Another class of divinities includes abstractions, generally female, such as Infinity, Piety, Abundance, with the barely-mentioned Gungū, Rākā, etc. (which may be moon-phases). The most important of these abstractions[22] is 'the lord of strength,' a priestly interpretation of Indra, interpreted as religious strength or prayer, to whom are accredited all of Indra's special acts. Hillebrandt interprets this god, Brahmanaspati or Brihaspati, as the moon; Mueller, somewhat doubtfully, as fire; while Roth will not allow that Brihaspati has anything to do with natural phenomena, but considers him to have been from the beginning 'lord of prayer.' With this view we partly concur, but we would make the important modification that the god was lord of prayer only as priestly abstraction Indra in his higher development. It is from this god is come probably the head of the later trinity, Brahmā, through personified brahma, power; prayer, with its philosophical development into the Absolute. Noteworthy is the fact that some of the Vedic Aryans, despite his high pretensions, do not quite like Brihaspati, and look on him as a suspicious novelty. If one study Brihaspati in the hymns, it will be difficult not to see in him simply a sacerdotal Indra. He breaks the demon's power; crushes the foes of man; consumes the demons with a sharp bolt; disperses darkness; drives forth the 'cows'; gives offspring and riches; helps in battle; discovers Dawn and Agni; has a band (like Maruts) singing about him; he is red and golden, and is identified with fire. Although 'father of gods,' he is begotten of Tvashtar, the artificer.[23]

Weber has suggested (Vājapeya Sacrifice, p. 15), that Brihaspati takes Indra's place, and this seems to be the true solution, Indra as interpreted mystically by priests. In RV. i. 190, Brihaspati is looked upon by 'sinners' as a new god of little value. Other minor deities can be mentioned only briefly, chiefly that the extent of the pantheon may be seen. For the history of religion they are of only collective importance. The All-gods play an important part in the sacrifice, a group of 'all the gods,' a priestly manufacture to the end that no god may be omitted in laudations that would embrace all the gods. The later priests attempt to identify these gods with the clans, 'the All-gods are the clans' (Cat. Br. v. 5. 1.10), on the basis of a theological pun, the clans, vicas, being equated with the word for all, vicve. Some modern scholars follow these later priests, but without reason. Had these been special clan-gods, they would have had special names, and would not have appeared in a group alone.

The later epic has a good deal to say about some lovely nymphs called the Apsarasas, of whom it mentions six as chief (Urvacī, Menakā, etc.).[24] They fall somewhat in the epic from their Vedic estate, but they are never more than secondary figures, love-goddesses, beloved of the Gandharvas who later are the singing guardians of the moon, and, like the lunar stations, twenty-seven in number. The Rik knows at first but one Gandharva (an inferior genius, mentioned in but one family-book), who guards Soma's path, and, when Soma becomes the moon, is identified with him, ix. 86. 36. As in the Avesta, Gandharva is (the moon as) an evil spirit also; but always as a second-rate power, to whom are ascribed magic (and madness, later). He has virtually no cult except in soma-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and associated with waters.

Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified. Primitive belief generally deifies rivers. But in the great river-hymn in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer. The Vedic poet half believed in the rivers' divinity, and sings how they 'rush forth like armies,' but it will not do to inquire too strictly in regard to his belief.

He was a poet, and did not expect to be catechized. Of female divinities there are several of which the nature is doubtful. As Dawn or Storm have been interpreted Saramā and Saranyū, both meaning 'runner.' The former is Indra's dog, and her litter is the dogs of Yama. One little poem, rather than hymn, celebrates the 'wood-goddess' in pretty verses of playful and descriptive character.

Long before there was any formal recognition of the dogma that all gods are one, various gods had been identified by the Vedic poets. Especially, as most naturally, was this the case when diverse gods having different names were similar in any way, such as Indra and Agni, whose glory is fire; or Varuna and Mitra, whose seat is the sky. From this casual union of like pairs comes the peculiar custom of invoking two gods as one. But even in the case of gods not so radically connected, if their functions were mutually approximate, each in turn became credited with his neighbor's acts. If the traits were similar which characterized each, if the circles of activity overlapped at all, then those divinities that originally were tangent to each other gradually became concentric, and eventually were united. And so the lines between the gods were wiped out, as it were, by their conceptions crowding upon one another. There was another factor, however, in the development of this unconscious, or, at least, unacknowledged, pantheism. Aided by the likeness or identity of attributes in Indra, Savitar, Agni, Mitra, and other gods, many of which were virtually the same under a different designation, the priests, ever prone to extravagance of word, soon began to attribute, regardless of strict propriety, every power to every god. With the exception of some of the older divinities, whose forms, as they are less complex, retain throughout the simplicity of their primitive character, few gods escaped this adoration, which tended to make them all universally supreme, each being endowed with all the attributes of godhead. One might think that no better fate could happen to a god than thus to be magnified. But when each god in the pantheon was equally glorified, the effect on the whole was disastrous. In fact, it was the death of the gods whom it was the intention of the seers to exalt. And the reason is plain. From this universal praise it resulted that the individuality of each god became less distinct; every god was become, so to speak, any god, so far as his peculiar attributes made him a god at all, so that out of the very praise that was given to him and his confreres alike there arose the idea of the abstract godhead, the god who was all the gods, the one god. As a pure abstraction one finds thus Aditi, as equivalent to 'all the gods,'[25] and then the more personal idea of the god that is father of all, which soon becomes the purely personal All-god. It is at this stage where begins conscious premeditated pantheism, which in its first beginnings is more like monotheism, although in India there is no monotheism which does not include devout polytheism, as will be seen in the review of the formal philosophical systems of religion.

It is thus that we have attempted elsewhere[26] to explain that phase of Hindu religion which Mueller calls henotheism.

Mueller, indeed, would make of henotheism a new religion, but this, the worshipping of each divinity in turn as if it were the greatest and even the only god recognized, is rather the result of the general tendency to exaltation, united with pantheistic beginnings. Granting that pure polytheism is found in a few hymns, one may yet say that this polytheism, with an accompaniment of half-acknowledged chrematheism, passed soon into the belief that several divinities were ultimately and essentially but one, which may be described as homoiotheism; and that the poets of the Rig Veda were unquestionably esoterically unitarians to a much greater extent and in an earlier period than has generally been acknowledged. Most of the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed under the influence of that unification of deities and tendency to a quasi-monotheism, which eventually results both in philosophical pantheism, and in the recognition at the same time of a personal first cause. To express the difference between Hellenic polytheism and the polytheism of the Rig Veda the latter should be called, if by any new term, rather by a name like pantheistic polytheism, than by the somewhat misleading word henotheism. What is novel in it is that it represents the fading of pure polytheism and the engrafting, upon a polytheistic stock, of a speculative homoiousian tendency soon to bud out as philosophic pantheism.

The admission that other gods exist does not nullify the attitude of tentative monotheism. "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?" asks Moses, and his father-in-law, when converted to the new belief, says: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods."[27] But this is not the quasi-monotheism of the Hindu, to whom the other gods were real and potent factors, individually distinct from the one supreme god, who represents the All-god, but is at once abstract and concrete.

Pantheism in the Rig Veda comes out clearly only in one or two passages: "The priests represent in many ways the (sun) bird that is one"; and (cited above) "They speak of him as Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, ... that which is but one they call variously." So, too, in the Atharvan it is said that Varuna (here a pantheistic god) is "in the little drop of water,"[28] as in the Rik the spark of material fire is identified with the sun.

The new belief is voiced chiefly in that portion of the Rig Veda which appears to be latest and most Brahmanic in tone.

Here a supreme god is described under the name of "Lord of Beings," the "All-maker," "The Golden Germ," the "God over gods, the spirit of their being" (x. 121). The last, a famous hymn, Mueller entitles "To the Unknown God." It may have been intended, as has been suggested, for a theological puzzle,[29] but its language evinces that in whatever form it is couched—each verse ends with the refrain, 'To what god shall we offer sacrifice?' till the last verse answers the question, saying, 'the Lord of beings'—it is meant to raise the question of a supreme deity and leave it unanswered in terms of a nature-religion, though the germ is at bottom fire: "In the beginning arose the Golden Germ; as soon as born he became the Lord of All. He established earth and heaven—to what god shall we offer sacrifice? He who gives breath, strength, whose command the shining gods obey; whose shadow is life and death.... When the great waters went everywhere holding the germ and generating light, then arose from them the one spirit (breath) of the gods.... May he not hurt us, he the begetter of earth, the holy one who begot heaven ... Lord of beings, thou alone embracest all things ..."

In this closing period of the Rig Veda—a period which in many ways, the sudden completeness of caste, the recognition of several Vedas, etc., is much farther removed from the beginning of the work than it is from the period of Brahmanic speculation—philosophy is hard at work upon the problems of the origin of gods and of being. As in the last hymn, water is the origin of all things; out of this springs fire, and the wind which is the breath of god. So in the great hymn of creation: "There was then neither not-being nor being; there was no atmosphere, no sky. What hid (it)? Where and in the protection of what? Was it water, deep darkness? There was no death nor immortality. There was no difference between night and day. That One breathed ... nothing other than this or above it existed. Darkness was concealed in darkness in the beginning. Undifferentiated water was all this (universe)." Creation is then declared to have arisen by virtue of desire, which, in the beginning was the origin of mind;[30] and "the gods," it is said further, "were created after this." Whether entity springs from non-entity or vice versa is discussed in another hymn of the same book.[31] The most celebrated of the pantheistic hymns is that in which the universe is regarded as portions of the deity conceived as the primal Person: "Purusha (the Male Person) is this all, what has been and will be ... all created things are a fourth of him; that which is immortal in the sky is three-fourths of him." The hymn is too well known to be quoted entire. All the castes, all gods, all animals, and the three (or four) Vedas are parts of him.[32]

Such is the mental height to which the seers have raised themselves before the end of the Rig Veda. The figure of the Father-god, Prajāpati, 'lord of beings,' begins here; at first an epithet of Savitar, and finally the type of the head of a pantheon, such as one finds him to be in the Brāhmanas. In one hymn only (x. 121) is Prajāpati found as the personal Father-god and All-god. At a time when philosophy created the one Universal Male Person, the popular religion, keeping pace, as far as it could, with philosophy, invented the more anthropomorphized, more human, Father-god—whose name is ultimately interpreted as an interrogation, God Who? This trait lasts from now on through all speculation. The philosopher conceived of a first source. The vulgar made it a personal god.

One of the most remarkable hymns of this epoch is that on Vāc, Speech, or The Word. Weber has sought in this the prototype of the Logos doctrine (below). The Word, Vāc (feminine) is introduced as speaking (x. 125):

I wander with the Rudras, with the Vasus,[33] with the Ādityas, and with all the gods; I support Mitra, Vaŕuna, Indra-Agni, and the twin Acvins ... I give wealth to him that gives sacrifice, to him that presses the soma. I am the queen, the best of those worthy of sacrifice ... The gods have put me in many places ... I am that through which one eats, breathes, sees, and hears ... Him that I love I make strong, to be a priest, a seer, a wise man. 'Tis I bend Rudra's bow to hit the unbeliever; I prepare war for the people; I am entered into heaven and earth. I beget the father of this (all) on the height; my place is in the waters, the sea; thence I extend myself among all creatures and touch heaven with my crown. Even I blow like the wind, encompassing all creatures. Above heaven and above earth, so great am I grown in majesty.

This is almost Vedantic pantheism with the Vishnuite doctrine of 'special grace' included.

The moral tone of this period—if period it may be called—may best be examined after one has studied the idea which the Vedic Hindu has formed of the life hereafter. The happiness of heaven will be typical of what he regards as best here. Bliss beyond the grave depends in turn upon the existence of the spirit after death, and, that the reader may understand this, we must say a few words in regard to the Manes, or fathers dead. "Father Manu," as he is called,[34] was the first 'Man.' Subsequently he is the secondary parent as a kind of Noah; but Yama, in later tradition his brother, has taken his place as norm of the departed fathers, Pitaras.

These Fathers (Manes), although of different sort than the gods, are yet divine and have many godly powers, granting prayers and lending aid, as may be seen from this invocation: "O Fathers, may the sky-people grant us life; may we follow the course of the living" (x. 57. 5). One whole hymn is addressed to these quasi-divinities (x. 15):

Arise may the lowest, the highest, the middlemost Fathers, those worthy of the soma, who without harm have entered into the spirit (-world); may these Fathers, knowing the seasons, aid us at our call. This reverence be to-day to the Fathers, who of old and afterwards departed; those who have settled in an earthly sphere,[35] or among peoples living in fair places (the gods?). I have found the gracious Fathers, the descendant(s) and the wide-step[36] of Vishnu; those who, sitting on the sacrificial straw, willingly partake of the pressed drink, these are most apt to come hither.... Come hither with blessings, O Fathers; may they come hither, hear us, address and bless us.... May ye not injure us for whatever impiety we have as men committed.... With those who are our former Fathers, those worthy of soma, who are come to the soma drink, the best (fathers), may Yama rejoicing, willingly with them that are willing, eat the oblations as much as is agreeable (to them). Come running, O Agni, with these (fathers), who thirsted among the gods and hastened hither, finding oblations and praised with songs. These gracious ones, the real poets, the Fathers that seat themselves at the sacrificial heat; who are real eaters of oblation; drinkers of oblation; and are set together on one chariot with Indra and the gods. Come, O Agni, with these, a thousand, honored like gods, the ancient, the original Fathers who seat themselves at the sacrificial heat.... Thou, Agni, didst give the oblations to the Fathers, that eat according to their custom; do thou (too) eat, O god, the oblation offered (to thee). Thou knowest, O thou knower (or finder) of beings, how many are the Fathers—those who are here, and who are not here, of whom we know, and of whom we know not. According to custom eat thou the well-made sacrifice. With those who, burned in fire or not burned, (now) enjoy themselves according to custom in the middle of the sky, do thou, being the lord, form (for us) a spirit life, a body according to (our) wishes.[37]

Often the Fathers are invoked in similar language in the hymn to the "All-gods" mentioned above, and occasionally no distinction is to be noticed between the powers and attributes of the Fathers and those of the gods. The Fathers, like the luminous gods, "give light" (x. 107. 1). Exactly like the gods, they are called upon to aid the living, and even 'not to harm' (iii. 55. 2; x. 15. 6). According to one verse, the Fathers have not attained the greatness of the gods, who impart strength only to the gods.[38]

The Fathers are kept distinct from the gods. When the laudations bestowed upon the former are of unequivocal character there is no confusion between the two.[39]

The good dead, to get to the paradise awaiting them, pass over water (X. 63. 10), and a bridge (ix. 41. 2). Here, by the gift of the gods, not by inherent capacity, they obtain immortality. He that believes on Agni, sings: "Thou puttest the mortal in highest immortality, O Agni"; and, accordingly, there is no suggestion that heavenly joys may cease; nor is there in this age any notion of a Goetterdaemmerung. Immortality is described as "continuing life in the highest sky," another proof that when formulated the doctrine was that the soul of the dead lives in heaven or in the sun.[40]

Other cases of immortality granted by different gods are recorded by Muir and Zimmer. Yet in one passage the words, "two paths I have heard of the Fathers (exist), of the gods and of mortals," may mean that the Fathers go the way of mortals or that of gods, rather than, as is the usual interpretation, that mortals have two paths, one of the Fathers and one of the gods,[41] for the dead may live on earth or in the air as well as in heaven. When a good man dies his breath, it is said, goes to the wind, his eye to the sun, etc.[42]—each part to its appropriate prototype—while the "unborn part" is carried "to the world of the righteous," after having been burned and heated by the funeral fire. All these parts are restored to the soul, however, and Agni and Soma return to it what has been injured. With this Muir compares a passage in the Atharva Veda where it is said that the Manes in heaven rejoice with all their limbs.[43] We dissent, therefore, wholly from Barth, who declares that the dead are conceived of as "resting forever in the tomb, the narrow house of clay." The only passage cited to prove this is X. 18. 10-13, where are the words (addressed to the dead man at the burial): "Go now to mother earth ... she shall guard thee from destruction's lap ... Open wide, O earth, be easy of access; as a mother her son cover this man, O earth," etc. Ending with the verse quoted above: "May the Fathers hold the pillar and Yama there build thee a seat."[44] The following is also found in the Rig Veda bearing on this point: the prayer that one may meet his parents after death; the statement that a generous man goes to the gods; and a suggestion of the later belief that one wins immortality by means of a son.[45]

The joys of paradise are those of earth; and heaven is thus described, albeit in a late hymn:[46] "Where is light inexhaustible; in the world where is placed the shining sky; set me in this immortal, unending world, O thou that purifiest thyself (Soma); where is king (Yama), the son of Vivasvant, and the paradise of the sky;[47] where are the flowing waters; there make me immortal. Where one can go as he will; in the third heaven, the third vault of the sky; where are worlds full of light, there make me immortal; where are wishes and desires and the red (sun)'s highest place; where one can follow his own habits [48] and have satisfaction; there make me immortal; where exist delight, joy, rejoicing, and joyance; where wishes are obtained, there make me immortal."[49] Here, as above, the saints join the Fathers, 'who guard the sun.'

There is a 'bottomless darkness' occasionally referred to as a place where evil spirits are to be sent by the gods; and a 'deep place' is mentioned as the portion of 'evil, false, untruthful men'; while Soma casts into 'a hole' (abyss) those that are irreligious.[50]

As darkness is hell to the Hindu, and as in all later time the demons are spirits of darkness, it is rather forced not to see in these allusions a misty hell, without torture indeed, but a place for the bad either 'far away,' as it is sometimes said (parāvati), or 'deep down,' 'under three earths,' exactly as the Greek has a hell below and one on the edge of the earth. Ordinarily, however, the gods are requested simply to annihilate offenders. It is plain, as Zimmer says, from the office of Yama's dogs, that they kept out of paradise unworthy souls; so that the annihilation cannot have been imagined to be purely corporeal. But heaven is not often described, and hell never, in this period. Yet, when the paradise desired is described, it is a place where earthly joys are prolonged and intensified. Zimmer argues that a race which believes in good for the good hereafter must logically believe in punishment for the wicked, and Scherman, strangely enough, agrees with this pedantic opinion.[51] If either of these scholars had looked away from India to the western Indians he would have seen that, whereas almost all American Indians believe in a happy hereafter for good warriors, only a very few tribes have any belief in punishment for the bad. At most a Niflheim awaits the coward. Weber thinks the Aryans already believed in a personal immortality, and we agree with him. Whitney's belief that hell was not known before the Upanishad period (in his translations of the Katha Upanishad) is correct only if by hell torture is meant, and if the Atharvan is later than this Upanishad, which is improbable.

The good dead in the Rig Veda return with Yama to the sacrifice to enjoy the soma and viands prepared for them by their descendants. Hence the whole belief in the necessity of a son in order to the obtaining of a joyful hereafter. What the rite of burial was to the Greek, a son was to the Hindu, a means of bliss in heaven. Roth apparently thinks that the Rig Veda's heaven is one that can best be described in Dr. Watt's hymn:

There is a land of pure delight Where saints immortal reign, Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain;

and that especial stress should be laid on the word 'pure.' But there is very little teaching of personal purity in the Veda, and the poet who hopes for a heaven where he is to find 'longing women,' 'desire and its fulfillment' has in mind, in all probability, purely impure delights. It is not to be assumed that the earlier morality surpassed that of the later day, when, even in the epic, the hero's really desired heaven is one of drunkenness and women ad libitum. Of the 'good man' in the Rig Veda are demanded piety toward gods and manes and liberality to priests; truthfulness and courage; and in the end of the work there is a suggestion of ascetic 'goodness' by means of tapas, austerity.[52] Grassman cites one hymn as dedicated to

'Mercy.' It is really (not a hymn and) not on mercy, but a poem praising generosity. This generosity, however (and in general this is true of the whole people), is not general generosity, but liberality to the priests.[53] The blessings asked for are wealth (cattle, horses, gold, etc.), virile power, male children ('heroic offspring') and immortality, with its accompanying joys. Once there is a tirade against the friend that is false to his friend (truth in act as well as in word);[54] once only, a poem on concord, which seems to partake of the nature of an incantation.

Incantations are rare in the Rig Veda, and appear to be looked upon as objectionable. So in VII. 104 the charge of a 'magician' is furiously repudiated; yet do an incantation against a rival wife, a mocking hymn of exultation after subduing rivals, and a few other hymns of like sort show that magical practices were well known.[55]

The sacrifice occupies a high place in the religion of the Rig Veda, but it is not all-important, as it is later. Nevertheless, the same presumptuous assumption that the gods depend on earthly sacrifice is often made; the result of which, even before the collection was complete (IV. 50), was to teach that gods and men depended on the will of the wise men who knew how properly to conduct a sacrifice, the key-note of religious pride in the Brahmanic period.

Indra depends on the sacrificial soma to accomplish his great works. The gods first got power through the sacrificial fire and soma.[56] That images of the gods were supposed to be powerful may be inferred from the late verses, "who buys this Indra," etc. (above), but allusions to idolatry are elsewhere extremely doubtful.[57]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Compare Tāitt. S. VII. 4.2.1. The gods win immortality by means of 'sacrifice' in this later priest-ridden period.]

[Footnote 2: Ludwig (IV. p. 134) wrongly understands a hell here.]

[Footnote 3: 'Yama's seat' is here what it is in the epic, not a chapel (Pischel), but a home.]

[Footnote 4: This may mean 'to Yama (and) to death.' In the Atharva Veda, V. 24. 13-14, it is said that Death is the lord of men; Yama, of the Manes.]

[Footnote 5: It is here said, also, that the 'Gandharva in the waters and the water-woman' are the ties of consanguinity between Yama and Yamī, which means, apparently, that their parents were Moon and Water; a late idea, as in viii. 48. 13 (unique).]

[Footnote 6: The passage, X. 17, 1-2, is perhaps meant as a riddle, as Bloomfield suggests (JAOS. XV. p. 172). At any rate, it is still a dubious passage. Compare Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, I. p. 503.]

[Footnote 7: Cited by Scherman, Visionslitteratur, p. 147.]

[Footnote 8: Possibly, 'streams.']

[Footnote 9: AV. XVIII. 3. 13.]

[Footnote 10: Compare AV. VI. 88. 2: "King Varuna and God Brihaspati," where both are gods.]

[Footnote 11: [Greek: Kerberos](Cabala)Cārvara. Saramā is storm or dawn, or something else that means 'runner.']

[Footnote 12: Here the fiend is expelled by a four-eyed dog or a white one which has yellow ears. See the Sacred Books of the East, IV. p. IXXXVII.]

[Footnote 13: Scherman proposes an easy solution, namely to cut the description in two, and make only part of it refer to the dogs! (loc. cit. p. 130).]

[Footnote 14: The dogs may be meant in I. 29. 3, but compare II. 31. 5. Doubtful is I. 66. 8, according to Bergaigne, applied to Yama as fire.]

[Footnote 15: India, p. 224.]

[Footnote 17: Barth, p. 23, cites I. 123. 6; X. 107. 2; 82. 2, to prove that stars are souls of dead men. These passages do not prove the point, but it may be inferred from X. 68. 11. Later on it is a received belief. A moon-heaven is found only in VIII. 48.]

[Footnote 18: Especially with Ymir in Scandinavian mythology.]

[Footnote 19: Visionslitteratur, 1892.]

[Footnote 20: Henotheism in the Rig Veda, p. 81.]

[Footnote 21: This religious phase is often confounded loosely with pantheism, but the distinction should be observed. Parkman speaks of (American) Indian 'pantheism'; and Barth speaks of ritualistic 'pantheism,' meaning thereby the deification of different objects used in sacrifice (p. 37, note). But chrematheism is as distinct from pantheism as it is from fetishism.]

[Footnote 22: Some seem to be old; thus Aramati, piety, has an Iranian representative, Ārmaītī. As masculine abstractions are to be added Anger, Death, etc.]

[Footnote 23: Compare iv. 50; ii. 23 and 24; v. 43. 12; x. 68. 9; ii. 26. 3; 23. 17; x. 97. 15. For interpretation compare Hillebrandt, Ved. Myth. i. 409-420; Bergaigne, La Rel, Ved. i. 304; Muir, OST, v. 272 ff. (with previous literature).]

[Footnote 24: Mbhā.i. 74. 68. Compare Holtzmann, ZDMG. xxxiii. 631 ff.]

[Footnote 25: i. 89. 10: "Aditi is all the gods and men; Aditi is whatever has been born; Aditi is whatever will be born."]

[Footnote 26: Henotheism in the Rig Veda (Drisler Memorial).]

[Footnote 27: Ex. xv. 11; xviii. 11.]

[Footnote 28: RV. x. 114. 5; i. 164. 46; AV. iv. 16. 3.]

[Footnote 29: Bloomfield, JAOS. xv. 184.]

[Footnote 30: "Desire, the primal seed of mind," x. 129. 4.]

[Footnote 31: x. 72 (contains also the origin of the gods from Aditi).]

[Footnote 32: x. 90, Here chandāṁsi, carmina, is probably the Atharvan.]

[Footnote 33: Rudras, Vasus, and Ādityas, the three famous groups of gods. The Vasus are in Indra's train, the 'shining,' or, perhaps, 'good' gods.]

[Footnote 34: ii. 33. 13; x. 100. 5, etc. If the idea of manus=bonus be rejected, the Latin manes may be referred to mānavas, the children of Manu.]

[Footnote 35: Or: "in an earthly place, in the atmosphere, or," etc.]

[Footnote 36: That is where the Fathers live. This is the only place where the Fathers are said to be napāt (descendants) of Vishnu, and here the sense may be "I have discovered Napāt (fire?)" But in i. 154. 5 Vishnu's worshippers rejoice in his home.]

[Footnote 37: Or: "form as thou wilt this body (of a corpse) to spirit life."]

[Footnote 38: x. 56. 4; otherwise, Grassmann.]

[Footnote 39: vi. 73. 9 refers to ancestors on earth, not in heaven.]

[Footnote 40: Compare Muir, OST. v. 285, where i. 125. 5 is compared with x. 107. 2: "The gift-giver becomes immortal; the gift-giver lives in the sky; he that gives horses lives in the sun." Compare Zimmer, Altind. Leben p. 409; Geiger, Ostiran. Cultur, p. 290.]

[Footnote 41: x. 88. 15, word for word: "two paths heard of the Fathers I, of the gods and of mortals." Cited as a mystery, Brih. Āran. Up. vi. 2. 2.]

[Footnote 42: x. 16. 3: "if thou wilt go to the waters or to the plants," is added after this (in addressing the soul of the dead man). Plant-souls occur again in x. 58. 7.]

[Footnote 43: A V. XVIII.4.64; Muir, Av. loc. cit. p. 298. A passage of the Atharvan suggests that the dead may have been exposed as in Iran, but there is no trace of this in the Rig Veda (Zimmer, loc. cit. p. 402).]

[Footnote 44: Barth, Vedic Religions, p. 23; ib., the narrow 'house of clay,' RV. VII. 89. 1.]

[Footnote 45: I. 24. 1; I. 125.6; VII. 56.24; cited by Mueller, Chips, I. p. 45.]

[Footnote 46: IX. 113. 7 ff.]

[Footnote 47: Avarōdhanaṁ divas, 'enclosure of the sky.']

[Footnote 48: Literally, 'where custom' (obtains), i.e., where the old usages still hold.]

[Footnote 49: The last words are to be understood as of sensual pleasures (Muir, loc. cit. p. 307, notes 462, 463).]

[Footnote 50: RV. II. 29. 6; VII. 104. 3, 17; IV. 5. 5; IX. 73. 8. Compare Mulr, loc. cit. pp. 311-312; and Zimmer, loc. cit. pp. 408, 418. Yama's 'hero-holding abode' is not a hell, as Ludwig thinks, but, as usual, the top vault of heaven.]

[Footnote 51: loc. cit. p. 123.]

[Footnote 52: X. 154. 2; 107. 2. Compare the mad ascetic, muni, VIII. 17. 14.]

[Footnote 53: X. 117. This is clearly seen in the seventh verse, where is praised the 'Brahman who talks,' i.e., can speak in behalf of the giver to the gods (compare verse three).]

[Footnote 54: X. 71. 6.]

[Footnote 55: Compare X. 145; 159. In X. 184 there is a prayer addressed to the goddesses Sinīvālī and Sarasvatī (in conjunction with Vishnu, Tvashtar, the Creator, Prajāpati, and the Horsemen) to make a woman fruitful.]

[Footnote 56: II. 15. 2; X. 6. 7 (Barth, loc. cit. p. 36). The sacrifice of animals, cattle, horses, goats, is customary; that of man, legendary; but it is implied in X. 18.8 (Hillebrandt, ZDMG. Xl p. 708), and is ritualized in the next period (below).]

[Footnote 57: Phallic worship may be alluded to in that of the 'tail-gods,' as Garbe thinks, but it is deprecated. One verse, however, which seems to have crept in by mistake, is apparently due to phallic influence (VIII. 1. 34), though such a cult was not openly acknowledged till Civa-worship began, and is no part of Brahmanism.]

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CHAPTER VII.

THE RELIGION OF THE ATHARVA VEDA.

The hymns of the Rig Veda inextricably confused; the deities of an earlier era confounded, and again merged together in a pantheism now complete; the introduction of strange gods; recognition of a hell of torture; instead of many divinities the One that represents all the gods, and nature as well; incantations for evil purposes and charms for a worthy purpose; formulae of malediction to be directed against 'those whom I hate and who hate me'; magical verses to obtain children, to prolong life, to dispel 'evil magic,' to guard against poison and other ills; the paralyzing extreme of ritualistic reverence indicated by the exaltation to godhead of the 'remnant' of sacrifice; hymns to snakes, to diseases, to sleep, time, and the stars; curses on the 'priest-plaguer'—such, in general outline, is the impression produced by a perusal of the Atharvan after that of the Rig Veda. How much of this is new?

The Rig Veda is not lacking in incantations, in witchcraft practices, in hymns to inanimate things, in indications of pantheism. But the general impression is produced, both by the tone of such hymns as these and by their place in the collection, that they are an addition to the original work. On the other hand, in reading the Atharvan hymns the collective impression is decidedly this, that what to the Rig is adventitious is essential to the Atharvan.

It has often been pointed out, however, that not only the practices involved, but the hymns themselves, in the Atharvan, may have existed long before they were collected, and that, while the Atharvan collection, as a whole, takes historical place after the Rig Veda, there yet may be comprised in the former much which is as old as any part of the latter work. It is also customary to assume that such hymns as betoken a lower worship (incantations, magical formulae, etc.) were omitted purposely from the Rig Veda to be collected in the Atharvan. That which eventually can neither be proved nor disproved is, perhaps, best left undiscussed, and it is vain to seek scientific proof where only historic probabilities are obtainable. Yet, if a closer approach to truth be attractive, even a greater probability will be a gain, and it becomes worth while to consider the problem a little with only this hope in view.

Those portions of the Rig Veda which seem to be Atharvan-like are, in general, to be found in the later books (or places) of the collection. But it would be presumptuous to conclude that a work, although almost entirely given up to what in the Rig Veda appears to be late, should itself be late in origin. By analogy, in a nature-religion such as was that of India, the practice of demonology, witchcraft, etc., must have been an early factor. But, while this is true, it is clearly impossible to postulate therefrom that the hymns recording all this array of cursing, deviltry, and witchcraft are themselves early. The further forward one advances into the labyrinth of Hindu religions the more superstitions, the more devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and uncanny things generally, does he find. Hence, while any one superstitious practice may be antique, there is small probability for assuming a contemporaneous origin of the hymns of the two collections. The many verses cited, apparently pell-mell, from the Rig Veda, might, it is true, revert to a version older than that in which they are found in the Rig Veda, but there is nothing to show that they were not taken from the Rig Veda, and re-dressed in a form that rendered them in many cases more intelligible; so that often what is respectfully spoken of as a 'better varied reading' of the Atharvan may be better, as we have said in the introductory chapter, only in lucidity; and the lucidity be due to tampering with a text old and unintelligible. Classical examples abound in illustrations.

Nevertheless, although an antiquity equal to that of the whole Rig Veda can by no means be claimed for the Atharvan collection (which, at least in its tone, belongs to the Brahmanic period), yet is the mass represented by the latter, if not contemporaneous, at any rate so venerable, that it safely may be assigned to a period as old as that in which were composed the later hymns of the Rik itself. But in distinction from the hymns themselves the weird religion they represent is doubtless as old, if not older, than that of the Rig Veda. For, while the Rig Vedic soma-cult is Indo-Iranian, the original Atharvan (fire) cult is even more primitive, and the basis of the work, from this point of view, may have preceded the composition of Rik hymns. This Atharvan religion—if it may be called so—is, therefore, of exceeding importance. It opens wide the door which the Rik puts ajar, and shows a world of religious and mystical ideas which without it could scarcely have been suspected. Here magic eclipses Soma and reigns supreme. The wizard is greater than the gods; his herbs and amulets are sovereign remedies. Religion is seen on its lowest side. It is true that there is 'bad magic' and 'good magic' (the existence of the former is substantiated by the maledictions against it), but what has been received into the collection is apparently the best. To heal the sick and procure desirable things is the object of most of the charms and incantations—but some of the desirable things are disease and death of one's foes. On the higher side of religion, from a metaphysical point of view, the Atharvan is pantheistic. It knows also the importance of the 'breaths,'[1] the vital forces; it puts side by side the different gods and says that each 'is lord.' It does not lack philosophical speculation which, although most of it is puerile, sometimes raises questions of wider scope, as when the sage inquires who made the body with its wonderful parts—implying, but not stating the argument, from design, in its oldest form.[2]

Of magical verses there are many, but the content is seldom more than "do thou, O plant, preserve from harm," etc. Harmless enough, if somewhat weak, are also many other hymns calculated to procure blessings:

Blessings blow to us the wind, Blessings glow to us the sun, Blessings be to us the day, Blest to us the night appear, Blest to us the dawn shall shine,

is a fair specimen of this innocuous sort of verse.[3] Another example may be seen in this hymn to a king: "Firm is the sky; firm is the earth; firm, all creation; firm, these hills; firm the king of the people (shall be)," etc.[4] In another hymn there is an incantation to release from possible ill coming from a foe and from inherited ill or sin.[5] A free spirit of doubt and atheism, already foreshadowed in the Rig Veda, is implied in the prayer that the god will be merciful to the cattle of that man "whose creed is 'Gods exist.'"[6] Serpent-worship is not only known, but prevalent.[7] The old gods still hold, as always, their nominal places, albeit the system is pantheistic, so that Varuna is god of waters; and Mitra with Varuna, gods of rain.[8] As a starting-point of philosophy the dictum of the Rig Veda is repeated: 'Desire is the seed of mind,' and 'love, i.e., desire, was born first.' Here Aditi is defined anew as the one in whose lap is the wide atmosphere— she is parent and child, gods and men, all in all—'may she extend to us a triple shelter.' As an example of curse against curse may be compared II. 7:

The sin-hated, god-born plant, that frees from the curse as waters (wash out) the spot, has washed away all curses, the curse of my rival and of my sister; (that) which the Brahman in anger cursed, all this lies under my feet ... With this plant protect this (wife), protect my child, protect our property ... May the curse return to the curser ... We smite even the ribs of the foe with the evil (mantra) eye.

A love-charm in the same book (II. 30) will remind the classical student of Theocritus' second idyl: 'As the wind twirls around grass upon the ground, so I twirl thy mind about, that thou mayst become loving, that thou mayst not depart from me,' etc. In the following verses the Horsemen gods are invoked to unite the lovers. Characteristic among bucolic passages is the cow-song in II. 26, the whole intent of which is to ensure a safe return to the cows on their wanderings: 'Hither may they come, the cattle that have wandered far away,' etc.

The view that there are different conditions of Manes is clearly taught in XVIII. 2. 48-49, where it is said that there are three heavens, in the highest of which reside the Manes; while a distinction is made at the same time between 'fathers' and 'grandfathers,' the fathers' fathers, 'who have entered air, who inhabit earth and heaven.' Here appears nascent the doctrine of 'elevating the Fathers,' which is expressly taught in the next era. The performance of rites in honor of the Manes causes them to ascend from a low state to a higher one. In fact, if the offerings are not given at all, the spirits do not go to heaven. In general the older generations of Manes go up highest and are happiest. The personal offering is only to the immediate fathers.

If, as was shown in the introductory chapter, the Atharvan represents a geographical advance on the part of the Vedic Aryans, this fact cannot be ignored in estimating the primitiveness of the collection. Geographical advance, acquaintance with other flora and fauna than those of the Rig Veda, means—although the argument of silence must not be exaggerated—a temporal advance also. And not less significant are the points of view to which one is led in the useful little work of Scherman on the philosophical hymns of the Atharvan. Scherman wishes to show the connection between the Upanishads and Vedas. But the bearing of his collection is toward a closer union of the two bodies of works, and especially of the Atharvan, not to the greater gain in age of the Upanishads so much as to the depreciation in venerableness of the former. If the Atharvan has much more in common with the Brāhmanas and Upanishads than has the Rig Veda, it is because the Atharvan stands, in many respects, midway in time between the era of Vedic hymnology and the thought of the philosophical period. The terminology is that of the Brāhmanas, rather than that of the Rig Veda. The latter knows the great person; the Atharvan, and the former know the original great person, i.e.., the tausa movens under the causa efficiens, etc. In the Atharvan appears first the worship of Time, Love, 'Support' (Skambha), and the 'highest brahma. The cult of the holy cow is fully recognized (XII. 4 and 5). The late ritualistic terms, as well as linguistic evidence, confirm the fact indicated by the geographical advance. The country is known from western Balkh to eastern Behār, the latter familiarly.[9] In a word, one may conclude that on its higher side the Atharvan is later than the Rig Veda, while on its lower side of demonology one may recognize the religion of the lower classes as compared with that of the two upper classes—for the latter the Rig Veda, for the superstitious people at large the Atharvan, a collection of which the origin agrees with its application. For, if it at first was devoted to the unholy side of fire-cult, and if the fire-cult is older than the soma-cult, then this is the cult that one would expect to see most affected by the conservative vulgar, who in India hold fast to what the cultured have long dropped as superstition, or, at least, pretended to drop; though the house-ritual keeps some magic in its fire-cult.

In that case, it may be asked, why not begin the history of Hindu religion with the Atharvan, rather than with the Rig Veda? Because the Atharvan, as a whole, in its language, social conditions, geography, 'remnant' worship, etc., shows that this literary collection is posterior to the Rik collection. As to individual hymns, especially those imbued with the tone of fetishism and witchcraft, any one of them, either in its present or original form, may outrank the whole Rik in antiquity, as do its superstitions the religion of the Rik—if it is right to make a distinction between superstition and religion, meaning by the former a lower, and by the latter a more elevated form of belief in the supernatural.

The difference between the Rik-worshipper and Atharvan-worshipper is somewhat like that which existed at a later age between the philosophical Civaite and Durgāite. The former revered Civa, but did not deny the power of a host of lesser mights, whom he was ashamed to worship too much; the latter granted the all-god-head of Civa, but paid attention almost exclusively to some demoniac divinity. Superstition, perhaps, always precedes theology; but as surely does superstition outlive any one form of its protean rival. And the simple reason is that a theology is the real belief of few, and varies with their changing intellectual point of view; while superstition is the belief unacknowledged of the few and acknowledged of the many, nor does it materially change from age to age. The rites employed among the clam-diggers on the New York coast, the witch-charms they use, the incantations, cutting of flesh, fire-oblations, meaningless formulae, united with sacrosanct expressions of the church, are all on a par with the religion of the lower classes as depicted in Theocritus and the Atharvan. If these mummeries and this hocus-pocus were collected into a volume, and set out with elegant extracts from the Bible, there would be a nineteenth century Atharva Veda. What are the necessary equipment of a Long Island witch? First, "a good hot fire," and then formulae such as this:[10]

"If a man is attacked by wicked people and how to banish them:

"Bedgoblin and all ye evil spirits, I, N.N., forbid you my bedstead, my couch; I, N.N., forbid you in the name of God my house and home; I forbid you in the name of the Holy Trinity my blood and flesh, my body and soul; I forbid you all the nail-holes in my house and home, till you have travelled over every hill, waded through every water, have counted all the leaves of every tree, and counted all the stars in the sky, until the day arrives when the mother of God shall bare her second son."

If this formula be repeated three times, with the baptismal name of the person, it will succeed!

"To make one's self invisible:

"Obtain the ear of a black cat, boil it in the milk of a black cow, wear it on the thumb, and no one will see you."

This is the Atharvan, or fire-and witch-craft of to-day—not differing much from the ancient. It is the unchanging foundation of the many lofty buildings of faith that are erected, removed, and rebuilt upon it—the belief in the supernatural at its lowest, a belief which, in its higher stages, is always level with the general intellect of those that abide in it.

The latest book of the Atharvan is especially for the warrior-caste, but the mass of it is for the folk at large. It was long before it was recognized as a legitimate Veda. It never stands, in the older period of Brahmanism, on a par with the Sāman and Rik. In the epic period good and bad magic are carefully differentiated, and even to-day the Atharvan is repudiated by southern Brāhmans. But there is no doubt that sub rosa, the silliest practices inculcated and formulated in the Atharvan were the stronghold of a certain class of priests, or that such priests were feared and employed by the laity, openly by the low classes, secretly by the intelligent.

In respect of the name the magical cult was referred, historically with justice, to the fire-priests, Atharvan and Angiras, though little application to fire, other than in soma-worship, is apparent. Yet was this undoubtedly the source of the cult (the fire-cult is still distinctly associated with the Atharva Veda in the epic), and the name is due neither to accident nor to a desire to invoke the names of great seers, as will Weber.[11] The other name of Brahmaveda may have connection with the 'false science of Brihaspati,' alluded to in a Upanishad.[12] This seer is not over-orthodox, and later he is the patron of the unorthodox Cārvākas. It was seen above that the god Brihaspati is also a novelty not altogether relished by the Vedic Aryans.

From an Aryan point of view how much weight is to be placed on comparisons of the formulae in the Atharvan of India with those of other Aryan nations? Kuhn has compared[13] an old German magic formula of healing with one in the Atharvan, and because each says 'limb to limb' he thinks that they are of the same origin, particularly since the formula is found in Russian. The comparison is interesting, but it is far from convincing. Such formulae spring up independently all over the earth.

Finally, it is to be observed that in this Veda first occurs the implication of the story of the flood (xix. 39. 8), and the saving of Father Manu, who, however, is known by this title in the Rik. The supposition that the story of the flood is derived from Babylon, seems, therefore, to be an unnecessary (although a permissible) hypothesis, as the tale is old enough in India to warrant a belief in its indigenous origin.[14]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: XV. 15.]

[Footnote 2: X. 2.]

[Footnote 3: VII. 69. Compare RV. VII. 35, and the epic (below).]

[Footnote 4: X. 173.]

[Footnote 5: V. 30.]

[Footnote 6: XI. 2. 28.]

[Footnote 7: XI. 9; VIII. 6 and 7, with tree-worship.]

[Footnote 8: V. 24. 4-5. On 'the one god' compare X. 8. 28; XIII. 4. 15. Indra as Sūrya, in VII. 11; cf. xiii. 4; XVII. 1. 24. Pantheism in X. 7. 14. 25. Of charms, compare ii. 9, to restore life; III. 6, a curse against 'whom I hate'; III. 23, to obtain offspring. On the stars and night, see hymn at XIX. 8 and 47. In V. 13, a guard against poison; ib. a hymn to a drum; ib. 31, a charm to dispel evil magic; VI. 133, magic to produce long life; V. 23, against worms, etc., etc. Aditi, VII. 6. 1-4 (partly Rik).]

[Footnote 9: Compare Muir, OST. II. 447 ff.]

[Footnote 10: This old charm is still used among the clam-diggers of Canarsie, N.Y.]

[Footnote 11: Ind. Lit^2 p. 164.]

[Footnote 12: Māit. Up.. vii. 9. He is 'the gods' Brahmā' (Rik.)]

[Footnote 13: Indische und germanische Segenssprueche; KZ. xiii. 49.]

[Footnote 14: One long hymn, xii. 1, of the Atharvan is to earth and fire (19-20). In the Rik, atharvan is fire-priest and bringer of fire from heaven; while once the word may mean fire itself (viii. 9, 7). The name Brahmaveda is perhaps best referred to brahma as fire (whence 'fervor,' 'prayer,' and again 'energy,' 'force'). In distinction from the great soma-sacrifices, the fire-cult always remains the chief thing in the domestic ritual. The present Atharvan formulae have for the most part no visible application to fire, but the name still shows the original connection.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER VIII.

EARLY HINDU DIVINITIES COMPARED WITH THOSE OF OTHER ARYANS.

Nothing is more usual than to attempt a reconstruction of Aryan ideas in manners, customs, laws, and religious conceptions, by placing side by side similar traits of individual Aryan nations, and stating or insinuating that the result of the comparison shows that one is handling primitive characteristics of the whole Aryan body. It is of special importance, therefore, to see in how far the views and practices of peoples not Aryan may be found to be identical with those of Aryans. The division of the army into clans, as in the Iliad and the Veda; the love of gambling, as shown by Greeks, Teutons, and Hindus; the separation of captains and princes, as is illustrated by Teuton and Hindu; the belief in a flood, common to Iranian, Greek, and Hindu; in the place of departed spirits, with the journey over a river (Iranian, Hindu, Scandinavian, Greek); in the after-felicity of warriors who die on the field of battle (Scandinavian, Greek, and Hindu); in the reverence paid to the wind-god (Hindu, Iranian, and Teutonic, Vāta-Wotan); these and many other traits at different times, by various writers, have been united and compared to illustrate primitive Aryan belief and religion.

The traits of the Five Nations of the Veda for this reason may be compared very advantageously with the traits of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Indians, the most united and intelligent of American native tribes. Their institutions are not yet extinct, and they have been described by missionaries of the 17th century and by some modern writers, to whom can be imputed no hankering after Aryan primitive ideas.[1] It is but a few years back since the last avatār of the Iroquois' incarnate god lived in Onondaga, N.Y.

First, as an illustration of the extraordinary development of memory among rhapsodes, Vedic students, and other Aryans; among the Iroquois "memory was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary degree," says Parkman, who adds that they could repeat point by point with precision any address made to them.[2] Murder was compromised for by Wehrgeld, as among the Vedic, Iranic, and Teutonic peoples. The Iroquois, like all Indians, was a great gambler, staking all his property[3] (like the Teutons and Hindus). In religion "A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things ... Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls [as conspicuously in India] are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings."[4] The greatest spirit among the Algonquins is the descendant of the moon, and son of the west-wind (personified). After the deluge (thus the Hindus, etc.) this great spirit (Manabozho, mana is Manu?) restored the world; some asserting that he created the world out of water. But others say that the supreme spirit is the sun (Le Jeune, Relation, 1633). The Algonquins, besides a belief in a good spirit (manitou), had also a belief in a malignant manitou, in whom the missionaries recognized the devil (why not Ormuzd and Ahriman?). One tribe invokes the 'Maker of Heaven,' the 'god of waters,' and also the 'seven spirits of the wind' (so, too, seven is a holy number in the Veda, etc.).

The Iroquois, like the Hindu (later), believe that the earth rests on the back of a turtle or tortoise[5], and that this is ruled over by the sun and moon, the first being a good spirit; the second, malignant. The good spirit interposes between the malice of the moon and mankind, and it is he who makes rivers; for when the earth was parched, all the water being held back from earth under the armpit of a monster frog, he pierced the armpit and let out the water (exactly as Indra lets out the water held back by the demon). According to some, this great spirit created mankind, but in the third generation a deluge destroyed his posterity[6]. The good spirit among the Iroquois is the one that gives good luck (perhaps Bhaga). These Indians believe in the immortality of the soul. Skillful hunters, brave warriors, go, after death, to the happy hunting-grounds (as in India and Scandinavia); the cowardly and weak are doomed to live in dreary regions of mist and darkness (compare Niflheim and the Iranian eschatology?). To pass over other religious correspondences, the sacrifice of animals, use of amulets, love-charms, magic, and sorcery, which are all like those of Aryans (to compare, also, are the burying or exposing of the dead and the Hurons' funeral games), let one take this as a good illustration of the value of 'comparative Aryan mythology':

According to the Aryan belief the soul of the dead passes over a stream, across a bridge, past a dog or two, which guard the gate of paradise. The Hindu, Iranian, Greek, and Scandinavian, all have the dog, and much emphasis has been laid on the 'Aryan' character of this creed. The native Iroquois Indians believed that "the spirits on their journey (to heaven) were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river to be crossed on a log that shook beneath the feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage[7]." Here is the Persians' narrow bridge, and even Kerberos himself!

It is also interesting to note that, as the Hindus identify with the sun so many of their great gods, so the Iroquois "sacrifices to some superior spirit, or to the sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian[8]."

Weber holds that because Greek and Hindu gave the name 'bear' to a constellation, therefore this is the "primitive Indo-Germanic name of the star[9]." But the Massachusetts Indians "gave their own name for bear to the Ursa major" (Williams' 'Key,' cited Palfrey, I. p. 36; so Lafitau, further west).

Again, three, seven, and even 'thrice-seven,' are holy not only in India but in America.

In this new world are found, to go further, the analogues of Varuna in the monotheistic god Viracocha of the Peruvians, to whom is addressed this prayer: "Cause of all things! ever present, helper, creator, ever near, ever fortunate one! Thou incorporeal one above the sun, infinite, and beneficent[10]"; of the Vedic Snake of the Deep, in the Mexican Cloud-serpent; of the Vedic Lightning-bird, who brings fire from heaven, in the Indian Thunder-bird, who brings fire from heaven[11]; of the preservation of one individual from a flood (in the epic, Manu's 'Seven Seers') in the same American myth, even including the holy mountain, which is still shown[12]; of the belief that the sun is the home of departed spirits, in the same belief all over America;[13] of the belief that stars are the souls of the dead, in the same belief held by the Pampas;[14] and even of the late Brahmanic custom of sacrificing the widow (suttee), in the practice of the Natchez Indians, and in Guatemala, of burning the widow on the pyre of the dead husband.[15] The storm wind (Odin) as highest god is found among the Choctaws; while 'Master of Breath' is the Creeks' name for this divinity. Huraka (hurricane, ouragon, ourage) is the chief god in Hayti.[16] An exact parallel to the vague idea of hell at the close of the Vedic period, with the gradual increase of the idea, alternating with a theory of reincarnation, may be found in the fact that, in general, there is no notion of punishment after death among the Indians of the New World; but that, while the good are assisted and cared for after death by the 'Master of Breath,' the Creeks believe that the liar, the coward, and the niggard (Vedic sinners par excellence!) are left to shift for themselves in darkness; whereas the Aztecs believed in a hell surrounded by the water called 'Nine Rivers,' guarded by a dog and a dragon; and the great Eastern American tribes believe that after the soul has been for a while in heaven it can, if it chooses, return to earth and be born again as a man, utilizing its old bones (which are, therefore, carefully preserved by the surviving members of the family) as a basis for a new body.[17]

To turn to another foreign religion, how tempting would it be to see in Nutar the 'abstract power' of the Egyptian, an analogue of brahma and the other 'power' abstractions of India; to recognize Brahmā in El; and in Nu, sky, and expanse of waters, to see Varuna; especially when one compares the boat-journey of the Vedic seer with Rā's boat in Egypt. Or, again, in the twin children of Rā to see the Acvins; and to associate the mundane egg of the Egyptians with that of the Brahmans.[18] Certainly, had the Egyptians been one of the Aryan families, all these conceptions had been referred long ago to the category of 'primitive Aryan ideas.' But how primitive is a certain religious idea will not be shown by simple comparison of Aryan parallels. It will appear more often that it is not 'primitive,' but, so to speak, per-primitive, aboriginal with no one race, but with the race of man. When we come to describe the religions of the wild tribes of India it will be seen that among them also are found traits common, on the one hand, to the Hindu, and on the other to the wild tribes of America. With this warning in mind one may inquire at last in how far a conservative judgment can find among the Aryans themselves an identity of original conception in the different forms of divinities and religious rites. Foremost stand the universal chrematheism, worship of inanimate objects regarded as usefully divine, and the cult of the departed dead. This latter is almost universal, perhaps pan-Aryan, and Weber is probably right in assuming that the primitive Aryans believed in a future life. But Benfey's identification of Tartaras with the Sanskrit Talātala, the name of a special hell in very late systems of cosmogony, is decidedly without the bearing he would put upon it. The Sanskrit word may be taken directly from the Greek, but of an Aryan source for both there is not the remotest historical probability.

When, however, one comes to the Lord of the Dead he finds himself already in a narrower circle. Yama is the Persian Yima, and the name of Kerberos may have been once an adjective applied to the dog that guarded the path to paradise; but other particular conceptions that gather about each god point only to a period of Indo-Iranian unity.

Of the great nature-gods the sun is more than Aryan, but doubtless was Aryan, for Sūrya is Helios, but Savitar is a development especially Indian. Dyāus-pitar is Zeus-pater, Jupiter.[19] Trita, scarcely Triton, is the Persian Thraetaona who conquers Vritra, as does Indra in India. The last, on the other hand, is to be referred only hesitatingly to the demon Andra of the Avesta. Varuna, despite phonetic difficulties, probably is Ouranos; but Asura (Asen?) is a title of many gods in India's first period, while the corresponding Ahura is restricted to the good spirit, [Greek: kat hexochen]. The seven Ādityas are reflected in the Amesha Cpentas of Zoroastrian Puritanism, but these are mere imitations, spiritualized and moralized into abstractions. Bhaga is Slavic Bogu and Persian Bagha; Mitra is Persian Mithra. The Acvins are all but in name the Greek gods Dioskouroi, and correspond closely in detail (riding on horses, healing and helping, originally twins of twilight). Tacitus gives a parallel Teutonic pair (Germ. 43). Ushas, on the other hand, while etymologically corresponding to Aurora, Eos, is a specially Indian development, as Eos has no cult. Vāta, Wind, is an aboriginal god, and may perhaps be Wotan, Odin.[20] Parjanya, the rain-god, as Buehler has shown, is one with Lithuanian Perkuna, and with the northern Fioegyu. The 'fashioner,' Tvashtar (sun) is only Indo-Iranian; Thwāsha probably being the same word.

Of lesser mights, Angiras, name of fire, may be Persian angaros, 'fire-messenger' (compare [Greek: haggelos]), perhaps originally one with Sk. angāra, 'coal.'[21] Hebe has been identified with yavyā, young woman, but this word is enough to show that Hebe has naught to do with the Indian pantheon. The Gandharva, moon, is certainly one with the Persian Gandarewa, but can hardly be identical with the Centaur. Saramā seems to have, together with Sārameya, a Grecian parallel development in Helena (a goddess in Sparta), Selene, Hermes; and Saranyū may be the same with Erinnys, but these are not Aryan figures in the form of their respective developments, though they appear to be so in origin. It is scarcely possible that Earth is an Aryan deity with a cult, though different Aryan (and un-Aryan) nations regarded her as divine. The Maruts are especially Indian and have no primitive identity as gods with Mars, though the names may be radically connected. The fire-priests, Bhrigus, are supposed to be one with the [Greek: phlegixu]. The fact that the fate of each in later myth is to visit hell would presuppose, however, an Aryan notion of a torture-hell, of which the Rig Veda has no conception. The Aryan identity of the two myths is thereby made uncertain, if not implausible. The special development in India of the fire-priest that brings down fire from heaven, when compared with the personification of the 'twirler' (Promantheus) in Greece, shows that no detailed myth was current in primitive times.[22] The name of the fire-priest, brahman = fla(g)men(?), is an indication of the primitive fire-cult in antithesis to the soma-cult, which latter belongs to the narrower circle of the Hindus and Persians. Here, however, in the identity of names for sacrifice (yajna, yacna) and of barhis, the sacrificial straw, of soma = haoma, together with many other liturgical similarities, as in the case of the metres, one must recognize a fully developed soma-cult prior to the separation of the Hindus and Iranians.

Of demigods of evil type the Yātus are both Hindu and Iranian, but the priest-names of the one religion are evil names in the other, as the devas, gods, of one are the daevas, demons, of the other.[23] There are no other identifications that seem at all certain in the strict province of religion, although in myth the form of Manus, who is the Hindu Noah, has been associated with Teutonic Mannus, and Greek Minos, noted in Thucydides for his sea-faring. He is to Yama (later regarded as his brother) as is Noah to Adam.

We do not lay stress on lack of equation in proper names, but, as Schrader shows (p. 596 ff.), very few comparisons on this line have a solid phonetic foundation. Minos, Manu; Ouranos, Varuna; Wotan, Vāta, are dubious; and some equate flamen with blotan, sacrifice.

Other wider or narrower comparisons, such as Neptunus from napāt apām, seem to us too daring to be believed. Apollo (sapary), Aphrodite (Apsaras), Artamis (non-existent ṛtamāl), Pān (pavana), have been cleverly compared, but the identity of forms has scarcely been proved. Nor is it important for the comparative mythologist that Okeanus is 'lying around' (ācayāna). More than that is necessary to connect Ocean mythologically with the demon that surrounds (swallows) the waters of the sky. The Vedic parallel is rather Rasā, the far-off great 'stream.' It is rarely that one finds Aryan equivalents in the land of fairies and fays. Yet are the Hindu clever artizan Ribhus[24] our 'elves,' who, even to this day, are distinct from fairies in their dexterity and cleverness, as every wise child knows.

But animism, as simple spiritism, fetishism, perhaps ancestor-worship, and polytheism, with the polydaemonism that may be called chrematheism, exists from the beginning of the religious history, undisturbed by the proximity of theism, pantheism, or atheism; exactly as to-day in the Occident, beside theism and atheism, exist spiritism and fetishism (with their inherent magic), and even ancestor-worship, as implied by the reputed after-effect of parental curses.

When the circle is narrowed to that of the Indo-Iranian connection the similarity in religion between the Veda and Avesta becomes much more striking than in any other group, as has been shown. It is here that the greatest discrepancy in opinion obtains among modern scholars. Some are inclined to refer all that smacks of Persia to a remote period of Indo-Iranian unity, and, in consequence, to connect all tokens of contact with the west with far-away regions out of India. It is scarcely possible that such can be the case. But, on the other hand, it is unhistorical to connect, as do some scholars, the worship of soma and Varuna with a remote period of unity, and then with a jump to admit a close connection between Veda and Avesta in the Vedic period. The Vedic Aryans appear to have lived, so to speak, hand in glove with the Iranians for a period long enough for the latter to share in that advance of Varuna-worship from polytheism to quasi-monotheism which is seen in the Rig Veda. This worship of Varuna as a superior god, with his former equals ranged under him in a group, chiefly obtains in that family (be it of priest or tribe, or be the two essentially one from a religious point of view) which has least to do with pure soma-worship, the inherited Indo-Iranian cult; and the Persian Ahura, with the six spiritualized equivalents of the old Vedic Ādityas, can have come into existence only as a direct transformation of the latter cult, which in turn is later than the cult that developed in one direction as chief of gods a Zeus; in another, a Bhaga; in a third, an Odin. On the other hand, in the gradual change in India of Iranic gods to devils, asuras, there is an exact counterpart to the Iranian change of meaning from deva to daeva. But if this be the connection, it is impossible to assume a long break between India and the west, and then such a sudden tie as is indicated by the allusions in the Rig Veda to the Persians and other western lands. The most reasonable view, therefore, appears to be that the Vedic and Iranian Aryans were for a long time in contact, that the contact began to cease as the two peoples separated to east and west, but that after the two peoples separated communication was sporadically kept up between them by individuals in the way of trade or otherwise. This explains the still surviving relationship as it is found in later hymns and in thank-offerings apparently involving Iranian personages.

They that believe in a monotheistic Varuna-cult preceding the Vedic polytheism must then ignore the following facts: The Slavic equivalent of Bhaga and the Teutonic equivalent of Vāta are to these respective peoples their highest gods. They had no Varuna. Moreover, there is not the slightest proof that Ouranos in Greece[25] was ever a god worshipped as a great god before Zeus, nor is there any probability that to the Hindu Dyaus Pitar was ever a great god, in the sense that he ever had a special cult as supreme deity. He is physically great, and physically he is father, as is Earth mother, but he is religiously great only in the Hellenic-Italic circle, where exists no Uranos-cult[26]. Rather is it apparent that the Greek raised Zeus, as did the Slav Bhaga, to his first head of the pantheon. Now when one sees that in the Vedic period Varuna is the type of Ādityas, to which belong Bhaga and Mitra as distinctly less important personages, it is plain that this can mean only that Varuna has gradually been exalted to his position at the expense of the other gods. Nor is there perfect uniformity between Persian and Hindu conceptions. Asura in the Veda is not applied to Varuna alone. But in the Avesta, Ahura is the one great spirit, and his six spirits are plainly a protestant copy and modification of Varuna and his six underlings. This, then, can mean—which stands in concordance with the other parallels between the two religions—only that Zarathustra borrows the Ahura idea from the Vedic Aryans at a time when Varuna was become superior to the other gods, and when the Vedic cult is established in its second phase[27]. To this fact points also the evidence that shows how near together geographically were once the Hindus and Persians. Whether one puts the place of separation at the Kabul or further to the north-west is a matter of indifference. The Persians borrow the idea of Varuna Asura, whose eye is the sun. They spiritualize this, and create an Asura unknown to other nations.

Of von Bradke's attempt to prove an original Dyaus Asura we have said nothing, because the attempt has failed signally. He imagines that the epithet Asura was given to Dyaus in the Indo-Iranian period, and that from a Dyaus Pitar Asura the Iranians made an abstract Asura, while the Hindus raised the other gods and depressed Dyaus Pitar Asura; whereas it is quite certain that Varuna (Asura) grew up, out, and over the other Asuras, his former equals.

And yet it is almost a pity to spend time to demonstrate that Varuna-worship was not monotheistic originally. We gladly admit that, even if not a primitive monotheistic deity, Varuna yet is a god that belongs to a very old period of Hindu literature. And, for a worship so antique, how noble is the idea, how exalted is the completed conception of him! Truly, the Hindus and Persians alone of Aryans mount nearest to the high level of Hebraic thought. For Varuna beside the loftiest figure in the Hellenic pantheon stands like a god beside a man. The Greeks had, indeed, a surpassing aesthetic taste, but in grandeur of religious ideas even the daring of Aeschylus becomes but hesitating bravado when compared with the serene boldness of the Vedic seers, who, first of their race, out of many gods imagined God.

In regard to eschatology, as in regard to myths, it has been shown that the utmost caution in identification is called for. It may be surmised that such or such a belief or legend is in origin one with a like faith or tale of other peoples. But the question whether it be one in historical origin or in universal mythopoetic fancy, and this latter be the only common origin, must remain in almost every case unanswered[28]. This is by far not so entertaining, nor so picturesque a solution as is the explanation of a common historical basis for any two legends, with its inspiring 'open sesame' to the door of the locked past. But which is truer? Which accords more with the facts as they are collected from a wider field? As man in the process of development, in whatever quarter of earth he be located, makes for himself independently clothes, language, and gods, so he makes myths that are more or less like those of other peoples, and it is only when names coincide and traits that are unknown elsewhere are strikingly similar in any two mythologies that one has a right to argue a probable community of origin.

But even if the legend of the flood were Babylonian, and the Asuras as devils were due to Iranian influence—which can neither be proved nor disproved—the fact remains that the Indian religion in its main features is of a purely native character.

As the most prominent features of the Vedic religion must be regarded the worship of soma of nature-gods that are in part already more than this, of spirits, and of the Manes; the acknowledgment of a moral law and a belief in a life hereafter. There is also a vaguer nascent belief in a creator apart from any natural phenomenon, but the creed for the most part is poetically, indefinitely, stated: 'Most wonder-working of the wonder-working gods, who made heaven and earth'(as above). The corresponding Power is Cerus in Cerus-Creator (Kronos?), although when a name is given, the Maker, Dhātar, is employed; while Tvashtar, the artificer, is more an epithet of the sun than of the unknown creator. The personification of Dhātar as creator of the sun, etc., belongs to later Vedic times, and foreruns the Father-god of the last Vedic period. Not till the classical age (below) is found a formal identification of the Vedic nature-gods with the departed Fathers (Manes). Indra, for example, is invoked in the Rig Veda to 'be a friend, be a father, be more fatherly than the fathers';[29] but this implies no patristic side in Indra, who is called in the same hymn (vs. 4) the son of Dyaus (his father); and Dyaus Pitar no more implies, as say some sciolists, that Dyaus was regarded as a human ancestor than does 'Mother Earth' imply a belief that Earth is the ghost of a dead woman.

In the Veda there is a nature-religion and an ancestor-religion. These approach, but do not unite; they are felt as sundered beliefs. Sun-myths, though by some denied in toto, appear plainly in the Vedic hymns. Dead heroes may be gods, but gods, too, are natural phenomena, and, again, they are abstractions. He that denies any one of these sources of godhead is ignorant of India.

Mueller, in his Ancient Sanskrit Literature, has divided Vedic literature into four periods, that of chandas, songs; mantras, texts; brāhmanas; and sūtras. The mantras are in distinction from chandas, the later hymns to the earlier gods.[30] The latter distinction can, however, be established only on subjective grounds, and, though generally unimpeachable, is sometimes liable to reversion. Thus, Mueller looks upon RV. VIII. 30 as 'simple and primitive,' while others see in this hymn a late mantra. Between the Rig Veda and the Brāhmanas, which are in prose, lies a period filled out in part by the present form of the Atharva Veda, which, as has been shown, is a Veda of the low cult that is almost ignored by the Rig Veda, while it contains at the same time much that is later than the Rig Veda, and consists of old and new together in a manner entirely conformable to the state of every other Hindu work of early times. After this epoch there is found in the liturgical period, into which extend the later portions of the Rig Veda (noticeably parts of the first, fourth, eighth, and tenth books), a religion which, in spiritual tone, in metaphysical speculation, and even in the interpretation of some of the natural divinities, differs not more from the bulk of the Rig Veda than does the social status of the time from that of the earlier text. Religion has become, in so far as the gods are concerned, a ritual. But, except in the building up of a Father-god, theology is at bottom not much altered, and the eschatological conceptions remain about as they were, despite a preliminary sign of the doctrine of metempsychosis. In the Atharva Veda, for the first time, hell is known by its later name (xii. 4. 36), and perhaps its tortures; but the idea of future punishment appears plainly first in the Brahmanic period. Both the doctrine of re-birth and that of hell appear in the earliest Sūtras, and consequently the assumption that these dogmas come from Buddhism does not appear to be well founded; for it is to be presumed whatever religious belief is established in legal literature will have preceded that literature by a considerable period, certainly by a greater length of time than that which divides the first Brahmanic law from Buddhism.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Compare the accounts of Lafitau; of the native Iroquois, baptized as Morgan; and the works of Schoolcraft and Parkman.]

[Footnote 2: Jesuits in North America, Introduction, p. lxi.]

[Footnote 3: "Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate gamblers, staking their all,—ornaments, clothing, canoes, pipes, weapons, and wives," loc. cit. p. xxxvi. Compare Palfrey, of Massachusetts Indians. The same is true of all savages.]

[Footnote 4: Ib. p. lxvii.]

[Footnote 5: Compare Cat. Br. VI. 1. 1, 12; VII. 5. 1, 2 sq., for the Hindu tortoise in its first form. The totem-form of the tortoise is well known in America. (Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 85.)]

[Footnote 6: Charlevoix ap. Parkman.]

[Footnote 7: Parkman, loc. cit. p. LXXII; Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 248. A good instance of bad comparison in eschatology will be found in Geiger, Ostir. Cult. pp. 274-275.]

[Footnote 8: Parkman, loc. cit. p. LXXXVI.]

[Footnote 9: Sits. Berl. Akad. 1891, p. 15.]

[Footnote 10: Brinton, American Hero Myths, p. 174. The first worship was Sun-worship, then Viracocha-worship arose, which kept Sun-worship while it predicated a 'power beyond.]

[Footnote 11: Brinton, Myths of the New World, pp. 85, 203.]

[Footnote 12: Ib. pp. 86, 202.]

[Footnote 13: Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 243. The American Indians "uniformly regard the sun as heaven, the soul goes to the sun."]

[Footnote 14: Ib. p. 245.]

[Footnote 15: Ib. p. 239-40.]

[Footnote 16: Ib. p. 50, 51.]

[Footnote 17: Ib. pp. 242, 248, 255; Schoolcraft, III. 229.]

[Footnote 18: Renouf, Religion of Ancient Egypt; pp. 103, 113 ff.]

[Footnote 19: Teutonic Tuisco is doubtful, as the identity with Dyaus has lately been contested on phonetic grounds.]

[Footnote 20: Vāta, ventus, does not agree very well with Wotan.]

[Footnote 21: Āit. Br. III, 34. [Greek: haggaron pur] is really tautological, but beacon fires gave way to couriers and [Greek: haggaros] lost the sense of fire, as did [Greek: haggelos].]

[Footnote 22: But the general belief that fire (Agni, Ignis, Slavic ogni) was first brought to earth from heaven by a half-divine personality is (at least) Aryan, as Kuhn has shown.]

[Footnote 23: Compare the kavis and ugijs (poets and priests) of the Veda with the evil spirits of the same names in the Avesta, like daeva = deva. Compare, besides, the Indo-Iranian feasts, medha, that accompany this Bacchanalian liquor-worship.]

[Footnote 24: Ludwig interprets the three Ribhus as the three seasons personified. Etymologically connected is Orpheus, perhaps.]

[Footnote 25: [Greek: o de chalkeos asphales aien edos menei ouranos], Pind. N. vi. 5; compare Preller[4], p.40.]

[Footnote 26: Wahrscheinlich sind Uranos und Kronos erst aus dem Culte des Zeus abstrahirt worden. Preller[4], p. 43.]

[Footnote 27: When Aryan deities are decadent, Trita, Mitra, etc.]

[Footnote 28: Spiegel holds that the whole idea of future punishment is derived from Persia (Eranische Altherthumskunde, I. p. 458), but his point of view is naturally prejudiced. The allusion to the supposed Babylonian coin, manā, in RV. VIII. 78. 2, would indicate that the relation with Babylon is one of trade, as with Aegypt. The account of the flood may be drawn thence, so may the story of Deucalion, but both Hindu and Hellenic versions may be as native as is that of the American redskins.]

[Footnote 29: IV. 17. 17.]

[Footnote 30: loc. cit. pp. 70, 480.]

* * * * *



CHAPTER IX.

BRAHMANISM.

Besides the Rig Veda and the Atharva Veda there are two others, called respectively the Sāma Veda and the Yajur Veda.[1] The former consists of a small collection of verses, which are taken chiefly from the eighth and ninth books of the Rig Veda, and are arranged for singing. It has a few more verses than are contained in the corresponding parts of the Rik, but the whole is of no added importance from the present point of view. It is of course made entirely for the ritual. Also made for the ritual is the Yajur Veda, the Veda of sacrificial formulae. But this Veda is far more important. With it one is brought into a new land, and into a world of ideas that are strange to the Rik. The period represented by it is a sort of bridge between the Rik and the Brāhmanas. The Yajus is later than Rik or Atharvan, belonging in its entirety more to the age of the liturgy than to the older Vedic era. With the Brāhmanas not only is the tone changed from that of the Rig Veda; the whole moral atmosphere is now surcharged with hocus-pocus, mysticism, religiosity, instead of the cheerful, real religion which, however formal, is the soul of the Rik. In the Brāhmanas there is no freshness, no poetry. There is in some regards a more scrupulous outward morality, but for the rest there is only cynicism, bigotry, and dullness. It is true that each of these traits may be found in certain parts of the Rig Veda, but it is not true that they represent there the spirit of the age, as they do in the Brahmanic period. Of this Brahmanic stoa, to which we now turn, the Yajur Veda forms the fitting entrance. Here the priest is as much lord as he is in the Brāhmanas. Here the sacrifice is only the act, the sacrificial forms (yajus), without the spirit.

In distinction from the verse-Veda (the Rik), the Yajur Veda contains the special formulae which the priest that attends to the erection of the altar has to speak, with explanatory remarks added thereto. This of course stamps the collection as mechanical; but the wonder is that this collection, with the similar Brāhmana scriptures that follow it, should be the only new literature which centuries have to show.[2] As explanatory of the sacrifice there is found, indeed, a good deal of legendary stuff, which sometimes has a literary character. But nothing is for itself; everything is for the correct performance of the sacrifice.[3]

The geographical centre is now changed, and instead of the Punjāb, the 'middle district' becomes the seat of culture. Nor is there much difference between the district to which can be referred the rise of the Yajur Veda and that of the Brāhmanas. No less altered is the religion. All is now symbolical, and the gods, though in general they are the gods of the Rig Veda, are not the same as of old. The priests have become gods. The old appellation of 'spirit,' asura, is confined to evil spirits. There is no longer any such 'henotheism' as that of the Rig Veda. The Father-god, 'lord of beings,' or simply 'the father,' is the chief god. The last thought of the Rig Veda is the first thought of the Yajur Veda. Other changes have taken place. The demigods of the older period, the water-nymphs of the Rik, here become seductive goddesses, whose increase of power in this art agrees with the decline of the warrior spirit that is shown too in the whole mode of thinking. Most important is the gradual rise of Vishnu and the first appearance of Civa. Here brahma, which in the Rik has the meaning 'prayer' alone, is no longer mere prayer, but, as in later literature, holiness. In short, before the Brāhmanas are reached they are perceptible in the near distance, in the Veda of Formulae, the Yajus;[4] for between the Yajur Veda and the Brāhmanas there is no essential difference. The latter consist of explanations of the sacrificial liturgy, interspersed with legends, bits of history, philosophical explanations, and other matter more or less related to the subject. They are completed by the Forest Books, Āranyakas, which contain the speculations of the later theosophy, the Upanishads (below). It is with the Yajur Veda and its nearly related literature, the Brāhmanas, that Brahmanism really begins. Of these latter the most important in age and content are the Brāhmanas (of the Rig Veda and Yajur Veda), called Āitareya and Cata-patha, the former representing the western district, the latter, in great part, a more eastern region.

Although the 'Northerners' are still respectfully referred to, yet, as we have just said, the people among whom arose the Brāhmanas are not settled in the Punjāb, but in the country called the 'middle district,' round about the modern Delhi. For the most part the Punjāb is abandoned; or rather, the literature of this period does not emanate from the Aryans that remained in the Punjāb, but from the still emigrating descendants of the old Vedic people that used to live there. Some stay behind and keep the older practices, not in all regards looked upon as orthodox by their more advanced brethren, who have pushed east and now live in the country called the land of the Kurus and Paṅcālas.[5] They are spread farther east, along the banks of the Jumna and Ganges, south of Nepāl; while some are still about and south of the holy Kurukshetra or 'plain of Kurus.' East of the middle district the Kosalas and Videhas form, in opposition to the Kurus and Paṅcālas, the second great tribe (Tirhūt). There are now two sets of 'Seven Rivers,' and the holiness of the western group is perceptibly lessened. Here for the first time are found the Vrātya-hymns, intended to initiate into the Brahmanic order Aryans who have not conformed to it, and speak a dialectic language.[6] From the point of view of language and geography, no less than from that of the social and spiritual conditions, it is evident that quite a period has elapsed since the body of the Rig Veda was composed. The revealed texts are now ancient storehouses of wisdom. Religion has apparently become a form; in some regards it is a farce.

"There are two kinds of gods; for the gods are gods, and priests that are learned in the Veda and teach it are human gods." This sentence, from one of the most important Hindu prose works,[7] is the key to the religion of the period which it represents; and it is fitly followed by the further statement, that like sacrifice to the gods are the fees paid to the human gods the priests.[8] Yet with this dictum, so important for the understanding of the religion of the age, must be joined another, if one would do that age full justice: 'The sacrifice is like a ship sailing heavenward; if there be a sinful priest in it, that one priest would make it sink' (Cat. Br. IV. 2. 5. 10). For although the time is one in which ritualism had, indeed, become more important than religion, and the priest more important than the gods, yet is there no lack of reverential feeling, nor is morality regarded as unimportant. The first impression, however, which is gained from the literature of this period is that the sacrifice is all in all; that the endless details of its course, and the petty questions in regard to its arrangement, are not only the principal objects of care and of chief moment, but even of so cardinal importance that the whole religious spirit swings upon them. But such is not altogether the case. It is the truth, yet is it not the whole truth, that in these Brāhmanas religion is an appearance, not a reality. The sacrifice is indeed represented to be the only door to prosperity on earth and to future bliss; but there is a quiet yet persistent belief that at bottom a moral and religious life is quite as essential as are the ritualistic observances with which worship is accompanied.

To describe Brahmanism as implying a religion that is purely one of ceremonies, one composed entirely of observances, is therefore not altogether correct. In reading a liturgical work it must not be forgotten for what the work was intended. If its object be simply to inculcate a special rite, one cannot demand that it should show breadth of view or elevation of sentiment. Composed of observances every work must be of which the aim is to explain observances. In point of fact, religion (faith and moral behavior) is here assumed, and so entirely is it taken for granted that a statement emphasizing the necessity of godliness is seldom found.

Nevertheless, having called attention to the religious spirit that lies latent in the pedantic Brāhmanas, we are willing to admit that the age is overcast, not only with a thick cloud of ritualism, but also with an unpleasant mask of phariseeism. There cannot have been quite so much attention paid to the outside of the platter without neglect of the inside. And it is true that the priests of this period strive more for the completion of their rites than for the perfection of themselves. It is true, also, that occasionally there is a revolting contempt for those people who are not of especial service to the priest. There are now two godlike aristocrats, the priest and the noble. The 'people' are regarded as only fit to be the "food of the nobility." In the symbolical language of the time the bricks of the altar, which are consecrated, are the warrior caste; the fillings, in the space between the bricks, are not consecrated; and these "fillers of space" are "the people" (Cat. Br. VI. 1. 2. 25). Yet is religion in these books not dead, but sleeping; to wake again in the Upanishads with a fuller spiritual life than is found in any other pre-Christian system. Although the subject matter of the Brāhmanas is the cult, yet are there found in them numerous legends, moral teachings, philosophical fancies, historical items, etymologies and other adventitious matter, all of which are helpful in giving a better understanding of the intelligence of the people to whom is due all the extant literature of the period. Long citations from these ritualistic productions would have a certain value, in showing in native form the character of the works, but they would make unendurable reading; and we have thought it better to arrange the multifarious contents of the chief Brāhmanas in a sort of order, although it is difficult always to decide where theology ends and moral teachings begin, the two are here so interwoven.

BRAHMANIC THEOLOGY AND THE SACRIFICE.

While in general the pantheon of the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda is that of the Brāhmanas, some of the older gods are now reduced in importance, and, on the other hand, as in the Yajur Veda, some gods are seen to be growing in importance. 'Time,' deified in the Atharvan, is a great god, but beside him still stand the old rustic divinities; and chrematheism, which antedates even the Rig Veda, is still recognized. To the 'ploughshare' and the 'plough' the Rig Veda has an hymn (IV. 57. 5-8), and so the ritual gives them a cake at the sacrifice (Cunācīrya, Cat. Br. II. 6. 3. 5). The number of the gods, in the Rig Veda estimated as thirty-three, or, at the end of this period, as thousands, remains as doubtful as ever; but, in general, all groups of deities become greater in number. Thus, in TS. I. 4. 11. 1, the Rudras alone are counted as thirty-three instead of eleven; and, ib. V. 5. 2. 5, the eight Vasus become three hundred and thirty-three; but it is elsewhere hinted that the number of the gods stands in the same relation to that of men as that in which men stand to the beasts; that is, there are not quite so many gods as men (Cat. Br. II. 3. 2. 18).

Of more importance than the addition of new deities is the subdivision of the old. As one finds in Greece a [Greek: Zeus katachthonios] beside a [Greek: Zeus xenios], so in the Yajur Veda and Brāhmanas are found (an extreme instance) hail 'to Kāya,' and hail 'to Kasmāi,' that is, the god Ka is differentiated into two divinities, according as he is declined as a noun or as a pronoun; for this is the god "Who?" as the dull Brāhmanas interpreted that verse of the Rig Veda which asks 'to whom (which, as) god shall we offer sacrifice?' (Māit. S. III. 12. 5.) But ordinarily one divinity like Agni is subdivided, according to his functions, as 'lord of food,' 'lord of prayer,' etc.[9]

In the Brāhmanas different names are given to the chief god, but he is most often called the Father-god (Prajāpati, 'lord of creatures,' or the Father, pitā). His earlier Vedic type is Brihaspati, the lord of strength, and, from another point of view, the All-god.[10] The other gods fall into various groups, the most significant being the triad of Fire, Wind, and Sun.[11] Not much weight is to be laid on the theological speculations of the time as indicative of primitive conceptions, although they may occasionally hit true. For out of the number of inane fancies it is reasonable to suppose that some might coincide with historic facts. Thus the All-gods of the Rig Veda, by implication, are of later origin than the other gods, and this, very likely, was the case; but it is a mere guess on the part of the priest. The Catapatha, III. 6. 1. 28, speaks of the All-gods as gods that gained immortality on a certain occasion, i.e., became immortal like other gods. So the Ādityas go to heaven before the Angirasas (Āīt. Br. IV. 17), but this has no such historical importance as some scholars are inclined to think. The lesser gods are in part carefully grouped and numbered, in a manner somewhat contradictory to what must have been the earlier belief. Thus the 'three kinds of gods' are now Vasus, of earth, Rudras, of air, and Ādityas, of sky, and the daily offerings are divided between them; the morning offering belonging only to the Vasus, the mid-day one only to (Indra and) the Rudras, the third to the Ādityas with the Vasus and Rudras together.[12] Again, the morning and mid-day pressing belong to the gods alone, and strict rule is observed in distinguishing their portion from that of the Manes (Cat. Br. IV. 4. 22). The difference of sex is quite ignored, so that the 'universal Agni' is identified with (mother) earth; as is also, once or twice, Pūshan (ib. III. 8. 5. 4; 2. 4. 19; II. 5. 4. 7). As the 'progenitor,' Agni facilitates connubial union, and is called "the head god, the progenitor among gods, the lord of beings" (ib. III. 4. 3. 4; III. 9. 1. 6). Pūshan is interpreted to mean cattle, and Brihaspati is the priestly caste (ib. III. 9. 1. 10 ff.). The base of comparison is usually easy to find. 'The earth nourishes,' and 'Pūshan nourishes,' hence Pushan is the earth; or 'the earth belongs to all' and Agni is called 'belonging to all' (universal), hence the two are identified. The All-gods, merely on account of their name, are now the All; Aditi is the 'unbounded' earth (ib. III. 9. 1. 13; IV. 1. 1. 23; i. 1. 4. 5; III. 2. 3. 6). Agni represents all the gods, and he is the dearest, the closest, and the surest of all the gods (ib. I. 6. 2. 8 ff.). It is said that man on earth fathers the fire (that is, protects it), and when he dies the fire that he has made his son on earth becomes his father, causing him to be reborn in heaven (ib. II. 3. 3. 3-5; VI. 1. 2. 26).