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.