Buddhist Priest Preaching at the Door of a Temple.
Monastic orders first arose among the Buddhists, and as caste was abolished the monasteries were open to all men, and even to women, who were bound over to celibacy and self-renunciation. These Buddhist priests went about preaching their new religion to the common people, and found ready acceptance with them. Barefooted, with shaven heads, eyebrows, and chins, wearing a yellow dress instead of the pure white robes of the Brahmans, they seemed indeed lower than the lowest Pariahs. They built lowly chapels, and had regular services in them, chanting a prescribed liturgy, offering harmless sacrifices of incense, lighted tapers, rice, wine, oil, and flowers, and taking the lily instead of the Brahmanic lotos as the emblem of the purity of their faith.
Buddhism spread with amazing rapidity, and flourished for some time on Indian soil. During the reign of the celebrated Indian king Asoka, three centuries more or less before Christ, it was the dominant religion of India, about which time it was also introduced by Buddhist missionaries into Ceylon, China, and the Japanese Archipelago. At length, the Brahmans, recovering from the lethargy that seemed to have overtaken them, joined all their forces, and, rising en masse everywhere against these dissenters from the Vèdas and from the old code of Manu, drove out of Hindostan proper those whom they could not put to death. The Buddhists finally found refuge in Guzerat and ready acceptance among the early primitive races; and here the new religion reached its highest prosperity, but began to decline in the eighth or ninth century after Christ. At this juncture a new sect arose under the leadership of one Jaina, or saint, a man of great purity of character, who undertook to correct the many errors which had crept into Buddhism. Veneration and worship of deified men, confined by the Buddhists some to five and others to seven saints, were extended by the Jains to twenty-four, of whom colossal statues in black or white marble were set up in their temples. Tenderness and respect for animal life they carried to an extreme point, which has led to the establishment of the hospitals for infirm aged animals in different parts of India. In its essence Jainism agrees with Buddhism. It rejects the inspiration of the Vèdas, has no animal sacrifices, pays no respect to fire. But in order to escape the unremitting persecution of the Brahman priesthood it admits caste, and even the worship of the chief Hindoo gods. Thus Jainism secured that toleration on Indian soil which was never extended to Buddhism, the very birthplace of Buddha having been rendered a wilderness and untenanted by man through the rage and fury of Brahmanic persecution.
Brahmanism, finding itself once more in the ascendency, proceeded with great tact to incorporate into its ritual all the divinities, the rites, and the ceremonies peculiar to the non-Aryan populations. In Southern India Vishnoo is worshipped under the name and character of Jaggernath (or Juggernaut), "Lord of the universe;" but in Northern Hindostan this worship is mingled with that of Rama and Krishna, two Aryan heroes, whom the Brahmans with great political adroitness represent as later incarnations of both Vishnoo and Jaggernath. The pre-Aryan Mahrattas and Marwhars were brought to believe their supreme deities, Cando-ba, and Virabudra, as incarnations of Siva, and so on, until at length every god, hero, or saint belonging to the pre-historic inhabitants of Asia found a place in the Brahmanic calendar of incarnations of gods and goddesses.
Monotheism and polytheism exist side by side; purity and vice are only different expressions of a system as complex as life itself. Through all manners, acts, and usages, the most trivial or the most momentous, the Brahman religion flows in perpetual symbolism and stamps everything with its seal and mark. The pure Hindoos live in a network of observances, the smallest infraction of which involves the most terrible social degradation and loss of caste. They are bound by observances for rising, for sitting, for eating, drinking, sleeping, bathing; for birth, marriage, and death; for the sites of their homes and even the positions of their doors and windows.
The dwellings of Hindoos vary according to their means. The poorer have only one apartment, which must be smeared over once a week with a solution of the ordure of the cow. The better classes always have a courtyard and a verandah, where strangers, and even Europeans, may be received without risk of contamination. Very often the walls of the dwellings are covered with frescoes and paintings. The entrance to the dwelling is always placed, out of respect to the sun, facing the east, but a little to one side. Every morning at an early hour the Hindoo wife or mother of the home may be seen cleansing her house and her utensils for cooking, eating, and drinking. This done, she will wash or smear with cow-ordure the space about her dwelling. After this purification the wife will proceed to ornament the front of the door, which in itself is held sacred to the Brahman, with the form of a lotos-flower. This she makes out of a solution of lime or chalk, and imprints it on the door and on the space in front of it. This flower is emblematic of the name of God, too pure to be uttered, but supposed to bestow a magical charm on the dwelling on which it is inscribed.[43]
No one is so scrupulous with regard to personal neatness, purity, and cleanliness as the true Hindoo woman. The Hindoo sacraments are ten in number, with five daily duties that are as obligatory on the Brahman as are the sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. The first sacrament begins with the unborn babe; it is the conceptional sacrament. Attended by the mother of a large family, the young wife repairs to a temple with a peculiar cake made of rice, sugar, and ghee (clarified butter), and with a fresh cocoanut. The goddess invoked on such occasions is Lakshina, the consort of Indra. They first offer up a prayer before her shrine, meditate on her glorious progeny of gods and heroes, then implore her kindly interposition in behalf of the young woman who is to become a mother; after which the elder matron breaks the cocoanut and pours the liquid out as an offering to the goddess, and part of the cake and cocoanut is brought home and distributed among the members of the family.
The next ceremony is a very profound one, and has an especial reference to the quickening of life in the babe. The mother, shrouded in pure white from head to foot, accompanied by an elder female and mother of a large family, with her husband and father repair to the temple. One or more Brahman priests are invited to preside on this occasion. Oil, flowers, and lighted tapers are offered to Mahadèo the Great God. The priest pours the oil presented on a lighted lamp, then performs a wave-offering over the head of the expectant mother, praying, "O thou who art light, thou art also life and seed. Accept our sacrifice and make the new life thou hast created in secret visible in beauty and strength and power of intellect." After which offerings according to the wealth of the parties are made to the priests. There is one more important ceremony, similar in character to the others. All these sacraments are performed only in the case of the first child.