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Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s12: III The Yajur-Veda and the Brāhmaṇas

Indian Philosophy v1.c8.s12

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III The Yajur-Veda and the Brāhmaṇas

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In the history of thought creative and critical epochs succeed each other. Periods of rich and glowing faith are followed by those of aridity and artificiality. When we pass from the Ṛg-Veda to the Yajur and the Sāma Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, we feel a change in the atmosphere. The freshness and simplicity of the former give place to the coldness and artificiality of the latter. The spirit of religion is in the background, while its forms assume great importance. The need for prayer-books is felt. Liturgy is developed. The hymns are taken out of the Ṛg-Veda and arranged to suit sacrificial necessities. The priest becomes the lord. The Yajur-Veda gives the special formulas to be uttered when the altar is to be erected, etc., and the Sāman describes the songs to be chanted at the sacrifice. These Vedas may be discussed along with the Brāhmaṇas, since they all describe the sacrificial liturgy. The religion of the Yajur-Veda is a mechanical sacerdotalism. A crowd of priests conducts a vast and complicated system of external ceremonies to which symbolical significance is attached and to the smallest minutiæ of which the greatest weight is given. The truly religious spirit could not survive in the stifling atmosphere of ritual and sacrifice. The religious feeling of the adoration of the ideal and the consciousness of guilt is lacking. Every prayer is coupled with a particular rite and aims at securing some material advantage. The formulas of the Yajur-Veda are full of dreary repetitions of petty requests for the goods of life. We cannot draw a sharp distinction between the age of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda and the other Vedas and the Brāhmaṇas, since the tendencies which became predominant in the latter were also found in the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda. We can say with some degree of certainty that the mass of the hymns of the Ṛg-Veda belongs to an age earlier than that of the Brāhmaṇas.

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The Brāhmaṇas, which form the second part of the Vedas, are the ritual textbooks intended to guide the priests through the complicated details of sacrificial rites. The chief of them are the Aitareya and the Śatapatha. Differences of detail in interpretation led to the formation of several schools of the Brāhmaṇas. The period is marked by important changes in the religious evolution, which have permanently affected its future history. The emphasis on sacrifice, the observance of caste and the āśramas, the eternity of the Veda, the supremacy of the priest, all belong to this age.

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We may begin by noting the additions made to the Vedic pantheon during the period. Viṣṇu rose in importance in the Yajur-Veda. The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa makes him the personification of sacrifice.¹ The name Nārāyaṇa also occurs in it, though it is only in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka that the two Nārāyaṇa and Viṣṇu are brought into relation. Śiva makes his appearance, and is referred to under different names in the Kauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa.² Rudra has now a benignant form and is called Giriśa.³ The Prajāpati of the Ṛg-Veda becomes the chief god and the creator of the world. Viśvakarman is identified with him.⁴ Monotheism is inculcated. Agni is very important. Brahmanaspati, the lord of prayer, becomes the leader of hymns and the organiser of rites. Brahman in the Ṛg-Veda means a hymn or a prayer addressed to God. From the subjective force which helped the seer to compose a prayer, it came to mean the object prayed for. From being the cause of prayer, we may say it came to mean the power of sacrifice; and since in the Brāhmaṇas the whole universe is regarded as produced from sacrifice, Brahman came to signify the creative principle of the world.⁵

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¹ v. 2. 3. 6; v. 4. 5. 1; xii. 4. 1. 4; xiv. 1. 1. 6. and 15.

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² vi. 1-9.

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³ See Tait. Saṃhita, iv. 5. 1; Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā, ix.

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⁴ Śat. Brāh., viii. 2. 1. 10; viii. 2. 3. 13.

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⁵ There are several passages where Brahman is used in this sense "Verily in the beginning this universe was the Brahman; it created the gods" (Śat. Brāh., xi. 2. 3. 1. See also x. 6. 3, and Chān. Up., iii. 14. 1).

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The religion of the Brāhmaṇas was purely formal. The poetic fire and the heartiness of the Vedic hymns are no more. Prayer comes to mean the muttering of mantras, or the utterance of sacred formulas. Loud petitions were thought necessary to rouse God to action. The words became artificial sounds with occult powers. Nobody could understand the mystery of it all, except the priest who claimed for himself the dignity of a god on earth. The one ambition was to become immortal like the gods, who attained that status by performing sacrifices.¹ All are subject to the influence of sacrifices. Without them, the sun would not rise. We can depose Indra from his throne in heaven if we perform a hundred horse-sacrifices. The sacrifices please the gods and profit men. Through them the gods become the friends of men. The sacrifices were made as a rule for gaining earthly profits and not heavenly bliss. A rigid soul-deadening, commercialist creed based on a contractual motive took the place of the simple devout religion of the Vedas.² The sacrifices of the Vedic hymns were a superfluous appendage of prayers indicative of true religion but now they occupy the central place. Every act done, every syllable uttered at the ceremony is important. The religion of the Brāhmaṇas became loaded with symbolic subtleties, and was ultimately lost in a soulless mechanism of idle rites and pedantries of formalism.

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¹ Śat. Brāh., iii. 1. 4. 3; Aitareya Brāh., ii. 1. 1.

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² “He offers a sacrifice to the gods with the text: ‘Do thou give to me and I will give to thee; do thou bestow on me and I will bestow on thee’” (Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā, iii. 50. See also Śat. Brāh., ii. 5. 3. 19).

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The increasing dominance of the idea of sacrifice helped to exalt the position of the priests. The ṛṣi of the Vedic hymns, the inspired singer of truth, becomes now the possessor of a revealed scripture, the repeater of a magical formula. The simple occupational division of the Aryans into the three classes assumes during the period an hereditary character. The highly elaborate nature of the sacrificial ceremonial demands special training for the priestly office. The patriarchal head of the family could no more conduct the complex and minute system of the sacrificial ceremony. Priesthood became a profession and an hereditary one. The priests who possessed the Vedic lore became the accredited intermediaries between gods and men and the dispensers of the divine grace. The yajamāna, or the man for whom the rite is performed, stands aside. He is a passive agent supplying men, money and munitions; the priest does the rest for him. Selfishness, with its longing for power, prestige and enjoyment, pressed its way in and dimmed the lustre of the original ideal. Attempts were made to mislead the people about the value of the offerings. A monopoly of functions and offices was secured. The ground was consolidated by the development of an extravagant symbolism. Language was used as if it was given to us to hide our thoughts. Only the priests could know the hidden meaning of things. No wonder the priest claimed for himself a divine dignity. "Verily there are two kinds of gods; for the gods themselves assuredly are gods, and then the priests who have studied and teach Vedic lore are the human gods."¹

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¹ Śat. Brāh., ii. 2. 4. 6; ii. 4. 3. 14.

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We have here and there priests who seriously declare that they can bring about the death of him who actively employs them, though they have the moral sense to know that such an act is forbidden.² Another circumstance which further strengthened the priestly class was the necessity for the preservation of the Vedas which the Aryans brought with them, and round which, as we shall see in the sequel, a halo of sanctity grew. The Brāhmin class was entrusted with their preservation. If the Vedas are to survive, the Brāhmin must be true to his vocation. He imposed on himself accordingly severe conditions. "A Brāhmin unlearned in holy writ is extinguished in an instant like dry grass on fire."³ A Brāhmin should shun worldly honour as he should shun poison. As a brahmacārin or student, he must control his passions, wait on his preceptor and beg for his food; as a householder he must avoid wealth, speak the truth, lead a virtuous life, and keep himself pure in mind and body. The Brāhmins felt that they should be faithful to the charge committed to their keeping. We need not speak of the wonderful way in which they have preserved the Vedic tradition against all the dangerous accidents of history. Even to-day we can meet in the streets of Indian cities these walking treasure-houses of Vedic learning. The rigid barriers of the later age are to be traced to historical accidents. In the age of the Brāhmaṇas there was not much material distinction among the twice-born Aryans. They could all be educated in Vedic knowledge.¹ "The sacrifice is like a ship sailing heavenward; if there be a sinful priest in it that one priest would make it sink."² So morality was not dismissed as altogether irrelevant. The Brāhmin priests were neither wicked nor stupid. They had their own ideas of duty and righteousness which they tried to preach to others. They were honest, upright men, who obeyed the rules, observed ceremonies and defended dogmas to the best of their ability. They had a sense of their calling and fulfilled it with zest and reverence. They framed elaborate codes of laws expressing their great love of learning and humanity. If they erred, it was because they were themselves fettered by a tradition. They were sincere souls whatever their hallucinations. They felt no shadow of doubt about the truth of their own orthodoxy. Their thought was paralysed by the conventions of the times. Yet no one would say that their pride in their own culture and civilisation was illegitimate at a time when the world around was steeped in barbarism and a thousand rude and tyrannous elements provoked them into this feeling.

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² Tait. Saṃhitā, i. 6. 10. 4, and Ait. Brāh., ii. 21. 2.

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³ Manu.

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¹ Manu says: "A twice-born man, a Brāhmin, Kṣatriya or Vaiśya, unlearned in the Vedas, soon falls, even while living, to a condition of Śūdra." In the Mahābhārata we read: "The order of Vānaprasthas, of sages who dwell in forests and live on fruits, roots and air, is prescribed for the three twice-born classes, the order of householders is prescribed for all."

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² Śat. Brāh., iv. 2. 5. 10.

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In the nature of things, a professional priesthood is always demoralising. But there is no reason to think that the Brāhmin of India was more pompous and hypocritical than any other. As against the possible degeneration, protests were uttered by the true Brāhmins, filled with the serene calm and the simple grandeur of the prophet soul even in that age. They raised a revolt against the ostentation and hypocrisy of the selfish priest and blushed at the corruption of a great ideal. In any estimate of the priesthood it is to be remembered that the Brāhmins take into account the duties to be performed by the householder. There were other stages of the Vānaprastha and the Sannyāsa where ritual is not binding at all. The Brāhmanical rule would not have lasted if it had been felt as tyrannical or coercive. It commanded the confidence of the thinking, since it only insisted that everybody should fulfil his social duties.

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In later philosophy we hear much of what is called the authoritativeness of the Vedas or Śabdapramāṇa. The darśanas or systems of philosophy are distinguished into orthodox or heterodox according as they accept or repudiate the authority of the Veda. The Veda is looked upon as a divine revelation. Though the Hindu apologists of a later day offer ingenious interpretations in support of Vedic authority, still, so far as the Vedic seers are concerned, they mean by it the highest truth revealed to a pure mind. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” The ṛṣi of the Vedic hymns calls himself not so much the composer of the hymns as the seer of them.¹ It is seeing with the mind’s eye or intuitive seeing. The ṛṣi has his eyes unblinded by the fumes of passion, and so can see the truth which is not evident to the senses. He only transmits the truth which he sees but does not make.² The Veda is called “Śruti,” or the rhythm of the infinite heard by the soul. The words dṛṣṭi and śruti, which are the Vedic expressions, point out how the Vedic knowledge is not a matter of logical demonstration, but an intuitive insight. The poet’s soul hears or has revealed to it the truth in its inspired condition, when the mind is lifted above the narrow plane of the discursive consciousness. According to the Vedic seers the contents of the hymns are inspired and revelatory only in this sense. It is not their intention to suggest anything miraculous or supernatural. They even speak of the hymns as their own compositions or creations. They compare their work as poets with that of the carpenter, the weaver, the rower,¹ and give natural explanations of it. The hymns are shaped by the feelings of the human heart.² Sometimes they say they found the hymns.³ They also attribute them to the exaltation consequent on the drink of Soma.⁴ In a very humble spirit they hold the hymns to be God-given.⁵ The idea of inspiration is not yet transformed into that of an infallible revelation.

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¹ The word “Veda” is derived from the Aryan root “vid,” which means “seeing.” Cf. Vision (from Latin video); Ideas (from Greek eidos), wit.

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² “All artistic creation,” says Beethoven, “comes from God, and relates to man only in so far as it witnesses to the action of the divine within him.”

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¹ See Muir, Sanskrit Texts, vol. iii.

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² R.V., i. 117. 2; ii. 35. 2.

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³ x. 67. 1.

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⁴ vi. 47. 3.

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⁵ i. 37. 4; iii. 18. 3. In the second chapter of Muir's Sanskrit Texts (vol. iii. pp. 217-86) we have a collection of passages which clearly show that “though some at least of the ṛṣis appear to have imagined themselves to be inspired by the gods in the expression of their religious emotion and ideas, they at the same time regarded the hymns as their own compositions, or as (presumably) the compositions of their forefathers, distinguishing between them as new and old and describing their own authorship in terms which could only have been dictated by a consciousness of its reality.”

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When we come to the Brāhmaṇas we reach an age when the divine authority of the Vedas is accepted as a fact.⁶ The claim to divine revelation, and therefore eternal validity, is set up in this period. Its origin is easily intelligible. Writing was then unknown. There were neither printers nor publishers. The contents of the Vedas were transmitted by oral repetition through a succession of teachers. To ensure respect, some sanctity was attached to the Vedas. In the Ṛg-Veda Vāk, or speech, was a goddess. And now they said from Vāk the Vedas issued forth. Vāk is the mother of the Vedas.⁷ In the Atharva-Veda the mantra is said to possess magical power. “The Vedas issued like breath from the self-existent.”⁸ The Vedas came to be regarded as divine revelation, communicated to the ṛṣis, who were inspired men. Śabda, articulate sound, is considered eternal. The obvious effect of this view of the Vedas is that philosophy becomes scholastic. When the spoken word, real and alive, gets fixed in a rigid formula, its spirit expires. The authoritativeness of the Veda formulated so early in the history of Indian thought has affected the whole course of subsequent evolution. In later philosophy the tendency developed to interpret the unsystematic and not always consistent texts of the earlier age in line with set opinions. When once the tradition is regarded as sacred and infallible it must be represented as expressing or implying what is considered to be the truth. This accounts for the fact that the same texts are adduced in support of varying tenets and principles, mutually contradictory and inconsistent. If fidelity to dogma and diversity of view should live together, it is possible only through absolute freedom of interpretation, and it is here that the Indian philosophers show their ingenuity. It is surprising that, in spite of the tradition, Indian thought kept itself singularly free for a long time from dogmatic philosophising. The Indian thinkers first arrive at a system of consistent doctrine and then look about for texts of an earlier age to support their position. They either force them into such support or ingeniously explain them away. There has been one good effect of this Vedic tradition. It has helped to keep philosophy real and living. Instead of indulging in empty disputations and talking metaphysics which has no bearing on life, the Indian thinkers had a fixed foundation to go upon, the religious insight of the highest seers as expressed in the Vedas. It gave them a hold on the central facts of life, and no philosophy could afford to discard it.

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⁶ See Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, vii. 9.

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⁷ Vedānām mātā. Tait. Brāh., ii. 8. 8. 5. Compare the opening of St. John's Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word.”

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⁸ Śatapatha Brāh., xi. 5. 81 ff., and also the Puruṣa Sūkta.

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THEORIES OF CREATION

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With regard to the theories of creation, though the lead of the Ṛg-Veda is generally followed, there are some fanciful accounts also mentioned. After the Ṛg-Veda, the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa says, " formerly nothing existed, neither heaven nor atmosphere nor earth." Desire is the seed of existence. Prajāpati desires offspring and creates. " Verily in the beginning Prajāpati alone existed here. He thought with himself, how can I be propagated? He toiled and practised austerities. He created living beings."¹

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¹ Śat. Brāh., ii. 5. 1. 1-3.

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