In Manu's account of Creation we meet for the first time with the Maha-rishis or Deva-rishis, the Celestial priest poets. These are the mind-born sons of Brahma, who came into existence before the gods and the demons. Indeed, they are credited with some acts of creation. The seven or fourteen Manus were also created at the beginning. Originally there was but a single Manu, “the father of men”.
The inclusion of the Rishis and the Manus among the deities is a late development of orthodox Brahmanism. They appear to represent the Fathers (Pitris) who were adored by ancestor worshippers. The tribal patriarch Bhrigu, for instance, was a Celestial Rishi.
It must be borne in mind that more than one current of thought was operating during the course of the centuries, and over a wide area, in shaping the complex religion which culminated in modern Hinduism. The history of Hinduism is the history of a continual struggle between the devotees of folk religion and the expounders of the Forest Books produced by the speculative sages who, in their quest for Truth, used primitive myths to illustrate profound doctrinal teachings. By the common people these myths were given literal interpretation. Among the priests there were also “schools of thought”. One class of Brahmans, it has been alleged, was concerned chiefly regarding ritual, the mercenary results of their teachings, and the achievement of political power: men of this type appear to have been too ready to effect compromises by making concession to popular opinion.
Just as the Atharva-veda came into existence as a book after the Rigveda had been compiled, so did many traditional beliefs of animistic character receive recognition by Brahmanic “schools” after the period of the early Upanishads. It may be, however, that we should also recognize in these “innovations” the influence of races which imported their own modes of thought, or of Aryan tribes that had been in contact for long periods with other civilizations known and unknown.
In endeavouring to trace the sources of foreign influences, we should not always expect to find clues in the mythologies of great civilizations like Babylonia, Assyria, or Egypt alone. The example of the Hebrews, a people who never invented anything, and yet produced the greatest sacred literature of the world, is highly suggestive in this connection. It is possible that an intellectual influence was exercised in early times over great conquering races by humble forgotten peoples whose artifacts give no indication of their mental activity.
In Indian Aryan mythology we are suddenly confronted at a comparatively late period, at any rate some time after tribal settlements were effected all over Hindustan from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, with fully developed conceptions regarding the World's Ages and Transmigration of Souls, which, it is quite evident, did not originate after the Aryan conquest of Hindustan. Both doctrines can be traced in Greek and Celtic (Irish) mythologies, but they are absent from Teutonic mythology. From what centre and what race they originally emanated we are unable to discover. The problem presented is a familiar one. At the beginnings of all ancient religious systems and great civilizations we catch glimpses of unknown and vanishing peoples who had sowed the seeds for the harvests which their conquerors reaped in season.
The World's Ages are the “Yugas” of Brahmanism. “Of this elaborate system ... no traces are found in the hymns of the Rigveda. Their authors were, indeed, familiar with the word ‘yuga’, which frequently occurs in the sense of age, generation, or tribe.... The first passage of the Rigveda in which there is any indication of a considerable mundane period being noted is where ‘a first’ or an earlier age (yuga) of the gods is mentioned when ‘the existent sprang from the non-existent’.... In one verse of the Atharva-veda, however, the word ‘yuga’ is so employed as to lead to the supposition that a period of very long duration is intended. It is there said: ‘We allot to thee a hundred, ten thousand years, two, three, four ages (yugas)’.”[150]
Professor Muir traced references in the Brahmanas to the belief in “Yugas” as “Ages”, but showed that these were isolated ideas with which, however, the authors of these books were becoming familiar.
When the system of Yugas was developed by the Indian priestly mathematicians, the result was as follows:—
One year of mortals is equal to one day of the gods. 12,000 divine years are equal to a period of four Yugas, which is thus made up, viz.:
Krita Yuga, with its mornings and evenings, 4,800 divine years. Treta Yuga, " " " " 3,600 " Dwãpara Yuga, " " " " 2,400 " Kali Yuga, " " " " 1,200 " Making 12,000 "