Brahman Priest.
Neither the parallelism of Hebrew poetry (page 89) nor the rhyme of modern times finds a place in Sanscrit verse; it is distinguished from prose, like Greek poetry, simply by a metrical arrangement of long and short syllables. The measured cadence gave great delight to the cultivated ear of the Hindoos. “There are two excellent things in the world,” says one of their writers—“the friendship of the good, and the beauties of poetry.”
Sanscrit is now a dead language. About three hundred years before the Christian era, dialects similarly derived took its place among the people, and it has since been kept alive only in the conversation and writings of the learned, as the sacred language of the Brahmans, or priestly caste.[4] Yet so extensive is its literature that it costs a Brahman half his life to master a portion of its sacred books alone.
Sanscrit Alphabet.—As to the origin of the Sanscrit alphabet, consisting of fifty letters, history is silent. It is believed that the entire early literature was preserved for centuries by oral repetition. When their polished tongue was first expressed in written characters—derived from the Phœnicians or independently invented—so perfectly did these answer the purpose that the Hindoos styled their alphabet “the writing of the gods.” The Sanscrit letters are still preserved in the written language of the pure Hindoos, but in that of the Mohammedan population have been replaced with the Arabic characters.
History of Sanscrit Researches.—Arabian translations of Sanscrit works were made as early as the reign of the Caliph Haroun’-al-Raschid, at Bagdad (800 A.D.), and appeared from time to time in the succeeding centuries. Europeans first knew of the existence of Sanscrit and its literature during the reign of Au’rungzebe (1658-1707), in whose time the French and English obtained a foothold in Hindostan. Before this, the Jesuit Nobili (no’be-le) had gone to India to study the sacred books with a view to the conversion of the Hindoos, and, having mastered them, boldly preached a new Veda; but he died on the scene of his labors, and Europe profited nothing by his researches. It was left for the Asiatic Society, organized at Calcutta in 1784 by Sir William Jones, to open the eyes of Europe to the importance and magnitude of Brahman literature, of which the translation of Sakoon’talâ (page 50) by this great orientalist gave a most favorable specimen.
Following in the footsteps of the English scholar just mentioned, the German critic Schlegel, in his “Language and Wisdom of the Indians” (1808) laid the permanent foundations of Comparative Philology, a science of recent birth but one that has been of incalculable service to history, establishing the kinship of the Hindoos and Persians with the old Greeks and Romans, as well as the modern nations of the west, by striking resemblances in their respective tongues. Eminent scholars have since prosecuted the work with enthusiasm—especially Bopp, Humboldt, Pott, and Grimm among the Germans, the French savant Bournouf, Max Müller in England, and the American Whitney. Sanscrit is no longer a sealed volume. The leading European universities have their professors of that tongue, who lecture also on comparative grammar. (See Whitney’s article on Philology, Enc. Brit. V. xviii.)
SACRED LITERATURE OF THE HINDOOS.
The Veda.—The language of the ancient Indo-Aryans survives in the Ve’da, the oldest work of Indo-European literature, dating back to the prehistoric era of the Aryan race. The Veda, while rich in striking imagery, is marked by a beautiful simplicity of diction. In its language, we behold the most ancient form of our own tongue; in the hymns of its poets, those germs of Aryan intellectual development that no long time after bloomed in epic and idyl through the fertile valleys of India, bore immortal fruit on the soil of Greece and Rome, and have been brought to perfection in the grand productions of modern genius. (The student is referred to Max Müller’s “Rig-Veda-Sanhita,” and Dr. Arrowsmith’s Translation of Prof. Kaegi’s “Rig-Veda.”)
The word Veda means knowledge. The Mantra, or “song” portion of the Veda, is divided into four parts: the Rig-Veda (knowledge of the stanzas), or Veda of hymns; the Sâma-Veda, of tunes or chants, and the Yajur-Veda, of sacrificial rites (prayers)—both purely ritualistic; and the Artharva-Veda, in the main a collection of incantations and spells: Each of the last-named Vedas is a medley of extracts from the Rig-Veda, with additions from outside sources. Thus it will be seen that the Hindoos were believers in the efficacy of sacrifices, some of which were prolonged for months and even years, as well as of talismans, charms, and incantations to ward off disease, bring riches, and inspire love.
To the metrical parts of the Vedas are attached the Brâhmanas, which abound in tedious descriptions of rites, and were written long after in prose to explain the hymns. There are also collections of rules for worship and sacrifice; and speculations on philosophy and religion, which display no little acuteness, for the Hindoo mind seems to have been prone to metaphysical investigation and ingenious in reasoning even to the verge of sophistry. Supplements to the Vedas contain abundant commentaries on their grammar and language, as well as astronomical facts—the latter mainly borrowed from other nations and not based on original researches or discoveries. Finally, the Upave’das (oo-pă-vā’dăz—appended) treat of diseases and their cure, devotional music, the use of weapons, and the arts; while the Purânas (poo-rah’năz), of more recent birth, believed to have been revealed from heaven like the Vedas, present in verse the mythology of India and the history of its legendary age.