Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) by Charles Eliot

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There are other general characteristics of Indian religion which will be
best made clear by more detailed treatment in succeeding chapters. Such
are, firstly, a special theory of sacrifice or ritual which, though
totally rejected by Buddhism, has survived to modern times. Secondly, a
belief in the efficacy of self-mortification as a means of obtaining
super-human powers or final salvation. Thirdly, an even more deeply
rooted conviction that salvation can be obtained by knowledge. Fourthly,
there is the doctrine that faith or devotion to a particular deity is
the best way to salvation, but this teaching, though it seems natural to
our minds, does not make its appearance in India until relatively late.
It is not so peculiarly Indian as the other ideas mentioned, but even at
the outset it is well to insist on its prevalence during the last two
thousand years because a very false impression may be produced by
ignoring it.

There also runs through Indian religion a persistent though
inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought. It does not deny the
existence of spirits but it treats them as being, like men, subject to
natural laws, though able, like men, to influence events. The ultimate
truth for it is not pantheism but fixed natural laws of which no
explanation is offered. The religion of the Jains and the Sankhya
philosophy belong to this current. So did the teaching of several
ancient sects, such as the Ajivikas, and strictly speaking Buddhism
itself. For the Buddha is not an Avatara or a messenger but a superman
whose exceptional intelligence sees that the Wheel of Causation and the
Four Truths are part of the very nature of things. It is strange too
that asceticism, sacrifices and modern tantric rites which seem to us
concerned with the relations between man and God are in India penetrated
by a non-theistic theory, namely that there are certain laws which can
be studied and applied, much like electricity, and that then spirits can
be coerced to grant what the ascetic or sacrificer desires. At the same
time such views are more often implied than formulated. The Dharma is
spoken of as the teaching of the Buddha rather than as Cosmic Order like
the Tao of the Chinese and though tantric theory assumes the existence
of certain forces which can be used scientifically, the general
impression produced by tantric works is that they expound an intricate
mythology and ritual.

CHAPTER IV

VEDIC DEITIES AND SACRIFICES

1

Our knowledge of early Indian religion is derived almost entirely from
literature. After the rise of Buddhism this is supplemented to some
extent by buildings, statues and inscriptions, but unlike Egypt and
Babylonia, pre-Buddhist India has yielded no temples, images or other
religious antiquities, nor is it probable that such will be discovered.
Certainly the material for study is not scanty. The theological
literature of India is enormous: the difficulty is to grasp it and
select what is important. The enquirer is confronted with a series of
encyclopaedic works of great bulk and considerable antiquity, treating of
every aspect of religion which interested the Brahmans. But he
continually feels the want of independent testimony to check their
statements. They set forth the views of their authors but whether those
views met with general acceptance outside the Brahmanic caste and
influenced Indian life as a whole or whether classes, such as the
military caste, or regions, such as western India and Dravidian India,
had different views, it is often hard to say. Even more serious is the
difficulty of chronology which affects secular as well as religious
literature. The feats of Hindus in the matter of computing time show in
the most extravagant form the peculiarities of their mental temperament,
for while in their cosmogonies aeons whose length the mind can hardly
grasp are tabulated with the names of their superhuman rulers there are
few[139] dates in the pre-Mohammedan history which can be determined
from purely Indian sources. The fragments of obscure Greek writers and
the notes of a travelling Chinaman furnish more trustworthy data about
important epochs in the history of the Hindus than the whole of their
gigantic literature, in which there has been found no mention of
Alexander's invasion and only scattered allusions to the conquests of
the Sakas, Kushans and Hunas. We can hardly imagine doubt as to the
century in which Shakespeare or Virgil lived, yet when I first studied
Sanskrit the greatest of Indian dramatists, Kalidasa, was supposed to
have lived about 50 B.C. His date is not yet fixed with unanimity but it
is now generally placed in the fifth or sixth century A.D.

This chronological chaos naturally affects the value of literature as a
record of the development of thought. We are in danger of moving in a
vicious circle: of assigning ideas to an epoch because they occur in a
certain book, while at the same time we fix the date of the book in
virtue of the ideas which it contains. Still we may feel some security
as to the sequence, if not the exact dates, of the great divisions in
Indian religious literature such as the period of the Vedic hymns, the
period of the Brahmanas, the rise of Buddhism, the composition of the
two great epics, and the Puranas. If we follow the opinion of most
authorities and accept the picture of Indian life and thought contained
in the Pali Tripitaka as in the main historical, it seems to follow that
both the ritual system of the Brahmanas and the philosophic speculations
of the Upanishads were in existence by 500 B.C.[140] and sufficiently
developed to impress the public mind with a sense of their futility.
Some interval of mental growth seems to separate the Upanishads from the
Brahmanas and a more decided interval separates the Brahmanas from the
earlier hymns of the Rig Veda, if not from the compilation of the whole
collection[141]. We may hence say that the older Upanishads and
Brahmanas must have been composed between 800 and 500 B.C. and the hymns
of the Rig Veda hardly later than 1000 B.C. Many authorities think the
earlier hymns must date from 2000 rather than 1000 B.C. but the
resemblance of the Rig Veda to the Zoroastrian Gathas (which are
generally regarded as considerably later than 1000 B.C.) is plain, and
it will be strange if the two collections prove to be separated by an
interval of many centuries. But the stage of social and religious
culture indicated in the Vedic hymns may have begun long before they
were composed, and rites and deities common to Indians and Iranians
existed before the reforms of Zoroaster[142].

It may seem that everything is uncertain in this literature without
dates or authors and that the growth of religion in India cannot be
scientifically studied. The difficulties are indeed considerable but
they are materially reduced by the veneration in which the ancient
scriptures were held, and by the retentiveness of memory and devotion to
grammar, if not to history, which have characterized the Brahmans for at
least twenty-five centuries. The authenticity of certain Vedic texts is
guaranteed not only by the quotations found in later works, but by
treatises on phonetics, grammar and versification as well as by indices
which give the number of words in every book, chapter and verse. We may
be sure that we possess not perhaps the exact words of the Vedic poets,
but what were believed about 600 B.C. to be their exact words, and there
is no reason to doubt that this is a substantially correct version of
the hymns as recited several centuries earlier[143].

In drawing any deductions from the hymns of the Rig Veda it must be
remembered that it is the manual of the Hotri priests[144]. This does
not affect the age or character of the single pieces: they may have been
composed at very different dates and they are not arranged in the order
in which the priest recites them. But the liturgical character of the
compilation does somewhat qualify its title to give a complete picture
of religion. One could not throw doubt on a ceremony of the Church,
still less on a popular custom, because it was not mentioned in the
missal, and we cannot assume that ideas or usages not mentioned in the
Rig Veda did not exist at the time when it was composed.

We have no other Sanskrit writings contemporary with the older parts of
the Rig Veda, but the roots of epic poetry stretch far back and ballads
may be as old as hymns, though they neither sought nor obtained the
official sanction of the priesthood. Side by side with Vedic tradition,
unrecorded Epic tradition built up the figures of Siva, Rama and Krishna
which astonish us by their sudden appearance in later literature only
because their earlier phases have not been preserved.

The Vedic hymns were probably collected and arranged between 1000 and
500 B.C. At that period rites and ceremonies multiplied and absorbed
man's mind to a degree unparalleled in the history of the world and
literature occupied itself with the description or discussion of this
dreary ceremonial. Buddhism was a protest against the necessity of
sacrifices and, though Buddhism decayed in India, the sacrificial system
never recovered from the attack and assumed comparatively modest
proportions. But in an earlier period, after the composition of the
Vedic hymns and before the predominance of speculation, skill in
ceremonial was regarded as the highest and indeed only science and the
ancient prayers and poems of the race were arranged in three collections
to suit the ritual. These were the Rig Veda, containing metrical
prayers: the Yajur Veda (in an old and new recension known as the Black
and the White) containing formulae mainly in prose to be muttered during
the course of the sacrifice: and the Sama Veda, a book of chants,
consisting almost entirely of verses taken from the Rig Veda and
arranged for singing. The Rig Veda is clearly older than the others: its
elements are anterior to the Brahmanic liturgy and are arranged in less
complete subservience to it than in the Yajur and Sama Vedas.

The restriction of the words Veda and Vedic to the collection of hymns,
though convenient, is not in accordance with Indian usage, which applies
the name to a much larger body of religious literature. What we call the
Rig Veda is strictly speaking the mantras of the Rig Veda or the
Rig-Veda-Samhita: besides this, there are the Brahmanas or ceremonial
treatises, the Aranyakas and Upanishads containing philosophy and
speculation, the Sutras or aphoristic rules, all comprised in the Veda
or Sruti (hearing), that is the revelation heard directly by saints as
opposed to Smriti (remembering) or tradition starting from human
teachers. Modern Hindus when not influenced by the language of European
scholars apply the word Veda especially to the Upanishads.

For some time only three[145] Vedas were accepted. But the Epics and the
Puranas know of the fourfold Veda and place the Atharva Veda on a level
with the other three. It was the manual of two ancient priestly
families, the Atharvans and Angirasas, whose speciality was charms and
prophylactics rather than the performance of the regular sacrifices. The
hymns and magic songs which it contains were probably collected
subsequently to the composition of the Brahmanas, but the separate poems
are older and, so far as can be judged from their language, are
intermediate between the Rig Veda and the Brahmanas. But the substance
of many of the spells must be older still, since the incantations
prescribed show a remarkable similarity to old German, Russian and
Lettish charms. The Atharva also contains speculative poems and, if it
has not the freshness of the Rig Veda, is most valuable for the history
of Indian thought and civilization.

I will not here enquire what was the original home of the Aryans or
whether the resemblances shown by Aryan languages justify us in
believing that the ancestors of the Hindus, Greeks, Kelts, Slavs, etc.,
belonged to a single race and physical type. The grounds for such a
belief seem to me doubtful. But a comparison of language, religion and
customs makes it probable that the ancestors of the Iranians and Hindus
dwelt together in some region lying to the north of India and then, in
descending southwards, parted company and wandered, one band westwards
to Persia and the other to the Panjab and south-east[146]. These latter
produced the poets of the Rig Veda. Their home is indicated by their
acquaintance with the Himalayas, the Kabul river, the Indus and rivers
of the Panjab, and the Jamna. The Ganges, though known, apparently lay
beyond their sphere, but the geography of the Atharva extends as far as
Benares and implies a practical knowledge of the sea, which is spoken of
somewhat vaguely in the Rig Veda. It is probable that the oldest hymns
were composed among the rivers of the Panjab, but the majority somewhat
further to the east, in the district of Kurukshetra or Thanesar. At some
period subsequent to the Aryan immigration there was a great struggle
between two branches of the same stock, related in a legendary form as
the contest between the Kauravas and Pandavas. Some have thought that we
have here an indication of a second invasion composed of Aryans who
remained in the mountainous districts north of the Hindu Kush when the
first detachment moved south and who developed there somewhat different
customs. It is also possible that the Atharva Veda may represent the
religious ideas of these second invaders. In several passages the
Mahabharata speaks of the Atharva as the highest Veda and represents the
Pandavas as practising polyandry, a custom which still prevails among
many Himalayan tribes.

The Rig Veda depicts a life not far advanced in material arts but,
considering the date, humane and civilized. There were no towns but
merely villages and fortified enclosures to be used as refuges in case
of necessity. The general tone of the hymns is kindly and healthy; many
of them indeed have more robust piety than interest. There are few
indications of barbarous customs. The general impression is of a free
and joyous life in which the principal actors are chiefs and priests,
though neither have become tyrannical.

The composition of this anthology probably extended over several
centuries and comprised a period of lively mental growth. It is
therefore natural that it should represent stages of religious
development which are not contemporaneous. But though thought is active
and exuberant in these poems they are not altogether an intellectual
outburst excited by the successful advance into India. The calm of
settlement as well as the fire of conquest have left their mark on them
and during the period of composition religion grew more boldly
speculative but also more sedentary, formal and meticulous. The earliest
hymns bear traces of quasi-nomadic life, but the writers are no longer
nomads. They follow agriculture as well as pasturage, but they are still
contending with the aborigines: still expanding and moving on. They
mention no states or capitals: they revere rivers and mountains but have
no shrines to serve as religious centres, as repositories and factories
of tradition. Legends and precepts have of course come down from earlier
generations, but are not very definite or cogent: the stories of ancient
sages and warriors are vague and wanting in individual colour.

2

The absence of sculpture and painting explains much in the character of
the Vedic deities. The hymn-writers were devout and imaginative, not
content to revere some undescribed being in the sky, but full of
mythology, metaphor and poetry and continually singling out new powers
for worship. Among many races the conceptions thus evolved acquire
solidity and permanence by the aid of art. An image stereotypes a deity,
worshippers from other districts can see it and it remains from
generation to generation as a conservative and unifying force. Even a
stone may have something of the same effect, for it connects the deity
with the events, rites and ideas of a locality. But the earliest stratum
of Vedic religion is worship of the powers of nature--such as the Sun,
the Sky, the Dawn, the Fire--which are personified but not localized or
depicted. Their attributes do not depend at all on art, not much on
local or tribal custom but chiefly on imagination and poetry, and as
this poetry was not united in one collection until a later period, a
bard was under no obligation to conform to the standards of his fellows
and probably many bards sang without knowing of one another's existence.

Such a figure as Agni or Fire--if one can call him a figure--illustrates
the fluid and intangible character of Vedic divinities. He is one of the
greatest in the Pantheon, and in some ways his godhead is strongly
marked. He blesses, protects, preserves, and inspires: he is a divine
priest and messenger between gods and men: he "knows all generations."
Yet we cannot give any definite account of him such as could be drawn up
for a Greek deity. He is not a god of fire, like Vulcan, but the Fire
itself regarded as divine. The descriptions of his appearance are not
really anthropomorphic but metaphorical imagery depicting shining,
streaming flames. The hymns tell us that he has a tawny beard and hair:
a flaming head or three heads: three tongues or seven: four eyes or a
thousand. One poem says that he faces in all directions: another that he
is footless and headless. He is called the son of Heaven and Earth, of
Tvashtri and the Waters, of the Dawn, of Indra-Vishnu. One singer says
that the gods generated him to be a light for the Aryans, another that
he is the father of the gods. This multiple origin becomes more definite
in the theory of Agni's three births: he is born on earth from the
friction of fire sticks, in the clouds as lightning, and in the highest
heavens as the Sun or celestial light. In virtue of this triple birth he
assumes a triune character: his heads, tongues, bodies and dwellings are
three, and this threefold nature has perhaps something to do with the
triads of deities which become frequent later and finally develop into
the Trimurti or Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. But there is nothing fixed or
dogmatic in this idea of Agni's three births. In other texts he is said
to have two, one in Heaven and one on Earth, and yet another turn of
fancy ascribes to him births innumerable because he is kindled on many
hearths. Some of the epithets applied to him become quasi-independent.
For instance, Agni Vaisvanara--All men's fire--and Agni Tanunapat, which
seems to mean son of himself, or fire spontaneously generated, are in a
later period treated almost as separate deities. Matarisvan is sometimes
a name of Agni and sometimes a separate deity who brings Agni to
mankind.

In the same way the Rig Veda has not one but many solar deities. Mitra,
Surya, Savitri, and perhaps Pusan, Bhaga, Vivasvat and Vishnu, are all
loose personifications of certain functions or epithets of the sun.
Deities are often thought of in classes. Thus we have the Maruts, Rudras
and Vasus. We hear of Prajapati in the singular, but also of the
Prajapatis or creative forces.

Not only does Agni tend to be regarded as more than one: he is
identified with other gods. We are told he is Varuna and Mitra, Savitri
and Indra. "Thou art Varuna when born," says one hymn, "thou becomest
Mitra when kindled. In thee, O son of strength, are all the gods[147]."
Such identifications are common in the Vedas. Philosophically, they are
an early manifestation of the mental bias which leads to pantheism,
metempsychosis, and the feeling that all things and persons are
transitory and partial aspects of the one reality. But evidently the
mutability of the Vedic gods is also due to their nature: they are
bundles of epithets and functions without much personal or local centre.
And these epithets and functions are to a large extent, the same. All
the gods are bright and swift and helpful: all love sacrifices and
bestow wealth, sons and cows. A figure like Agni enables us to
understand the many-sided, inconsistent presentment of Siva and Vishnu
in later times. A richer mythology surrounds them but in the fluidity of
their outline, their mutability and their readiness to absorb or become
all other deities they follow the old lines. Even a deity like Ganesa
who seems at first sight modern and definite illustrates these ancient
characteristics. He has one or five heads and from four to sixteen arms:
there are half a dozen strange stories of his birth and wonderful
allegories describing his adventures. Yet he is also identified with all
the Gods and declared to be the creator, preserver and destroyer of the
Universe, nay the Supreme Spirit itself[148].

In Soma, the sacred plant whose juice was offered in the most solemn
sacrifices, we again find the combination of natural phenomena and
divinity with hardly any personification. Soma is not a sacred tree
inhabited by some spirit of the woods but the Lord of immortality who
can place his worshippers in the land of eternal life and light. Some of
the finest and most spiritual of the Vedic hymns are addressed to him
and yet it is hard to say whether they are addressed to a person or a
beverage. The personification is not much more than when French writers
call absinthe "La fee aux yeux verts." Later, Soma was identified with
the moon, perhaps because the juice was bright and shining. On the other
hand Soma worship is connected with a very ancient but persistent form
of animism, for the Vedic poets celebrate as immortal the stones under
which the plant is pressed and beg them to bestow wealth and children.
Just so at the present day agricultural and other implements receive the
salutations and prayers of those who use them. They are not gods in any
ordinary sense but they are potent forces.

But some Vedic deities are drawn more distinctly, particularly Indra,
who having more character has also lasted longer than most of his
fellows, partly because he was taken over by Buddhism and enrolled in
the retinue of the Buddha. He appears to have been originally a god of
thunder, a phenomenon which lends itself to anthropomorphic treatment.
As an atmospheric deity, he conquers various powers of evil,
particularly Vritra, the demon of drought. The Vedas know of evil
spirits against whom the gods wage successful war but they have no
single personification of evil in general, like our devil, and few
malevolent deities. Of these latter Rudra, the prototype of Siva, is the
most important but he is not wholly malevolent for he is the god of
healing and can take away sickness as well as cause it. Indian thought
is not inclined to dualism, which is perhaps the outcome of a practical
mind desiring a certain course and seeing everywhere the difficulties
which the Evil One puts in the way of it, but rather to that pantheism
which tends to subsume both good and evil under a higher unity.

Indra was the tutelary deity of the invading Aryans. His principles
would delight a European settler in Africa. He protects the Aryan colour
and subjects the black skin: he gave land to the Aryans and made the
Dasyus (aborigines) subject to them: he dispersed fifty thousand of the
black race and rent their citadels[149]. Some of the events with which
he is connected, such as the battles of King Sudas, may have a
historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size
and vigour and of gross passions. He feasts on the flesh of bulls and
buffaloes roasted by hundreds, his potations are counted in terms of
lakes, and not only nerve him for the fray but also intoxicate him[150].
Under the name of Sakka, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sutras,
and seems to have been the chief popular deity in the Buddha's lifetime.
He was adopted into the new creed as a sort of archangel and heavenly
defender of the faith. In the epics he is still a mighty deity and the
lord of paradise. Happiness in his heaven is the reward of the pious
warrior after death. The Mahabharata and the Puranas, influenced perhaps
by Buddhism, speak of a series of Indras, each lasting for a cycle, but
superseded when a new heaven and earth appear. In modern Hinduism his
name is familiar though he does not receive much worship. Yet in spite
of his long pre-eminence there is no disposition to regard him as the
supreme and only god. Though the Rig Veda calls him the creator and
destroyer of all things[151], he is not God in our sense any more than
other deities are. He is the personification of strength and success,
but he is not sufficiently spiritual or mystical to hold and satisfy the
enquiring mind.

3

One of the most interesting and impressive of Vedic deities is Varuna,
often invoked with a more shadowy double called Mitra. No myths or
exploits are related of him but he is the omnipotent and omniscient
upholder of moral and physical law. He established earth and sky: he set
the sun in heaven and ordained the movements of the moon and stars: the
wind is his breath and by his law the heavens and earth are kept apart.
He perceives all that exists in heaven and earth or beyond, nor could a
man escape him though he fled beyond the sky. The winkings of men's eyes
are all numbered by him[152]: he knows all that man does or thinks. Sin
is the infringement of his ordinances and he binds sinners in fetters.
Hence they pray to him for release from sin and he is gracious to the
penitent. Whereas the other deities are mainly asked to bestow material
boons, the hymns addressed to Varuna contain petitions for forgiveness.
He dwells in heaven in a golden mansion. His throne is great and lofty
with a thousand columns and his abode has a thousand doors. From it he
looks down on the doings of men and the all-seeing sun comes to his
courts to report.