Chapter VII: Introduction (6)

Other conjectures have been made with even less foundation than that which would place the ancient poets of India under the influence of Babylon. China has been appealed to, nay even Persia, Parthia, and Bactria, countries beyond the reach of India at that early time of which we are here speaking, and probably not even then consolidated into independent nations or kingdoms. I only wonder that traces of the lost Jewish tribes have not been discovered in the Vedas, considering that Afghanistan has so often been pointed out as one of their favorite retreats.

After having thus carefully examined all the traces of supposed foreign influences that have been brought forward by various scholars, I think I may say that there really is no trace whatever of any foreign influence in the language, the religion, or the ceremonial of the ancient Vedic literature of India. As it stands before us now, so it has grown up, protected by the mountain ramparts in the north, the Indus and the Desert in the west, the Indus or what was called the sea in the south, and the Ganges in the east. It presents us with a home-grown poetry and a home-grown religion; and history has preserved to us at least this one relic, in order to teach us what the human mind can achieve if left to itself, surrounded by a scenery and by conditions of life that might have made man's life on earth a paradise, if man did not possess the strange art of turning even a paradise into a place of misery.[149]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 127: If we applied the name of literature to the cylinders of Babylon and the papyri of Egypt, we should have to admit that some of these documents are more ancient than any date we dare as yet assign to the hymns collected in the ten books of the Rig-Veda.]

[Footnote 128: A na_h_ bhara vya_ng_anam gam a_s_vam abhya_ng_anam Sa_k_a mana hira_n_yaya.]

[Footnote 129: Grassman translates, "Zugleich mit goldenem Geraeth;" Ludwig, "Zusammt mit goldenem Zierrath;" Zimmer, "Und eine Mana gold." The Petersburg Dictionary explains mana by "ein bestimmtes Geraeth oder Gewicht" (Gold).]

[Footnote 130: According to Dr. Haupt, Die Sumerisch-akkadische Sprache, p. 272, mana is an Akkadian word.]

[Footnote 131: According to the weights of the lions and ducks preserved in the British Museum, an Assyrian mina was = 7747 grains. The same difference is still preserved to the present day, as the _man_ of Shiraz and Bagdad is just double that of Tabraz and Bushir, the average of the former being 14.0 and that of the latter only 6.985. See Cunningham, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," Calcutta, 1881, p. 163.]

[Footnote 132: Preface to the fourth volume of my edition of the Rig-Veda, p. li.]

[Footnote 133: Vai_s_vadevam on the full-moon of Phalguna, Varu_n_apraghasa_h_ on the full-moon of Asha_dh_a, Sakamedha_h_ on the full-moon of K_ri_ttika, see Boehtlingk, Dictionary, s. v.]

[Footnote 134: See Vish_n_u-sm_ri_ti, ed. Jolly LIX. 4; Aryabha_t_a, Introduction.]

[Footnote 135: See Preface to vol. iv. of Rig-Veda, p. li. (1862).]

[Footnote 136: See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 352-357.]

[Footnote 137: L. c. p. lxx.]

[Footnote 138: See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. xlvii.]

[Footnote 139: In the Mahabharata and elsewhere the _K_inas are mentioned among the Dasyus or non-Aryan races in the north and in the east of India. King Bhagadatta is said to have had an army of _K_inas and Kiratas,(B1) and the Pa_nd_avas are said to reach the town of the King of the Kulindas, after having passed through the countries of _K_inas, Tukharas, and Daradas. All this is as vague as ethnological indications generally are in the late epic poetry of India. The only possibly real element is that Kirata and _K_ina soldiers are called ka_nk_ana, gold or yellow colored,(B2) and compared to a forest of Kar_n_ikaras, which were trees with yellow flowers.(B3) In Mahabh. VI. 9, v. 373, vol. ii., p. 344, the _K_inas occur in company with Kambo_g_as and Yavanas, which again conveys nothing definite.

B1: Lassen, i. p. 1029; Mahabh. III. 117, v. 12,350; vol. i. p. 619.

B2: Mahabh. V. 18, v. 584; vol. ii. p. 106.

B3: See Va_k_aspatya s. v.; Ka_sk_it Kar_n_ikaragaura_h_.

Chinese scholars tell us that the name of China is of modern origin, and only dates from the Thsin dynasty or from the famous Emperor Shi hoang-ti, 247 B.C. But the name itself, though in a more restricted sense, occurs in earlier documents, and may, as Lassen thinks,(B4) have become known to the Western neighbors of China. It is certainly strange that the _Sinim_ too, mentioned in Isaiah xlix. 12, have been taken by the old commentators for people of China, visiting Babylon as merchants and travellers.

B4: Lassen, vol. i. p. 1029, n. 2.]

[Footnote 140: I prefer now the reading of the Ka_n_va-_s_akha, abhidudrava, instead of atidudrava or adhidudrava of the other MSS. See Weber, Ind. Streifen, i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 141: It is not necessary to establish literary borrowing; for on the theory of Bible inspiration and trustworthiness we must assume that the Aryans as well as the Semites were saved in the ark. The story of _a_ flood supports the story of _the_ flood to a certain extent.--AM. PUBS.]

[Footnote 142: VII. 1, 5, 1 seq.; Muir, i. p. 52; Colebrooke, Essays, i. 75.]

[Footnote 143: VII. 5, 1, 5; Muir, "Original Sanskrit Texts," i. p. 54.]

[Footnote 144: Weber, "Indische Streifen," i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 145: See Lecture V. p. 172.]

[Footnote 146: More accurately Ramanu, the Vul or storm-god of George Smith; and the god of the Mind and higher intellect at Babylon. His arcane name is said to have been Yav, [Hebrew: YHWH] or [Greek: Iao].--A. W.]

[Footnote 147: See Haupt, "Der Keilinschriftliche Sintfluthbericht, 1881," p. 10.]

[Footnote 148: See M. M., "Genesis and Avesta" (German translation), i. p. 148.]

[Footnote 149: No one is more competent than the learned author to give a verdict on all the evidence which has been gathered; but we are only at the beginning of research into the intercourse of mankind in remote times, and much that was once thought home-grown has already been traced to distant points. It is in the general line of progress in research that more evidence may be expected to connect Vedic thought with other cultures.--AM. PUBS.]

LECTURE V.

THE LESSONS OF THE VEDA.

Although there is hardly any department of learning which has not received new light and new life from the ancient literature of India, yet nowhere is the light that comes to us from India so important, so novel, and so rich as in the study of religion and mythology. It is to this subject therefore that I mean to devote the remaining lectures of this course. I do so, partly because I feel myself most at home in that ancient world of Vedic literature in which the germs of Aryan religion have to be studied, partly because I believe that for a proper understanding of the deepest convictions, or, if you like, the strongest prejudices of the modern Hindus, nothing is so useful as a knowledge of the Veda. It is perfectly true that nothing would give a falser impression of the actual Brahmanical religion than the ancient Vedic literature, supposing we were to imagine that three thousand years could have passed over India without producing any change. Such a mistake would be nearly as absurd as to deny any difference between the Vedic Sanskrit and the spoken Bengali. But no one will gain a scholarlike knowledge or a true insight into the secret springs of Bengali who is ignorant of the grammar of Sanskrit; and no one will ever understand the present religious, philosophical, legal, and social opinions of the Hindus who is unable to trace them back to their true sources in the Veda.

I still remember how, many years ago, when I began to publish for the first time the text and the commentary of the Rig-Veda, it was argued by a certain, perhaps not quite disinterested party, that the Veda was perfectly useless; that no man in India, however learned, could read it, and that it was of no use either for missionaries or for any one else who wished to study and to influence the native mind. It was said that we ought to study the later Sanskrit, the Laws of Manu, the epic poems, and, more particularly, the Pura_n_as. The Veda might do very well for German students, but not for Englishmen.

There was no excuse for such ignorant assertions even thirty years ago, for in these very books, in the Laws of Manu, in the Mahabharata, and in the Pura_n_as, the Veda is everywhere proclaimed as the highest authority in all matters of religion.[150] "A Brahman," says Manu, "unlearned in holy writ, is extinguished in an instant like dry grass on fire." "A twice-born man (that is, a Brahma_n_a, a Kshatriya, and a Vai_s_ya) not having studied the Veda, soon falls, even when living, to the condition of a _S_udra, and his descendants after him."

How far this license of ignorant assertion may be carried is shown by the same authorities who denied the importance of the Veda for a historical study of Indian thought, boldly charging those wily priests, the Brahmans, with having withheld their sacred literature from any but their own caste. Now, so far from withholding it, the Brahmans have always been striving, and often striving in vain, to make the study of their sacred literature obligatory on all castes except the _S_udras, and the passages just quoted from Manu show what penalties were threatened if children of the second and third castes, the Kshatriyas and Vai_s_yas, were not instructed in the sacred literature of the Brahmans.

At present the Brahmans themselves have spoken, and the reception they have accorded to my edition of the Rig-Veda[151] and its native commentary, the zeal with which they have themselves taken up the study of Vedic literature, and the earnestness with which different sects are still discussing the proper use that should be made of their ancient religious writings, show abundantly that a Sanskrit scholar ignorant of, or, I should rather say, determined to ignore the Veda, would be not much better than a Hebrew scholar ignorant of the Old Testament.

I shall now proceed to give you some characteristic specimens of the religion and poetry of the Rig-Veda. They can only be few, and as there is nothing like system or unity of plan in that collection of 1017 hymns, which we call the Sa_m_hita of the Rig-Veda, I cannot promise that they will give you a complete panoramic view of that intellectual world in which our Vedic ancestors passed their life on earth.

I could not even answer the question, if you were to ask it whether the religion of the Veda was _polytheistic_ or _monotheistic_. Monotheistic, in the usual sense of that word, it is decidedly not, though there are hymns that assert the unity of the Divine as fearlessly as any passage of the Old Testament, or the New Testament, or the Koran. Thus one poet says (Rig-Veda I. 164, 46): "That which is _one_, sages name it in various ways--they call it Agni, Yama, Matari_s_van."

Another poet says: "The wise poets represent by their words Him who is one with beautiful wings, in many ways."[152]

And again we hear of a being called Hira_n_yagarbha, the golden germ (whatever the original of that name may have been), of whom the poet says:[153] "In the beginning there arose Hira_n_yagarbha; he was the one born lord of all this. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the god to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" That Hira_n_yagarbha, the poet says, "is alone God above all gods" (ya_h_ deveshu adhi deva_h_ eka_h_ asit)--an assertion of the unity of the Divine which could hardly be exceeded in strength by any passage from the Old Testament.

But by the side of such passages, which are few in number, there are thousands in which ever so many divine beings are praised and prayed to. Even their number is sometimes given as "thrice eleven"[154] or thirty-three, and one poet assigns eleven gods to the sky, eleven to the earth, and eleven to the waters,[155] the waters here intended being those of the atmosphere and the clouds. These thirty-three gods have even wives apportioned to them,[156] though few of these only have as yet attained to the honor of a name.[157]

These thirty-three gods, however, by no means include all the Vedic gods, for such important deities as Agni, the fire, Soma, the rain, the Maruts or Storm-gods, the A_s_vins, the gods of Morning and Evening, the Waters, the Dawn, the Sun are mentioned separately; and there are not wanting passages in which the poet is carried away into exaggerations, till he proclaims the number of his gods to be, not only thirty-three, but three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine.[158]

If therefore there must be a name for the religion of the Rig-Veda, polytheism would seem at first sight the most appropriate. Polytheism, however, has assumed with us a meaning which renders it totally inapplicable to the Vedic religion.

Our ideas of polytheism being chiefly derived from Greece and Rome, we understand by it a certain more or less organized system of gods, different in power and rank, and all subordinate to a supreme God, a Zeus or Jupiter. The Vedic polytheism differs from the Greek and Roman polytheism, and, I may add, likewise from the polytheism of the Ural-Altaic, the Polynesian, the American, and most of the African races, in the same manner as a confederacy of village communities differs from a monarchy. There are traces of an earlier stage of village-community life to be discovered in the later republican and monarchical constitutions, and in the same manner nothing can be clearer, particularly in Greece, than that the monarchy of Zeus was preceded by what may be called the septarchy of several of the great gods of Greece. The same remark applies to the mythology of the Teutonic nations also.[159] In the Veda, however, the gods worshipped as supreme by each sept stand still side by side. No one is first always, no one is last always. Even gods of a decidedly inferior and limited character assume occasionally in the eyes of a devoted poet a supreme place above all other gods.[160] It was necessary, therefore, for the purpose of accurate reasoning, to have a name, different from _polytheism_, to signify this worship of single gods, each occupying for a time a supreme position, and I proposed for it the name of _Kathenotheism_, that is, a worship of one god after another, or of _Henotheism_, the worship of single gods. This shorter name of _Henotheism_ has found more general acceptance, as conveying more definitely the opposition between _Monotheism_, the worship of one only God, and _Henotheism_, the worship of single gods; and, if but properly defined, it will answer its purpose very well. However, in researches of this kind we cannot be too much on our guard against technical terms. They are inevitable, I know; but they are almost always misleading. There is, for instance, a hymn addressed to the _Indus_ and the rivers that fall into it, of which I hope to read you a translation, because it determines very accurately the geographical scene on which the poets of the Veda passed their life. Now native scholars call these rivers d e v a t a s or deities, and European translators too speak of them as gods and goddesses. But in the language used by the poet with regard to the Indus and the other rivers, there is nothing to justify us in saying that he considered these rivers as _gods_ and _goddesses_, unless we mean by _gods_ and _goddesses_ something very different from what the Greeks called River-gods and River-goddesses, Nymphs, Najades, or even Muses.

And what applies to these rivers applies more or less to all the objects of Vedic worship. They all are still oscillating between what is seen by the senses, what is created by fancy, and what is postulated by the understanding; they are things, persons, causes, according to the varying disposition of the poets; and if we call them gods or goddesses, we must remember the remark of an ancient native theologian, who reminds us that by d e v a t a or deity he means no more than the object celebrated in a hymn, while _R i_ s h i or seer means no more than the subject or the author of a hymn.

It is difficult to treat of the so-called gods celebrated in the Veda according to any system, for the simple reason that the concepts of these gods and the hymns addressed to them sprang up spontaneously and without any pre-established plan. It is best perhaps for our purpose to follow an ancient Brahmanical writer, who is supposed to have lived about 400 B.C. He tells us of students of the Veda, before his time, who admitted three deities only, viz., A g n i or fire, whose place is on the earth; V a y u or I n d r a, the wind and the god of the thunderstorm, whose place is in the air; and S u r y a, the sun, whose place is in the sky. These deities, they maintained, received severally many appellations, in consequence of their greatness, or of the diversity of their functions, just as a priest, according to the functions which he performs at various sacrifices, receives various names.

This is _one_ view of the Vedic gods, and, though too narrow, it cannot be denied that there is some truth in it. A very useful division of the Vedic gods might be made, and has been made by Yaska, into _terrestrial_, _aerial_, and _celestial_, and if the old Hindu theologians meant no more than that all the manifestations of divine power in nature might be traced back to three centres of force, one in the sky, one in the air, and one on the earth, he deserves great credit for his sagacity.

But he himself perceived evidently that this generalization was not quite applicable to all the gods, and he goes on to say: "Or, it may be, these gods are all distinct beings, for the praises addressed to them are distinct, and their appellations also." This is quite right. It is the very object of most of these divine names to impart distinct individuality to the manifestations of the powers of nature; and though the philosopher or the inspired poet might perceive that these numerous names were but names, while that which was named was _one_ and _one_ only, this was certainly not the idea of most of the Vedic _Ri_shis themselves, still less of the people who listened to their songs at fairs and festivals. It is the peculiar character of that phase of religious thought which we have to study in the Veda, that in it the Divine is conceived and represented as manifold, and that many functions are shared in common by various gods, no attempt having yet been made at organizing the whole body of the gods, sharply separating one from the other, and subordinating all of them to several or, in the end, to one supreme head.

Availing ourselves of the division of the Vedic gods into terrestrial, aerial, and celestial, as proposed by some of the earliest Indian theologians, we should have to begin with the gods connected with the earth.

Before we examine them, however, we have first to consider one of the earliest objects of worship and adoration, namely _Earth and Heaven_, or _Heaven and Earth_, conceived as a divine couple. Not only in India, but among many other nations, both savage, half-savage, or civilized, we meet with Heaven and Earth as one of the earliest objects, pondered on, transfigured, and animated by the early poets, and more or less clearly conceived by early philosophers. It is surprising that it should be so, for the conception of the Earth as an independent being, and of Heaven as an independent being, and then of both together as a divine couple embracing the whole universe, requires a considerable effort of abstraction, far more than the concepts of other divine powers, such as the Fire, the Rain, the Lightning, or the Sun.

Still so it is, and as it may help us to understand the ideas about Heaven and Earth, as we find them in the Veda, and show us at the same time the strong contrast between the mythology of the Aryans and that of real savages (a contrast of great importance, though I admit very difficult to explain), I shall read you first some extracts from a book, published by a friend of mine, the Rev. William Wyatt Gill, for many years an active and most successful missionary in Mangaia, one of those Polynesian islands that form a girdle round one quarter of our globe,[161] and all share in the same language, the same religion, the same mythology, and the same customs. The book is called "Myths and Songs from the South Pacific,"[162] and it is full of interest to the student of mythology and religion.

The story, as told him by the natives of Mangaia, runs as follows:[163]

"The sky is built of solid blue stone. At one time it almost
touched the earth; resting upon the stout broad leaves of the
t e v e (which attains the height of about six feet) and the
delicate indigenous arrow-root (whose slender stem rarely
exceeds three feet).... In this narrow space between earth
and sky the inhabitants of this world were pent up. Ru, whose
usual residence was in Avaiki, or the shades, had come up for
a time to this world of ours. Pitying the wretched confined
residence of the inhabitants, he employed himself in
endeavoring to raise the sky a little. For this purpose he
cut a number of strong stakes of different kinds of trees,
and firmly planted them in the ground at Rangimotia, the
centre of the island, and with him the centre of the world.
This was a considerable improvement, as mortals were thereby
enabled to stand erect and to walk about without
inconvenience. Hence Ru was named 'The sky-supporter.'
Wherefore Teka sings (1794):

'Force up the sky, O Ru,
And let the space be clear!'

"One day when the old man was surveying his work, his
graceless son Maui contemptuously asked him what he was doing
there. Ru replied: 'Who told youngsters to talk? Take care of
yourself, or I will hurl you out of existence.'

"'Do it, then,' shouted Maui.

"Ru was as good as his word, and forthwith seized Maui, who
was small of stature, and threw him to a great height. In
falling Maui assumed the form of a bird, and lightly touched
the ground, perfectly unharmed. Maui, now thirsting for
revenge, in a moment resumed his natural form, but
exaggerated to gigantic proportions, and ran to his father,
saying:

'Ru, who supportest the many heavens,
The third, even to the highest, ascend!'

"Inserting his head between the old man's legs, he exerted all
his prodigious strength, and hurled poor Ru, sky and all, to
a tremendous height--so high, indeed, that the blue sky could
never get back again. Unluckily, however, for the
sky-supporting Ru, his head and shoulders got entangled among
the stars. He struggled hard, but fruitlessly, to extricate
himself. Maui walked off well pleased with having raised the
sky to its present height, but left half his father's body
and both his legs ingloriously suspended between heaven and
earth. Thus perished Ru. His body rotted away, and his bones
came tumbling down from time to time, and were shivered on
the earth into countless fragments. These shivered bones of
Ru are scattered over every hill and valley of Mangaia, to
the very edge of the sea."

What the natives call "the bones of Ru" (t e i v i o R u) are pieces of pumice-stone.

Now let us consider, first of all, whether this story, which with slight variations is told all over the Polynesian islands,[164] is pure nonsense, or whether there was originally some sense in it. My conviction is that nonsense is everywhere the child of sense, only that unfortunately many children, like that youngster Maui, consider themselves much wiser than their fathers, and occasionally succeed in hurling them out of existence.

It is a peculiarity of many of the ancient myths that they represent events which happen every day, or every year, as having happened once upon a time.[165] The daily battle between day and night, the yearly battle between winter and spring, are represented almost like historical events, and some of the episodes and touches belonging originally to these constant battles of nature, have certainly been transferred into and mixed up with battles that took place at a certain time, such as, for instance, the siege of Troy. When historical recollections failed, legendary accounts of the ancient battles between Night and Morning, Winter and Spring, were always at hand; and, as in modern times we constantly hear "good stories," which we have known from our childhood, told again and again of any man whom they seem to fit, in the same manner, in ancient times, any act of prowess, or daring, or mischief, originally told of the sun, "the orient Conqueror of gloomy Night," was readily transferred to and believed of any local hero who might seem to be a second Jupiter, or Mars, or Hercules.

I have little doubt therefore that as the accounts of a deluge, for instance, which we find almost everywhere, are originally recollections of the annual torrents of rain or snow that covered the little worlds within the ken of the ancient village-bards,[166] this tearing asunder of heaven and earth too was originally no more than a description of what might be seen every morning. During a dark night the sky seemed to cover the earth; the two seemed to be one, and could not be distinguished one from the other.[167] Then came the Dawn, which with its bright rays lifted the covering of the dark night to a certain point, till at last Maui appeared, small in stature, a mere child, that is, the sun of the morning--thrown up suddenly, as it were, when his first rays shot through the sky from beneath the horizon, then falling back to the earth, like a bird, and rising in gigantic form on the morning sky. The dawn now was hurled away, and the sky was seen lifted high above the earth; and Maui, the sun, marched on well pleased with having raised the sky to its present height.

Why pumice-stone should be called the bones of Ru, we cannot tell, without knowing a great deal more of the language of Mangaia than we do at present. It is most likely an independent saying, and was afterward united with the story of Ru and Maui.

Now I must quote at least a few extracts from a Maori legend as written down by Judge Manning:[168]

"This is the Genesis of the New Zealanders:

"The Heavens which are above us, and the Earth which lies
beneath us, are the progenitors of men, and the origin of
all things.

"Formerly the Heaven lay upon the Earth, and all was
darkness....

"And the children of Heaven and Earth sought to discover the
difference between light and darkness, between day and
night....

"So the sons of Rangi (Heaven) and of Papa (Earth) consulted
together, and said, 'Let us seek means whereby to destroy
Heaven and Earth, or to separate them from each other.'

"Then said Tumatauenga (the God of War), 'Let us destroy
them both.'

"Then said Tane-Mahuta (the Forest God), 'Not so; let them
be separated. Let one of them go upward and become a
stranger to us; let the other remain below and be a parent
for us.'

"Then four of the gods tried to separate Heaven and Earth,
but did not succeed, while the fifth, Tane, succeeded.

"After Heaven and Earth had been separated, great storms
arose, or, as the poet expresses it, one of their sons,
Tawhiri-Matea, the god of the winds, tried to revenge the
outrage committed on his parents by his brothers. Then
follow dismal dusky days, and dripping chilly skies, and
arid scorching blasts. All the gods fight, till at last Tu
only remains, the god of war, who had devoured all his
brothers, except the Storm. More fights follow, in which the
greater part of the earth was overwhelmed by the waters, and
but a small portion remained dry. After that, light
continued to increase, and as the light increased, so also
the people who had been hidden between Heaven and Earth
increased.... And so generation was added to generation
down to the time of Maui-Potiki, he who brought death into
the world.

"Now in these latter days Heaven remains far removed from
his wife, the Earth; but the love of the wife rises upward
in sighs toward her husband. These are the mists which fly
upward from the mountain-tops; and the tears of Heaven fall
downward on his wife; behold the dew-drops!"

So far the Maori Genesis.

Let us now return to the Veda, and compare these crude and somewhat grotesque legends with the language of the ancient Aryan poets. In the hymns of the Rig-Veda the separating and keeping apart of Heaven and Earth is several times alluded to, and here too it is represented as the work of the most valiant gods. In I. 67, 3 it is Agni, fire, who holds the earth and supports the heaven; in X. 89, 4 it is Indra who keeps them apart; in IX. 101, 15 Soma is celebrated for the same deed, and in III. 31, 12 other gods too share the same honor.[169]

In the Aitareya Brahma_n_a we read:[170] "These two worlds (Heaven and Earth) were once joined together. They went asunder. Then it did not rain, nor did the sun shine. And the five tribes did not agree with one another. The gods then brought the two (Heaven and Earth) together, and when they came together they formed a wedding of the gods."

Here we have in a shorter form the same fundamental ideas: first, that formerly Heaven and Earth were together; that afterward they were separated; that when they were thus separated there was war throughout nature, and neither rain nor sunshine; that, lastly, Heaven and Earth were conciliated, and that then a great wedding took place.

Now I need hardly remind those who are acquainted with Greek and Roman literature, how familiar these and similar conceptions about a marriage between Heaven and earth were in Greece and Italy. They seem to possess there a more special reference to the annual reconciliation between Heaven and Earth, which takes place in spring, and to their former estrangement during winter. But the first cosmological separation of the two always points to the want of light and the impossibility of distinction during the night, and the gradual lifting up of the blue sky through the rising of the sun.[171]

In the Homeric hymns[172] the Earth is addressed as

"Mother of gods, the wife of the starry Heaven;"[173]

and the Heaven or AEther is often called the father. Their marriage too is described, as, for instance, by Euripides, when he says:

"There is the mighty Earth, Jove's AEther:
He (the AEther) is the creator of men and gods;
The earth receiving the moist drops of rain,
Bears mortals,
Bears food, and the tribes of animals.
Hence she is not unjustly regarded
As the mother of all."[174]

And what is more curious still is that we have evidence that Euripides received this doctrine from his teacher, the philosopher Anaxagoras. For Dionysius of Halicarnassus[175] tells us that Euripides frequented the lectures of Anaxagoras. Now, it was the theory of that philosopher that originally all things were in all things, but that afterward they became separated. Euripides later in life associated with Sokrates, and became doubtful regarding that theory. He accordingly propounds the ancient doctrine by the mouth of another, namely Melanippe, who says:

"This saying (myth) is not mine, but came from my mother,
that formerly Heaven and Earth were one shape; but when they
were separated from each other, they gave birth and brought
all things into the light, trees, birds, beasts, and the
fishes whom the sea feeds, and the race of mortals."

Thus we have met with the same idea of the original union, of a separation, and of a subsequent reunion of Heaven and Earth in Greece, in India, and in the Polynesian islands.

Let us now see how the poets of the Veda address these two beings, Heaven and Earth.

They are mostly addressed in the dual, as two beings forming but one concept. We meet, however, with verses which are addressed to the Earth by herself, and which speak of her as "kind, without thorns, and pleasant to dwell on,"[176] while there are clear traces in some of the hymns that at one time Dyaus, the sky, was the supreme deity.[177] When invoked together they are called D y a v a - p_ r i_ t h i v y a u, from d y u, the sky, and p _r i_ t h i v i, the broad earth.

If we examine their epithets, we find that many of them reflect simply the physical aspects of Heaven and Earth. Thus they are called u r u, wide; u r u v y a _k_ a s, widely expanded, d u r e - a n t e, with limits far apart, g a b h i r a, deep; g h _r i_ t a v a t, giving fat; m a d h u d u g h a, yielding honey or dew; p a y a s v a t, full of milk; b h u r i - r e t a s, rich in seed.

Another class of epithets represents them already as endowed with certain human and superhuman qualities, such as a s a _s k_ a t, never tiring, a _g_ a r a, not decaying, which brings us very near to immortal; a d r u h, not injuring, or not deceiving, p r a _k_ e t a s, provident, and then pita-mata, father and mother, devaputra, having the gods for their sons, _r i_ t a - v_ r i_ d h and _r i_ t a v a t, protectors of the _Ri_ta, of what is right, guardians of eternal laws.

Here you see what is so interesting in the Veda, the gradual advance from the material to the spiritual, from the sensuous to the supersensuous, from the human to the superhuman and the divine. Heaven and Earth were seen, and, according to our notions, they might simply be classed as visible and finite beings. But the ancient poets were more honest to themselves. They could see Heaven and Earth, but they never saw them in their entirety. They felt that there was something beyond the purely finite aspect of these beings, and therefore they thought of them, not as they would think of a stone, or a tree, or a dog, but as something not-finite, not altogether visible or knowable, yet as something important to themselves, powerful, strong to bless, but also strong to hurt. Whatever was between Heaven and Earth seemed to be theirs, their property, their realm, their dominion. They held and embraced all; they seemed to have produced all. The Devas or bright beings, the sun, the dawn, the fire, the wind, the rain, were all theirs, and were called therefore the offspring of Heaven and Earth. Thus Heaven and Earth became the Universal Father and Mother.

Then we ask at once: "Were then these Heaven and Earth gods?" But gods in what sense? In our sense of God? Why, in our sense, God is altogether incapable of a plural. Then in the Greek sense of the word? No, certainly not; for what the Greeks called gods was the result of an intellectual growth totally independent of the Veda or of India. We must never forget that what we call gods in ancient mythologies are not substantial, living, individual beings, of whom we can predicate this or that. D e v a, which we translate by god, is nothing but an adjective, expressive of a quality shared by heaven and earth, by the sun and the stars and the dawn and the sea, namely _brightness_; and the idea of god, at that early time, contains neither more nor less than what is shared in common by all these bright beings. That is to say, the idea of god is not an idea ready-made, which could be applied in its abstract purity to heaven and earth and other such like beings; but it is an idea, growing out of the concepts of heaven and earth and of the other bright beings, slowly separating itself from them, but never containing more than what was contained, though confusedly, in the objects to which it was successively applied.

Nor must it be supposed that heaven and earth, having once been raised to the rank of undecaying or immortal beings, of divine parents, of guardians of the laws, were thus permanently settled in the religious consciousness of the people. Far from it. When the ideas of other gods, and of more active and more distinctly personal gods had been elaborated, the Vedic _Ri_shis asked without hesitation: Who then has made heaven and earth? not exactly Heaven and Earth, as conceived before, but heaven and earth as seen every day, as a part of what began to be called Nature or the Universe.

Thus one poet says:[178]

"He was indeed among the gods the cleverest workman who
produced the two brilliant ones (heaven and earth), that
gladden all things; he who measured out the two bright ones
(heaven and earth) by his wisdom, and established them on
everlasting supports."

And again:[179] "He was a good workman who produced heaven and earth; the wise, who by his might brought together these two (heaven and earth), the wide, the deep, the well-fashioned in the bottomless space."

Very soon this great work of making heaven and earth was ascribed, like other mighty works, to the mightiest of their gods, to Indra. At first we read that Indra, originally only a kind of _Jupiter pluvius_, or god of rain, stretched out heaven and earth, like a hide;[180] that he held them in his hand,[181] that he upholds heaven and earth,[182] and that he grants heaven and earth to his worshippers.[183] But very soon Indra is praised for having made Heaven and Earth;[184] and then, when the poet remembers that Heaven and Earth had been praised elsewhere as the parents of the gods, and more especially as the parents of Indra, he does not hesitate for a moment, but says:[185] "What poets living before us have reached the end of all thy greatness? for thou hast indeed begotten thy father and thy mother together[186] from thy own body!"

That is a strong measure, and a god who once could do that, was no doubt capable of anything afterward. The same idea, namely that Indra is greater than heaven and earth, is expressed in a less outrageous way by another poet, who says[187] that Indra is greater than heaven and earth, and that both together are only a half of Indra. Or again:[188] "The divine Dyaus bowed before Indra, before Indra the great Earth bowed with her wide spaces." "At the birth of thy splendor Dyaus trembled, the Earth trembled for fear of thy anger."[189]

Thus, from one point of view, Heaven and Earth were the greatest gods, they were the parents of everything, and therefore of the gods also, such as Indra and others.

But, from another point of view, every god that was considered as supreme at one time or other, must necessarily have made heaven and earth, must at all events be greater than heaven and earth, and thus the child became greater than the father, ay, became the father of his father. Indra was not the only god that created heaven and earth. In one hymn[190] that creation is ascribed to Soma and Pushan, by no means very prominent characters; in another[191] to Hira_n_yagarbha (the golden germ); in another again to a god who is simply called Dhat_ri_, the Creator,[192] or Vi_s_vakarman,[193] the maker of all things. Other gods, such as Mitra and Savit_ri_, names of the sun, are praised for upholding Heaven and Earth, and the same task is sometimes performed by the old god Varu_n_a[194] also.

What I wish you to observe in all this is the perfect freedom with which these so-called gods or Devas are handled, and particularly the ease and naturalness with which now the one, now the other emerges as supreme out of this chaotic theogony. This is the peculiar character of the ancient Vedic religion, totally different both from the Polytheism and from the Monotheism as we see it in the Greek and the Jewish religions; and if the Veda had taught us nothing else but this _henotheistic_ phase, which must everywhere have preceded the more highly-organized phase of Polytheism which we see in Greece, in Rome, and elsewhere, the study of the Veda would not have been in vain.

It may be quite true that the poetry of the Veda is neither beautiful, in our sense of the word, nor very profound; but it is instructive. When we see those two giant spectres of Heaven and Earth on the background of the Vedic religion, exerting their influence for a time, and then vanishing before the light of younger and more active gods, we learn a lesson which it is well to learn, and which we can hardly learn anywhere else--the lesson _how gods were made and unmade_--how the Beyond or the Infinite was named by different names in order to bring it near to the mind of man, to make it for a time comprehensible, until, when name after name had proved of no avail, a nameless God was felt to answer best the restless cravings of the human heart.

I shall next translate to you the hymn to which I referred before as addressed to the Rivers. If the Rivers are to be called deities at all, they belong to the class of terrestrial deities. But the reason why I single out this hymn is not so much because it throws new light on the theogonic process, but because it may help to impart some reality to the vague conceptions which we form to ourselves of the ancient Vedic poets and their surroundings. The rivers invoked are, as we shall see, the real rivers of the Punjab, and the poem shows a much wider geographical horizon than we should expect from a mere village-bard.[195]

1. "Let the poet declare, O Waters, your exceeding greatness,
here in the seat of Vivasvat.[196] By seven and seven they
have come forth in three courses, but the Sindhu (the Indus)
exceeds all the other wandering rivers by her strength.

2. "Varu_n_a dug out paths for thee to walk on, when thou
rannest to the race.[197] Thou proceedest on a precipitous
ridge of the earth, when thou art lord in the van of all the
moving streams.

3. "The sound rises up to heaven above the earth; she stirs
up with splendor her endless power.[198] As from a cloud, the
showers thunder forth, when the Sindhu comes, roaring like a
bull.

4. "To thee, O Sindhu, they (the other rivers) come as lowing
mother-cows (run) to their young with their milk.[199] Like a
king in battle thou leadest the two wings, when thou reachest
the front of these down-rushing rivers.

5. "Accept, O Ganga (Ganges), Yamuna (Jumna), Sarasvati
(Sursuti), _S_utudri (Sutlej), Parush_n_i (Iravati, Ravi),
my praise![200] With the Asikni (Akesines) listen, O
Marudv_ri_dha,[201] and with the Vitasta (Hydaspes, Behat); O
Ar_g_ikiya,[202] listen with the Sushoma.[203]

6. "First thou goest united with the T_ri_sh_t_ama on thy
journey, with the Susartu, the Rasa (Ra_m_ha, Araxes?[204]),
and the _S_veti--O Sindhu, with the Kubha (Kophen, Cabul
river) to the Gomati (Gomal), with the Mehatnu to the Krumu
(Kurum)--with whom thou proceedest together.

7. "Sparkling, bright, with mighty splendor she carries the
waters across the plains--the unconquered Sindhu, the
quickest of the quick, like a beautiful mare--a sight to see.

8. "Rich in horses, in chariots, in garments, in gold, in
booty,[205] in wool,[206] and in straw,[207] the Sindhu,
handsome and young, clothes herself in sweet flowers.[208]

9. "The Sindhu has yoked her easy chariot with horses; may
she conquer prizes for us in the race. The greatness of her
chariot is praised as truly great--that chariot which is
irresistible, which has its own glory, and abundant
strength."[209]

This hymn does not sound perhaps very poetical, in our sense of the word; yet if you will try to realize the thoughts of the poet who composed it, you will perceive that it is not without some bold and powerful conceptions.

Take the modern peasants, living in their villages by the side of the Thames, and you must admit that he would be a remarkable man who could bring himself to look on the Thames as a kind of a general, riding at the head of many English rivers, and leading them on to a race or a battle. Yet it is easier to travel in England, and to gain a commanding view of the river-system of the country, than it was three thousand years ago to travel over India, even over that part of India which the poet of our hymn commands. He takes in at one swoop three great river-systems, or, as he calls them, three great armies of rivers--those flowing from the north-west into the Indus, those joining it from the north-east, and, in the distance, the Ganges and the Jumnah with their tributaries. Look on the map and you will see how well these three armies are determined; but our poet had no map--he had nothing but high mountains and sharp eyes to carry out his trigonometrical survey. Now I call a man, who for the first time could _see_ those three marching armies of rivers, a poet.

The next thing that strikes one in that hymn--if hymn we must call it--is the fact that all these rivers, large and small, have their own proper names. That shows a considerable advance in civilized life, and it proves no small degree of coherence, or what the French call _solidarity_, between the tribes who had taken possession of Northern India. Most settlers call the river on whose banks they settle "_the river_." Of course there are many names for river. It may be called the runner,[210] the fertilizer, the roarer--or, with a little poetical metaphor, the arrow, the horse, the cow, the father, the mother, the watchman, the child of the mountains. Many rivers had many names in different parts of their course, and it was only when communication between different settlements became more frequent, and a fixed terminology was felt to be a matter of necessity, that the rivers of a country were properly baptized and registered. All this had been gone through in India before our hymn became possible.

And now we have to consider another, to my mind most startling fact. We here have a number of names of the rivers of India, as they were known to one single poet, say about 1000 B.C. We then hear nothing of India till we come to the days of Alexander, and when we look at the names of the Indian rivers, represented as well as they could be by Alexander's companions, mere strangers in India, and by means of a strange language and a strange alphabet, we recognize, without much difficulty, nearly all of the old Vedic names.

In this respect the names of rivers have a great advantage over the names of towns in India. What we now call _Dilli_ or _Delhi_[211] was in ancient times called Indraprastha, in later times _Shahjahanabad_. _Oude_ is Ayodhya, but the old name of Saketa is forgotten. The town of Pa_t_aliputra, known to the Greeks as _Palimbothra_, is now called _Patna_.[212]

Now I can assure you this persistency of the Vedic river-names was to my mind something so startling that I often said to myself, This cannot be--there must be something wrong here. I do not wonder so much at the names of the _Indus_ and the _Ganges_ being the same. The Indus was known to early traders, whether by sea or by land. Skylax sailed from the country of the Paktys, _i.e._ the Pushtus, as the Afghans still call themselves, down to the mouth of the Indus. That was under Darius Hystaspes (521-486). Even before that time India and the Indians were known by their name, which was derived from _Sindhu_, the name of their frontier river. The neighboring tribes who spoke Iranic languages all pronounced, like the Persian, the _s_ as an _h_.[213] Thus Sindhu became Hindhu (Hidhu), and, as h's were dropped even at that early time, Hindhu became Indu. Thus the river was called _Indos_, the people _Indoi_ by the Greeks, who first heard of India from the Persians.

_Sindhu_ probably meant originally the divider, keeper, and defender, from sidh, to keep off. It was a masculine, before it became a feminine. No more telling name could have been given to a broad river, which guarded peaceful settlers both against the inroads of hostile tribes and the attacks of wild animals. A common name for the ancient settlements of the Aryans in India was "the Seven Rivers," "Sapta Sindhava_h_." But though sindhu was used as an appellative noun for river in general (cf. Rig-Veda VI. 19, 5, samudre na sindhava_h_ yadamana_h_, "like rivers longing for the sea"), it remained throughout the whole history of India the name of its powerful guardian river, the Indus.

In some passages of the Rig-Veda it has been pointed out that sindhu might better be translated by "sea," a change of meaning, if so it can be called, fully explained by the geographical conditions of the country. There are places where people could swim across the Indus, there are others where no eye could tell whether the boundless expanse of water should be called river or sea. The two run into each other, as every sailor knows, and naturally the meaning of sindhu, river, runs into the meaning of sindhu, sea.

But besides the two great rivers, the Indus and the Ganges--in Sanskrit the Ganga, literally the Go-go--we have the smaller rivers, and many of their names also agree with the names preserved to us by the companions of Alexander.[214]

The Yamuna, the Jumna, was known to Ptolemy as [Greek: Diamouna],[215] to Pliny as Jomanes, to Arrian, somewhat corrupted, as Jobares.[216]

The _S_utudri, or, as it was afterward called, _S_atadru, meaning "running in a hundred streams," was known to Ptolemy as [Greek: Zadardes] or [Greek: Zarados]; Pliny called it Sydrus; and Megasthenes, too, was probably acquainted with it as [Greek: Zadardes]. In the Veda[217] it formed with the Vipa_s_ the frontier of the Punjab, and we hear of fierce battles fought at that time, it may be on the same spot where in 1846 the battle of the Sutledge was fought by Sir Hugh Gough and Sir Henry Hardinge. It was probably on the Vipa_s_ (later Vipa_s_a), a north-western tributary of the Sutledge, that Alexander's army turned back. The river was then called Hyphasis; Pliny calls it Hypasis,[218] a very fair approximation to the Vedic Vipa_s_, which means "unfettered." Its modern name is Bias or Bejah.

The next river on the west is the Vedic Parush_n_i, better known as Iravati,[219] which Strabo calls Hyarotis, while Arrian gives it a more Greek appearance by calling it Hydraotes. It is the modern Rawi. It was this river which the Ten Kings when attacking the T_ri_tsus under Sudas tried to cross from the west by cutting off its water. But their stratagem failed, and they perished in the river (Rig-Veda VII. 18, 8-9).

We then come to the Asikni, which means "black." That river had another name also, _K_andrabhaga, which means "streak of the moon." The Greeks, however, pronounced that [Greek: Sandarophagos], and this had the unlucky meaning of "the devourer of Alexander." Hesychius tells us that in order to avert the bad omen Alexander changed the name of that river into [Greek: Akesines], which would mean "the Healer;" but he does not tell, what the Veda tells us, that this name [Greek: Akesines] was a Greek adaptation of another name of the same river, namely Asikni, which had evidently supplied to Alexander the idea of calling the Asikni [Greek: Akesines]. It is the modern Chinab.

Next to the Akesines we have the Vedic Vitasta, the last of the rivers of the Punjab, changed in Greek into Hydaspes. It was to this river that Alexander retired, before sending his fleet down the Indus and leading his army back to Babylon. It is the modern Behat or Jilam.