of a cock and hen, offered to the sun. The god they worship most is a monster (very much like Civa), but he has no local habitation.

Of the Savāras or Sauras of the Dekhan the most interesting deity is the malevolent female called Thākurānī, wife of Thākur. She was doubtless the first patroness of the throttling Thugs (thags are ṭhaks, assassins), and the prototype of their Hindu Kālī. Human sacrifices are offered to Thākurānī, while her votaries, as in the case of the Thugs, are noted for the secrecy of their crimes.

Birth-rites, marriage-rites, funeral rites (all of blood), human sacrifice, tabū (especially among the Burmese), witchcraft, worship of ancestors, divination, and demonology are almost universal throughout the wild tribes. In most of the rites the holy stone[23] plays an important part, and in many of the tribes dances are a religious exercise.

Descendants of the great Serpent-race that once ruled Māgadha (Behār), the Bhārs, and Chīrus (Cheeroos) are historically of the greatest importance, though now but minor tribes of Bengal. The Bhārs, and Koles, and Chīrus may once have formed one body, and, at any rate, like the last, the Bhārs are Kolarian and not Dravidian. This is not the place to argue a thesis which might well be supported at length, but in view of the sudden admixture of foreign elements with the Brahmanism that begins to expand at the end of the Vedic period it is almost imperative to raise the question whether the Bhārs, of all the northern wild tribes the most cultivated, whose habitat extended from Oude (Gorakhpur) on both sides of the Ganges over all the district between Benares and Allahābād, and whose name is found in the form Bhārats as well as Bhārs, is not one with that great tribe the history of whose war has been handed down to us in a distorted form under the name of Bhārata (Mahābhārata). The Bhāratas, indeed, claim to be Aryans. But is it likely that a race would have come from the Northeast and another from the Northwest, and both have the same name? Carnegy believed, so striking was the coincidence, that the Bhārats were a Rājput (Hindu) tribe that had become barbaric. But against this speaks the type, which is not Aryan but Kolarian.[24] Some influence one may suppose to have come from the more intelligent tribes, and to have worked on Hindu belief. We believe traces of it may still be found in the classics. For instance, the famous Frog-maiden, whose tale is told in the Mahābhārata, reminds one rather forcibly of the fact that in Oude and Nepāl frog-worship (not as totem) was an established cult. The time for this worship to Begin is October; it is different to thunder-worship (July, the nāga-feast), and the frog is subordinate to the snake. And, again, the snake-worship that grows so rapidly into the Hindu cult can scarcely have been uninfluenced by the fact that there are no less than thirty snake-tribes.[2]

But despite some interesting points of view besides those

touched upon here, details are of little added value, since it is manifest that, whether Kolarian or Dravidian, or, for the matter of that, American or African, the same rites will obtain with the same superstition, for they belong to every land, to the Aryan ancestor of the Hindu as well as to the Hindu himself. Even totemism as a survival may be suspected in the 'fish' and 'dog' people of the Rig Veda, as has recently been suggested by Oldenberg. In the Northeast of India many tribes worship only mountains, rivers, and Manes, again a trait both Vedic and Hinduistic, but not necessarily borrowed. Some of these tribes, like the Khāsīas of Oude, may be of Rājput descent (the Khasas of Manu, X. 22), but it is more likely that more tribes claim this descent than possess it. We omit many of the tribal customs lest one think they are not original; for example, the symbol of the cross among the Ābors, who worship only diseases, and whose symbol is also found among the American Indians; the sun-worship of the Katties, who may have been influenced by Hinduism; together with the cult of Burmese tribes too overspread with Buddhism. But often there is a parallel so surprising as to make it certain that there has been influence. The Niadis (of the South), for example, worship only the female principle. Many other tribes worship cakti almost exclusively. The Todas worship stone images, buffaloes, and even cow-bells, but they have a celibate priesthood! We do not hesitate to express our own belief that the cakti-worship is native and drawn from similar cults, and that the celibate priesthood, on the other hand, is taken from civilization.

Such a fate appears to have happened in modern times to several deities, now half Brahmanized. For example, Vetāla (worshipped in many places) is said in the Dekhan to be an avatar, or, properly speaking, a manifestation of Civa. What is he in reality? A native wild god, without a temple, worshipped in the open air under the shade of a tree, and in an enclosure of stones. Just such a deity, in other words, as we have shown is worshipped in just such a way by the wild tribes. A monolith[26] in the middle of twelve stones represents this primitive Druidic deity. The stones are painted red in flame-shape for a certain distance from the ground, with the upper portion painted white. Apparently there is here a sun-god of the aborigines. He is worshipped in sickness, as is Civa, and propitiated with the sacrifice of a cock, without the intervention of any priest. The cock to Aesculapius ("huic gallinae immolabantur") may have had the same function originally, for the cock is always the sun-bird. Seldom is Vetāla personified. When he has an image (and in the North he sometimes has temples) it is that of an armless and legless man; but again he is occasionally represented as a giant 'perfect in all his parts.'[27] To the Brahman, Vetāla is still a mere fiend, and presides over fiends; nor will they admit that the red on his stones means aught but blood. In such a god, one has a clue to the gradual intrusion of Civa himself into Brahmanic worship. At first a mountain lightning fiend, then identified with Rudra, a recognized deity, then made anthropomorphic. There are, especially in the South, a host of minor Hindu deities, half-acknowledged, all more or less of a fiendish nature in the eyes of the orthodox or even of the Civaite. Seen through such eyes they are no longer recognizable, but doubtless in many instances they represent a crude form of nature-worship or demonology, which has been taken from the cult of the wild tribes, and is now more or less thoroughly engrafted upon that of their civilized neighbors.[28]

One of the most interesting, though not remarkable, cases of similarity between savage and civilized religions is found in the worship of snakes and trees.[29] In the Nāga or dragon form the latter cult may have been aided by the dragon-worshipping barbarians in the period of the northern conquest. But in essentials not only is the snake and dragon worship of the wild tribes one with that of Hinduism, but, as has been seen, the tatter has a root in the cult of Brahmanism also, and this in that of the Rig Veda itself. The poisonous snake is feared, but his beautiful wave-like motion and the water-habitat of many of the species cause him to be associated as a divinity with Varuna, the water-god. Thus in early Hinduism one finds snake-sacrifices of two sorts. One is to cause the extirpation of snakes, one is to propitiate them, Apart from the real snake, there is revered also the Nāga, a beautiful chimerical creature, human, divine, and snake-like all in one. These are worshipped by sectaries and by many wild tribes alike. The Nāga tribe of Chota Nāgpur, for instance, not only had three snakes as its battle-ensign, but built a serpent-temple.[30]

Tree and plant worship is quite as antique as is snake-worship. For not only is soma a divine plant, and not only does Yama sit in heaven under his 'fair tree' (above, p. 129), but 'trees and plants' are the direct object of invocation in the Rig Veda (V. 41. 8); and the Brahmanic law enjoins upon the faithful to fling an offering, bali, to the great gods, to the waters, and 'to the trees';[31] as is the case in the house-ritual. We shall seek, therefore, for the origin of tree-worship not in the character of the tree, but in that of the primitive mind which deifies mountains, waters, and trees, irrespective of their nature. It is true, however, that the greater veneration due to some trees and plants has a special reason. Thus soma intoxicates: and the tulasī, 'holy basil,' has medicinal properties, which make it sacred not only in the Krishna-cult, but in Sicily.[32] This plant is a goddess, and is wed annually to the Cālagrāma stone with a great feast.[33] So the camī plant is herself divine, the goddess Camī. Again, the mysterious rustle of the bo tree, pipal may be the reason for its especial veneration; as its seeming immortality is certainly the cause of the reverence given to the banian. It is not necessary, however, that any mystery should hang about a tree. The palm is tall, (Civa's) acoka is beautiful, and no trees are more revered. But trees are holy per se. Every 'village-tree' (above, p. 374, and Mbhā. ii. 5. 100) is sacred to the Hindu. And this is just what is found among the wild tribes, who revere their hut-trees and village-trees as divine, without demanding a special show of divinity. The birth-tree (as in Grecian mythology) is also known, both to Hindu sect and to wild tribe. But here also there is no basis of Aryan ideas, but of common human experience. The ancestor-tree (totem) has been noticed above in the case of the Gonds, who claim descent from trees. The Bhārs revere the (Civaite!) bilva or bel, but this is a medicinal tree. The marriage-tree is universal in the South (the tree is the male or female ancestor), and even the Brahmanic wedding, among its secondary after-rites, is not without the tree, which is adorned as part of the ceremony.

Two points of view remain to be taken before the wild tribes are dismissed. The first is that Hindu law is primitive. Maine and Leist both cite laws as if any Hindu law were an oracle of primitive Aryan belief. This method is ripe in wrong conclusions. Most of the matter is legal, but enough grazes religion to make the point important. Even with the sketch we have given it becomes evident that Hindu law cannot be unreservedly taken as an exponent of early Brahmanic law, still less of Aryan law. For instance, Maine regards matriarchy as a late Brahmanic intrusion on patriarchy, an inner growth.[34] To prove this, he cites two late books, one being Vishnu, the Hindu law-giver of the South. But it is from the Southern wild tribes that matriarchy has crept into Hinduism, and thence into Brahmanism. Here prevails the matriarchal marriage*rite, with the first espousal to the snake-guarded tree that represents the mother's family. In many cases geographical limitations of this sort preclude the idea that the custom or law of a law-book is Aryan.[35]

The second point of view is that of the Akkadists. It is claimed by the late Lacouperie, by Hewitt, and by other well-known writers that a primitive race overran India, China, and the rest of the world, leaving behind it traces of advanced religious ideas and other marks of a higher civilization. Such a cult may have existed, but in so far as this theory rests, as in a marked degree it does rest, on etymology, the results are worthless. These scholars identify Gandharva with Gan-Eden, Kāci (Benares) with the land of the sons of Kush; Gautama with Chinese ('Akkadian') gut, 'a bull,' etc. All this is as fruitful of unwisdom as was the guess-work of European savants two centuries ago. We know that the Dasyus had some religion and some civilization. Of what sort was their barbaric cult, whether Finnish (also 'Akkadian')[36] or aboriginal with themselves, really makes but little difference, so far as the interpretation of Aryanism is concerned; for what the Aryans got from the wild tribes of that day is insignificant if established as existent at all. A few legends, the Deluge and the Cosmic Tree, are claimed as Akkadian, but it is remarkable that one may grant all that the Akkadian scholars claim, and still deny that Aryan belief has been essentially affected by it.[37] The Akkadian theory will please them that cannot reconcile the Rig Veda with their theory of Brahmanic influence, but the fault lies with the theory.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The Dasyus, heathen, or pagans, are by no means a wholly uncivilized mass to the poets of the Rig Veda. They have wealth, build forts, and are recognized as living in towns or forts. We learn little about them in Brahmanic literature, except that they bury their dead and with them their trinkets. Their graves and dolmen gray-stones are still found.]

[Footnote 2: Some scholars think that the Dravidians entered from the Northwest later than the Kolarians, and, pushing them to either side of the peninsula, descended through them to the South. The fact that some Kolarian tribes closely related by language are separated (to East and West) by hundreds of miles, and have lost all remembrance of their former union, favors this view of a Dravidian wedge splitting and passing through the Kolarian mass. But all here is guess-work. The Dravidians may have been pushed on by Kolarians that entered later, while the latter may have been split by the Aryan invasion; and this seems to us more probable because the other theory does not explain why the Kolarians did not go South instead of taking to the hills of the East and West.]

[Footnote 3: The whole list of these tribes as given by Cust, Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies, is as follows: The Kolarians include the Sunthāls, Mundāri Koles (Koches), Khārians, Juangs, Korwas, Kurs, Savāras, Mehtos, Gadabas, Pāhārias; the Dravidians include the tribes called Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese, Malayālim, Tulu, Kudagu, Toda, Kota, Khond, Gond, Orāon, Rājmahāli, Keikādi, Yerukāla.]

[Footnote 4: The sacrifices of the wild tribes all appear to have the object of pleasing or placating the god with food, animal or vegetable; just as the Brahmanic sacrifice is made to please, with the secondary thought that the god will return the favor with interest; then that he is bound to do so. Sin is carried away by the sacrifice, but this seems to be merely an extension of the simpler idea; the god condones a fault after an expression of repentance and good-will. What lies further back is not revealed in the early texts, though it is easy to make them fruitful in "theories of sacrifice."]

[Footnote 5: Of course no tribe has what civilization would call a temple, but some have what answer to it, namely, a filthy hut where live the god and his priest. Yet the Gonds used to build roads and irrigate very well.]

[Footnote 6: The (Rāj) Gonds were first subdued by the Rājputs, and where the Hindus and Gonds have intermarried they are known as Rāj Gonds. Others have become the 'Mohammedan Gonds.' Otherwise, in the case of the pure or 'Āssul' (the greater number), neither Hindu nor Mohammedan has had much influence over them, either socially or religiously. The Gonds whipped the British in 1818; but since then they have become 'pacified.']

[Footnote 7: It is often no more than a small hatchet stuck in the belt, if they wear the latter, which in the jungle is more raiment than they are wont to put on.]

[Footnote 8: The snake in the tree is common to many tribes, both being tutelary. The Gonds are 'sons of the forest Trees,' and of the northern bull.]

[Footnote 9: It seems to us that this feature need not be reckoned as a sign of exogamy. It is often, so far as we have observed, only a stereotyped form to express bashfulness.]

[Footnote 10: Some say earth-god. Thus the account given in JRAS. 1842, p. 172, says 'male earth-god as ancestor,' but most modern writers describe the divinity as a female. Some of the Khonds worship only earth (as a peacock). This is the peacock revered at the Pongol.]

[Footnote 11: The Gonds also have a boundary-god. Graves as boundaries are known among the Anglo-Saxons. Possibly Hermes as boundary-god may be connected with the Hermes that conducts souls; or is it simply as thief-god that he guards from theft? The Khond practice would indicate that the corpse (as something sacred) made the boundary, not that the boundary was made by running a line to a barrow, as is the case in the Anglo-Saxon connection between barrow and bound.]

[Footnote 12: Some may compare Bellerophon !]

[Footnote 13: Tutelary deities are of house, village, groves, etc. The 'House-god' is, of course, older than this or than Hinduism. The Rig Veda recognizes Vāstoshpati, the 'Lord of the House,' to whom the law (Manu, III. 89, etc.) orders oblations to be made. But Hinduism prefers a female house-goddess (see above, p. 374). Windisch connects this Vedic divinity, Vāstos-pati, with Vesta and Hestia. The same scholar compares Keltic vassus, vassallus, originally 'house-man'; and very ingeniously equates Vassorix with Vedic vasāṁ rājā—vicāṁ rājā, 'king of the house-men' (clan), like huskarlar,'house-fellows,' in Scandinavian (domesticus, *ouk(tes)). Windisch, Vassus und Vassallus, in the Bericht. d. k. Saechs. Gesell. 1892, p. 174.]

[Footnote 14: That is to say, a dead man's spirit goes to heaven, or is re-born whole in the tribe, or is re-born diseased (anywhere, this is penal discipline), or finally is annihilated. Justly may one compare the Brahmanic division of the Manes into several classes, according to their destination as conditioned by their manner of living and exit from life. It is the same idea ramifying a little differently; not a case of borrowing, but the growth of two similar seeds. On the other hand, the un-Aryan doctrine of transmigration may be due to the belief of native wild tribes. It appears first in the Catapatha, but is hinted at in the 'plant-souls' of the RV. (above, pp. 145,204,432), possibly in RV. I. 164. 30,38; Boetlingk, loc. cit., 1893, p. 88.]

[Footnote 15: This tribe now divides with the Lurka Koles the possession of Chota Nagpur, which the latter tribe used to command entire. The Orāons regard the Lurka Koles as inferiors. Compare JRAS. 1861, p. 370 ff. They are sometimes erroneously grouped with the Koles, ethnographically as well as geographically. Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, p. XXXII.]

[Footnote 16: Something like this is recorded by Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 243, as the belief of an American tribe, which holds that the fate of the dead depends on the manner of death, the funeral rites, or "some such arbitrary circumstance" (as in Greece).]

[Footnote 17: Compare the epic 'Mouse-people,' Mūshikas, as well as Apollo's mouse. Possibly another Hindu mark of sectarianism may be traced to the wild tribes, the use of vermilion markings. This is the most important element in the Bengal wedding rite (Risley).]

[Footnote 18: Above the Sunthāls, who inhabit the jungle and lower slopes of the Rājmahāl hills, live the Pāhārīas, who never tell a lie (it is said), and whose religion in some aspects is worth noticing. They believe in one god (over each village god), who created seven brothers to rule earth. The Pāhārīas descend from the eldest of these brothers. They believe in transmigration, a future state, and oracles. But it is questionable whether they have not been exposed to Buddhistic influence, as 'Budo Gosain' is the name of the supreme (sun-)god.]

[Footnote 19: In the ninth century Orissa was formed of the territories of Khonds, Koles, and Savāras. In the old grouping of tribes these, together with the Gonds and Bhils, were the "five children of the soil" between the Vindhya mountains, the east chain of the Ghāts, and the mouth of the Godāvarī to the centre of the valley of the Nerbudda. The last mentioned tribe of Bhils (Bheels) is almost devoid of native religion, but is particularly noted for truth, honesty, and fidelity. JRAS. 1844, pp. 181, 189, 192; 1852, p. 216 ff. It is an ancient race, but its origin is not certain.]

[Footnote 20: Trees are revered by the Brahmans also, as by the American Indians. Schoolcraft, i. 368. The tree-spirit is an advance on this (Brahmanic and Hinduistic).]

[Footnote 21: Thus the Bhils' wedding is simply a mutual promise under the singā tree. These savages, however, live together only so long as they choose. When the family separates, the father takes the elder children, and the mother takes the younger ones. They are polygamous. It is from this tribe that the worship of Aghorī, the Vindhya fiend, accepted as a form of Kālī, was introduced into Civaite worship. At present their religion is a mixture of Hindu and native superstition. Thus, like the Gonds, they worship stone images of gods placed in a circle, but they recognize among these gods several of the Hindu divinities.]

[Footnote 22: Rowney, Wild Tribes, p. 194. The goose-totem of the Sunthāls is also Brahmā's sign. As Vishnu is carried on an eagle, and Civa on a bull, so Brahmā rides a goose (or flamingo). The 'ten ancestors' demanded of the Brahman priest were originally on the mother's side as well as on the father's. Weber, Rājasūya, p. 78. The matriarchal theory is, however, southern. (Compare the oblations to the ancestresses in Vishnu's law-book, 74.)]

[Footnote 23: The marriage-stone, as in the Hindu rite is quite common. Of lesser superstitions the tabū, analogous to the avoidance of unlucky names among the Hindus, may be mentioned. Friendship among girls is cemented by a religious ceremony. After this, among the Orāons, the two avoid each other's name, calling each other only 'my flower' or 'my meet-to-smile' (Rowney). In this tribe exogamy is 'more respectable,' but not necessary. The girls are generally bought, and have fixed prices, but we have seen the customary price (twenty-five pigs) cited only for Assam among the Meeris. If one man cannot pay so much, several unite, for polyandry prevails all through the northern tribes (JRAS. XI. 38), and even in the Punjāb.]

[Footnote 24: Sherring (JRAS. V. 376) says decidedly that Bhārs, or Bhārats, and Chīrus cannot be Aryans. This article is one full of interesting details in regard to the high cultivation of the Bhārat tribe. They built large stone forts, immense subterranean caverns, and made enormous bricks for tanks and fortifications (19 X 11 X 2-1/2 inches), the former being built regularly to east and west (surajbedi). One of their chief cities lay five miles west of Mirzāpur, and covered several miles, entirely surrounding the Puranic city of Vindhyacal, built in the midst of it. Six or seven hundred years ago the Bhārs held Oude and Benares. Carnegy's opinion is given in his Races, Tribes, and Castes of the Province of Oude (Oudh). The Bhārs, says Elliot, Chronicles of Oonayo, built all the towns not ending in pur, mow, or ābād (Hindu, Mongol, Mohammedan). Their sacra (totems?) are the bamboo, bel-tree, tortoise, and peacock.]

[Footnote 25: JRAS. XII. 229; IA. XXII. 293.]

[Footnote 26: Among the southern Koders the dolmen form grave-stones; perhaps the religious employment of them in this wise led to the idea of the god-stone in many cases; but it is difficult to say in monolith-worship whether the stone itself be not a god; not a fetish, for (as has been said by others) a fetish is a god only so long as he is regarded as being useful, and when shown to be useless he is flung away; but a god-stone is always divine, whether it grants prayers or not.]

[Footnote 27: Wilson's note to Stevenson's description, JRAS. 1838, p. 197. The epic disease-gods are not unique. The only god known to the Andaman Islanders (Bay of Bengal) was a disease-devil, and this is found as a subordinate deity in many of the wild tribes.]

[Footnote 28: In the current Indian Antiquary there is an exceedingly interesting series of papers by the late Judge Burnell on Devil-worship, with illustrations that show well the character of these lower objects of worship.]

[Footnote 29: The standard work on this subject is Fergusson's Tree and Serpent Worship, which abounds in interesting facts and dangerously captivating fancies.]

[Footnote 30: JRAS. 1846, p. 407. The ensign here may be totemistic. In Hinduism the epic shows that the standards of battle were often surmounted with signa and effigies of various animals, as was the case, for example, in ancient Germany. We have collected the material on this point in a paper in JAOS. XIII. 244. It appears that on top of the flag-staff images were placed. One of these is the Ape-standard; another, the Bull standard; another, the Hoar-standard. Arjuna's sign was the Ape (with a lion's tail); other heroes had peacocks, elephants, and fabulous monsters like the carabha. The Ape is of course the god Hanuman; the Boar, Vishnu; the Bull, Civa; so that they have a religious bearing for the most part, and are not totemistic. Some are purely fanciful, a bow, a swan with bells, a lily; or, again, they are significant of the heroe's origin (Drona's 'pot'). Trees and flowers are used as standards just like beasts. Especially is the palm a favorite emblem. These signa are in addition to the battle-flags (one of which is blue, carried with an ensign of five stars). On the plants compare Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, p. 338.]

[Footnote 31: Āpastambo, 2. 2. 3. 22; Manu, III. 88.]

[Footnote 32: Vule apud Williams.]

[Footnote 33: ib. The Rig Veda, X. 81. 4, knows also a 'tree of creation.']

[Footnote 34: Early Law and Custom, p. 73 ff.]

[Footnote 35: Thus it is common Aryan law that, on the birth of a child, the mother becomes impure for ten days, either alone or with the father. But the latter's impurity is only nominal, and is removed by bathing (Manu, V. 62, and others). Bāudhāyana alone states that "according to some" only the father becomes impure (1. 5. 11. 21). This is the custom of a land described by Apollonius Rhodius (II. 1010}, "where, when women bear children, the men groan, go to bed, and tie up the head; but the women care for them." Yet Bāudhāyana is a Southerner and a late writer. The custom is legalized only in this writer's laws. Hence it cannot be cited as Brahmanic or even as Aryan law. It was probably the custom of the Southern half-Hinduized environment.]

[Footnote 36: American Indians are also Dravidian, because both have totems![* unknown symbol]]

[Footnote 37: For the Akkadist theory may be consulted Lacouperie in the Babylonian and Oriental Record, i. 1, 25, 58; iii. 62 ff.; v. 44, 97; vi. 1 ff.; Hewitt, in reviewing Risley's Tribes and Castes of Bengal, JRAS. 1893, p. 238 ff. See also Sayce's Hibbert Lectures. On the Deluge and Tree of Life, compare the Babylonian and Oriental Record, iv. 15 and 217.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER XIX.

INDIA AND THE WEST.

If in Hinduism, and even in Brahmanism, there are certain traits which, with some verisimilitude, may be referred to the immediate environment of these religions, how stands it in respect of that wider circle of influence which is represented by the peoples of the West? With Egypt and Phoenicia, India had intercourse at an early date, but this appears to have been restricted to mercantile exchange; for India till very late was affected neither by the literature nor by the religion of Egyptians or Syrians.[1] Of a more direct sort seem to have been the relations between India and Babylon, and the former may owe to the latter her later astronomy, but no definitive proof exists (or even any great historical probability) that Babylon gave India even legendary additions to her native wealth of myths.[2] From the Iranians the Hindus parted too early to receive from Zoroastrianism any influence. On the contrary, in our opinion the religion of Zoroaster budded from a branch taken from Indic soil. Even where Persian influence may, with propriety, be suspected, in the later Indic worship of the sun, India took no new religion from Persia; but it is very possible that her own antique and preserved heliolatry was aided, and acquired new strength from more modern contact with the sun-worshippers of the West. Of Iranian influence in early times, along the line of Hindu religious development, there is scarcely a trace, although in 509 B.C. Darius's general conquered the land about the Indus.[3] But the most zealous advocate of Persia's prestige can find little to support his claims in pre-Buddhistic Brahmanic literature, though such claims have been made, not only in respect of the position of secondary divinities, but even as regards eschatological conceptions. It is not so easy to refute an improbable historical theory as it is to propound it, but, on the other hand, the onus probandi rests upon him that propounds it, and till now all arguments on this point have resulted only in increasing the number of unproved hypotheses, which the historian should mention and may then dismiss.

The Northern dynasty that ruled in India in the sixth century seems to have had a hand in spreading Iranian sun-worship beyond the Indus, but we doubt whether the radical effect of this dominion and its belief (it is described by Kosmas, an Egyptian traveller of the time) is as great as has been claimed.[4]

From Greece, the Hindus received architectural designs, numismatic, and perhaps a few literary hints, but they got thence neither religious myths, nor, with the possible exception of the cult of the later Love-god and fresh encouragement to phallic -worship, new rites;[5] though they may have borrowed some fables, and one even hears of a Buddhistic king endeavoring to buy a sophist of Antiochus. But there is no ground for assuming philosophical influence on Brahmanism.

Christianity came late into the religious life of India, and as a doctrine made upon her no deep or lasting impression. Certain details of Christian story have been woven into the legends of Krishna, and some scholars believe that the monotheistic worshippers depicted in the pseudo-epic were Christians. But in respect of the latter point it is enough to say that this account of foreign belief had no new monotheizing effect upon the pantheism of India; the strange (unbrahmanic) god was simply accepted as Vishnu. Nor do we believe that the faith-doctrine of Hindu sectarianism and the trinitarianism of India were derived from Christian sources. But it must be admitted to be historically possible that the creed of the Christians, known to the Hindus of the sixth and seventh centuries, may have suggested to the latter the idea of the trinity as a means of adjusting the claims of Brahmanism, Krishnaism, and Civaism.[6]

But from the Mohammedan India has taken much, albeit only in the last few centuries. When Alexander entered India there were still two bodies of Indic people west of the Indus. But the trend was eastward, as it had been for centuries, and the first inroad of the Mohammedan had little further effect than to seize a land forsaken by Aryans and given over to the hordes of the North. The foundation of the new empire was not laid till the permanent occupation of the Punjāb and annexation of Lahore in 1022-23. In the thirteenth century all Hindustan acknowledged the authority of the slave sultan of Delhi.[7] Akbar died in 1605. By the end of the century the Mogul rule was broken; the Mahratta princes became imperial. It is now just in this period of Mohammedan power when arise the deistic reforming sects, which, as we have shown, were surrounded with deists and trinitarians. Here, then, we draw the line across the inner development of India's religions, with Kabīr, Nānak, Dādu, and perhaps even Basava. In the philosophy of the age that succeeds the epic there are but two phases of religion, pantheism for the wise, a more or less deistic polytheism for the vulgar[8] (in isolated cases may be added the monotheism of certain scholastic philosophers); and so Indic religion continued till the advent of Islamism. Nevertheless, though under Mohammedan influence,[9] the most thoughtful spirits of India received monotheism and gave up pantheism, yet was the religious attitude of these thinkers not averse from that taken by the Sankyan philosophers and by the earlier pantheists. From a philosophical point of view one must, indeed, separate the two. But all these, the Unitarian Hariharaist, the real pantheist of the Upanishads, who completed the work of the Vedic quasi-pantheist, and the circle that comprises Kabīr, Nānak, and Dādu, were united in that they stood against encircling polytheism. They were religiously at one in that they gave up the cult of many divinities, which represented respectively nature-worship and fiend-worship (with beast-worship), for the worship of one god. Therefore it is that, while native advance stops with the Mohammedan conquest, one may yet claim an uninterrupted progress for the higher Indic religion, a continual elevation of the thoughts of the wise; although at the same time, beside and below this, there is the circle of lower beliefs that continually revolves upon itself. For in the zooelatry[10] and polytheism that adores monsters to-day it is difficult to see a form of religion higher in any respect than that more simple nature-polytheism which first obtained.[11]

This lower aspect of Indic religions hinges historically on the relation between the accepted cults of Hinduism[12] and those of the wild tribes. We cannot venture to make any statements that will cast upon this question more light than has been thrown by the above account of the latter cults and of their points of contact with Hinduism. It may be taken for granted that with the entrance into the body politic of a class composed of vanquished[13] or vanquishing natives, some of the religion of the latter may have been received also. Such, there is every reason to believe, was the original worship of Civa as Carva, Bhava, and of Krishna; in other words, of the first features of modern sectarian Hinduism, though this has been so influenced by Aryan civilization that it has become an integral part of Hindu religion.[14]

But, again, for a further question here presents itself, how much in India to-day is Aryan? We are inclined to answer that very little of blood or of religion is Aryan. Some priestly families keep perhaps a strain of Aryan blood. But Hindu literature is not afraid to state how many of its authors are of low caste, how many of its priests were begotten of mixed marriages, how many formed low connections; while both legendary and prophetic (ex post facto) history speak too often of slave-kings and the evil times when low castes will reign, for any unprejudiced person to doubt that the Hindu population, excluding many pure priests but including many of the priests and the Rājputs ('sons of kings'), represents Aryanhood even less than the belief of the Rig Veda represents the primitive religion; and how little of aboriginal Aryan faith is reflected in that work has been shown already.

As one reviews the post-Vedic religions of civilized India he is impressed with the fact that, heterogeneous as they are, they yet in some regards are so alike as to present, when contrasted with other beliefs, a homogeneous whole. A certain uniqueness of religious style, so to speak, differentiates every expression of India's theosophy from that of her Western neighbors. What is common and world-wide in the forms of Indic faith we have shown in a previous chapter. But on this universal foundation India has erected many individual temples, temples built after designs which are not uniform, but are all self-sketched, and therefore peculiar to herself. In each of these mental houses of God there is revealed the same disposition, and that disposition is necessarily identical with that expressed in her profane artistry,[15] for the form of religion is as much a matter of national taste as is that which is embodied in literature, architecture, and painting. And this taste, as expressed in religion, isolates Brahmanic and Hinduistic India, placing her apart, both from the gloom of Egypt and the grace of Greece; even as in her earliest records she shows herself individual, as contrasted with her Aryan kinsfolk. Like Egypt, she feels her dead ever around her, and her cult is tinged with darkness; but she is fond of pleasure, and seeks it deliriously. Like Greece, she loves beauty, but she loves more to decorate it; and again, she rejoices in her gods, but she rejoices with fear; fear that overcomes reason, and pictures such horrors as are conjured up by the wild leaps of an uncurbed fancy. For an imagination that knows no let has run away with every form of her intellectual productivity, theosophy as well as art. This is perceptible even in her ritualistic, scientific, and philosophical systems; for though it is an element that at first seems incongruous with such systems, it is yet in reality the factor that has produced them. Complex, varied, minute, exact, as are the details which she loves to elaborate in all her work, they are the result of this same unfettered imagination, which follows out every fancy, pleased with them all, exaggerating every present interest, unconfined by especial regard for what is essential.[16] This is a heavy charge to bring, nor can it be passed over with the usual remark that one must accept India's canon as authoritative for herself, for the taste of cosmopolitan civilization is the only norm of judgment, a norm accepted even by the Hindus of the present day when they have learned what it is. But we do not bring the charge of extravagance for the sake of comparing India unfavorably with the Occident. Confining ourselves to the historical method of treatment which we have endeavored heretofore to maintain, we wish to point out the important bearings which this intellectual trait has had upon the lesser products of India's religious activity.

Through the whole extent of religious literature one finds what are apparently rare and valuable bits of historical information. It is these which, from the point of view to which we have just referred, one must learn to estimate at their real worth. In nine cases out of ten, these seeming truths are due only to the light imagination of a subsequent age, playing at will over the records of the past, and seeking by a mental caper to leap over what it fails to understand. To the Oriental of an age still later all the facts deducible from such statements as are embodied in the hoary literature of antiquity appear to be historical data, and, if mystic in tone, these statements are to him an old revelation of profoundest truth. But the Occidental, who recognizes no hidden wisdom in palpable mystification, should hesitate also to accept at their face value such historical notes as have been drafted by the same priestly hand.

Nor would we confine the application of this principle to the output of extant Brahmanic works. The same truth cuts right and left among many utterances of the Vedic seers and all the theories built upon them. To pick out here and there an ipse dixit of one of the later fanciful Vedic poets, who lived in a period as Brahmanic (that is, as ritualistic) as is that which is represented by the actual ritual-texts, and attempt to reconstruct the original form of divinities on the basis of such vagaries is useless, for it is an unhistorical method which ignores ancient conditions.

In less degree, because here the conditions are more obvious, does this apply to the religious interpretation of the great body of literature which has conserved for posterity the beginnings of Hinduism. But upon this we have already animadverted, and now need only range this literature in line with its predecessors. Not because the epic pictures Krishna as making obeisance to Civa is Krishna here the undeveloped man-god, who represents but the beginning of his (later) greatness, and is still subject to the older Civa. On the contrary, it is the epic's last extravagance in regard to Civa (who has already bowed before the great image of Krishna-Vishnu) that demands a furious counter-blast against the rival god. It is the Civaite who says that Krishna-Vishnu bows; and because it is the Civaite, and because this is the national mode of expression of every sectary, therefore what the Civaite says is in all probability historically false, and the sober historian will at least not discover 'the earlier Krishna' in the Krishna portrayed by his rival's satellites.

But when one comes to the modern sects, then he has to deplore not so much the lack of historical data as the grotesque form into which this same over-vivid imagination of the Hindu has builded his gods. As the scientific systems grow more and more fancifully, detailed, and as the liturgy flowers out into the most extraordinary bloom of weird legend, so the images of the gods, to the eye in their temples, to the mind in the descriptions of them, take to themselves the most uncouth details imagined by a curious fancy. This god is an ascetic; he must be portrayed with the ascetic's hair, the ascetic's wild appearance. He kills; he must be depicted as a monster, every trait exaggerated, every conceivable horror detailed. This god sported with the shepherdesses; he must have love-adventures related in full, and be worshipped as a darling god of love; and in this worship all must be pictured in excess, that weaker mortal power may strive to appreciate the magnitude of the divine in every fine detail.

These traits are those of late Vedism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism. But how marked is the contrast with the earlier Vedic age! The grotesque fancy, the love of minutiae, in a word, the extravagance of imagination and unreason are here absent, or present only in hymns that contrast vividly with those of the older tone. This older tone is Aryan, the later is Hindu, and it is another proof of what we have already emphasized, that the Hinduizing influence was felt in the later Vedic or Brahmanic period. There is, indeed, almost as great a gulf between the Dawn-hymns and the Catapatha as there is between the latter and the Purānas. One may rest assured that the perverted later taste reproduces the advance of Hindu influence upon the Aryan mind exactly in proportion to the enormity displayed.

On the other hand, from the point of view of morality, Brahmanic religion is not in any way individual. The race, whether Aryan or Hinduistic, had as fragile virtue as have other folks, and shows the same tentative efforts to become purer as those which characterize every national advance. There is, perhaps, a little too much formal insistence on veraciousness, and one is rather inclined to suspect, despite Muellers brave defence of the Hindu in this regard, that lying came very naturally to a people whose law-givers were so continuously harping on the beauty of truth. The vicious caste-system necessarily scheduled immorality in accordance with the caste order, as certain crimes in other countries are estimated according to the race of the sinner rather than according to any abstract standard. In the matter of precept we know no better moral laws than those promulgated by the Brahmans, but they are the laws that every people evolves for itself. Religious immorality, the excess of Cakti worship, is also not peculiar to the Hindu. If one ask how the morality of India as a whole compares with that of other countries, we reply that, including religious excesses, it stands level with the personal morality of Greece in her best days,[17] and that without the religiously sensual (Hindu) element, it is nominally on a par with that of London or New York. There are good and bad men, and these make good and bad coteries, which stand inside the pale of a religious profession. There is not much theoretical difference. Few of the older gods are virtuous, and Right, even in the Rig Veda, is the moral power, that is, Right as Order, correct behavior, the prototype both of ritual and of ācāra, custom, which rules the gods. In the law-court the gods are a moral group, and two of them, Varuna and Agni, hate respectively the sins of adultery and untruth. In the law it is, however, Dharma and the Father-god or his diadochos, who, handing down heavenly precepts, gives all moral laws, though it must be confessed that the Father-god is almost the last to care for morality. And pure Brahmanism stops with Brahmā. In modern Hinduism, to kill, lust, steal, drink, so far from offending, may please a god that is amorous, or bloodthirsty, or, like Civa, is 'the lord of thieves.' Morality here has God himself against it. In the Rig Veda, to sin is merely to displease a god. But even in Brahmanism, as in Buddhism, there is not that intimate connection between goodness and godness that obtains in Christianity. The Brahman, like the Buddhist, was self-controlled, in order to exert control upon the gods and the course of his own future life. He not only, as is perhaps the case elsewhere, was moral with an ulterior motive, but his moral code lacked the divine hand. It was felt as a system which he applied to himself for his own good. He did not assume that he offended a god by not following it, except in two special cases, as in sins against Agni and Varuna. Ulterior motives are deprecated, but because he that seeks absorption into God must quit desires.[18]

We have said that the moral code of the Hindus at its best seems to be on a par with the best as found elsewhere. Not to lie, not to steal, not to injure another illegally,[19] to be brave, to be loyal, to be hospitable,—these are the factors of its early and late law. In certain late cases may be added 'to be self-restrained.' But if these laws be compared with those of the savage races it will be found that most of them are also factors of primitive ethics. Therefore we say that the Hindu code as a whole is savage and antique, and that, excluding religious excess and debauchery, it is on a par with the modern ethical code only nominally. In reality, however, this savage and ancient code is not on a level with that of to-day. And the reason is that the ideal of each is different. In the savage and old-world conception of morality it is the ideal virtue that is represented by the code. It was distinct laudation to say of a man that he did not lie, or steal, and that he was hospitable.[20] But to-day, while these factors remain to formulate the code, they no longer represent ideal virtue. Nay rather, they are but the assumed base of virtue, and so thoroughly is this assumed that to say of a gentleman that he does not lie or steal is not praise, but rather an insult, since the imputation to him of what is but the virtue of children is no longer an encomium when applied to the adult, who is supposed to have passed the point where theft and lying are moral temptations, and to have reached a point where, on the basis of these savage, antique, and now childish virtues, he strives for a higher moral ideal. And this ideal of to-day, which makes fair-mindedness, liberality of thought, and altruism the respective representatives of the savage virtues of manual honesty, truth-speaking, and hospitality, is just what is lacking in the more primitive ideal formulated in the code of savages and of the Brahman alike.[21] It is not found at all among savages, and they may be left on one side. In India all the factors of the modern code are entirely lacking at the time when the old code was first completely formulated. Liberality of thought comes in with the era of the Upanishads, but it is a restricted freedom. Altruism is unknown to pure Brahmanism. But it obtains among the Buddhists, who also have liberality of thought and fair-mindedness. Hence, from the point of view of the higher morality, one must confess that Buddhism offers the best parallel to the best of to-day. On the other hand, Buddhistic altruism exceeds all other.