The Religions of India / Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume 1, Edited by Morris Jastrow

by Edward Washburn Hopkins

BRAHMANISM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BRAHMANIC THEOLOGY AND THE SACRIFICE.

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