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

If the use of flesh as food could not be entirely forbidden to the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the Brahman must live on milk and vegetables. But he might not drink the milk of a cow when in heat, or that has lately calved, or of a cow which had lost her calf, the milk of a camel, the red gum which exudes from trees, or anything from which oil has been pressed, or with which sesame has been mixed, or anything that from sweet has become sour. He might not eat anything kept over night, or any food into which lice have fallen, or which a cow has smelt, or anything touched by a dog. He might not take the food of a criminal, or prisoner, or usurer, or rogue, or hunter, or dog-trainer, or Çudra, or dancer, or washer-woman; or of a man who is submissive to his wife, or allows her infidelity, or into whose house the wife's paramour comes. All such food is unclean for the Brahman; and so also is food offered to him in anger, and that touched by a madman. Any one eating such things feeds on "bones, hair, and skin."

With the same minute exactness, regulations are laid down for the Brahman as to the mode and position in which he is to take the permitted kinds of food; with what parts of the hand or finger he is to perform his ablutions, how he is to demean himself on all the occasions of life, when travelling, etc., in order to preserve his purity and sanctity. With equal detail we are told how the Brahman is to perform the natural requirements of the body, and the purifications thereby rendered necessary.211 The least neglect in the fulfilment of these endless duties, which it was impossible to keep in view at once, and more impossible still to bear in mind at every moment, even with the most devoted attention, might bring on centuries of punishment and endless regenerations, unless it was expiated.

The prescripts of the Brahmans have been thoroughly carried out, and even the other orders to this time fulfil their daily duties. The Brahman utters his morning prayer, bathes in the stream, the fountain, the pool, or in his house, performs the invocations to the gods, spirits, and ancestors, and then with his wife and child, who also have bathed, offers prayers and gifts to the protecting deities of the house.212 Among wealthy families of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas the morning prayers after the bath are performed under the guidance of the priest of the house. No one eats the morning meal till the grains of rice have been scattered for the Maruts, the gods of water and trees, and the special deity of the house. No Hindoo proceeds to his work till he has purified himself and performed his devotions. The Brahman does not open his book, neither smith nor carpenter takes in hand his tool, till he has uttered prayers. They neither stand up nor sit down, nor leave the room, nor sneeze, nor vomit, without the prescribed formula.

Thus the new doctrine of the Brahmans removed the old gods and sacrifices, and gave to the old customs of purification a further extension, and in part a new meaning, inasmuch as it developed them into a wide system of expiation; but the change wrought in the sphere of morals was far more radical. The moral law of the Brahmans is distinctly in opposition to the requirements of the old time. War and heroism are no longer the highest aim of life, but patience, obedience, sanctification. As all animals have their origin from Brahman, and to each, at creation, is allotted a special mission, as Brahman is this order of the world, it is man's task to adapt himself obediently to this arrangement of gods, and fulfil the duties laid upon him at birth. At the same time, no one is to disturb another in the fulfilment of his duties. He must injure neither man nor beast; he must spare even the plants and trees. No one must go beyond the limits allotted to him, but lead a quiet and peaceful life within them. Without ceasing, the Çudras must serve the three higher orders; the Vaiçyas must till the field, and tend the herds, and carry on trade, and bestow gifts; the Kshatriyas must protect the people, give alms, and sacrifice; the Brahman must read the Veda, and teach it, offer sacrifice for himself and others, and receive gifts, if poor. It is the duty of each of the lower orders to reverence the higher; the Vaiçyas and Kshatriyas must bow before the Brahmans, and heap gifts upon them.213

In opposition to the Çudras, who, as we saw, ranged with beasts (p. 142), Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaiçyas were united by community of blood and common superiority of caste. The three upper orders are distinguished from the Çudras as the "Dvijas," the twice-born, in the phrase of the Brahmans. This second birth is performed by investiture with the holy girdle. In old times this ceremony was no doubt the symbol of the reception of boys and youths into the union of the family; at present the girdle is not only the distinguishing sign of the three upper orders, but from the Brahman point of view the pledge of higher illumination. It is put on with solemn consecration, accompanied by the most sacred prayer, and the second, higher birth consists in the mystical operation of this ceremony. But the upper orders were not merely united by origin, by superiority in rank, and this symbol of superiority; the Dvijas alone had access to the worship, the sacrifice, and the Veda.

The care of the doctrine and worship belongs especially to the Brahmans. They have not only to attend to a special, higher purity; they must above all things acquire a knowledge of the positive basis of doctrine and worship, of revelation. For in the teaching of the Brahmans the Veda was revealed: the hymns and prayers in it are created and given by the gods; they are the divine word.214 The study of the Veda is the first and foremost duty of the Brahman. He must never omit to read the book at the appointed day, at the appointed hour. He is not old, we are told in the book of the law, whose hair is gray, but he who when young has studied the holy scriptures will be regarded by the gods as full of years and honour. The Brahman who does not study the Veda is like an elephant of wood, or a deer of leather. Hence among the Brahmans those who are learned in the scriptures take the first rank. The book of the law ordains that every young Brahman must be attached as a pupil to a learned Brahman. This "spiritual father" he is to love and reverence above all beside, above his natural father, "for the spiritual birth is not for this world only but for the next." The strictest ceremonial of reverence and respect for the teacher, the careful observance of these duties, and the accurate knowledge of the Veda, is intended to train the young Brahmans to become worthy representatives of their order. A peculiar garb and special reserve are prescribed for the novice. He must first learn the rules for purity, for keeping up the sacred fire, and then the religious duties of morning, mid-day, and evening. After this begin the readings in the Veda. Before each reading the pupil must purify himself with water, rub his hands with kuça-grass, and then perform obeisance to the holy text. Next he prostrates himself before his tutor, and touches his feet with his hands. Clad in a pure garment, with kuça-grass in his hands, he then sits down on kuça-grass with his face to the east. Before beginning to read he draws in his breath three times, and then pronounces the mysterious name of Brahman, Om. The lesson then begins. Even the wife of his teacher must be saluted by the pupil on his knees; and these customs are still to a great extent preserved in the schools of the Brahmans.215 The time of instruction begins immediately after the ceremony of investing with the sacred girdle; it must continue nine, eighteen, or thirty-six years, in each case until the pupil knows the Veda by heart. Then he may take a wife, and set up his house.216 Not only the young Brahmans – though the main object was to educate them as representatives and teachers of the new doctrine – were expected to go through the period of instruction and the school of the learned Brahmans; even the sons of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas were instructed in the religious duties and the Veda: in fact religious instruction was to include all the Dvijas. Every young Dvija must become a pupil of a Brahman (Brahmacharin) after being invested with the girdle. But the Brahmans alone enjoyed the privilege of teaching and interpreting the Veda. Without this interpretation it was probable that a result would be attained the opposite of that which this general instruction and catechising of every Dvija was intended to effect: the pupils would have quickly learnt other things from the hymns of the Veda besides the tenets of the Brahmans.

No doubt the pious performance of the daily customs, the offering of sacrifice, the observance of the rules of purity, the voluntary performance of expiations and penalties, the practice of duties imposed on every caste and every being by the order of the universe, a respect for the obligations and life of fellow-men, the peaceful conduct, the regard for plants and animals, the eager study of the Veda, – the "holiness of works" might lead a man into the heaven of Indra and the gods, while the opposite conduct would plunge him into hell. But the merit of works no less than the punishment of sins was exhausted in time: it was no protection against new regenerations; it could indeed shorten the process through which the soul must pass in order to attain complete purity, but it did not cancel regeneration. That was only excluded by attaining perfect purity and holiness, for then the process of purification was complete, and with the return to Brahman, its divine source, the existence of the soul ended. To bring about this return is of all duties the highest; it is above the sanctity of works. Brahman was an incorporeal, immaterial being. When changed into the world, Brahman becomes ever more adulterated, dark, and impure, in these successive emanations; it descends from the pure sanctity of itself, of its undisturbed being. In this state of removal and alienation, the world and mankind do not correspond to their origin, the nature of Brahman, and in this condition man cannot return to Brahman. The better side of men, the immaterial side closely akin to Brahman, the divine elements, must become the ruling power; the impurity of matter, of the sensual world, and the body must be done away. The rules of purification only removed the grosser forms of defilement. The more that men succeeded in doing away with the whole impurity of nature, the shorter was the path of the soul after death to Brahman. It is, therefore, a universal requirement of the Brahmanic system – a requirement laid upon all, but more especially on the Brahmans – that the soul is not to be over-grown, bound, and imprisoned by the body, the mind by the senses. The sensual needs must be held in restraint; no great space must be allowed to them. Men must be on their guard against the charms of sense; sensual excesses are not to be indulged; to be lord of the senses is the chief commandment. Even the affections and passions, which, in the opinion of the Brahmans, sprang from the charm of the senses, must be held in check. Every man must preserve a quiet calm, and dominion over his passions, and the impressions which come from without and stir the senses. But as it is the mission of every creature to return to his divine origin, as no living being can find rest till it is purified for this return, as Brahman is pure spirit – spirit, that is, and not nature – it follows that no one can enter into Brahman who has not been able entirely to free his soul from sensuality, to get rid utterly of his body, and transform himself entirely into pure soul. From this point of view all relations to the sensual world must appear as fetters of the spirit, and the body as the prison of the soul.

The Brahmans did not hesitate to draw these last conclusions from their doctrine of Brahman. "This habitation of men," they said, "of which the framework is the bones, the bands the muscles; this vessel filled with flesh and blood, and covered with skin; this impure dwelling, which contains its own defilement, and is subject to age, sickness, and trouble, to sorrows of every kind, and passions; this habitation, destined to decay, must be abandoned with joy by him who assumes it." But the main point was not to await with calmness and yearning the breaking of these fetters of the soul, it was the manner in which they were broken in order that the soul might go forth free to Brahman, to eternal rest, to union with the highest spirit. For this it was necessary, when a man had learned to live obediently, and to govern his senses and passions, to put aside the world altogether, and direct the eye to heaven alone. This duty is completed when the Brahman, the Dvija, leaves house and home, in order to become an eremite in the forest (Vanaprastha). He clothes himself in a garment of bark, or in the skin of the black gazelle; his bed must be the earth; he lives on fruits which have fallen from the trees, or on the roots found in the forest, and on water, which he previously pours through a woollen cloth, in order to avoid killing the little insects which may happen to be in the water. He performs the service of the sacred fire, and the five daily offerings; bathes three times each day, reads the Veda, and devotes himself to the contemplation of the highest being. By this means he will purify his body, increase his knowledge, and bring his spirit nearer to perfection. His hair, beard, and nails must be allowed to grow; he must fast frequently, live aloof from all desires, and be complete master of his sensual impulses; he must not allow himself to be disturbed in any way by the world, or by any accident which overtakes him. From this condition he will advance still further towards perfection, if he proceeds to reduce his body by mortification. He should roll on the ground; or stand all day long on his toes, or be continually getting up and sitting down. By degrees the eremite ought to increase the severity of these penances. In the cold season of the year he should always wear a wet garment; in the rainy season he should expose himself naked to the tempest of rain. In the warm season he must sit between four fires in the hot rays of the sun.217 By the eagerness and fervour of devotion which leads the ascetic to these self-tortures, and enables him to endure them, by these mortifications (tapas, i. e. heat) he must show that the pain of the body cannot trouble the soul, that nothing which befalls the one can influence the other, that he is liberated from his body.

When the eremite had reduced his body by mortifications gradually increasing in severity, and attained complete mastery of the soul over the flesh, he enters into the last stage, that of the Sannyasin, who attempts by thought to be absorbed into the world-soul, to die while yet alive in the body, by completing his return to Brahman. For this stage the regulation is that the penitent is to wish for nothing, and expect nothing, to observe silence, to live absolutely alone, in ceaseless repose, in the society of his own soul. He must think of the misery of the body, the migrations of the soul, which result from sin, and the existence of the world-soul in the highest and lowest things; he must suppress all qualities in himself which are opposed to the divine nature of Brahman, and think of Brahman only. Brahman must be contemplated in "the slumber of the most inward meditation, as being finer than an atom, and more brilliant than gold!" By thus plunging in the deepest reflection the penitent will succeed in carrying back his soul to its original source: he will attain to union with Brahman, and will himself become Brahman, from which he has emanated.218

With such consistency did the Brahmans develop their system; such was the ideal which they put before the Indians of the holy life, leading to union with Brahman. When the Dvija had set up his house, and married and begot a son, when he had fulfilled his duties as Grihastha (house master), when he was old and saw "the posterity of his posterity," he must go into the forest – so the law of the priests bade, – in order to become a Vanaprastha and Sannyasin. Indeed the importance which the system ascribed to the spiritual as opposed to the sensual, to super-sensual holiness as opposed to the unholy world of sense, even led them to declare marriage and the family as unnecessary, disturbing, and unholy; and with strict consistency they gave command to repair to the forest at once, and forswear the world from the first. Even in the law-book of the priests this was permitted; but as an exception. The Brahmacharin could, when he had finished his long period of instruction, go at once into the forest as an eremite and penitent.219 The large majority neither could nor did observe such commands, but, so far as we can see, the number of penitents was not inconsiderable soon after 600 B.C. – and the ordinary people recognised the peculiar merit of those who went into the forest. They looked on the penitents with respect. And even to this day it is observed, that in the later years of life, when the time approaches for receiving the reward or punishment of their deeds, the Hindoos devote themselves with redoubled eagerness to their religious duties.

The Ramayana describes the abodes in the forest and the life of the penitents. There are some who live constantly in the open air; others who dwell on the tops of the mountains; others who sleep on the places of sacrifice, or on the naked earth, or who do not sleep at all; some only eat during one month in the year; others eat rice with the husks; others feed only on uncooked nutriment, leaves, or water; others do not eat at all, but live on the air and the beams of the sun and the moon. Some constantly repeat the name of the same deity; others read the Vedas without ceasing; the greater part wear clothes of bark; others wear wet garments perpetually; other stand up to the neck in water; others have fire on every side and the sun overhead; others stand perpetually on one leg; others on the tips of their great toes; others on their heads; others hang by their heels on the branches of trees.220 When this passage of the Ramayana was composed or altered, the practices of the ascetics had already gone beyond the rules prescribed in the book of the law.

Beginning with the idea of a holy spirit, without admixture of anything material, and forming the abstract opposite of nature, the Brahmans had discovered that it is the duty of man to raise the spiritual above the corporeal. The more excitable the nerves, the more receptive the senses, the warmer the passions in that climate and nation, the more energetic was the reaction of the spirit against the flesh, the more stringent the command to become master of the senses and the body, to annihilate the senses. It is true that the material world also had emanated from Brahman; even matter had come from him. But this was an adulteration of the pure Brahman; it was the non-sensual, not the material side of the world which was the pure Brahman. Hence for the Brahmans these two factors, the material and spiritual side, were again completely separated. Hence the ethical problem was not to arrange the world of sense for the objects of the spirit, to raise the soul to the mastery over the body, and purify the sensual action by the spirit, but the annihilation of the sensual elements by the soul, the removal and destruction of the body – in a word, asceticism. Out of the absolute annihilation of the material existence of man, his true intellectual being – his real nature, i. e. Brahman – is to arise; it is only after the complete destruction of the life of sense and the body that man can plunge into the pure spirit. As this pure spirit could only be looked upon as a negation of nature and the world, and was only regarded in that light, and as it had no other quality but that of being non-material, the command to think of Brahman and nothing but Brahman, amounted to nothing less than this: on the one hand, every distinct individual intuition was to be rejected and avoided; on the other, it was a duty to develop the conception of an indefinite and indefinable unity, in opposition to the multitudinous variety of the world and nature. A conception of unity which altogether disregards the plurality comprising it is nothing more than persistence in vacuity. Thus the negation of the spiritual life was demanded beside that of the bodily life; and this command was equivalent to bodily and spiritual self-annihilation.

The doctrine of Brahman, with the practical and ethical requirements included in it, along with the command of obedience to the existing order of the world, of subjugation of the senses and renouncement, of severe treatment of self, and tender feeling for plants and cows, finally of annihilation of the body by asceticism, were in sharp contrast to the earlier motives which governed the life of the Indians of the heroic age. Nothing was to be left of the old vigour in action, the old warrior life, and heroic deeds; and as a fact, in spite of earnest attempts in other directions, nothing did remain beyond the courage for lingering suicide by mortification, the reckless asceticism in which the Indians are not surpassed by any nation, and which increased as the centuries went on, and ever assumed more fantastic forms.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE INDIANS

The requirements of the new doctrine extended throughout the whole circle of life. The establishment of the arrangement into castes struck deep into the sphere of the family, of civic society, and the state; the old rules for purification were enlarged to suit the new system, and changed into rubrics for expiation and penance, touching almost at every step upon daily life. The ethical notions of the old time had to make room for a new ideal of the life pleasing to God. How could the ancient customs of the tribes, which hitherto had been the rule and standard of family and inheritance, of meum and tuum, resist such a sweeping alteration of the social, religious, and moral basis of life? How could the traditional punishments of transgressions and offences continue in existence? Marriage and inheritance must be arranged so as to suit the system of the castes; punishment must be dealt out according to the rank of the castes, and the religious sin involved in each offence; the administration of justice must take account of the new religious system in which actions, hitherto regarded as permissible, were looked on as offences. The monarchy had new duties to fulfil towards the Brahmans and the new faith; the authority of the state, the power of inflicting punishment, must side with the true faith, with the interests of the priests, and the maintenance of the orders established by God. In the circles of the Brahmans there must have been a lively desire to establish the legal arrangement of the state on the basis of the divine arrangement of the world; to regulate the state in all its departments in a manner suitable to the nature of Brahman. The traditional observances and legal customs, the usages of the families, races, and districts, must be brought into harmony with the new doctrine; as an almost inevitable consequence, a rule was set up for correct morals, usages, and life, corresponding to the divine nature and will; a pattern was drawn of the manner in which individual family and state might act in every matter in accordance with the nature of Brahman. The commands resulting from the system of the divine order of the world were combined into one standard, set forth in a scheme universally accepted, and thus elevated above all doubt and contradiction, and in this way the Brahmans passed beyond the differences which could not but remain among them in respect to this or that point, and did actually remain in the schools of the priests, as the Brahmanas show. Moreover, unanimous prescripts, a comprehensive and revered canon of law and morals, were naturally an advantage to the position of the Brahmans; their status was thus rendered more secure and distinctive; and success was more certain.

The priesthoods of the various districts must have made a beginning by influencing and modifying in the spirit of the new doctrine the customs and usages of the land; they then proceeded to draw up the customs of family law, of marriage and inheritance, the rights and duties of the castes. In this compilation it was inevitable that the hereditary customs should be revised in the spirit of the priesthood. Collections of this kind serving as rules for certain departments of life have been preserved in certain Grihya-Sutras, i. e. books of household customs, and Dharma-Sutras, i. e. catalogues or tables of laws.221 Out of the oldest records of household customs and legal usages, altered and systematised in the spirit of the priests, out of the collections and revisions of the customs of law and morals made in various schools of priests, a book of law at last grew up for the Brahmans, which comprised both the civic and religious life, and in all relations set forth the ideal scheme, according to which they should be arranged in the spirit of the priesthood, i. e. in a manner suitable to the divine will. This book of the law bears the name of Manu, the first man, the progenitor of the race.