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The Religions of India c17: Chapter XI. The Popular Brahmanic Faith

The Religions of India c17

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Chapter XI. The Popular Brahmanic Faith

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FOR a long time after the Vedic age there is little that gives one an insight into the views of the people. It may be presumed, since the orthodox systems never dispensed with the established cult, that the form of the old Vedic creed was kept intact. Yet, since the real belief changed, and the cult became more and more the practice of a formality, it becomes necessary to seek, apart from the inherited ritual, the faith which formed the actual religion of the people. Inasmuch as this phase of Hindu belief has scarcely been touched upon elsewhere, it may be well to state more fully the object of the present chapter.

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We have shown above that the theology of the Vedic period had resulted, before its close, in a form of pantheism, which was accompanied, as is attested by the Atharva Veda, with a demonology and witch-craft religion, the latter presumably of high antiquity. Immediately after this come the esoteric Brāhmanas, in which the gods are, more or less, figures in the eyes of the priests, and the form of a Father-god rises into chief prominence, being sometimes regarded as the creative force, but at all times as the moral authority in the world. At the end of this period, however, and probably even before this period ended, there is for the first time, in the Upanishads, a new religion, that, in some regards, is esoteric. Hitherto the secrets of religious mysteries had been treated as hidden priestly wisdom, not to be revealed. But, for the most part, this wisdom is really nonsense; and when it is said in the Brāhmanas, at the end of a bit of theological mystery, that it is a secret, or that ‘the gods love that which is secret,’ one is not persuaded by the examples given that this esoteric knowledge is intellectually valuable. But with the Upanishads there comes the antithesis of inherited belief and right belief. The latter is public property, though it is not taught carelessly. The student is not initiated into the higher wisdom till he is drilled in the lower. The most unexpected characters appear in the rôle of instructors of priests, namely, women, kings, and members of the third caste, whose deeper wisdom is promulgated oftentimes as something quite new, and sometimes is whispered in secret. Pantheism, *samsāra*,¹ and the eternal bliss of the individual spirit when eventually it is freed from further transmigration, — these three fundamental traits of the new religion are discussed in such a way as to show that they had no hold upon the general public, but they were the intellectual wealth of a few. Some of the Upanishads hide behind a veil of mystery; yet many of them, as Windisch has said, are, in a way, popular; that is, they are intended for a general public, not for priests alone. This is especially the case with the pantheistic Upanishads in their more pronounced form. But still it is only the very wise that can accept the teaching. It is not the faith of the people.

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¹ Literally, transmigration, the doctrine of metempsychosis, successive births; first, as in Plato: μεταβολή τις τυγχάνει οὖσα καὶ μετοίκησις τῇ ψυχῇ τοῦ τόπου τοῦ ἐνθένδε εἰς ἄλλον τόπον; then *metabole*, from ‘the other place,’ back to earth; then, with advancing speculation, fresh *metabole* again, and so on; a theory more or less clumsily united with the hell-doctrine.

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Epic literature, which is the next living literature of the Brahmans, after the Upanishads, takes one, in a trice, from the beginnings of a formal pantheism, to a pantheism already disintegrated by the newer worship of sectaries. Here the impersonal *ātmā*, or nameless Lord, is not only an anthropomorphic Çiva, as in the late Upanishads, where the philosophic *brahma* is equated with a long recognized type of divinity, but *ātmā* is identified with the figure of a theomorphic man.

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Is there, then, nothing with which to bridge this gulf?

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In our opinion the religion of the law-books, as a legitimate phase of Hindu religion, has been too much ignored. The religion of Upanishad and Vedānta, with its attractive analogies with modern speculation, has been taken as illustrative of the religion of a vast period, to the discrediting of the belief represented in the manuals of law. To these certainly the name of literature can scarcely be applied, but in their rapport with ordinary life they will be found more apt than are the profounder speculations of the philosophers to reflect the religious belief taught to the masses and accepted by them.

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The study of these books casts a broad light upon that interval between the Vedic and epic periods wherein it is customary to imagine religion as being, in the main, cult or philosophy. Nor does the interest cease with the yield of necessarily scanty yet very significant facts in regard to eschatological and cosmogonic views. The gods themselves are not what they are in the rites of the cunning priests or in the dogmas of the sages. In the Hindu law there is a reversion to Vedic belief; or rather not a reversion, but here one sees again, through the froth of rites and the murk of philosophy, the under-stream of faith that still flows from the old fount, if somewhat discolored, and waters the heart of the people.

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At just what time was elaborated the stupendous system of rites, which are already traditional in the Brāhmanas, can never be known. Some of these rites have to do with special ceremonies, such as the royal inauguration, some are stated soma-sacrifices.¹ Opposed to these soma-feasts is the simpler and older fire-cult, which persists in the house-rituals. All of these together make up a sightly array of sacrifices.² The soma-ritual is developed in the Brāhmaṇas. But with this class of works there must have been from ancient times another which treated of the fire-ritual, and of which the more modern representatives are the extant Sūtras. It is with Sūtras that legal literature begins, but these differ from the ritualistic Sūtras. Yet both are full of religious meat. In these collections, even in the more special, there is no arrangement that corresponds to western ideas of order. In a completed code, for example, there is a rough distribution of subjects under different heads, but the attempt is only tentative, and each work presents the appearance of a heterogeneous mass of regulations and laws, from which one must pick out the law for which he is seeking. The earlier legal works were in prose; the later evolved codes, of which there is a large number, in metre. It is in these two classes of house-ritual and law-ritual, which together constitute what is called Smṛiti, tradition-ritual (in distinction from the so-called Ṣruti, revelation-ritual), that one may expect to find the religion of the time; not as inculcated by the promoters of mystery, nor yet as disclosed by the philosopher, but as taught (through the priest) to the people, and as accepted by them for their daily guidance in matters of every-day observance. We glance first at the religious observances, for here, as in the case of the great sacrifices, a detailed examination would be of no more value than a collective impression; unless, indeed, one were hunting for folk-lore superstitions, of which we can treat now only in the mass. It is sufficient to understand that, according to the house-ritual (gṛhya-sūtra) and the law-ritual (dharma-sūtra, and dharma-ṣāstra),¹ for every change in life there was an appropriate ceremony and a religious observance; for every day, oblations (three at least); for every fortnight and

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¹ Weber has lately published two monographs on the sacrifices, the Rājasūya and the Vājapeya rites, both full of interesting details and popular features.

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² The traditional sacrifices are twenty-one in number, divided into three classes of seven each. The formal divisions are (1) oblations of butter, milk, corn, etc.; (2) soma sacrifices; (3) animal sacrifices, regarded as part of the first two. The

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¹ The latter are the metrical codes, a part of Smṛiti (smṛti).

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sacrifice of the new and full moon is to be repeated on each occasion for thirty years. A sattra, session, is a long sacrifice which may last a year or more.

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season, a sacrifice. Religious formulae were said over the child yet unborn. From the moment of birth he was surrounded with observances.¹ At such and such a time the child's head was shaved; he was taken out to look at the sun; made to eat from a golden spoon; invested with the sacred cord, etc., etc. When grown up, a certain number of years were passed with a Guru, or tutor, who taught the boy his Veda; and to whom he acted as body-servant (a study and office often cut short in the case of Aryans who were not priests). Of the sacraments alone, such as the observances to which we have just alluded, there are no less than forty according to Gautama's laws (the name-rite, eating-rite, etc.). The pious householder who had once set up his own fire, that is, got married, must have spent most of his time, if he followed directions, in attending to some religious ceremony. He had several little rites to attend to even before he might say his prayers in the morning; and since even to-day most of these personal regulations are dutifully observed, one may assume that in the full power of Brahmanhood they were very straitly enforced.²

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¹ The Five Paramount Sacrifices (Observances) are, according to Manu iii. 70, study of the Veda (or teaching it); sacrifice to the Manes and to the gods; offerings of foods to ghosts (or spirits); and hospitality.

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² In the report of the Or. Congress for 1880, p. 158 ff., Williams has a very interesting account of the daily rites of the modern orthodox Hindu ('Rig Veda in Religious Service').

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It is, therefore, important to know what these works, so closely in touch with the general public, have to say in regard to religion. What they inculcate will be the popular theology of completed Brahmanism. For these books are intended to give instruction to all the Aryan castes, and, though this instruction filtrates through the hands of the priest, one may be sure that the understanding between king and priest was such as to make the code the real norm of justice and arbiter of religious opinions. For instance, when one reads that the king is a prime divinity, and that, *quid pro quo*, the priest may be banished, but never may be punished corporally by the king, because the former is a still greater divinity, it may be taken for granted that such was received opinion. When we come to take up the Hinduism of the epic we shall point out that that work contains a religion more popular even than that of the legal literature, for one knows that this latter phase of religion was at first not taught at all, but grew up in the face of opposition. But for the present, before the rise of epic ‘Hinduism,’ and before taking up the heretical writings, it is a great gain to be able to scan a side of religion that may be called popular in so far as it evidently is the faith which not only was taught to the masses, but which, as is universally assumed in the law, the masses accept; whereas philosophers alone accept the *ātmā* religion of the Upanishads, and the Brāhmanas are not intended for the public at all, but only for initiated priests.

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What, then, is the religious belief and the moral position of the Hindu law-books? In how far has philosophy affected public religion, and in what way has a reconciliation been affected between the contradictory beliefs in regard to the gods; in regard to the value of works on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other; in regard to hell as a means of punishment for sin on the one hand, and reincarnation (*samsāra*) on the other; in regard to heaven as a reward of good deeds on the one hand, and absorption into God on the other; in regard to a personal creator on the one hand, and a First Cause without personal attributes on the other?

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For the philosophical treatises are known and referred to in the early codes; so that, although the completed systems post-dated the Sūtras, the cosmical and theological speculations of the earlier Upanishads were familiar to the authors of the legal systems.

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The first general impression produced by a perusal of the law-books is that the popular religion has remained unaffected by philosophy. And this is correct in so far as that it must be put first in describing the codes, which, in the main, in keeping the ancient observances, reflect the inherited faith. When, therefore, one says that pantheism¹ succeeded polytheism in India, he must qualify the assertion. The philosophers are pantheists, but what of the vulgar? Do they give up polytheism; are they inclined to do so, or are they taught to do so? No. For there is no formal abatement in the rigor of the older creed. Whatever the wise man thought, and whatever in his philosophy was the instruction which he imparted to his peers, when he dealt with the world about him he taught his intellectual inferiors a scarcely modified form of the creed of their fathers. How in his own mind this wise man reconciled the two sets of opinion has been shown above. The works of sacrifice, with all the inherited belief implied by them, were for him preparatory studies. The elasticity of his philosophy admitted the whole world of gods, as a temporary reality, into his pantheistic scheme. It was, therefore, neither the hypocrisy of the Roman augur, nor the fear of results that in his teaching held him to the inheritance he had received. Gods, ghosts, demons, and consequently sacrifices, rites, ordeals, and formulae were not incongruous with his philosophical opinions. He himself believed in these spiritual powers and in the usefulness of serving them. It is true that he believed in their eventual doom, but so far as man was concerned they were practically real. There was, therefore, not only no reason why the sage should not inculcate the old rites, but there was every reason why he should. Especially in the case of pious but ignorant people, whose wisdom was not yet developed to a full appreciation of divine relativity, was it incumbent on him to keep them, the lower castes, to the one religion that they could comprehend.

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¹ We ignore here the later distinction between the Vedānta and Sānkhya systems. Properly speaking, the latter is dualistic.

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It is thus that the apparent inconsistency in exoteric and esoteric beliefs explains itself. For the two are not contradictory. They do not exclude each other. Hindu pantheism includes polytheism with its attendant patrolatry, demonology, and consequent ritualism.¹

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¹ At a later date Buddha himself is admitted into the Brahmanic pantheon as an avatar of the All-god!

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With rare exceptions it was only the grosser religion that the vulgar could understand; it was only this that they were taught and believed.

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Thus the old Vedic gods are revered and worshipped by name. The Sun, Indra, and all the divinities embalmed in ritual, are placated and ‘satiated’ with offerings, just as they had been satiated from time immemorial. But no hint is given that this is a form; or that the Vedic gods are of less account than they had been. Moreover, it is not in the inherited formulae of the ritual alone that this view is upheld. To be sure, when philosophical speculation is introduced, the Father-god comes to the fore; Brahmā² sits aloft, indulgently advising his children, as he does in the intermediate stage of the Brāhmaṇas; and *ātmā* (*brahma*) too is recognized to be the real being of Brahmā, as in the Upanishads.³ But none of this touches the practice of the common law, where the ordinary man is admonished to fear Yama’s hell and Varuna’s bonds, as he would have been admonished before the philosopher grew wiser than the Vedic seers. Only personified Right, Dharma, takes his seat with shadowy Brahmā among the other gods.⁴

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² Sometimes regarded as one with Prajāpati, and sometimes treated as distinct from him.

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³ Thus (for the priestly ascetic alone) in M. vi. 79: ‘Leaving his good deeds to his loved ones and his evil deeds to his enemies, by force of meditation he goes to the eternal *brahma*.’ Here *brahma*; but in Gautama perhaps Brahmā.

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⁴ That is, when the latter are grouped as in the following list. Our point is that, despite new faith and new gods, Vedic polytheism is taught not as a form but as a reality, and that in this period the people still believe as of old in the old gods, though they also acknowledge new ones (below).

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What is the speech which the judge on the bench is ordered to repeat to the witnesses? Thus says the law-giver Manu: “When the witnesses are collected together in the court, in the presence of the plaintiff and defendant, the (Brahman) judge should call upon them to speak, kindly addressing them in the following manner: ‘Whatever you know has been done in this affair . . . declare it all. A witness who in testifying speaks the truth reaches the worlds where all is plenty . . . such testimony is honored by Brahmā. One who in testifying speaks an untruth is, all unwilling, bound fast by the cords of Varuna,¹ till an hundred births are passed.’ . . . (Then, speaking to one witness): ‘Spirit (soul) is the witness for the Spirit, and the Spirit is likewise the refuge of the Spirit. Despise not, therefore, thine own spirit (or soul), the highest witness of man. Verily, the wicked think ‘no one sees us,’ but the gods are looking at them, and also the person within (conscience). Dyaus, Earth, the Waters, (the person in the) heart, Moon, Sun, Fire, Yama, Wind, Night, the twin Twilights, and Dharma know the conduct of all corporeal beings. . . Although, O good man, thou regardest thyself, thinking, ‘I am alone,’ yet the holy one (saint) who sees the evil and the good, stands ever in thy heart. It is in truth god Yama, the son of Vivasvant, who resideth in thy heart; if thou beest not at variance with him (thou needest) not (to) go to the Ganges and to the (holy land of) the Kurus (to be purified).’”

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¹ Compare Manu, ix. 245: “Varuna is the lord of punishment and holdeth a sceptre (punishment) even over kings.”

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Here there is no abatement in Vedic polytheism, although it is circled round with a thin mist from later teachings. In the same way the ordinary man is taught that at death his spirit (soul) will pass as a manikin out of his body and go to Yama to be judged; while the feasts to the Manes, of course, imply always the belief in the individual activity of dead ancestors. Such expressions as ‘The seven daughters of Varuna’ (sapta vāruṇir imās, Āçv. Grih. S. 2. 3. 3) show that even in detail the old views are still retained. There is no advance, except in superstitions,¹ on the main features of the old religion. So the same old fear of words is found, resulting in new euphemisms. One must not say ‘scull,’ kapāla, but call it bhagāla, ‘lucky’ (Gaut. 9. 21); a factor in the making of African languages also, according to modern travellers. Images of the gods are now over-recognized by the priest, for they must be revered like the gods themselves (ib. 12; Pār. Grih. S. 3. 14. 8. etc.). Among the developed objects of the cult serpents now occupy a prominent place. They are mentioned as worshipful in the Brāhmanas. In the Sūtra period offerings are made to snakes of earth, air, and heaven; the serpents are ‘satiated’ along with gods, plants, demons, etc. (Çānkh. 4. 9. 3; 15. 4; Āçv. 2. 1. 9; 3. 4. 1; Pārask. 2. 14. 9) and blood is poured out to them (Āçv. 4. 8. 27).² But other later divinities than those of the earliest Veda, such as Wealth (Kubera), and Dharma, have crept into the ritual. With the Vedic gods appears as a divinity in Khād. 1. 5. 31 the love-god Kāma, of the Atharvan; while on the other hand Rudra the beast-lord (Paçupati, Lord of Cattle), the ‘kindly’ Çiva, appears as ‘great god,’ whose names are Çankara, Prishātaka, Bhava, Çarva, Ugra, Içāna (Lord); who has all names and greatness, while he yet is described in the words of the older text as ‘the god that desires to kill’ (Āçv. 2. 2. 2; 4. 8. 9, 19,³ 29, 32; Ait. Br. 3. 34). On the other hand Vishnu is also adored, and that in connection with the λόγος, or Vāc (ib. 3. 3. 4). Quite in Upanishad manner — for it is necessary to show that these were then really known — is the formula ‘thou art a student of prāṇa (Breath,) and art given over to Ka’ (ib. 1. 20. 8.), or ‘whom?’ In Āçvalāyana no Upanishads are given in the list of literature, which includes the ‘Eulogies of men,’ Itihāsas, Purāṇas, and even the Mahābhārata (3. 3. 1; 4. 4). But in 1. 13. 1, Upanishad-rites (and that of a very domestic nature) are recognized, which would corroborate the explanation of Upanishad given above, as being at first a subsidiary work, dealing with minor points.¹ Something of the sciolism of the Upanishads seems to lie in the prayer that of the four paths on which walk the gods the mortal may be led in that which bestows ‘freedom from death’ (Pār. 3. 1. 2); and many of the teachers famous in the Upanishads are now revered by name like gods (Āçv. 3. 4. 4, etc.).

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¹ In new rites, for instance. Thus in Pārask. Grih. S. 3. 7 a silly and dirty rite ‘prevents a slave from running away’; and there is an ordeal for girls before becoming engaged (below).

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² Blood is poured out to the demons in order that they may take this and no other part of the sacrifice, Ait. Br. ii. 7. 1.

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³ Here, 4. 8. 19, Çiva’s names are Hara, Mrida, Çarva, Çiva, Bhava, Mahādeva, Ugra, Bhīma, Paçupati, Rudra, Çankara, Içāna.

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¹ These rites are described in 6. 4. 24 of the Brihad Āranyaka Upanishad which consists both of metaphysics and of ceremonial rules.

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On turning from these domestic Sūtras to the legal Sūtras it becomes evident that the pantheistic doctrine of the Upanishads, and in part the Upanishads themselves, were already familiar to the law-makers, and that they influenced, in some degree, the doctrines of the law, despite the retention of the older forms. Not only is saṃsāra the accepted doctrine, but the ātmā, as if in a veritable Upanishad, is the object of religious devotion. Here, however, this quest is permitted only to the ascetic, who presumably has performed all ritualistic duties and passed through the stadia that legally precede his own.

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Of all the legal Sūtra-writers Gautama is oldest, and perhaps is pre-buddhistic. Turning to his work one notices first that the Mīmāmsist is omitted in the list of learned men (28. 49);² but since the Upanishads and Vedānta are expressly mentioned, it is evident that the author of even the oldest Sūtra was acquainted with whatever then corresponded to these works.¹ The opposed teaching of hell versus *samsāra* is found in Gautama. But there is rather an interesting attempt to unite them. Ordinarily it is to hell and heaven that reference is made, *e.g.*, ‘the one that knows the law obtains the heavenly world’ (28. 52); ‘if one speak untruth to a teacher, even in thought, even in respect to little things, he slays seven men after and before him’ (seven descendants and seven ancestors, 23. 31). So in the case of witnesses: ‘heaven (is the fruit) for speaking the truth; otherwise hell’ (13. 7); ‘for stealing (land) hell’ (is the punishment, *ib.* 17). Now and then comes the philosophical doctrine: ‘one does not fall from the world of Brahmā’ (9. 74); ‘one enters into union and into the same world with Brahmā’ (8. 25).

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² Especially mentioned in the later Vasistha (see below); on mīmāmsā a branch of the Vedānta system see below.

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¹ The commentator here (19. 12, cited by Bühler) defines Vedānta as the part of the Āranyakas which are not Upanishads, that is, apparently as a local ‘Veda-end’ (*veda-anta*), though this meaning is not admitted by some scholars, who will see in anta only the meaning ‘goal, aim.’

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But in 21. 4-6 there occurs the following statement: ‘To be an outcast is to be deprived of the works of the twice-born, and hereafter to be deprived of happiness; this some (call) hell.’ It is evident here that the expression *asiddhis* (deprivation of success or happiness) is placed optionally beside *naraka* (hell) as the view of one set of theologians compared with that of another; ‘lack of obtaining success, *i.e.*, reward’ stands parallel to ‘hell.’ In the same chapter, where Manu says that he who assaults a Brahman “obtains hell for one hundred years” (M. xi. 207), Gautama (21. 20) says “for one hundred years, lack of heaven” (*asvargyam*), which may mean hell or the deprivation of the result of merit, *i.e.*, one hundred years will be deducted from his heavenly life. In this case not a new and better birth but heaven is assumed to be the reward of good acts. Now if one turns to 11. 29-30 he finds both views combined. In the parallel passage in Āpastamba only better or worse re-births are promised as a reward for good or evil (2. 5. 11. 10-11); but here it is said: “The castes and orders that remain by their duty, having died, having enjoyed the fruits of their acts, with the remnant of their (merit) obtain re-birth, having an excellent country, caste, and family; having long life, learning, good conduct, wealth, happiness, and wisdom. They of different sort are destroyed in various ways.” Here, heavenly joys (such as are implied by *niḥçreyasam* in 26) are to be enjoyed first, and a good birth afterwards, and by implication one probably has to interpret the next sentence to mean ‘they are sent to hell and then re-born in various low births.’ This, too, is Manu’s rule (below). At this time the sacred places which purify are in great vogue, and in Gautama a list of them is given (19. 14), viz.: “all mountains, all rivers, holy pools, places of pilgrimage (*i.e.*, river-fords, *tīrthāni*), homes of saints, cow-pens, and altars.” Of these the *tīrthas* are particularly interesting, as they later become of great importance, thousands of verses in the epic being devoted to their enumeration and praise.

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Gautama says also that ascetics, according to some teachers, need not be householders first (3. 1), and that the Brahman ascetic stays at home during the rainy season, like the heretic monks (*ib.* 13). If one examine the relative importance of the forms and spirit of religion as taught in this, the oldest *dharma-sūtra*,¹ he will be impressed at first with the tremendous weight laid on the former as compared with the latter. But, as was said apropos of the Brahmanic literature, one errs who fails to appreciate the fact that these works are intended not to give a summary of religious conduct, but to inculcate ceremonial rules. Of the more importance, therefore, is the occasional pause which is made to insist, beyond peradventure, on the superiority of moral rules. A very good instance of this is found in Gautama. He has a list of venial sins. Since lying is one of the most heinous offences to a Hindu lawgiver, and the penances are severe, all the treatises state formally that an untruth uttered in fun, or when one is in danger, or an oath of the sort implied by Plato: ἀφροδίσιον ὅρκον οὔ φασιν εἶναι,— all these are venial, and so are lies told to benefit a (holy) cow, or to aid a priest; or told from religious motives of any sort without self-interest. This is almost the only example of looseness in morals as taught in the law. But the following case shows most plainly the importance of morality as opposed to formal righteousness. After all the forty sacraments (to which allusion was made above), have been recounted, there are given ‘eight good qualities of the soul,’ viz., mercy, forbearance, freedom from envy, purity, calmness, correct behavior, freedom from greed and from covetousness. Then follows: “He that has (performed) the forty sacraments but has not the eight good qualities enters not into union with Brahmā, nor into the heaven of Brahmā.¹ But he that has (performed) only a part of the forty sacraments and has the eight good qualities enters into union with Brahmā, and into the heaven of Brahmā.” This is as near to heresy as pre-buddhistic Brahmanism permitted itself to come.

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¹ The Rudra (Çiva) invocation at 26. 12 ff. is interpolated, according to Bühler.

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¹ Here there is plainly an allusion to the two states of felicity of the Upanishads. Whether the law-giver believes that the spirit will be united with Brahmā or simply live in his heaven he does not say.

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In the later legal Sūtra of the northern Vasistha² occurs a rule which, while it distinctly explains what is meant by liberality, viz., gifts to a priest, also recognizes the ‘heavenly reward’: “If gifts are given to a man that does not know the Veda the divinities are not satisfied” (3. 8). In the same work (6. 1) ‘destruction’ is the fate of the sinner that lives without observance of good custom; yet is it said in the same chapter (27): “If a twice-born man dies with the food of a Çūdra (lowest caste) in his belly, he would become a village pig, or he is born again in that (Çūdra’s) family”; and, in respect to sons begotten when he has in him such food: “Of whom the food, of him are these sons; and he himself would not mount to heaven . . . he does not find the upward path” (29, 28). In *ib.* 8. 17 the Brahman that observes all the rules ‘does not fall from *brahmaloka*,’ *i.e.*, the locality of Brahmā. Further, in 10. 4: “Let (an ascetic) do away with all (sacrificial) works; but let him not do away with one thing, the Veda; for from doing away with the Veda (one becomes) a Çūdra.” But, in the same chapter: “Let (the ascetic) live at the end of a village, in a temple (‘god’s house’), in a deserted house, or at the root of a tree; there in his mind studying the knowledge (of the *ātmā*) . . . so they cite (verses): ‘Sure is the freedom from re-birth in the case of one that lives in the wood with passions subdued . . . and meditates on the supreme spirit’ . . .

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Let him not be confined to any custom . . . and in regard to this (freedom from worldly pursuits) they cite these verses: ‘There is no salvation (literally ‘release’) for a philologist (*na çabdaçāstrābhiratasya mokshas*), nor for one that delights in catching (men) in the world, nor for one addicted to food and dress, nor for one pleased with a fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry, teaching, and talking let him not seek alms . . . he best knows salvation who (cares for naught)’ . . . (such are the verses). Let him neither harm nor do good to anything. . . . Avoidance of disagreeable conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of uprightness, self-praise, blame of others, harm, greed, distraction, wrath, and envy, is a rule that applies to all the stadia of life. The Brahman that is pure, and wears the girdle, and carries the gourd in his hand, and avoids the food of low castes fails not of obtaining the world of Brahmā” (*ib.* 10. 18 ff.). Yama, the Manes, and evil spirits (*asuras*) are referred to in the following chapter (20, 25); and hell in the same chapter is declared to be the portion of such ascetics as will not eat meat when requested to do so at a feast to the Manes or gods (11.

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34), — rather an interesting verse, for in Manu’s code the corresponding threat is that, instead of going to hell ‘for as long, *i.e.*, as many years, as the beast has hairs,’ as here, one shall experience ‘twenty-one rebirths,’ *i.e.*, the hell-doctrine in terms of *saṃsāra*; while the same image occurs in Manu in the form ‘he that slaughters beasts unlawfully obtains as many rebirths as there are hairs on the beast’ (v. 35, 38). The passive attitude sometimes ascribed to the Manes is denied; they rejoice over a virtuous descendant (11. 41); a bad one deprives them of the heaven they stand in (16. 36). The authorities on morals are here, as elsewhere, Manu and other seers, the Vedas, and the Father-god, who with Yama gives directions to man in regard to lawful food, etc. (14. 30). The moral side of the code, apart from ritual impurities, is given, as usual, by a list of good and bad qualities (above), while formal laws in regard to theft, murder (especially of a priest), adultery and drunkenness (20. 44; 1. 20), with violation of caste-regulations by intercourse with outcasts, are ‘great crimes.’ Though older than Āpastamba, who mentions the Pūrva-mīmāṃsā, Vasistha, too, knows the Vedānta (3. 17), and the Mīmāṃsā (*vikalpin* = *tarkin*, 3. 20, M. xii. 111

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² Gautama, too, is probably a Northerner. The Sūtra, it should be observed, are not so individual as would be implied by the name of the teachers to whom they are credited. They were each texts of a school, caraṇa, but they are attributed uniformly to a special teacher, who represents the caraṇa, as has been shown by Müller. For what is known in regard to the early ‘Sūtra-makers’ see Bühler’s Introductions to volumes ii. and xiv. of the Sacred Books.

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From the Sūtras of Bāudhāyana’s probably southern school something of additional interest is to be gained. Here ‘darkness’ takes the place of hell (2. 3. 5. 9), which, however, by a citation is explained (in 2. 2. 3. 34) as ‘Yama’s hall.’ A verse is cited to show that the greatest sin is lack of faith (1. 5. 10. 6) and not going to heaven is the reward of folly (*ib.* 7); while the reward of virtue is to live in heaven for long (4. 8. 7). The same freedom in regard to ascetics as occurs in other Sūtra works is to be found in this author, not in the more suspicious final chapters, but in that part of the work which is accepted as oldest,¹ and agrees with the data found in the Brāhmaṇas, where the pre-buddhistic monk is called Bhikshu, ‘beggar,’ or Sannyāsin ‘he that renounces,’ just as these terms are employed in the heretical writings. As among the Jains (and Buddhists), the Brahmanic ascetic carries a few simple utensils, and wanders about from house to house and village to village, begging food. Some authorities (among the Brahmans) say that one may become an ascetic as soon as he has completed his study, though ordinarily this may be done only after passing through the householder stadium. On becoming an ascetic the beggar takes the vow not to injure any living thing (Bāudh. ii. 10. 17. 2. 11, 29), exactly as the Jain ascetic takes the vow of non-injury. More than this, as will be seen below, the details of the Brahman ascetic’s vows are almost identical with those of the Jain ascetic. He vows not to injure living beings, not to lie, not to steal, to be continent, to be liberal; with the five minor vows, not to get angry, to obey the Teacher, not to be rash, to be cleanly and pure in eating.² To this ascetic order in the Brahman priesthood may be traced the origin of the heretical monks. Even in the Brāhmaṇas occur the termini technici of the Buddhist priesthood, notably the Çramaṇa or ascetic monk, and the word buddha, ‘awakened’ (pratibudh). The ‘four orders’ are those enumerated as the householder, student, ascetic, and forest-hermit. If one live in all four orders according to rule, and be serene, he will come to peace, that is, salvation (Āpastamba, 2. 9. 21. 1, 2).

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¹ Compare Bühler’s Introduction, p. xxxv. SBE. vol. xiv.

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² Bāudh. ii. 18. 2-3. Compare Jacobi’s Introduction, p. xxiii ff. of SBE. vol. xxii.

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According to this later legal writer, who belongs to Southern India,³ it is only after one has passed through all the preceding stadia that he may give up works (sacrifice, etc.) and devote himself to seeking the ātman, ‘wandering about, without caring for earth or heaven, renouncing truth and falsehood, pleasure and pain’ (ib. 10, 13). There follows this passage one significant of the opposition between purely Upanishad-ideas and those of the law-givers: ‘Acquirement of peace (salvation) depends, it is said, on knowledge; this is opposed by the codes. If on knowledge (depended) acquirement of peace, even here (in this world) one would escape grief’ (ib. 14–16). Further, in describing the forest-hermit’s austerities (ib. 23. 4 ff.), verses from a Purāṇa are cited which are virtually Upanishadic: ‘The eight and eighty thousand seers who desired offspring (went) south on Aryaman’s path, and obtained (as their reward) graves; (but) the eight and eighty thousand who did not desire offspring (went) north on Aryaman’s path and make for themselves immortality,’ that is to say ‘abandon desire for offspring; and of the two paths (which, as the commentator observes, are mentioned in the Chāndogya Upanishad), that which gives immortality instead of death (graves) will be yours.’ It is admitted that such ascetics have miraculous powers; but the law-maker emphatically protests in the following Sūtra against the supposition that a rule which stands opposed to the received rites (marriage, sacrifice, etc.) is of any power, and asserts that for the future life an endless reward (‘fruit’), called in revelation ‘heavenly,’ is appointed (ib. 8–11). The next chapter, however, limits, as it were, this dogma, for it is stated that immortality is the re-birth of one’s self in the body of one’s son, and a verse is cited: ‘Thou procreatest progeny, and that’s thy immortality, O mortal,’ with other verses, which teach that sons that attend to the Vedic rites magnify the fame and heaven of their ancestors, who ‘live in heaven until the destruction of creation’ (ā bhūtasamplavāt, 2. 9. 24. 5). But ‘according to the Bhavishyat-Purāṇa’ after this destruction of creation ‘they exist again in heaven as the cause of seed’

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³ Bühler (Introduction, p. xxxi) gives as the district of the Āpastambīya school parts of the Bombay Presidency, the greater parts of the Nizām’s possessions, and parts of the Madras Presidency. Āpastamba himself refers to Northerners as if they were foreigners (loc. cit.).

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(ib. 6). And then follows a quotation from the Father-god: ‘We live with those people who do these (following) things: (attend to) the three Vedas, live as students, create children, sacrifice to the Manes, do penance, make sacrifice to the gods, practice liberality; he that extols anything else becomes air (or dust) and perishes’ (ib. 8); and further: ‘only they that commit sin perish’ (not their ancestors).

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The animus of this whole passage is apparent. The law-maker has to contend with them that would reject the necessity of following in order the traditional stadia of a priest’s life; that imagine that by becoming ascetics without first having passed through the preliminary stadia they can by knowledge alone attain the bliss that is obtained by union with *brahma* (or Brahmā). In other words the jurist has to contend with a trait eminently anti-brahmanistic, even Buddhistic. He denies this value of knowledge, and therewith shows that what he wishes to have inculcated is a belief in the temporary personal existence of the Manes; in heaven till the end of the world-order; and the annihilation of the wicked; while he has a confused or mixed opinion in regard to one’s own personal immortality, believing on the one hand that there is a future existence in heaven with the gods, and on the other (rather a materialistic view) that immortality is nothing but continued existence in the person of one’s descendants, who are virtually one’s self in another body: *dehatvam evā’nyat*, “only the body is different” (ib. 2). As to cosmogony it is stated to be (not the emanation of an *ātmā*) but the “emission (creation) of the Father-god and of the seers” (the latter being visible as stars, ib. 13, 14). In this there is plainly a received popular opinion, which reflects the Vedic and Brahmanic stage, and is opposed to the philosophical views of the Upanishads, in other words of the first Vedantic philosophy; while it is mixed up with the late doctrine of the cataclysms, which ruin each succeeding creation. The equal annihilation of the wicked (*dhvamsanti*)

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and unorthodox (*dhvamsate*) is to be noticed. They are here subject neither to hell nor to rebirth, but they "become dust and perish" (*ib.* 8, 9).

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Throughout the whole legal literature one will find this same antithesis of views in regard to the fate of good and bad, although it is seldom that annihilation is predicated of the latter. Usually hell or rebirth are their fate — two views, which no one can really reconcile. They are put side by side; exactly as in priestly discussion in India and Europe it still remains an unsettled question as to when the soul becomes immortal.¹ Occidental experience teaches how easy it is for such views to stand together unattacked, although they are the object of speculation. This passage is perhaps, historically, the most satisfactory (as it is philosophically unsatisfactory) that can be cited in answer to the questions that were posed above. But from other parts of legal literature a few more statements may be culled, to illustrate still further the lack of uniformity not only in popular belief, but in the teaching provided for the public. First from the same work of Āpastamba, in 2. 11. 29. 9–10 it is said that if a witness in court perjure himself he shall be punished by the king, "and further, in passing to the next world, hell" (is his portion); whereas "(the reward) for truth is heaven, and praise on the part of all creatures." Now, let one compare first *ib.* 2. 5. 11. 10–11: "Men of low castes are reborn in higher castes in successive births, and men of high castes in low castes, if they respectively perform and neglect their duties." And then this Vedantic passage of the same author (1. 8. 22 ff.): "Let one (as penance for sin) devote himself to the Yoga (mental discipline) which has to do with the highest *ātmā*. . . . Nothing is known higher than the acquisition of *ātmā*. We shall (now)

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¹ In India the latter question is: does the soul immediately at death unite with the *ātmā* or does it travel to it. In Europe: does the soul wait for the Last Day, or get to heaven immediately? Compare Maine, *Early Law and Custom*, p. 71.

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cite some *ātmā*-acquisition-verses, viz.: All living creatures (are) the citadel of him that rests in secret, the indestructible one, the immaculate one. Immortal they that devote themselves to the moveless one who has a movable dwelling . . . the great one whose body is light, universal, free . . . the eternal (part) in all creatures, the wise, immortal, unchanging one, limbless, voiceless, formless, touchless, purest, the highest goal. He that everywhere devotes himself to Him (*ātmā* as Lord), and always lives accordingly; that by virtue of Yoga recognizes Him, the subtile one, shall rejoice in the top of heaven. . . . He, *ātmā*, comprehends all, embraces all, more subtile than a lotus-thread and huger than the earth. . . . From him are created all bodies; he is the root, he the Everlasting, the Eternal One."

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This discipline it will be observed is enjoined as penance and to get rid of faults, that is, to subdue the passions. As the same chapter contains a list of the faults which are to be overcome before one "arrives at peace" (salvation) they may be cited here: "Anger, joy, wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lying, over-eating, calumny, envy, sexual desire, and hate, lack of studying *ātmā*, lack of Yoga — the destruction of these (faults) is based on Yoga" (mental concentration). On the other hand: "He that devotes himself, in accordance with the law, to avoiding anger, joy, wrath, greed, distraction, injury, threats, lies, over-eating, calumny and envy; and practices liberality, renunciation, uprightness, kindness, subduing (of the passions), self-control; and is at peace with all creatures; and practices Yoga; and acts in an Āryan (noble) way; and does not hurt anything; and has contentment — qualities which, it is agreed, appertain to all the (four) stadia — he becomes *sārvagāmin*" (*ib.* 23. 6), that is 'one belonging to the all-pervading' (All-soul). There appears to be a contradiction between the former passage, where Yoga is enjoined on ascetics alone; and this, where Yoga is part of the discipline of all four stadia. But what was in the author's mind was probably that all these vices and moral virtues are enumerated as such for all; and he slips in mental concentration as a virtue for the ascetic, meaning to include all the virtues he knows.

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A few further illustrations from that special code which has won for itself a preëminent name, ‘the law-book of Manu,’¹ will give in epitome the popular religion as taught to the masses; withal even better than this is taught in the Sūtras. For Father Manu’s law-book, as the Hindus call it, is a popular Çāstra or metrical² composite of law and religion, which reflects the opinion of Brahmanism in its geographical stronghold, whereas the Sūtras emanate from various localities, north and south. To Manu there is but one Holy Land, the Kurus’ plain and the region round-about it (near Delhi).

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¹ Thought by some scholars to have been developed out of the code of the Mānavas; but ascribed by the Hindus to Father Manu, as are many other verses of legal character contained in the epic and elsewhere.

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² Although Sūtras may be metrical too in part, yet is the complete metrical form, as in the case of still later Çāstra, evidence that the work is intended for the general public.

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The work takes us forward in time beyond even the latest Sūtras, but the content is such as to show that formal Brahmanism in this latest stage still keeps to its old norm and to Brahmanic models.

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It deserves therefore to be examined with care from several points of view if one would escape from the belief of the philosopher to the more general teaching. In this popular religion all morality is conditioned by the castes,³ which is true also to a certain degree of the earlier Sūtras, but the evil fruit of this plant is not there quite so ripe as it is in the later code. The enormity of all crimes depends on who commits them, and against whom they are committed. The three upper castes alone have religious privileges. The lowest caste, outcasts, women, and diseased persons are not allowed to hear the holy texts or take part in ceremonies.¹ As to the rites, they are the inherited ones, sacrifices to gods, offerings to Manes and spirits, and all the ceremonies of house and individual, as explained above; with especial and very minute rules of observance for each of the four stadia of a priest's life.² There is no hint in any of this of the importance of the knowledge of the *ātmā*. But in their proper place the rules of morality and the higher philosophical views are taught. The doctrine of re-birth is formally stated, and the attainment of the world of Brahmā (*brahma*) by union of ceremonies and knowledge is inculcated. The ascetic should seek, by meditation, to go to Brahmā (or *brahma*) for when he is utterly indifferent, then, both here and after death, he gains everlasting happiness.

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Therefore he should study the Vedas, but especially the teachings in regard to the Supreme Spirit, and the Upanishads; studying the Vedānta is a regular part of his final discipline (vi. 74-94). In another part of the work the distinction made in the Upanishads is upheld, that religious acts are of two sorts, one designed to procure bliss, and cause a good man to reach equality with the gods; the other performed without selfish motive; by which latter "even the five elements are overcome," that is, the absorption into *brahma* is effected. For "among all virtuous acts the knowledge of the spirit, *ātmā*, is highest; through this is obtained even immortality. One that sees spirit in all things and all things in spirit sacrifices to spirit and enters Brahmā (or *brahma*)." "The spirit (or self) is all divinities; the All is based on spirit." And in Upanishadic vein the Person is then proclaimed as lord of gods, whom "some call fire, some call Manu, some call Indra, some call air, and some call eternal *brahma*." But though this be the view of the closing verses, yet in the beginning of the work is this Person represented as being produced from a First Cause. It would be out of place here to analyse the conflicting philosophical views of the Manu code. Even his commentators are uncertain whether he belonged to the pantheistic Vedānta or dualistic Sānkhya school. For them that believe in no Manu the solution is simpler.

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Although Manu is usually called a Puranic Sankhyan, yet are both schools represented, and that without regard to incongruous teaching. Manu is no more Sankhyan than Vedantic. Indeed in the main part of the work the teaching is clearly more Vedantic. But it suffices here to point out that the *ātmā*-philosophy and religion is not ignored; it is taught as essential. Nevertheless, it is not taught in such a way as to indicate that it is requisite for the vulgar. On the contrary, it is only when one becomes an ascetic that he is told to devote himself to the pursuit of the knowledge of *ātmā*. In one passage there is evidence that two replies were given to this fundamental question in regard to works and knowledge. For after enumerating a list of good acts, among which are knowledge and Vedic ceremonies, it is asked which among them most tends to deliverance. The answer is vital. Or it should be, but it is given in an ambiguous form (xii. 85-6): "Amid all these acts the knowledge of self, *ātmā*, is the highest, for it produces immortality. Amid all these acts the one most productive of happiness, both after death and in this life, is the Vedic ceremony."

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³ The priest alone, in the post-Vedic age, has the right to teach the sacred texts; he has immunity from bodily punishment; the right to receive gifts, and other special privileges. The three upper castes have each the right and duty of studying the sacred texts for a number of years.

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¹ Weber has shown, *loc. cit.*, that the Çūdras did attend some of the more popular ceremonies, and at first apparently even took a part in them.

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² The ‘four orders’ or stadia of a priest's life, student, householder, hermit, ascetic, must not be confused with the ‘four (political) orders’ (castes), priest, warrior, farmer, slave — to which, from time to time, were added many ‘mixed castes,’ as well as ‘outcasts,’ and natural pariahs. At the time of Manu’s code there were already many of these half-assimilated groups.

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