No one who studies the narratives attributed to Valmiki and Vyasa will fail to catch glimpses of the simple sagas which formed the ground-work of the great edifices raised by the Indian poets; but, as I have observed in the Introductory Chapter, the value and extent of what is usually considered historical matter to be traced in the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” is so small and so doubtful that it fails to command either my interest or my confidence. It may be due to perversity of character, or to want of historical acumen on my part; but when I am expected to believe that the progress of the Bhojas and their allies eastward may be traced in the legend of Karna, given in the “Mahabharata,” with which the reader of the foregoing pages is familiar, I do not feel inclined to acquiesce. And when I am gravely assured that the romantic story of Satyavati, the fisherman’s daughter, her marriage with Santanu and her previous amour with the father of Vyasa, although absurd in Vyasa’s own poem, becomes intelligible,—if we will only put the individual fisherman out of court altogether, forget what the poet tells us about Satyavati, and imagine that the young lady in question was a personage of some importance in the family of the king of the fishing people,—I feel such efforts towards constructive history are somewhat beyond my abilities.[135]
While writers of one class strain after the hidden historical elements in the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,” those of another class (represented by both Europeans and Indians), ingeniously discover in these narratives merely solar myths or moral allegories. It were needless to enlarge upon this topic here, and I have already given instances of such interpretations in the Note appended to the “Ramayana” (p. 91) and in the summary of the “Bhagavatgita” (p. 217). I would merely add that if it be the true function of history to reveal to us living pictures of bygone times, to disclose to us the social life of earlier days, and to make us acquainted with the thoughts, ideals and aspirations of former generations, then the Indian Epics are a solid contribution to historical literature even if they do not happen to chronicle actual events.
The heroes of the Epics, being mostly demigods with a long previous history, an appointed destiny, and subject, like mortal men, to pass through many future existences in other forms, do not, I confess, engage my sympathies very much. Even human beings upon this epic stage lose their distinctive character and cease to interest us if we regard them merely as souls masquerading, as it were, for a certain time in particular forms assumed for the occasion, different from the many they have worn in former states, and unlike those which they will wear in future lives. Indeed the doctrine of metempsychosis, with its fluxional succession of beings, human and divine, undermines the conceptions of definite and permanent individuality so thoroughly that I do not wonder that sober human history, with its limited stage and narrow chronology, has had but little charm for the Hindus.
More remarkable than the heroes of Kurukshetra, however, are the Rishis and Hermits, who stand out upon the canvas of the Epic poets with startling distinctness. These sages, with their austerities, their superhuman powers, their irascibility and their terrible curses, are the Hindu representatives of the magicians and sorcerers of other countries, and form a remarkable feature in the life of even modern India. As a rule the saints of Christendom are of another type, yet, strange to say, there are a few of them, St. Renan for example, to whom have been attributed characteristics not unlike those of the Indian Rishis.[136] Elsewhere a large share, perhaps the greater share, of magical power has been credited to the fair sex; but the Hindu has, characteristically, made no such concession to women, who never at any time in India were granted the free and honoured position accorded them amongst the Germans of Tacitus or the Norsemen of the Eddas, and never enjoyed even the restricted liberty which Greek women were privileged to exercise. Nevertheless, there is, undoubtedly, a substratum of chivalrous feeling towards the weaker sex manifested throughout the Epics, often in a distinct and pronounced manner.
As to the social life of the early heroic age, of which we get so many interesting glimpses in the Epics, it is certain that it was extremely simple and rude; as, for instance, to cite a single example, the life of the Pandavas in their primitive “house of lac,” where their mother ministered to them without the assistance of any servants at all, although, be it remembered, the young princes were supposed to be enjoying themselves away from home on a sort of holiday excursion. There is, however, ample evidence to show that by the time the poems were actually compiled or, at any rate, cast into their present forms, a complicated society had been evolved, and a life of luxurious ease and refinement was not unknown. Throughout the period embraced in the Epics the caste-system was well established, animal food commonly used,[137] and spirituous drinks not prohibited. Polygamy was common, and polyandry a recognized institution, while the practice known as Niyoga—of raising up offspring to deceased relatives or childless men—was, undoubtedly, fully established.
Now caste, with its baleful influences, still dominates Hindu life; polygamy continues to be common in some parts of India; polyandry is still practised, here and there, in backward places; and Niyoga, which has never ceased to be orthodox doctrine, has, in these days, had special prominence given to it by Swami Dayanand, and the sect recently founded by him. The practice in question—which is known in a modified form as levirate[138] amongst the Jews—has been established in India since time immemorial, and we have had important instances of it in the foregoing pages.
What Manu, the great Indian lawgiver, says on the subject of Niyoga is as follows: “On failure of issue by the husband, if he be of the servile class, the desired offspring may be procreated, either by his brother or some other sapinda, on the wife, who has been duly authorized. Sprinkled with clarified butter, silent, in the night, let the kinsman thus appointed beget one son, but a second by no means, on the widow or childless wife. By men of twice-born classes no widow or childless wife must be authorized to conceive by any other man than her lord.”[139]
Swami Dayanand, however, does not limit the practice of Niyoga to the inferior castes, nor to the cases referred to by Manu. The modern reformer goes much further, teaching a doctrine, said to be founded on the Vedas, which allows a latitude in respect to the relations between the sexes that, to say the least, is extremely startling in this nineteenth century.[140] I am bound to add that I have been very positively assured that Swami Dayanand’s precepts in respect to Niyoga are not actually practised by his followers, but their dangerous tendency is, I presume, undeniable.
From the earliest ages known to the writers of the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” cremation of the dead has been the practice in India. Hence in Indian archæology we are deprived of those sources of information—graves, tumuli, cromlechs and sepulchres—which elsewhere, as in Egypt, have furnished such a wealth of facts regarding the earlier races of mankind.
The sacred character of the Brahmans receives abundant recognition in the Epics; and it is noteworthy that, except in the relinquishment of animal food and vinous drinks by a great majority of the Hindus, little change has taken place in the social habits of the people since the heroic age depicted in the Epics. We need not doubt, however, that the abstention from animal food and, with it, from wine and spirits of all kinds has, in the course of many generations, profoundly modified the national character; and has, perhaps, more than anything else, gradually converted the turbulent, aggressive Aryan into the mild and contemplative Hindu.[141]