Epic Mythology c5.s2.6

c5.s2.6

If ethics be part of religion, the divine religion is moral. All in all, as light to darkness, so is the religion approved of the gods as compared with that of the demons. The demons are false and eat meat; the gods are true and drink nectar. Apparently they eat flesh at sacrifices, but they do not eat bloody flesh, only the essence of sacrifice. Despite the many sins of the king of the gods, who is famous as an adulterer, deceiver, and drinker, the epic moralist attributes repentance to him. Dissent from the belief that the gods love truth appears only in the splenetic utterance of an impatient king who says that "now-a-days even the gods lie", Devā 'pi nūnam anṛtaṃ vadanti (8, 68, 15). Opposed is a mass of testimony: "Sun, Fire, Wind, all gods, all creation, depend on truth; truth is equal to a thousand horse-sacrifices; it pleases the gods and Pitṛs; it is man's highest duty" (13, 75, 29). Banal morality, however, is to be tempered by common sense. Not to injure animals is a moral law, but Balāka won heaven by killing a blind beast; and Kauśika went to hell for telling an inopportune truth (8, 69, 39f.; 12, 109, 7). To deceive one's friend is wrong; to deceive one's enemy is right, etc. All the greatest victories of the gods were won by deception of which they boast with pride. The gods cause the fall of the sinner (or slay him, devatāḥ pātayanti, v. l. ghātayanti, 12, 132, 18). So the gods are appealed to as arbiters: "To the Thirty-three thy act of violence is hateful" (3, 161, 11; S ib. 162, 13, v. l. "even to the gods"). The gods "seek wisdom and love purity; they will not accept an offering from a man without faith" (3, 186, 18f.). Faith means to "revere all the gods and obey all their laws" (12, 110, 18). But Indra as the god of valor demands of his worshippers virtue in the Roman sense; his warriors lacking bravery fail to go to his heaven and not lacking bravery but dying face to the foe they attain bliss, irrespective of their moral state otherwise. Those who desert their friends in battle are to be burned alive, for "Indra and the other gods whom he heads give over to misfortune (asvasti tebhyaḥ kurvanti) those who, deserting their friends, come home unwounded from war" (12, 97, 21). Such a deserter "sinks to the hell Raurava in a sea of woe without a boat" (S after 6, 77, 35). Indra is god of guests; so hospitality is another means of winning Indra's heaven; as Brahman's heaven is won by treating well the Brahman priest (as teacher), and Prajāpati's heaven is won by obedience to one's father. Hence the saying: "The guest has power over Indra's world". In other words, the appropriate god must be propitiated by observing his own way of morality. That is the reason why "the heaven of the All-gods is won by those who are kind to their maternal and paternal relations" (as they are Pitṛ-gods; all in 12, 244, 17f.; maternal and paternal probably represent the distinction in jāmis and jñātis). The order of the state is also regarded, as an ethical matter, by the gods. Marriages are made in heaven; "monogamy is the state decreed by the gods for women" (2, 68, 35). The wife is "given by the gods" (1, 157, 31). To see whether a man observe these laws, the gods spy upon him; conversely, they are invoked as witnesses (passim). The chief witnesses are (12, 322, 55) Fire, Sun and Wind; others are Moon, Earth, and Water (as divinities). Later comes the idea of "the inner man" (conscience) and of Dharma, Right or Justice, as witnesses (1, 74, 29f.). Yama, as god and judge of the dead, is also naturally invoked, and the Twilights, as complementary to Day and Night (as divine witnesses ib.). Fire is a witness of the world" (R 6, 119, 24f.; cf. 3, 291, 22f. S makes Yama the sākṣī lokasya karmaṇām)¹.