See J.L.E. Dreyer’sTycho Brahe(Edinburgh, 1890), which gives full and authentic information regarding his life and work. Also Gassendi’sVita(Paris, 1654);Lebensbeschreibung, collected from various Danish sources, and translated into German by Philander von der Weistritz (Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1756);Tyge Brahe, by F.R. Friis (Copenhagen, 1871);Prager Tychoniana, collected by Dr F.I. Studnicka (Prague, 1901), a description of the scanty Tychonian relics which survived the Thirty Years’ War and are still preserved at Prague.
See J.L.E. Dreyer’sTycho Brahe(Edinburgh, 1890), which gives full and authentic information regarding his life and work. Also Gassendi’sVita(Paris, 1654);Lebensbeschreibung, collected from various Danish sources, and translated into German by Philander von der Weistritz (Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1756);Tyge Brahe, by F.R. Friis (Copenhagen, 1871);Prager Tychoniana, collected by Dr F.I. Studnicka (Prague, 1901), a description of the scanty Tychonian relics which survived the Thirty Years’ War and are still preserved at Prague.
(A. M. C.)
BRAHMAN,a Sanskrit noun-stem which, differently accented, yields in the two nominativesBrahmă(neut.) andBrahmā(masc.), the names of two deities which occupy prominent places in the orthodox system of Hindu belief. Brahmă (n.) is the designation generally applied to the Supreme Soul (paramātman), or impersonal, all-embracing divine essence, the original source and ultimate goal of all that exists; Brahmā (m.), on the other hand, is only one of the three hypostases of that divinity whose creative activity he represents, as distinguished from its preservative and destructive aspects, ever apparent in life and nature, and represented by the gods Vishṇu and Śiva respectively. The history of the two cognate names reflects in some measure the development of Indian religious speculation generally.
The neuter termbrahmăis used in theRigvedaboth in the abstract sense of “devotion, worship,” and in the concrete sense of “devotional rite, prayer, hymn.” The spirit of Vedic worship is pervaded by a devout belief in the efficacy of invocation and sacrificial offering. The earnest and well-expressed prayer or hymn of praise cannot fail to draw the divine power to the worshipper and make it yield to his supplication; whilst offerings, so far from being mere acts of devotion calculated to give pleasure to the god, constitute the very food and drink which render him vigorous and capable of battling with the enemies of his mortal friend. It is this intrinsic power of fervent invocation and worship which found an early expression in the termbrahmă; and its independent existence as an active moral principle in shaping the destinies of man became recognized in the Vedic pantheon in the conception of a godBṛihaspatiorBrahmaṇaspati, “lord of prayer or devotion,” the divine priest and the guardian of the pious worshipper. By a natural extension of the original meaning, the termbrahmă, in the sense of sacred utterance, was subsequently likewise applied to the whole body of sacred writ, thetri-vidyāor “triple lore” of the Veda; whilst it also came to be commonly used as the abstract designation of the priestly function and the Brāhmanical order generally, in the same way as the termkshatra, “sway, rule,” came to denote the aggregate of functions and individuals of the Kshatriyas or Rājanyas, the nobility or military class.
The universal belief in the efficacy of invocation as an indispensable adjunct to sacrifices and religious rites generally, could not fail to engender and maintain in the minds of the people feelings of profound esteem and reverence towards those who possessed the divine gift of inspired utterance, as well as for those who had acquired an intimate knowledge of the approved forms of ritual worship. A common designation of the priest is brahman (nom.brahma), originally denoting, it would seem, “one who prays, a worshipper,” perhaps also “the composer of a hymn” (brahman, n.); and the same term came subsequently to be used not only for one of the sacerdotal order generally, but also, and more commonly, as the designation of a special class of priests who officiated as superintendents during sacrificial performances, the complicated nature of which required the co-operation of a whole staff of priests, and who accordingly were expected to possess a competent knowledge of the entire course of ritual procedure, including the correct form and mystic import of the sacred texts to be repeated or chanted by the several priests. The Brahman priest (brahmā) being thus the recognized head of the sacerdotal order (brahmă), which itself is the visible embodiment of sacred writ and the devotional spirit pervading it (brahmă), the complete realization of theocratic aspirations required but a single step, which was indeed taken in the theosophic speculations of the later Vedic poets and the authors of the Brāhmanas (q.v.), viz. the recognition of this abstract notion of the Brahma as the highest cosmic principle and its identification with the pantheistic conception of an all-pervading, self-existent spiritual substance, the primary source of the universe; and subsequently coupled therewith the personification of its creative energy in the form of Brahmā, the divine representative of the earthly priest, who was made to take the place of the earlier conception ofPrajāpati, “the lord of creatures” (seeBrahmanism). By this means the very name of this god expressed the essential oneness of his nature with that of the divine spirit as whose manifestation he was to be considered. In the later Vedic writings, especially the Brāhmanas, however, Prajāpati still maintains throughout his position as the paramount personal deity; and Brahma, in his divine capacity, is rather identified with Bṛihaspati, the priest of the gods. Moreover, the exact relationship between Prajāpati and the Brahmă (n.) is hardly as yet defined with sufficient precision; it is rather one of simple identification: in the beginning the Brahma was the All, and Prajapati is the Brahma. It is only in the institutes of Manu, where we find the system of castes propounded in its complete development, that Brahmā has his definite place assigned to him in the cosmogony. According to this work, the universe, before undiscerned, was made discernible in the beginning by the sole, self-existent lord Brahmă (n.). He, desirous of producing different beings from his own self, created the waters by his own thought, and placed in them a seed which developed into a golden egg; therein was born Brahmā (m.), the parent of all the worlds; and thus “that which is the undiscrete Cause, eternal, which is and is not, from it issued that male who is called in the world Brahmā.” Having dwelt in that egg for a year, that lord spontaneously by his ownthought split that egg in two; and from the two halves he fashioned the heaven and the earth, and in the middle, the sky, and the eight regions (the points of the compass), and the perpetual place of the waters. This theory of Brahmā being born from a golden egg is, however, a mere adaptation of the Vedic conception ofHiranya-garbha(“golden embryo”), who is represented as the supreme god in a hymn of the tenth (and last) book of theRigveda. Another still later myth, which occurs in the epic poems, makes Brahma be born from a lotus which grew out of the navel of the god Vishṇu whilst floating on the primordial waters. In artistic representations, Brahmā usually appears as a bearded man of red colour with four heads crowned with a pointed, tiara-like head-dress, and four hands holding his sceptre, or a sacrificial spoon, a bundle of leaves representing the Veda, a bottle of water of the Ganges, and a string of beads or his bow Parivīta. His vehicle (vāhana) is a goose or swan (hamsa), whence he is also calledHaṃsāvhana; and his consort is Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning.
One could hardly expect that a colourless deity of this description, so completely the product of priestly speculation, could ever have found a place in the hearts of the people generally, And indeed, whilst in theoretic theology Brahma has retained his traditional place and function down to our own days, his practical cult has at all times remained extremely limited, the only temple dedicated to the worship of this god being found at Pushkar (Pokhar) near Ajmir in Rājputāna. On the other hand, his divine substratum, the impersonal Brahma, the world-spirit, the one and only reality, remains to this day the ultimate element of the religious belief of intelligent India of whatever sect. Being devoid of all attributes, it can be the object only of meditation, not of practical devotional rites; and philosophy can only attempt to characterize it in general and vague terms, as in the favourite formula which makes it to besachchidānanda,i.e.being (sat), thinking (chit), and bliss (ānanda).
(J. E.)
BRĀHMAṆA,the Sanskrit term applied to a body of prose writings appended to the collections (samhitā) of Vedic texts, the meaning and ritual application of which they are intended to elucidate, and like them regarded as divinely revealed. From a linguistic point of view, these treatises with their appendages, the more mystic and recondite Āraṇyakas and the speculative Upanishads, have to be considered as forming the connecting link between the Vedic and the classical Sanskrit. The exact derivation and meaning of the name is somewhat uncertain. Whilst the masculine termbrāhmaṇa(nom.brāhmaṇas), the ordinary Sanskrit designation of a man of the Brahmanical caste, is clearly a derivative ofbrahman(nom.brahmā), a common Vedic term for a priest (seeBrahman), thus meaning the son or descendant of a Brahman, the neuter wordbrāhmaṇa(nom.brāhmaṇam) on the other hand, with which we are here concerned, admits of two derivations: either it is derived from the same wordbrahman, and would then seem to mean adictumor observation ascribed to, or intended for the use of, a Brahman, or superintendent priest; or it has rather to be referred to the neuter nounbrahmān(nom.brahmă), in the sense of “sacred utterance or rite,” in which case it might mean a comment on a sacred text, or explanation of a devotional rite, calculated to bring out its spiritual or mystic significance and its bearing on the Brahma, the world-spirit embodied in the sacred writ and ritual. This latter definition seems on the whole the more probable one, and it certainly would fit exactly the character of the writings to which the term relates. It will thus be seen that the termbrāhmaṇamapplies not only to complete treatises of an exegetic nature, but also to single comments on particular texts or rites of which such a work would be made up.
The gradual elaboration of the sacrificial ceremonial, as the all-sufficient expression of religious devotion, and a constantly growing tendency towards theosophic and mystic speculation on the significance of every detail of the ritual, could not fail to create a demand for explanatory treatises of this kind, which, to enhance their practical utility, would naturally deal with the special texts and rites assigned in the ceremonial to the several classes of officiating priests. At a subsequent period the demand for instruction in the sacrificial science called into existence a still more practical set of manuals, the so-calledKalpa-sūtras, or ceremonial rules, detailing, in succinct aphorisms, the approved course of sacrificial procedure, without reference to the supposed origin or import of the several rites. These manuals are also calledŚrauta-sūtras, treating as they do, like the Brāhmaṇas, of the Śrauta rites—i.e.the rites based on theśrutior revelation—requiring at least three sacrificial fires and a number of priests, as distinguished from thegṛihya(domestic) orsmārta(traditional) rites, supposed to be based on thesmritior tradition, which are performed on the house-fire and dealt with in theGṛihya-sūtras.
The ritual recognizes four principal priests (ṛitvij), each of whom is assisted by three subordinates: viz. theBrahmanor superintending priest; theHotṛior reciter of hymns and verses; theUdgātrior chanter; and theAdhvaryuor offerer, who looks after the details of the ceremonial, including the preparation of the offering-ground, the construction of fire-places and altars, the making of oblations and muttering of the prescribed formulae. Whilst the two last priests have assigned to them special liturgical collections of the texts to be used by them, theSāmaveda-saṃhitāandYajurveda-saṃhitārespectively, the Hotṛi has to deal entirely with hymns and verses taken from theṚigveda-saṃhitā, of which they would, however, form only a comparatively small portion. As regards the Brahman, he would doubtless be chosen from one of those other three classes, but would be expected to have made himself thoroughly conversant with the texts and ritual details appertaining to all the officiating priests. It is, then, to one or other of those three collections of sacred texts and the respective class of priests, that the existing Brāhmaṇas attach themselves. At a later period, when the Atharvan gained admission to the Vedic canon, a special connexion with the Brahman priest was sometimes claimed, though with scant success, for this fourth collection of hymns and spells, and the comparatively late and unimportant Gopatha-brāhmaṇa attached to it.
The Udgātṛi’s duties being mainly confined to the chanting of hymns made up of detached groups of verses of theṚigveda, as collected in the Sāmaveda-saṃhitā, the more important Brāhmaṇas of this sacerdotal class deal chiefly with the various modes of chanting, and the modifications which the verses have to undergo in their musical setting. Moreover, the performance of chants being almost entirely confined to the Soma-sacrifice, it is only a portion, though no doubt the most important portion, of the sacrificial ceremonial that enters into the subject matter of the Sāmaveda Brāhmaṃas.
As regards the Brāhmaṇas of theṚigveda, two of such works have been handed down, theAitareyaand theKaushītaki(orŚānkhāyana)-Brāhmaṇas, which have a large amount of their material in common. But while the former work (transl. into English by M. Haug) is mainly taken up with the Soma-sacrifice, the latter has in addition thereto chapters on the other forms of sacrifice. Being intended for the Hotṛi’s use, both these works treat exclusively of the hymns and verses recited by that priest and his assistants, either in the form of connected litanies or in detached verses invoking the deities to whom oblations are made, or uttered in response to the solemn hymns chanted by the Udgātṛis.
It is, however, to the Brāhmaṇas and Sūtras of theYajurveda, dealing with the ritual of the real offering-priest, the Adhvaryu, that we have to turn for a connected view of the sacrificial procedure in all its material details. Now, in considering the body of writings connected with this Veda, we are at once confronted by the fact that there are two different schools, an older and a younger one, in which the traditional body of ritualistic matter has been treated in a very different way. For while the younger school, theVājasaneyins, have made a clear severance between the sacred texts or mantras and the exegetic discussions thereon—as collected in theVājasaneyi-saṃhitāand theŚatapatha-Brāhmaṇa(trans. by J. Eggeling, inSacred Books of the East) respectively—arranged systematically in accordance with the ritual divisions, the older school on theother hand present their materials in a hopelessly jumbled form; for not only is each type of sacrifice not dealt with continuously and in orderly fashion, but short textual sections of mantras are constantly followed immediately by their dogmatic exegesis; the termbrāhmaṇathus applying in their case only to these detached comments and not to the connected series of them. Thus the most prominent subdivision of the older school, theTaittirīyas, in theirSaṃhitā, have treated the main portion of the ceremonial in this promiscuous fashion, and to add to the confusion they have, by way of supplement, put forth a so-calledTaittirīya-brāhmaṇa, which, so far from being a real Brāhmaṇa, merely deals with some additional rites in the same confused mixture of sacrificial formulae and dogmatic explanations. It is not without reason, therefore, that those two schools, the older and the younger, are commonly called the Black (kṛishṇa) and the White (sukla) Yajus respectively.
Although the ritualistic discussions of the Brāhmaṇas are for the most part of a dry and uninteresting nature to an even greater degree than is often the case with exegetic theological treatises, these works are nevertheless of considerable importance both as regards the history of Indian institutions and as “the oldest body of Indo-European prose, of a generally free, vigorous, simple form, affording valuable glimpses backwards at the primitive condition of unfettered Indo-European talk” (Whitney). Of especial interest in this respect are the numerous myths and legends scattered through these works. From the archaic style in which these mythological tales are usually composed, as well as from the fact that not a few of them are found in Brāhmaṇas of different schools and Vedas, though often with considerable variations, it seems pretty evident that the groundwork of them must go back to times preceding the composition or final redaction of the existing Brāhmaṇas. In the case of some of these legends—as those of Śunaḥ-Śepha, and the fetching of Soma from heaven—we can even see how they have grown out of germs contained in some of the Vedic hymns. If the literary style in which the exegetic discussion of the texts and rites is carried on in the Brāhmaṇas is, as a rule, of a very bald and uninviting nature, it must be borne in mind that these treatises are of a strictly professional and esoteric character, and in no way lay claim to being considered as literary compositions in any sense of the word. And yet, notwithstanding the general emptiness of their ritualistic discussions and mystic speculations, “there are passages in the Brāhmaṇas full of genuine thought and feeling, and most valuable as pictures of life, and as records of early struggles, which have left no trace in the literature of other nations” (M. Müller).
The chief interest, however, attaching to the Brāhmaṇas is doubtless their detailed description of the sacrificial system as practised in the later Vedic ages; and the information afforded by them in this respect should be all the more welcome to us, as the history of religious institutions knows of no other sacrificial ceremonial with the details of which we are acquainted to anything like the same extent. An even more complete and minutely detailed view of the sacrificial system is no doubt obtained from the ceremonial manuals, the Kalpa-sūtras; but it is just by the speculative discussions of the Brāhmaṇas—the mystic significance and symbolical colouring with which they invest single rites—that we gain a real insight into the nature and gradual development of this truly stupendous system of ritual worship.
The sacrificial ritual recognizes two kinds ofśrautasacrifices, viz.haviryajnas(meat-offerings), consisting of oblations (ishti) of milk, butter, cereals or flesh, andsomayāgasor oblations of the juice of the soma plant. The setting up, by a householder, of a set of three sacrificial fires of his own constitutes the first ceremony of the former class, theAgny-ādhāna(or (?)Agny-ādheya). The first of the three fires laid down is thegārhapatya, or householder’s fire, so called because, though not taken from his ordinary house-fire, but as a rule specially produced by friction, it serves for cooking the sacrificial food, and thus, as it were, represents the domestic fire. From it the other two fires, theānavanīya, or offering fire, and thedakshiṇāgni, or southern fire, used for certain special purposes, are taken. The principal other ceremonies of this class are the new and full moon offerings, the oblations made at the commencement of the three seasons, the offering of first-fruits, the animal sacrifice, and theAgnihotra, or daily morning and evening oblation of milk, which, however, is also included amongst thegṛihya, or domestic rites, as having to be performed daily on the domestic fire by the householder who keeps no regular set of sacrificial fires.
Of a far more complicated nature than these offerings are the Soma-sacrifices, which, besides the simpler ceremonies of this class, such as theAgnishtomaor “Praise of Agni,” also include great state functions, such as theRäjasūyaor consecration of a king, and theAśvamedhaor horse-sacrifice, which, in addition to the sacrificial rites, have a considerable amount of extraneous, often highly interesting, ceremonial connected with them, which makes them seem to partake largely of the nature of public festivals. Whilst the oblations of Soma-juice, made thrice on each offering-day, amidst chants and recitations, constitute the central rites of those services, their ritual also requires numerous single oblations of theishtikind, including at least three animal offerings, and in some cases the immolation of many hecatombs of victims. Moreover, a necessary preliminary to every Soma-sacrifice is the construction, in five layers, of a special fire-altar of large dimensions, consisting of thousands of bricks, formed and baked on the spot, to each, or each group, of which a special symbolic meaning is attached. The building of this altar is spread over a whole year, during which period the sacrificer has to carry about the sacrificial fire in an earthen pan for at least some time each day, until it is finally deposited on the completed altar to serve as the offering-fire for the Soma oblations. The altar itself is constructed in the form of a bird, because Soma was supposed to have been brought down from heaven by the metre Gāyatrī which had assumed the form of an eagle. Whilst the Soma-sacrifice has been thus developed by the Brāhmaṇas in an extraordinary degree, its essential identity with the Avestan Haoma-cult shows that its origin goes back at all events to the Indo-Iranian period.
Among the symbolic conceits in which the authors of the Brāhmaṇas so freely indulge, there is one overshadowing all others—if indeed they do not all more or less enter into it—which may be considered as the sum and substance of these speculations, and the esoteric doctrine of the sacrifice, involved by the Brāhmanical ritualists. This is what may conveniently be called the Prajāpati theory, by which the “Lord of Creatures,” the efficient cause of the universe, is identified with both the sacrifice (yajna) and the sacrificer (yajamāna). The origin of this theory goes back to the later Vedic hymns. In the so-called Purusha-sūkta (Ṛigv.x. 90) in which the supreme spirit is conceived of astheperson or man (purusha), born in the beginning, and consisting of “whatever hath been and whatever shall be,” the creation of the visible and invisible universe is represented as originating from an “all-offered” (holocaust) sacrifice in which the Purusha himself forms the offering-material (havis), or, as we might say, the victim. In this primeval, or rather timeless because ever-proceeding, sacrifice, time itself, in the shape of its unit the year, is made to take its part, inasmuch as the three seasons—spring, summer and autumn—of which it consists, constitute the ghee (clarified butter), the offering-fuel and the oblation respectively. These speculations may be said to have formed the foundation on which the theory of the sacrifice, as propounded in the Brāhmaṇas, has been reared. Prajāpati—who (probably for practical considerations, as better representing the sacrificer, the earthly ruler, or “lord of the creatures”) here takes the place of the Purusha, the world-man or all-embracing personality—is offered up anew in every sacrifice; and inasmuch as the very dismemberment of the lord of creatures, which took place at that archtypal sacrifice, was in itself the creation of the universe, so every sacrifice is also a repetition of that first creative act. Thus the periodical sacrifice is nothing else than a microcosmic representation of the ever-proceeding destruction and renewal of all cosmic life and matter. The ritualistic theologians, however, go an important stepfurther by identifying Prajāpati with the performer, or patron, of the sacrifice, the sacrificer; every sacrifice thus becoming invested—in addition to its cosmic significance—with the mystic power of regenerating the sacrificer by cleansing him of all guilt and securing for him a seat in the eternal abodes.
Whilst forming the central feature of the ritualistic symbolism, this triad—Prajāpati, sacrifice (oblation, victim), sacrificer—is extended in various ways. An important collateral identification is that of Prajāpati (and the sacrificer) with Agni, the god of fire, embodied not only in the offering-fire, but also in the sacred Soma-altar, the technical name of which isagni. For this reason the altar, as representative of the universe, is built in five layers, representing earth, air and heaven, and the intermediate regions; and in the centre of the altar-site, below the first layer, on a circular gold plate (the sun), a small golden man (purusha) is laid down with his face looking upwards. This is Prajāpati, and the sacrificer, who when regenerated will pass upwards through the three worlds to the realms of light, naturally perforated bricks being for this purpose placed in the middle of the three principal altar-layers. One of the fourteen sections of the Śatapatha-brāhmana, the tenth, calledAgni-rahasyaor “the mystery of Agni (the god and altar),” is entirely devoted to this feature of the sacrificial symbolism. Similarly the sacrificer, as the human representatiye of the Lord of Creatures, is identified with Soma (as the supreme oblation), with Time, and finally with Death: by the sacrificer thus becoming Death himself, the fell god ceases to have power over him and he is assured of everlasting life. And now we get the Supreme Lord in his last aspect; nay, his one true and real aspect, in which the sacrificer, on shuffling off this mortal coil, will himself come to share—that of pure intellectuality, pure spirituality—he is Mind: such is the ultimate source of being, the one Self, the Purusha, the Brahman. As the sum total of the wisdom propounded in the mystery of Agni, the searcher after truth is exhorted to meditate on that Self, made up of intelligence, endowed with a body of spirit, a form of light, and of an ethereal nature; holding sway over all the regions and pervading this All, being itself speechless and devoid of mental states; and by so doing he shall gain the assurance that “even as a grain of rice, or the smallest granule of millet, so is the golden Purusha in my heart; even as a smokeless light, it is greater than the sky, greater than the ether, greater than the earth, greater than all existing things;—that Self of the Spirit is my Self; on passing away from hence, I shall obtain that Self. And, verily, whosoever has this trust, for him there is no uncertainty.”
(J. E.)
BRAHMANISM,a term commonly used to denote a system of religious institutions originated and elaborated by theBrāhmans, the sacerdotal and, from an early period, the dominant caste of the Hindu community (seeBrahman). In like manner, as the language of the Āryan Hindūs has undergone continual processes of modification and dialectic division, so their religious belief has passed through various stages of development broadly distinguished from one another by certain prominent features. The earliest phases of religious thought in India of which a clear idea can now be formed are exhibited in a body of writings, looked upon by later generations in the light of sacred writ, under the collective name ofVeda(“knowledge”) orŚruti(“revelation”). The Hindū scriptures consist of four separate collections, orSamhitās, of sacred texts, ormantras, including hymns, incantations and sacrificial forms of prayer, viz. theṚich(nom. sing.ṛik) orṚigveda, theSāmanorSāmaveda, theYajusorYajurveda, and theAtharvanorAtharvaveda. Each of these four text-books has attached to it a body of prose writings, calledBrāhmaṇas(seeBrāhmaṇa), intended to explain the ceremonial application of the texts and the origin and import of the sacrificial rites for which these were supposed to have been composed. Usually attached to these works, and in some cases to the Saṃhitās, are two kinds of appendages, the Āraṇyakas and Upanishads, the former of which deal generally with the more recondite rites, while the latter are taken up chiefly with speculations on the problems of the universe and the religious aims of man—subjects often touched upon in the earlier writings, but here dealt with in a more mature and systematic way. Two of theSaṃhitās, theSāmanand theYajus, owing their existence to purely ritual purposes, and being, besides, the one almost entirely, the other partly, composed of verses taken from theṚigveda, are only of secondary importance for our present inquiry. The hymns of theṚigvedaconstitute the earliest lyrical effusions of the Āryan settlers in India which have been handed down to posterity. They are certainly not all equally old; on the contrary they evidently represent the literary activity of many generations of bards, though their relative age cannot as yet be determined with anything like certainty. The tenth (and last) book of the collection, however, at any rate has all the characteristics of a later appendage, and in language and spirit many of its hymns approach very nearly to the level of the contents of theAtharvan. Of the latter collection about one-sixth is found also in theṚigveda, and especially in the tenth book; the larger portion peculiar to it, though including no doubt some older pieces, appears to owe its origin to an age not long anterior to the composition of theBrāhmaṇas.
The state of religious thought among the ancient bards, as reflected in the hymns of theṚigveda, is that of a worship of the grand and striking phenomena of nature regarded in the light of personal conscious beings, endowed with a power beyond the control of man, though not insensible to his praises and actions. It is a nature worship purer than that met with in any other polytheistic form of belief we are acquainted with—a mythology still comparatively little affected by those systematizing tendencies which, in a less simple and primitive state of thought, lead to the construction of a well-ordered pantheon and a regular organization of divine government. To the mind of the early Vedic worshipper the various departments of the surrounding nature are not as yet clearly defined, and the functions which he assigns to their divine representatives continually flow into one another. Nor has he yet learned to care to determine the relative worth and position of the objects of his adoration; but the temporary influence of the phenomenon to which he addresses his praises bears too strongly upon his mind to allow him for the time to consider the claims of rival powers to which at other times he is wont to look up with equal feelings of awe and reverence. It is this immediateness of impulse under which the human mind in its infancy strives to give utterance to its emotions that imparts to many of its outpourings the ring of monotheistic fervour.
The generic name given to these impersonations, viz.deva(“the shining ones”), points to the conclusion, sufficiently justified by the nature of the more prominent objects of Vedic adoration as well as by common natural occurrences, that it was the striking phenomena of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Āryan mind. In the primitive worship of the manifold phenomena of nature it is not, of course, so much their physical aspect that impresses the human heart as the moral and intellectual forces which are supposed to move and animate them. The attributes and relations of some of the Vedic deities, in accordance with the nature of the objects they represent, partake in a high degree of this spiritual element; but it is not improbable that in an earlier phase of Āryan worship the religious conceptions were pervaded by it to a still greater and more general extent, and that the Vedic belief, though retaining many of the primitive features, has on the whole assumed a more sensuous and anthropomorphic character. This latter element is especially predominant in the attributes and imagery applied by the Vedic poets toIndra, the god of the atmospheric region, the favourite figure in their pantheon.
While the representatives of the prominent departments of nature appear to the Vedic bard as co-existing in a state of independence of one another, their relation to the mortal worshipper being the chief subject of his anxiety, a simple method of classification was already resorted to at an early time, consisting in a triple division of the deities into gods residing in the sky, in the air, and on earth. It is not, however, until a later stage,—the first clear indication being conveyed in a passage of thetenth book of theṚigveda—that this attempt at a polytheistic system is followed up by the promotion of one particular god to the dignity of chief guardian for each of these three regions. On the other hand, a tendency is clearly traceable in some of the hymns towards identifying gods whose functions present a certain degree of similarity of nature; attempts which would seem to show a certain advance of religious reflection, the first steps from polytheism towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence. Another feature of the old Vedic worship tended to a similar result. The great problems of the origin and existence of man and the universe had early begun to engage the Hindū mind; and in celebrating the praises of the gods the poet was frequently led by his religious, and not wholly disinterested, zeal to attribute to them cosmical functions of the very highest order. At a later stage of thought, chiefly exhibited in the tenth book of theṚigvedaand in theAtharvaveda, inquiring sages could not but perceive the inconsistency of such concessions of a supremacy among the divine rulers, and tried to solve the problem by conceptions of an independent power, endowed with all the attributes of a supreme deity, the creator of the universe, including the gods of the pantheon. The names under which this monotheistic idea is put forth are mostly of an attributive character, and indeed some of them, such asPrajāpati(“lord of creatures”),Viśvakarman(“all-worker”), occur in the earlier hymns as mere epithets of particular gods. But to other minds this theory of a personal creator left many difficulties unsolved. They saw, as the poets of old had seen, that everything around them, that man himself, was directed by some inward agent; and it needed but one step to perceive the essential sameness of these spiritual units, and to recognize their being but so many individual manifestations of one universal principle or spiritual essence. Thus a pantheistic conception was arrived at, put forth under various names, such asPurusha(“soul”),Kāma(“desire”),Brahman(neutr.; nom. sing.bráhma) (“devotion, prayer”). Metaphysical and theosophic speculations were thus fast undermining the simple belief in the old gods, until, at the time of the composition of theBrāhmanasandUpanishads, we find them in complete possession of the minds of the theologians. Whilst the theories crudely suggested in the later hymns are now further matured and elaborated, the tendency towards catholicity of formula favours the combination of the conflicting monotheistic and pantheistic conceptions; this compromise, which makesPrajāpati, the personal creator of the world, the manifestation of the impersonalBrahma, the universal self-existent soul, leads to the composite pantheistic system which forms the characteristic dogma of the Brāhmanical period (seeBrahman).
In the Vedic hymns two classes of society, the royal (or military) and the priestly classes, were evidently recognized as being raised above the level of theViś, or bulk of the Āryan community. These social grades seem to have been in existence even before the separation of the two Asiatic branches of the Indo-Germanic race, the Āryans of Iran and India. It is true that, although theAthrava, Rathaēstāo, andVāśtryaof theZend Avestacorrespond in position and occupation to theBrāhman, RājanandViśof the Veda, there is no similarity of names between them; but this fact only shows that the common vocabulary had not yet definitely fixed on any specific names for these classes. Even in the Veda their nomenclature is by no means limited to a single designation for each of them. Moreover,Atharvanoccurs not infrequently in the hymns as the personification of the priestly profession, as the proto-priest who is supposed to have obtained fire from heaven and to have instituted the rite of sacrifice; and althoughratheshtha(“standing on a car”) is not actually found in connexion with theRājanorKshatriya, its synonymrathinis in later literature a not unusual epithet of men of the military caste. At the time of the hymns, and even during the common Indo-Persian period, the sacrificial ceremonial had already become sufficiently complicated to call for the creation of a certain number of distinct priestly offices with special duties attached to them. While this shows clearly that the position and occupation of the priest were those of a profession, the fact that the termsbrāhmaṇaandbrahmaputra, both denoting “the son of a brahman,” are used in certain hymns as synonyms ofbrahman, seems to justify the assumption that the profession had already, to a certain degree, become hereditary at the time when these hymns were composed. There is, however, with the exception of a solitary passage in a hymn of the last book, no trace to be found in theṚigvedaof that rigid division into four castes separated from one another by insurmountable barriers, which in later times constitutes the distinctive feature of Hindū society. The idea of caste is expressed by the Sanskrit termvarna, originally denoting “colour,” thereby implying differences of complexion between the several classes. The word occurs in the Veda in the latter sense, but it is used there to mark the distinction, not between the three classes of the Āryan community, but between them on the one hand and a dark-coloured hostile people on the other. The latter, called Dāsas or Dasyus, consisted, no doubt, of the indigenous tribes, with whom the Āryans had to carry on a continual struggle for the possession of the land. The partial subjection of these comparatively uncivilized tribes as the rule of the superior race was gradually spreading eastward, and their submission to a state of serfdom under the name ofŚūdras, added to the Āryan community an element, totally separated from it by colour, by habits, by language, and by occupation. Moreover, the religious belief of these tribes being entirely different from that of the conquering people, the pious Āryas, and especially the class habitually engaged in acts of worship, could hardly fail to apprehend considerable danger to the purity of their own faith from too close and intimate a contact between the two races. What more natural, therefore, than that measures should have been early devised to limit the intercourse between them within as narrow bounds as possible? In course of time the difference of vocation, and the greater or less exposure to the scorching influence of the tropical sky, added, no doubt, to a certain admixture of Śūdra blood, especially in the case of the common people, seem to have produced also in the Āryan population different shades of complexion, which greatly favoured a tendency to rigid class-restrictions originally awakened and continually fed by the lot of the servile race. Meanwhile the power of the sacerdotal order having been gradually enlarged in proportion to the development of the minutiae of sacrificial ceremonial and the increase of sacred lore, they began to lay claim to supreme authority in regulating and controlling the religious and social life of the people. The author of the so-calledPurusha-sūkta, or hymn of Purusha, above referred to, represents the four castes—theBrāhmaṇa, Kshatriya, VaiśyaandŚūdra—as having severally sprung respectively from the mouth, the arms, the thighs and the feet of Purusha, a primary being, here assumed to be the source of the universe. It is very doubtful, however, whether at the time when this hymn was composed the relative position of the two upper castes could already have been settled in so decided a way as this theory might lead one to suppose. There is, on the contrary, reason to believe that some time had yet to elapse, marked by fierce and bloody struggles for supremacy, of which only imperfect ideas can be formed from the legendary and frequently biased accounts of later generations, before the Kshatriyas finally submitted to the full measure of priestly authority.
The definitive establishment of the Brāhmanical hierarchy marks the beginning of the Brāhmanical period properly so called. Though the origin and gradual rise of some of the leading institutions of this era can, as has been shown, be traced in the earlier writings, the chain of their development presents a break at this juncture which no satisfactory materials as yet enable us to fill up. A considerable portion of the literature of this time has apparently been lost; and several important works, the original composition of which has probably to be assigned to the early days of Brāhmanism, such as the institutes of Manu and the two great epics, theMahābhārataandRāmāyana, in the form in which they have been handed down to us, show manifest traces of a more modern redaction. Yet it is sufficiently clear from internal evidence that Manu’s Code of Laws, thoughmerely a metrical recast of older materials, reproduces on the whole pretty faithfully the state of Hindū society depicted in the sources from which it was compiled. The final overthrow of the Kshatriya power was followed by a period of jealous legislation on the part of the Brāhmans. For a time their chief aim would doubtless be to improve their newly gained vantage-ground by surrounding everything relating to their order with a halo of sanctity calculated to impress the lay community with feelings of awe. In the Brāhmaṇas and even in the Purusha Hymn, and the Atharvan, divine origin had already been ascribed to the VedicSaṃhitās, especially to the three older collections. The same privilege was now successfully claimed for the later Vedic literature, so imbued with Brāhmanic aspirations and pretensions; and the authority implied in the designation ofŚrutior revelation removed henceforth the whole body of sacred writings from the sphere of doubt and criticism. This concession necessarily involved an acknowledgment of the new social order as a divine institution. Its stability was, however, rendered still more secure by the elaboration of a system of conventional precepts, partly forming the basis of Manu’s Code, which clearly defined the relative position and the duties of the several castes, and determined the penalties to be inflicted on any transgressions of the limits assigned to each of them. These laws are conceived with no sentimental scruples on the part of their authors. On the contrary, the offences committed by Brāhmans against other castes are treated with remarkable clemency, whilst the punishments inflicted for trespasses on the rights of higher classes are the more severe and inhuman the lower the offender stands in the social scale.
The three first castes, however unequal to each other in privilege and social standing, are yet united by a common bond of sacramental rites (saṃskāras), traditionally connected from ancient times with certain incidents and stages in the life of the Āryan Hindū, as conception, birth, name-giving, the first taking out of the child to see the sun, the first feeding with boiled rice, the rites of tonsure and hair-cutting, the youth’s investiture with the sacrificial thread, and his return home on completing his studies, marriage, funeral, &c. The modes of observing these family rites are laid down in a class of writings calledGṛihya-sūtras, or domestic rules. The most important of these observances is theupanayana, or rite of conducting the boy to a spiritual teacher. Connected with this act is the investiture with the sacred cord, ordinarily worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm, and varying in material according to the class of the wearer. This ceremony being the preliminary act to the youth’s initiation into the study of the Veda, the management of the consecrated fire and the knowledge of the rites of purification, including thesāvitrī, a solemn invocation toSavitṛi, the sun (probl. Saturnus),—as a rule the verseṚigv. iii. 62. 10, also calledgāyatrīfrom the metre in which it is composed—which has to be repeated every morning and evening before the rise and after the setting of that luminary, is supposed to constitute the second or spiritual birth of the Ārya. It is from their participation in this rite that the three upper classes are called the twice-born. The ceremony is enjoined to take place some time between the eighth and sixteenth year of age in the case of a Brāhman, between the eleventh and twenty-second year of a Kshatriya, and between the twelfth and twenty-fourth year of a Vaiśya. He who has not been invested with the mark of his class within this time is for ever excluded from uttering the sacredsāvitrīand becomes an outcast, unless he is absolved from his sin by a council of Brāhmans, and after due performance of a purificatory rite resumes the badge of his caste. With one not duly initiated no righteous man is allowed to associate or to enter into connexions of affinity. The duty of the Śudra is to serve the twice-born classes, and above all the Brāhmans. He is excluded from all sacred knowledge, and if he performs sacrificial ceremonies he must do so without using holy mantras. No Brāhman must recite a Vedic text where a man of the servile caste might overhear him, nor must he even teach him the laws of expiating sin. The occupations of the Vaiśya are those connected with trade, the cultivation of the land and the breeding of cattle; while those of a Kshatriya consist in ruling and defending the people, administering justice, and the duties of the military profession generally. Both share with the Brāhman the privilege of reading the Veda, but only so far as it is taught and explained to them by their spiritual preceptor. To the Brāhman belongs the right of teaching and expounding the sacred texts, and also that of interpreting and determining the law and the rules of caste. Only in exceptional cases, when no teacher of the sacerdotal class is within reach, the twice-born youth, rather than forego spiritual instruction altogether, may reside in the house of a non-Brāhmanical preceptor; but it is specially enjoined that a pupil, who seeks the path to heaven, should not fail, as soon as circumstances permit, to resort to a Brāhman well versed in the Vedas and their appendages.
Notwithstanding the barriers placed between the four castes, the practice of intermarrying appears to have been too prevalent in early times to have admitted of measures of so stringent a nature as wholly to repress it. To marry a woman of a higher caste, and especially of a caste not immediately above one’s own, is, however, decidedly prohibited, the offspring resulting from such a union being excluded from the performance of theśrāddhaor obsequies to the ancestors, and thereby rendered incapable of inheriting any portion of the parents’ property. On the other hand, a man is at liberty, according to the rules of Manu, to marry a girl of any or each of the castes below his own, provided he has besides a wife belonging to his own class, for only such a one should perform the duties of personal attendance and religious observance devolving upon a married woman. As regards the children born from unequal marriages of this description, they have the rights and duties of the twice-born, if their mother belong to a twice-born caste, otherwise they, like the offspring of the former class of intermarriages, share the lot of the Śūdra, and are excluded from the investiture and thesāvitrī. For this last reason the marriage of a twice-born man with a Śūdra woman is altogether discountenanced by some of the later law books. At the time of the code of Manu the intermixture of the classes had already produced a considerable number of intermediate or mixed castes, which were carefully defined, and each of which had a specific occupation assigned to it as its hereditary profession.
The self-exaltation of the first class was not, it would seem, altogether due to priestly arrogance and ambition; but, like a prominent feature of the post-Vedic belief, the transmigration of souls, it was, if not the necessary, yet at least a natural consequence of the pantheistic doctrine. To the Brāhmanical speculator who saw in the numberless individual existences of animate nature but so many manifestations of the one eternal spirit, to union with which they were all bound to tend as their final goal of supreme bliss, the greater or less imperfection of the material forms in which they were embodied naturally presented a continuous scale of spiritual units from the lowest degradation up to the absolute purity and perfection of the supreme spirit. To prevent one’s sinking yet lower, and by degrees to raise one’s self in this universal gradation, or, if possible, to attain the ultimate goal immediately from any state of corporeal existence, there was but one way—subjection of the senses, purity of life and knowledge of the deity. “He” (thus ends the code of Manu) “who in his own soul perceives the supreme soul in all beings and acquires equanimity toward them all, attains the highest state of bliss.” Was it not natural then that the men who, if true to their sacred duties, were habitually engaged in what was most conducive to these spiritual attainments, that the Brāhmanical class early learnt to look upon themselves, even as a matter of faith, as being foremost among the human species in this universal race for final beatitude? The life marked out for them by that stern theory of class duties which they themselves had worked out, and which, no doubt, must have been practised in early times at least in some degree, was by no means one of ease and amenity. It was, on the contrary, singularly calculated to promote that complete mortification of the instincts of animal nature which they considered as indispensable to thefinal deliverance fromsaṃsāra, the revolution of bodily and personal existence.
The pious Brāhman, longing to attain thesummum bonumon the dissolution of his frail body, was enjoined to pass through a succession of four orders or stages of life, viz. those ofbrahmachārin, or religious student;gṛihastha(orgṛihamedhin), or householder;vanavāsin(orvānaprastha), or anchorite; andsannyāsin(orbhikshu), or religious mendicant. Theoretically this course of life was open and even recommended to every twice-born man, his distinctive class-occupations being in that case restricted to the second station, or that of married life. Practically, however, those belonging to the Kshatriya and Vaiśya castes were, no doubt, contented, with few exceptions, to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a certain amount of religious instruction before entering into the married state, and plying their professional duties. In the case of the sacerdotal class, the practice probably was all but universal in early times; but gradually a more and more limited proportion even of this caste seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of self-mortification involved in the two final stages. On the youth having been invested with the badge of his caste, he was to reside for some time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific or theoretic treatises attached to them, in the social duties of his caste, and in the complicated system of purificatory and sacrificial rites. According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of this period of instruction was to be, probably in the case of Brāhmanical students chiefly, of from twelve to forty-eight years; during which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance and self-control were to be firmly implanted in the youth’s mind by his unremitting observance of the most minute rules of conduct. During all this time the student had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house; and his behaviour towards the preceptor and his family was to be that prompted by respectful attachment and implicit obedience. In the case of girls no investiture takes place, but for them the nuptial ceremony is considered as an equivalent to that rite. On quitting the teacher’s abode, the young man returns to his family and takes a wife. To die without leaving legitimate offspring, and especially a son, capable of performing the periodical rite of obsequies (śrāddha), consisting of offerings of water and balls of rice, to himself and his two immediate ancestors, is considered a great misfortune by the orthodox Hindū. There are three sacred “debts” which a man has to discharge in life, viz. that which is due to the gods, and of which he acquits himself by daily worship and sacrificial rites; that due to theṛishis, or ancient sages and inspired seers of the Vedic texts, discharged by the daily study of the scripture; and the “final debt” which he owes to hismanes, and of which he relieves himself by leaving a son. To these three some authorities add a fourth, viz. the debt owing to humankind, which demands his continually practising kindness and hospitality. Hence the necessity of a man’s entering into the married state. When the bridegroom leads the bride from her father’s house to his own home, and becomes agṛiha-paṭi, or householder, the fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony accompanies the couple to serve them as theirgārhapatya, or domestic fire. It has to be kept up perpetually, day and night, either by themselves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should at any time become extinguished by neglect or otherwise, the guilt incurred thereby must be atoned for by an act of expiation. The domestic fire serves the family for preparing their food, for making the five necessary daily and other occasional offerings, and for performing the sacramental rites above alluded to. No food should ever be eaten that has not been duly consecrated by a portion of it being offered to the gods, the beings and themanes. These three daily offerings are also called by the collective name ofvaiśvadeva, or sacrifice “to all the deities.” The remaining two are the offering to Brahmă,i.e.the daily lecture of the scriptures, accompanied by certain rites, and that to men, consisting in the entertainment of guests. The domestic observances—many of them probably ancient Āryan family customs, surrounded by the Hindūs with a certain amount of adventitious ceremonial—were generally performed by the householder himself, with the assistance of his wife. There is, however, another class of sacrificial ceremonies of a more pretentious and expensive kind, calledśrautarites, or rites based onśritu, or revelation, the performance of which, though not indispensable, were yet considered obligatory under certain circumstances (seeBrāhmaṇa). They formed a very powerful weapon in the hands of the priesthood, and were one of the chief sources of their subsistence. However great the religious merit accruing from these sacrificial rites, they were obviously a kind of luxury which only rich people could afford to indulge in. They constituted, as it were, a tax, voluntary perhaps, yet none the less compulsory, levied by the priesthood on the wealthy laity.
When the householder is advanced in years, “when he perceives his skin become wrinkled and his hair grey, when he sees the son of his son,” the time is said to have come for him to enter the third stage of life. He should now disengage himself from all family ties—except that his wife may accompany him, if she chooses—and repair to a lonely wood, taking with him his sacred fires and the implements required for the daily and periodical offerings. Clad in a deer’s skin, in a single piece of cloth, or in a bark garment, with his hair and nails uncut, the hermit is to subsist exclusively on food growing wild in the forest, such as roots, green herbs, and wild rice and grain. He must not accept gifts from any one, except of what may be absolutely necessary to maintain him; but with his own little hoard he should, on the contrary, honour, to the best of his ability, those who visit his hermitage. His time must be spent in reading the metaphysical treatises of the Veda, in making oblations, and in undergoing various kinds of privation and austerities, with a view to mortifying his passions and producing in his mind an entire indifference to worldly objects. Having by these means succeeded in overcoming all sensual affections and desires, and in acquiring perfect equanimity towards everything around him, the hermit has fitted himself for the final and most exalted order, that of devotee or religious mendicant. As such he has no further need of either mortifications or religious observances; but “with the sacrificial fires reposited in his mind,” he may devote the remainder of his days to meditating on the divinity. Taking up his abode at the foot of a tree in total solitude, “with no companion but his own soul,” clad in a coarse garment, he should carefully avoid injuring any creature or giving offence to any human being that may happen to come near him. Once a day, in the evening, “when the charcoal fire is extinguished and the smoke no longer issues from the fire-places, when the pestle is at rest, when the people have taken their meals and the dishes are removed,” he should go near the habitations of men, in order to beg what little food may suffice to sustain his feeble frame. Ever pure of mind he should thus bide his time, “as a servant expects his wages,” wishing neither for death nor for life, until at last his soul is freed from its fetters and absorbed in the eternal spirit, the impersonal self-existent Brahmă.
The tendency towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence had resulted in some minds, as has been remarked before, in a kind of monotheistic notion of the origin of the universe. In the literature of the Brāhmaṇa period we meet with this conception as a common element of speculation; and so far from its being considered incompatible with the existence of a universal spirit,Prajāpati, the personal creator of the world, is generally allowed a prominent place in the pantheistic theories. Yet the state of theological speculation, reflected in these writings, is one of transition. The general drift of thought is essentially pantheistic, but it is far from being reduced to a regular system, and the ancient form of belief still enters largely into it. The attributes of Prajāpati, in the same way, have in them elements of a purely polytheistic nature, and some of the attempts at reconciling this new-fangled deity with the traditional belief are somewhat awkward. An ancient classification of the gods represented them as being thirty-threein number, eleven in each of the three worlds or regions of nature. These regions being associated each with the name of one principal deity, this division gave rise at a later time to the notion of a kind of triple divine government, consisting ofAgni(fire),Indrasky) orVāyu(wind), andSūrya(sun), as presiding respectively over the gods on earth, in the atmosphere, and in the sky. Of this Vedic triad mention is frequently made in the Brāhmaṇa writings. On the other hand the termprajāpati(lord of creatures), which in theṚigvedaoccurs as an epithet of the sun, is also once in theAtharvavedaapplied jointly to Indra and Agni. In the Brāhmaṇas Prajāpati is several times mentioned as the thirty-fourth god; whilst in one passage he is called the fourth god, and made to rule over the three worlds. More frequently, however, the writings of this period represent him as the maker of the world and the father or creator of the gods. It is clear from this discordance of opinion on so important a point of doctrine, that at this time no authoritative system of belief had been agreed upon by the theologians. Yet there are unmistakable signs of a strong tendency towards constructing one, and it is possible that in yielding to it the Brāhmans may have been partly prompted by political considerations. The definite settlement of the caste system and the Brāhmanical supremacy must probably be assigned to somewhere about the close of the Brāhmaṇa period. Division in their own ranks was hardly favourable to the aspirations of the priests at such a time; and the want of a distinct formula of belief adapted to the general drift of theological speculation, to which they could all rally, was probably felt the more acutely, the more determined a resistance the military class was likely to oppose to their claims. Side by side with the conception of the Brahmă, the universal spiritual principle, with which speculative thought had already become deeply imbued, the notion of a supreme personal being, the author of the material creation, had come to be considered by many as a necessary complement of the pantheistic doctrine. But, owing perhaps to his polytheistic associations and the attributive nature of his name, the person of Prajāpati seems to have been thought but insufficiently adapted to represent this abstract idea. The expedient resorted to for solving the difficulty was as ingenious as it was characteristic of the Brāhmanical aspirations. In the same way as the abstract denomination of sacerdotalism, the neuterbrahmă, had come to express the divine essence, so the old designation of the individual priest, the masculine termbrahmā, was raised to denote the supreme personal deity which was to take the place and attributes of the Prajāpati of the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads (seeBrahman).
However the new dogma may have answered the purposes of speculative minds, it was not one in which the people generally were likely to have been much concerned; an abstract, colourless deity like Brahmā could awake no sympathies in the hearts of those accustomed to worship gods of flesh and blood. Indeed, ever since the primitive symbolical worship of nature had undergone a process of disintegration under the influence of metaphysical speculation, the real belief of the great body of the people had probably become more and more distinct from that of the priesthood. In different localities the principal share of their affection may have been bestowed on one or another of the old gods who was thereby raised to the dignity of chief deity; or new forms and objects of belief may have sprung up with the intellectual growth of the people. In some cases even the worship of the indigenous population could hardly have remained without exercising some influence in modifying the belief of the Āryan race. In this way a number of local deities would grow up, more or less distinct in name and characteristics from the gods of the Vedic pantheon. There is, indeed, sufficient evidence to show that, at a time when, after centuries of theological speculations, some little insight into the life and thought of the people is afforded by the literature handed down to us, such a diversity of worship did exist. Under these circumstances the policy which seems to have suggested itself to the priesthood, anxious to retain a firm hold on the minds of the people, was to recognize and incorporate into their system some of the most prominent objects of popular devotion, and thereby to establish a kind of catholic creed for the whole community subject to the Brāhmanical law. At the time of the original composition of the great epics two such deities,ŚivaorMahādeva(“the great god”) andVishṇu, seem to have been already admitted into the Brāhmanical system, where they have ever since retained their place; and from the manner in which they are represented in those works, it would, indeed, appear that both, and especially the former, enjoyed an extensive worship. As several synonyms are attributed to each of them, it is not improbable that in some of these we have to recognize special names under which the people in different localities worshipped these gods, or deities of a similar nature which, by the agency of popular poetry, or in some other way, came to be combined with them. The places assigned to them in the pantheistic system were coordinate with that of Brahmā; the three deities,Brahmā, VishnuandŚiva, were to represent a triple impersonation of the divinity, as manifesting itself respectively in the creation, preservation and destruction of the universe. Śiva does not occur in the Vedic hymns as the name of a god, but only as an adjective in the sense of “kind, auspicious.” One of his synonyms, however, is the name of a Vedic deity, the attributes and nature of which show a good deal of similarity to the post-Vedic god. This isRudra, the god of the roaring storm, usually portrayed, in accordance with the element he represents, as a fierce, destructive deity, “terrible as a wild beast,” whose fearful arrows cause death and disease to men and cattle. He is also calledkapardin(“wearing his hair spirally braided like a shell”), a word which in later times became one of the synonyms of Śiva. TheAtharvavedamentions several other names of the same god, some of which appear even placed together, as in one passageBhava, Sarva, RudraandPaśupati. Possibly some of them were the names under which one and the same deity was already worshipped in different parts of northern India. This was certainly the case in later times, since it is expressly stated in one of the later works of the Brahmaṇa period, that Sarva was used by the Eastern people and Bhava by a Western tribe. It is also worthy of note that in the same work (theŚatapatha-brāhmaṇa), composed at a time when the Vedic triad of Agni, Indra-Vāyu and Sūrya was still recognized, attempts are made to identify this god of many names with Agni; and that in one passage in theMahābhāratait is stated that the Brāhmans said that Agni was Śiva. Although such attempts at an identification of the two gods remained isolated, they would at least seem to point to the fact that, in adapting their speculations to the actual state of popular worship, the Brāhmans kept the older triad distinctly in view, and by means of it endeavoured to bring their new structure into harmony with the ancient Vedic belief. It is in his character as destroyer that Śiva holds his place in the triad, and that he must, no doubt, be identified with the Vedic Rudra. Another very important function appears, however, to have been early assigned to him, on which much more stress is laid in his modern worship—that of destroyer being more especially exhibited in his consort—viz. the character of a generative power, symbolized in the phallic emblem (linga) and in the sacred bull (Nandi), the favourite attendant of the god. This feature being entirely alien from the nature of the Vedic god, it has been conjectured with some plausibility, that thelinga-worship was originally prevalent among the non-Āryan population, and was thence introduced into the worship of Śiva. On the other hand, there can, we think, be little doubt that Śiva, in his generative faculty, is the representative of another Vedic god whose nature and attributes go far to account for this particular feature of the modern deity, viz.Pūshan. This god, originally, no doubt, a solar deity, is frequently invoked, as the lord of nourishment, to bestow food, wealth and other blessings. He is once, jointly with Soma, called the progenitor of heaven and earth, and is connected with the marriage ceremony, where he is asked to lead the bride to the bridegroom and make her prosperous (Śivatamā). Moreover, he has the epithetkapardin(spirally braided), as have Rudra and the later Śiva, and is calledPaśupa, or guardian of cattle, whence the latter derives his namePaśupati. But he is also astrong, powerful, and even fierce and destructive god, who, with his goad or golden spear, smites the foes of his worshipper, and thus in this respect offers at least some points of similarity to Rudra, which may have favoured the fusion of the two gods. As regardsVishṇu, this god occupies already a place in the Vedic mythology, though by no means one of such prominence as would entitle him to that degree of exaltation implied in his character as one of the three hypostases of the divinity. Moreover, although in his general nature, as a benevolent, genial being, the Vedic god corresponds on the whole to the later Vishṇu, the preserver of the world, the latter exhibits many important features for which we look in vain in his prototype, and which most likely resulted from sectarian worship or from an amalgamation with local deities. In one or two of them, such as his names Vāsudeva and Vaikuntha, an attempt may again be traced to identify Vishṇu with Indra, who, as we have seen, was one of the Vedic triad of gods. The characteristic feature of the elder Vishṇu is his measuring the world with his three strides, which are explained as denoting either the three stations of the sun at the time of rising, culminating and setting, or the triple manifestation of the luminous element, as the fire on earth, the lightning in the atmosphere and the sun in the heavens.
The male nature of the triad was supposed to require to be supplemented by each of the three gods being associated with a female energy (Śakti). ThusVāchorSarasvatī, the goddess of speech and learning, came to be regarded as theśakti, or consort of Brahmā;ŚrīorLakshmī, “beauty, fortune,” as that of Vishṇu; andUmāorPārvatī, the daughter ofHimavat, the god of the Himālaya mountain, as that of Śiva. On the other hand, it is not improbable thatPārvatī—who has a variety of other names, such asKālī(“the black one”),Durgā(“the inaccessible, terrible one”),Māha-devī(“the great goddess”)—enjoyed already a somewhat extensive worship of her own, and that there may thus have been good reason for assigning to her a prominent place in the Brāhmanical system.
A compromise was thus effected between the esoteric doctrine of the metaphysician and some of the most prevalent forms of popular worship, resulting in what was henceforth to constitute the orthodox system of belief of the Brāhmanical community. Yet the Vedic pantheon could not be altogether discarded, forming part and parcel, as it did, of that sacred revelation (śruti), which was looked upon as the divine source of all religious and social law (smṛiti, “tradition”), and being, moreover, the foundation of the sacrificial ceremonial on which the priestly authority so largely depended. The existence of the old gods is, therefore, likewise recognized, but recognized in a very different way from that of the triple divinity. For while the triad represents the immediate manifestation of the eternal, infinite soul—while it constitutes, in fact, the Brahmă itself in its active relation to mundane and seemingly material occurrences, the old traditional gods are of this world, are individual spirits or portions of the Brahma like men and other creatures, only higher in degree. To them an intermediate sphere, the heaven of Indra (thesvarlokaorsvarga), is assigned to which man may raise himself by fulfilling the holy ordinances; but they are subject to the same laws of being; they, like men, are liable to be born again in some lower state, and, therefore, like them, yearn for emancipation from the necessity of future individual existence. It is a sacred duty of man to worship these superior beings by invocations and sacrificial observances, as it is to honour thepitṛis(“the fathers”), the spirits of the departed ancestors. The spirits of the dead, on being judged byYama, the Pluto of Hindū mythology, are supposed to be either passing through a term of enjoyment in a region midway between the earth and the heaven of the gods, or undergoing their measure of punishment in the nether world, situated somewhere in the southern region, before they return to the earth to animate new bodies. In Vedic mythology Yama was considered to have been the first mortal who died, and “espied the way to” the celestial abodes, and in virtue of precedence to have become the ruler of the departed; in some passages, however, he is already regarded as the god of death. Although the pantheistic system allowed only a subordinate rank to the old gods, and the actual religious belief of the people was probably but little affected by their existence, they continued to occupy an important place in the affections of the poet, and were still represented as exercising considerable influence on the destinies of man. The most prominent of them were regarded as the appointedLokapālas, or guardians of the world; and as such they were made to preside over the four cardinal and (according to some authorities) the intermediate points of the compass. ThusIndra, the chief of the gods, was regarded as the regent of the east;Agni, the fire (ignis), was in the same way associated with the south-east;Yamawith the south;Śurya, the sun (Ἢλιος), with the south-west;Varūṇa, originally the representative of the all-embracing heaven (Οὐρανός) or atmosphere, now the god of the ocean, with the west;Vāyu(orPavana), the wind, with the north-west;Kubera, the god of wealth, with the north; andSoma(orChaṇdra) with the north-east. In the institutes of Manu theLokapālasare represented as standing in close relation to the ruling king, who is said to be composed of particles of these his tutelary deities. The retinue of Indra consists chiefly of theGandharvas(probably etym. connected withκένταυρος), a class of genii, considered in the epics as the celestial musicians; and their wives, theApsaras, lovely nymphs, who are frequently employed by the gods to make the pious devotee desist from carrying his austere practices to an extent that might render him dangerous to their power.Nārada, an ancient sage (probably a personification of the cloud, the “water-giver”), is considered as the messenger between the gods and men, and as having sprung from the forehead of Brahmā. The interesting office of the god of love is held byKāmadeva, also calledAnanga, the bodyless, because, as the myth relates, having once tried by the power of his mischievous arrow to make Śiva fall in love with Pārvatī, whilst he was engaged in devotional practices, the urchin was reduced to ashes by a glance of the angry god. Two other mythological figures of some importance are considered as sons of Śiva and Pārvatī, viz.KārttikeyaorSkanda, the leader of the heavenly armies, who was supposed to have been fostered by the sixKṛittikāsor Pleiades; andGaṇeśa(“lord of troops”), the elephant-headed god of wisdom, and at the same time the leader of thedii minorum gentium.