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Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s1: I The Vedas

Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s1

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I The Vedas

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THE Vedas are the earliest documents of the human mind that we possess. Wilson writes: “When the texts of the Ṛg and Yajur Vedas are completed, we shall be in the possession of materials sufficient for the safe appreciation of the results to be derived from them, and of the actual condition of the Hindus, both political and religious, at a date co-eval with that of the yet earliest known records of social organisation—long anterior to the dawn of Grecian civilisation—prior to the oldest vestiges of the Assyrian Empire yet discovered—contemporary probably with the oldest Hebrew writings, and posterior only to the Egyptian dynasties, of which, however, we yet know little except barren names; the Vedas give us abundant information respecting all that is most interesting in the contemplation of antiquity."'¹ There are four Vedas: Ṛg, Yajur, Sāma and Atharva. The first three agree not only in their name, form and language, but in their contents also. Of them all the Ṛg-Veda is the chief. The inspired songs which the Aryans brought with them from their earlier home into India as their most precious possession were collected, it is generally held, in response to a prompting to treasure them up which arose when the Aryans met with large numbers of the worshippers of other gods in their new country. The Ṛg-Veda is that collection. The Sāma-Veda is a purely liturgical collection. Much of it is found in the Ṛg-Veda, and even those hymns peculiar to it have no distinctive lessons of their own. They are all arranged for being sung at sacrifices. The Yajur-Veda, like the Sāma, also serves a liturgical purpose. This collection was made to meet the demands of a ceremonial religion. Whitney writes: "In the early Vedic times the sacrifice was still, in the main, an unfettered act of devotion, not committed to the charge of a body of privileged priests, not regulated in its minor details, but left to the free impulses of him who offered it, accompanied with Ṛg and Sāma hymns and chants, that the mouth of the offerer might not be silent while his hands were presenting to the divinity the gift which his heart prompted. . . . As in process of time, however, the ritual assumed a more and more formal character, becoming finally a strictly and minutely regulated succession of single actions, not only were the verses fixed which were to be quoted during the ceremony, but there established themselves likewise a body of utterances, formulas of words, intended to accompany each individual action of the whole work to explain, excuse, bless, give it a symbolical significance or the like. . . . These sacrificial formulas received the name of Yajus, from the root Yaj, to sacrifice. . . . The Yajur-Veda is made up of these formulas, partly in prose and partly in verse, arranged in the order in which they were to be made use of at the sacrifice."'² The collections of the Sāma and the Yajur Vedas must have been made in the interval between the Ṛg-Vedic collection and the Brāhmaṇical period, when the ritualistic religion was well established. The Atharva-Veda for a long time was without the prestige of a Veda, though for our purposes it is next in importance only to the Ṛg-Veda, for, like it, it is an historical collection of independent contents. A different spirit pervades this Veda, which is the production of a later era of thought. It shows the result of the compromising spirit adopted by the Vedic Aryans in view of the new gods and goblins worshipped by the original peoples of the country whom they were slowly subduing.

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¹ J.R.A.S., vol. 13, 1852, p. 206.

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² A.O.S. Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 304.

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Each Veda consists of three parts known as *Mantras*, *Brāhmaṇas* and *Upaniṣads*. The collection of the mantras or the hymns is called the Saṃhitā. The Brāhmaṇas include the precepts and religious duties. The Upaniṣads and the Āraṇyakas are the concluding portions of the Brāhmaṇas which discuss philosophical problems. The Upaniṣads contain the mental background of the whole of the subsequent thought of the country. Of the early Upaniṣads Aitareya and Kauṣītaki belong to the Ṛg, Kena and Chāndogya to the Sāma, Īśā and Taittirīya and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka to the Yajur, and Praśna and Muṇḍaka to the Atharva-Veda. The Āraṇyakas come between the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, and, as their name implies, are intended to serve as objects of meditation for those who live in forests. The Brāhmaṇas discuss the ritual to be observed by the householder, but when in his old age he resorts to the forests, some substitute for ritual is needed, and that is supplied in the Āraṇyakas. The symbolic and spiritual aspects of the sacrificial cult are meditated upon, and this meditation takes the place of the performance of the sacrifice. The Āraṇyakas form the transition link between the ritual of the Brāhmaṇas and the philosophy of the Upaniṣads. While the hymns are the creation of the poets,¹ the Brāhmaṇas are the work of the priests, and the Upaniṣads the meditations of the philosophers. The religion of nature of the hymns, the religion of law of the Brāhmaṇas and the religion of spirit of the Upaniṣads, correspond in a very close way to the three great divisions in the Hegelian conception of the development of religion. Though at a later stage the three have existed side by side, there is no doubt that they were originally developed in successive periods. The Upaniṣads, while in one sense a continuation of the Vedic worship, are in another a protest against the religion of the Brāhmaṇas.

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¹ R.V., i. 164. 6.; x. 129. 4.

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IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF THE VEDIC HYMNS

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A study of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda is indispensable for any adequate account of Indian thought. Whatever we may think them, half-formed myths or crude allegories, obscure gropings or immature compositions, still they are the source of the later practices and philosophies of the Indo-Aryans, and a study of them is necessary for a proper understanding of subsequent thought. We find a freshness and simplicity and an inexplicable charm as of the breath of the spring or the flower of the morning about these first efforts of the human mind to comprehend and express the mystery of the world.

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The text of the Veda which we possess has come to us from that period of intellectual activity when the Aryans found their way into India from their original home. They brought with them certain notions and beliefs which were developed and continued on the Indian soil. A long interval must have elapsed between the composition and the compilation of these hymns. Max Müller divides the Saṃhitā period into the two called the Chandas and the Mantra periods.¹ In the former the hymns were composed. It was the creative epoch characterised by real poetry, when men's emotions poured themselves out in songs; we have then no traces of sacrifices. Prayer was the only offering made to the gods. The second is the period of collection or systematic grouping. It was then that the hymns were arranged in practically the same form in which we have them at present. In this period sacrificial ideas slowly developed. When exactly the hymns were composed and collected is a matter of conjecture. We are sure that they were current some fifteen centuries before Christ. Buddhism, which began to spread in India about 500 B.C., presupposes not only the existence of the Vedic hymns but the whole Vedic literature, including the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads. For the sacrificial system of the Brāhmaṇas to become well established, for the philosophy of the Upaniṣads to be fully developed, it would require a long period.¹ The development of thought apparent in this vast literature requires at least a millennium. This is not too long a period if we remember the variety and growth which the literature displays. Some Indian scholars assign the Vedic hymns to 3000 B.C., others to 6000 B.C. The late Mr. Tilak dates the hymns about 4500 B.C., the Brāhmaṇas 2500 B.C., the early Upaniṣads 1600 B.C. Jacobi puts the hymns at 4500 B.C. We assign them to the fifteenth century B.C. and trust that our date will not be challenged as being too early.

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¹ Attempts are sometimes made to assign the hymns to five different periods marked by differences of religious belief and social custom. See Arnold: *Vedic Metre*.

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¹ From them many of the technical terms of later philosophies, such as Brahman, Ātman, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, are derived.

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The Ṛg-Veda Saṃhitā or collection consists of 1,017 hymns or sūktas, covering a total of about 10,600 stanzas. It is divided into eight aṣṭakas,² each having eight adhyāyas, or chapters, which are further subdivided into vargas or groups. It is sometimes divided into ten maṇḍalas or circles. The latter is the more popular division. The first maṇḍala contains 191 hymns, and is ascribed roughly to fifteen different authors or Ṛṣis (seers or sages) such as Gautama, Kaṇva, etc. In the arrangement of the hymns there is a principle involved. Those addressed to Agni come first, those to Indra second, and then the rest. Each of the next six maṇḍalas is ascribed to a single family of poets, and has the same arrangement. In the eighth we have no definite order. It is ascribed like the first to a number of different authors. Maṇḍala nine consists of hymns addressed to Soma. Many of the hymns of the eighth and ninth Maṇḍalas are found in the Sāma-Veda also. Maṇḍala ten seems to be a later appendage. At any rate, it contains views current at the last period of the development of the Vedic hymns. Here the native hue of the earlier devotional poetry is sicklied over with the pale cast of philosophical thought. Speculative hymns about the origin of creation, etc., are to be met with. Together with these abstract theorisings are also found in it the superstitious charms and exorcisings belonging to the Atharva-Veda period. While the speculative parts indicate the maturing of the mind which first revealed itself in the lyrical hymns, this feature shows that by that time the Vedic Aryans must have grown familiar with the doctrines and practices of the native Indians, and both these are clear indications of the late origin of the tenth book.

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² An eighth portion is an aṣṭaka.

Cites (10)