have brought with me one volume of my edition of the Veda, and I
should not wonder if it were the first copy of the work which has ever
reached this busy town of Leeds. Nay, I confess I have some misgivings
whether I have not undertaken a hopeless task, and I begin to doubt
whether I shall succeed in explaining to you the interest which I feel
for this ancient collection of sacred hymns, an interest which has
never failed me while devoting to the publication of this voluminous
work the best twenty years of my life. Many times have I been asked,
But what is the Veda? Why should it be published? What are we likely
to learn from a book composed nearly four thousand years ago, and
intended from the beginning for an uncultivated race of mere heathens
and savages,—a book which the natives of India have never published
themselves, although, to the present day, they profess to regard it as
the highest authority for their religion, morals, and philosophy? Are
we, the people of England or of Europe, in the nineteenth century,
likely to gain any new light on religious, moral, or philosophical
questions from the old songs of the Brahmans? And is it so very
certain that the whole book is not a modern forgery, without any
substantial claims to that high antiquity which is ascribed to it by
the Hindus, so that all the labour bestowed upon it would not only be
labour lost, but throw discredit on our powers of discrimination, and
make us a laughing-stock among the shrewd natives of India? These and
similar questions I have had to answer many times when asked by
others, and some of them when asked by myself, before embarking on so
hazardous an undertaking as the publication of the Rig-veda and its
ancient commentary. And, I believe, I am not mistaken in supposing
that many of those who to-night have honoured me with their presence
may have entertained similar doubts and misgivings when invited to
listen to a Lecture 'On the Vedas or the Sacred Books of the
Brahmans.'
I shall endeavour, therefore, as far as this is possible within the
limits of one Lecture, to answer some of these questions, and to
remove some of these doubts, by explaining to you, first, what the
Veda really is, and, secondly, what importance it possesses, not only
to the people of India, but to ourselves in Europe,—and here again,
not only to the student of Oriental languages, but to every student of
history, religion, or philosophy; to every man who has once felt the
charm of tracing that mighty stream of human thought on which we
ourselves are floating onward, back to its distant mountain-sources;
to every one who has a heart for whatever has once filled the hearts
of millions of human beings with their noblest hopes, and fears, and
aspirations;—to every student of mankind in the fullest sense of that
full and weighty word. Whoever claims that noble title must not
forget, whether he examines the highest achievements of mankind in our
own age, or the miserable failures of former ages, what man is, and in
whose image and after whose likeness man was made. Whether listening
to the shrieks of the Shaman sorcerers of Tatary, or to the odes of
Pindar, or to the sacred songs of Paul Gerhard: whether looking at the
pagodas of China, or the Parthenon of Athens, or the cathedral of
Cologne: whether reading the sacred books of the Buddhists, of the
Jews, or of those who worship God in spirit and in truth, we ought to
be able to say, like the Emperor Maximilian, 'Homo sum, humani nihil a
me alienum puto,' or, translating his words somewhat freely, 'I am a
man, nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.' Yes, we must
learn to read in the history of the whole human race something of our
own history; and as in looking back on the story of our own life, we
all dwell with a peculiar delight on the earliest chapters of our
childhood, and try to find there the key to many of the riddles of our
later life, it is but natural that the historian, too, should ponder
with most intense interest over the few relics that have been
preserved to him of the childhood of the human race. These relics are
few indeed, and therefore very precious, and this I may venture to
say, at the outset and without fear of contradiction, that there
exists no literary relic that carries us back to a more primitive, or,
if you like, more child-like state in the history of man[9] than the
Veda. As the language of the Veda, the Sanskrit, is the most ancient
type of the English of the present day, (Sanskrit and English are but
varieties of one and the same language,) so its thoughts and feelings
contain in reality the first roots and germs of that intellectual
growth which by an unbroken chain connects our own generation with the
ancestors of the Aryan race,—with those very people who at the rising
and setting of the sun listened with trembling hearts to the songs of
the Veda, that told them of bright powers above, and of a life to come
after the sun of their own lives had set in the clouds of the evening.
Those men were the true ancestors of our race; and the Veda is the
oldest book we have in which to study the first beginnings of our
language, and of all that is embodied in language. We are by nature
Aryan, Indo-European, not Semitic: our spiritual kith and kin are to
be found in India, Persia, Greece, Italy, Germany; not in Mesopotamia,
Egypt, or Palestine. This is a fact that ought to be clearly
perceived, and constantly kept in view, in order to understand the
importance which the Veda has for us, after the lapse of more than
three thousand years, and after ever so many changes in our language,
thought, and religion.
Whatever the intrinsic value of the Veda, if it simply contained the
names of kings, the description of battles, the dates of famines, it
would still be, by its age alone, the most venerable of books. Do we
ever find much beyond such matters in Egyptian hieroglyphics, or in
Cuneiform inscriptions? In fact, what does the ancient history of the
world before Cyrus, before 500 b.c., consist of, but meagre lists of
Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian dynasties? What do the tablets of
Karnak, the palaces of Nineveh, and the cylinders of Babylon tell us
about the thoughts of men? All is dead and barren, nowhere a sigh,
nowhere a jest, nowhere a glimpse of humanity. There has been but one
oasis in that vast desert of ancient Asiatic history, the history of
the Jews. Another such oasis is the Veda. Here, too, we come to a
stratum of ancient thought, of ancient feelings, hopes, joys, and
fears,—of ancient religion. There is perhaps too little of kings and
battles in the Veda, and scarcely anything of the chronological
framework of history. But poets surely are better than kings, hymns
and prayers are more worth listening to than the agonies of butchered
armies, and guesses at truth more valuable than unmeaning titles of
Egyptian or Babylonian despots. It will be difficult to settle whether
the Veda is 'the oldest of books,' and whether some of the portions of
the Old Testament may not be traced back to the same or even an
earlier date than the oldest hymns of the Veda. But, in the Aryan
world, the Veda is certainly the oldest book, and its preservation
amounts almost to a marvel.
It is nearly twenty years ago that my attention was first drawn to
the Veda, while attending, in the years 1846 and 1847, the lectures of
Eugène Burnouf at the Collège de France. I was then looking out, like
most young men at that time of life, for some great work, and without
weighing long the difficulties which had hitherto prevented the
publication of the Veda, I determined to devote all my time to the
collection of the materials necessary for such an undertaking. I had
read the principal works of the later Sanskrit literature, but had
found little there that seemed to be more than curious. But to publish
the Veda, a work that had never before been published in India or in
Europe, that occupied in the history of Sanskrit literature the same
position which the Old Testament occupies in the history of the Jews,
the New Testament in the history of modern Europe, the Koran in the
history of Mohammedanism,—a work which fills a gap in the history of
the human mind, and promises to bring us nearer than any other work to
the first beginnings of Aryan language and Aryan thought,—this seemed
to me an undertaking not altogether unworthy a man's life. What added
to the charm of it was that it had once before been undertaken by
Frederick Rosen, a young German scholar, who died in England before he
had finished the first book, and that after his death no one seemed
willing to carry on his work. What I had to do, first of all, was to
copy not only the text, but the commentary of the Rig-veda, a work
which when finished will fill six of these large volumes. The author
or rather the compiler of this commentary, Sâyana Âkârya, lived
about 1400 after Christ, that is to say, about as many centuries
after, as the poets of the Veda lived before, the beginning of our
era. Yet through the 3000 years which separate the original poetry of
the Veda from the latest commentary, there runs an almost continuous
stream of tradition, and it is from it, rather than from his own
brain, that Sâyana draws his explanations of the sacred texts.
Numerous MSS., more or less complete, more or less inaccurate, of
Sâyana's classical work, existed in the then Royal Library at Paris,
in the Library of the East-India House, then in Leadenhall Street, and
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. But to copy and collate these MSS.
was by no means all. A number of other works were constantly quoted in
Sâyana's commentary, and these quotations had all to be verified. It
was necessary first to copy these works, and to make indexes to all of
them, in order to be able to find any passage that might be referred
to in the larger commentary. Many of these works have since been
published in Germany and France, but they were not to be procured
twenty years ago. The work, of course, proceeded but slowly, and many
times I doubted whether I should be able to carry it through. Lastly
came the difficulty,—and by no means the smallest,—who was to
publish a work that would occupy about six thousand pages in quarto,
all in Sanskrit, and of which probably not a hundred copies would ever
be sold. Well, I came to England in order to collect more materials at
the East-India House and at the Bodleian Library, and thanks to the
exertions of my generous friend Baron Bunsen, and of the late
Professor Wilson, the Board of Directors of the East-India Company
decided to defray the expenses of a work which, as they stated in
their letter, 'is in a peculiar manner deserving of the patronage of
the East-India Company, connected as it is with the early religion,
history, and language of the great body of their Indian subjects.' It
thus became necessary for me to take up my abode in England, which has
since become my second home. The first volume was published in 1849,
the second in 1853, the third in 1856, the fourth in 1862. The
materials for the remaining volumes are ready, so that, if I can but
make leisure, there is little doubt that before long the whole work
will be complete.
Now, first, as to the name. Veda means originally knowing or
knowledge, and this name is given by the Brahmans not to one work, but
to the whole body of their most ancient sacred literature. Veda is the
same word which appears in the Greek οἶδα, I know, and in the
English wise, wisdom, to wit.[10] The name of Veda is commonly given
to four collections of hymns, which are respectively known by the
names of Rig-veda, Yagur-veda, Sâma-veda, and Atharva-veda; but for
our own purposes, namely for tracing the earliest growth of religious
ideas in India, the only important, the only real Veda, is the
Rig-veda.
The other so-called Vedas, which deserve the name of Veda no more than
the Talmud deserves the name of Bible, contain chiefly extracts from
the Rig-veda, together with sacrificial formulas, charms, and
incantations, many of them, no doubt, extremely curious, but never
likely to interest any one except the Sanskrit scholar by profession.
The Yagur-veda and Sâma-veda may be described as prayer-books,
arranged according to the order of certain sacrifices, and intended to
be used by certain classes of priests.
Four classes of priests were required in India at the most solemn
sacrifices:
1. The officiating priests, manual labourers, and acolytes;
who have chiefly to prepare the sacrificial ground, to dress
the altar, slay the victims, and pour out the libations.
2. The choristers, who chant the sacred hymns.
3. The reciters or readers, who repeat certain hymns.
4. The overseers or bishops, who watch and superintend the
proceedings of the other priests, and ought to be familiar
with all the Vedas.
The formulas and verses to be muttered by the first class are
contained in the Yagur-veda-sanhitâ. The hymns to be sung by the
second class are in the Sâma-veda-sanhitâ.
The Atharva-veda is said to be intended for the Brahman or overseer,
who is to watch the proceedings of the sacrifice, and to remedy any
mistake that may occur.[11]
Fortunately, the hymns to be recited by the third class were not
arranged in a sacrificial prayer-book, but were preserved in an old
collection of hymns, containing all that had been saved of ancient,
sacred, and popular poetry, more like the Psalms than like a ritual; a
collection made for its own sake, and not for the sake of any
sacrificial performances.
I shall, therefore, confine my remarks to the Rig-veda, which in the
eyes of the historical student is the Veda par excellence. Now
Rig-veda means the Veda of hymns of praise, for Rich, which before
the initial soft letter of Veda is changed to Rig, is derived from a
root which in Sanskrit means to celebrate.
In the Rig-veda we must distinguish again between the original collection
of the hymns or Mantras, called the Sanhitâ or the collection, being
entirely metrical and poetical, and a number of prose works, called
Brâhmanas and Sûtras, written in prose, and giving information on the
proper use of the hymns at sacrifices, on their sacred meaning, on their
supposed authors, and similar topics. These works, too, go by the name of
Rig-veda: but though very curious in themselves, they are evidently of a
much later period, and of little help to us in tracing the beginnings of
religious life in India. For that purpose we must depend entirely on the
hymns, such as we find them in the Sanhitâ or the collection of the
Rig-veda.
Now this collection consists of ten books, and contains altogether
1028 hymns. As early as about 600 b.c. we find that in the theological
schools of India every verse, every word, every syllable of the Veda
had been carefully counted. The number of verses as computed in
treatises of that date, varies from 10,402 to 10,622; that of the
words is 153,826, that of the syllables 432,000.[12] With these
numbers, and with the description given in these early treatises of
each hymn, of its metre, its deity, its number of verses, our modern
MSS. of the Veda correspond as closely as could be expected.
I say, our modern MSS., for all our MSS. are modern, and very modern.
Few Sanskrit MSS. are more than four or five hundred years old, the
fact being that in the damp climate of India no paper will last for
more than a few centuries. How then, you will naturally ask, can it be
proved that the original hymns were composed between 1200 and 1500
before the Christian era, if our MSS. only carry us back to about the
same date after the Christian era? It is not very easy to bridge over
this gulf of nearly three thousand years, but all I can say is that,
after carefully examining every possible objection that can be made
against the date of the Vedic hymns, their claim to that high
antiquity which is ascribed to them, has not, as far as I can judge,
been shaken. I shall try to explain on what kind of evidence these
claims rest.
You know that we possess no MS. of the Old Testament in Hebrew older
than about the tenth century after the Christian era; yet the
Septuagint translation by itself would be sufficient to prove that the
Old Testament, such as we now read it, existed in MS. previous, at
least, to the third century before our era. By a similar train of
argument, the works to which I referred before, in which we find every
hymn, every verse, every word and syllable of the Veda accurately
counted by native scholars about five or six hundred years before
Christ, guarantee the existence of the Veda, such as we now read it,
as far back at least as five or six hundred years before Christ. Now
in the works of that period, the Veda is already considered, not only
as an ancient, but as a sacred book; and, more than this, its language
had ceased to be generally intelligible. The language of India had
changed since the Veda was composed, and learned commentaries were
necessary in order to explain to the people, then living, the true
purport, nay, the proper pronunciation, of their sacred hymns. But
more than this. In certain exegetical compositions, which are
generally comprised under the name of Sûtras, and which are
contemporary with, or even anterior to, the treatises on the
theological statistics just mentioned, not only are the ancient hymns
represented as invested with sacred authority, but that other class of
writings, the Brâhmanas, standing half-way between the hymns and the
Sûtras, have likewise been raised to the dignity of a revealed
literature. These Brâhmanas, you will remember, are prose treatises,
written in illustration of the ancient sacrifices and of the hymns
employed at them. Such treatises would only spring up when some kind
of explanation began to be wanted both for the ceremonial and for the
hymns to be recited at certain sacrifices, and we find, in
consequence, that in many cases the authors of the Brâhmanas had
already lost the power of understanding the text of the ancient hymns
in its natural and grammatical meaning, and that they suggested the
most absurd explanations of the various sacrificial acts, most of
which, we may charitably suppose, had originally some rational
purpose. Thus it becomes evident that the period during which the
hymns were composed must have been separated by some centuries, at
least, from the period that gave birth to the Brâhmanas, in order to
allow time for the hymns growing unintelligible and becoming invested
with a sacred character. Secondly, the period during which the
Brâhmanas were composed must be separated by some centuries from the
authors of the Sûtras, in order to allow time for further changes in
the language, and more particularly for the growth of a new theology,
which ascribed to the Brâhmanas the same exceptional and revealed
character which the Brâhmanas themselves ascribed to the hymns. So
that we want previously to 600 b.c., when every syllable of the Veda
was counted, at least two strata of intellectual and literary growth,
of two or three centuries each; and are thus brought to 1100 or 1200
b.c. as the earliest time when we may suppose the collection of the
Vedic hymns to have been finished. This collection of hymns again
contains, by its own showing, ancient and modern hymns, the hymns of
the sons together with the hymns of their fathers and earlier
ancestors; so that we cannot well assign a date more recent than 1200
to 1500 before our era, for the original composition of those simple
hymns which up to the present day are regarded by the Brahmans with
the same feelings with which a Mohammedan regards the Koran, a Jew the
Old Testament, a Christian his Gospel.
That the Veda is not quite a modern forgery can be proved, however, by more tangible
evidence. Hiouen-thsang, a Buddhist pilgrim, who travelled from China to
India in the years 629-645, and who, in his diary translated from Chinese
into French by M. Stanislas Julien, gives the names of the four Vedas,
mentions some grammatical forms peculiar to the Vedic Sanskrit, and states
that at his time young Brahmans spent all their time, from the seventh to
the thirtieth year of their age, in learning these sacred texts. At the
time when Hiouen-thsang was travelling in India, Buddhism was clearly on
the decline. But Buddhism was originally a reaction against Brahmanism, and
chiefly against the exclusive privileges which the Brahmans claimed, and
which from the beginning were represented by them as based on their
revealed writings, the Vedas, and hence beyond the reach of human attacks.
Buddhism, whatever the date of its founder, became the state religion of
India under Asoka, the Constantine of India, in the middle of the third
century b.c. This Asoka was the third king of a new dynasty founded by
Kandragupta, the well-known contemporary of Alexander and Seleucus, about
315 b.c. The preceding dynasty was that of the Nandas, and it is under this
dynasty that the traditions of the Brahmans place a number of distinguished
scholars whose treatises on the Veda we still possess, such as Saunaka,
Kâtyâyana, Âsvalâyana, and others. Their works, and others written with a
similar object and in the same style, carry us back to about 600 b.c. This
period of literature, which is called the Sûtra period, was preceded, as we
saw, by another class of writings, the Brâhmanas, composed in a very
prolix and tedious style, and containing lengthy lucubrations on the
sacrifices and on the duties of the different classes of priests. Each of
the three or four Vedas, or each of the three or four classes of priests,
has its own Brâhmanas and its own Sûtras; and as the Brâhmanas are
presupposed by the Sûtras, while no Sûtra is ever quoted by the
Brâhmanas, it is clear that the period of the Brâhmana literature must
have preceded the period of the Sûtra literature. There are, however, old
and new Brâhmanas, and there are in the Brâhmanas themselves long lists
of teachers who handed down old Brâhmanas or composed new ones, so that
it seems impossible to accommodate the whole of that literature in less
than two centuries, from about 800 to 600 b.c. Before, however, a single
Brâhmana could have been composed, it was not only necessary that there
should have been one collection of ancient hymns, like that contained in
the ten books of the Rig-veda, but the three or four classes of priests
must have been established, the officiating priests and the choristers must
have had their special prayer-books, nay, these prayer-books must have
undergone certain changes, because the Brâhmanas presuppose different
texts, called sâkhâs, of each of these prayer-books, which are called the
Yagur-veda-sanhitâ, the Sâma-veda-sanhitâ, and the Atharva-veda-sanhitâ.
The work of collecting the prayers for the different classes of priests,
and of adding new hymns and formulas for purely sacrificial purposes,
belonged probably to the tenth century b.c., and three generations more
would, at least, be required to account for the various readings adopted in
the prayer-books by different sects, and invested with a kind of sacred
authority, long before the composition of even the earliest among the
Brâhmanas. If, therefore, the years from about 1000 to 800 b.c. are
assigned to this collecting age, the time before 1000 b.c. must be set
apart for the free and natural growth of what was then national and
religious, but not yet sacred and sacrificial poetry. How far back this
period extends it is impossible to tell; it is enough if the hymns of the
Rig-veda can be traced to a period anterior to 1000 b.c.
Much in the chronological arrangement of the three periods of Vedic
literature that are supposed to have followed the period of the
original growth of the hymns, must of necessity be hypothetical, and
has been put forward rather to invite than to silence criticism. In
order to discover truth, we must be truthful ourselves, and must
welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who
approve and confirm our discoveries. What seems, however, to speak
strongly in favour of the historical character of the three periods of
Vedic literature is the uniformity of style which marks the
productions of each. In modern literature we find, at one and the same
time, different styles of prose and poetry cultivated by one and the
same author. A Goethe writes tragedy, comedy, satire, lyrical poetry,
and scientific prose; but we find nothing like this in primitive
literature. The individual is there much less prominent, and the
poet's character disappears in the general character of the layer of
literature to which he belongs. It is the discovery of such large
layers of literature following each other in regular succession which
inspires the critical historian with confidence in the truly
historical character of the successive literary productions of ancient
India. As in Greece there is an epic age of literature, where we
should look in vain for prose or dramatic poetry; as in that country
we never meet with real elegiac poetry before the end of the eighth
century, nor with iambics before the same date; as even in more
modern times rhymed heroic poetry appears in England with the Norman
conquest, and in Germany the Minnesänger rise and set with the Swabian
dynasty—so, only in a much more decided manner, we see in the ancient
and spontaneous literature of India, an age of poets followed by an
age of collectors and imitators, that age to be succeeded by an age of
theological prose writers, and this last by an age of writers of
scientific manuals. New wants produced new supplies, and nothing
sprang up or was allowed to live, in prose or poetry, except what was
really wanted. If the works of poets, collectors, imitators,
theologians, and teachers were all mixed up together—if the
Brâhmanas quoted the Sûtras, and the hymns alluded to the
Brâhmanas—an historical restoration of the Vedic literature of
India would be almost an impossibility. We should suspect artificial
influences, and look with small confidence on the historical character
of such a literary agglomerate. But he who would question the
antiquity of the Veda must explain how the layers of literature were
formed that are super-imposed over the original stratum of the poetry
of the Rishis; he who would suspect a literary forgery must show how,
when, and for what purpose the 1000 hymns of the Rig-veda could have
been forged, and have become the basis of the religious, moral,
political, and literary life of the ancient inhabitants of India.
The idea of revelation, and I mean more particularly book-revelation,
is not a modern idea, nor is it an idea peculiar to Christianity.
Though we look for it in vain in the literature of Greece and Rome, we
find the literature of India saturated with this idea from beginning
to end. In no country, I believe, has the theory of revelation been
so minutely elaborated as in India. The name for revelation in
Sanskrit is Sruti, which means hearing; and this title distinguishes
the Vedic hymns and, at a later time, the Brâhmanas also, from all
other works, which, however sacred, and authoritative to the Hindu
mind, are admitted to have been composed by human authors. The Laws of
Manu, for instance, according to the Brahmanic theology, are not
revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means
recollection or tradition. If these laws or any other work of
authority can be proved on any point to be at variance with a single
passage of the Veda, their authority is at once overruled. According
to the orthodox views of Indian theologians, not a single line of the
Veda was the work of human authors. The whole Veda is in some way or
other the work of the Deity; and even those who received the
revelation, or, as they express it, those who saw it, were not
supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised above the level of
common humanity, and less liable therefore to error in the reception
of revealed truth. The views entertained of revelation by the orthodox
theologians of India are far more minute and elaborate than those of
the most extreme advocates of verbal inspiration in Europe. The human
element, called paurusheyatva in Sanskrit, is driven out of every
corner or hiding-place, and as the Veda is held to have existed in the
mind of the Deity before the beginning of time, every allusion to
historical events, of which there are not a few, is explained away
with a zeal and ingenuity worthy of a better cause.
But let me state at once that there is nothing in the hymns themselves
to warrant such extravagant theories. In many a hymn the author says
plainly that he or his friends made it to please the gods; that he
made it, as a carpenter makes a chariot (Rv. I. 130, 6; V. 2, 11), or
like a beautiful vesture (Rv. V. 29, 15); that he fashioned it in his
heart and kept it in his mind (Rv. I. 171, 2); that he expects, as his
reward, the favour of the god whom he celebrates (Rv. IV. 6, 21). But
though the poets of the Veda know nothing of the artificial theories
of verbal inspiration, they were not altogether unconscious of higher
influences: nay, they speak of their hymns as god-given ('devattam,'
Rv. III. 37, 4). One poets says (Rv. VI. 47, 10): 'O god (Indra) have
mercy, give me my daily bread! Sharpen my mind, like the edge of iron.
Whatever I now may utter, longing for thee, do thou accept it; make me
possessed of God!' Another utters for the first time the famous hymn,
the Gâyatrî, which now for more than three thousand years has been the
daily prayer of every Brahman, and is still repeated every morning by
millions of pious worshippers: 'Let us meditate on the adorable light
of the divine Creator: may he rouse our minds.'[13] This consciousness
of higher influences, or of divine help in those who uttered for the
first time the simple words of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, is
very different, however, from the artificial theories of verbal
inspiration which we find in the later theological writings; it is
indeed but another expression of that deepfelt dependence on the
Deity, of that surrender and denial of all that seems to be self,
which was felt more or less by every nation, but by none, I believe,
more strongly, more constantly, than by the Indian. "It is He that has
made it,"—namely, the prayer in which the soul of the poet has thrown
off her burden,—is but a variation of, "It is He that has made us,"
which is the key-note of all religion, whether ancient or modern,
whether natural or revealed.
I must say no more to-night of what the Veda is, for I am very anxious
to explain to you, as far as it is possible, what I consider to be the
real importance of the Veda to the student of history, to the student
of religion, to the student of mankind.
In the study of mankind there can hardly be a subject more deeply
interesting than the study of the different forms of religion; and
much as I value the Science of Language for the aid which it lends us
in unraveling some of the most complicated tissues of the human
intellect, I confess that to my mind there is no study more absorbing
than that of the Religions of the World,—the study, if I may so call
it, of the various languages in which man has spoken to his Maker, and
of that language in which his Maker "at sundry times and in divers
manners" spake to man.
To my mind the great epochs in the world's history are marked not by
the foundation or the destruction of empires, by the migrations of
races, or by French revolutions. All this is outward history, made up
of events that seem gigantic and overpowering to those only who cannot
see beyond and beneath. The real history of man is the history of
religion—the wonderful ways by which the different families of the
human race advanced towards a truer knowledge and a deeper love of
God. This is the foundation that underlies all profane history: it is
the light, the soul, and life of history, and without it all history
would indeed be profane.
On this subject there are some excellent works in English, such as Mr.
Maurice's "Lectures on the Religions of the World," or Mr. Hardwick's
"Christ and other Masters;" in German, I need only mention Hegel's
"Philosophy of Religion," out of many other learned treatises on the
different systems of religion in the East and the West. But in all
these works religions are treated very much as languages were treated
during the last century. They are rudely classed, either according to
the different localities in which they prevailed, just as in Adelung's
"Mithridates" you find the languages of the world classified as
European, African, American, Asiatic, etc.; or according to their age,
as formerly languages used to be divided into ancient and modern; or
according to their respective dignity, as languages used to be treated
as sacred or profane, as classical or illiterate. Now you know that
the Science of Language has sanctioned a totally different system of
classification; and that the Comparative Philologist ignores
altogether the division of languages according to their locality, or
according to their age, or according to their classical or illiterate
character. Languages are now classified genealogically, i. e.
according to their real relationship; and the most important languages
of Asia, Europe, and Africa,—that is to say, of that part of the
world on which what we call the history of man has been acted,—have
been grouped together into three great divisions, the Aryan or
Indo-European Family, the Semitic Family, and the Turanian Class.
According to that division you are aware that English, together with
all the Teutonic languages of the Continent, Celtic, Slavonic, Greek,
Latin with its modern offshoots, such as French and Italian, Persian,
and Sanskrit, are so many varieties of one common type of speech: that
Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Veda, is no more distinct from
the Greek of Homer, or from the Gothic of Ulfilas, or from the
Anglo-Saxon of Alfred, than French is from Italian. All these
languages together form one family, one whole, in which every member
shares certain features in common with all the rest, and is at the
same time distinguished from the rest by certain features peculiarly
its own. The the world on which what we call the history of man has
been acted, have been grouped together into three great divisions, the
Aryan or Indo-European Family, the Semitic Family, and the Turanian
Class. According to that division you are aware that English together
with all the Teutonic languages of the Continent, Celtic, Slavonic,
Greek, Latin with its modern offshoots, such as French and Italian,
Persian, and Sanskrit, are so many varieties of one common type of
speech: that Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Veda, is no more
distinct from the Greek of Homer, or from the Gothic of Ulfilas, or
from the Anglo-Saxon of Alfred, than French is from Italian. All these
languages together form one family, one whole, in which every member
shares certain features in common with all the rest, and is at the
same time distinguished from the rest by certain features peculiarly
its own. The same applies to the Semitic Family, which comprises, as
its most important members, the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the
Arabic of the Koran, and the ancient languages on the monuments of
Phenicia and Carthage, of Babylon and Assyria. These languages, again,
form a compact family, and differ entirely from the other family,
which we called Aryan or Indo-European. The third group of languages,
for we can hardly call it a family, comprises most of the remaining
languages of Asia, and counts among its principal members the
Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoyedic, and Finnic, together with the
languages of Siam, the Malay islands, Tibet, and Southern India.
Lastly, the Chinese language stands by itself, as monosyllabic, the
only remnant of the earliest formation of human speech.
Now I believe that the same division which has introduced a new and
natural order into the history of languages, and has enabled us to
understand the growth of human speech in a manner never dreamt of in
former days, will be found applicable to a scientific study of
religions. I shall say nothing to-night of the Semitic or Turanian or
Chinese religions, but confine my remarks to the religions of the
Aryan family. These religions, though more important in the ancient
history of the world, as the religions of the Greeks and Romans, of
our own Teutonic ancestors, and of the Celtic and Slavonic races, are
nevertheless of great importance even at the present day. For although
there are no longer any worshippers of Zeus, or Jupiter, of Wodan,
Esus,[14] or Perkunas,[15] the two religions of Aryan origin which
still survive, Brahmanism and Buddhism, claim together a decided
majority among the inhabitants of the globe. Out of the whole
population of the world,
- 31.2 per cent are Buddhists,
- 13.4 per cent are Brahmanists,
- ——
- 44.6
which together gives us 44 per cent for what may be called living
Aryan religions. Of the remaining 56 per cent, 15.7 are Mohammedans,
8.7 per cent non-descript Heathens, 30.7 per cent Christians, and only
O.3 per cent Jews.
Now, as a scientific study of the Aryan languages became possible only
after the discovery of Sanskrit, a scientific study of the Aryan
religion dates really from the discovery of the Veda. The study of
Sanskrit brought to light the original documents of three religions,
the Sacred Books of the Brahmans, the Sacred Books of the Magians, the
followers of Zoroaster, and the Sacred Books of the Buddhists. Fifty
years ago, these three collections of sacred writings were all but
unknown, their very existence was doubted, and there was not a single
scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda, a line of the
Zend-Avesta, or a line of the Buddhist Tripitaka. At present large
portions of these, the canonical writings of the most ancient and most
important religions of the Aryan race, are published and deciphered,
and we begin to see a natural progress, and almost a logical
necessity, in the growth of these three systems of worship. The
oldest, most primitive, most simple form of Aryan faith finds its
expression in the Veda. The Zend-Avesta represents in its language, as
well as in its thoughts, a branching off from that more primitive
stem; a more or less conscious opposition to the worship of the gods
of nature, as adored in the Veda, and a striving after a more
spiritual, supreme, moral deity, such as Zoroaster proclaimed under
the name of Ahura mazda, or Ormuzd. Buddhism, lastly, marks a decided
schism, a decided antagonism against the established religion of the
Brahmans, a denial of the true divinity of the Vedic gods, and a
proclamation of new philosophical and social doctrines.
Without the Veda, therefore, neither the reforms of Zoroaster nor the
new teaching of Buddha would have been intelligible: we should not
know what was behind them, or what forces impelled Zoroaster and
Buddha to the founding of new religions; how much they received, how
much they destroyed, how much they created. Take but one word in the
religious phraseology of these three systems. In the Veda the gods are
called Deva. This word in Sanskrit means bright,—brightness or light
being one of the most general attributes shared by the various
manifestations of the Deity, invoked in the Veda, as Sun, or Sky, or
Fire, or Dawn, or Storm. We can see, in fact, how in the minds of the
poets of the Veda, deva from meaning bright, came gradually to mean
divine. In the Zend-Avesta the same word daêva means evil spirit. Many
of the Vedic gods, with Indra at their head, have been degraded to the
position of daêvas, in order to make room for Ahura mazda, the Wise
Spirit, as the supreme deity of the Zoroastrians. In his confession of
faith the follower of Zoroaster declares: 'I cease to be a worshipper
of the daêvas.' In Buddhism, again, we find these ancient Devas, Indra
and the rest, as merely legendary beings, carried about at shows, as
servants of Buddha, as goblins or fabulous heroes; but no longer
either worshipped or even feared by those with whom the name of Deva
had lost every trace of its original meaning. Thus this one word Deva
marks the mutual relations of these three religions. But more than
this. The same word deva is the Latin deus, thus pointing to that
common source of language and religion, far beyond the heights of the
Vedic Olympus, from which the Romans, as well as the Hindus, draw the
names of their deities, and the elements of their language as well as
of their religion.
The Veda, by its language and its thoughts, supplies that distant
background in the history of all the religions of the Aryan race,
which was missed indeed by every careful observer, but which formerly
could be supplied by guess-work only. How the Persians came to worship
Ormuzd, how the Buddhists came to protest against temples and
sacrifices, how Zeus and the Olympian gods came to be what they are in
the mind of Homer, or how such beings as Jupiter and Mars came to be
worshipped by the Italian peasant:—all these questions, which used to
yield material for endless and baseless speculations, can now be
answered by a simple reference to the hymns of the Veda. The religion
of the Veda is not the source of all the other religions of the Aryan
world, nor is Sanskrit the mother of all the Aryan languages.
Sanskrit, as compared to Greek and Latin, is an elder sister, not a
parent: Sanskrit is the earliest deposit of Aryan speech, as the Veda
is the earliest deposit of Aryan faith. But the religion and incipient
mythology of the Veda possess the same simplicity and transparency
which distinguish the grammar of Sanskrit from Greek, Latin, or German
grammar. We can watch in the Veda ideas and their names growing, which
in Persia, Greece, and Rome we meet with only as full-grown or as fast
decaying. We get one step nearer to that distant source of religious
thought and language which has fed the different national streams of
Persia, Greece, Rome, and Germany; and we begin to see clearly, what
ought never to have been doubted, that there is no religion without
God, or, as St. Augustine expressed, that 'there is no false religion
which does not contain some elements of truth.'
I do not wish by what I have said to raise any exaggerated
expectations as to the worth of these ancient hymns of the Veda, and
the character of that religion which they indicate rather than fully
describe. The historical importance of the Veda can hardly be
exaggerated, but its intrinsic merit, and particularly the beauty or
elevation of its sentiments, have by many been rated far too high.
Large numbers of the Vedic hymns are childish in the extreme: tedious,
low, common-place. The gods are constantly invoked to protect their
worshippers, to grant them food, large flocks, large families, and a
long life; for all which benefits they are to be rewarded by the
praises and sacrifices offered day after day, or at certain seasons of
the year. But hidden in this rubbish there are precious stones. Only
in order to appreciate them justly, we must try to divest ourselves of
the common notions about Polytheism, so repugnant not only to our
feelings, but to our understanding. No doubt, if we must employ
technical terms, the religion of the Veda is Polytheism, not
Monotheism. Deities are invoked by different names, some clear and
intelligible, such as Agni, fire; Sûrya, the sun; Ushas, dawn; Maruts,
the storms; Prithivî, the earth; Âp, the waters; Nadî, the rivers;
others such as Varuna, Mitra, Indra, which have become proper names,
and disclose but dimly their original application to the great aspects
of nature, the sky, the sun, the day. But whenever one of these
individual gods is invoked, they are not conceived as limited by the
powers of others, as superior or inferior in rank. Each god is to the
mind of the supplicant as good as all gods. He is felt, at the time,
as a real divinity,—as supreme and absolute,—without a suspicion of
those limitations which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must
entail on every single god. All the rest disappear for a moment from
the vision of the poet, and he only who is to fulfill their desires
stands in full light before the eyes of the worshippers. In one hymn,
ascribed to Manu, the poet says: "Among you, O gods, there is none
that is small, none that is young; you are all great indeed." And this
is indeed the key-note of the ancient Aryan worship. Yet it would be
easy to find in the numerous hymns of the Veda, passages in which
almost every important deity is represented as supreme and absolute.
Thus in one hymn, Agni (fire) is called "the ruler of the universe,"
"the lord of men," "the wise king, the father, the brother, the son,
the friend of man;" nay, all the powers and names of the other gods
are distinctly ascribed to Agni. But though Agni is thus highly
exalted, nothing is said to disparage the divine character of the
other gods. In another hymn another god, Indra, is said to be greater
than all: "The gods," it is said, "do not reach thee, Indra, nor men;
thou overcomest all creatures in strength." Another god, Soma, is
called the king of the world, the king of heaven and earth, the
conqueror of all. And what more could human language achieve, in
trying to express the idea of a divine and supreme power, than what
another poet says of another god, Varuna: "Thou art lord of all, of
heaven and earth; thou art the king of all, of those who are gods, and
of those who are men!"
This surely is not what is commonly understood by Polytheism. Yet it
would be equally wrong to call it Monotheism. If we must have a name
for it, I should call it Kathenotheism. The consciousness that all the
deities are but different names of one and the same godhead, breaks
forth indeed here and there in the Veda. But it is far from being
general. One poet, for instance, says (Rv. I. 164, 46): "They call him
Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; then he is the beautiful-winged heavenly
Garutmat: that which is One the wise call it in divers manners: they
call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan." And again (Rv. X. 114, 5): "Wise
poets make the beautiful-winged, though he is one, manifold by words."
I shall read you a few Vedic verses, in which the religious sentiment
predominates, and in which we perceive a yearning after truth, and
after the true God, untrammeled as yet by any names or any
traditions[16] (Rv. X. 121):—
1. In the beginning there arose the golden Child—He was the
one born lord of all that is. He stablished the earth, and
this sky;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
sacrifice?
2. He who gives life, He who gives strength; whose command
all the bright gods revere; whose shadow is immortality,
whose shadow is death;—Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice?
3. He who through His power is the one king of the breathing
and awakening world—He who governs all, man and beast;—Who
is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
4. He whose greatness these snowy mountains, whose greatness
the sea proclaims, with the distant river—He whose these
regions are, as it were His two arms;—Who is the God to
whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
5. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm—He
through whom the heaven was stablished,—nay, the highest
heaven,—He who measured out the light in the air;—Who is
the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
6. He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will,
look up, trembling inwardly—He over whom the rising sun
shines forth;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our
sacrifice?
7. Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed
the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the sole
life of the bright gods;—Who is the God to whom we shall
offer our sacrifice?
8. He who by His might looked even over the water-clouds,
the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice; He who
alone is God above all gods;—
9. May He not destroy us—He the creator of the earth; or
He, the righteous, who created the heaven; He also created
the bright and mighty waters;—Who is the God to whom we
shall offer our sacrifice?[17]
The following may serve as specimens of hymns addressed to individual
deities whose names have become the centres of religious thought and
legendary traditions; deities, in fact, like Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, or
Minerva, no longer mere germs, but fully developed forms of early
thought and language:
Hymn to Indra (Rv. I. 53).[18]
1. Keep silence well![19] we offer praises to the great
Indra in the house of the sacrificer. Does he find treasure
for those who are like sleepers? Mean praise is not valued
among the munificent.
2. Thou art the giver of horses, Indra, thou art the giver
of cows, the giver of corn, the strong lord of wealth: the
old guide of man, disappointing no desires, a friend to
friends:—to him we address this song.
3. O powerful Indra, achiever of many works, most brilliant
god—all this wealth around here is known to be thine alone:
take from it, conqueror! bring it hither! Do not stint the
desire of the worshipper who longs for thee!
4. On these days thou art gracious, and on these
nights,[20] keeping off the enemy from our cows and from
our stud. Tearing[21] the fiend night after night with the
help of Indra, let us rejoice in food, freed from haters.
5. Let us rejoice, Indra, in treasure and food, in wealth of
manifold delight and splendour. Let us rejoice in the
blessing of the gods, which gives us the strength of
offspring, gives us cows first and horses.
6. These draughts inspired thee, O lord of the brave! these
were vigour, these libations, in battles, when for the sake
of the poet, the sacrificer, thou struckest down
irresistibly ten thousands of enemies.
7. From battle to battle thou advancest bravely, from town
to town thou destroyest all this with might, when thou,
Indra, with Nâmî as thy friend, struckest down from afar the
deceiver Namuki.
8. Thou hast slain Karaṅga and Parnaya with the
brightest spear of Atithigva. Without a helper thou didst
demolish the hundred cities of Vaṅgrida, which were
besieged by Rigisvan.
9. Thou hast felled down with the chariot-wheel these twenty
kings of men, who had attacked the friendless
Susravas,[22] and gloriously the sixty thousand and
ninety-nine forts.
10. Thou, Indra, hast succoured Susravas with thy
succours, Tûrvayâna with thy protections. Thou hast made
Kutsa, Atithigva, and Âyu subject to this mighty youthful
king.
11. We who in future, protected by the gods, wish to be thy
most blessed friends, we shall praise thee, blessed by thee
with offspring, and enjoying henceforth a longer life.
The next hymn is one of many addressed to Agni as the god of fire, not
only the fire as a powerful element, but likewise the fire of the
hearth and the altar, the guardian of the house, the minister of the
sacrifice, the messenger between gods and men:
Hymn to Agni (Rv. II. 6).
1. Agni, accept this log which I offer to thee, accept this
my service; listen well to these my songs.
2. With this log, O Agni, may we worship thee, thou son of
strength, conqueror of horses! and with this hymn, thou
high-born!
3. May we thy servants serve thee with songs, O granter of
riches, thou who lovest songs and delightest in riches.
4. Thou lord of wealth and giver of wealth, be thou wise and
powerful; drive away from us the enemies!
5. He gives us rain from heaven, he gives us inviolable
strength, he gives us food a thousandfold.
6. Youngest of the gods, their messenger, their invoker,
most deserving of worship, come, at our praise, to him who
worships thee and longs for thy help.
7. For thou, O sage, goest wisely between these two
creations (heaven and earth, gods and men), like a friendly
messenger between two hamlets.
8. Thou art wise, and thou hast been pleased; perform thou,
intelligent Agni, the sacrifice without interruption, sit
down on this sacred grass!
The following hymn, partly laudatory, partly deprecatory, is addressed
to the Maruts or Rudras, the Storm-gods:
Hymn to the Maruts (Rv. I. 39).[23]
1. When you thus from afar cast forward your measure, like a
blast of fire, through whose wisdom is it, through whose
design? To whom do you go, to whom, ye shakers (of the
earth)?
2. May your weapons be firm to attack, strong also to
withstand! May yours be the more glorious strength, not that
of the deceitful mortal!
3. When you overthrow what is firm, O ye men, and whirl
about what is heavy, ye pass through the trees of the earth,
through the clefts of the rocks.
4. No real foe of yours is known in heaven, nor in earth, ye
devourers of enemies! May strength be yours, together with
your race, O Rudras, to defy even now.
5. They make the rocks to tremble, they tear asunder the
kings of the forest. Come on, Maruts, like madmen, ye gods,
with your whole tribe.
6. You have harnessed the spotted deer to your chariots, a
red deer draws as leader. Even the earth listened at your
approach, and men were frightened.
7. O Rudras, we quickly desire your help for our race. Come
now to us with help, as of yore, thus for the sake of the
frightened Kanva.
8. Whatever fiend, roused by you or roused by mortals,
attacks us, tear him from us by your power, by your
strength, by your aid.
9. For you, worshipful and wise, have wholly protected
Kanva. Come to us, Maruts, with your whole help, as
quickly as lightnings come after the rain.
10. Bounteous givers, ye possess whole strength, whole
power, ye shakers (of the earth). Send, O Maruts, against
the proud enemy of the poets, an enemy, like an arrow.
The following is a simple prayer addressed to the Dawn:
Hymn to Ushas (Rv. VII. 77).
1. She shines upon us, like a young wife, rousing every
living being to go to his work. When the fire had to be
kindled by men, she made the light by striking down
darkness.
2. She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving
everywhere. She grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant
garment. The mother of the cows, (the mornings) the leader
of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold.
3. She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the gods, who
leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn was
seen revealed by her rays, with brilliant treasures,
following every one.
4. Thou who art a blessing where thou art near, drive far
away the unfriendly; make the pasture wide, give us safety!
Scatter the enemy, bring riches! Raise up wealth to the
worshipper, thou mighty Dawn.
5. Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou
who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest
us food, who givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots.
6. Thou, daughter of the sky, thou high-born Dawn, whom the
Vasishthas magnify with songs, give us riches high and
wide: all ye gods, protect us always with your blessings.
I must confine myself to shorter extracts, in order to be able to show
to you that all the principal elements of real religion are present in
the Veda. I remind you again that the Veda contains a great deal of
what is childish and foolish, though very little of what is bad and
objectionable. Some of its poets ascribe to the gods sentiments and
passions unworthy of the deity, such as anger, revenge, delight in
material sacrifices; they likewise represent human nature on a low
level of selfishness and worldliness. Many hymns are utterly unmeaning
and insipid, and we must search patiently before we meet, here and
there, with sentiments that come from the depth of the soul, and with
prayers in which we could join ourselves. Yet there are such
passages, and they are the really important passages, as marking the
highest points to which the religious life of the ancient poets of
India had reached; and it is to these that I shall now call your
attention.
First of all, the religion of the Veda knows of no idols. The worship
of idols in India is a secondary formation, a later degradation of the
more primitive worship of ideal gods.
The gods of the Veda are conceived as immortal: passages in which the
birth of certain gods is mentioned have a physical meaning: they refer
to the birth of the day, the rising of the sun, the return of the
year.
The gods are supposed to dwell in heaven, though several of them, as,
for instance, Agni, the god of fire, are represented as living among
men, or as approaching the sacrifice, and listening to the praises of
their worshippers.
Heaven and earth are believed to have been made or to have been
established by certain gods. Elaborate theories of creation, which
abound in the later works, the Brâhmanas, are not to be found in the
hymns. What we find are such passages as:
'Agni held the earth, he stablished the heaven by truthful words' (Rv.
I. 67, 3).
'Varuna stemmed asunder the wide firmaments; he lifted on high the
bright and glorious heaven; he stretched out apart the starry sky and
the earth' (Rv. VII. 86, 1).
More frequently, however, the poets confess their ignorance of the
beginning of all things, and one of them exclaims:
'Who has seen the first-born? Where was the life, the blood, the soul
of the world? Who went to ask this from any that knew it? (Rv. I. 164,
4).[24]
Or again, Rv. X. 81, 4: 'What was the forest, what was the tree out of
which they shaped heaven and earth? Wise men, ask this indeed in your
mind, on what he stood when he held the worlds?'
I now come to a more important subject. We find in the Veda, what few
would have expected to find there, the two ideas, so contradictory to
the human understanding, and yet so easily reconciled in every human
heart: God has established the eternal laws of right and wrong, he
punishes sin and rewards virtue, and yet the same God is willing to
forgive; just, yet merciful; a judge, and yet a father. Consider, for
instance, the following lines, Rv. I. 41, 4: 'His path is easy and
without thorns, who does what is right.'
And again, Rv. I. 41, 9: 'Let man fear Him who holds the four (dice),
before he throws them down (i. e. God who holds the destinies of men
in his hand); let no man delight in evil words!'
And then consider the following hymns, and imagine the feelings which
alone could have prompted them:
Hymn to Varuna (Rv. VII. 89).
1. Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay;
have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
2. If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind;
have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
3. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god,
have I gone wrong; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
4. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the
midst of the waters; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
5. Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence before the
heavenly host, whenever we break the law through
thoughtlessness; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
And again, Rv. VII. 86:
1. Wise and mighty are the works of him who stemmed asunder
the wide firmaments (heaven and earth). He lifted on high
the bright and glorious heaven; he stretched out apart the
starry sky and the earth.
2. Do I say this to my own self? How can I get unto
Varuna? Will he accept my offering without displeasure?
When shall I, with a quiet mind, see him propitiated?
3. I ask, O Varuna, wishing to know this my sin. I go to
ask the wise. The sages all tell me the same: Varuna it is
who is angry with thee.
4. Was it an old sin, O Varuna, that thou wishest to
destroy thy friend, who always praises thee? Tell me, thou
unconquerable lord, and I will quickly turn to thee with
praise, freed from sin.
5. Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from those
which we committed with our own bodies. Release Vasishtha,
O king, like a thief who has feasted on stolen oxen; release
him like a calf from the rope.
6. It was not our own doing, O Varuna, it was necessity
(or temptation), an intoxicating draught, passion, dice,
thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young; even
sleep brings unrighteousness.
7. Let me without sin give satisfaction to the angry god,
like a slave to the bounteous lord. The lord god enlightened
the foolish; he, the wisest, leads his worshipper to wealth.
8. O lord Varuna, may this song go well to thy heart! May
we prosper in keeping and acquiring! Protect us, O gods,
always with your blessings!
The consciousness of sin is a prominent feature in the religion of the
Veda, so is likewise the belief that the gods are able to take away
from man the heavy burden of his sins. And when we read such passages
as 'Varuna is merciful even to him who has committed sin' (Rv. VII.
87, 7), we should surely not allow the strange name of Varuna to jar
on our ears, but should remember that it is but one of the many names
which men invented in their helplessness to express their ideas of the
Deity, however partial and imperfect.
The next hymn, which is taken from the Atharva-veda (IV. 16), will
show how near the language of the ancient poets of India may approach
to the language of the Bible:[25]
1. The great lord of these worlds sees as if he were near.
If a man thinks he is walking by stealth, the gods know it
all.
2. If a man stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie down
or to get up, what two people sitting together whisper, king
Varuna knows it, he is there as the third.
3. This earth, too, belongs to Varuna, the king, and this
wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky and
the ocean) are Varuna's loins; he is also contained in
this small drop of water.
4. He who should flee far beyond the sky, even he would not
be rid of Varuna, the king. His spies proceed from heaven
towards this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this
earth.
5. King Varuna sees all this, what is between heaven and
earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of
the eyes of men. As a player throws the dice, he settles all
things.
6. May all thy fatal nooses, which stand spread out seven by
seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie, may they
pass by him who tells the truth.
Another idea which we find in the Veda is that of faith: not only in
the sense of trust in the gods, in their power, their protection,
their kindness, but in that of belief in their existence. The Latin
word credo, I believe, is the same as the Sanskrit sraddhâ, and this
sraddhâ occurs in the Veda:
Rv. I. 102, 2. 'Sun and moon go on in regular succession, that we may
see, Indra, and believe.'
Rv. I. 104, 6. 'Destroy not our future offspring, O Indra, for we have
believed in thy great power.'
Rv. I. 55, 5. 'When Indra hurls again and again his thunderbolt, then
they believe in the brilliant god.'[26]
A similar sentiment, namely, that men only believe in the gods when
they see their signs and wonders in the sky, is expressed by another
poet (Rv. VIII. 21, 14):
'Thou, Indra, never findest a rich man to be thy friend;
wine-swillers despise thee. But when thou thunderest, when
thou gatherest (the clouds), then thou art called, like a
father.'
And with this belief in god, there is also coupled that doubt, that
true scepticism, if we may so call it, which is meant to give to faith
its real strength. We find passages even in these early hymns where
the poet asks himself, whether there is really such a god as Indra,—a
question immediately succeeded by an answer, as if given to the poet
by Indra himself. Thus we read Rv. VIII. 89, 3:
'If you wish for strength, offer to Indra a hymn of praise:
a true hymn, if Indra truly exist; for some one says, Indra
does not exist! Who has seen him? Whom shall we praise?'
Then Indra answers through the poet:
'Here I am, O worshipper, behold me here! in might I surpass
all things.'
Similar visions occur elsewhere, where the poet, after inviting a god
to a sacrifice, or imploring his pardon for his offences, suddenly
exclaims that he has seen the god, and that he feels that his prayer
is granted. For instance:
Hymn to Varuna (Rv. I. 25).
1. However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are,
O god, Varuna,
2. Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the
furious; nor to the wrath of the spiteful!
3. To propitiate thee, O Varuna, we unbend thy mind with
songs, as the charioteer a weary steed.
4. Away from me they flee dispirited, intent only on gaining
wealth; as birds to their nests.
5. When shall we bring hither the man, who is victory to the
warriors; when shall we bring Varuna, the wide-seeing, to
be propitiated?
[6. This they (Mitra and Varuna) take in common; gracious,
they never fail the faithful giver.]
7. He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the
sky, who on the waters knows the ships;—
8. He, the upholder of order, who knows the twelve months
with the offspring of each, and knows the month that is
engendered afterwards;—
9. He who knows the track of the wind, of the wide, the
bright, the mighty; and knows those who reside on high;—
10. He, the upholder of order, Varuna, sits down among his
people; he, the wise, sits there to govern.
11. From thence perceiving all wondrous things, he sees what
has been and what will be done.
12. May he, the wise Âditya, make our paths straight all our
days; may he prolong our lives!
13. Varuna, wearing golden mail, has put on his shining
cloak; the spies sat down around him.
14. The god whom the scoffers do not provoke, nor the
tormentors of men, nor the plotters of mischief;—
15. He, who gives to men glory, and not half glory, who
gives it even to our own selves;—
16. Yearning for him, the far-seeing, my thoughts move
onwards, as kine move to their pastures.
17. Let us speak together again, because my honey has been
brought: that thou mayst eat what thou likest, like a
friend.
18. Did I see the god who is to be seen by all, did I see
the chariot above the earth? He must have accepted my
prayers.
19. O hear this my calling, Varuna, be gracious now;
longing for help, I have called upon thee.
20. Thou, O wise god, art lord of all, of heaven and earth:
listen on thy way.
21. That I may live, take from me the upper rope, loose the
middle, and remove the lowest!
In conclusion, let me tell you that there is in the Veda no trace of
metempsychosis or that transmigration of souls from human to animal
bodies which is generally supposed to be a distinguishing feature of
Indian religion. Instead of this, we find what is really the sine quâ
non of all real religion, a belief in immortality, and in personal
immortality. Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely
is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an
abyss. We cannot wonder at the great difficulties felt and expressed
by bishop Warburton and other eminent divines, with regard to the
supposed total absence of the doctrine of immortality or personal
immortality in the Old Testament; and it is equally startling that the
Sadducees who sat in the same council with the high-priest, openly
denied the resurrection.[27] However, though not expressly asserted
anywhere, a belief in personal immortality is taken for granted in
several passages of the Old Testament, and we can hardly think of
Abraham or Moses as without a belief in life and immortality. But
while this difficulty, so keenly felt with regard to the Jewish
religion, ought to make us careful in the judgments which we form of
other religions, and teach us the wisdom of charitable interpretation,
it is all the more important to mark that in the Veda passages occur
where immortality of the soul, personal immortality and personal
responsibility after death, are clearly proclaimed. Thus we read:
'He who gives alms goes to the highest place in heaven; he
goes to the gods' (Rv. I. 125, 56).
Another poet, after rebuking those who are rich and do not
communicate, says:
'The kind mortal is greater than the great in heaven!'
Even the idea, so frequent in the later literature of the Brahmans,
that immortality is secured by a son, seems implied, unless our
translation deceives us, in one passage of the Veda (VII. 56, 24):
'Asmé (íti) virah marutah sushmî astu gánânâm yáh ásurah vi
dhartâ, apáh yéna su-kshitáye tárema, ádha svám ókah abhí vah
syáma.' 'O Maruts, may there be to us a strong son, who is a living
ruler of men: through whom we may cross the waters on our way to the
happy abode; then may we come to your own house!'
One poet prays that he may see again his father and mother after death
(Rv. I. 24, 1); and the fathers (Pitris) are invoked almost like
gods, oblations are offered to them, and they are believed to enjoy,
in company with the gods, a life of never ending felicity (Rv. X. 15,
16).
We find this prayer addressed to Soma (Rv. IX. 113, 7):
'Where there is eternal light, in the world where the sun is
placed, in that immortal imperishable world place me, O
Soma!'
'Where king Vaivasvata reigns, where the secret place of
heaven is, where these mighty waters are, there make me
immortal!
'Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, where
the worlds are radiant, there make me immortal!'
'Where wishes and desires are, where the place of the bright
sun is, where there is freedom and delight, there make me
immortal!
'Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and
pleasure reside, where the desires of our desire are
attained, there make me immortal!'[28]
Whether the old Rishis believed likewise in a place of punishment for
the wicked, is more doubtful, though vague allusions to it occur in
the Rig-veda, and more distinct descriptions are found in the
Atharva-veda. In one verse it is said that the dead is rewarded for
his good deeds, that he leaves or casts off all evil, and glorified
takes his body (Rv. X. 14, 8).[29] The dogs of Yama, the king of the
departed, present some terrible aspects, and Yama is asked to protect
the departed from them (Rv. X. 14, 11). Again, a pit (karta) is
mentioned into which the lawless are said to be hurled down (Rv. IX.
73, 8), and into which Indra casts those who offer no sacrifices (Rv.
I. 121, 13). One poet prays that the Âdityas may preserve him from the
destroying wolf, and from falling into the pit (Rv. II. 29, 6). In one
passage we read that 'those who break the commandments of Varuna and
who speak lies are born for that deep place' (Rv. IV. 5, 5).[30]
Surely the discovery of a religion like this, as unexpected as the
discovery of the jaw-bone of Abbeville, deserves to arrest our
thoughts for a moment, even in the haste and hurry of this busy life.
No doubt for the daily wants of life, the old division of religions
into true and false is quite sufficient; as for practical purposes we
distinguish only between our own mother-tongue on the one side, and
all other foreign languages on the other. But, from a higher point of
view, it would not be right to ignore the new evidence that has come
to light; and as the study of geology has given us a truer insight
into the stratification of the earth, it is but natural to expect that
a thoughtful study of the original works of three of the most
important religions of the world, Brahmanism, Magism, and Buddhism,
will modify our views as to the growth or history of religion, as to
the hidden layers of religious thought beneath the soil on which we
stand. Such inquires should be undertaken without prejudice and
without fear: the evidence is placed before us; our duty is to sift it
critically, to weigh it honestly, and to wait for the results.
Three of these results, to which, I believe, a comparative study of
religions is sure to lead, I may state before I conclude this Lecture:
1. We shall learn that religions in their most ancient form,
or in the minds of their authors, are generally free from
many of the blemishes that attach to them in later times.
2. We shall learn that there is hardly one religion which
does not contain some truth, some important truth; truth
sufficient to enable those who seek the Lord and feel after
Him, to find Him in their hour of need.
3. We shall learn to appreciate better than ever what we
have in our own religion. No one who has not examined
patiently and honestly the other religions of the world, can
know what Christianity really is, or can join with such
truth and sincerity in the words of St. Paul: 'I am not
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.'
