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The Religions of India c20: Chapter XIV. Early Hinduism

The Religions of India c20

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Chapter XIV. Early Hinduism

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WHILE the great heresies that we have been describing were agitating the eastern part of India,¹ the old home of Brahmanism in the West remained true, in name if not in fact, to the ancient faith. But in reality changes almost as great as those of the formal heresies were taking place at the core of Brahmanism itself, which, no longer able to be the religion of a few clans, was now engaged in the gigantic task of remodelling and assimilating the indigenous beliefs and religious practices of its new environment. This was not a conscious act on the part of Brahmanism. At first it was undertaken almost unwittingly, and it was accomplished later not without repugnance. But to perform this task was the condition of continued existence. Brahmanism had to expand, or shrink, wither, and die.

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¹ The rival heresies seem also to belong to the East. There were thus more than half a dozen heretical bodies of importance agitating the region about Benares at the same time. Subsequently the Jains, who, as we have shown, were less estranged from Brahmanism, drifted westward, while the Buddhist stronghold remained in the East (both, of course, being represented in the South as well), and so, whereas Buddhism eventually retreated to Nepāl and Tibet, the Jains are found in the very centres of old and new (sectarian) Brahmanism, Delhi, Mathurā, Jeypur, Ajmīr.

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For a thousand years almost the only source of information in regard to this new growth is contained in the epic poetry of the time, with the help of a few additional facts from the law, and some side light from inscriptions. It is here that Vishnuism and Çivaism are found as fully developed sectarian beliefs, accepted by Brahmanism with more or less distrust, and in more or less fulness of faith. It is to the epic that one must turn to study the budding and gradual flowering of the modern religions, which have cast strict orthodoxy into the shade.

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Of the two epics, one, the Rāmāyaṇa,¹ has become the Old Testament of the Ramaite Vishnuites of the present day. The Bhārata,² on the other hand, is scriptural for all sects, because it is more universal. The former epic, in its present form, is what the Hindus call an ‘art-poem,’ and in its finish, its exclusively romantic style, and its total lack of nervous dramatic power, it is probably, as the Hindus claim, the work of one man, Vālmiki, who took the ancient legends of Eastern India and moulded them into a stupid sectarian poem. On the other hand, the Bhārata is of no one hand, either in origin or in final redaction; nor is it of one sect; nor has it apparently been thoroughly affected, as has the Rāmāyaṇa, by Buddhistic influences. Moreover, in the huge conglomeration of stirring adventure, legend, myth, history, and superstition which goes to make up the great epic there is contained a far truer picture of the vulgar custom, belief, and religion of the time than the too polished composition of Vālmiki is able to afford, despite the fact that the latter also has many popular elements welded into it. There are, in fact, only two national works in India, only two works which, withal, not in their entirety, but in their nucleus, after one has stripped each of its priestly toggery, reflect dimly the heart of the people, not the cleverness of one man, or the pedantry of schools. For a few Vedic hymns and a few Bhārata scenes make all the literature, with perhaps the exception of some fables, that is not markedly dogmatic, pedantic, or ‘artificial.’³ So true is this that even in the case of the Rāmāyaṇa one never feels that he is getting from it the genuine belief of the people, but only that form of popular belief which Vālmīki has chosen to let stand in his version of the old tale. The great epic is heroic, Vālmīki’s poem is romantic; the former is real, the latter is artificial; and the religious gleaning from each corresponds to this distinction.¹

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¹ ‘The wandering of Rāma,’ who is the sectarian representative of Vishnu.

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² The ‘Bhārata (tale)’, sometimes called Mahā-Bhārata, or Great Bhārata. The Vishnuite sectarianism here advocated is that of Krishna. But there is as much Çivaism in the poem as there is Vishnuism.

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³ Dramatic and lyric poetry is artificial even in language.

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¹ Schroeder, p. 453, compares the mutual relation of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa to that of the Nibelungenlied and the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Jacobi, in his ‘Rāmāyaṇa,’ has lately claimed a considerable antiquity for the foundation legends of the Rāmāyaṇa, but he does not disprove the late completed form.

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The Bhārata, like other Hindu works, is of uncertain date, but it was completed as a ‘Great Bhārata’ by the end of the sixth century A.D., and the characters of the story are mentioned, as well known, by Pāṇini, whose work probably belongs to the fourth century B.C. Furthermore, Dio Chrysostomos, probably citing from Megasthenes, refers to it; and the latter authority describes the worship of the chief gods of the epic; while the work is named in one of the domestic Sūtras, and a verse is cited from it in the legal Sūtra of Bāudhāyana.² On the other hand, in its latest growth it is on a par with the earlier Purāṇas, but it is not quite so advanced in sectarianism as even the oldest of these writings. It may, then, be reckoned as tolerably certain that the beginnings of the epic date from the fourth or fifth century before the Christian era, and that it was quite a respectable work by the time that era began; after which it continued to grow for five centuries more.³ Its religious importance can scarcely be overestimated. In 600 A.D., far away from its native home, in Cambodia, it was encircled with a temple, and an endowment was made by the king providing for the daily recitation of the poem. Its legal verses are authoritative; its religion is to-day that of India as a whole. The latest large additions to it were, as we think, the Book of Laws, the Book of Peace, and the genealogy of Vishnu, which together form a sort of pseudo-epic. But portions of other books, notably the first, fourth, and seventh, are probably almost as recent as are the more palpable interpolations.

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² i. 78. 10; see Bühler’s Introduction.

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³ Jacobi seeks to put the completed nucleus at the time of the Christian era, but it must have been quite a large nucleus in view of the allusions to it in precedent literature. Holtzmann puts the completion at about 1000 A.D.; but in 700 A.D. it was complete, and most scholars will agree with Bühler that the present Mahā-Bhārata was completed by the sixth or seventh century. In 533 A.D. it contained 100,000 distichs, that is, it was about the size it is now.

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The Bhārata (or the epic κατ’ ἐξοχήν) gives us our first view of Hinduism in its sectarian developments. But no less does it show us a changing Brahmanism. The most typical change in the Brahmanism of this period, which covers all that time called by Müller the era of the Renaissance, and ends with the pedantically piquant literature of the drama,¹ is the abnormal growth of the ascetic religious exercise. Older Brahmanism, like the sects, admitted Yogis and ascetics of various kinds, but their aim was to attain oneness with God; and ‘union’ (with God) is the yoga (Latin jugum has the same origin) which they sought. But it was not long before the starved ascetic, with his wild appearance and great reputation for sanctity, inspired an awe which, in the unscrupulous, was easily turned to advantage. The Yogi became more or less of a charlatan, more or less of a juggler. Nor was this all. Yoga-practices began to take precedence before other religious practices. In the Brāhmanas it is the sacrifice that is god-compelling; but in the epic, although sacrifice has its place, yet when miraculous power is exerted, it is due chiefly to Yoga concentration, or to the equally general use of formulae; not formulae as part of a sacrifice, but as in themselves potent; and mysterious mantras, used by priest and warrior alike, serve every end of magic.¹ Apart from acquisition of power, this Yoga-training is, moreover, all that is needful from the point of view of righteousness. Physical prowess here is the one thing admirable. To stand for years on one leg, to be eaten by ants, to be in every way an ascetic of the most stoical sort, is the truest religion. Such an ascetic has no ordinary rules of morality. In fact, his practices are most peculiar, for to seduce young women is one of his commonest occupations; and in his anger to cause an injury to his foes is one of the ends for which he toils. The gods are nothing to him. They are puppets whom he makes shake and tremble at will. As portrayed in the epic, in terms of common sense, the Muni (silent saint) is a morose² and very vulgar-minded old man, who seeks to intimidate others by a show of miraculous power. In the matter of penances those of the law are extended beyond all bounds. The caste-restrictions are of the closest, and the most heinous crime is to commit an offence against caste-order. On the other hand, the greatest merit is to give gifts to priests. This had already proceeded far enough, as was indicated by a passage cited above from Manu. But in the epic the greed and rapacity of the priest exceeds all imaginable limits. He takes whatever he can get and asks for more. He has, by his own showing, scarcely one estimable trait. Avarice, cupidity, sensuality, gluttony, love of finery, effeminacy, meanness, and pride — everything charged against him by the Buddhist — are his most marked characteristics. He appears, however, to be worse than he always was. For nothing is plainer, from this very epic, than that the priests, although united as a caste, were sharply distinguished in their lives. The ascetic described above represents the fourth period of the priestly life. Below these stood (apart from students)¹ hermits and householders. The householders, or such of them as the epic unfortunately is busied with, the royal priests, seem to be those that are in reality priests only in name. In the king's palace, his constant advisors, his most unscrupulous upholders in wickedness, they gave themselves up to quest of wealth and power. But one would err if he thus dismissed them all. There were others that had no preferment, who lived in quiet content in their own houses, and deserved none of the opprobrium rightly bestowed upon their hypocritical brothers. The hermits, too, appear to have been a mild and inoffensive race, not presuming too much on their caste-privileges.

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¹ By the time the drama began the epic was become a religious storehouse, and the actual epic story represented not a fifth of the whole work, so that, with its simple language, it must have seemed, as a literary production, very wearisome to the minds that delighted in the artificial compounds and romantic episodes of the drama and lyric. But even to-day it is recited at great fêtes, and listened to with rapt attention, as the rhapsodes with more or less dramatic power recite its holy verses.

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¹ The later law-books say expressly that women and slaves have a right to use mantra, mantrādhikāriṇas. But the later legal Smritis are no more than disguised sectarian Purāṇas.

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² Compare the visit of the old Muni on the prince in iii. 262. 8. He is paramakopana, ‘extremely irritable’; calls for food only to reject it; growls at the service, etc. Everything must be done ‘quickly’ for him. “I am hungry, give me food, quick,” is his way of speaking, etc. (12). The adjective is one applied to the All-gods, paramakrodhinas.

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¹ Each spiritual teacher instructed high-caste boys, in classes of four or five at most. In xii. 328. 41 the four students of a priest go on a strike because the latter wants to take another pupil besides themselves and his own son.

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To offset rapaciousness there are tomes of morality of the purest sort. Even in the later additions to the epic one reads: “Away with gifts; receiving gifts is sinful. The silkworm dies of its wealth” (xii. 330. 29). One should compare, again, the exalted verse (Buddhistic in tone) of *ib.* 321. 47: “The red garment, the vow of silence, the three-fold staff, the water-pot — these only lead astray; they do not make for salvation.” There were doubtless good and bad priests, but the peculiarity of the epic priest, rapacious and lustful, is that he glories in his sins.

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The chief objects of worship (except for the influence of the sectarian religions) were priests, Manes, and, for form's sake, the Vedic gods. These gods, with the addition of the Hindu Plutus (Kubera, the god of riches), are now called the eight ‘world-guardians,’ viz., Indra, Yama, Varuna, Kubera, Agni, Sūrya, Vāyu, Soma, and are usually simple and shadowy subordinates of the greater new gods.

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In the shifting of religious opinion and in the development of theological conceptions what difference can be traced between the same gods as worshipped in the Veda and as worshipped in the epic? Although the Vedic divinities have been twice superseded, once by the Father-god and again by the *ātmā*, Lord, they still remain adorable and adored, active in many ways, though passive before the great All-god. It is, indeed, extremely difficult, owing to the superstruction of sectarian belief, to get down to the foundation-religion of the epic. The best one can do is to see in what way the old gods differ, as represented in the poem, from their older selves of the Rig Veda. From this point of view alone, and entirely irrespective of the sects, manifold changes will be seen to have taken place. Great Soma is no more. Soma is there, the moon, but the glory of the Vedic Soma has departed. His lunar representative is of little importance. Agni, too, is changed. As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers. He takes on every form, even becoming a priest, and a dove. He remains the priest of the gods, but his day of action in war is over. He no longer wins battles. But he burns down a forest to aid his party. For the Vedic gods are now but weak partizans of the combatants. In the sectarian parts of the epic Agni is only a puppet. His new representative, Skanda, is the chief battle-god, a name almost unknown before. He himself is either the son of Vishnu or a form of Çiva. He is the All-god, the *ātmā*. It is he who burns the world when the time shall have come for the general destruction.

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The high and mighty Varuna of the Rig Veda is no longer great. He is no longer serene. He descends and fights on earth. Indra, too, battles with Vritra as of old, but he is quite anthropomorphic, and of no marked value in the contest of heroes. Not only this, but all the gods together are represented as weaker than a good hero, not to speak of a priestly ascetic. In a word, the gods are believed in, but with what a belief! They no longer, as natural powers, inspire special respect. Their nature-origin is for the most part lost. They are thoroughly anthropomorphic. Even Sūrya, the sun, in action if not in laudation, is often more man than god. This gives a strange effect to the epic battle-scenes as compared with those of Homer. Unless Vishnu is active on the field the action is essentially human. No great god or goddess stands ready to save the fainting warrior. He fights and falls alone. Save for the caresses and plaudits of the half-gods, the most that the Vedic gods can do is to wipe away the sweat from the hero’s brow.¹ The All-god does not take the place of the band of watchful and helpful gods pictured by Homer. Vishnu fights on the field; he saves only his protégés, and much as a mortal warrior would do it. But the Vedic gods hang like a mist upon the edge of battle, and are all but idle spectators of the scene. Abstractions, as well as the All-god, have routed them, and Dharma or Duty is a greater god than Indra. But there is an older side to this, as we shall presently show. On the moral side the heroes of the epic profess great belief in the power and awfulness of this god Duty. And so far as go rules of chivalry, they are theoretically moral. Practically they are savage, and their religion does not interfere with their brutal barbarity. The tendency to cite divine instances of sin as excuse for committing it is, however, rebuked: “One should neither practice nor blame the (wrong) acts of gods and seers,” xii. 292. 17–18.

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¹ The saints in the sky praise the combatants (vii. 188. 41; viii. 15. 27); and the gods roar approval of prowess “with roars like a lion’s” (viii. 15. 33). Indra and Sūrya and the Apsarasas cool off the heroes with heavenly fans (ib. 90. 18). For the last divinities, see Holtzmann’s essays, ZDMG. xxxii. 290; xxxiii. 631.

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From an eschatological point of view it is most difficult to get back of the statements made by the priestly composers,¹ who, in their various reëditings of the epic, uniformly have given the pantheistic goal as that in which the characters believe. But it is evident that the warriors were not much affected by this doctrine. To them there was one law of righteousness exceeding all others — to die on the field of battle. And for such as did so, over and over again is the assurance given that ‘happiness in Indra’s heaven’ is their reward. And probably a true note is struck in this reiterated promise. To the mass of the vulgar, union with brahma would have been no attractive end.

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¹ The original author of the Mahābhārata is reputed to be of low caste, but the writers of the text as it is to-day were sectarian priests. It was written down, it is said, by Ganeça, ‘lord of the troops’ of Çiva, i. 1. 79, and some historic truth lies in the tale. The priests of Çiva were the last to retouch the poem, as we think.

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It is interesting to see the remains of the older belief still flourishing in midst of epic pantheism. Although Indra has no such hymn as has Sūrya, yet is he still lauded, and he is a very real person to the knight who seeks his heaven.² In fact, so long as natural phenomena were regarded as divine, so long as thunder was godly, it was but a secondary question which name the god bore; whether he was the ‘chief and king of gods,’ or Vishnu manifesting himself in a special form. This form, at any rate, was to endure as such till the end of the cycle. There are other Indras. Each cycle has its own (i. 197. 29). But sufficient unto the age is the god thereof. If, relinquishing the higher bliss of absorption, the knight sought only Indra’s heaven, and believed he was to find it, then his belief practically does not differ much from that of his ancestor, who accepts Indra as an ultimate, natural power. The question arises whether, after all, the Indra-worship of the epic is not rather popular than merely old and preserved. Certainly the reality of the belief seems quite as strong as that of the ever-newly converted sectarian. It may be doubted whether the distribution of theological belief is very different in the epic and Vedic ages. Philosophical pantheism is very old in India. The priest believes one thing; the vulgar, another. The priest of the Vedic age, like the philosopher of the next age, and like the later sectarian, has a belief which runs ahead of the popular religion.

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But the popular religion in its salient features still remains about the same. Arjuna, the epic hero, the pet of Krishna, visits Indra’s heaven and stays there five years. It is the old Vedic gods to whom he turns for weapons, till the Çivaite makes Indra send the knight further, to Çiva himself. The old name, king of the Vasus, is still retained for Indra; and though the ‘divine weapons,’ which are winged with sacred formulae, are said to be more than a match for the gods; though in many a passage the knight and the saint make Indra tremble, yet still appear, through the mists of ascetic and sectarian novelties, Indra’s heaven and his grandeur, shining with something of their old glory. Vishnu still shows his solar origin. Of him and of the sun is it said in identical words: “The sun protects and devours all,” and “Vishnu protects and devours” (of Vishnu, passim; of the sun, iii. 33. 71). A good deal of old stuff is left in the Forest Book amongst the absurd tales of holy watering places. One finds repeated several times the Vedic account of Indra’s fight with Vritra, the former’s thunderbolt, however, being now made of a saint’s bones (iii. ch. 100-105). Agni is lauded (ib. ch. 123). To the Açvins¹ there is one old hymn which contains Vedic forms (i. 3). Varuna is still lord of the West, and goes accompanied with the rivers, ‘male and female,’ with snakes, and demons, and half-gods (*dāityas*, *sādhyas*, *dāivatas*).

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Later, but earlier than the pseudo-epic, there stands with these gods Kubera, the god of wealth, the ‘jewel-giver,’ who is the guardian of travellers, the king of those demons called Yakshas, which the later sect makes servants of Çiva. He is variously named;¹ he is a dwarf; he dwells in the North, in Mt. Kāilāsa, and has a demoniac gate-keeper, Macakruka. Another newer god is the one already referred to, Dharma Vāivasvata, or Justice (Virtue, Right), the son of the sun, a title of Yama older than the Vedas. He is also the father of the new god, Kāma. It is necessary to indicate the names of the gods and their functions, lest one imagine that with pantheism the Vedic religion expired. Even that old, impious Brahmanic fable crops out: “The devils were the older brothers of the gods, and were conquered by the gods only with trickery” (iii. 33. 60), an interesting reminiscence of the fact that the later name for evil spirit was originally the one applied to the great and good spirit (Asura the same with Ahura).² According to a rather late chapter in the second book each of the great Vedic gods has a special paradise of his own, the most remarkable feature of the account being that Indra’s heaven is filled with saints, having only one king in it—a view quite foreign to the teaching that is current elsewhere in the epic. Where the sectarian doctrine would oppose the old belief it set above Indra’s heaven another, of Brahmā, and above that a third, of Vishnu (i. 89. 16 ff.).

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According to one passage Mt. Mandara³ is a sort of Indian Olympus. Another account speaks of the Himālayas, Himavat, as ‘the divine mountain, beloved of the gods,’ though the knight goes thence to Gandhamādana, and thence to Indrakila, to find the gods’ habitat (iii. 37. 41). Personified powers lie all around the religious Hindu. And this is especially true of the epic character. He prays to Mt. Mandara, and to rivers, above all to the Ganges. Mt. Kolāhala is divine, and begets divine offspring on a river (i. 63). The Vindhya range of mountains rivals the fabled Meru (around which course the sun and all the heavenly bodies), and this, too, is the object of devotion and prayer.¹ In one passage it is said that in Behār (Māgadha) there was a peak which was continuously ‘worshipped with offerings of flowers and perfumes,’ exactly as if it were a god. The reason why flowers are given and worn is that they bring good luck, it is said in the same chapter (ii. 21. 15, 20, 51).

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² Agni-worship is partly affected by the doctrine that the Samvartaka fire (which destroys the world at the cycle’s end) is a form of Vishnu. In Stambamitra’s hymn it is said: “Thou, O Agni, art the all, in thee rests the universe . . . Sages know thee as single yet manifold. At the expiration of time thou burnest up the three worlds, after having created them. Thou art the originator and support of all beings” (i. 232. 12). Elsewhere more Vedic epithets are given, such as ‘mouth of the gods’ (ii. 31. 42), though here ‘the Vedas are produced for Agni’s sake.’ In this same prayer one reads, ‘may Agni give me energy; wind, give me breath; earth, give me strength; and water, give me health’ (45). Agni, as well as Çiva, is the father of Kumāra Kārtikeya, *i.e.*, Skanda (*ib.* 44).

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¹ But the Açvins are Çūdras in the ‘caste-hood of gods’ (the caste-order being Angirasas, Ādityas, Maruts and Açvins), xii. 208. 23-25; and Indra in one passage refuses to associate with them, xiii. 157. 17 (cited by Holtzmann, ZDMD. xxxii. 321).

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¹ Manibhadra, in iii. 64, is king of Yaksash; he is the same with Kubera, *ib.* ch. 41 (Vāiçravana).

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² In the Cosmogony the gods are the sons of the Manes, xii. 312. 9.

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³ When the gods churn the ocean to get ambrosia, an ancient tale of the epic, Mandara is the twirling-stick. It is situated in modern Behār, near Bhagalpur.

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¹ iii. 42; 139. 14, where the Ganges and Jumna are invoked together with the Vedic gods. So in iii. 104 (Vindhya); and Damayantī prays to mountains. Mt. Meru is described in iii. 163. 14 (compare i. 17. 5 ff.). In i. 18. 1 ff., is related the churning of the ocean, where Indra (vs. 12) places Mt. Mandara on Vishnu, the tortoise.

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What is, perhaps, the most striking feature of Hindu religious thought, as a whole, is the steadfastness with which survive, even in the epic and in Buddhism, the forms and formulae of the older faith. At a time when pantheism or nihilism is the avowed creed the ancient gods still exist, weak, indeed, yet infused with a true immortality. This is noticeable even more in unnoticeable ways, in the turns of speech, in little comparisons, in the hymns, in short, in the by-play of the epic. ‘Withered are the garlands of the gods, and their glory is departed,’² but they still receive homage in time of need. And in that homage is to be seen, and from the same cause, the revived or surviving worship of the Veda. Each god in turn is mighty, though Agni is the mightiest of the old divinities. In an epic hymn to him it is said: “Thou art the mouth of the worlds; the poets declare thee to be one and three-fold; as carrier of the sacrifice they arrange thee eight-fold. By thee was all created, say the highest seers. Priests that have made reverence to thee attain the eternal course their acts have won, together with their wives and sons. They call thee the water-giver in the air, together with lightning. On thee first depends water. Thou art the creator and Brihaspati, thou art the two Horsemen, the two Yamas, Mitra, Soma, Wind" (i. 229. 23 ff.).¹ And yet this is in a pantheistic environment! The Rig Veda is directly invoked, though, of course, not directly cited, in the old hymn to the Horsemen, who are, however, elsewhere put with low animals and Guhyakas, demons (i. 66).² They are the "physicians of the gods," the "first-born," the golden birds which weave the white and black of time, create the wheel of time with all its seasons, and make the sun and sky (i. 3. 55 ff., "vāgbhir ṛgbhis"). Indra himself is extolled in Kadrū's hymn; he is the slayer of Namuci, the lord of Çacī; he is the great cloud, cloud and its thunder, creator and destroyer; he is Vishnu, 'Soma, greatly praised,' as well as fire, air, time in all its divisions, earth and ocean; when lauded he drinks the soma, and he is sung in the Vedāngas (i. 25. 7 ff.). Praised with this hymn in time of need of rain, Indra "commanded the clouds, saying, 'rain down the ambrosia'" (26. 2); where there is still the rain as synonymous with ambrosia, and Indra not very differently conceived from his Vedic self. Thus in comparisons: "As Indra standing in heaven brings bliss to the world of the living, so Vidura ever brought bliss to the Pandus" (i. 61. 15). But at the same time what changes! The gods assemble and sing a hymn to Garuda, the epic form of Garutman, the heavenly bird, who here steals the soma vainly guarded by the gods. Garuda, too, is Prajāpati, Indra, and so forth.¹ The gods are no longer divinities distinct from the dead Fathers, for they are "identical in being." So Agni says when the latter is cursed by Bhrigu: "The divinities and the Manes are satisfied by the oblation in fire. The hosts of gods are waters, so, too, are the Manes. The feasts of the new and full moon belong to the gods with the Manes; hence the Manes are divinities and the divinities are Manes. They are of one being (*ekibhūtās*). I (Fire) am the mouth of both, for both eat the oblation poured upon me. The Manes at the new moon, the gods at the full, are fed by my mouth" (i. 7. 7 ff.).² Such gods the epic hero fears not (i. 227. 38 ff.). Hymns to them are paralleled by hymns to snakes, as in i. 3. 134 ff., against whom is made the "sarpasattram (snake sacrifice) of the Purāṇas" (i. 51. 6). Divinity is universal. Knights are as divine as the divinest god, the All-god. Arjuna, the god-born man, to whom Krishna reveals the Divine Song, is himself god.³ In this case whether god becomes human, or *vice versa*, no one knows.

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² Mbh. i. 30. 37, mamlur mālyāni devānām, etc. The older belief was that the gods’ garlands never withered; for the gods show no mortal signs, cast no shadows, etc.

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¹ Compare the four hymnlets to Agni in i. 232. 7 ff.

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² After the mention of the thirty-three gods, and Vishnu 'born after them,' it is said that the Açvins, plants, and animals, are Guhyakas (vs. 40), though in vs. 35: "Tvashtar's daughter, the wife of Savitar, as a mare (vaḍavā) bore in air the two Açvins" (see above), in Vedic style. For Çruti compare iii. 207. 47; 208. 6, 11.

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¹ i. 23. 15 ff. His name is explained fancifully in 30. 7.

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² It is at the funeral feasts to the Manes that the Mahābhārata is to be recited (i. 62. 37).

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³ Arjuna is an old name of Indra, and in the epic Arjuna is Indra's son.

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Under the all-embracing cloak of pantheism the heart of the epic conceals many an ancient rite and superstition. Here is the covenant of blood, the covenant of death (represented by the modern 'sitting'⁴), and the covenant of water, which symbolizes both friendship and the solemnity of the curse. The former are illustrated by Bhīma's drinking blood as a sign that he will fulfil his vow,⁵ and by Rāma lying by Ocean to die unless Ocean grants his wish. Of the water-rite that of offering water in hospitality and as a form in reception of gifts is general; that of cursing by ‘touching water’ (*vāry upaspṛcya*), occurs in iii. 10. 32. For this purpose holy-grass and other symbols are known also,¹ and formulae yield only in potency to love-philters and magic drugs. Another covenant besides those just noticed seems to lie concealed in the avoidance of the door when injury is intended. If one goes in by the door he is a guest who has anticipated hospitality, and then he dares not refuse the respect and offering of water, etc, which makes the formal pact of friendship. If, on the contrary, he does not go in by the door he is not obliged to receive the offering, and may remain as a foe in the house (or in the city) of his enemy, with intent to kill, but without moral wrong. This may be implied in the end of the epic, where Açvatthāman, intent on secret murder of his foe, is prevented by god Çiva from entering in at the gate, but going in by stealth, and ‘not by the door’ of the camp, gets to his foe, who lies asleep, and kills him (x. 8. 10). This might be thought, indeed, to be merely strategic, but it is in accordance with the strict law of all the law-books that one, in ordinary circumstances, shall avoid to enter a town or a house in any other way than through the door (Manu, iv. 73; Gaut. 9. 32, etc.), and we think it has a moral significance, for this *a-dvāra* (non-door) rule occurs again in the epic in just the circumstances we have described. The heroes in this case are not afraid of their foe, who is in his town. They insult every one as they approach, but they find some other way of getting in than by passing through the gate, for the express purpose of being morally able to make the king fight with them after they have entered his city. And they cite the rule ‘according to law,’ which is that one may enter his foe’s house by *a-dvāra*, ‘not by door,’ but his friend’s house only ‘by door.’ As they have not entered ‘by door’ they say they may refuse the hospitality which the king urges them to accept, and so they kill him (ii. 21. 14, 53). Stepping in through the door seems, therefore, to be a tacit agreement that one will not injure the resident.¹

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⁴ The legal *dharna* or sitting at a debtor's door, which still obtains in India, is, so far as we know, not a very ancient practice. But its application in the case of heralds (who become responsible) is epic.

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⁵ This is the covenant (with friends) of revenge; the covenant of mutual protection in the sacrifice is indicated by the 'protection covenant' of the gods (see the chapter on Brahmanism above, p. 192).

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¹ See an essay on the Ruling Caste in the epic, in JAOS. xiii. 232 ff.

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¹ Reverend Doctor H. C. Trumbull has kindly called our attention to Robert’s Oriental Illustrations, p. 148 ff., where it is said that in India to-day the threshold is sacred. In reference to threshold-offerings, common in the law, Dr. Trumbull’s own forthcoming book on Covenants may be compared.

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In the epic, again, fetishism is found. The student of the ‘science of war,’ in order to obtain his teacher’s knowledge when the latter is away, makes a clay image of the preceptor and worships this clay idol, practicing arms before it (i. 132. 33). Here too is embalmed the belief that man’s life may be bound up with that of some inanimate thing, and the man perishes with the destruction of his psychic prototype (iii. 135). The old ordeals of fire and water are recognized. “Fire does not burn the house of good men.” “If (as this man asserts) he is Varuna’s son, then let him enter water and let us see if he will drown” (iii. 134. 27 ff.). A human sacrifice is performed (iii. 127); although the priest who performs it is cast into hell (ib. 128).² The teaching in regard to hells is about the same with that already explained in connection with the law-books, but the more definite physical interpretation of hell as a hole in the ground (garta, just as in the Rig Veda) is retained. Agastya sees his ancestors ‘in a hole,’ which they call ‘a hell’ (niraya). This is evidently the hell known to the law-punsters and epic (i. 74. 39) as puttra, ‘the put hell’ from which the son (putra) delivers (tra). For these ancestors are in the ‘hole’ because Agastya, their descendant, has not done his duty and begotten sons (i. 45. 13; iii. 96. 15); one son being ‘no son’ according to law and epic (i. 100. 68), and all the merit of sacrifice being equal to only one-sixteenth of that obtained by having a son. The teaching, again, in regard to the Fathers themselves (the Manes), while not differing materially from the older view, offers novelties which show how little the absorption-theory had taken hold of the religious consciousness. The very fact that the son is still considered to be as necessary as ever (that he may offer food to his ancestors) shows that the believer, whatever his professed faith, expects to depend for bliss hereafter upon his *post mortem* meals, as much as did his fathers upon theirs. In the matter of the burial of the dead, one finds, what is antique, that although according to the formal law only infants are buried, and adults are burned, yet was burial known, as in the Vedic age. And the still older exposure of the body, after the Iranian fashion, is not only hinted at as occurring here and there even before the epic, but in the epic these forms are all recognized as equally approved: "When a man dies he is burned or buried or exposed" (*nikṛṣyate*)¹ it is said in i. 90. 17; and the narrator goes on to explain that the "hell on earth," of which the auditor "has never heard" (vs. 6) is re-birth in low bodies, speaking of it as a new doctrine. "As if in a dream remaining conscious the spirit enters another form"; the bad becoming insects and worms; the good going to heaven by means of the "seven gates," viz., penance, liberality, quietism, self-control, modesty, rectitude, and mercy. This is a union of two views, and it is evidently the popular view, that, namely, the good go to heaven while the bad go to new existence in a low form, as opposed to the more logical conception that both alike enter new forms, one good, the other bad. Then the established stadia, the pupil, the old teaching (*upaniṣad*) of the householders, and the wood-dwellers are described, with the remark that there is no uniformity of opinion in regard to them; but the ancient view crops out again in the statement that one who dies as a forest-hermit “establishes in bliss” ten ancestors and ten descendants. In this part of the epic the Punjab is still near the theatre of events, the ‘centre region’ being between the Ganges and Jumna (i. 87. 5); although the later additions to the poems show acquaintance with all countries, known and unknown, and with peoples from all the world. Significant in xii. 61. 1, 2 is the name of the third order *bhāikshyacaryam* ‘beggarhood’ (before the forest-hermit and after the householder).

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² But these are by no means the last examples of human sacrifices. Several of the modern Hindu sects have caused to be performed such sacrifices, even in this century.

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¹ This can hardly mean 'put out on the river' as has been suggested as an explanation of the corpse 'thrown aside' in accordance with the earlier text, AV. xviii. 2. 34 (*paropta*), where the dead are 'buried, thrown aside, burned, or set out.'

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It was said above that the departed Fathers could assume a mortal form. In the formal classification of these demigods seven kinds of Manes are enumerated, the title of one subdivision being ‘those embodied.’ Brahmā is identified with the Father-god in connection with the Manes: “All the Manes worship Prajāpati Brahmā,” in the paradise of Prajāpati, where, by the way, are Çiva and Vishnu (ii. 11. 45, 50, 52; 8. 30). According to this description ‘kings and sinners,’ together with the Manes, are found in Yama’s home, as well as “those that die at the solstice” (ii. 7 ff.; 8. 31). Constantly the reader is impressed with the fact that the characters of the epic are acting and thinking in a way not conformable to the idea one might form of the Hindu from the law. We have animadverted upon this point elsewhere in connection with another matter. It is this factor that makes the study of the epic so invaluable as an offset to the verisimilitude of belief, even as belief is taught (not practiced) in the law. There is a very old rule, for instance, against slaughtering animals and eating meat; while to eat beef is a monstrous crime. Yet is it plain from the epic that meat-eating was customary, and Vedic texts are cited (*iti çrutis*) to prove that this is permissible; while a king is extolled for slaughtering cattle (iii. 208. 6–11). It is said out and out in iii. 313. 86 that ‘beef is food,’ *gāur annam*. Deer are constantly eaten. There is an amusing protest against this practice, which was felt to be irreconcilable with the *ahimsā* (non-injury) doctrine, in iii. 258, where the remnant of deer left in the forest come in a vision and beg to be spared. A dispute between gods and seers over vegetable sacrifices is recorded, xii. 338. Again, asceticism is not the duty of a warrior, but the epic hero practices asceticism exactly as if he were a priest, or a Jain, although the warning is given that a warrior ‘obtains a better lot’ (*loka*) by dying in battle than by asceticism. The asceticism is, of course, exaggerated, but an instance or two of what the Hindu expects in this regard may not be without interest. The warrior who becomes an ascetic eats leaves, and is clothed in grass. For one month he eats fruits every third day (night); for another month every sixth day; for another month every fortnight; and for the fourth month he lives on air, standing on tiptoe with arms stretched up. Another account says that the knight eats fruit for one month; water for one month; and for the third month, nothing (iii. 33. 73; 38. 22-26; 167). One may compare with these ascetic practices, which are not so exaggerated, in fact, as might be supposed,¹ the ‘one-leg’ practice of virtue, consisting in standing on one leg, *ekapādena*, for six months or longer, as one is able (i. 170. 46; iii. 12. 13-16). Since learning the Vedas is a tiresome task, and ascetic practice makes it possible to acquire anything, one is not surprised to find that a devotee undertakes penance with this in view, and is only surprised when Indra, who, to be sure has a personal interest in the Vedas, breaks in on the scene and rebukes the ascetic with the words: “Asceticism cannot teach the Vedas; go and be tutored by a teacher” (iii. 135. 22).

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¹ It is assumed in xii. 364. 2 that “leaves and air” are food enough for a great saint. Compare below the actual asceticism of modern devotees.

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One finds in the epic the old belief that the stars are the souls of the departed,² and this occurs so often that it is another sign of the comparative newness of the pantheistic doctrine. When the hero, Arjuna, goes to heaven he approaches the stars, “which seen from earth look small on account of their distance,” and finds them to be self-luminous refulgent saints, royal seers, and heroes slain in battle, some of them also being nymphs and celestial singers. All of this is in contradiction both to the older and to the newer systems of eschatology; but it is an ancient belief, and therefore it is preserved. Indra’s heaven,¹ Amarāvatī, lies above these stars.² No less than five distinct beliefs are thus enunciated in regard to the fate of good men after death. If they believe in the All-god they unite with him at once. Or they have a higher course, becoming gradually more elevated, as gods, etc., and ultimately ‘enter’ the All-god. Again they go to the world of Brahmā. Again they go to Indra’s heaven. Again they become stars. The two last beliefs are the oldest, the brahma-loka belief is the next in order of time, and the first-mentioned are the latest to be adopted. The hero of the epic just walks up to heaven, but his case is exceptional.

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² iii. 25. 14: *saptarṣayas... divi viprabhānti*. Compare ib. 261. 13, and the apocalypse in vii. 192. 52 ff., where Drona’s soul ascends to heaven, a burning fire like a

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¹ Described, as above, as a place of singers and dancers, where the Vedic gods and sages, but no sinners or cowards (iii. 42. 34 ff.).

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² From another point of view the stars are of interest. They are favorable or unfavorable, sentient, kind, or cruel; influential in man’s fate. Compare iii. 200. 84, 85, where the sun is included with the grahas (planets) which influence men, and ib. 209. 21, tulyanakṣairamaṅgala.

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While angels and spirits swarm about the world in every shape from mischievous or helpful fairies to Rāhu, whose head still swallows the sun, causing eclipses (i. 19. 9), there are a few that are especially conspicuous. Chief of the good spirits, attendants of Indra, are the Siddhas,³ ‘saints,’ who occasionally appear to bless a hero in conjunction with ‘beings invis-sun; in sharp contrast to the older ‘thumbkin’ soul which Yama receives and carries off in the tale of Satyavant. Compare also Arundhatī in i. 233. 29.

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³ Other of Indra’s spirits are the singers, Gandharvas and Apsarasas; also the horse-headed Kinnaras and Cāranas, who, too, are singers; while later the Vidyādharas belong both to Indra and to Çiva. In modern times the South Indian Sittars, ‘saints,’ take their name from the Siddhas.

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ible' (iii. 37. 21). Their name means literally 'blessed' or 'successful,' and probably, like the seers, Rishis, they are the departed fathers in spiritual form. These latter form various classes. There are not only the 'great seers,' and the still greater 'brahma-seers,' and the 'god-seers,' but there are even 'devil-seers,' and 'king-seers,' these being spirits of priests of royal lineages.¹ The evil spirits, like the gods, are sometimes grouped in threes. In a blessing one cries out: "Farewell (*svasti gacchahy anāmayam*); I entreat the Vasus, Rudras, Ādityas, Marut-hosts and the All-gods to protect thee, together with the Sādhyas; safety be to thee from all the evil beings that live in air, earth, and heaven, and from all others that dog thy path."² In xii. 166. 61 ff. the devils fall to earth, mountains, water, and other places. According to i. 19. 29. it is not long since the Asuras were driven to take refuge in earth and salt water.³

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¹ In *dānavarṣi* there is apparently the same sort of compound as in *devarṣi* and *brahmarṣi*, all associated with the *siddhas* in iii. 169. 23. But possibly 'demons and seers' may be meant.

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² iii. 37. 32-35 (*prapadye viçvedevān!*).

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³ Weber finds in the Asuras' artisan, Asura Maya, a reminiscence of Ptolemaios. He is celebrated in i. 228. 39, and ii. 1, and is the general leader of the *dānavas*, demons, perhaps originally a folk-name of enemies.

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These creatures have every kind of miraculous power, whether they be good or bad. Hanuman, famed in both epics, the divine monkey, with whom is associated the divine 'king of bears' Jāmbavan (iii. 280. 23), can grow greater than mortal eye can see (iii. 150. 9). He is still worshipped as a great god in South India. As an illustration of epic spiritism the case of Ilvala may be taken. This devil, *dāiteya*, had a trick of cooking his embodied younger brother, and giving him to saints to eat. One saint, supposing the flesh to be mutton (here is saintly meat-eating!), devours the dainty viand; upon which the devil 'calls' his brother, who is obliged to come, whether eaten or not, and in coming bursts the saint that has eaten him (iii. 96). This is folk-lore; but what religion does not folk-lore contain! So, personified Fate holds its own as an inscrutable power, mightier than others.¹ There is another touch of primitive religious feeling which reminds one of the usage in Iceland, where, if a stranger knocks at the door and the one within asks ‘who is there?’ the guest answers, ‘God.’ So in the epic it is said that ‘every guest is god Indra’ (*Parjanyo ’nnānusamcaran*, iii. 200. 123. In the epic Parjanya, the rain-god, and Indra are the same). Of popular old tales of religious bearing may be mentioned the retention and elaboration of the Brahmanic deluge-story, with Manu as Noah (iii. 187); the Açvins’ feats in rejuvenating (iii. 123); the combats of the gods with the demons (Namuci, Çambara, Vala, Vritra, Prahlāda, Naraka), etc. (iii. 168).

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¹ See below. The formal division is, *daiva, hatha, karma*, i.e., man’s fate depends on gods, Fate, and his own acts; although *hatha*, Fate, is often implied in *daiva*, ‘the divine power.’ But they are separated, for example, in iii. 183. 86.

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Turning now to some of the newer traits in the epic, one notices first that, while the old sacrifices still obtain, especially the horse-sacrifice, the *rājasūya* and the less meritorious *vāja-peya*, together with the monthly and seasonal sacrifices, there is in practice a leaning rather to new sacrifices, and a new cult. The soma is scarce, and the *pūtika* plant is accepted as its substitute (iii. 35. 33) in a matter-of-course way, as if this substitution, permitted of old by law, were now common. The sacrifice of the widow is recognized, in the case of the wives of kings, as a means of obtaining bliss for a woman,² for the religion of the epic is not entirely careless of woman. Somewhat new, however, is the self-immolation of a man upon the pyre of his son. Such a case is recorded in iii. 137. 19, where a father burns his son’s body, and then himself enters the fire. New also, of course, are the sectarian festivals and sacrifices; and pronounced is the gain in the godhead of priests, king, parents, elder brother, and husband. The priest has long been regarded as a god, but in the epic he is god of gods, although one can trace even here a growth in adulation.¹ The king, too, has been identified before this period with the gods. But in the epic he is to his people an absolute divinity,² and so are the parents to the son;³ while, since the elder brother is the same with a father, when the father is dead the younger brother worships the elder. So also the wife's god is her husband; for higher even than that of the priest is the husband's divinity (iii. 206). The wife's religious service is not concerned with feasts to the Manes, with sacrifice to the gods, nor with studying the Veda. In all these she has no part. Her religion is to serve her husband (iii. 205. 23), and to die, if worthy of the honor, on his funeral pyre. Otherwise the epic woman has religious practices only in visiting the holy watering-places, which now abound, and in reading the epic itself. For it is said of both practices: "Whether man or woman read this book (or 'visit this holy pool') he or she is freed from sin" (so in iii. 82. 33: "Every sin committed since birth by man or woman is absolved by bathing in holy Pushkara"). It may be remarked that as a general thing the deities invoked by women are, by predilection, female divinities, some of them being mere abstractions, while 'the Creator' is often the only god in the woman's list, except, of course, the priests: "Reverence to priests, and to the Creator . . . May Hrī, Çrī (Modesty and Beauty), Fame, Glory, Prosperity, Umā (Çiva's wife), Lakshmi (Vishnu's wife), and also Sarasvatī, (may all these female divinities) guard thy path, because thou reverest thy elder brother," is a woman's prayer (iii. 37. 26-33).¹

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² Compare the tales and xii. 148. 9, *satī* (suttee). In regard to the horse-sacrifice, compare Yama’s law as expounded to Gautama: “The acts by which one gains bliss hereafter are austerities, purity, truth, worship of parents, and the horse-sacrifice.” xii. 129. 9, 10.

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¹ Compare iii. 200. 88, even *prākṛta* priests are divine and terrible (much more in later books). Here *prākṛta*, vulgar, is opposed to *saṃskṛta*, refined, priests.

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² iii. 185. 26-31.

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³ "My father and mother are my highest idol; I do for them what I do for idols. As the three and thirty gods, with Indra foremost, are revered of all the world, so are my parents revered by me" (iii. 214. 19, 20). The speaker further calls them *paramam brahma*, absolute godhead, and explains his first remark by saying that he offers fruits and flowers to his parents as if they were idols. In iv. 68. 57 a man salutes (*abhivādya*) his father's feet on entering into his presence. For the worship of parents compare xii. 108. 3; 128. 9, 10; 267. 31, xiii. 75. 26: "heroes in obedience to the mother."

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