Chapter 143

65Cf.Barth,Religions of India, p. 13.

66Oldenberg,Die Religion des Veda, p. 281. Macdonell,Vedic Mythology, p. 18.

67Muir,Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 147. Barth,op. cit.p. 14. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 77.

68Oldenberg,op. cit.pp. 63, 281, 284. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 18. Bergaigne,La religion védique, iii. 152sqq.

69Macdonell,op. cit.p. 75sq.

70Oldenberg,op. cit.pp. 60, 281. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 18.

71Rig-Veda, viii. 42. 1.

72Ibid.i. 24. 10; vii. 87. 5.

73Ibid.ii. 28. 4.

74Ibid.viii. 41. 7. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 26. Bohnenberger,Der altindische Gott Varuṇa, p. 38sqq.

75Supra,ii. 598. Darmesteter,Essais orientaux, p. 126.

76Macdonell,op. cit.p. 26.

77Macdonell,op. cit.pp. 20, 26. Whitney, ‘On the main Results of the later Vedic Researches in Germany,’ inJour. American Oriental Soc.iii. 326. Roth, ‘On the Morality of the Veda,’ibid.iii. 340sq.Bergaigne,op. cit.iii. 156. Darmesteter,Essais orientaux, p. 111. Bohnenberger,op. cit.p. 49sqq.

78Oldenberg,op. cit.p. 299.

79Ibid.pp. 282, 283, 300.

80Rig-Veda, viii. 31. See Barth,op. cit.p. 34; Kaegi,Rigveda, p. 29; Muir,op. cit.v. 20; Macdonell,op. cit.p. 18.

81Rig-Veda, i. 122. 9.

82Ibid.i. 24. 14.

83Ibid.x. 154. 2.

84Ibid.x. 154. 3.

85Ibid.i. 125. 5sq.; x. 107. 2; x. 154. 3. Muir,op. cit.v. 285. Oldenberg,op. cit.p. 536. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 167.

86Muir,op. cit.v. 301.

87Rig-Veda, x. 14. 7sq.Barth,op. cit.p. 22sq.Macdonell,op. cit.p. 165sqq.

88Zimmer,Altindisches Leben, p. 410sqq.Barth,op. cit.p. 23. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 167sq.

89Hopkins,Religions of India, p. 155. Oldenberg,op. cit.p. 535.

90Rig-Veda, x. 14. 8; x. 154. 3. Oldenberg,op. cit.p. 535. Macdonell,op. cit.p. 168.

91Rig-Veda, x. 14. 10sqq.Cf.Zimmer,op. cit.p. 421; Hopkins,op. cit.p. 147.

92Zimmer,op. cit.p. 418. Scherman,Indische Visionslitteratur, p. 123.Idem, ‘Eine Art visionärer Höllenschilderung aus dem indischen Mittelalter,’ inRomanische Forschungen, v. 569. Oldenberg,op. cit.p. 537.

93Rig-Veda, iv. 5. 5; vii. 104. 3, 11, 17.Atharva-Veda, v. 19. 3, 12sqq.; xii. 4. 3, 36.

In post-Vedic times ritualism grew more important still. Sometimes the gods are represented as beings indifferent to every moral distinction, and the most indelicate stories are unscrupulously related of them.94In the Taittirîya Samhitâ of the Yajur Veda we are told that if anybody wishes to injure another, he need only say to Sûrya, one of the most important among the solar deities,95“Smite such a one, and I will give you an offering,” and Sûrya, to get the offering, will smite him.96Çiva, who is connected with the Vedic god Rudra, is in the Mahabharata clothed in terrible “forms,” being armed with the trident and wearing a necklace of skulls; he exacts a bloody cultus, and is the chief of the mischievous spirits and vampires that frequent places of execution and burial grounds.97Vishnu, the other great god of Hinduism, though less fierce than Çiva, is nevertheless, on one side of his character, an inexorable god;98and Krishna, as accepted by Vishnuism, is a crafty hero of a singularly doubtful moral character.99In Brahmanism religion is largely replaced by magic, the rites themselves are raised to the rank of divinities, the priests become the gods of gods.100And the point of view from which these man-gods look upon human conduct is expressed in the Satapatha Brâhmana, where it is said that fees paid to priests are like sacrifices offered to other gods—those who gratify them are placed in a state of bliss.101Ritual observances are essential for a man’s wellbeing both in this life and in the life to come, where paradise, hell, or transmigrationawaits the dead. In the Brâhmanas immortality, or at least longevity, is promised to those who rightly understand and practise the rites of sacrifice, whilst those who are deficient in this respect depart before their natural term of life to the next world, where they are weighed in a balance and receive good or evil according to their deeds.102To repeat sacred texts a certain number of times is also laid down as a condition of salvation,103and the doctrine is gradually developed that a single invocation of the divine name cancels a whole life of iniquity and crime. Hence the importance attached—as early as the Bhagavad Gîtâ—to the last thought before death, and the idea of attaining complete possession of this thought by an act of suicide.104According to the Purânas it is sufficient even in the case of the vilest criminal, when at the point of death, to pronounce by chance some syllables of the names Vishnu or Çiva in order to obtain salvation;105and in the preface to the Prem Sâgar, which displays the religion of the Hindus at the present day, it is said that those who even ignorantly sing the praises of the greatness of Krishn Chand are rewarded with final beatitude, just as a person would acquire eternal life by partaking of the drink of immortality though he did not know what he was drinking.106On the other hand, “according to the Hindu Scriptures, whatever a man’s life may have been, if he do not die near some holy stream, if his body is not burned on its banks, or at any rate near some water as a representative of the stream; or where this is impracticable, if some portion of his body be not thrown into it—his spirit must wander in misery, unable to obtain the bliss for which he has done and suffered so much in life.”107At the same time we also find a great variety of social dutiesinculcated in the sacred books of India—humanity even to enemies108and slaves,109filial piety,110charity,111hospitality,112veracity;113and in the Sûtras the doctrine appears that in order to obtain the chief fruit of sacrifice it is necessary to practise the moral virtues in addition to the rite.114But this doctrine is singularly free from any reference to the justice of gods. In the Upanishads and Buddhistic books it is distinctly formulated in the idea ofkarma, according to which each act of the soul, good or bad, inevitably and naturally works out its full effect to the sweet or bitter end without the intervention of any deity to apportion the reward or punishment.115

94Barth,op. cit.p. 46sq.Macdonell,op. cit.p. 76.

95Barth,op. cit.p. 20.

96Taittirîya Samhitâ, vi. 4sqq., quoted by Goblet d’Alviella,Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of the Conception of God, p. 85.

97Barth,op. cit.pp. 159, 164.

98Ibid.p. 174.

99Ibid.p. 172.

100Supra,ii. 657.

101Satapatha Brâhmana, ii. 2. 2. 6.

102Weber, ‘Eine Legende des Çatapatha-Brâhmaṇa über die strafende Vergeltung nach dem Tode,’ inZeitschr. d. Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellsch.ix. 238sq.See also Macdonell,op. cit.p. 168; Hopkins,op. cit.pp. 190, 193;Vishńu Puráńa, p. 44.

103Aitareya Brahmanam, ii. 17.

104Bhagavad Gîtâ, ch. 8. Barth,op. cit.p. 228.

105Barth,op. cit.p. 228.

106Prem Ságar, p. 56.Cf.Wilson, inVishńu Puráńa, p. 210, n. 13;Idem, ‘Religious Sects of the Hindus,’ inAsiatic Researches, xvi. 115.

107Wilkins,Modern Hinduism, p. 439sq.

108Supra,i. 342.

109Supra,i. 689.

110Supra,i. 612.

111Supra,i. 550sq.

112Supra,i. 578sq.

113Supra,ii. 91.

114Barth,op. cit.p. 49. See,e.g.,Âpastamba, i. 7. 20. 1sqq.; i. 8. 23. 6.

115Barth,op. cit.pp. 77, 78, 115sq.Müller,Anthropological Religion, p. 301.Dhammapada, i. 1sq.Rhys Davids,Hibbert Lectures on the History of Buddhism, p. 85. Oldenberg,Buddha, p. 289. Hopkins,op. cit.p. 319sq.

Buddha did not base his system on any belief in gods, hence there is no place in it for a ritual nor for sin in the sense of offending a supernatural being. He that is pure in heart is the true priest, not he that knows the Vedas; the Vedas are nothing, the priests are of no account, save as they be morally of repute.116If the genuine Buddhist can be said to worship any higher power, it is the moral order which never fails to assert itself in the law of cause and effect. But Buddha’s followers were less metaphysical, and “the clouds returned after the rain.” The old gods of Brahmanism came back, Buddha himself was deified as an omniscient and everlasting god, and Buddhism incorporated most of the local deities and demons of those nations it sought to convert.117From being originally a metaphysical and ethical doctrine, it was thus transformed into a religion full of ritualism, and, it should be added, profusely mixed with magic. In Lamaism, especially,ritual is elevated to the front rank of importance; we find there pompous services closely resembling those of the Church of Rome, litanies and chants, offerings and sacrifice.118And the muttering of certain mystic formulas and short prayers is alleged to be far more efficacious than mere moral virtue as a means of gaining the glorious heaven of eternal bliss, the paradise of the fabulous Buddha of boundless light.119So also in China the teachers of Buddhism “were by no means rigorous in enforcing the obligations of men to morality. To expiate sins, offerings to the idols and to the priests were sufficient. A temple built in honour of Fŏ, and richly endowed, would suffice to blot out every stain of guilt, and serve as a portal to the blessed mansions of Buddha.”120

116Hopkins,op. cit.p. 319.

117Waddell,Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 126, 325sq.Griffis,Religions of Japan, pp. 187, 207. Davis,China, ii. 51.

118Waddell,op. cit.421, 476.

119Ibid.pp. 142, 148, 573.

120Gutzlaff, quoted by Davis,op. cit.ii. 51.Cf.Edkins,Religion in China, p. 150.

In the national religion of China the heaven god, Shang-te, is the supreme being, the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe, whose power knows no bounds, and whose sight equally comprehends the past, the present, and the future, penetrating even to the remotest recesses of the heart.121He is the author and upholder not only of the physical but of the moral order of the world, watching over the conduct of men, rewarding the good, and punishing the wicked.122Sometimes he appears to array himself in terrors, as in the case of public calamities and the irregularity of the seasons; but these are only salutary warnings intended to call men to repentance.123The cult which is offered Shang-te is frigid and ceremonial. The rules of ceremony have their origin in heaven, and the movement of themreaches to earth; their abandonment leads to “the ruin of states, the destruction of families, and the perishing of individuals.”124The Chinese are inclined to place ritualism on an equality with social morality. Confucius himself humbly submitted to the rules of ceremony, although he denounced hypocrisy. But to him morality was infinitely more important than religion. He altogether avoided the personal term God, and made only use of the abstract term Heaven. He admitted that spiritual beings exist, and even sacrificed to them,125but when questioned about matters relating to religion he was systematically silent.126Religious duties occupy a very insignificant place in his system. “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.”127Prayer is unnecessary because Heaven does not actively interfere with the soul of man; it has endowed him at his birth with goodness, which, if he will, may become his nature, and the reward or punishment is only the natural or providential result of his conduct.128Of punishments in a future life Confucius says nothing, though he maintains that there are rewards and dignity for the good after death.129The belief of the Chinese inpost mortempunishments comes from Buddhism.130

121Legge,Notions of the Chinese concerning God, pp. 33, 34, 100sq.Idem,Chinese Classics, i. 98. Staunton,Inquiry into the proper Mode of rendering the Word “God” in translating the Sacred Scriptures into the Chinese Language, p. 8sq.Douglas,Confucianism and Taouism, pp. 77, 82.

122Doolittle,Social Life of the Chinese, ii. 272. Legge,Chinese Classics, i. 98; iii. 46. Smith,Proverbs of the Chinese, p. 40. Boone,Essay on the proper rendering of the Words Elohim and Θέος into the Chinese Language, p. 55.Indo-Chinese Gleaner, i. 162. Davis,op. cit.ii. 26, 34. Douglas,op. cit.pp. 77, 78, 83.

123Staunton,op. cit.p. 9. Legge,Chinese Classics, iii. 46sq.

124Lî Kî, vii. 4. 5sq.

125Lun Yü, iii. 12. 1; x. 8. 10.

126Ibid.vii. 20.Cf.Réville,La religion chinoise, p. 326.

127Lun Yü, vi. 20.

128Douglas,op. cit.p. 78. Legge,Religions of China, p. 300. Réville,op. cit.p. 645.

129Legge,Religions of China, pp. 115, 299sq.Réville,op. cit.p. 345.

130Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 288. Edkins,op. cit.pp. 83, 87sqq.Smith,Proverbs of the Chinese, p. 227.

The gods of ancient Greece were on the whole beneficent beings, who conferred blessings upon those who secured their goodwill. Zeus protects the life of the family, city, and nation; he is a god of victory and victorious peace, who gathers the hosts against Troy, and saves Greece from Persia; he brings the ships to land; he is “the warder off of evil.”131But neither he nor the other gods bestow theirfavours for nothing; Xenophon says that they assist with good advice those who worship them regularly,132but take revenge on those who neglect them.133They punish severely even offences committed against them accidentally,134and not infrequently they display actual malevolence towards men by seducing them into sin135or inflicting harm upon them out of sheer envy.136In other respects, also, they are by no means models of morality; but this does not prevent them from acting as administrators of justice any more than, among men, a judge is supposed to lose all regard for justice because he himself transgresses the rules of morality in some particular of private life.137“For great crimes,” says Herodotus, “great punishments at the hands of the gods are in store.”138Dike, or Justice, the terrible virgin “who breathes against her enemies a destructive wrath,”139is represented sometimes as the daughter, sometimes as the companion of the all-seeing Zeus;140and, as Welcker observes, Zeus was not only a god among other gods, but also the deity solely and abstractedly.141We have noticed above that from ancient times the murder of a kinsman was an offence against Zeus and under the ban of the Erinyes, and that later on all bloodshed, if the victim had any rights at all within the city, became a sin which needed purification.142Zeus protected guests and suppliants,143he punished children who reproached their aged parents,144he was a guardian of the family property,145he protected boundaries,146he was no friend of falsehood,147he punished perjury.148According to earlier beliefs retribution was exclusively restrictedto this earthly existence, and if the guilty person himself escaped the punishment for his deed it fell on some of his descendants.149The transference of Menelaus to the Elysian plain, spoken of in the Odyssey,150was not a reward for his virtue—indeed, he was not particularly conspicuous for any of the Homeric virtues—but a privilege resulting from his being married to Zeus’ daughter Helena;151and if the perjurer was tortured in Hades152the simple reason was that he had called down upon himself such torture in his oath.153In later times we meet with the doctrine of retribution after death, not only in the speculations of isolated philosophers, but as a popular belief;154but this belief seems to have been quite unconnected with any notion of Olympian justice.155The souls in the world beyond the grave are sentenced by special judges;156Aeschylus expressly says that it is another Zeus that administers justice there.157For him Hades with the powers by which it is governed exists only as a place where the guilty are punished, whereas for the virtuous he has no word of true hope;158and other writers also have much more to tell about future punishments than about future rewards.159Particularly prominent among the offences which are punished in Hades are, besides perjury,160injuries to parents161and guests,162that is, offences which in this world are visited with the most powerful curses.163According to Aeschylus, the retribution which the Erinyes—personifications of curses—have begun on earth is completed in the nether world, and according to Pythagoras unpurified souls are kept chained there by the Erinyes without any hope of escape.164We are, moreover, told that painters used to represent “allegorical figures of curses in connection with theirimages of wicked dead.165From all these facts I conclude that the notion of punishments in Hades did not arise from a belief in the justice of gods, but from the idea that the efficacy of a curse may extend beyond the grave—an idea which we have already met with both in Vedic texts and among certain savages, and of which the supposed punishment of perjury in Hades is only a particular instance.166As for the gods it should be added that the vulgar opinion of their character was not shared by all. Euripides affirms that the legends about them which tend to confuse human ideas as to right and wrong are not literally true.167“I think,” he says, “that none of the gods is bad”;168“if the gods do aught that is base, they are not gods.”169Plato opposes the popular views that the deity induces men to commit crimes,170that he is capable of feeling envy,171and that evil-doers may avert divine punishments by sacrifices offered to the gods as bribes.172God is good, he is never the author of evil to any one, and if the wicked are miserable the reason is that they require to be punished and are benefited by receiving punishment from God.173Plutarch likewise asserts in the strongest terms that God is perfectly good and least of all wanting in justice and love, “the most beautiful of virtues and the best befitting the Godhead.”174

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