Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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"Thou, who art a blessing where thou art near, drive far away the
unfriendly; make the pastures wide, give us safety! Remove the haters,
bring treasures! Raise wealth to the worshipper, thou mighty Dawn.

"Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who
lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us food, who
givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots.

"Thou, daughter of the sky, thou high-born Dawn, whom the Vasishthas
magnify with songs, give us riches high and wide: all ye gods, protect
us always with your blessings!"

"This hymn, addressed to the Dawn, is a fair specimen of the original
simple poetry of the Veda. It has no reference to any special sacrifice,
it contains no technical expressions, it can hardly be called a hymn, in
our sense of the word. It is simply a poem expressing, without any effort,
without any display of far-fetched thought or brilliant imagery, the
feelings of a man who has watched the approach of the Dawn with mingled
delight and awe, and who was moved to give utterance to what he felt in
measured language."[44]

"But there is a charm in these primitive strains discoverable in no other
class of poetry. Every word retains something of its radical meaning,
every epithet tells, every thought, in spite of the most intricate and
abrupt expressions, is, if we once disentangle it, true, correct, and
complete."[45]

The Vedic literature is divided by Muller into four periods, namely, those
of the Chhandas, Mantra, Brahmana, and Sutras. The Chhandas period
contains the oldest hymns of the oldest, or Rig-Veda. To that of the
Mantras belong the later hymns of the same Veda. But the most modern of
these are older than the Brahmanas. The Brahmanas contain theology; the
older Mantras are liturgic. Mueller says that the Brahmanas, though so very
ancient, are full of pedantry, shallow and insipid grandiloquence and
priestly conceit. Next to these, in the order of time, are the Upanishads.
These are philosophical, and almost the only part of the Vedas which are
read at the present time. They are believed to contain the highest
authority for the different philosophical systems, of which we shall speak
hereafter. Their authors are unknown. More modern than these are the
Sutras. The word "Sutra" means _string_, and they consist of a string of
short sentences. Conciseness is the aim in this style, and every doctrine
is reduced to a skeleton. The numerous Sutras now extant contain the
distilled essence of all the knowledge which the Brahmans have collected
during centuries of meditation. They belong to the non-revealed
literature, as distinguished from the revealed literature,--a distinction
made by the Brahmans before the time of Buddha. At the time of the
Buddhist controversy the Sutras were admitted to be of human origin and
were consequently recent works. The distinction between the Sutras and
Brahmanas is very marked, the second being revealed. The Brahmanas were
composed by and for Brahmans and are in three collections. The Vedangas
are intermediate between the Vedic and non-Vedic literature. Panini, the
grammarian of India, was said to be contemporary with King Nanda, who was
the successor of Chandragupta, the contemporary of Alexander, and
therefore in the second half of the fourth century before Christ. Dates
are so precarious in Indian literature, says Max Mueller, that a
confirmation within a century or two is not to be despised. Now the
grammarian Katyayana completed and corrected the grammar of Panini, and
Patanjeli wrote an immense commentary on the two which became so famous as
to be imported by royal authority into Cashmere, in the first half of the
first century of our era. Mueller considers the limits of the Sutra period
to extend from 600 B.C. to 200 B.C. Buddhism before Asoka was but modified
Brahmanism. The basis of Indian chronology is the date of Chandragupta.
All dates before his time are merely hypothetical. Several classical
writers speak of him as founding an empire on the Ganges soon after the
invasion of Alexander. He was grandfather of Asoka. Indian traditions
refer to this king.

Returning to the Brahmana period, we notice that between the Sutras and
Barahmanas come the Aranyakas, which are books written for the recluse. Of
these the Upanishads, before mentioned, form part. They presuppose the
existence of the Brahmanas.

Rammohun Roy was surprised that Dr. Rosen should have thought it worth
while to publish the hymns of the Veda, and considered the Upanishads the
only Vedic books worth reading. They speak of the divine SELF, of the
Eternal Word in the heavens from which the hymns came. The divine SELF
they say is not to be grasped by tradition, reason, or revelation, but
only by him whom he himself grasps. In the beginning was Self alone. Atman
is the SELF in all our selves,--the Divine Self concealed by his own
qualities. This Self they sometimes call the Undeveloped and sometimes the
Not-Being. There are ten of the old Upanishads, all of which have been
published. Anquetil Du Perron translated fifty into Latin out of Persian.

The Brahmanas are very numerous. Mueller gives stories from them and
legends. They relate to sacrifices, to the story of the deluge, and other
legends. They substituted these legends for the simple poetry of the
ancient Vedas. They must have extended over at least two hundred years,
and contained long lists of teachers.

Mueller supposes that writing was unknown when the Rig-Veda was composed.
The thousand and ten hymns of the Vedas contain no mention of writing or
books, any more than the Homeric poems. There is no allusion to writing
during the whole of the Brahmana period, nor even through the Sutra
period. This seems incredible to us, says Mueller, only because our memory
has been systematically debilitated by newspapers and the like during
many generations. It was the business of every Brahman to learn by heart
the Vedas during the twelve years of his student life. The Guru, or
teacher, pronounces a group of words, and the pupils repeat after him.
After writing was introduced, the Brahmans were strictly forbidden to read
the Vedas, or to write them. Caesar says the same of the Druids. Even
Panini never alludes to written words or letters. None of the ordinary
modern words for book, paper, ink, or writing have been found in any
ancient Sanskrit work. No such words as _volumen_, volume; _liber_, or
inner bark of a tree; _byblos_, inner bark of papyrus; or book, that is
beech wood. But Buddha had learnt to write, as we find by a book
translated into Chinese A.D. 76. In this book Buddha instructs his
teacher; as in the "Gospel of the Infancy" Jesus explains to his teacher
the meaning of the Hebrew alphabet. So Buddha tells his teacher the names
of sixty-four alphabets. The first authentic inscription in India is of
Buddhist origin, belonging to the third century before Christ.

In the most ancient Vedic period the language had become complete. There
is no growing language in the Vedas.

In regard to the age of these Vedic writings, we will quote the words of
Max Mueller, at the conclusion of his admirable work on the "History of
Ancient Sanskrit Literature," from which most of this section has been
taken:--

"Oriental scholars are frequently suspected of a desire to make the
literature of the Eastern nations appear more ancient than it is. As to
myself, I can truly say that nothing would be to me a more welcome
discovery, nothing would remove so many doubts and difficulties, as
some suggestions as to the manner in which certain of the Vedic hymns
could have been added to the original collection during the Brahmana or
Sutra periods, or, if possible, by the writers of our MSS., of which
most are not older than the fifteenth century. But these MSS., though
so modern, are checked by the Anukramanis. Every hymn which stands in
our MSS. is counted in the Index of Saunaka, who is anterior to the
invasion of Alexander. The Sutras, belonging to the same period as
Saunaka, prove the previous existence of every chapter of the
Brahmanas; and I doubt whether there is a single hymn in the Sanhita
of the Rig-Veda which could not be checked by some passage of the
Brahmanas and Sutras. The chronological limits assigned to the Sutra
and Brahmana periods will seem to most Sanskrit scholars too narrow
rather than too wide, and if we assign but two hundred years to the
Mantra period, from 800 to 1000 B.C., and an equal number to the
Chhandas period, from 1000 to 1200 B.C., we can do so only under the
supposition that during the early periods of history the growth of the
human mind was more luxuriant than in later times, and that the layers
of thought were formed less slowly in the primary than in the tertiary
ages of the world."

The Vedic age, according to Mueller, will then be as follows:--

Sutra period, from B.C. 200 to B.C. 600.
Brahmana period, " " 600 " 800.
Mantra period, " " 800 " 1000.
Chhandas period, " " 1000 " 1200.

Dr. Haug, a high authority, considers the Vedic period to extend from B.C.
1200 to B.C. 2000, and the very oldest hymns to have been composed B.C.
2400.

The principal deity in the oldest Vedas is Indra, God of the air. In Greek
he becomes Zeus; in Latin, Jupiter. The hymns to Indra are not unlike some
of the Psalms of the Old Testament. Indra is called upon as the most
ancient god whom the Fathers worshipped. Next to India comes Agni, fire,
derived from the root Ag, which means "to move."[46] Fire is worshipped as
the principle of motion on earth, as Indra was the moving power above. Not
only fire, but the forms of flame, are worshipped and all that belongs to
it. Entire nature is called Aditi, whose children are named Adityas. M.
Maury quotes these words from Gotama: "Aditi is heaven; Aditi is air;
Aditi is mother, father, and son; Aditi is all the gods and the five
races; Aditi is whatever is born and will be born; in short, the heavens
and the earth, the heavens being the father and the earth the mother of
all things." This reminds one of the Greek Zeus-pateer and Gee-meteer.
Varuna is the vault of heaven. Mitra is often associated with Varuna in
the Vedic hymns. Mitra is the sun, illuminating the day, while Varuna was
the sun with an obscure face going back in the darkness from west to east
to take his luminous disk again. From Mitra seems to be derived the
Persian Mithra. There are no invocations to the stars in the Veda. But the
Aurora, or Dawn, is the object of great admiration; also, the Aswins, or
twin gods, who in Greece become the Dioscuri. The god of storms is Rudra,
supposed by some writers to be the same as Siva. The two hostile worships
of Vishnu and Siva do not appear, however, till long after this time.
Vishnu appears frequently in the Veda, and his three steps are often
spoken of. These steps measure the heavens. But his real worship came much
later.

The religion of the Vedas was of odes and hymns, a religion of worship by
simple adoration. Sometimes there were prayers for temporal blessings,
sometimes simple sacrifices and libations. Human sacrifices have scarcely
left any trace of themselves if they ever existed, unless it be in a
typical ceremony reported in one of the Vedas.

Sec. 5. Second Period. Laws of Manu. The Brahmanic Age.

Long after the age of the elder Vedas Brahmanism begins. Its text-book is
the Laws of Manu.[47] As yet Vishnu and Siva are not known. The former is
named once, the latter not at all. The writer only knows three Vedas. The
Atharva-Veda is later. But as Siva is mentioned in the oldest Buddhist
writings, it follows that the laws of Manu are older than these. In the
time of Manu the Aryans are still living in the valley of the Ganges. The
caste system is now in full operation, and the authority of the Brahman is
raised to its highest point. The Indus and Punjaub are not mentioned; all
this is forgotten. This work could not be later than B.C. 700, or earlier
than B.C. 1200. It was probably written about B.C. 900 or B.C. 1000. In
this view agree Wilson, Lassen, Max Mueller, and Saint-Martin. The Supreme
Deity is now Brahma, and sacrifice is still the act by which one comes
into relation with heaven. Widow-burning is not mentioned in Manu; but it
appears in the Mahabharata, one of the great epics, which is therefore
later.

In the region of the Sarasvati, a holy river, which formerly emptied into
the Indus, but is now lost in a desert, the Aryan race of India was
transformed from nomads into a stable community.[48] There they received
their laws, and there their first cities were erected. There were founded
the Solar and Lunar monarchies.

The Manu of the Vedas and he of the Brahmans are very different persons.
The first is called in the Vedas the father of mankind. He also escapes
from a deluge by building a ship, which he is advised to do by a fish. He
preserves the fish, which grows to a great size, and when the flood comes
acts as a tow-boat to drag the ship of Manu to a mountain.[49] This
account is contained in a Brahmana.

The name of Manu seems afterward to have been given by the Brahmans to the
author of their code. Some extracts from this very interesting volume we
will now give, slightly abridged, from Sir William Jones's
translation.[50] From the first book, on Creation:--

"The universe existed in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable,
undiscoverable, and undiscovered; as if immersed in sleep."

"Then the self-existing power, undiscovered himself, but making the
world discernible, with the five elements and other principles,
appeared in undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom."

"He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the
external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity,
even he, the soul of all beings, shone forth in person.

"He having willed to produce various beings from his own divine
substance, first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them
a productive seed."

"The seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with
a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of
Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits.

"The waters are called Nara, because they were the production of Nara,
or the spirit of God; and hence they were his first ayana, or place of
motion; he hence is named Nara yana, or moving on the waters.

"In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator,
at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to
divide itself.

"And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth
beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions,
and the permanent receptacle of waters.

"From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially
though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the
reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the
ruler.

"And before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or
first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the
three qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness, and the five
perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation.

"Thus, having at once pervaded with emanations from the Supreme Spirit
the minutest portions of fixed principles immensely operative,
consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures.

"Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and
mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable cause of all
apparent forms.

"This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of
those seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first
emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from
immutable ideas.

"Of created things, the most excellent are those which are animated; of
the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent,
mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class.

"Of priests, those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who know
their duty; of those who know it, such as perform it virtuously; and of
the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with
scriptural doctrine.

"The very birth of Brahmans is a constant incarnation of Dharma, God of
justice; for the Brahman is born to promote justice, and to procure
ultimate happiness.

"When a Brahman springs to light, he is born above the world, the chief
of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of duties, religious
and civil.

"The Brahman who studies this book, having performed sacred rites, is
perpetually free from offence in thought, in word and in deed.

"He confers purity on his living family, on his ancestors, and on his
descendants as far as the seventh person, and he alone deserves to
possess this whole earth."

The following passages are from Book II., "On Education and the
Priesthood":--

"Self-love is no laudable motive, yet an exemption from self-love is
not to be found in this world: on self-love is grounded the study of
Scripture, and the practice of actions recommended in it.

"Eager desire to act has its root in expectation of some advantage; and
with such expectation are sacrifices performed; the rules of religious
austerity and abstinence from sins are all known to arise from hope of
remuneration.

"Not a single act here below appears ever to be done by a man free from
self-love; whatever he perform, it is wrought from his desire of a
reward.

"He, indeed, who should persist in discharging these duties without any
view to their fruit, would attain hereafter the state of the immortals,
and even in this life would enjoy all the virtuous gratifications that
his fancy could suggest.

"The most excellent of the three classes, being girt with the
sacrificial thread, must ask food with the respectful word Dhavati at
the beginning of the phrase; those of the second class with that word
in the middle; and those of the third with that word at the end.

"Let him first beg food of his mother, or of his sister, or of his
mother's whole sister; then of some other female who will not disgrace
him.

"Having collected as much of the desired food as he has occasion for,
and having presented it without guile to his preceptor, let him eat
some of it, being duly purified, with his face to the east.

"If he seek long life, he should eat with his face to the east; if
prosperity, to the west; if truth and its reward, to the north.

"When the student is going to read the Veda he must perform an
ablution, as the law ordains, with his face to the north; and having
paid scriptural homage, he must receive instruction, wearing a clean
vest, his members being duly composed.

"A Brahman beginning and ending a lecture on the Veda must always
pronounce to himself the syllable om; for unless the syllable om
precede, his learning will slip away from him; and unless it follow,
nothing will be long retained.

"A priest who shall know the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both
morning and evening, that syllable, and that holy text preceded by the
three words, shall attain the sanctity which the Veda confers.

"And a twice-born man, who shall a thousand times repeat those three
(or om, the vyahritis, and the gayatri) apart from the multitude, shall
be released in a month even from a great offence, as a snake from his
slough.

"The three great immutable words, preceded by the triliteral syllable,
and followed by the gayatri, which consists of three measures, must be
considered as the mouth, or principal part of the Veda.

"The triliteral monosyllable is an emblem of the Supreme; the
suppressions of breath, with a mind fixed on God, are the highest
devotion; but nothing is more exalted than the gayatri; a declaration
of truth is more excellent than silence.

"All rites ordained in the Veda, oblations to fire, and solemn
sacrifices pass away; but that which passes not away is declared to be
the syllable om, thence called acshara; since it is a symbol of God,
the Lord of created beings.

"The act of repeating his Holy Name is ten times better than the
appointed sacrifice; an hundred times better when it is heard by no
man; and a thousand times better when it is purely mental.

"To a man contaminated by sensuality, neither the Vedas, nor
liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious
austerities, ever procure felicity.

"As he who digs deep with a spade comes to a spring of water, so the
student, who humbly serves his teacher, attains the knowledge which
lies deep in his teacher's mind.

"If the sun should rise and set, while he sleeps through sensual
indulgence, and knows it not, he must fast a whole day repeating the
gayatri.

"Let him adore God both at sunrise and at sunset, as the law ordains,
having made his ablution, and keeping his organs controlled; and with
fixed attention let him repeat the text, which he ought to repeat in a
place free from impurity.

"The twice-born man who shall thus without intermission have passed the
time of his studentship shall ascend after death to the most exalted of
regions, and no more again spring to birth in this lower world."

The following passages are from Book IV., "On Private Morals":--

"Let a Brahman, having dwelt with a preceptor during the first quarter
of a man's life, pass the second quarter of human life in his own
house, when he has contracted a legal marriage.

"He must live with no injury, or with the least possible injury, to
animated beings, by pursuing those means of gaining subsistence, which
are strictly prescribed by law, except in times of distress.

"Let him say what is true, but let him say what is pleasing; let him
speak no disagreeable truth, nor let him speak agreeable falsehood;
this is a primeval rule.

"Let him say 'well and good,' or let him say 'well' only; but let him
not maintain fruitless enmity and altercation with any man.

"All that depends on another gives pain; and all that depends on
himself gives pleasure; let him know this to be in few words the
definition of pleasure and pain.

"And for whatever purpose a man bestows a gift, for a similar purpose
he shall receive, with due honor, a similar reward.

"Both he who respectfully bestows a present, and he who respectfully
accepts it, shall go to a seat of bliss; but, if they act otherwise, to
a region of horror.

"Let not a man be proud of his rigorous devotion; let him not, having
sacrificed, utter a falsehood; let him not, though injured, insult a
priest; having made a donation, let him never proclaim it.

"By falsehood the sacrifice becomes vain; by pride the merit of
devotion is lost; by insulting priests life is diminished; and by
proclaiming a largess its fruit is destroyed.

"For in his passage to the next world, neither his father, nor his
mother, nor his wife, nor his son, nor his kinsmen will remain his
company; his virtue alone will adhere to him.

"Single is each man born; single he dies; single he receives the reward
of his good, and single the punishment of his evil deeds."

From Book V., "On Diet":--

"The twice-born man who has intentionally eaten a mushroom, the flesh
of a tame hog, or a town cock, a leek, or an onion, or garlic, is
degraded immediately.

"But having undesignedly tasted either of those six things, he must
perform the penance santapana, or the chandrayana, which anchorites
practise; for other things he must fast a whole day.

"One of those harsh penances called prajapatya the twice-born man must
perform annually, to purify him from the unknown taint of illicit food;
but he must do particular penance for such food intentionally eaten.

"He who injures no animated creature shall attain without hardship
whatever he thinks of, whatever he strives for, whatever he fixes his
mind on.

"Flesh meat cannot be procured without injury to animals, and the
slaughter of animals obstructs the path to beatitude; from flesh meat,
therefore, let man abstain.

"Attentively considering the formation of bodies, and the death or
confinement of embodied spirits, let him abstain from eating flesh meat
of any kind.

"Not a mortal exists more sinful than he who, without an oblation to
the manes or the gods, desires to enlarge his own flesh with the flesh
of another creature.

"By subsisting on pure fruit and on roots, and by eating such grains as
are eaten by hermits, a man reaps not so high a reward as by carefully
abstaining from animal food.