 Section 30 of Hinduism and Buddhism and historical sketch Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shashank Jagmola. Hinduism and Buddhism and historical sketch Volume 1 by Charles Iliad. Vedic deities and sacrifices. Part 1. Our knowledge of early Indian religion is derived almost entirely from literature. After the rise of Buddhism, this is supplemented to some extent by buildings, statues and inscriptions. But unlike Egypt and Babylonia, pre-Buddhist India has yielded no temples, images or other religious antiquities, nor is it probable that such will be discovered. Certainly the material for study is not scanty. The theological literature of India is enormous. The difficulty is to grasp it and select what is important. The inquirer is confronted with a series of encyclopedic works of great bulk and considerable antiquity, treating of every aspect of religion which interested the Brahmins. But he continually feels the want of independent testimony to check their statements. They set forth the views of their authors, but whether those views met with general acceptance outside the Brahmanic caste and influenced Indian life as a whole or whether classes, such as the military caste or regions such as Western India and Dravidian India, had different views, it is often hard to say. Even more serious is the difficulty of chronology which affects secular as well as religious literature. The feats of Hindus in the matter of computing time show in the most extravagant form the peculiarities of their mental temperament for while in their cosmogonies, eons whose length the mind can hardly grasp or tabulated with the names of their superhuman rulers, there are few dates in the pre-Mohammadan history which can be determined from purely Indian sources. Footnote 139 The principal one is the date of Ashoka, deducible from an inscription in which he names contemporary Celius said Moenarchs. End footnote The fragments of obscure Greek writers and the notes of a travelling Chinaman furnish more trustworthy data about important epochs in the history of the Hindus than the whole of the gigantic literature in which there has been found no mention of Alexander's invasion and only scattered allusions to the conquest of the Shakas, Kushans and Hunas. We can hardly imagine doubt as to the century in which Shakespeare or Virgil lived yet when I first studied Sanskrit the greatest of Indian dramatists, Kali Dasa, was supposed to have lived about 50 BC. His date is not yet fixed with unanimity but it is now generally placed in the fifth or sixth century AD. This chronological chaos naturally affects the value of literature as a record of the development of thought. We are in danger of moving in a vicious circle of assigning ideas to an epoch because they occur in a certain book while at the same time we fix the date of the book in virtue of the ideas which it contains. Still we may feel some security as to the sequence if not the exact dates of the great divisions in Indian religious literature such as the period of the Vedic hymns, the period of Brahmanas, the rise of Buddhism, the composition of the two great epics and the Purans. If we follow the opinion of most authorities and accept the picture of Indian life and thought contained in the Pali Tripitaka as in the main historical, it seems to follow that both the ritual system of the Brahmanas and the philosophic speculations of the Upanishads were in existence by 500 BC and sufficiently developed to impress the public mind with a sense of their futility. Footnote 140 Example given, a learned Brahman is often described in the Sutta Pitaka as a repeater of the sacred words knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who had mastered the three Vedas with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, the exegesis and the legends as a fifth. And footnote Some interval of mental growth seems to separate the Upanishads from the Brahmanas and a more decided interval separates the Brahmanas from the earlier hymns of the Rig Veda if not from the compilation of the whole collection. Footnote 141 There had been time for misunderstandings to arise. Thus the Satapatha Brahmana sees in the well-known verse who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifices an address to a deity named Ka. Sanskrit for who? And it would seem that an old word, uloka, has been separated in several passages into two words, you, a meaningless particle and loka. End footnote We may hence say that the older Upanishads and Brahmanas must have been composed between 800 and 500 BC and the hymns of the Rig Veda hardly later than 1000 BC. Many authorities think the earlier hymns must date from 2000 rather than 1000 BC but the resemblance of the Rig Veda to the Zoroastrian Gathas which are generally regarded as considerably later than 1000 BC is plain and it will be strange if the two collections proved to be separated by an interval of many centuries. But the stage of social and religious culture indicated in the Vedic hymns may have begun long before they were composed and rites and deities common to Indians and Iranians existed before the reforms of the roster. Footnote 142 Recent scholars are disposed to fix the appearance of the roster between the middle of the 7th century and the earlier half of the 6th century BC but this state offers many difficulties. It makes it hard to explain the resemblance between the Gathas and the Rig Veda and how is it that respectable classical authorities of the 4th century BC quoted by Pliny attribute a high antiquity to the roster. End footnote It may seem that everything is uncertain in this literature without dates or authors and that the growth of religion in India cannot be scientifically studied. The difficulties are indeed considerable but they are materially reduced by the veneration in which the ancient scriptures were held and by the retentiveness of memory and devotion to grammar if not to history which have characterised the Brahmans for at least 25 centuries. The authenticity of certain Vedic texts is guaranteed not only by the quotations found in later works but by treatises on phonetics, grammar and versification as well as by indices which give the number of words in every book chapter and verse. We may be sure that we possess not perhaps the exact words of the Vedic poets but what were believed about 600 BC to be their exact words and there is no reason to doubt that this is a substantially correct version of the hymns as recited several centuries earlier. Footnote 143 This applies chiefly to the three Samhitas or collection of hymns and prayers. On the other hand there was no feeling against the composition of new Upanishads or the interpolation and amplification of the epics. Footnote In drawing any deductions from the hymns of the Rig Veda it must be remembered that it is the manual of the Hothri priests. Footnote 144 The Hothri recites prayers while other priests perform the act of sacrifice but there are several poems in the Rig Veda for which even Indian ingenuity has not been able to find a liturgical use. Footnote This does not affect the age or character of the single pieces. They may have been composed at very different dates and they are not arranged in the order in which the priest recites them but the liturgical character of the compilation does somewhat qualify its title to give a complete picture of religion. One could not throw doubt on a ceremony of the church still less on a popular custom because it was not mentioned in the missile and we cannot assume that ideas or usages not mentioned in the Rig Veda did not exist at the time when it was composed. We have no other Sanskrit writings contemporary with the older parts of the Rig Veda but the roots of epic poetry stretch far back and ballads may be as old as hymns though they neither sought nor obtained the official sanction of the priesthood. Side by side with Vedic tradition unrequited epic tradition built up the figures of Shiva, Rama and Krishna which astonish us by their sudden appearance in later literature only because their earlier phases have not been preserved. The Vedic hymns were probably collected and arranged between 1000 and 500 BC. At that period, rites and ceremonies multiplied and absorbed man's mind to a degree unparalleled in the history of the world and literature occupied itself with the description or discussion of this dreary ceremonial. Buddhism was a protest against the necessity of sacrifices and though Buddhism decayed in India the sacrificial system never recovered from the attack and assumed comparatively modest proportions. But in an earlier period after the composition of the Vedic hymns and before the predominance of speculation skill in ceremonial was regarded as the highest and indeed only science and the ancient prayers and poems of the race were arranged in three collections to suit the ritual. These were the Rig Veda containing the metrical prayers the Yujur Veda in an old and new recension known as the black and the white containing formulaic mainly in prose to be muttered during the course of the sacrifice and Samaveda a book of chants consisting almost entirely of verses taken from the Rig Veda and arranged for singing. The Rig Veda is clearly older than the others its elements are anterior to the Brahmanic liturgy and are arranged in less complete Serbavians to it than in the Yujur and Samavedas. The restriction of the words Veda and Vedic to the collection of hymns though convenient is not in accordance with the Indian usage which applies the name to a much larger body of religious literature. What we call the Rig Veda is strictly speaking the mantras of the Rig Veda or the Rig Veda Sametha. Besides this there are the Brahmanas or ceremonial treatises the Aranyaka and the Upanishads containing philosophy and speculation the Sutras or aphoristic rules all comprised in the Veda or Shruti hearing that is the revelation heard directly by saints as opposed to Smriti remembering or tradition starting from human teachers. Modern Hindus were not influenced by the language of European scholars apply the word Veda especially to the Upanishads. For some time only three Vedas were accepted. Footnote 145 Thus the Pali Pataks speak of the Tavija or three-fold knowledge of the Brahmanas and footnote. But the epics and the Purans know of the four-fold Veda and the place the Atharva Veda on a level with the other three. It was the manual of two ancient priestly families the Atharvans and the Angirasas whose speciality was charms and prophylactics rather than the performance of the regular sacrifices. The hymns and magic songs which it contains were probably collected subsequently to the composition of the Brahmanas but the separate poems are older and so far as can be judged from the language are intermediate between the Rig Veda and the Brahmanas. But the substance of many of the spells must be older still since the incantations prescribed show a remarkable similarity to all German, Russian and Lettuce charms. The Atharva also contains speculative poems and if it has not the freshness of the Rig Veda is most valuable for the history of Indian thought and civilization. I will not here inquire what was the original home of the Aryans or whether the resemblances shown by Aryan languages justify us in believing that the ancestors of the Hindus, Greeks, Celts, Slavs, etc. belong to a single race and physical type. The grounds for such a belief seem to me doubtful but a comparison of language, religion and customs make it probable that the ancestors of the Iranians and Hindus dwelled together in some region lying to the north of India and then in descending southwards parted company and wandered one band westwards to Persia and the other to the Punjab and southeast. Footnote 146 or it may be that the ancestors of the Persian were also in the Punjab and retired westwards. These latter produce the poets of the Rig Veda. Their home is indicated by the acquaintance with the Himalayas, the Kabul river, the Indus and rivers of the Punjab and the Yamuna. The Ganges though known apparently lay beyond the sphere but the geography of the Atharva extends as far as Benares and implies the practical knowledge of the sea which is spoken of somewhat vaguely in the Rig Veda. It is probable that the oldest hymns were composed among the rivers of the Punjab but the majority somewhat further to the east in the district of Kurukshetra or Thanesar. At some periods subsequent to the Aryan immigration there was a great struggle between two branches of the same stock related in a legendary form as the contest between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Some have thought that we have here an indication of a second invasion composed of Aryans who remained in the mountainous districts north of the Hindu Kush when the first detachment moved south and who developed their somewhat different customs. It is also possible that the Atharva Veda may represent the religious ideas of these second invaders. In several passages the Mahabharat speaks of the Atharva as the highest Veda and represents the Pandavas as practicing polyandry a custom which still prevails among many Himalayan tribes. The Rig Veda depicts a life not far advanced in material arts but considering the date humane and civilized. There were no towns but merely villages and fortified enclosures to be used as refuge in case of necessity. The general tone of the hymns is kindly and healthy. Many of them indeed have more robust piety than interest. There are few indications of barbarous customs. The general impression is of a free and joyous life in which the principal actors are chiefs and priests, though neither have become tyrannical. The composition of this anthology probably extended over several centuries and comprised a period of lively mental growth. It is therefore natural that it should represent stages of religious development which are not contemporaneous. But though thought is active and exuberant in these poems, they are not altogether intellectual outbursts excited by the successful advance into India. The calm of settlement as well as the fire of conquest have left their mark on them and during the period of composition religion grew more boldly speculative but also more sedentary, formal and meticulous. The earliest hymns bear traces of quasi-nomadic life but the writers are no longer nomads. They follow agriculture as well as pasture age but they are still contending with eboregenes, still expanding and moving on. They mention no states or capitals. They revere rivers and mountains but have no shrines to serve as religious centres as repositories and factories of tradition. Legends and precepts have of course come down from earlier generations but are not very definite or cogent. The stories of ancient sages and warriors are vague and wanting colour. Part 2 The absence of sculpture and painting explains much in the character of the Vedic deities. The hymn writers were devout and imaginative not content to revere some undescribed being in the sky but full of mythology, metaphor and poetry and continually singling out new powers for worship. Among many races the conceptions thus evolved acquire solidity and permanence by the aid of art. An image stereotypes a deity, worshippers from other districts can see it and it remains from generation to generation as a conservative and unifying force. Even a stone may have something of the same effect for it connects the deity with the events rights and ideas of a locality. But the earliest stratum of Vedic religion is worship of the powers of nature such as the sun the sky the dawn the fire which are personified but not localised or depicted. Their attributes do not depend at all on art not much on local or tribal custom but chiefly on imagination and poetry and as this poetry was not united in one collection until a later period a bard was under no obligation to conform to the standards of his fellows and probably many bards sang without knowing another's existence. Search a figure as Agni or Fire, if one can call him a figure illustrates the fluid and intangible character of Vedic divinities. He is one of the greatest in the pantheon and in some ways his god head is strongly marked. He blesses, protects preserves and inspires. He is a divine priest and messenger between gods and men. He knows all generations yet we cannot give any definite account of him such as could be drawn up for a Greek deity. He is not a god of fire like Vulcan but the fire itself regarded as divine. The descriptions of his appearance are not really anthropomorphic but metaphorical imagery depicting shining streaming flames. The hymns tell us that he has a Tony beard and hair, a flaming head or three heads, three tongues or seven four eyes or a thousand. One poem says that he faces in all directions, another that he is footless and headless. He is called the son of heaven and earth of Vastri and the waters of the dawn of Indra Vishnu. One singer says that the gods generated him to be a light for the Aryans another that he is the father of the gods. This multiple origin becomes more definite in the theory of Agni's three births. He is born on earth from the friction of fire sticks in the clouds as lightning and in the highest heavens as the sun or celestial light. In virtue of this triple birth he assumes a triune character. His heads, tongues, bodies and dwellings are three and this three-fold nature has perhaps something to do with the triads of deities which become frequent later and finally develop into the Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. But there is nothing fixed or dogmatic in this idea of Agni's three births. In other texts he is said to have two, one in heaven and one on earth and yet another turn of fancy ascribes to him births innumerable because he has kindled on many herds. Some of the epithets apply to him become quasi-independent. For instance Agni Vaishvanara, all men's fire in Agni Tanu Napaat which seems to mean son of himself or fire spontaneously generated are in a later period treated almost as separate deities. Maatrisvaan is sometimes the name of Agni and sometimes a separate deity who brings Agni to mankind. In the same way the Rigveda has not one but many solar deities. Mitra, Surya, Savitri and perhaps Pushaan, Bhaga, Vivasvat and Vishnu are all loose personifications of certain functions or epithets of the sun. Deities are often thought of in classes. Thus we have the Maruts, Rudras and Vasus. We hear of Prajapati in the singular but also of the Prajapatis or creative forces. Not only does Agni tend to be regarded as more than one, he is identified with other gods. We are told he is Varuna and Mitra, Savitri and Indra. The word Varuna when born says one him thou becomes Mitra when kindled and thee, oh son of strength, are all the gods. Footnote 147 Rigveda verse 3 1 End footnote. Such identifications are common in the Vedas. Philosophically they are an early manifestation of mental bias which leads to pantheism, metasychosis and the feeling that all things in persons are transitory and partial aspects of the one reality. But evidently the mutability of the Vedic gods is also due to their nature. They are bundles of epithets and functions without much personal or local center. And these epithets and functions are to a large extent the same. The gods are bright and swift and helpful. All love sacrifices and bestow wealth, sons and cows. A figure like Agni enables us to understand the many-sided inconsistent presentment of Shiva and Vishnu in later times. A richer mythology surrounds them but in the fluidity of their outline their mutability and their readiness to absorb or become all the deities they follow the old lines. Ganesha who seems at first sight modern and definite illustrates these ancient characteristics. He has one or five heads and from four to sixteen arms. There are half a dozen strange stories of his birth and wonderful allegories describing his adventures. Yet he is also identified with all the gods and declared to be the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe nay the supreme spirit itself. Go rate. See the Ganesha Tharvasheersha Upanishad and Gopinath Rao Hindu iconography Volume 1 pages 35 to 67. End footnote. In Soma the secret plant whose juice was offered in the most solemn sacrifices we again find the combination of natural phenomena and divinity with hardly any personification. Soma is not a secret tree inhabited by some spirit of the words but the lord of immortality who can place his worshippers in the land of eternal life and light. Some of the finest and most spiritual of the Vedic hymns are addressed to him and yet it is hard to say whether they are addressed to a person or a beverage. The personification is not much more than when French writers call absinthe Lafille de Vey. Later Soma was identified with the moon perhaps because the juice was bright and shining. On the other hand Soma worship is connected with a very ancient but persistent form of animism for the Vedic poets celebrate as immortal the stones under which the plant is pressed and beg them to bestow wealth and children. Just so at the present day agricultural and other implements receive the salutations and prayers of those who use them. They are not gods in any ordinary sense but they are potent forces. But some Vedic deities are drawn more distinctly particularly Indra who having more character has also lasted longer than most of his fellows partly because he was taken over by Buddhism and enrolled into the retinue of the Buddha. He appears to have been originally a god of thunder a phenomenon which leads itself to anthropomorphic treatment. As an atmospheric deity he conquers various powers of evil particularly Yatra the demon of drought. The Vedas know of evil spirits against whom the gods wage successful war but they have no single personification of evil in general like our devil and few malevolent deities. Of these latter Rudra the prototype of Shiva is the most important but he is not wholly malevolent for he is the god of healing and can take away sickness as well as cause it. Indian thought is not inclined to dualism which is perhaps the outcome of a practical mind desiring a certain course and seeing everywhere the difficulties which the evil one puts in the way of it but rather to that pantheism which tends to subsume both good and evil under a higher unity. Indra was the tutelary deity of the invading Aryans. His principles would delight a European settler in Africa. He protects the Aryan colour and subjects the black skin. He gave land to the Aryans and made the Das use a Boregene subject to them. He dispersed 50,000 of the black race and rend the citadels. Footnote 149. Siregveda 3rd 349. First 138. 4th 262. 6th 183. 4th 163. And footnote. Some of the events with which he is connected, such as the battles of King Sudhas, may have a historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size and vigor and of gross passions. He feasts on the flesh of bulls and buffaloes roasted by hundreds. His potations are counted in terms of lakes and not only nerve him for the free but also intoxicate him. Footnote 150. In one singular hymn Rigveda 10th 119 Indra describes his sensations after drinking freely and in the sattvatabrahmana 5th 549 and 12th 711 he seems to be represented as suffering from his excesses and having to be cured by a special ceremony. End footnote. Under the name of Sakha, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sutras and seems to have been the chief popular deity in the Buddha's lifetime. He was adopted into the new creed as a sort of archangel and heavenly defender of the faith. In the epics he is still a mighty deity and the Lord of Paradise. Happiness in his heaven is the reward of the pious warrior after death. The Mahabharata and the Purans influenced perhaps by Buddhism speak of a series of Indras each lasting for a cycle but superseded when a new heaven and earth appear. In modern Hinduism his name is familiar though he does not receive much worship. Yet in spite of his long preeminence there is no disposition to regard him as the supreme and only God. Though the Rigveda calls him the creator and destroyer of all things he doesn't know since any more than other deities are. Footnote 151. In some passages of the Upanishads he is identified with Atma e.g. Kaushitaki Upanishad 3rd 8th but then all persons whether divine or human are really the Atma if they only knew it. End footnote. He is the personification of strength and success but he is not sufficiently spiritual or mystical to hold and satisfy the inquiring mind. Part 3. One of the most interesting and impressive work of Vedic deities is Varal often invoked with a more shadowy double called Mitra. No myths or exploits are related of him but he is the omnipotent and omniscient upholder of moral and physical law. He established earth and sky. He set the sun in heaven and ordained the movements of heaven and stars. The wind is his breath and by his law the heavens and earth are kept apart. He perceives all that exists in heaven and earth or beyond nor could a man escape him though he fled beyond the sky. The winking of men's eyes are all numbered by him. He knows all that man does or think. Footnote 152. Atharva Veda 4th 162. End footnote. Sin is the infringement of his ordinances and he binds sinners and fetters. Hence they pray to him for release from sin and he is gracious to the penitent. Whereas the other deities are mainly asked to bestow material boons, the hymns addressed to Varuna contain petitions for forgiveness. He dwells in heaven in a golden mansion. His throne is great and lofty with a thousand columns and his abode has a thousand doors. From it he looks down on the doings of men and all seeing sun comes to his court to report. There is much in these descriptions which is unlike the attributes ascribed to any other member of the Vedic pantheon and recalls Ahura Mazda of the Avista or Semitic deities. No proof of foreign influence is forthcoming but the opinion of some scholars that the figure of Varuna somehow reflects Semitic ideas is plausible. It has been suggested that he was originally a lunar deity which explains his association with Mitra, the Persian Mitra, who was a sun god and that the group of deities called Adityas and including Mitra and Varuna were the sun, moon and the five planets known to the ancients. This resembles the Babylonian worship of the heavenly bodies and though there is no record whatever of how such ideas reached the audience it is not difficult to imagine that they may have come from Babylonia either to India or to the country where Indians and Iranians dwelled together. Footnote 153 The Indian alphabets are admittedly Semitic in origin. End footnote There is a Semitic flavor too in the Indian legends of the churning of the ocean. Footnote 154 Simahabhar first 17-18 another accounts in the Ramayana and Puranas. End footnote The gods and asuras affect this by using a huge serpent as a rope to world round a mountain and from the turmoil there arise various marvellous personages and substances including the moon. This resembles in turn if not in detail the Babylonian creation myths telling of a primeval abyss of waters and a great serpent which is slain by the gods who use its body as the material for making the heavens and the earth. Footnote 155 It has also been conjectured that asura is equal to ashur the god of Assyria and that sumeru or seneru meru is equal to sumer or shinar. See J.R.A.S. 1960 Pages 364-365 End footnote Yet Varuna is not the centre of a monotheistic religion any more than Indra and in later times he becomes a water god of no marked importance. The Aryans and the Semites while both dissatisfied with polytheism and seeking the one among the many moved along different parts and did not reach exactly the same goal. Semitic deities were representations of the forces of nature in human form but their character was stereotyped by images at any rate in Assyria and Babylonia and by the ritual of particular places with which they were identified. Semitic polytheism is mainly due to the number of tribes and localities possessing separate deities not to the number of deities worshipped by each place and tribe. As villages and small towns were subordinate to great towns so the deities of minor localities were those of the greater. Hence the Semitic god was often thought of as a king who might be surrounded by a court and then became the head of a pantheon of inferior deities but also might be thought of as tolerating no rivals. This latter conception when combined with moral earnestness gives us Jenova who resembles Varuna except that Varuna is neither jealous nor national. Indian polytheism also originated in the personification of various phenomena. The sun, thunder, fire, rivers and so forth but these deities and like the Semitic gods had little to do with special tribes or localities and the philosophic Indian easily traced a connection between them. It is not difficult to see that sun, fire and lightning have something in common. The gods are frequently thought of as joined in couples, triads or larger companies An early worship probably showed the beginnings of a feature which is prominent in the later ritual namely that a sacrifice is not an isolated oblation offered to one particular god but a series of oblations presented to a series of deities. There was thus little disposition to exalt one god and annihilate the other but every disposition to identify the gods with one another and all of them with something else. Just as rivers, mountains and plains are dimly seen to be parts of a whole which later ages call nature so are the gods seen to be parts of some divine whole which is greater than any of them. Even in the Rigveda we find such sentiments as the priests speak of the one being in many ways. They call it Agni, Yama, Matariswan. Ft. 156 Rigved first Ft. 46 End footnote Hence it is not surprising that when in the later Vedic period a tendency towards monotheism but monotheism of a pantheistic type appears the supreme position is given to none of the old deities but to a new figure Prajapati. This word meaning lord of living creatures occurs in the Rigveda as an epithet of the sun and is also occasionally used as the name being by whom all gods and worlds were generated and by whose power they continue to exist. In the Brahmanas and later ritual literature he is definitely recognized as the supreme deity, the creator, the first sacrifice and the sacrifice itself. It is perhaps owing to his close connection with ceremonial that inquiring and speculative minds felt Prajapati not to be a final or satisfactory explanation of the universe. He is identified with Brahma the active personal creator and this later name gradually ousts the other but he does not anymore than Indra or Varuna become the atma or supreme universal being of the Upanishads. The principal Vedic deities are male and the few goddesses that are mentioned such as Usas. The dawn seem to owe their sex to purely dramatic reasons. Greece and Rome as well as India felt it appropriate to present the daybreak as a radiant nymph. But though in later time such goddesses as Durga assumed in some sex a paramount position and though the Veda is familiar with the idea of the world being born there are few traces in it of a goddess corresponding to the great mother Saibili or Astarte. In an earlier period of Vedic studies many deities were identified with figures in the classical or teutonic mythology chiefly on philological grounds but most of these identifications have now been abandoned. But a few names and figures seem to be found among both the Asiatic and European audience and to point to a common stock of ideas. Deus the Sky God is admittedly the same as Zeus and Jupiter. The Ashvins agree in character though not in name with the Tioscuri and the other parallels are quoted from letish mythology. Bhaga the Bountiful Giver a somewhat obscure deity is the same word as the Slavonic Bok used in the general sense of God and we find Deva in Sanskrit Deus in Latin and Devas in Lithuanian. Ushas the Dawn is phonetically related to Greek Air Horse and Aurora who however are only half deities. Indra if he cannot be scientifically identified with Thor is a similar personage who must have grown out of the same stock of ideas. By a curious transference the prophet Elias has in southeastern Europe inherited the attributes of the thunder god and is even now in the imagination of the peasantry, a jovial and riotous being who like Indra drives a noisy chariot across the sky. The connection with ancient Persian mythology is closer. The Evestan religion was a reformation due to the genius of Zoraster and therefore comparable with Buddhism rather than Hinduism but the less systematic polytheism which preceded it contained much which reminds us of the Vedic hymns. It can hardly be doubted that the ancestors of the Indians and Iranians once practiced almost identical forms of religion and had even a common ritual. The chief features of the fire curled and of the soma or hauma sacrifice appears in both. The sacrifice is called Yajna in the Veda Yasna in the Avesta. The Hothri priest is Zoraster Atharvan is Atharvan Mitra is Mitra Vayu and Apa the divine waters meet us in the Avesta in almost the same forms and Indra's epithet of Vritrahan the Slayer of Vritra appears as Viret Raghna. Guru Ramastha seems to be a development of the deity who appears as Varuna in India though he has not the same name and the main difference between Indian and Iranian religion lies in this that the latter was systematised by a theistic reformer who exalted one deity above the others whereas in India where there was more religious vitality polytheistic and pantheistic fancies flourished uncurbed and the greatest reformer the Buddha was not the atheist. One peculiarity of Indians in all ages is that they put more into religion than other races. It received most of the energy and talent which elsewhere went into art, politics and philosophy. Hence it became both intense and manifold for deities and creeds were wanted for every stage of intelligence and variety of taste and also very tolerant for sects in India though multitudinous are not so sharply or mutually hostile as in Europe. Connected with the general interest which religion inspired in its strongly marked speculative character Therigveda asks whether in the beginning there was being or not being and the later Vedas and Brahmanas are filled with discussions as to the meaning of ceremonies which show that the most dreary formalism could not extinguish the innate propensity to seek for a reason. In the Upanishads we have the same spirit dealing with more promising material and throughout the long history of Hinduism, religion and philosophy are seldom separated. We rarely find attached metaphysicians. Philosophers found new sexes or support old ones. Religion absorbs philosophy and translates it into theology or myths. Part 4 To the age of the Veda succeeds that of the Brahmanas or sacrificial treatises. The two periods are distinct and have each a well marked tone but they pass into one another for the Yajur and the Samaveda presuppose the ritual of the Brahmanas. These treatises introduce us to one feature of the Indian religion mentioned above, mainly the extraordinary elaboration of its ritual. To read them one would suppose that the one occupation of all India was the offering of sacrifices. The accounts are no doubt exaggerated and must be treated as specimens of sacred dothal imagination like the Biblical descriptions of the rites performed in the Tabernacle during the wanderings of the Israelites. But making all allowance for priestly enthusiasm, it still remains true that the intellect of India so far as it is preserved in literature was occupied during two centuries or so with the sacrificial art and that philosophy had difficulty in disentangling itself from ceremonies. One has only to compare Greek and Sanskrit literature to see how vast are the proportions assumed by the ritual in India. Our information about the political institutions, the wars and chronology of ancient Greece is full but of the details of Greek worship we hear little and probably there was not much to tell. But in India where there are no histories and no dates, we know every prayer and gesture of the officians throughout complicated sacrifices and possess a whole library describing their correct performance. In most respects, these sacrifices which absorbed so much intellect and energy belonged to ancient history. They must not be confounded with the ceremonies performed in modern temples which have a different origin and character. A great blow was struck at the sacrificial system by Buddhism. Not only did it withdraw the support of many kings and nobles and the greater ceremonies being very costly and it largely on the patronage of the wealthy, but it popularized the idea that animal sacrifices are shocking and that attempts to win salvation by offerings are crude and unphilosophic. But though after Buddhism had lived in India for a few centuries we no longer find the religious world given over to sacrificing as it had been about 600 BC these rites did not die out. Even now they are occasionally performed in South India and the Uttarakhand. There are still many Brahmans in these regions who, if they have not the means or learning to perform the great Vedic ceremonies at any rate sympathize with the mental attitude which they imply and this attitude has many curious features. The rite of sacrifice which in the simple form of an offering supposed to be agreeable to the deity is the principal ceremony in the early stages of most religions persists in their later stages but gives sacrifice to clouds of theory and mystical interpretation. Thus in Christianity the Jewish sacrifices are regarded as prototypes of the death of Christ and that death itself as a sacrifice to the Almighty an offering of himself to himself which in some way acts as an expiation for the sins of the world. And by a further development the sacrifice of the mass that is the offering of portions of bread and wine which are held to be miraculously and blurred of Christ by the manipulations of a qualified priest is believed to repeat every day the tragedy of Calvary. The prevalence of this view in Europe should make us cherry of stigmatizing Hindu ideas about sacrifice as mental aberrations. They represent the fancies of acute intellects dealing with ancient ceremonies which they cannot abandon but which they transform into something more congenial to their own transitional mode of thought. Though the Brahminas and Upanishads mix a ritual with physical and metaphysical theories in the most extraordinary fashion their main motive deserves sympathy and respect. Their weakness lies in their inability to detach themselves as the Buddha succeeded in doing from a ritual which though elaborate was neither edifying nor artistic. They seem unable to see the great problems of existence except through the mists of altar smoke. Their merit is their evident conviction that this formalism is inadequate. Their wish is not to distort and cramp nature by bringing it within the limits of the ritual but to enlarge and expand the ritual until it becomes cosmic. If they regard the whole universe as one long act of prayer and sacrifice the idea is grandiose rather than pedantic though the details may not always be to our taste. Footnote 157 For instance, Chapter 3 of the Chandogya Upanishad which compares the solar system to a beehive in which the bees are Vedic hymns is little less than stupendous though singular and hard for European thought to follow. End footnote We are told that the gods obtained immortality and heaven by sacrifice that they created the universe by sacrifice that Prajapati the creator is the sacrifice. Although some writers are disposed to distinguish magic sharply from religion they are not separated in the Vedas. Sacrifice is not merely a means of pleasing the gods. It is a system of authorized magic or sacred science controlling all worlds if properly understood. It is a mysterious cosmic force like electricity which can be utilized by a properly trained priest but is dangerous in unskillful hands for the rites, if wrongly performed bring disaster or even death on bunglers. Though the Vedic sacrifices fell more and more out of general use this notion of the power of rites and formulae did not fade with them but has deeply infected modern Hinduism and even Buddhism in both of which the lore of spells and gestures assume monstrous proportions. The Vedic and modern tantric rituals are different but they are based on the same supposition that the universe including the gods which are part of it is regulated by some permeating principle and that this principle can be apprehended by sacred science and controlled by the use of proper methods. Footnote 159 Thus both the Vedas and the Tantras devote considerable space to rites which have for object the formation of a new body for the Sacrificer. Compare for instance the Atreya Brahmana 1st 18-21 2nd 35-38 3rd 2nd and 6th 27-31 with Avalon's account of Nyasa in his introduction to the Mahanirvana Tantra pages 107-11 End footnote So far as these systems express the idea that the human mind can grasp the universe by knowledge they offer an example of the bold sweep of the Hindu intellect but the methods prescribed are often fatuous. The belief in the potency of words and formulae though amplified and embellished by the Hindus is not an Indian invention but a common aspect of early thought which was less emphasized in other countries. It is found in Persia and among the tribes of Central and Northern Asia and of Northern Europe and attained a high development in Finland where Renaut or magical songs are credited with very practical efficacy. Thus the Kaliwala relates Hawaiian Amoenin was building a boat by means of songs when the process came to a sudden stop because he had forgotten three words. This is exactly the sort of thing that might happen in the legends of Vedic sacrifice if the priest had forgotten the text he ought to recite. The external features of Vedic rites are remarkable and unlike what we know of those performed by other nations of antiquity. The sacrifice is not as a rule a gift presented to a single god to win his favor. Oblations are made to most members of the pantheon in the course of a prolonged ceremony. But the time, manner and recipients of these oblations are fixed rather by the mysteries of sacrificial signs than by the sacrifices need to propitiate a particular deity. Also the sacrifice is not offered in a temple and it would appear that in pre-Buddhist times there were no religious edifices. It is not even associated with sacred spots such as groves or fountains haunted by a deity. The scene of operations requires long and careful preparation but it is merely an enclosure with certain sheds, fireplaces and mounds. It has no architectural pretensions and is not a center around which shrines can grow for it requires reconsecration for each ceremony and in many cases must not be used twice. There is little that is national tribal or communal about these rites. Some of them such as the Ashwamedha or horse sacrifice and the Rajasaya or consecration of a king may be attended by games and sports but that is because they are connected with secular events. In their essence, sacrifices are not popular festivals or holidays but private services performed for the benefit of the Sacrificer that is the person who pays the fees of the priests. Usually they have a definite object and those ceremonies for the attainment of material blessings are not wanting this object is most frequently supermundane such as the fabrication of a body in the heavenly world. It is in keeping with these characteristics that there should be no pomp or spectacular effect. The rites resemble some complicated culinary operation or scientific experiment and the sacrificial enclosure has the appearance of a laboratory rather than a place of worship. Vedic rituals includes the sacrifice of animals and their indications of the former prevalence of human sacrifice. At the time when the Brahmanas were composed, the human victims were released alive but afterwards the practice of real sacrifice was revived probably owing to the continual incorporation into the Hindu community of semi-barbarous tribes and their savage deities. Human victims were offered to Mahadevi, the spouse of Shiva until the last century and would doubtless be offered now were legal restrictions removed. But though the sporadic survival of an old custom in its most primitive and barbarous form is characteristic of Hinduism, the whole tendency of thought and practice since the rise of Buddhism has been adverse to religious bloodshed even of animals. The doctrine of substitution and atonement of offering the victim on behalf of the sacrifice though not absent is a smaller part than in the religions of western Asia. Evidently it was not congenial the Hindu has always been inclined to think that the individual earns his future in another world by his own thoughts and acts even the value of the victim is less important than the correct performance of the ceremony. The teaching of the Brahmanas is not so much that a good heart is better than lavish arms as that the ritually correct sacrifice of a cake is better than a hecatomb not offered according to rule. The offerings required by the Vedic ritual are very varied. The simplest are cakes and libations of melted butter poured on the fire from two wooden spoons held one over the other while Vedic verses are decided. Besides these there was the animal sacrifice and still more important the soma sacrifice. Footnote 160 there is considerable doubt as to what was the plant originally known as soma. That described in the Vedas and Brahmanas is said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong smell fairy taste and intoxicating properties. The plants used as haum, haum by the modern passies of yesd and kerman are said to be members of the family as klippi desi perhaps of the genus sarco stemma with fleshy stalks and milky juice and the soma tested by Dr. Haug at poona was probably made from another species of the same or an allied genus. He found it extremely nasty though it had some intoxicating effect. See his Aitreya Bradmana number page 489. And footnote This ceremony is very ancient and goes back to the time when the Hindus and Iranians were not divided. In India the sacrifice lasted at least 5 days and even in its simpler forms was far more complicated than any ceremony known to the Greeks, Romans or Jews. Only professional priests could perform it and as a rule a priest did not attempt to master more than one branch and to be for instance either a reciter, Hothri or singer Uthgarthri. But the 5 day sacrifices are little more than the rudiments of the sacrificial art and led on to the Ahenas or sacrifices comprising from 2 to 12 days of Soma pressing which last not more than a month. The Ahenas again can be combined into sacrificial sessions lasting a year or more and it would seem that rites of this length were really performed though when we read of such sessions extending over a hundred years we may hope that they are creations of a fancy like that of a hymn writer who celebrated the state where congregations near breakup and sabbaths never end. Footnote 161 An ordinary sacrifice was offered for a private person who had to be initiated and the priests were merely officians acting on his behalf. In a sattra the priests were regarded as the sacrifices and were initiated. It had some analogy to Buddhist and Christian monastic foundations for reading sutras and saying masses. End footnote Federal literature of India is enormous and much of it has been edited and translated by European scholars with the care that is meditated a better object. It is a mind of information respecting curious beliefs and practices of considerable historical interest but it does not represent the main current of religious ideas in post buddhist times. The Brahmans indeed never cease to give the sacrificial system their theoretical and when possible their practical approval for it embodies a principle most year to them namely that the other castes can obtain success in heaven only under the guidance of Brahmans and by rights which only Brahmans can perform. But for this very reason it incurred the hostility not only of philosophers and morally earnest men but of the military cast and it never really recovered from the blow dealt it by buddhism the religion of that caste. But with every Brahmanic revival it came to the front and the performance of the Ashwamed or horse sacrifice was long the culminating glory of an orthodox king. Footnote 162 the political importance of the Ashwamed lay in the fact that the victim had to be let loose to Rome freely for a year so that only a king whose territories were sufficiently extensive to allow of its being followed and guarded during its wanderings could hope to sacrifice it at the end. End Footnote End of Section 30 Section 31 of Hinduism and Buddhism and historical sketch Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Shashank Jagmola Hinduism and Buddhism and historical sketch Volume 1 by Charles Iliad Asceticism and Knowledge Part 1 As sacrifice and ceremonial are the material accompaniments of prayer so are asceticism and discipline those of thought. This is less conspicuous in other countries but in India it is habitually assumed that the study of what we call metaphysics or theology is some kind of physical discipline and it will be well to elucidate this point before describing the beginnings of speculation. Tapas that is asceticism or self-mortification holds in the religious thought and practice of India as larger place as sacrifice. We hear of it as early for it is mentioned in the Rig Veda and it lasts longer for it is a part of contemporary Hinduism just as much as prayer or worship. It appears even in creeds which disavow it theoretically example given in Buddhism and evidently has its roots in a deep seated and persistent instinct. Footnote 163 Rig Veda 10th 136 and 10th 190 and footnote Tapas is often translated penance but the idea of mortification as an expiation for sins committed though not unknown in India is clearly not that which underlies the austerities of most ascetics. The word means literally heat hence pain or toil and some thing that its origin should be sought in practices which produced fever or tended to concentrate heat in the body. One object of tapas is to obtain abnormal powers and the suppression of desires or the endurance of voluntary tortures. There is an element of truth in this aspiration. Temperance, chastity and mental concentration are great aids for increasing the force of thought and will. The Hindu believes that intensity and perseverance in this road of abstinence and rapture will yield correspondingly increased results. The many singular phenomena connected with Indian asceticism have been imperfectly investigated but a psychological examination would probably find that subjective results such as visions and the feeling of flying through the air are really produced by the discipline recommended and there may be elements of much greater value in the various systems of meditation. But this is only the beginning of tapas. To the idea that the soul when freed from earthly desires is best able to comprehend is super-added another idea. Namely that self-mortification is a process of productive labour akin to intellectual toil. Just as the whole world is supposed to be permeated by a mysterious principle which can be known and subdued by the science of the sacrificing priests so the ascetic is able to control gods in nature by the force of his austerities. The creative deities are said to have produced the world by tapas. Just as they are said to have produced it by sacrifice in Hindu mythology abounds in stories of aesthetics who became so mighty that the very gods were alarmed. For instance, Ravana the demon ruler of Lanka who carried off Sita had acquired his power by austerities which enabled him to extort a boon from Brahma. Thus there need be nothing moral in the object of asceticism or in the use of the power obtained. The epics and dramas frequently portray aesthetics as choleric and unamiable characters and modern yogis maintain the tradition. Though asceticism resembles the sacrifice in being a means by which man can obtain his wishes whether religious or profane it differs in being comparatively easy. Erksem as it may be it demands merely strength of will and not a scientific training in ritual and Vedic texts. Hence in this fear the supremacy of the Brahmin could be challenged by other castes and an instructive legend relates how Ram slew a Shudra whom he surprised in the act of performing austerities. The lowest castes scanned by this process acquire a position which makes them equal to the highest. Footnote 164 Even the Upanishads example given Chandogya 3rd, 17th and Mahanar 64 admit that a good life which includes tapas is the equivalent of sacrifice but this of course is teaching for the elect only. The Brihad and Aranya Upanishad 5th, 2nd contains the remarkable doctrine that sickness and pain if regarded by the sufferer as tapas brings the same reward. End Footnote Of the non-Brahmanic 6, the Jain said the highest value on tapas but chiefly has a purification of the soul and a means of obtaining an unearthly state of pure knowledge. Footnote 165 So too in the Taithriya Upanishad tapas is described as the means of attaining the knowledge of Brahman. 3rd, 125 End Footnote In theory, the Buddha rejected it. He taught a middle way rejecting alike self-indulgence and self-motification but even Pani Buddhism admits that such practices as the Dutangas and the more extravagant Sikhs for instance in Tibet allow monks to entomb themselves in dark cells. According to our standards even the ordinary religious life of both Hindus and Buddhists is severely ascetic. It is assumed as a Saini Kwanon that strict chastity must be observed nourishment be taken only to support life and not for pleasure that all gratification coming from the senses must be avoided and the mind kept under rigid discipline. This discipline receives systematic treatment in the Yoga school of philosophy but it is really common to all varieties of Hinduism and Buddhism all agree that the body must be subdued by physical training before the mind can apprehend the higher truths. The only question is how far asceticism is directly instrumental in giving higher knowledge. If some text speaks slightly of it we must remember that the life of a hermit dwelling in the words without possessions or desires might not be regarded by a Hindu as tapas though we should regard it as asceticism. It is also agreed that supernatural powers can be acquired by special forms of asceticism. These powers are sometimes treated as mere magic and spiritually worthless but their reality is not questioned. Part 2 We have now said something of two aspects of Indian religion ritual and asceticism and must pass on to the third namely knowledge or philosophy. Its importance was recognised by the severest ritualists. They admitted it as a supplement and crowned to the life of ceremonial observances and in the public estimation it came to be reputed an alternative or superior road to salvation. Respect and desire for knowledge are even more intimately a part of Hindu mentality than a proclivity to asceticism or ritual. The sacrifice itself must be understood as well as offered. He who knows the meaning of this or that observance obtains his desires. Footnote 166 Any ritual without knowledge may be worse than useless. See Chandu Gya Upanishad 1. 10. 11 End Footnote Nor did the Brahmins resent criticism and discussion. India has always loved theological argument. It is the national passion. The earlier Upanishad relate without disapproval how kings such as Ajat Shatru of Kashi, Pravahana, Jaivali and Asvapati Kaikeya imparted to learned Brahmins philosophical and theological knowledge previously unknown to them and even women like Gargi and Maitri took part in theological discussions. Footnote 167 See the various narratives in the Chandu Gya, Brihad, Aranya and Kashi Taaki Upanishads. The 7th chapter of the Chandu Gya relating how Narada, the learned sage, was instructed by Sankat Kumara or Skanda, the god of war seems to hint that the active military class may know the great trots of religion better than deeply read priests who may be hampered and blinded by their learning. For Skanda and Narada in this connection see Bhagavad Gita 10th, 24, 26 end footnote Obviously, knowledge in the sense of philosophical speculation commended itself to religiously disposed persons in the non-sacred total castes for the same reason as asceticism. Whatever difficulties it might offer, it was more accessible than the learning which could be acquired only under a Brahmin teacher, although the Brahmin in the interests of the sacred total castes maintained that philosophy like ritual was a secret to be embodied, not a result to be won by independent thought. Again and again the Upanishads insist that more profound doctrines must not be communicated to any but a son or an accredited pupil and also that no one can think of them out for himself yet the older ones admit in such stories as those mentioned that the impulse towards speculation came in early periods as it dared in the time of the Buddha largely from outside the priestly clans and was adopted rather than initiated by them. Footnote 168 For the necessity of a teacher see Kath Upanishad 2nd 8. But in justice to the Brahmin's we must admit that they have rarely or at any rate much less frequently than other sacred total corporations shown hostility to new ideas and then chiefly when such ideas like those of Buddhism imply that the rights by which they gain their living were worthless. Otherwise they showed great pliancy and receptivity for they combined Vedic rites and such systems as the Sankhya and Advaita philosophies both of which really render superfluous everything which is usually called religion sins though their language is tickerous they teach that he who knows the truth about the universe is thereby saved. The best opinion of India has always felt that the way of knowledge or gyana was the true way. The favourite thesis of the Brahmin's was that a man should take his youth to study his maturity to the duties and ceremonies of a householder and his age to more sublime speculations but at all periods the idea that it was possible to know God and the universe was allied to the idea that all ceremonies as well as all worldly effort and indeed all active morality are superfluous. Footnote 169 See especially the bold passage of the end of Daitriya Upanishad second. He who knows the bliss of Brahmin fears nothing. He does not torment himself by asking what good have I left undone, what evil have I done. End of footnote. All alike are unessential and trivial and merit the attention only of those who know nothing higher. Human feelings and interests qualified and contradicted this negative and unearthly view of religion but still populist sentiment as well as philosophic thought during the whole period of which we know something of them in India tended to regard the highest life as consisting in rapt contemplation or insight accompanied by the suppression of desire and by disengagement from mundane ties and interests. But knowledge in Indian theology implies more intensity than we attach to the word even some admixture of volition. The knowledge of Brahmin is not an understanding of pantheistic doctrines such as may be obtained by reading the sacred books of the East in an easy chair but a realization in all senses of personal identity with the universal spirit in the light of which all material attachments and fetters fall away. The earlier philosophical speculations of the Brahmin are found in the treatises called Upanishads. The teaching contained in these works is habitually presented as something secret or esoteric and does not like Buddhism or Jainism profess to be a gospel for all. Footnote 170 The word Upanishad probably means sitting down at the feet of a teacher to receive secret instructions hence a secret conversation or doctrine. And footnote Also the teaching is not systemized and has never been unified by a personality like the Buddha. It grew up in the various Parishads or communities of learned Brahmins and perhaps flourished most in northwestern India. Footnote 171 Some allusions in the older Upanishads point to this district rather than the Ganges valley as the center of Brahmanic philosophy. Thus, Brihad Aranyaka speak familiarly of Gandhar. And footnote There is of course a common substratum of ideas but they appear in different versions. We have teachings of Yajnavalika of Uddalak, Aruni and other masters and each teaching has some individuality. They are merely reported as words of the wise without an attempt to harmonize them. There are many apparent inconsistencies due to the use of divergent metaphors to indicate different aspects of the indescribable and some real inconsistencies due to the existence of different schools. Hence, attempts whether Indian or European to give a harmonious summary of this ancient doctrine are likely to be erroneous. There are a great number of Upanishads composed at various states and not all equally revered. They represent different orders of ideas and some of the later are distinctly secretarian. Collections of 45, 52 and 60 are mentioned and the Muktika Upanishad gives a list of 108. This is the number currently accepted in India at the present day but Schrader describes many Upanishads existing in MS in addition to this list and points out that though they may be modern, there is no ground for calling them spurious. Footnote 172 Cat, a diart library The Rig and Sama Vedas have two Upanishads each the Yajurveda 7 All the others are described as belonging to the Atharva Veda They have no real connection with it but it was possible to add to the literature of the Arthava whereas it was hardly possible to make similar additions to the older Vedas. End footnote According to Indian ideas there is no a priori objection to the appearance now or in the future of new Upanishads. All revelation is eternal and self-existent but it can manifest itself at its own good time. Footnote 173 The Dibindranath Tagore composed a work which he called the Brahmi Upanishad in 1848 See Autobiography 1870 The sectarian Upanishads are of doubtful date but many were written between 400 and 1200 AD and were due to the desire of new sects to connect their worship with the Veda. Several are Shaktists example given Kaula, Tripura and Devi and many others show Shaktist influence. They usually advocate the worship of a special deity such as Ganesha, Rama and Nresimha. End footnote Many of the more modern Upanishads appear to be the compositions of single authors and may be called tracks or poems in the ordinary European sense. But the older ones unless they are very short are clearly not the attempts of an individual to express his greed but collections of such philosophical sayings and narratives as a particular school thought fit to include in its version of the scriptures. There was so to speak a body of philosophic folklore portions of which each school selected and elaborated as it though best. Thus an epilogue providing that the breath is the essential vital constituent of a human being is found in five ancient Upanishads. Footnote 174 Brihad Aranyaka 6th 8th 2nd 3rd 2nd 5th The epilogue is curiously like in form to the classical fable of the belly and members. End footnote The Chandogya and Brihad Aranyaka both contain an almost identical narrative of how the priest Aruni was puzzled and instructed by a king and a similar story is found at the beginning of the Kaushitaki. Footnote 175 Brihad Aranyaka 6th 2nd End footnote The two Upanishads last mentioned also contain two dialogues in which King Ajat Shatru explains the fate of the soul after death and which differ in little except that one is rather fuller than the other. Footnote 176 Brihad Aranyaka 2nd Kaushiki 4th End footnote So too several well known stanzas and also quotations from the Veda used with special applications are found in more than one Upanishad. Footnote 177 The composite structure of these works is illustrated very clearly by the Brihad Aranyaka. It consists of three sections each concluding with a list of teachers namely a. Adhyayas 1 & 2 b. Adhyayas 3 & 4 c. Adhyayas 5 & 6 The lists are not quite the same which indicates some slight difference between the sub-schools which compose the three parts and a lengthy passage occurs in almost identical form. The Upanishad is clearly composed of two separate collections with the addition of a third which still bears the title of Khila or supplement. The whole work exists in two resensions. End footnote The older Upanishads are connected with the other parts of the Veda canon and sometimes form an appendix to a Brahmana so that the topics discussed gradually from ritual to philosophy. Footnote 178 The 11 translated in the sacred book of the East volumes 1 & 15 include the oldest and most important. Footnote 179 Thus the Aitreya Brahmana is followed by the Aitreya Aranyaka and that by the Aitreya Aranyaka Upanishad. End footnotes It would be excessive to say that this arrangement gives the genesis of speculation in ancient India for some hymns of the Rig Veda are purely philosophic but it illustrates a lindy face of Brahmanic thought in which speculation could not disengage itself from ritual and was also hampered by physical ideas. The Upanishads often receive such epithets as transcendental and idealistic but in many passages perhaps in the majority they labour with imperfect success to separate the spiritual and material. The self or spirit is sometimes identified in man with the breath, in nature with air, ether or space. At other times it is described as dwelling in the heart and about the size of the thumb but capable of becoming smaller travelling through the veins and showing itself in the pupil becoming infinitely large and one with the world soul. But when thought finds its wings and souls above these material fancies the teaching of the Upanishads shares with Buddhism the glory of being the finest product of the Indian intellect. In India the religious life has always been regarded as a journey and a search after truth even the most orthodox and priestly programme admits this. There comes a time when observances are felt to be vain and the soul demands knowledge of the essence of things and though later dogmatism asserts that this knowledge is given by revelation yet a note of genuine inquiry and speculation is struck in the Vedas and is never entirely silenced throughout the long procession of Indian writers. In well known words the Vedas ask who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice who is he who is the creator and sustainer of the universe whose shadow is immortality whose shadow is death or in even more daring phrases the Gods were subsequent to the creation of this universe who then knows whence it sprang he who in the highest heaven is the overseer of this universe he knows or even he does not know. Footnote 180 Rig Veda 10th 1 to 1 The verses are also found in the Atharva Veda, the Vajaseni Taitriya, Matriani and Kathaka and Samyathas and elsewhere. Footnote 181 Rig Veda 10th 1 to 9 End Footnotes These profound inquiries which have probably no parallel in the contemporary literature of other nations are as time goes on supplemented though perhaps not enlarged by many others nor does confidence fail that there is an answer. The truth which when known is the goal of life. A European is inclined to ask what use can be made of the truth but for the Hindus divine knowledge is an end and a state, not a means. It is not thought of as something which may be used to improve the world or for any other purpose whatever. For use and purpose imply that the thing utilized is subservient and inferior to an end, whereas divine knowledge is the culmination and meaning of the universe or from another point of view the annihilation of both the external world and individuality. Hence the Hindu does not expect of his saints, philanthropy or activity of any sort. As already indicated, the characteristic though not the only answer of India to these questionings is that nothing really exists except God or better except Brahman. The soul is identical with Brahman. The external world which we perceive is not real in the same sense. It is in some way or other an evolution of Brahman or even mere illusion. This doctrine is not universal. It is for instance severely criticised and rejected by the older forms of Buddhism but its hold on the Indian temperament is seen by its reappearance in later Buddhism whereby an astounding transformation the Buddha is identified with the universal spirit. Though the form in which I have quoted the doctrine above is an epitome of the Vedanta it is hardly correct historically to give it as an epitome of the older Upanishads. Their teaching is less complete and uncompromising, more veiled, tentative and elusive and sometimes cumbers by material notions. But it is obviously the precursor of the Vedanta and the devout Vedantist can justify his system from it. Part 3 Instead of attempting to summarise the Upanishads it may be well to quote one from Brehad Rannyaka and relates how Yajnavalkya when about to retire to the forest as an ascetic wished to divide his property between his two wives. Katyaini who possessed only such knowledge as women possess and Mithray who was conversant with Brahman. Footnote 182 4th 5.5 and repeated almost verbally 2nd 4 5 with some omissions. My quotation is somewhat abbreviated and repetitions are omitted. Footnote The latter asked her husband whether she would be immortal if she owned the whole world. No, he replied like the life of the rich would be thy life but there is no hope of immortality. He said that she had no need of what would not make her immortal. Yajnavalkya proceeded to explain to her his doctrine of the Atma the self or essence the spirit present in man as well as in the universe. Not for the husband's sake is the husband dear but for the sake of the Atma. Not for the wife's sake is the wife dear but for the sake of the Atma. Not for their own sake are sons, wealth, warriors, worlds, gods Vedas and all things dear but for the sake of the Atma. The Atma is to be seen to be heard, to be perceived to be marked by him who has seen and known the Atma all the universe is known he who looks for Brahmins warriors, worlds, gods or Vedas anywhere but in the Atma loses them all. As all waters have their meeting place in the sea all touch in the skin all tastes in the tongue all odours in the nose all colours in the eye all sounds in the ear all percepts in the mind all knowledge in the heart all actions in the hands as a lump of salt has no inside nor outside and is nothing but taste so has this Atma neither inside nor outside having resin from out these elements it the human soul vanishes with them when it has departed after death there is no more consciousness here Mithrei professes herself bewildered but Yajnavalkya continues I say nothing bewildering verily beloved that Atma is imperishable and indestructible when there is as it were duality then one sees the other one tastes the other one salutes the other one hears the other one touches the other one knows the other but when the Atma only is all this how should we see, taste, hear, touch or know another how can we know him by whose power we know all this that Atma is to be described by no no neti neti he is incomprehensible and indestructible for he cannot be destroyed unattached for he does not attach himself he knows no bonds no suffering, no decay how, oh beloved, can one know the knower and having so spoken Yajnavalkya went away into the forest in another verse of the same work it is declared that this great unborn Atma or self undecaying undying, immortal is indeed Brahman it is interesting that this doctrine evidently regarded as the quintessence of Yajnavalkya's knowledge should be imparted to a woman it is not easy to translate Atma, of course means self and is so rendered by Max Müller in this passage but it seems to me that this rendering jazz on the English ear for it inevitably suggests that the individual self and selfishness whereas Atma means the universal spirit which is self because it is the highest or only reality and being not definable in terms of anything else nothing says Yajnavalkya has any value, meaning or indeed reality except in relation to this self footnote 183 the sentiment is perhaps the same as that underlying the words attributed to Florence Nightingale I must strive to see only God in my friends and God in my cats and footnote the whole world including the Vedas and religion is an emanation from him the passage at which Maitri expresses her bewilderment is obscure but the reply is more definite the self is indestructible but still it is incorrect to speak of the soul having knowledge after death for knowledge and perception imply duality a subject and an object but when the human soul and the universal Atma are one there is no duality and no human expression can be correctly used about the Atma whatever you say of it the answer must be Nethi Nethi it is not like that that is to say the ordinary language used about the individual soul is not applicable to the Atma or to the human soul when regarded as identical with it footnote 184 it will be observed that he had said previously that the Atma must be seen, heard perceived and known this is an inconsistent use of language and footnote this identity is stated more precisely in another passage where first occurs the celebrated formula that art thou or thou art it that is the human soul is the Atma and hence there is no real distinction between souls footnote 185 Chandogya Upanishad 6th footnote 186 in the language of the Upanishads the Atma is often simply called that or it and footnotes like Yajnavalkya's teachings the statement of this doctrine takes the form of an intimate conversation this time between Abrahman, Uddalaka Aruni and his son Shweta Ketu who is 24 years of age and having just finished his studentship is very well satisfied with himself his father remarks on his concede and says have you ever asked your teachers what instruction by which the unheard becomes heard the unperceived perceived and the unknown known Shweta Ketu inquires what this instruction is and his father replies as by one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known and the change is a mere matter of words nothing but name the truth being that all is clay and as by one piece of copper or by one pair of nail scissors all that is made of copper and known so is that instruction footnote 187 ie the differences between clay and pots etc made of clay and footnote that is to say it would seem the reality is one all diversity and multiplicity is secondary and superficial merely a matter of words in the beginning continues the father there was only that which is one without a second others say in the beginning there was that only which is not non-existence one without a second and from that which is not that which is was born but how could that which be born of that which is not footnote 188 yet the contrary proposition is maintained in the same Upanishad third 191 2nd 8 and elsewhere the reason of these divergent statements is of course the difficulty of distinguishing pure being without attributes from not beings and footnote no only that which is was in the beginning one only without a second it thought may I be many may I have offspring it sent forth fire here follows a cosmogony and an explanation of the constitution of animate beings and then the father continues all creatures have their root in the real 12 in the real and rest in the real that subtle being by which this universe subsists it is the real it is the atma and thou art it many illustrations of the relations of the atma and the universe follow for instance in the life sap leaves a tree it withers and dies so this body withers and dies when the life has lifted the life dies not in the fruit of the banyan victory are minute seeds innumerable but the imperceptible subtle essence in each seed is the whole banyan each example adduced concludes with the same formula thou art that subtle essence and as in the brihad aranyaka salt is used as a metaphor place this salt in water and then come to me in the morning the sun did so and in the morning the father said bring me the salt the sun looked for it but found it not for of course it was melted the father said taste from the surface of the water how is it the sun replied it is salt taste from the middle how is it it is salt taste from the bottom how is it it is salt the father said here also in this body you do not perceive the real but there it is that subtle being by which this universe subsists it is the real it is the atma and thou shwetaketu art it the writers of these passages have not quite reached shankara's point of view that the atma is all and the whole universe mere illusion or maya their thought still tends to regard the universe as something drawn forth from the atma and then pervaded by it but still the main features of the later advaita or philosophy of no duality are there all the universe has grown forth from the atma there is no real difference in things just as all gold is gold whatever it is made onto the soul is identical with this atma and after death may be one with it in a union excluding all duality even of perceiver and perceived a similar union occurs in sleep this idea is important for it is closely connected with another belief which has had far reaching consequences on thought and practice in India the belief namely that the soul can attain without death and as the result of mental discipline to union with brahman footnote 189 the word union is a convenient but not wholly accurate term which covers several theories the Upanishads sometimes speak of the union of the soul with brahman or its absorption in brahman example given Maitreya Upanishad 6th 22 Sanyujiyavatam and Manam iti but the soul is more frequently stated to the brahman or a part of brahman and its task is not to affect any act of union but simply to know its own nature this knowledge is in itself emancipation the well known simile which compares the soul to a river flowing into the sea is found in the Upanishads Chandogya 6th 10 1 Mund 3rd Prashna 6th 5 but Shankara on Brahma S 1 4th 21-22 evidently feels uneasy about it from his point of view the soul is not so much a river as a bay which is the sea if the landscape can be seen properly end footnote this idea is common in Hinduism and though Buddhism rejects the notion of union with the supreme spirit yet it attaches importance to meditation and makes samadhi or rapture the crown of the perfect life in this as in other matters the teaching of the Upanishads is manifold and unsystematic compared with later doctrines the older passages ascribed to the soul three states corresponding to the bodily conditions of waking, dream sleep and deep dreamless sleep Buddha Aranyaka affirms of the last 4th 3 32 this is the brahma's world this is his highest world this is his highest bliss all other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss but even in some Upanishads of the second stratum Mandukya Maitrayana we find added a 4th state Kathurtha or more commonly Turiya in which the bliss attainable in deep sleep is accompanied by consciousness this theory and various practices founded on it develop rapidly footnote 190 Mandukya Upanishad calls the 4th state Ekatma Pratyaya Sara founded solely on the certainty of its own self and Kaurapada says that in it there awakes the eternal which neither dreams nor sleeps 4 first 15 see also 3rd 34 and 36 and footnote part 4 the explanation of dreamless sleep as supreme bliss and Yajnavalkya statement that the soul after death cannot be said to know or feel may suggest that union with Brahman is another name for annihilation but that is not the doctrine of the Upanishads though a European perhaps might say that the consciousness implated is so different from ordinary human consciousness that it should not bear the same name in another passage Yajnavalkya explains himself when he does not know yet he is knowing though he does not know for knowing is inseparable from the knower because it cannot perish but there is no second nothing else different from him that he could know footnote 191 Brihad Aranyaka 4th 333 and footnote a common formula for Brahman in the later philosophy is Saki Da Nanda being thought and joy footnote 192 CF Bradley Appearance and Reality page 244 the perfect means the identity of idea and existence attended also by pleasure and footnote this is just a summary of the earlier teaching we have already seen how the Atma is recognized as the only reality its intellectual character is equally clearly affirmed thus the Brihad Aranyaka 3rd 723 says there is no seer beside him no hearer beside him no perceiver beside him no knower beside him no die self the ruler within the immortal everything distinct from him is subject to pain this idea that pain and fear exist only as far as man makes a distinction between his own self and the real self is eloquently developed in the division of the Taitiriya Upanishad called the chapter of bliss he who knows Brahman it declares which exists which is conscious which is without end in the depth of the heart and in the farther space he enjoys all blessing in communion with the omniscient Brahman he who knows the bliss anandam of that Brahman from which all speech and mind turn away unable to reach it he never fears footnote 193 Taitiriya Upanishad 2nd 1-9 C2 IB 3rd 6 footnote bliss is obtainable by union with Brahman and the road to such union is knowledge of Brahman that knowledge is often represented as acquired by tapas or asceticism but this, though repeatedly enjoined as necessary seems to be regarded in the nobler exposition at least as an indispensable schooling rather than an efficacious by its own virtue sometimes the topic is treated in an almost the spirit of reasonableness and depreciation of self-motification for its own sake thus Yajnavalkya says to Gargi whoever without knowing the imperishable one of his oblations in this world sacrifices and practices asceticism even for a thousand years his work will perish footnote 194 Brihad Aranyaka 3rd 8 10 C2 6th 2 15 speaking of those who in the forest worship the truth with faith and footnote and in a remarkable scene described in the Chandogya Upanishad the three sacred fires decide to instruct a student who is exhausted by austerities and tell him that Brahman is life bliss and space footnote 195 Chandogya Upanishad 4th 10 5 and footnote analogous to the conception of Brahman as bliss is the description of him as light or light of lights a beautiful passage says to the wise who perceive him Brahman within their own self belongs eternal peace not to others they feel that highest unspeakable bliss saying this is that how then can I understand it has it its own light or does it reflect light no sun shines there nor moon nor stars nor these lightnings much less this fire when he shines everything shines after him by his light all the world is lighted footnote 196 it occurs Katha Upanishad 2nd verse 13 15 also in the Mahashvatara and Mundaka Upanishads and there are similar words in the Bhagavad Gita this is that means that the individual soul is the same as Brahman end footnote in most of the texts which we have examined the words Brahman and Atma are so impersonal that they cannot be replaced by God in other passages the conception of the deity is more personal the universe is often said to have been emitted or breathed forth by Brahman by emphasizing the origin and result of this process separately we reach the idea of the maker and master of the universe commonly expressed by the word Ishvar Lord but even when using this expression Hindu thought tends in its subtler moments to regard both the creator and the creature as illusions in the same sense as the world exists there also exists its creator who is an aspect of Brahman but the deeper truth is that neither is real there is but one who neither makes nor is made footnote 197 the Nresim Hotra Tapanya Upanishad first says that Ishvara is swallowed up in the Turiya and footnote in a land of such multi-form theology it would be hazardous to say that monotheism has always arisen out of pantheism but in the speculative schools where the Upanishads were composed this was often its genesis the older idea is that a subtle essence pervades all nature and the deities who rule nature this is spiritualized into the doctrine of Brahman attributed to Yashnavalkya and it is only by a secondary process that this Brahman is personified and sometimes identified with a particular god such as Shiva the doctrine of the personal Ishvara is elaborated in Shvatashvatara Upanishad of uncertain date footnote 198 but still ancient and perhaps anterior to the Christian era and footnote it celebrates him in hymns of almost Mohammedan monotheism let us know that great lord of lords the highest god of gods the muster of musters the highest above as god, as lord of the world who is to be glorified footnote 199 Shvatamvatara Upanishad 6th 7 end footnote but this monotheistic fervour does not last long without relapsing into the familiar pantheistic strain thou art woman says the same Upanishad and thou art man thou art youth and maiden thou as an old man daughterist along on thy staff thou art born with thy face turned everywhere thou art the dark blue bay thou the green parrot with the red eyes thou art the thunder cloud the seasons and the seas thou art without beginning because thou art infinite thou from whom all worlds are born footnote 200 Shvatamvatara Upanishad 4th 3 maximalist translation the commentary attributed to sanskara explains nila patanga as brambhara but theosin seems to think it means a bird end footnote end of section number 31