[90] Rig-Veda, x. 14. 8; x. 154. 3. Oldenberg, op. cit. p. 535. Macdonell, op. cit. p. 168.
[91] Rig-Veda, x. 14. 10 sqq. Cf. Zimmer, op. cit. p. 421; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 147.
[92] Zimmer, op. cit. p. 418. Scherman, Indische Visionslitteratur, p. 123. Idem, ‘Eine Art visionärer Höllenschilderung aus dem indischen Mittelalter,’ in Romanische Forschungen, v. 569. Oldenberg, op. cit. p. 537.
[93] Rig-Veda, iv. 5. 5; vii. 104. 3, 11, 17. Atharva-Veda, v. 19. 3, 12 sqq.; xii. 4. 3, 36.
In post-Vedic times ritualism grew more important still. Sometimes the gods are represented as beings indifferent to every moral distinction, and the most indelicate stories are unscrupulously related of them.[94] In the Taittirîya Samhitâ of the Yajur Veda we are told that if anybody wishes to injure another, he need only say to Sûrya, one of the most important among the solar deities,[95] “Smite such a one, and I will give you an offering,” and Sûrya, to get the offering, will smite him.[96] Çiva, who is connected with the Vedic god Rudra, is in the Mahabharata clothed in terrible “forms,” being armed with the trident and wearing a necklace of skulls; he exacts a bloody cultus, and is the chief of the mischievous spirits and vampires that frequent places of execution and burial grounds.[97] Vishnu, the other great god of Hinduism, though less fierce than Çiva, is nevertheless, on one side of his character, an inexorable god;[98] and Krishna, as accepted by Vishnuism, is a crafty hero of a singularly doubtful moral character.[99] In Brahmanism religion is largely replaced by magic, the rites themselves are raised to the rank of divinities, the priests become the gods of gods.[100] And the point of view from which these man-gods look upon human conduct is expressed in the Satapatha Brâhmana, where it is said that fees paid to priests are like sacrifices offered to other gods—those who gratify them are placed in a state of bliss.[101] Ritual observances are essential for a man’s wellbeing both in this life and in the life to come, where paradise, hell, or transmigration awaits the dead. In the Brâhmanas immortality, or at least longevity, is promised to those who rightly understand and practise the rites of sacrifice, whilst those who are deficient in this respect depart before their natural term of life to the next world, where they are weighed in a balance and receive good or evil according to their deeds.[102] To repeat sacred texts a certain number of times is also laid down as a condition of salvation,[103] and the doctrine is gradually developed that a single invocation of the divine name cancels a whole life of iniquity and crime. Hence the importance attached—as early as the Bhagavad Gîtâ—to the last thought before death, and the idea of attaining complete possession of this thought by an act of suicide.[104] According to the Purânas it is sufficient even in the case of the vilest criminal, when at the point of death, to pronounce by chance some syllables of the names Vishnu or Çiva in order to obtain salvation;[105] and in the preface to the Prem Sâgar, which displays the religion of the Hindus at the present day, it is said that those who even ignorantly sing the praises of the greatness of Krishn Chand are rewarded with final beatitude, just as a person would acquire eternal life by partaking of the drink of immortality though he did not know what he was drinking.[106] On the other hand, “according to the Hindu Scriptures, whatever a man’s life may have been, if he do not die near some holy stream, if his body is not burned on its banks, or at any rate near some water as a representative of the stream; or where this is impracticable, if some portion of his body be not thrown into it—his spirit must wander in misery, unable to obtain the bliss for which he has done and suffered so much in life.”[107] At the same time we also find a great variety of social duties inculcated in the sacred books of India—humanity even to enemies[108] and slaves,[109] filial piety,[110] charity,[111] hospitality,[112] veracity;[113] and in the Sûtras the doctrine appears that in order to obtain the chief fruit of sacrifice it is necessary to practise the moral virtues in addition to the rite.[114] But this doctrine is singularly free from any reference to the justice of gods. In the Upanishads and Buddhistic books it is distinctly formulated in the idea of karma, according to which each act of the soul, good or bad, inevitably and naturally works out its full effect to the sweet or bitter end without the intervention of any deity to apportion the reward or punishment.[115]
[94] Barth, op. cit. p. 46 sq. Macdonell, op. cit. p. 76.
[95] Barth, op. cit. p. 20.
[96] Taittirîya Samhitâ, vi. 4 sqq., quoted by Goblet d’Alviella, Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Conception of God, p. 85.
[97] Barth, op. cit. pp. 159, 164.
[98] Ibid. p. 174.