Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1

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 the Brâhmaṇas, the rise of Buddhism, the composition of the two great epics, and the Puranas. 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 Brâhmaṇas and the philosophic speculations of the Upanishads were in existence by 500 B.C.139 and sufficiently developed to impress the public mind with a sense of their futility. Some interval of mental growth seems to separate the Upanishads from the Brâhmaṇas and a more decided interval separates the Brâhmaṇas from the earlier hymns of the Rig Veda, if not from the compilation of the whole collection140. We may hence say that the older Upanishads and Brahmaṇas must have been composed between 800 and 500 B.C. and the hymns of the Rig Veda hardly later than 1000 B.C. Many authorities think the earlier hymns must date from 2000 rather than 1000 B.C. but the resemblance of the Rig Veda to the Zoroastrian Gathas (which are generally regarded as considerably later than 1000 B.C.) is plain, and it will be strange if the two collections prove 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 Zoroaster141.

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 characterized the Brahmans for at least twenty-five 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 B.C. 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 earlier142.

In drawing any deductions from the hymns of the Rig Veda it must be remembered that it is the manual of the Hotri priests143. 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 missal, 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, unrecorded Epic tradition built up the figures of Siva, Râma 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 B.C. 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 metrical prayers: the Yajur Veda (in an old and new recension known as the Black and the White) containing formulæ mainly in prose to be muttered during the course of the sacrifice: and the Sâma Veda, 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 subservience to it than in the Yajur and Sâma Vedas.

The restriction of the words Veda and Vedic to the collection of hymns, though convenient, is not in accordance with 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-Saṃhitâ: besides this, there are the Brâhmaṇas or ceremonial treatises, the Âraṇyakas and Upanishads containing philosophy and speculation, the Sûtras or aphoristic rules, all comprised in the Veda or Śruti (hearing), that is the revelation heard directly by saints as opposed to Smṛiti (remembering) or tradition starting from human teachers. Modern Hindus when not influenced by the language of European scholars apply the word Veda especially to the Upanishads.

For some time only three144 Vedas were accepted. But the Epics and the Puranas know of the fourfold Veda and place the Atharva Veda on a level with the other three. It was the manual of two ancient priestly families, the Atharvans and 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 Brâhmaṇas, but the separate poems are older and, so far as can be judged from their language, are intermediate between the Rig Veda and the Brâhmaṇas. But the substance of many of the spells must be older still, since the incantations prescribed show a remarkable similarity to old German, Russian and Lettish 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 enquire 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, Kelts, Slavs, etc., belonged 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 makes it probable that the ancestors of the Iranians and Hindus dwelt 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 Panjab and south-east145. These latter produced the poets of the Rig Veda. Their home is indicated by their acquaintance with the Himalayas, the Kabul river, the Indus and rivers of the Panjab, and the Jamna. The Ganges, though known, apparently lay beyond their sphere, but the geography of the Atharva extends as far as Benares and implies a 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 Panjab, but the majority somewhat further to the east, in the district of Kurukshetra or Thanesar. At some period 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 Pâṇḍavas. 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 there somewhat different customs. It is also possible that the Atharva Veda may represent the religious ideas of these second invaders. In several passages the Mahâbhârata speaks of the Atharva as the highest Veda and represents the Pâṇḍavas as practising 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 refuges 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 an intellectual outburst 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 pasturage, but they are still contending with the aborigines: 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 in individual colour.

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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, rites 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 localized 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 of one another's existence.

Such 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 godhead 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 tawny 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 Tvashṭri 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 threefold nature has perhaps something to do with the triads of deities which become frequent later and finally develop into the Trimûrti or Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Siva. 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 is kindled on many hearths. Some of the epithets applied to him become quasi-independent. For instance, Agni Vaiśvânara—All men's fire—and Agni Tanunapat, which seems to mean son of himself, or fire spontaneously generated, are in a later period treated almost as separate deities. Mâtariśvan is sometimes a name of Agni and sometimes a separate deity who brings Agni to mankind.

In the same way the Rig Veda has not one but many solar deities. Mitra, Sûrya, Savitri, and perhaps Puśan, 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 Prajâpati in the singular, but also of the Prajâpatis 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 Varuṇa and Mitra, Savitri and Indra. "Thou art Varuṇa when born," says one hymn, "thou becomest Mitra when kindled. In thee, O son of strength, are all the gods146." Such identifications are common in the Vedas. Philosophically, they are an early manifestation of the mental bias which leads to pantheism, metempsychosis, and the feeling that all things and 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 centre. And these epithets and functions are to a large extent, the same. All 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 Siva 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 other deities they follow the old lines. Even a deity like Gaṇeśa 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 itself147.

In Soma, the sacred 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 sacred tree inhabited by some spirit of the woods 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 "La fée aux yeux verts." 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 in the retinue of the Buddha. He appears to have been originally a god of thunder, a phenomenon which lends itself to anthropomorphic treatment. As an atmospheric deity, he conquers various powers of evil, particularly Vritra, 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 Siva, 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 Dâsyus (aborigines) subject to them: he dispersed fifty thousand of the black race and rent their citadels148. Some of the events with which he is connected, such as the battles of King Sudas, may have a historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size and vigour 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 fray but also intoxicate him149. Under the name of Sakka, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sûtras, 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 Mahâbhârata and the Puranas, 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 pre-eminence there is no disposition to regard him as the supreme and only god. Though the Rig Veda calls him the creator and destroyer of all things150, he is not God in our sense any more than other deities are. He is the personification of strength and success, but he is not sufficiently spiritual or mystical to hold and satisfy the enquiring mind.

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One of the most interesting and impressive of Vedic deities is Varuṇa, 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 the moon 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 winkings of men's eyes are all numbered by him151: he knows all that man does or thinks. Sin is the infringement of his ordinances and he binds sinners in 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 Varuṇa 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 the all-seeing sun comes to his courts 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 Avesta or Semitic deities. No proof of foreign influence is forthcoming, but the opinion of some scholars that the figure of Varuṇa 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 Mithra) who was a sun god, and that the group of deities called Âdityas and including Mitra and Varuṇa 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 Aryans, it is not difficult to imagine that they may have come from Babylonia either to India152 or to the country where Indians and Iranians dwelt together. There is a Semitic flavour too in the Indian legend of the Churning of the Ocean153. The Gods and Asuras effect this by using a huge serpent as a rope to whirl round a mountain and from the turmoil there arise various marvellous personages and substances including the moon. This resembles in tone if not in detail the Babylonian creation myths, telling of a primæval 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 earth154.

Yet Varuṇa 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 Semites, while both dissatisfied with polytheism and seeking the one among the many, moved along different paths 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 subordinate to 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 Jehovah, who resembles Varuṇa, except that Varuṇa 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 unlike 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 and 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 others, 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 Rig Veda we find such sentiments as "The priests speak of the One Being in many ways: they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtariśvan155." 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, Prajâpati. This word, meaning Lord of living creatures, occurs in the Rig Veda as an epithet of the sun and is also occasionally used as the name of the Being by whom all gods and worlds were generated and by whose power they continue to exist. In the Brâhmaṇas and later ritual literature he is definitely recognized as the supreme deity, the Creator, the first sacrificer and the sacrifice itself. It is perhaps owing to his close connection with ceremonial that enquiring and speculative minds felt Prajâpati not to be a final or satisfactory explanation of the universe. He is identified with Brahmâ, the active personal creator, and this later name gradually ousts the other but he does not, any more than Indra or Varuṇa, become the Âtman or supreme universal Being of the Upanishads.