The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)

The writing down of these invocations and the possession of the sacred books formed a new bond to unite the Brahmans into an order distinct from the others. The superior knowledge of the priestly families became of still greater importance. By appealing to these writings, which in the first instance were only accessible to the members of their order, they were enabled to find a considerable support in asserting their claims against the kings, Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, though their contents told against rather than for the new doctrine. Strong though the impulse might be, which the variety of these invocations had supplied to advance the new conception of god, this body of ritual, with the exception of a few later pieces, was strongly opposed to the new doctrine. It was filled with praise of those very gods, which, in the view of the Brahmans, had given way to their new god. The way in which the Brahmans harmonised the songs of the Veda, where Varuna, Mitra, Agni, and Indra are each praised in turn as the highest deity, with their new idea of god, was a matter for their modes of interpretation and their schools. For the nation the chief object was to remove or conceal the striking discord between the doctrine of the new god and the old faith, a task all the more difficult, as the nation clung more closely to the old forms of the gods, though some, as has been remarked, were almost obliterated by the natural characteristics of the land of the Ganges, and the novel conditions of life in the new states. Small as the space was which the battles of Indra could claim in the eyes of the Brahmans beside their own Brahman, they could not resist the Veda, which testified to his existence in every part of the work, nor the belief of the nation, so far as to set aside either this deity or the rest. On the other hand, it was easy to subordinate the old gods to Brahman on the system of the emanation of everything in the world from Brahman. They were degraded into a class of higher beings, which had emanated from Brahman before men, i. e. immediately before the Brahmans. From Brahman the Brahmans first allowed a personal Brahman to emanate, unless indeed this personification had already proceeded from Brahmanaspati (p. 128), and was in existence beside the sacred world-soul, the impersonal Brahman. The personal Brahman was a deity like the old gods, but far more full of life. To him neither shrines were dedicated nor sacrifices offered,194 yet before meals corns of rice were to be scattered for him as for the rest of the gods, and spirits. The personal Brahman, like the impersonal, was the result of theory and meditation; in both Brahman was a product of reflection, without life and ethical force, without participation in the fortunes of men and states, without love and anger, without sympathy and pity: a colourless, abstract, super-personal and therefore impersonal being, the strictest opposite of that mighty personality into which the Jehovah of the Hebrews grew, owing to the historical, practical, and ethical development of the conception. Brahman was not so much above the natural world which he has created by his command, as its lord and master. Brahman was within it and inwoven in it, and yet at the same time outside it, the hollow form of a being, at once self-originating and returning into itself; or as a personal Brahman he was the president of a meaningless council of heavenly spirits. The old deities, the beings who stood first in the scale of emanations from Brahman, surrounded this personal Brahman as a court surrounds a king. Like other beings, they also have their duties assigned to them; some of the old deities are raised into prominence, and to them is given the old mission of conflict against the evil spirits. They are to defend the eight regions of the earth entrusted to their care against the attacks of the Asuras, or evil spirits. At the head of these eight protectors Indra is naturally placed. To his keeping is assigned the most sacred district, the north-east, where beyond the Himalayas is the divine mountain Meru, which illuminates the northern region, and round which move the sun, moon, and constellations. On this mountain, according to the oldest conceptions of the Aryas, Indra has his abode with the spirits of light. Yama is now king of the south-east, where in the old religion his heaven of light lay with the kingdom of the blessed spirits. Varuna, who previously was throned in the height of heaven on the great waters, and sent sickness and death on sinners, is now the deity of the distant ocean. Of the old gods of light, Surya, the sun-god, found a place among the eight protectors of the world, and at his side was Chandra, the moon-god. The remaining regions belong to Vayu the wind-god, and Kuvera, the god of the inundation. Attempts to localise the highest deities, though first carried out in the law book of the priests, are found in the Yajur-veda.195 Another classification of the gods mentions Indra in the first series, and afterwards the eight Vasus, the "givers of good;" among whom are Agni and Soma, whose apotheosis has been already mentioned – then Rudra, the father of the winds, with the ten Maruts, and after them the spirits of light, the Adityas (the sons of Aditi), of which in the older period seven or eight are enumerated. The hymns of the Veda sometimes mention a total of thirty-three gods, eleven in heaven, eleven in the clouds, and eleven on earth,196 a total found also among the Aryas in Iran, and afterwards retained by the Buddhists.197 But the Indians could not remain contented with such a moderate number of gods; the more each deity was deprived of honour, the higher became the total. Even in the Rigveda we find: "Three hundred, three thousand, thirty and nine gods honoured Agni." In the older commentaries this number of 3339 is regarded as the total sum of gods; but in later writings it is raised to 33,000.198 The people troubled themselves little about Brahman or the positions which the Brahmans assigned to the gods, their classes or their number. They continued to invoke Indra and Agni, Surya and Aryaman, as their helpers and protectors.

The removal of sacrifice was less to be thought of by the Brahmans than the removal of the ancient gods, even if they had maintained the strictest consistency in their conception of Brahman. The Rigveda was mainly a collection of sacrificial chants and ritual. Brahmans no less then Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas were accustomed to invoke the spirits of light in the early dawn, to offer gifts at morning, mid-day, and evening to Agni; to lay wood on the fire, or throw milk and butter into it; above all, to celebrate sacrifices at the changes of the moon or the seasons. It was not these sacrifices only, or the offering of the soma-juice, which the Brahmans retained, but the whole service of sacrifice, for which instructions were found in the sentences of the Veda. The idea that every sacrifice when offered correctly was efficacious, that a magic power resided in it, that the assistance and therefore a part of the divine power or nature was gained by the sacrifice, could not fail to retain the service of sacrifice in full force in the new doctrines. According to this the divine nature was present, and existed in the world in different degrees of purity or dimness, of power or weakness, and owing to the direction taken in the development of the new idea of god, it was especially alive in the sentences and acts of sacrifice; so that the efficacy of the correct sacrifice must apply a portion of the divine nature to the person sacrificing. Hence the invocation of the old gods was allowed to remain; sacrifice to them was still meritorious, and necessary for this world as well as the other.

We know from the Rigveda the old sentences used at burial, which were supposed to avert death from the living, the prayers that the soul of the dead might be taken up into Yama's heaven of light (p. 62 ff.). We saw with what reverence the living thought of the spirits of their forefathers; how careful the Aryas were to offer gifts to them, so that their food and clothing might never fail. It was customary to sprinkle water for the spirits of the forefathers, and in the land of the Ganges to scatter grains of rice; at the funeral feast of the dead, kept by the families on each new moon, three furrows were made, in which every member of the family placed three cakes, for the father, the grandfather, and great-grandfather; the cakes were then covered with locks of wool, and the ancestors invoked to clothe themselves with it. On the death-day of any member of the family, or a certain time after, the family assembled, in order to offer fruits and flesh to his spirit. There was now no longer any light heaven of Yama; he was the prince of the hot hell (p. 137), where souls are tormented after death, and then born again to a new life in plants, animals, and men: the chief object now was to attain the end of all life and regeneration by a return into Brahman. So far as they could, the Brahmans reconciled the old and new conceptions. The heaven of Indra (p. 138) was substituted for the old heaven of Yama. It was not the pure heaven of Brahman, but a higher, brighter world. The soul of the virtuous passes into this outer heaven; the soul of the sinner sinks into hell. But the merit of good works is consumed, as the guilt of sin is expiated, by the lapse of time, by a shorter or longer participation in the joys of the heaven of Indra, a shorter or longer torment in hell. Then begins for the souls who have thus received only the first reward of their lives a series of regenerations. The old chants of burial could only be rendered in the sense of the new system by the most violent interpretations. The belief in the spirits of the ancestors, and the pious worship of them, had struck roots far too deep and ancient into the heart of the nation for the Brahmans to think of removing these services, the libations to the spirits, or the funeral feast of the families, at which they invoked their ancestors to come down and enjoy themselves at the banquet with their descendants. Libation and feast continued to exist without molestation. The Brahmans contented themselves with ordaining that at the sacrifice to the dead, the fire Dakshina, i. e. the fire to the right, was indispensable. When Yama's abode had been removed to the hot south, the sacrificial fires for his kingdom must burn to the right, i. e. towards the south. The theory of the priests then declared these sacrifices to the dead to be indispensable in order to liberate the souls out of certain spaces in hell; they also laid down the rule that a Brahman should always be present at the funeral feast. The book of the law gives very definite warnings of the evil consequences resulting from funeral feasts celebrated without Brahmans, i. e. in the old traditional manner. The elder of the family is to conduct the requisite three Brahmans to his abode; the first Brahman after the necessary prayers throws rice for the dead into the sacrificial fire; he then makes funeral cakes of rice and butter, of which each member of the family sacrifices three for his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Then food is set forth, of which the Brahmans first eat, with uncovered heads and feet, and in silence, in order that the spirits may participate in the meal; after the Brahmans the rest partake. According to the book of the law, cows' milk, and food made from it, if set forth at the funeral feast, liberated the spirits of the ancestors for a whole year; the flesh of horses and tortoises for eleven months; of buffaloes for ten; of rams for nine; of antelopes for eight; of deer for seven; of goats for six; of the permitted birds for five; of wethers for four; game for three; fish for two – while water, rice, barley, sesame were efficacious for one month only.199 Though the Brahmans changed the funeral feasts into banquets for the members of their own order, yet the fact that they were retained, and with them the connection of the families, the maintenance of this old form of worship, though in reality at variance with the new arrangement of these unions of the families and forms of ancient life, brought other and very important advantages to the new system.

The old religion rested on the contrast between the friendly spirits who gave light and water, and the demons of darkness and drought. From this arose the conception that certain objects belonged to the gloomy spirits and were pleasing to them; that by contact or defilement with them a man gave the evil spirits power over him. Contact with corpses, dead hair, skin, or bones, defilement with the impurities of the body, spittle, urine, excrement, &c., gave the evil powers authority over the person so defiled. This faith we find in full force and the widest extent among the Arians of Iran; but it must have existed in a degree hardly less among the Aryas on the Indus and the Ganges. According to the new views of the Brahmans, the two sides of nature – the bright, pure, and clear side belonging to good spirits, and the foul and dark side belonging to evil spirits – existed no longer; all nature had become dark and defiled; even the Brahmans, the best part of creation, participated, like the other orders, though in a less degree, in this defilement and gloom. In the new doctrine the world fell into two halves, a supersensual and a sensual. The first was indeed supposed to be present in the second, but only in a corrupt and adulterated form; the sensual side had, at bottom, no right to exist; it must be utterly removed and elevated into Brahman. As corrupted Brahman the whole sensual world was imperfect and transitory, wavering between growth and destruction, and filled with evil because through its own nature it was impure. The new system required, therefore, in order to be consistent, that man should not only keep himself removed from all impurity, but should also free himself from all the vileness of nature which clung to him; that he should liberate himself from nature herself, and the whole realm of sense. As the whole existing world was more or less impure, consistency required that all ancient customs of purification, all usages intended to remove defilements when incurred, must be allowed to drop in order to proclaim the elevation and destruction of sensual nature as the only duty of man. Nevertheless the Brahmans allowed the old rites of purification to exist beside the old sacrifice. As the latter is efficacious for salvation and increase of power in the person sacrificing, so is the old purification meritorious, not because it keeps the evil at a distance, but because it removes the grossest defilement; and from this point of view it is developed by the Brahmans to a far wider extent. He who could not attain to the highest must be content with something less. The performance of these duties of purification is, according to the doctrine of the Brahmans, an act of merit for this world and the next, and saving for the soul. Sacrifice and purity form the circle of the good works, which, according to the measure of completeness, lead souls for a longer or shorter time into the heaven of Indra, while disregard of them brings men into hell for long periods and severe torments.

All the objects which a man touches, even the earth, can be impure, i. e. defiled by spittle, blood, skin, bones, &c.; everything must therefore be purified before it is taken into use. The earth is purified by allowing a cow to lie on it for the night, the floors of houses by throwing cow-dung upon them, clothes and woven-stuffs by sprinkling them with the urine of a cow. To the Indians the cow was so sacred and highly-revered an animal, that the same things, which in men and beasts were considered most unclean, were regarded as means of purification when coming from a cow. We have already seen how highly cows were prized by the Aryas in the Panjab. The cow, the "highest of all animals," as she is styled in the Mahabharata, was to them not only an emblem of fruitfulness and bounteous nourishment; they compared her to the nourishing earth, which is often spoken of as a cow. Moreover, the cow provided food even for the gods, inasmuch as milk and especially butter were offered to them. The patient, quiet existence of the cow is also the pattern of the obedient and patient life now recommended by the Brahmans.

Any contact with a corpse causes defilement. A death in a family makes it unclean for ten days, during which the relatives of the dead must sleep on the earth, each by himself, and eat uncooked rice only. The Brahman then purifies himself by touching water; the Kshatriya, by taking hold of his weapons, his horse, or elephant; the Vaiçya, by seizing the reins of his oxen, &c.

The old customs of purity were considerably extended by the ordinances of food, the rules about clean eating, laid down by the Brahmans. According to their belief the whole world of animals was peopled with the souls of the dead. In every tiger, elephant, ox, antelope, locust, and ant, might be living the soul of a man, perhaps the soul of a friend, relation, or ancestor. It was with aversion that any one brought himself to make an attack on any creature, or any living animal. From this point of view the Brahmans had to forbid entirely the eating of flesh, whether of wild or domestic animals. They repressed hunting as strictly as they could: "The man who slew animals for his pleasure would not increase his happiness in life or death. He who slew an animal had a share in its death no less than the man who dismembered it, or sold it, or ate it." Above all, a Brahman himself was not to slay any animal except for the purpose of sacrifice; and the sacrifice of animals never prevailed to any great extent among the Indians. The Brahman who offended against this law would in his regenerations die by a violent death as many times as there were hairs on the skin of the slain animal. But the Brahmans could not carry out the prohibition either of hunting or eating flesh. They contented themselves with laying stress on the advantages of nourishment by milk and vegetables; they limited themselves to insisting that no ox-flesh should be eaten; birds of prey, some kinds of the fish and the animals already mentioned, could be used. The flesh of the rhinoceros also and the crocodile was not forbidden. But even the flesh of the permitted kinds could only be eaten after it had been offered to the gods or the ancestors, and the man who ate no flesh at all would acquire a merit equal to a hundred festival sacrifices.200 Here, again, we see that the book of the law seeks to bring the new doctrine into force, without having the courage entirely to remove the old ways of life. At a later time the prohibition of flesh was more strict. Of vegetables, leeks, garlic, and onions were forbidden, and also all plants which had grown up among impure matter. Drink of any kind must be purified before use by being cleared with the stalks of kuça grass. Food could only be eaten at morning and evening; always in moderation and with complete repose of mind. The sight of food must give pleasure, and man must regard it with veneration; then it will give muscular power and manly energy. Before each meal grains of rice are to be sprinkled by the Dvija before the door, with the words: "I greet you, ye Maruts;" and other grains must be thrown into the water with the words: "I greet you, ye water-gods." On the pestle and mortar grains of rice must be strewn with the words: "I greet you, ye deities of the great trees." Grains of rice are also to be thrown into the air for all the gods; into the middle of the house for the protecting deity of the house, and Brahman; on the top of the house or behind it for all living creatures; and the remainder must be strewn for the ancestors with the face turned to the south. Any one who omits these offerings before eating is a sinner.201 At sunrise and sunset the Dvija is to pronounce the prayer Gayatri on pain of losing caste;202 and every day he must pour libations to the saints, the gods, the spirits, the ancestors, and strangers.

The forms of purification underwent further change and important extension. The new system, unlike the old custom, was not contented to remove defilement, when incurred, by the use of rules of purification, in which, in certain cases, traditional prayers and formulæ had to be pronounced in order to obviate the evil consequences, or drive away the bad spirits. In a large number of defilements the Brahmans saw something more than mere impurity; they were sins which must be removed by expiation. Their desire was not to expel the black spirits, but to eradicated and quench the false and sinful feelings in men, which gave rise to impurity. From the same point of view, and following the same path, they required that a man who had committed an offence, should not wait for the penalty of the court, but should punish himself, do penance of his own will, and by this voluntary punishment and expiation remove the consequences of his offence, not in this world only but in the next. The forms of expiation instituted by the Brahmans for the removal of impurity and offences consist of prayers, which at times have to be repeated a thousand times daily, of fasts more or less severe, and occupying more or less time, of corporal punishments, and in the case of grievous offences, of voluntary death or suicide. Any one who by misadventure has eaten forbidden food must perform the expiation of the moon, or the Santapana. The expiation of the moon consists in eating nothing but rice for a whole month; on the first day of the waning moon fifteen mouthfuls are to be taken, and a mouthful less each day till the sixteenth, when a total fast is to be kept; from this time for each day of the increase of the moon a mouthful more is to be taken till the fifteenth day.203 The Santapana requires that the penitent should live for a day on the urine and dung of cows mingled with milk, and drink water boiled with kuça-grass; the day following he is to fast.204 To atone for the forbidden food eaten unintentionally by an Arya in the course of a year, it was necessary to perform the penance of Prajapatya for twelve days.205 On the first three days he eats in the morning only; on the next three, in the evening only; on the seventh, eighth, and ninth day he eats only what strangers give him, without asking; on the last three days he keeps a strict fast. Any one who intentionally eats what is forbidden is expelled by the members of his family from the family and caste. The Brahmans punished indulgence in intoxicating drinks with severe penalties; we saw how much inclined the Aryas were to excess in this respect. The excited and passionate state, induced by such liquors, was diametrically opposed to the quiet, patient existence, which was now the ideal of the Brahmans. Any one who wilfully became intoxicated was to go on drinking boiling rice-water till his body was entirely consumed; then only was he free from his sin. This offence could also be expiated by drinking the boiling urine of a cow, or boiling liquid of cow-dung, till death ensued. Drunkenness was not the only sin on which the Brahmans imposed a penalty of voluntary death. Any one who unintentionally killed a cow, was to shave his head, put on as a garment the skin of the dead cow, repair to the pasture, salute the cows and wait upon them, and then perform his ablutions with the urine of cows instead of water. He must follow the cows step by step, swallow the dust which they raise, bring them into shelter in bad weather and guard them. If a cow is attacked by a beast of prey he must defend it with his life. If he does not perish in the service, cow-keeping of this nature continued for three months atones for his offence.206 If a Vaiçya or a Kshatriya unintentionally kills a Brahman, he must wander over a hundred yodhanas, constantly reciting one of the three Vedas. If a Kshatriya intentionally slays a Brahman, he must allow himself to be shot down by arrows, or throw himself head-foremost three times into the fire till death ensues. Any one who has defiled the bed of his father or teacher must lie on a red-hot bed of iron, or expiate his offence by self-mutilation, and death.207

The purity and daily duties which the Brahmans imposed on themselves, partly from custom, partly as a part of their new doctrine, were more strict than those required from the other orders. The Brahman must rise before the dawn, and repeat the Gayatri; i. e. the following words of the Veda: "We have received the glorious splendour from the divine Savitar (p. 46); may he strengthen our understanding;"208 and purify himself by a bath. Long prayers in the morning and the evening ensure long life. He must never omit to perform the five daily duties – the offering to the saints, the gods, the spirits, the ancestors, and the strange guests. Each day he must bring gifts to Agni, the sun, Prajapati, Dyaus, and Prithivi (the spirits of the heaven and the earth), the fire of the good sacrifice, Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Soma.209 Each day he must repeat the mystical name of Brahman, Om (in the older form am, i. e. "yes," "certainly"), and the other three sacred words, Bhar, Bhuva, and Svar, which, according to the commentators, are to be regarded as the spirits of the earth, the air, and the heaven.210 Fire he must always consider as sacred. He may not fan it with his breath, or step over it. He may not warm his feet at it, or place it in a brazier under his bed or under his feet. He must not throw any refuse into it. Offal, the remains of food, and water which has been used for a bath or the feet, must be removed far away from the fire. Nor was the Brahman allowed to throw refuse into water, or pour blood or any drink into it, still less to vomit into it; he might not look at the reflection of his body in water, or drink water in the hollow of his hand. The clothes of a Brahman must be always clean and white, and never worn by another. His hair, nails, beard, must be cut; but he may not cut them himself (for so he would be defiled), nor gnaw his nails with his teeth. In his ears he must wear very bright gold rings. He must wear a wreath on his head, and in one hand carry a staff of bamboo, in the other kuça-grass and a pitcher for his ablutions. He may not play at dice, or dance or sing except at the sacrifice, when required to do so by the ritual: he may not grind his teeth, or scratch his head with his hands, or beat himself on the head, or take the wreath from his head with his own hands. He must always so place himself that on his right hand there may be an elevation of the earth, a cow, a jar of butter, a crossroad, or a sacred tree. He may not tread on ashes, hair, bones, cotton-stems, or sprouting corn. He may never step over a rope to which a cow is tethered, or disturb a cow when drinking. At morning, evening, and midday, he may not look at the sun. Before an altar of Agni, in a fold of cows, when with Brahmans, or reading the sacred scriptures, or eating, he must leave the right arm uncovered. He may not wash his feet in a brazen vessel, or bathe naked, or sleep naked on the earth, or run when it rains.