Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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The Vedantist philosopher, however, though he considers all souls as
emanations from God, does not believe that all of them will return into
God at death. Those only who have obtained a knowledge of God are rewarded
by absorption, but the rest continue to migrate from body to body so long
as they remain unqualified for the same. "The knower of God becomes God."
This union with the Deity is the total loss of personal identity, and is
the attainment of the highest bliss, in which are no grades and from which
is no return. This absorption comes not from good works or penances, for
these confine the soul and do not liberate it. "The confinement of fetters
is the same whether the chain be of gold or iron." "The knowledge which
realizes that everything is Brahm alone liberates the soul. It annuls the
effect both of our virtues and vices. We traverse thereby both merit and
demerit, the heart's knot is broken, all doubts are split, and all our
works perish. Only by perfect abstraction, not merely from the senses, but
also from the thinking intellect and by remaining in the knowing
intellect, does the devotee become identified with Brahm. He then remains
as pure glass when the shadow has left it. He lives destitute of passions
and affections. He lives sinless; for as water wets not the leaf of the
lotus, so sin touches not him who knows God." He stands in no further need
of virtue, for "of what use can be a winnowing fan when the sweet southern
wind is blowing." His meditations are of this sort: "I am Brahm, I am
life. I am everlasting, perfect, self-existent, undivided, joyful."

If therefore, according to this system, knowledge alone unites the soul to
God, the question comes, Of what use are acts of virtue, penances,
sacrifices, worship? The answer is, that they effect a happy
transmigration from the lower forms of bodily life to higher ones. They
do not accomplish the great end, which is absorption and escape from Maya,
but they prepare the way for it by causing one to be born in a higher
condition.

The second system of philosophy, the Sankhya of Kapila, is founded not on
one principle, like the Vedanta, but on two. According to the seventy
aphorisms, Nature is one of these principles. It is uncreated and eternal.
It is one, active, creating, non-intelligent. The other of the two
principles, also uncreated and eternal, is Soul, or rather Souls. Souls
are many, passive, not creative, intelligent, and in all things the
opposite to Nature. But from the union of the two all the visible universe
proceeds, according to the law of cause and effect.

God not being recognized in this system, it is often called atheism. Its
argument, to show that no one perfect being could create the universe, is
this. Desire implies want, or imperfection. Accordingly, if God desired to
create, he would be unable to do so; if he was able, he would not desire
to do it. In neither case, therefore, could God have created the universe.
The gods are spoken of by the usual names, Brahma, Indra, etc., but are
all finite beings, belonging to the order of human souls, though superior.

Every soul is clothed in two bodies,--the interior original body, the
individualizing force, which is eternal as itself and accompanies it
through all its migrations; and the material, secondary body, made of the
five elements, ether, air, fire, water, and earth. The original body is
subtile and spiritual. It is the office of Nature to liberate the Soul.
Nature is not what we perceive by the senses, but an invisible plastic
principle behind, which must be known by the intellect. As the Soul
ascends by goodness, it is freed by knowledge. The final result of this
emancipation is the certainty of non-existence,--"neither I am, nor is
aught mine, nor do I exist,"--which seems to be the same result as that of
Hegel, Being = Not-Being. Two or three of the aphorisms of the Karika are
as follows:--

"LIX. As a dancer, having exhibited herself to the spectator, desists
from the dance, so does Nature desist, having manifested herself to the
Soul."

"LX. Generous Nature, endued with qualities, does by manifold means
accomplish, without benefit (to herself), the wish of ungrateful Soul,
devoid of qualities."

"LXI. Nothing, in my opinion, is more gentle than Nature; once aware of
having been seen, she does not again expose herself to the gaze of
Soul."

"LXVI. Soul desists, because it has seen Nature. Nature desists,
because she has been seen. In their (mere) union there is no motive for
creation."

Accordingly, the result of knowledge is to put an end to creation, and to
leave the Soul emancipated from desire, from change, from the material
body, in a state which is Being, but not Existence (_esse,_ not
_existere_; Seyn, not Da-seyn).

This Sankhya philosophy becomes of great importance, when we consider that
it was the undoubted source of Buddhism. This doctrine which we have been
describing was the basis of Buddhism.[69]

M. Cousin has called it the sensualism of India,[70] but certainly without
propriety. It is as purely ideal a doctrine as that of the Vedas. Its two
eternal principles are both ideal. The plastic force which is one of them,
Kapila distinctly declares cannot be perceived by the senses.[71] Soul,
the other eternal and uncreated principle, who "is witness, solitary,
bystander, spectator, and passive,"[72] is not only spiritual itself, but
is clothed with a spiritual body, within the material body. In fact, the
Karika declares the material universe to be the result of the contact of
the Soul with Nature, and consists in chains with which Nature binds
herself, for the purpose (unconscious) of delivering the Soul. When by a
process of knowledge the Soul looks through these, and perceives the
ultimate principle beyond, the material universe ceases, and both Soul and
Nature are emancipated.[73]

One of the definitions of the Karika will call to mind the fourfold
division of the universe by the great thinker of the ninth century,
Erigena. In his work, [Greek: peri phuseos merismou] he asserts that there
is, (1.) A Nature which creates and is not created. (2.) A Nature which is
created and creates. (3.) A Nature which is created and does not create.
(4.) A Nature which neither creates nor is created. So Kapila (Karika, 3)
says, "Nature, the root of all things, is productive but not a production.
Seven principles are productions and productive. Sixteen are productions
but not productive. Soul is neither a production nor productive."

Mr. Muir (Sanskrit Texts, Part III. p. 96) quotes the following passages
in proof of the antiquity of Kapila, and the respect paid to his doctrine
in very early times:--

_Svet. Upanishad._ "The God who superintends every mode of production
and all forms, who formerly nourished with various knowledge his son
Kapila the rishi, and beheld him at his birth."

"_Bhagavat Purana_ (I. 3, 10) makes Kapila an incarnation of Vischnu.
In his fifth incarnation, in the form of Kapila, he declared to Asuri
the Sankhya which defines the collection of principles.

"_Bhagavat Purana_ (IX. 8, 12) relates that Kapila, being attacked by
the sons of King Sangara, destroyed them with fire which issued from
his body. But the author of the Purana denies that this was done in
_anger_. 'How could the sage, by whom the strong ship of the Sankhya
was launched, on which the man seeking emancipation crosses the ocean
of existence, entertain the distinction of friend and foe'?"

The Sankhya system is also frequently mentioned in the Mahabarata.

The Nyaya system differs from that of Kapila, by assuming a third eternal
and indestructible principle as the basis of matter, namely, _Atoms_. It
also assumes the existence of a Supreme Soul, Brahma, who is almighty and
allwise. It agrees with Kapila in making all souls eternal, and distinct
from body. Its evil to be overcome is the same, namely, transmigration;
and its method of release is the same, namely _Buddhi_, or knowledge. It
is a more dialectic system than the others, and is rather of the nature of
a logic than a philosophy.

Mr. Banerjea, in his Dialogues on the Hindu philosophy, considers the
Buddhists' system as closely resembling the Nyaya system. He regards the
Buddhist Nirvana as equivalent to the emancipation of the Nyaya system.
Apavarga, or emancipation, is declared in this philosophy to be final
deliverance from pain, birth, activity, fault, and false notions. Even so
the Pali doctrinal books speak of Nirvana as an exemption from old age,
disease, and death. In it desire, anger, and ignorance are consumed by the
fire of knowledge. Here all selfish distinctions of mine and thine, all
evil thoughts, all slander and jealousy, are cut down by the weapon of
knowledge. Here we have an experience of immortality which is cessation of
all trouble and perfect felicity.[74]

Sec. 7. Origin of the Hindoo Triad.

There had gradually grown up among the people a worship founded on that of
the ancient Vedas. In the West of India, the god RUDRA, mentioned in the
Vedic hymns, had been transformed into Siva. In the Rig-Veda Rudra is
sometimes the name for Agni.[75] He is described as father of the winds.
He is the same as Maha-deva. He is fierce and beneficent at once. He
presides over medicinal plants. According to Weber (Indische Stud., II.
19) he is the Storm-God. The same view is taken by Professor Whitney.[76]
But his worship gradually extended, until, under the name of Siva, the
Destroyer, he became one of the principal deities of India. Meantime, in
the valley of the Ganges, a similar devotion had grown up for the Vedic
god VISCHNU, who in like manner had been promoted to the chief rank in the
Hindoo Pantheon. He had been elevated to the character of a Friend and
Protector, gifted with mild attributes, and worshipped as the life of
Nature. By accepting the popular worship, the Brahmans were able to oppose
Buddhism with success.

We have no doubt that the Hindoo Triad came from the effort of the
Brahmans to unite all India in one worship, and it may for a time have
succeeded. Images of the Trimurtti, or three-faced God, are frequent in
India, and this is still the object of Brahmanical worship. But beside
this practical motive, the tendency of thought is always toward a triad of
law, force, or elemental substance, as the best explanation of the
universe. Hence there have been Triads in so many religions: in Egypt, of
_Osiris_ the Creator, _Typhon_ the Destroyer, and _Horus_ the Preserver;
in Persia, of _Ormazd_ the Creator, _Ahriman_ the Destroyer, and _Mithra_
the Restorer; in Buddhism, of _Buddha_ the Divine Man, _Dharmma_ the Word,
and _Sangha_ the Communion of Saints. Simple monotheism does not long
satisfy the speculative intellect, because, though it accounts for the
harmonies of creation, it leaves its discords unexplained. But a dualism
of opposing forces is found still more unsatisfactory, for the world does
not appear to be such a scene of utter warfare and discord as this. So the
mind comes to accept a Triad, in which the unities of life and growth
proceed from one element, the antagonisms from a second, and the higher
harmonies of reconciled oppositions from a third. The Brahmanical Triad
arose in the same way.[77]

Thus grew up, from amid the spiritual pantheism into which all Hindoo
religion seemed to have settled, another system, that of the Trimurtti, or
Divine Triad; the Indian Trinity of _Brahma, Vischnu_, and _Siva_. This
Triad expresses the unity of Creation, Destruction, and Restoration. A
foundation for this already existed in a Vedic saying, that the highest
being exists in three states, that of creation, continuance, and
destruction.

Neither of these three supreme deities of Brahmanism held any high rank in
the Vedas. Siva (Civa) does not appear therein at all, nor, according to
Lassen, is Brahma mentioned in the Vedic hymns, but first in a Upanishad.
Vischnu is spoken of in the Rig-Veda, but always as one of the names for
the sun. He is the Sun-God. His three steps are sunrise, noon, and sunset.
He is mentioned as one of the sons of Aditi; he is called the
"wide-stepping," "measurer of the world," "the strong," "the deliverer,"
"renewer of life," "who sets in motion the revolutions of time," "a
protector," "preserving the highest heaven." Evidently he begins his
career in this mythology as the sun.

BRAHMA, at first a word meaning prayer and devotion, becomes in the laws
of Manu the primal God, first-born of the creation, from the self-existent
being, in the form of a golden egg. He became the creator of all things by
the power of prayer. In the struggle for ascendency which took place
between the priests and the warriors, Brahma naturally became the deity of
the former. But, meantime, as we have seen, the worship of Vischnu had
been extending itself in one region and that of Siva in another. Then took
place those mysterious wars between the kings of the Solar and Lunar
races, of which the great epics contain all that we know. And at the close
of these wars a compromise was apparently accepted, by which Brahma,
Vischnu, and Siva were united in one supreme God, as creator, preserver,
and destroyer, all in one.

It is almost certain that this Hindoo Triad was the result of an ingenious
and successful attempt, on the part of the Brahmans, to unite all classes
of worshippers in India against the Buddhists. In this sense the Brahmans
edited anew the Mahabharata, inserting in that epic passages extolling
Vischnu in the form of Krishna. The Greek accounts of India which followed
the invasion of Alexander speak of the worship of Hercules as prevalent
in the East, and by Hercules they apparently mean the god Krishna.[78]
The struggle between the Brahmans and Buddhists lasted during nine
centuries (from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1400), ending with the total expulsion of
Buddhism, and the triumphant establishment of the Triad, as the worship of
India.[79]

Before this Triad or Trimurtti (of Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva) there seems
to have been another, consisting of Agni, Indra, and Surya.[80] This may
have given the hint of the second Triad, which distributed among the three
gods the attributes of Creation, Destruction, and Renovation. Of these
Brahma, the Creator, ceased soon to be popular, and the worship of Siva
and Vischnu as Krishna remain as the popular religion of India.

One part, and a very curious one, of the worship of Vischnu is the
doctrine of the Avatars, or incarnations of that deity. There are ten of
these Avatars,--nine have passed and one is to come. The object of Vischnu
is, each time, to save the gods from destruction impending over them in
consequence of the immense power acquired by some king, giant, or demon,
by superior acts of austerity and piety. For here, as elsewhere, extreme
spiritualism is often divorced from morality; and so these extremely
pious, spiritual, and self-denying giants are the most cruel and
tyrannical monsters, who must be destroyed at all hazards. Vischnu, by
force or fraud, overcomes them all.

His first Avatar is of the Fish, as related in the Mahabharata. The object
was to recover the Vedas, which had been stolen by a demon from Brahma
when asleep. In consequence of this loss the human race became corrupt,
and were destroyed by a deluge, except a pious prince and seven holy men
who were saved in a ship. Vischnu, as a large fish, drew the ship safely
over the water, killed the demon, and recovered the Vedas. The second
Avatar was in a Turtle, to make the drink of immortality. The third was in
a Boar, the fourth in a Man-Lion, the fifth in the Dwarf who deceived
Bali, who had become so powerful by austerities as to conquer the gods
and take possession of Heaven. In the eighth Avatar he appears as Krishna
and in the ninth as Buddha.

This system of Avatars is so peculiar and so deeply rooted in the system,
that it would seem to indicate some law of Hindoo thought. Perhaps some
explanation may be reached thus:--

We observe that,--

Vischnu does not mediate between Brahma and Siva, but between the deities
and the lower races of men or demons.

The danger arises from a certain fate or necessity which is superior both
to gods and men. There are laws which enable a man to get away from the
power of Brahma and Siva.

But what is this necessity but nature, or the nature of things, the laws
of the outward world of active existences? It is not till essence becomes
existence, till spirit passes into action, that it becomes subject to law.

The danger then is from the world of nature. The gods are pure spirit, and
spirit is everything. But, now and then, nature _seems to be something_,
it will not be ignored or lost in God. Personality, activity, or human
nature rebel against the pantheistic idealism, the abstract spiritualism
of this system.

To conquer body, Vischnu or spirit enters into body, again and again.
Spirit must appear as body to destroy Nature. For thus is shown that
spirit cannot be excluded from anything,--that it can descend into the
lowest forms of life, and work _in_ law as well as above law.

But all the efforts of Brahmanism could not arrest the natural development
of the system. It passed on into polytheism and idolatry. The worship of
India for many centuries has been divided into a multitude of sects. While
the majority of the Brahmans still profess to recognize the equal divinity
of Brahma, Vischnu, and Siva, the mass of the people worship Krishna,
Rama, the Lingam, and many other gods and idols. There are Hindoo atheists
who revile the Vedas; there are the Kabirs, who are a sort of Hindoo
Quakers, and oppose all worship; the _Ramanujas_, an ancient sect of
Vischnu worshippers; the _Ramavats_, living in monasteries; the _Panthis_,
who oppose all austerities; the _Maharajas_, whose religion consists with
great licentiousness. Most of these are worshippers of Vischnu or of Siva,
for Brahma-worship has wholly disappeared.

Sec. 8. The Epics, the Puranas, and modern Hindoo Worship.

The Hindoos have two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, each
of immense length, and very popular with the people. Mr. Talboys Wheeler
has recently incorporated both epics (of course much abridged) into his
History of India, and we must refer our readers to his work for a
knowledge of these remarkable poems. The whole life of ancient India
appears in them, and certainly they are not unworthy products of the
genius of that great nation.

According to Lassen,[81] the period to which the great Indian epics refer
follows directly on the Vedic age. Yet they contain passages inserted at a
much later epoch, probably, indeed, as long after as the war which ended
in the expulsion of the Buddhists from India.[82] Mr. Talboys Wheeler
considers the war of Rama and the Monkeys against Ravana to refer to this
conflict, and so makes the Ramayana later than the Mahabharata. The
majority of writers, however, differ from him on this point. The writers
of the Mahabharata were evidently Brahmans, educated under the laws of
Manu.[83] But it is very difficult to fix the date of either poem with any
approach to accuracy. Lassen has proved that the greater part of the
Mahabharata was written before the political establishment of
Buddhism.[84] These epics were originally transmitted by oral tradition.
They must have been brought to their present forms by Brahmans, for their
doctrine is that of this priesthood. Now if such poems had been composed
after the time of Asoka, when Buddhism became a state religion in India,
it must have been often referred to. No such references appear in these
epics, except in some solitary passages, which are evidently modern
additions.[85] Hence the epics must have been composed before the time of
Buddhism. This argument of Lassen's is thought by Max Mueller to be
conclusive, and if so it disproves Mr. Talboys Wheeler's view of the
purpose of the Ramayana.

Few Hindoos now read the Vedas. The Puranas and the two great epics
constitute their sacred books. The Ramayana contains about fifty thousand
lines, and is held in great veneration by the Hindoos. It describes the
youth of Rama, who is an incarnation of Vischnu, his banishment and
residence in Central India, and his war with the giants and demons of the
South, to recover his wife, Sita. It probably is founded on some real war
between the early Aryan invaders of Hindostan and the indigenous
inhabitants.

The Mahabharata, which is probably of later date, contains about two
hundred and twenty thousand lines, and is divided into eighteen books,
each of which would make a large volume. It is supposed to have been
collected by Vyasa, who also collected the Vedas and Puranas. These
legends are very old, and seem to refer to the early history of India.
There appear to have been two Aryan dynasties in ancient India,--the Solar
and Lunar. Rama belonged to the first and Bharata to the second. Pandu, a
descendant of the last, has five brave sons, who are the heroes of this
book. One of them, Arjuna, is especially distinguished. One of the
episodes is the famous Bhagavat-gita. Another is called the Brahman's
Lament. Another describes the deluge, showing the tradition of a flood
existing in India many centuries before Christ. Another gives the story of
Savitri and Satyavan. These episodes occupy three fourths of the poem, and
from them are derived most of the legends of the Puranas. A supplement,
which is itself a longer poem than the Iliad and Odyssey combined (which
together contain about thirty thousand lines), is the source of the modern
worship of Krishna. The whole poem represents the multilateral character
of Hinduism. It indicates a higher degree of civilization than that of the
Homeric poems, and describes a vast variety of fruits and flowers existing
under culture. The characters are nobler and purer than those of Homer.
The pictures of domestic and social life are very touching; children are
dutiful to their parents, parents careful of their children; wives are
loyal and obedient, yet independent in their opinions; and peace reigns in
the domestic circle.

The different works known as the Puranas are derived from the same
religious system as the two epics. They repeat the cosmogony of the poems,
and they relate more fully their mythological legends. Siva and Vischnu
are almost the sole objects of worship in the Puranas. There is a
sectarian element in their devotion to these deities which shows their
partiality, and prevents them from being authorities for Hindoo belief as
a whole.[86]

The Puranas, in their original form, belong to a period, says Mr. Wilson,
a century before the Christian era. They grew out of the conflict between
Buddhism and Brahmanism. The latter system had offered no personal gods to
the people and given them no outward worship, and the masses had been
uninterested in the abstract view of Deity held by the Brahmans.[87]

According to Mr. Wilson,[88] there are eighteen Puranas which are now read
by the common people. They are read a great deal by women. Some are very
ancient, or at least contain fragments of more ancient Puranas. The very
word signifies "antiquity." Most of them are devoted to the worship of
Vischnu. According to the Bhagavat Purana,[89] the only reasonable object
of life is to meditate on Vischnu. Brahma, who is called in one place
"the cause of causes," proclaims Vischnu to be the only pure absolute
essence, of which the universe is the manifestation. In the Vischnu
Purana, Brahma, at the head of the gods, adores Vischnu as the Supreme
Being whom he himself cannot understand.

The power of ascetic penances is highly extolled in the Puranas, as also
in the epics. In the Bhagavat it is said that Brahma, by a penitence of
sixteen thousand years, created the universe. It is even told in the
Ramayana, that a sage of a lower caste became a Brahman by dint of
austerities, in spite of the gods who considered such a confusion of
castes a breach of Hindoo etiquette.[90] To prevent him from continuing
his devotions, they sent a beautiful nymph to tempt him, and their
daughter was the famous Sakuntala. But in the end, the obstinate old
ascetic conquered the gods, and when they still refused to Brahmanize him,
he began to create new heavens and new gods, and had already made a few
stars, when the deities thought it prudent to yield, and allowed him to
become a Brahman. It is also mentioned that the Ganges, the sacred river,
in the course of her wanderings, overflowed the sacrificial ground of
another powerful ascetic, who incontinently drank up, in his anger, all
its waters, but was finally induced by the persuasions of the gods to set
the river free again by discharging it from his ears. Such were the freaks
of sages in the times of the Puranas.

Never was there a more complete example of piety divorced from morality
than in these theories. The most wicked demons acquire power over gods and
men, by devout asceticism. This principle is already fully developed in
the epic poems. The plot of the Ramayana turns around this idea. A Rajah,
Ravana, had become so powerful by sacrifice and devotion, that he
oppressed the gods; compelled Yama (or Death) to retire from his
dominions; compelled the sun to shine there all the year, and the moon to
be always full above his Raj. Agni (Fire) must not burn in his presence;
the Maruts (Winds) must blow only as he wishes. He cannot be hurt by gods
or demons. So Vischnu becomes incarnate as Rama and the gods become
incarnate as Monkeys, in order to destroy him. Such vast power was
supposed to be attained by piety without morality.