CHAPTER XIV.
EARLY HINDUISM.
While the great heresies that we have been describing were agitating the eastern part of India,[1] the old home of Brahmanism in the West remained true, in name if not in fact, to the ancient faith. But in reality changes almost as great as those of the formal heresies were taking place at the core of Brahmanism itself, which, no longer able to be the religion of a few clans, was now engaged in the gigantic task of remodelling and assimilating the indigenous beliefs and religious practices of its new environment. This was not a conscious act on the part of Brahmanism. At first it was undertaken almost unwittingly, and it was accomplished later not without repugnance. But to perform this task was the condition of continued existence. Brahmanism had to expand, or shrink, wither, and die.
For a thousand years almost the only source of information in regard to this new growth is contained in the epic poetry of the time, with the help of a few additional facts from the law, and some side light from inscriptions. It is here that Vishnuism and Çivaism are found as fully developed sectarian beliefs, accepted by Brahmanism with more or less distrust, and in more or less fulness of faith. It is to the epic that one must turn to study the budding and gradual flowering of the modern religions, which have cast strict orthodoxy into the shade.
Of the two epics, one, the R[=a]m[=a]yana,[2] has become the Old Testament of the Ramaite Vishnuites of the present day. The Bh[=a]rata,[3] on the other hand, is scriptural for all sects, because it is more universal. The former epic, in its present form, is what the Hindus call an 'art-poem,' and in its finish, its exclusively romantic style, and its total lack of nervous dramatic power, it is probably, as the Hindus claim, the work of one man, V[=a]lm[=i]ki, who took the ancient legends of Eastern India and moulded them into a stupid sectarian poem. On the other hand, the Bh[=a]rata is of no one hand, either in origin or in final redaction; nor is it of one sect; nor has it apparently been thoroughly affected, as has the R[=a]m[=a]yana, by Buddhistic influences. Moreover, in the huge conglomeration of stirring adventure, legend, myth, history, and superstition which goes to make up the great epic there is contained a far truer picture of the vulgar custom, belief, and religion of the time than the too polished composition of V[=a]lm[=i]ki is able to afford, despite the fact that the latter also has many popular elements welded into it. There are, in fact, only two national works in India, only two works which, withal, not in their entirety, but in their nucleus, after one has stripped each of its priestly toggery, reflect dimly the heart of the people, not the cleverness of one man, or the pedantry of schools. For a few Vedic hymns and a few Bh[=a]rata scenes make all the literature, with perhaps the exception of some fables, that is not markedly dogmatic, pedantic, or 'artificial.'[4] So true is this that even in the case of the R[=a]m[=a]yana one never feels that he is getting from it the genuine belief of the people, but only that form of popular belief which V[=a]lm[=i]ki has chosen to let stand in his version of the old tale. The great epic is heroic, V[=a]lm[=i]ki's poem is romantic; the former is real, the latter is artificial; and the religious gleaning from each corresponds to this distinction.[5]
Ths Bh[=a]rata, like other Hindu works, is of uncertain date, but it was completed as a 'Great Bh[=a]rata' by the end of the sixth century A.D., and the characters of the story are mentioned, as well known, by P[=a]nini, whose work probably belongs to the fourth century B.C. Furthermore, Dio Chrysostomos, probably citing from Megasthenes, refers to it; and the latter authority describes the worship of the chief gods of the epic; while the work is named in one of the domestic S[=u]tras, and a verse is cited from it in the legal Sutra of B[=a]udh[=a]yana.[6] On the other hand, in its latest growth it is on a par with the earlier Pur[=a]nas, but it is not quite so advanced in sectarianism as even the oldest of these writings. It may, then, be reckoned as tolerably certain that the beginnings of the epic date from the fourth or fifth century before the Christian era, and that it was quite a respectable work by the time that era began; after which it continued to grow for five centuries more.[7] Its religious importance can scarcely be overestimated. In 600 A.D., far away from its native home, in Cambodia, it was encircled with a temple, and an endowment was made by the king providing for the daily recitation of the poem. Its legal verses are authoritative; its religion is to-day that of India as a whole. The latest large additions to it were, as we think, the Book of Laws, the Book of Peace, and the genealogy of Vishnu, which together form a sort of pseudo-epic. But portions of other books, notably the first, fourth, and seventh, are probably almost as recent as are the more palpable interpolations.
The Bh[=a]rata (or the epic [Greek: kat exochên] gives us our first view of Hinduism in its sectarian developments. But no less does it show us a changing Brahmanism. The most typical change in the Brahmanism of this period, which covers all that time called by Müller the era of the Renaissance, and ends with the pedantically piquant literature of the drama,[8] is the abnormal growth of the ascetic religious exercise. Older Brahmanism, like the sects, admitted Yogis and ascetics of various kinds, but their aim was to attain oneness with God; and 'union' (with God) is the yoga (Latin jugum has the same origin) which they sought. But it was not long before the starved ascetic, with his wild appearance and great reputation for sanctity, inspired an awe which, in the unscrupulous, was easily turned to advantage. The Yogi became more or less of a charlatan, more or less of a juggler. Nor was this all. Yoga-practices began to take precedence before other religious practices. In the Br[=a]hmanas it is the sacrifice that is god-compelling; but in the epic, although sacrifice has its place, yet when miraculous power is exerted, it is due chiefly to Yoga concentration, or to the equally general use of formulae; not formulae as part of a sacrifice, but as in themselves potent; and mysterious mantras, used by priest and warrior alike, serve every end of magic.[9] Apart from acquisition of power, this Yoga-training is, moreover, all that is needful from the point of view of righteousness. Physical prowess here is the one thing admirable. To stand for years on one leg, to be eaten by ants, to be in every way an ascetic of the most stoical sort, is the truest religion. Such an ascetic has no ordinary rules of morality. In fact, his practices are most peculiar, for to seduce young women is one of his commonest occupations; and in his anger to cause an injury to his foes is one of the ends for which he toils. The gods are nothing to him. They are puppets whom he makes shake and tremble at will. As portrayed in the epic, in terms of common sense, the Muni (silent saint) is a morose[10] and very vulgar-minded old man, who seeks to intimidate others by a show of miraculous power. In the matter of penances those of the law are extended beyond all bounds. The caste-restrictions are of the closest, and the most heinous crime is to commit an offence against caste-order. On the other hand, the greatest merit is to give gifts to priests. This had already proceeded far enough, as was indicated by a passage cited above from Manu. But in the epic the greed and capacity of the priest exceeds all imaginable limits. He takes whatever he can get and asks for more. He has, by his own showing, scarcely one estimable trait. Avarice, cupidity, sensuality, gluttony, love of finery, effeminacy, meanness, and pride—everything charged against him by the Buddhist—are his most marked characteristics. He appears, however, to be worse than he always was. For nothing is plainer, from this very epic, than that the priests, although united as a caste, were sharply distinguished in their lives. The ascetic described above represents the fourth period of the priestly life. Below these stood (apart from students)[11] hermits and householders. The householders, or such of them as the epic unfortunately is busied with, the royal priests, seem to be those that are in reality priests only in name. In the king's palace, his constant advisors, his most unscrupulous upholders in wickedness, they gave themselves up to quest of wealth and power. But one would err if he thus dismissed them all. There were others that had no preferment, who lived in quiet content in their own houses, and deserved none of the opprobrium rightly bestowed upon their hypocritical brothers. The hermits, too, appear to have been a mild and inoffensive race, not presuming too much on their caste-privileges.
To offset rapaciousness there are tomes of morality of the purest sort. Even in the later additions to the epic one reads: "Away with gifts; receiving gifts is sinful. The silkworm dies of its wealth" (xii. 330. 29). One should compare, again, the exalted verse (Buddhistic in tone) of ib. 321. 47: "The red garment, the vow of silence, the three-fold staff, the water-pot—these only lead astray; they do not make for salvation." There were doubtless good and bad priests, but the peculiarity of the epic priest, rapacious and lustful, is that he glories in his sins.
The chief objects of worship (except for the influence of the sectarian religions) were priests, Manes, and, for form's sake, the Vedic gods. These gods, with the addition of the Hindu Plutus (Kubera, the god of riches), are now called the eight 'world-guardians,' viz., Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera, Agni, S[=u]rya, V[=a]yu, Soma, and are usually simple and shadowy subordinates of the greater new gods.
In the shifting of religious opinion and in the development of theological conceptions what difference can be traced between the same gods as worshipped in the Veda and as worshipped in the epic? Although the Vedic divinities have been twice superseded, once by the Father-god and again by the [=a]tm[=a], Lord, they still remain adorable and adored, active in many ways, though passive before the great All-god. It is, indeed, extremely difficult, owing to the superstruction of sectarian belief, to get down to the foundation-religion of the epic. The best one can do is to see in what way the old gods differ, as represented in the poem, from their older selves of the Rig Veda. From this point of view alone, and entirely irrespective of the sects, manifold changes will be seen to have taken place. Great Soma is no more. Soma is there, the moon, but the glory of the Vedic Soma has departed. His lunar representative is of little importance. Agni, too, is changed. As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers. He takes on every form, even becoming a priest, and a dove. He remains the priest of the gods, but his day of action in war is over. He no longer wins battles. But he burns down a forest to aid his party. For the Vedic gods are now but weak partizans of the combatants. In the sectarian parts of the epic Agni is only a puppet. His new representative, Skanda, is the chief battle-god, a name almost unknown before. He himself is either the son of Vishnu or a form of Çiva. He is the All-god, the [=a]tm[=a]. It is he who burns the world when the time shall have come for the general destruction.
The high and mighty Varuna of the Rig Veda is no longer great. He is no longer serene. He descends and fights on earth. Indra, too, battles with Vritra as of old, but he is quite anthropomorphic, and of no marked value in the contest of heroes. Not only this, but all the gods together are represented as weaker than a good hero, not to speak of a priestly ascetic. In a word, the gods are believed in, but with what a belief! They no longer, as natural powers, inspire special respect. Their nature-origin is for the most part lost. They are thoroughly anthropomorphic. Even S[=u]rya, the sun, in action if not in laudation, is often more man than god. This gives a strange effect to the epic battle-scenes as compared with those of Homer. Unless Vishnu is active on the field the action is essentially human. No great god or goddess stands ready to save the fainting warrior. He fights and falls alone. Save for the caresses and plaudits of the half-gods, the most that the Vedic gods can do is to wipe away the sweat from the hero's brow.[12] The All-god does not take the place of the band of watchful and helpful gods pictured by Homer. Vishnu fights on the field; he saves only his protégés, and much as a mortal warrior would do it. But the Vedic gods hang like a mist upon the edge of battle, and are all but idle spectators of the scene. Abstractions, as well as the All-god, have routed them, and Dharma or Duty is a greater god than Indra. But there is an older side to this, as we shall presently show. On the moral side the heroes of the epic profess great belief in the power and awfulness of this god Duty. And so far as go rules of chivalry, they are theoretically moral. Practically they are savage, and their religion does not interfere with their brutal barbarity. The tendency to cite divine instances of sin as excuse for committing it is, however, rebuked: "One should neither practice nor blame the (wrong) acts of gods and seers," xii. 292. 17-18.
From an eschatological point of view it is most difficult to get back of the statements made by the priestly composers,[13] who, in their various reëditings of the epic, uniformly have given the pantheistic goal as that in which the characters believe. But it is evident that the warriors were not much affected by this doctrine. To them there was one law of righteousness exceeding all others—to die on the field of battle. And for such as did so, over and over again is the assurance given that 'happiness in Indra's heaven' is their reward. And probably a true note is struck in this reiterated promise. To the mass of the vulgar, union with brahma would have been no attractive end.
It is interesting to see the remains of the older belief still flourishing in midst of epic pantheism. Although Indra has no such hymn as has S[=u]rya, yet is he still lauded, and he is a very real person to the knight who seeks his heaven.[14] In fact, so long as natural phenomena were regarded as divine, so long as thunder was godly, it was but a secondary question which name the god bore; whether he was the 'chief and king of gods,' or Vishnu manifesting himself in a special form. This form, at any rate, was to endure as such till the end of the cycle. There are other Indras. Each cycle has its own (i. 197. 29). But sufficient unto the age is the god thereof. If, relinquishing the higher bliss of absorption, the knight sought only Indra's heaven, and believed he was to find it, then his belief practically does not differ much from that of his ancestor, who accepts Indra as an ultimate, natural power. The question arises whether, after all, the Indra-worship of the epic is not rather popular than merely old and preserved. Certainly the reality of the belief seems quite as strong as that of the ever-newly converted sectary. It may be doubted whether the distribution of theological belief is very different in the epic and Vedic ages. Philosophical pantheism is very old in India. The priest believes one thing; the vulgar, another. The priest of the Vedic age, like the philosopher of the next age, and like the later sectarian, has a belief which runs ahead of the popular religion. But the popular religion in its salient features still remains about the same. Arjuna, the epic hero, the pet of Krishna, visits Indra's heaven and stays there five years. It is the old Vedic gods to whom he turns for weapons, till the Çivaite makes Indra send the knight further, to Çiva himself. The old name, king of the Vasus, is still retained for Indra; and though the 'divine weapons,' which are winged with sacred formulae, are said to be more than a match for the gods; though in many a passage the knight and the saint make Indra tremble, yet still appear, through the mists of ascetic and sectarian novelties, Indra's heaven and his grandeur, shining with something of their old glory. Vishnu still shows his solar origin. Of him and of the sun is it said in identical words: "The sun protects and devours all," and " Vishnu protects and devours " (of Vishnu, passim; of the sun, iii. 33. 71). A good deal of old stuff is left in the Forest Book amongst the absurd tales of holy watering places. One finds repeated several times the Vedic account of Indra's fight with Vritra, the former's thunderbolt, however, being now made of a saint's bones (ii. ch. 100-105). Agni is lauded (ib. ch. 123). To the Açvins[15] there is one old hymn which contains Vedic forms (i. 3). Varuna is still lord of the West, and goes accompanied with the rivers, 'male and female,' with snakes, and demons, and half-gods (d[=a]ityas, s[=a]dhyas, d[=a]ivatas). Later, but earlier than the pseudo-epic, there stands with these gods Kubera, the god of wealth, the 'jewel-giver,' who is the guardian of travellers, the king of those demons called Yakshas, which the later sect makes servants of Çiva. He is variously named;[16] he is a dwarf; he dwells in the North, in Mt. K[=a]il[=a]sa, and has a demoniac gate-keeper, Macakruka. Another newer god is the one already referred to, Dharma V[=a]ivasvata, or Justice (Virtue, Right), the son of the sun, a title of Yama older than the Vedas. He is also the father of the new love-god, K[=a]ma. It is necessary to indicate the names of the gods and their functions, lest one imagine that with pantheism the Vedic religion expired. Even that old, impious Brahmanic fable crops out again: "The devils were the older brothers of the gods, and were conquered by the gods only with trickery" (in. 33. 60), an interesting reminiscence of the fact that the later name for evil spirit was originally the one applied to the great and good spirit (Asura the same with Ahura).[17] According to a rather late chapter in the second book each of the great Vedic gods has a special paradise of his own, the most remarkable feature of the account being that Indra's heaven is filled with saints, having only one king in it—a view quite foreign to the teaching that is current elsewhere in the epic. Where the sectarian doctrine would oppose the old belief it set above Indra's heaven another, of Brahm[=a], and above that a third, of Vishnu (i. 89. 16 ff.). According to one passage Mt. Mandara[18] is a sort of Indian Olympus. Another account speaks of the Him[=a]layas, Himavat, as 'the divine mountain, beloved of the gods,' though the knight goes thence to Gandham[=a]dana, and thence to Indrak[=i]la, to find the gods' habitat (III. 37. 41). Personified powers lie all around the religious Hindu. And this is especially true of the epic character. He prays to Mt. Mandara, and to rivers, above all to the Ganges. Mt. Kol[=a]hala is divine, and begets divine offspring on a river (I. 63). The Vindhya range of mountains rivals the fabled Meru (around which course the sun and all the heavenly bodies), and this, too, is the object of devotion and prayer.[19] In one passage it is said that in Beh[=a]r (M[=a]gadha) there was a peak which was continuously 'worshipped with offerings of flowers and perfumes,' exactly as if it were a god. The reason why flowers are given and worn is that they bring good luck, it is said in the same chapter (II. 21. 15, 20, 51).
What is, perhaps, the most striking feature of Hindu religious thought, as a whole, is the steadfastness with which survive, even in the epic and in Buddhism, the forms and formulae of the older faith. At a time when pantheism or nihilism is the avowed creed the ancient gods still exist, weak, indeed, yet infused with a true immortality. This is noticeable even more in unnoticeable ways, in the turns of speech, in little comparisons, in the hymns, in short, in the by-play of the epic. 'Withered are the garlands of the gods, and their glory is departed,'[20] but they still receive homage in time of need. And in that homage is to be seen, and from the same cause, the revived or surviving worship of the Veda. Each god in turn is mighty, though Agni is the mightiest of the old divinities. In an epic hymn to him it is said: "Thou art the mouth of the worlds; the poets declare thee to be one and three-fold; as carrier of the sacrifice they arrange thee eight-fold. By thee was all created, say the highest seers. Priests that have made reverence to thee attain the eternal course their acts have won, together with their wives and sons. They call thee the water-giver in the air, together with lightning. On thee first depends water. Thou art the creator and Brihaspati, thou art the two Horsemen, the two Yamas, Mitra, Soma, Wind" (i. 229. 23 ff.).[21] And yet this is in a pantheistic environment! The Rig Veda is directly invoked, though, of course, not directly cited, in the old hymn to the Horsemen, who are, however, elsewhere put with low animals and Guhyakas, demons (i. 66).[22] They are the "physicians of the gods," the "first-born" the golden birds which weave the white and black of time, create the wheel of time with all its seasons, and make the sun and sky (i. 3. 55 ff., "v[=a]gbhir [r.]gbhis"). Indra himself is extolled in Kadr[=u]'s hymn; he is the slayer of Namuci, the lord of Çac[=i]; he is the great cloud, cloud and its thunder, creator and destroyer; he is Vishnu, 'Soma, greatly praised,' as well as fire, air, time in all its divisions, earth and ocean; when lauded he drinks the soma, and he is sung in the Ved[=a]ngas (i. 25. 7 ff.). Praised with this hymn in time of need of rain, Indra "commanded the clouds, saying, 'rain down the ambrosia'" (26. 2); where there is still the rain as synonymous with ambrosia, and Indra not very differently conceived from his Vedic self. Thus in comparisons: "As Indra standing in heaven brings bliss to the world of the living, so Vidura ever brought bliss to the Pandus" (i. 61. 15). But at the same time what changes! The gods assemble and sing a hymn to Garuda, the epic form of Garutman, the heavenly bird, who here steals the soma vainly guarded by the gods. Garuda, too, is Praj[=a]pati, Indra, and so forth.[23] The gods are no longer divinities distinct from the dead Fathers, for they are "identical in being." So Agni says when the latter is cursed by Bhrigu: "The divinities and the Manes are satisfied by the oblation in fire. The hosts of gods are waters, so, too, are the Manes. The feasts of the new and full moon belong to the gods with the Manes; hence the Manes are divinities and the divinities are Manes. They are of one being (ekbh[=u]t[=a]s). I (Fire) am the mouth of both, for both eat the oblation poured upon me. The Manes at the new moon, the gods at the full, are fed by my mouth" (i. 7. 7 ff.).[24] Such gods the epic hero fears not (i. 227. 38 ff.). Hymns to them are paralleled by hymns to snakes, as in i. 3. 134 ff., against whom is made the "sarpasattram (snake sacrifice) of the Pur[=a]nas" (i. 51. 6). Divinity is universal. Knights are as divine as the divinest god, the All-god. Arjuna, the god-born man, to whom Krishna reveals the Divine Song, is himself god.[25] In this case whether god becomes human, or vice versa, no one knows.
Under the all embracing cloak of pantheism the heart of the epic conceals many an ancient rite and superstition. Here is the covenant of blood, the covenant of death (represented by the modern 'sitting'[26]), and the covenant of water, which symbolizes both friendship and the solemnity of the curse. The former are illustrated by Bhima's drinking blood as a sign that he will fulfil his vow,[27] and by R[=a]ma lying by Ocean to die unless Ocean grants his wish. Of the water-rite that of offering water in hospitality and as a form in reception of gifts is general; that of cursing by 'touching water' (v[=a]ry upasp[r.]çya), occurs in iii. 10. 32. For this purpose holy-grass and other symbols are known also,[28] and formulae yield only in potency to love-philters and magic drugs. Another covenant besides those just noticed seems to lie concealed in the avoidance of the door when injury is intended. If one goes in by the door he is a guest who has anticipated hospitality, and then he dares not refuse the respect and offering of water, etc, which makes the formal pact of friendship. If, on the contrary, he does not go in by the door he is not obliged to receive the offering, and may remain as a foe in the house (or in the city) of his enemy, with intent to kill, but without moral wrong. This may be implied in the end of the epic, where Açvatth[=a]man, intent on secret murder of his foe, is prevented by god Çiva from entering in at the gate, but going in by stealth, and 'not by the door' of the camp, gets to his foe, who lies asleep, and kills him (x. 8. 10). This might be thought, indeed, to be merely strategic, but it is in accordance with the strict law of all the law-books that one, in ordinary circumstances, shall avoid to enter a town or a house in any other way than through the door (Manu, iv. 73; Gaut. 9. 32, etc.), and we think it has a moral significance, for this a-dv[=a]ra (non-door) rule occurs again in the epic in just the circumstances we have described. The heroes in this case are not afraid of their foe, who is in his town. They insult every one as they approach, but they find some other way of getting in than by passing through the gate, for the express purpose of being morally able to make the king fight with them after they have entered his city. And they cite the rule 'according to law,' which is that one may enter his foe's house by a-dv[=a]ra, 'not by door,' but his friend's house only 'by door.' As they have not entered 'by door' they say they may refuse the hospitality which the king urges them to accept, and so they kill him (ii. 21. 14, 53). Stepping in through the door seems, therefore, to be a tacit agreement that one will not injure the resident.[29]
In the epic, again, fetishism is found. The student of the 'science of war,' in order to obtain his teacher's knowledge when the latter is away, makes a clay image of the preceptor and worships this clay idol, practicing arms before it (i. 132. 33). Here too is embalmed the belief that man's life may be bound up with that of some inanimate thing, and the man perishes with the destruction of his psychic prototype (iii. 135). The old ordeals of fire and water are recognized. "Fire does not burn the house of good men." "If (as this man asserts) he is Varuna's son, then let him enter water and let us see if he will drown" (iii. 134. 27 ff.). A human sacrifice is performed (iii. 127); although the priest who performs it is cast into hell (ib. 128).[30] The teaching in regard to hells is about the same with that already explained in connection with the law-books, but the more definite physical interpretation of hell as a hole in the ground (garta, just as in the Rig Veda) is retained. Agastya sees his ancestors 'in a hole,' which they call 'a hell' (n[=i]ray[=a]). This is evidently the hell known to the law-punsters and epic (i. 74. 39) as puttra, 'the put hell' from which the son (putra) delivers (tra). For these ancestors are in the 'hole' because Agastya, their descendant, has not done his duty and begotten sons (i. 45. 13; iii. 96. 15); one son being 'no son' according to law and epic (i. 100. 68), and all the merit of sacrifice being equal to only one-sixteenth of that obtained by having a son. The teaching, again, in regard to the Fathers themselves (the Manes), while not differing materially from the older view, offers novelties which show how little the absorption-theory had taken hold of the religious consciousness. The very fact that the son is still considered to be as necessary as ever (that he may offer food to his ancestors) shows that the believer, whatever his professed faith, expects to depend for bliss hereafter upon his post mortem meals, as much as did his fathers upon theirs. In the matter of the burial of the dead, one finds, what is antique, that although according to the formal law only infants are buried, and adults are burned, yet was burial known, as in the Vedic age. And the still older exposure of the body, after the Iranian fashion, is not only hinted at as occurring here and there even before the epic, but in the epic these forms are all recognized as equally approved: "When a man dies he is burned or buried or exposed" (nik[r.][s.]yate)[31] it is said in i. 90. 17; and the narrator goes on to explain that the "hell on earth," of which the auditor "has never heard" (vs. 6) is re-birth in low bodies, speaking of it as a new doctrine. "As if in a dream remaining conscious the spirit enters another form"; the bad becoming insects and worms; the good going to heaven by means of the "seven gates," viz., penance, liberality, quietism, self-control, modesty, rectitude, and mercy. This is a union of two views, and it is evidently the popular view, that, namely, the good go to heaven while the bad go to new existence in a low form, as opposed to the more logical conception that both alike enter new forms, one good, the other bad. Then the established stadia, the pupil, the old teaching (upanishad) of the householders, and the wood-dwellers are described, with the remark that there is no uniformity of opinion in regard to them; but the ancient view crops out again in the statement that one who dies as a forest-hermit "establishes in bliss" ten ancestors and ten descendants. In this part of the epic the Punj[=a]b is still near the theatre of events, the 'centre region' being between the Ganges and Jumna (I. 87. 5); although the later additions to the poems show acquaintance with all countries, known and unknown, and with peoples from all the world. Significant in xii. 61. 1, 2 is the name of the third order bh[=a]ikshyacaryam 'beggarhood' (before the forest-hermit and after the householder).
It was said above that the departed Fathers could assume a mortal form. In the formal classification of these demigods seven kinds of Manes are enumerated, the title of one subdivision being 'those embodied.' Brahm[=a] is identified with the Father-god in connection with the Manes: "All the Manes worship Praj[=a]pati Brahm[=a]," in the paradise of Praj[=a]pati, where, by the way, are Çiva and Vishnu (II. 11. 45, 50, 52; 8. 30). According to this description 'kings and sinners,' together with the Manes, are found in Yama's home, as well as "those that die at the solstice" (II. 7 ff.; 8. 31). Constantly the reader is impressed with the fact that the characters of the epic are acting and thinking in a way not conformable to the idea one might form of the Hindu from the law. We have animadverted upon this point elsewhere in connection with another matter. It is this factor that makes the study of the epic so invaluable as an offset to the verisimilitude of belief, even as belief is taught (not practiced) in the law. There is a very old rule, for instance, against slaughtering animals and eating meat; while to eat beef is a monstrous crime. Yet is it plain from the epic that meat-eating was customary, and Vedic texts are cited ( iti çrutis) to prove that this is permissible; while a king is extolled for slaughtering cattle (III. 208. 6-11). It is said out and out in iii. 313. 86 that 'beef is food,' g[=a]ur annam. Deer are constantly eaten. There is an amusing protest against this practice, which was felt to be irreconcilable with the ahims[=a] (non-injury) doctrine, in III. 258, where the remnant of deer left in the forest come in a vision and beg to be spared. A dispute between gods and seers over vegetable sacrifices is recorded, XII. 338. Again, asceticism is not the duty of a warrior, but the epic hero practices asceticism exactly as if he were a priest, or a Jain, although the warning is given that a warrior 'obtains a better lot' (loka) by dying in battle than by asceticism. The asceticism is, of course, exaggerated, but an instance or two of what the Hindu expects in this regard may not be without interest. The warrior who becomes an ascetic eats leaves, and is clothed in grass. For one month he eats fruits every third day (night); for another month every sixth day; for another month every fortnight; and for the fourth month he lives on air, standing on tiptoe with arms stretched up. Another account says that the knight eats fruit for one month; water for one month; and for the third month, nothing (III. 33. 73; 38. 22-26; 167). One may compare with these ascetic practices, which are not so exaggerated, in fact, as might be supposed,[32] the 'one-leg' practice of virtue, consisting in standing on one leg, ekap[=a]dena, for six months or longer, as one is able (I. 170. 46; III. 12. 13-16). Since learning the Vedas is a tiresome task, and ascetic practice makes it possible to acquire anything, one is not surprised to find that a devotee undertakes penance with this in view, and is only surprised when Indra, who, to be sure has a personal interest in the Vedas, breaks in on the scene and rebukes the ascetic with the words: "Asceticism cannot teach the Vedas; go and be tutored by a teacher" (III. 135. 22).
One finds in the epic the old belief that the stars are the souls of the departed,[33] and this occurs so often that it is another sign of the comparative newness of the pantheistic doctrine. When the hero, Arjuna, goes to heaven he approaches the stars, "which seen from earth look small on account of their distance," and finds them to be self-luminous refulgent saints, royal seers, and heroes slain in battle, some of them also being nymphs and celestial singers. All of this is in contradiction both to the older and to the newer systems of eschatology; but it is an ancient belief, and therefore it is preserved. Indra's heaven,[34] Amar[=a]vati, lies above these stars[35] No less than five distinct beliefs are thus enunciated in regard to the fate of 'good men after death. If they believe in the All-god they unite with him at once. Or they have a higher course, becoming gradually more elevated, as gods, etc, and ultimately 'enter' the All-god. Again they go to the world of Brahm[=a]. Again they go to Indra's heaven. Again they become stars. The two last beliefs are the oldest, the brahmaloka belief is the next in order of time, and the first-mentioned are the latest to be adopted. The hero of the epic just walks up to heaven, but his case is exceptional.
While angels and spirits swarm about the world in every shape from mischievous or helpful fairies to R[=a]hu, whose head still swallows the sun, causing eclipses (I. 19. 9), there are a few that are especially conspicuous. Chief of the good spirits, attendants of Indra, are the Siddhas[36] 'saints,' who occasionally appear to bless a hero in conjunction with 'beings invisible' (III. 37. 21). Their name means literally 'blessed' or 'successful,' and probably, like the seers, Rishis, they are the departed fathers in spiritual form. These latter form various classes. There are not only the 'great seers,' and the still greater 'brahma-seers,' and the 'god-seers,' but there are even 'devil-seers,' and 'king-seers,' these being spirits of priests of royal lineages.[37] The evil spirits, like the gods, are sometimes grouped in threes. In a blessing one cries out: "Farewell (svasti gacchahy an[=a]mayam); I entreat the Vasus, Rudras, [=A]dityas, Marut-hosts and the All-gods to protect thee, together with the S[=a]dhyas; safety be to thee from all the evil beings that live in air, earth, and heaven, and from all others that dog thy path."[38] In XII. 166. 61 ff. the devils fall to earth, mountains, water, and other places. According to I. 19. 29. it is not long since the Asuras were driven to take refuge in earth and salt water.[39]
These creatures have every kind of miraculous power, whether they be good or bad. Hanuman, famed in both epics, the divine monkey, with whom is associated the divine 'king of bears' J[=a]mbavan (III. 280. 23), can grow greater than mortal eye can see (III. 150. 9). He is still worshipped as a great god in South India. As an illustration of epic spiritism the case of Ilvala may be taken. This devil, d[=a]iteya, had a trick of cooking his embodied younger brother, and giving him to saints to eat. One saint, supposing the flesh to be mutton (here is saintly meat-eating!), devours the dainty viand; upon which the devil 'calls' his brother, who is obliged to come, whether eaten or not, and in coming bursts the saint that has eaten him (iii. 96). This is folk-lore; but what religion does not folk-lore contain! So, personified Fate holds its own as an inscrutable power, mightier than others.[40] There is another touch of primitive religious feeling which reminds one of the usage in Iceland, where, if a stranger knocks at the door and the one within asks 'who is there?' the guest answers, 'God.' So in the epic it is said that 'every guest is god Indra' (Parjanyo nn[=a]nusa[.m]caran, iii. 200. 123. In the epic Parjanya, the rain-god, and Indra are the same). Of popular old tales of religious bearing may be mentioned the retention and elaboration of the Brahmanic deluge-story, with Manu as Noah (iii. 187); the Açvins' feats in rejuvenating (iii. 123); the combats of the gods with the demons (Namuci, Çambara, Vala, Vritra, Prahl[=a]da, Naraka), etc. (iii. 168).
Turning now to some of the newer traits in the epic, one notices first that, while the old sacrifices still obtain, especially the horse-sacrifice, the r[=a]jas[=u]ya and the less meritorious v[=a]japeya, together with the monthly and seasonal sacrifices, there is in practice a leaning rather to new sacrifices, and a new cult. The soma is scarce, and the p[=u]tika plant is accepted as its substitute (iii. 35. 33) in a matter-of-course way, as if this substitution, permitted of old by law, were now common. The sacrifice of the widow is recognized, in the case of the wives of kings, as a means of obtaining bliss for a woman,[41] for the religion of the epic is not entirely careless of woman. Somewhat new, however, is the self-immolation of a man upon the pyre of his son. Such a case is recorded in iii. 137. 19. where a father burns his son's body, and then himself enters the fire. New also, of course, are the sectarian festivals and sacrifices; and pronounced is the gain in the godhead of priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods, although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.[42] The king, too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,[43] and so are the parents to the son;[44] while, since the elder brother is the same with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; for higher even than that of the priest is the husband's divinity (III. 206). The wife's religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (III. 205. 23), and to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy watering-places, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or 'visit this holy pool') he or she is freed from sin" (so in III. 82. 33: "Every sin committed since birth by man or woman is absolved by bathing in 'holy Pushkara"). It may be remarked that as a general thing the deities invoked by women are, by predilection, female divinities, some of them being mere abstractions, while 'the Creator' is often the only god in the woman's list, except, of course, the priests: "Reverence to priests, and to the Creator … May Hr[=i], Çr[=i] (Modesty and Beauty), Fame, Glory, Prosperity, Um[=a] (Çiva's wife), Lakshmi (Vishnu's wife), and also Sarasvat[=i], (may all these female divinities) guard thy path, because thou reverest thy elder brother," is a woman's prayer (III. 37. 26-33).[45]
Of the sectarian cults just mentioned the brahmamaha, I. 164. 20, elsewhere referred to, is the all-caste[46] feast in honor of Brahm[=a] (or of the Brahmans); as ib. 143. 3 one finds a sam[=a]ja in honor of Çiva; and distinctly in honor of the same god of horror is the sacrifice, i.e., immolation, of one hundred kings, who are collected "in the temple of Çiva," to be slaughtered like cattle in M[=a]gadha (II. 15. 23); an act which the heroes of the epic prevent, and look upon with scorn.[47] As a substitute for the r[=a]jas[=u]ya, which may be connected with the human sacrifice (Ind. Streifen, I. 61), but is the best sacrifice because it has the best largesse (III. 255. 12), the Vaishnava is suggested to Duryodhana. It is a great sattram or long sacrifice to Vishnu (ib. 15 and 19); longer than a Vishnuprabodha (26 Oct.). There is a Smriti rite described in III. 198. 13 as a svastiv[=a]canam, a ceremony to obtain a heavenly chariot which brings prosperity, the priests being invoked for blessings (svasti). Quite modern, comparatively speaking, is the cult of holy pools; but it is to be observed that the blessings expected are rarely more than the acquirement of brahma-worlds, so that the institution seems to be at least older than the sectarian religions, although naturally among the holy pools is intruded a Vishnu-pool. This religious rite cannot be passed over in silence. The custom is late Brahmanic (as above), and still survives. It has been an aspect of Hindu religion for centuries, not only in the view taken of the pools, but even occasionally in the place itself. Thus the Ganges, Gay[=a], Pray[=a]ga, and Kuru-Plain are to-day most holy, and they are mentioned as among the holiest in the epic catalogue.[48] Soma is now revamped by a bath in a holy pool (IX. 35. 75). As in every antithesis of act and thought there are not lacking passages in the epic which decry the pools in comparison with holy life as a means of salvation. Thus in III. 82. 9 ff., the poet says: "The fruit of pilgrimage (to holy pools)—he whose hands, feet, and mind are controlled;[49] he who has knowledge, asceticism, and fame, he gets all the fruit that holy pools can give. If one is averse from receiving gifts, content, freed from egoism, if one injures not, and acts disinterestedly, if one is not gluttonous, or carnal-minded, he is freed from sin. Let one (not bathe in pools but) be without wrath, truthful, firm in his vows, seeing his self in all beings." This is, however, a protest little heeded.[50] Pilgrimage is made to pool and plain, to mountain, tree, and river. Even then, as now, of all pilgrimages that to Ganges was most esteemed: "Originally all were holy; in the second age Pushkara[51] was holy; in the third age the Plain of the Kurus was holy; and in this age Ganges is holy" (III. 85. 90).[52] Besides Ganges, the Plain of the Kurus and Pray[=a]ga, the junction of Ganges and Jumna, get the highest laudation. Other rivers, such as the Gomal and Sarasvat[=i], are also extolled, and the list is very long of places which to see or to bathe in releases from sin. "He who bathes in Ganges purifies seven descendants.[53] As long as the bones of a man touch Ganges-water so long that man is magnified in heaven." Again: "No place of pilgrimage is better than Ganges; no god is better than Vishnu; nothing is better than brahma—so said the sire of the gods" (iii. 85. 94-96). The very dust of Kuru-Plain makes one holy, the sight of it purifies; he that lives south of the Sarasvat[=i], north of the Drishadvat[=i] (i.e., in Kuru-Plain), he lives in the third heaven (iii. 83. 1-3=203-205[54]). This sort of expiation for sin is implied in a more general way by the remark that there are three kinds of purity, one of speech, one of act, and one of water (iii. 200. 82). But in the epic there is still another means of expiating sin, one that is indicated in the Brahmanic rule that if a woman is an adulteress she destroys half her sin by confessing it (as above), where, however, repentance is rather implied than commanded. But in the epic Pur[=a]na it is distinctly stated as a Çruti, or trite saying, that if one repents he is freed from his sin; na tat kury[=a]m punar is the formula he must use, 'I will not do so again,' and then he is released from even the sin that he is going to commit a second time, as if by a ceremony—so is the Çruti in the laws, dharmas (iii. 207. 51, 52).[55] Confession to the family priest is enjoined, in xii. 268. 14, to escape punishment.
Two other religious practices in the epic are noteworthy. The first is the extension of idolatry in pictures. The amiable 'goddess of the house' is represented, to be sure, as a R[=a]kshas[=i], or demoniac power, whose name is Jar[=a]. But she was created by the Self-existent, and is really very friendly, under certain conditions: "Whoever delineates me with faith in his house, he increases in children; otherwise he would be destroyed." She is worshipped, i.e., her painted image is worshipped, with perfumes, flowers, incense, food, and other enjoyable things (II. 18).[56] Another practice that is very common is the worship of holy trees. One may compare the banyan at Bodhi Gay[=a] with the 'worshipful' village-tree of II. 24. 23. Seldom and late is the use of a rosary mentioned (e.g., III. 112. 5, aksham[=a]l[=a], elsewhere aksha), although the word is employed to make an epithet of Çiva, Aksham[=a]lin.[57]
As has been said already, an extraordinary power is ascribed to the mere repetition of a holy text, mantra. These are applied on all occasions without the slightest reference to the subject. By means of mantra one exorcises; recovers weapons; calls gods and demons, etc.[58] When misfortune or disease arrives it is invariably ascribed to the malignant action of a devil, although the karma teaching should suggest that it was the result of a former misdeed on the victim's part. But the very iteration, the insistence on new explanations of this doctrine, show that the popular mind still clung to the old idea of demoniac interference. Occasionally the naïveté with which the effect of a mantra is narrated is somewhat amusing, as, for instance, when the heroine Krishn[=a] faints, and the by-standers "slowly" revive her "by the use of demon-dispelling mantras, rubbing, water, and fanning" (iii. 144. 17). All the weapons of the heroes are inspired with and impelled by mantras.
Sufficient insight into the formal rules of morality has been given in the extracts above, nor does the epic in this regard differ much from the law-books. Every man's first duty is to act; inactivity is sinful. The man that fails to win a good reputation by his acts, a warrior, for example, that is devoid of fame, a 'man of no account,' is a bh[=u]mivardhana, [Greek: achthos arourês] a cumberer of earth (iii. 35. 7). A proverb says that man should seek virtue, gain, and pleasure; "virtue in the morning; gain at noon; pleasure at night," or, according to another version, "pleasure when young, gain in middle-age, and virtue in the end of life" (iii. 33. 40, 41). "Virtue is better than immortality and life. Kingdom, sons, glory, wealth, all this does not equal one-sixteenth part of the value of truth" (ib. 34. 22).[59] One very strong summing up of a discourse on virtuous behavior ends thus: "Truth, self-control, asceticism, generosity, non-injury, constancy in virtue—these are the means of success, not caste nor family" (j[=a]ti, kula, iii. 181. 42).
A doctrine practiced, if not preached, is that of blood-revenge. "The unavenged shed tears, which are wiped away by the avenger" (iii. 11. 66); and in accordance with this feeling is the statement: "I shall satiate my brother with his murderer's blood, and thus, becoming free of debt in respect of my brother, I shall win the highest place in heaven" (ib. 34, 35).
As of old, despite the new faith, as a matter of priestly, formal belief, all depends on the sacrifice: "Law comes from usage; in law are the Vedas established; by means of the Vedas arise sacrifices; by sacrifice are the gods established; according to the rule of Vedas, and usage, sacrifices being performed support the divinities, just as the rules of Brihaspati and Uçanas support men" (iii. 150. 28, 29). The pernicious doctrine of atonement for sin follows as a matter of course: "Whatever sin a king commits in conquering the earth is atoned for by sacrifices, if they are accompanied with large gifts to priests, such as cows and villages." Even gifts to a sacred bull have the same effect (iii. 33. 78, 79; ib. 35. 34; iii. 2. 57), the occasion in hand being a king's violation of his oath.[60] Of these sacrifices a great snake-sacrifice forms the occasion for narrating the whole epic, the plot of which turns on the national vice of gambling.[61] For divine snakes are now even grouped with other celestial powers, disputing the victory of earthly combatants as do Indra and S[=u]rya: "The great snakes were on Arjuna's side; the little snakes were for Karna" (viii. 87. 44, 45).[62] They were (perhaps) the local gods of the Nagas (Snakes), a tribe living between the Ganges and Jumna.
The religion of the epic is multiform. But it stands, in a certain sense, as one religion, and from two points of view it is worthy of special regard. One may look upon it either as the summing up of Brahmanism in the new Hinduism, as the final expression of a religion which forgets nothing and absorbs everything; or one may study it as a belief composed of historical strata, endeavoring to divide it into its different layers, as they have been super-imposed one upon another in the course of ages. From the latter point of view the Vedic divinities claim the attention first. There are still traces of the original power of Agni and S[=u]rya, as we have shown, and Wind still makes with these two a notable triad,[63] whereas Indra, impotent as he is, hymnless as he is,—save in the oldest portions of the work,—still leads the gods, now godkins, of the ancient pantheon, and still, in theory, at least, off a paradise to the knight that dies nobly on the field.[64] But one sees at once that the preservation of the dignity of these deities is due to different causes. Indra cannot even save a snake that grasps his hand for safety; he wages war against the demons' 'triple town,' and signally fails of his purpose, for the demons are as strong as the gods, and there are D[=a]navendras as well as D[=a]navarshis.[65] But Indra is the figure-head of the whole ancient pantheon, and for this reason he plays so constant, if so weak, a rôle, in the epic. The only important thing in connection with him is his heaven. As an individual deity Indra lives, on the whole, only in the tales of old, for example, in that of his cheating Namuci (ix. 43. 32 ff.). Nothing new and clever is told of him which would indicate power, only a new trick or two, as when he steals from Karna. It is quite otherwise with Agni and S[=u]rya. They are not so vaguely identified with the one god as is 'Indra and the other Vasus.' It is merely because these gods are prominently forms of Vishnu that they are honored with hymns in the epic. This is seen from the nature of the hymns, and also from the fact that it is either as fire or as sun that Vishnu destroys at the end of the aeons. For it is, perhaps, somewhat daring to say, and yet it seems to be the fact, that the solar origin of Vishnu is not lost sight of.
The pantheistic Vishnu is the [=a]tm[=a], and Vishnu, after all, is but a form of fire. Therefore is it that the epic Vishnu is perpetually lapsing into fire; while fire and sun are doubly honored as special forms of the highest. It is, then, not so much on account of a survival of ancient dignity[66] that sun and fire stand so high, but rather because they are the nearest approach to the effulgence of the Supreme. Thus while in one place one is told that after seven suns have appeared the supreme gods become the fire of destruction and complete the ruin, in another he reads that it is the sun alone which, becoming twelvefold, does all the work of the Supreme.[67]
Indra has hymns and sacrifices, but although he has no so exalted hymn as comes to his 'friend Agni,' yet (in an isolated passage) he has a new feast and celebration, the account of which apparently belongs to the first period of the epic, when the worship of Indra still had significance. In i. 63, an Indramaha, or 'glorification of Indra,' is described a festivity extending over two days, and marked by the erection of a pole in honor of the god—a ceremony which 'even to-day,' it is said, is practiced.[68] The old tales of the fire-cult are retold, and new rites are known.[69] Thus in iii. 251. 20 ff., Prince Duryodhana resolves to starve to death (oblivious of the rule that 'a suicide goes to hell'), and since this is a religious ceremony, he clothes himself in old clothes and holy-grass, 'touches water,' and devotes himself with intense application to heaven. Then the devils of Rudra called D[=a]iteyas and D[=a]navas, who live underground ever since they were conquered by the gods, aided by priests, make a fire-rite, and with mantras "declared by Brihaspati and Uçanas, and proclaimed in the Atharva-Veda," raise a ghost or spirit, who is ordered to fetch Duryodhana to hell, which she immediately does.[70] The frequent connection of Brihaspati with the Atharva-Veda is of interest (above, p. 159). He is quite a venerable, if not wholly orthodox, author in the epic, and his 'rules' are often cited.[71]
That Vedic deity who, alone of pre-Vedic powers, still holds his proud place, Yama, the king of departed spirits, varies in the epic according to the period represented. In old tales he is still quite Vedic in character; he takes the dead man's soul off to his own realm. But, of course, as pantheism prevails, and eschatology becomes confused, Yama passes into a shadow, and at most is a bugbear for the wicked. Even his companions are stolen from another realm, and one hears now of "King Yama with his Rudras" (III. 237. 11),[72] while it is only the bad[73] that go to Yama (III. 200. 24), in popular belief, although this view, itself old, relapses occasionally into one still older, in accordance with which (ib. 49) all the world is hounded on by Yama's messengers, and comes to his abode. His home[74] in the south is now located as being at a distance of 86,000 leagues over a terrible road, on which passes a procession of wretched or happy mortals, even as they have behaved during life; for example, if one has generously given an umbrella during life he will have an umbrella on this journey, etc. The river in Yama's abode is called Pushpodaka, and what each drinks out of it is according to what he deserves to drink, cool water or filth (ib. 46, 58).[75] In the various descriptions it is not strange to find discordant views even in portions belonging approximately to the same period. Thus in contradistinction to the prevailing view one reads of Indra himself that he is Yamasya net[=a] Namuceçca hant[=a] 'Yama's leader, Namuci's slayer' (iii. 25. 10.), i.e., those that die in battle go to Yama.
On the other hand, in the later speculative portions, Yama is not death. "Yama is not death, as some think; he is one that gives bliss to the good, and woe to the bad."[76] Death and life are foolishness and lack of folly, respectively (literally, 'non-folly is non-mortality'), while folly and mortality are counter opposites. In pantheistic teaching there is, of course, no real death, only change. But death is a female power, personified, and sharply distinguished from Yama. Death as a means of change thus remains, while Yama is relegated to the guardianship of hell. The difference in regard to the latter subject, between earlier and later views, has been noted above. One comparatively early passage attempts to arrange the incongruous beliefs in regard to sams[=a]ra (re-birth) and hell on a sort of sliding scale, thus: "One that does good gets in the next life a good birth; one that does ill gets an ill birth"; more particularly: "By good acts one attains to the state of gods; by 'mixed' acts, to the state of man; by acts due to confusion of mind, to the state of animals and plants (viyon[=i][s.]u); by sinful acts one goes to hell" (adhog[=a]mi, iii. 209. 29-32).[77] Virtue must have been, as the epic often declares it to be, a 'subtile matter,' for often a tale is told to illustrate the fact that one goes to hell for doing what he thinks (mistakenly) to be right. Thus K[=a]uçika is sent to hell for speaking the truth, whereas he ought to have lied to save life (viii. 69. 53), for he was "ignorant of virtue's subtilty."[78] A passage (i. 74. 27 ff.) that is reflected in Manu (viii. 85-86) says that Yama V[=a]ivasvata takes away the sin of him with whom is satisfied "the one that witnesses the act, that stands in the heart, that knows the ground"; but Yama tortures him with whom this one (personified conscience) is dissatisfied. For "truth is equal to a thousand horse-sacrifices; truth is highest brahma" (ib. 103, 106).
Following downward the course of religious development, as reflected in the epic, one next finds traces of Brahmanic theology not only in the few passages where (Brahm[=a]) Praj[=a]pati remains untouched by sectarianism, but also in the harking back to old formulae. Thus the insistence on the Brahmanical sacredness of the number seventeen is preserved (xii. 269. 26; iii. 210. 20, etc); and Upanishadic is the "food is Praj[=a]pati" of iii. 200. 38 (Yama in 40). There is an interesting rehabilitation of the primitive idea of the Açvins in the new ascription of formal divinity to the (personified) Twilights (Sandhy[=a]) in iii. 200. 83, although this whole passage is more Puranic than epic. From the same source is the doctrine that the fruit of action expires at the end of one hundred thousand kalpas (ib. vs. 121). One of the oddest religious freaks in the epic is the sudden exaltation of the Ribhus, the Vedic (season-gods) artisans, to the position of highest gods. In that heaven of Brahm[=a], which is above the Vedic gods' heaven, there are the holy seers and the Ribhus, 'the divinities of the gods'; who do not change with the change of kalpas (as do other Vedic gods), III. 261. 19-23. One might almost imagine that their threefoldness was causative of a trinitarian identification with a supreme triad; but no, for still higher is the 'heaven of Vishnu' (vs. 37). The contrast is marked between this and [=A]it. Br. III. 30, where the Ribhus with some difficulty obtain the right to drink soma.
There is an aspect of the epic religion upon which it is necessary to touch before treating of the sectarian development. In the early philosophical period wise priests meet together to discuss theological and philosophical questions, often aided, and often brought to grief, by the wit of women disputants, who are freely admitted to hear and share in the discussion. When, however, pantheism, nay, even Vishnuism, or still more, Krishnaism, was an accepted fact upon what, then, was the wisdom of the priest expended? Apart from the epic, the best intellects of the day were occupied in researches, codifying laws, and solving, in rather dogmatic fashion, philosophical (theological) problems. The epic presents pictures of scenes which seem to be a reflection from an earlier day. But one sees often that the wisdom is commonplace, or even silly. In dialectics a sophistical subtlety is shown; in codifying moral rules, a tedious triteness; in amoebic passes of wit there are astounding exhibitions, in which the good scholiast sees treasures of wisdom, where a modern is obliged to take them in their literal dulness. Thus in III. 132. 18, a boy of twelve or ten (133. 16), who is divinely precocious, defeats the wise men in disputation at a sacrifice, and in the following section (134. 7 ff.) silences a disputant who is regarded as one of the cleverest priests. The conversation is recorded in full. In what does it consist? The opponent mentions a number of things which are one; the boy replies with a verse that gives pairs of things; the other mentions triads; the child cites groups of fours, etc., until the opponent, having cited only one half-verse of thirteens, can remember no more and stops, on which the child completes the verse, and is declared winner. The conundrums which precede must have been considered very witty, for they are repeated elsewhere: What is that wheel which has twelve parts and three hundred and sixty spokes, etc.? Year. What does not close its eye when asleep, what does not move when it is born, what has no heart, what increases by moving? These questions form one-half verse. The next half-verse gives the answers in order: fish, egg, stone, river. This wisdom in the form of puzzles and answers, brahmodya, is very old, and goes back to the Vedic period. Another good case in the epic is the demon Yaksha and the captured king, who is not freed till he answers certain questions correctly.[79] But although a certain amount of theologic lore may be gleaned from these questions, yet is it of greater interest to see how the priests discussed when left quietly to their own devices. And a very natural description of such a scene is extant. The priests "having some leisure"[80] or vacation from their labors in the king's house, sit down to argue, and the poet calls their discussion vita[n.][d.][=a], i.e., tricky sophistical argumentation, the description bearing out the justness of the phrase: "One cried, 'that is so,' and the other, 'it is not so'; one cried, 'and that is so,' and the other, 'it must be so'; and some by arguments made weak arguments strong, and strong weak; while some wise ones were always swooping down on their opponent's arguments, like hawks on meat."[81] In III. 2. 15, the type of clever priest is 'skilled in Yoga and S[=a][.n]khya,' who inculcates renunciation. This sage teaches that mental diseases are cured by Yoga; bodily, by medicine; and that desire is the root of ill.
But by far the most interesting theological discussion in the epic, if one except the Divine Song, is the conversation of the hero and heroine in regard to the cause of earthly happiness. This discussion is an old passage of the epic. The very fact that a woman is the disputant gives an archaic effect to the narration, and reminds one of the scenes in the Upanishads, where learned women cope successfully with men in displays of theological acumen. Furthermore, the theological position taken, the absence of Vishnuism, the appeal to the 'Creator' as the highest Power, take one back to a former age. The doctrine of special grace, which crops out in the Upanishads,[82] here receives its exposure by a sudden claim that the converse of the theory must also be true, viz., that to those not saved by grace and election God is as cruel as He is kind to the elect. The situation is as follows: The king and queen have been basely robbed of their kingdom, and are in exile. The queen urges the king to break the vow of exile that has been forced from him, and to take vengeance on their oppressors. The king, in reply, sings a song of forgiveness: "Forgiveness is virtue, sacrifice, Veda; forgiveness is holiness and truth; in the world of Brahm[=a] are the mansions of them that forgive." This song (III. 29. 36 ff.) only irritates the queen, who at once launches into the following interesting tirade (30. 1 ff.): "Reverence to the Creator and Disposer[83] who have confused thy mind! Hast thou not worshipped with salutation and honored the priests, gods, and manes? Hast thou not made horse-sacrifices, the r[=a]jas[=u]ya-sacrifice, sacrifices of every sort (pu[n.][d.]arika,[84] gosava)? Yet art thou in this miserable plight! Verily is it an old story (itih[=a]sa) that 'the worlds stand under the Lord's will.' Following the seed God gives good or ill in the case of all beings. Men are all moved by the divinity. Like a wooden doll, moving its limbs in the hands of a man, so do all creatures move in the Creator's hands. Man is like a bird on a string, like a bead on a cord. As a bull is led by the nose, so man follows the will of the Creator; he never is a creature of free will ([=a]tm[=a]dhina). Every man goes to heaven or to hell, as he is sent by the Lord's will. God himself, occupied with noble or with wicked acts, moves about among all created things, an unknown power (not known as 'this one'). The blessed God, who is self-created, the great forefather (prapit[=a]maha), plays with his creatures just as a boy plays with toys, putting them together and destroying them as he chooses. Not like a father is God to His creatures; He acts in anger. When I see the good distressed, the ignoble happy, I blame the Creator who permits this inequality. What reward does God get that he sends happiness to this sinful man (thy oppressor)? If it be true that only the individual that does the act is pursued by the fruit of that act (karma doctrine) then the Lord who has done this act is defiled by this base act of His. If, on the other hand, the act that one has done does not pursue and overtake the one that has done it, then the only agency on earth is brute force (this is the only power to be respected)—and I grieve for them that are without it!"
To this plea, which in its acknowledgment of the Creator as the highest god, no less than in its doubtful admission of the karma doctrine, is of peculiar interest, the king replies with a refutation no less worthy of regard: "Thy argument is good, clear and smooth, but it is heterodox (n[=a]stikyam). I have sacrificed and practiced virtue not for the sake of reward, but because it was right. I give what I ought to give, and sacrifice as I should. That is my only idea in connection with religious observances. There is no virtue in trying to milk virtue. Do not doubt. Do not be suspicious of virtue. He that doubts God or duty goes to hell (confusion), but he that does his duty and is free from doubt goes to heaven (becomes immortal). Doubt not scriptural authority. Duty is the saving ship. No other gets to heaven. Blame not the Lord Creator, who is the highest god. Through His grace the faithful gets immortality. If religious observances were without fruit the universe would go to destruction. People would not have been good for so many ages if there had been no reward for it. This is a mystery of the gods. The gods are full of mystery and illusion."
The queen, for all the world like that wise woman in the Upanishads, whose argument, as we showed in a preceding chapter, is cut short not by counter-argument, but by the threat that if she ask too much her head will fall off, recants her errors at this rebuke, and in the following section, which evidently is a later addition, takes back what she has said. Her new expression of belief she cites as the opinion of Brihaspati (32. 61, 62); but this is applicable rather to her first creed of doubt. Perhaps in the original version this authority was cited at the end of the first speech, and with the interpolation the reference is made to apply to this seer. Something like the queen's remarks is the doubtful saying of the king himself, as quoted elsewhere (III. 273. 6): "Time and fate, and what will be, this is the only Lord. How else could this distress have come upon my wife? For she has been virtuous always."
We turn now to the great sectarian gods, who eventually unite with Brahm[=a] to form a pantheistic trinity, a conception which, as we shall show, is not older than the fifth or sixth century after Christ.
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