Chapter XVI: Appendix: III (1)

+THE STORY OF NALA AND DAMAYANTI+

There was once a powerful King of the Nishadhas, named Nala, who was as beautiful as the god of love himself. He was, moreover, an honourable man, highly accomplished, and especially well-versed in the management of horses, but he had a weakness for dice.

Contemporary with Nala was Bhima, King of the Vidharbas, a formidable monarch, and father of Damayanti, the most lovely maiden in the world. Fame had carried to Nala the report of Damayanti’s unrivalled charms and had made him quite love-sick. The fair lady, too, had often been told of the manly beauty and grace of the King of the Nishadhas, and had had a tender chord in her heart touched by what she had heard. Thus were these two young people actually in love with each other, although they had never met or even exchanged glances.

The enamoured king naturally sought solitude; and one day, while moodily lounging in the inner gardens of his palace, he saw some strange-looking swans with golden wings. He caught one of them with his hands. The bird immediately addressed his captor, asking to be spared, and promising to speak to Damayanti about him “in such a way that she will not ever desire to have any other person for her lord.” Of course the swan was liberated there and then and, proceeding at once along with his fellows to the land of the Vidharbas, alighted in the gardens where Damayanti was sporting with her maids. The fair princess was eager to catch the strange birds as soon as she observed them; so she and her attendants began to run after the golden-winged swans, who fled in all directions without taking wing. One of these birds led the eager Damayanti away from her companions, and then, seizing the opportunity, told the charming girl about Nala and his beauty, winding up with these words: “Thou also art a jewel among thy sex as Nala is the prime among men. The union of the best with the best is happy.” To which the gratified princess replied: “Do thou speak thus unto Nala also.”

The adventure with the swan had such an effect upon the princess that she became melancholy, pale-faced, and lean. Her thoughts were of Nala only, and she could find no pleasure in her surroundings. Her father noticed the change with much anxiety and, after weighing the matter, concluded that the best thing he could do would be to find a husband for his daughter.

He accordingly gave notice, far and wide, to the kings and princes of the land that Damayanti would hold her swayamvara on a certain date.

From every direction suitors thronged to Bhima’s capital in the hope of winning the much-coveted beauty whose fame filled the whole earth. The celestial Rishi, Narada, on a casual visit to Indra’s Heaven, made passing reference to Damayanti’s transcendent beauty and to her approaching swayamvara. The gods, excited by his words, exclaimed in rapture: “We also will go there,” and four of them, the Lokapalas or guardians of the world--Indra, Yama, Varuna and Kuvera--set out without delay for the country of the Vidharbas, accompanied by their attendants.

On the way they met the handsome and virtuous Nala bent on the same errand. Leaving their celestial cars in the sky, they descended to the earth and entered into converse with the king. Without revealing themselves to him they cunningly got him to promise to help them, and when he had done so requested him to go to Damayanti and inform her that the Lokapalas were amongst the suitors for her hand, and to request her to choose one of them for her lord.

Poor Nala explained his own feelings with respect to the fair princess, and the hopes with which he was hastening to the swayamvara. He also protested that it would be impossible for him to have an interview with Damayanti in her well-guarded palace. But the gods removed this last difficulty, Indra simply saying: “Thou shalt be able to enter.” And so it proved; for it was not long before Nala found himself in the inner apartments of the palace. His wonderful beauty created a great sensation amongst the astonished women of the zenana. Damayanti was the first to recover from the surprise of his unexpected presence in the inner apartments, and smilingly addressed the intruder in these by no means harsh words: “What art thou, O thou of faultless features, that hast come here, awakening my love. O sinless one, O hero of celestial form, I am anxious to know who thou art that hast come hither, and why thou hast come hither. And how it is that thou hast not been discovered by anyone, considering that my apartments are well-guarded[124] and the king’s mandates are stern.”

Nala with a sad heart told her who he was, and honourably discharged the distasteful duty imposed upon him by the celestials. Undazzled by the prospect of having a god for her husband, Damayanti, with charming simplicity, said to Nala with a smile: “O king, love me and command me what I shall do for thee. Myself and what else of wealth is mine are thine.... If thou forsake me who adore thee, for thy sake will I resort to poison or fire, or water, or the rope.” Nala dwelt upon the danger of offending the gods, and advised the princess to choose one of her celestial suitors for her lord and no blame would attach to him; but she told him to come himself to the swayamvara and she would there give him her hand in the presence of the celestials.

Nala returned to the Lokapalas, who were eager in their inquiries about the details of his mission. He faithfully related what had passed between himself and Damayanti, even so far as to tell them that the maiden had expressed her determination to choose him for her husband. Having discharged his obligations with strict fidelity, Nala left the issue in the hands of the gods.

On the day of the swayamvara the astonished princess saw, on entering the hall, not one but five Nalas before her, all seated together. Unable to discriminate from amongst them the King of the Nishadhas, the fond maiden tremblingly prostrated herself before the five and, in an appeal full of sweet confidence, begged the gods to reveal themselves to her, as she had in her heart chosen Nala for her lord. Touched by her simple prayer, the Lokapalas resumed their celestial attributes, and the fair maiden thereupon bashfully caught the hem of Nala’s garment and placed the garland round his neck. The gods were pleased with the issue, and generously bestowed many boons upon their successful rival, who, appreciating the great honour that had been shown him, addressed Damayanti in these words: “Since thou, O blessed one, hast chosen a mortal in the presence of the celestials, know me for a husband ever obedient to thy command. And, O thou of sweet smiles, truly do I tell thee this that as long as life continueth in this body of mine I will remain thine and thine alone.” The charming damsel, of course, made a suitable response. Everything was arranged satisfactorily, the wedding was duly celebrated, and the King of the Nishadhas returned home with his lovely bride.

But, as the course of true love never does run smooth, there was sorrow awaiting the young couple. It happened that, as the gods were returning from Damayanti’s swayamvara, they met Kali with Dwapara on the way to the capital of the Vidharbas. It was to seek Damayanti’s hand that Kali[125] was journeying thither, and it was with great displeasure that he learned that the swayamvara was over and that Nala had obtained the prize.

In his wicked heart he planned to ruin the happiness of Nala, and with that object in view proceeded to his city. Watching his opportunity--which presented itself in the neglect by the king of some trifling ceremonial observance--Kali entered his person and took complete possession of him. The fiend also stirred up Pushkara to challenge Nala to play with him with dice. Nala could not refuse, and, being under the influence of Kali, gambled recklessly and, needless to say, unsuccessfully; for the dice were not ordinary dice, but _Dwapara himself_ transformed. The gambling match lasted for months, and Nala lost everything he possessed, including his kingdom. During the continuance of the match Nala was like one deprived of reason, so his wife sent her two children away to her parents in charge of a faithful charioteer. His successful opponent suggested that he might now stake Damayanti as he had lost everything else; but Nala, his heart full of rage, rose with silent dignity and, stripping himself of all his ornaments, left the city. Damayanti, clad in a single piece of cloth--a _sari_, no doubt--followed him into exile.

Pushkara issued an order that no one should assist Nala under pain of death, so the ex-king and his consort were left to shift for themselves. In the hope of capturing some wild birds in the wood Nala threw his cloth over them, but they rose and flew away with it, leaving him naked. He now shared Damayanti’s single garment, and the pair were soon in the greatest extremities of distress. He could not humble himself to seek the assistance of his wife’s people, but, thinking that if she were alone, Damayanti might find an asylum with them, Nala, instigated still by vindictive Kali, abandoned his lovely wife one night in the lonesome forest. Her grief and despair upon finding herself deserted were most pathetic. With loud lamentations she wandered hither and thither like a maniac, and came unexpectedly upon a huge serpent, who quietly coiled himself about her gentle form and would have killed her very soon, had not a hunter come to her rescue and, with his sharp sword, cut off the serpent’s head. Inquiries and explanations followed, with the result that, “beholding that beautiful woman clad in half a garment, with deep bosom and round hips and limbs delicate and faultless, and face resembling the full moon, and eyes graced with curved eyelashes, and speech sweet as honey, the hunter became inflamed with desire.” But virtuous Damayanti in great anger repulsed the wretch and cursed him so that he fell down dead at her feet.

Alone in the vast forests, peopled by wild beasts and infested by thieves and Mleccha-tribes, poor bewildered Damayanti wandered about in quest of Nala; asking, in her trouble, the fierce tiger and the silent mountain to tell her where her lord had gone. After wandering about for three days and three nights the unfortunate queen came to the delightful asylum of some ascetics, and, entering it fearlessly but with great humility, she was welcomed by the holy men, who, struck by her beauty, inquired whether she was the presiding deity of the forest, the mountain, or the river. Damayanti explained her situation and received from the ascetics most comforting assurances of early reunion with Nala and great future happiness. After which “the ascetics with their sacred fires and asylum vanished from sight,” to the great amazement of the queen.

Further wanderings in the denser parts of the forest brought Damayanti into a somewhat open space, where she found a party of merchants encamped beside a stream with their horses, elephants, and other beasts of burden. The merchants could give her no information about Nala, for, as the leader of the party assured her, she was the only human being they had met in those vast forests. However, as they were bound for the city of Suvahu, Damayanti attached herself to the caravan. The distance to be traversed was evidently a very long one and the forest very extensive; for, after they had proceeded many days, they were still in the woods, and one evening encamped on the border of a lovely lotus-covered lake. In the dead of night a herd of wild elephants coming down to the lake discovered the tame elephants belonging to the merchants and instantly made a furious onslaught upon them. Indescribable confusion followed. Some members of the party were trampled to death under the feet of the mighty beasts, some perished by their huge tusks, others fled for safety in all directions. The fugitives concealed themselves in the thickets or took refuge in the branches of trees. Horses, camels and elephants, fighting with each other and rushing about in frantic terror, added to the wild confusion of the dreadful scene of disorder and uproar, which was intensified by the outbreak of a terrible fire. Amidst the general panic, the shouts and cries of men and the noise of wounded and furious animals, Damayanti naturally awoke in the greatest alarm; but she soon had occasion for special fear for her own personal safety from an unexpected quarter.

“And those of the caravan that had escaped unhurt, met together, and asked one another, ‘Of what deed of ours is this the consequence? Surely we have failed to worship the illustrious Manibhadra, and likewise the exalted and graceful Vaisravana, the King of the Yakshas. Perhaps we have not worshipped the deities that cause calamities, or perhaps we have not paid them the first homage. Or perhaps this evil is the certain consequence of the birds (we saw)! Our stars are not unpropitious. From what other cause, then, hath this disaster come?’ Others, distressed and bereft of wealth and relatives, said, ‘That maniac-like woman who came amongst this mighty caravan in guise that was strange and scarcely human, also, it is by her that this dreadful illusion has been pre-arranged. Of a certainty, she is a terrible Rakshasa or a Yaksha or a Picácha woman. All this evil is her work, what need of doubts. If we again see that wicked destroyer of merchants, that giver of innumerable woes, we shall certainly slay that injurer of ours, with stones, and dust, and grass, and wood, and cuffs.’[126] And hearing these dreadful words of the merchants, Damayanti, in terror and shame and anxiety, fled into the woods apprehensive of evil.”

Damayanti, however, managed to secure the protection of some Brahmans who had been travelling with the merchants, and in their company succeeded in reaching the city of Suvahu. Her strange, unkempt and almost maniac-like appearance, coupled with her scanty clothing, excited the curiosity of the citizens, who rudely followed her about. Her painful situation in the street of the town, and her beauty, which nothing could destroy, attracted the attention of the queen-mother, who was looking out of one of the windows of the palace. As a consequence Damayanti was sent for and installed in the household as a sort of humble companion to the princess.

We have now to trace the fortunes of Nala. After he had deserted Damayanti he came upon a mighty conflagration in the forests. From the midst of the fire a voice addressed him thus: “O righteous Nala, come hither.” Nala obeyed without fear or hesitation, and found in the midst of the fire a mighty Naga or serpent, lying in great coils. The snake explained that he was suffering from the curse of a great Rishi “of high ascetic merit,” whom he had deceived, and that he was doomed, under the conditions of the curse, to lie where he was until Nala should remove him to another place, when he would be free again. The snake contracted his dimensions till he was no bigger than a man’s thumb. Nala took him up and carried him to a place free from fire. Here the snake bit Nala and resumed his natural form. The effect on Nala of the snake’s bite was startling indeed, for he underwent a strange transformation of person and assumed an unprepossessing appearance. The snake explained that what had occurred was for Nala’s good, and advised him to go to Ayodhya and offer his services to the king of that city as a charioteer and trainer of horses, on condition of receiving instruction in the art of gambling. The snake also presented Nala with a garment, the wearing of which would immediately restore him to his proper form. Nala did as directed, and was duly installed as king’s charioteer and superintendent of the royal stables, under the name of Váhuka.

In the meanwhile Brahmans sent out by King Bhima, Damayanti’s father, were searching the country far and wide for the lost couple. One of them met Damayanti and recognized her by a remarkable lotus-shaped mole which she had between her eyebrows. This discovery led to her return to her father’s house, where her children were being reared in comfort, but nothing could console her for the absence of Nala. Through her mother she caused Brahmans to go forth into all countries, to cry in every assembly, “O beloved gambler, where hast thou gone, cutting off half of my garment, and deserting thy dear and devoted wife asleep in the forest,” etc. Of course this appeal touched Nala--transformed into Váhuka--to the heart, and certain remarks which he let fall, to the effect that a virtuous woman should not be angry with one who had been deprived by birds of his garments, and so on, having been reported to Damayanti, she suspected who that Váhuka really was, although so changed in person.

To bring him to her she had it proclaimed in the city of Ayodhya that Damayanti, unaware whether Nala was alive or not, had decided to hold the very next day another swayamvara, at which she would choose a second husband[127] for herself.

King Ritupama of Ayodhya desired to be present on this occasion, but the distance to Kundina was over one hundred _yojanas_. However, Nala in a most wonderful manner managed to do the distance within the appointed time, not without adventures on the way and the acquirement from his royal master of the whole science of dice-playing.

When they arrived at Kundina they found to their astonishment that no preparations were being made for Damayanti’s swayamvara, and discovered that they had been deceived by a false report.

From the remarkable way in which Ritupama’s chariot came rattling into Ayodhya, Damayanti suspected that it was driven by Nala and Nala only, but she was sore distressed when she saw Váhuka--so unlike her dear lord in appearance. Yet, as wonders were common in those days and the charioteer might, after all, be her dear husband in a natural disguise, she opened communication with him through her maid-servant, and by various indications satisfied herself that Váhuka was no other than her lost Nala.

With the consent of her father and mother she caused Váhuka to be brought to her apartments. She received him clad in a piece of red cloth, wearing matted locks and covered with dirt and dust. Explanations followed. The wind-god, invoked by Damayanti, testified that it was only to bring Nala to herself that the lovely queen had proclaimed her swayamvara in Ayodhya, and that she was faultless in the matter. Flowers descended from the air and celestial kettle-drums began to play.

Casting away all doubts about Damayanti, Nala put on the pure garment which had been given to him by the serpent, and thus regained his own beautiful form. “And, beholding her righteous lord in his own form, Bhima’s daughter of faultless limbs embraced him, and began to weep aloud. And King Nala also embraced Bhima’s daughter, devoted to him as before, and also his children, and experienced great delight. And, burying her face in his bosom, the beauteous Damayanti, of large eyes, began to sigh heavily, remembering her griefs. And, overwhelmed with sorrow, that tiger among men stood for some time clasping the dust-covered Damayanti of sweet smiles.”

After these events Nala proceeded to his own country of the Nishadhas and challenged his brother to a game of dice, offering to stake all the wealth he had acquired, and lovely Damayanti as well, against the kingdom of which he had been dispossessed. He gave his brother the choice of an alternative--the dice or battle. Pushkara willingly accepted the offer, remarking insultingly: “It is evident that Damayanti, adorned with this wealth of thine that I will win, will wait upon me like an Apsara in heaven upon Indra.” However, fortune had changed sides. Nala recovered his kingdom, but generously shared it with his unworthy brother, and everyone, of course, lived happily thereafter.

NOTES

I. _Date of the compilation of the “Mahabharata.”_--Like the “Ramayana,” the “Mahabharata” is based on popular legends of considerable antiquity which, according to European scholars, appear to have been _collected together_ into a more or less connected whole at a comparatively recent date.

“The earliest direct evidence of the existence of an epic, with the contents of the ‘Mahabharata,’ comes to us from the rhetor Dion Chrysostom, who flourished in the second half of the first century A.D.; and it appears fairly probable that the information in question was then quite new, and was derived from mariners who had penetrated as far as the extreme south of India.... Since Megasthenes says nothing of this epic, it is not an improbable hypothesis that its origin is to be placed in the interval between his time and that of Chrysostom; for what ignorant sailors took note of would hardly have escaped his observation, more especially if what he narrates of Herakles and his daughter Pandai has reference really to Krishna and his sister, the wife of Arjuna; if, that is to say, the Pandu legend was actually current in his time.... As to the period when the final redaction of the work in its present shape took place, no approach even to direct conjecture is in the meantime possible, but, at any rate, it must have been some centuries after the commencement of our era.”[128]

II. _Translation of the “Mahabharata” into Persian._--The following account of the translation of the “Mahabharata” into Persian, in the reign of the Mogul Emperor Akbar, is worth reading, as it exhibits an estimate of the great epic from the standpoint of a bigoted Muslim:

“In the year 990” His Majesty assembled some learned Hindus and gave them directions to write an explanation of the ‘Mahabharata,’ and for several nights he himself devoted his attention to explain the meaning to Nakib Khan, so that the Khan might sketch out the gist of it in Persian. On the third night the king sent for me, and desired me to translate the ‘Mahabharata,’ in conjunction with Nakib Khan. The consequence was that in three or four months I translated two out of the eighteen sections, at the puerile absurdities of which the eighteen thousand creations may well be amazed. Such injunctions as one never heard of--what not to eat, and a prohibition against turnips! But such is my fate, to be employed on such works. Nevertheless I console myself with the reflection that what is predestined must come to pass.

“After this, Mulla Shi and Nakib Khan together accomplished a portion,” and another was completed by Sultan Haji Thanesari by himself. Shaikh Faizi was then directed to convert the rough translation into elegant prose and verse, but he did not complete more than two sections. The Haji aforesaid again wrote it, correcting the errors which had appeared in his first translation and settling the conjectures which he had hazarded. He had revised a hundred sheets, and, nothing being omitted, he was about to give the finishing touch when the order was received for his dismissal, and he was sent to Bakar. He now resides in his own city (Thanesar). Most of the scholars who were employed upon this translation are now with the Kauravas and Pandavas. May those who survive be saved by the mercy of God, and may their repentance be accepted.

“The translation was called ‘Razm-nama,’ and, when fairly engrossed and embellished with pictures, the nobles had orders to take copies, with the blessing and favour of God. Shaikh Abul Faizi, who had already written against our religion, wrote the Preface, extending to two sheets. God defend us from his infidelities and absurdities.”[129]

III. _English Versions of the “Mahabharata.”_--For full details of this epic the reader may be referred to “The ‘Mahabharata’ of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa,” translated into English prose by Pratab Chandra Roy (Calcutta), of which several volumes have been published.

A tolerably detailed account of the poem, with a running commentary, occupies about 500 pages of vol. i. of the “History of India,” by J. Talboys Wheeler.

A summary of all the eighteen sections of the epic is to be found in Sir Monier Williams’s “Indian Epic Poetry” (Williams and Norgate, 1863).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Having presented to the reader the foregoing condensed epitomes of the great Hindu Epics, it only remains for me to offer a few brief observations upon some of the more abiding features of the national life and the religious and moral sentiments of the Hindus, as illustrated by these gigantic poems, in which we see, as in a mirror, an unconscious reflection of the ideas and tendencies, the intellectual cravings and the moral instincts, of the age to which they belong.

It may seem superfluous to remind the reader that the “Ramayana” describes the adventures of Rama, including amongst them a war which he undertook in order to avenge an insult and to recover the person of his wife, who had been carried off by an unscrupulous enemy. The campaign against Ravana had not for its object extension of territory, but the punishment of an evil-doer and the righting of a personal wrong; while the protracted struggle, which is the basis of the “Mahabharata,” is purely a contest for supremacy between kindred families, each side being backed by friends and allies from amongst their own race, as well as from amongst alien tribes (the Mlecchas). In neither poem, be it noted, does any question of patriotism arise; for the contest in which the heroes are involved are not against foreign invaders or national enemies.

The India known to the compilers of the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,”--the extensive theatre upon which their heroes played the stirring drama of their lives--was evidently a land covered with vast tracts of dense forest, whose mysterious gloom, pervaded with the aroma of incense and burnt-offerings, has cast a vague and mighty shadow over the hearts of the Hindu bards, as surely as the breezy atmosphere and the restless waves of the Ægean have imparted a healthy buoyancy to the Homeric rhapsodists.

The dreamy solitudes in which Valmiki and Vyasa love to linger have a restfulness about them which the European, unused to Eastern lands, can hardly comprehend. They have also a mystery only to be found in primæval forests, and they possess a dark background of horror, in the roar of the ferocious tiger, the hiss of the deadly serpent, and the grip of the invisible fever-fiend, enough to awaken strange and gloomy imaginings.

The few who have lived, as I have done, through changing seasons in the dense forests of Eastern India, can hover in spirit through Valmiki and Vyasa’s woodlands of the past.

First it is summer, and the hot sunbeams come filtering through the leafy covering, under the shadow of which man and beast listlessly repose through uneventful hours, while the shrill cricket chirps its monotonous song and the _cokil’s_ sweet note fills the hot and trembling air. Then the black clouds gather overhead. God Indra parts them with his flashing bolts. Loud thunder peals in the sky, the roaring hurricane enters into fearful conflict with the warring trees, and the rain descends, not in tiny drizzles, but in torrents; and its voice, as it buries itself in square miles of standing forest, is like the roar of many waters. Cascades, starting into life, leap gladly from the hill-side. The swollen streams, muddy and impassable, swirl and rush along, carrying with them a burden of forest trees. A mantle of vivid green covers, as if by magic, the whole earth, and climbs up till it almost hides the little cottage in which the proprietor takes refuge from the incessant drip, which descends from the leafy covering above.

To this succeeds a period when the steamy miasma rises in the green light from the rotten ground, and man and beast sicken in the malarious atmosphere, wherein the odour of decaying vegetation mingles with the exquisite perfume of orchids and strange flowers of the wilderness. In the glorious sky--in mystic cloudland--appear displays of light and colour, of subtle tints and gorgeous hues, utterly beyond description or the artist’s cunningest skill. Watch, with fevered vision, from the neighbourhood of one of these dark forests the rapidly shifting cloud-phantasms, arrayed in red and gold, upon the evening sky, then cease from marvelling at the exuberant and unbridled imaginings of the Indian bard! Fix your attention at night upon the monstrous shapes which hover, skulking in the background, in the flickering firelight, listen to the unearthly wailing and stifled cries which steal through the hideous darkness, and doubt no more the existence and doings of gruesome Rakshasas who change their shapes at will! Learn also, at the same time, how indispensable a god is _Agni_, who protects you through the horrors of darkest night in the forests.

Later in the year winter smiles mildly over the enervated land and chills the tepid air. For hours after sunrise a dense fog wraps the primæval forest in its embrace, but when it, ghost-like, steals silently away, it reveals the white smoke of the cottages curling upwards into a blue unclouded sky. The sun hardly affords sufficient warmth to the labourer in the little patch of cultivation near the hut, and the moon looks cold and pallid: the streams begin to dwindle away; the cascades are silent.

Such is the succession of seasons in a tropical forest-land like the India of the Epics. And, throughout all the seasons, the forest is enveloped in a dreamy air of depression and despondency, which peoples the solitudes with hideous Rakshasas, but leaves no place for sporting nymphs or dancing fairies. Life in such woodlands is real forest-life, not like Thoreau’s delightful playing at hermit in Walden, within a couple of miles of Concord, and in sight of a railway.

Thus far the forests; but the sublime Alps of the Indian world, tallest and most majestic of mountains, have not been without influence upon the feelings of the Indian poets, elevating them to lofty heights of contemplation. And when we read what the few travellers who have penetrated those regions have to tell us of the ineffable grandeur and sublimity of the lone mountains, the glittering ice-fields, and the untrodden snows of the interior, when we consider the solemn silence of those uninhabited solitudes, we cannot wonder that the Indian poets who had heard of them, and perhaps visited their rocky fastnesses, made of them a land of mystery and the sporting place of their gods and Apsaras.

Not only from the woods of _Dandhaka_ and the vales and crests of mighty _Himavat_ did the epic poets of India gather inspiration; but also from the noble and lovely rivers of their fair land, winding beneficently through many hundreds of miles of fertile country, from their birth-places above the clouds to the bosom of the all-embracing ocean, while determining in their course the march of migration and conquest.

Mountains, forests and rivers, all of colossal proportions, have served to impress a grandiose if bewildering character upon the great Epics of India, which the reader, even of this volume, can hardly fail to observe.

Religion, being the dominant note of these voluminous poems, claims our first consideration. In this connection I would draw attention to the fact that India is very far from that stage of intellectual development in which literature, science, art and politics become secularized. In Europe secularization has taken place gradually under the influence of the spirit of rationalism, as Mr. Lecky has so admirably explained. In India a beginning has been made in the secularization of knowledge. It is yet only a _mere beginning_, which owes its origin to the influence of English education; but the effects being confined to a _very small class indeed_, it may still be said with truth that all departments of knowledge which form the intellectual heritage of the Indian people--even law, poetry and the drama--fall within the domain of theology. And, certainly, there is no indigenous science amongst the Hindus which is not subject to priestly influence and interpretation.

Throughout the Epics we find the supernatural beings, who influence the destinies of mankind, arrayed in two distinctly hostile camps. On one side are the gods with the Gandharvas and Apsaras. On the other side the Asuras, including Daityas and Danavas, Rakshasas and Picáchas. The contest lies, be it noted, between the lesser gods and the Asuras with their allies. The superior gods interpose from time to time in the interests of the celestials; but behind and above the turmoil of existence the shadowy form of inexorable _destiny_ reveals its overwhelming presence.

The part of man in the perpetual strife carried on between the two orders of superhuman beings is neither an ignoble nor a passive one. Man is not, as in most other religions, either the abject and unworthy recipient of gracious favours from the gods, or the unhappy victim of the malice of devils and demons. His position in the universe, as conceived by the authors of the Indian Epics, reflecting, no doubt, the prevailing ideas of their time, was a far higher one. Man is no nonentity in the struggle between the good and the evil forces of nature, but is rather a very important factor; for it is his especial duty to piously assist and _nourish_ the celestials by perpetual sacrifices, so that they on their part might have the strength to perform their respective duties in the government of the universe, and insure the repression of the forces of evil. Neither is man a merely useful but servile auxiliary of the celestials; since he may by austerities, sacrifices, and ceremonies, earn and acquire rights and power for himself, and use his accumulated store of energy at his own will and for his own purposes.

Now it is a noteworthy fact that this high ideal of man’s dignity in the scale of beings has led in India to a degradation of the gods. It would seem as if you could not raise man without pulling down the deity; as if you could not exalt the human race without abasing the celestials. Hence we see the irreverent familiarity with which the highest gods, even Mahadeva, is personated by the Hindus in religious processions, or even on the occasion of the wild saturnalia of the _Holi_ festival, when a man painted white with a wig of long yellow hair on his head, a string of huge beads about his neck, and a trident in his hand--_the Supreme Deity personified_--is borne aloft amidst a crowd of excited men who are indulging in the grossest license of obscene speech and gesture.

In regard to a life beyond the grave the writers of the Epics hold very decided opinions, a fact of great interest, if we remember that the Jews acquired their ideas about existence after death and of good and evil spirits for the first time in their Babylonian captivity, and passed them on as a heritage to Christianity; the conceptions of our great Christian poet, Milton, being strongly coloured by ideas which, undoubtedly, had their roots in Persian _Mazdeism_.

The heavens of the Hindu gods are essentially material and sensuous, with their palaces and gardens, music and dancing, their lively Gandharvas and frail Apsaras. Yet the goddesses play a very subordinate part, indeed, in India’s heroic age. We find in the Epics no powerful Hera, no wise Pallas Athene, no lovely Venus, no silver-footed Thetis--bright creations which lend such a charm to the myths of Hellas. Ganga, it is true, acts a minor and appointed part in the great drama, and Parbati is mentioned, while Durga and Kali only flit across the stage. But it is quite evident that in the Olympus of the Aryan Indians the goddesses had not attained the power and dignity they enjoy to-day. The frequent boasts in the Epics against the celestials with Indra at their head, the way in which every chief or leader, even of the Venars, is said to be a match for Indra’s self, seem to indicate an unmistakable, if covert, hostility to the old gods of the Aryan invaders, which is well worthy of notice, as indicating a transition period in the religious development of the Hindus, a period of doubt and confusion, which is emphasized by the fulsome flattery addressed to anyone of whom a favour is desired, be he man or god. He is the _best_ of men, the greatest of kings; equal to gods, he is a god; he is Indra; he is Yama; he is Prajapati; he is superior to all the gods; he is the ruler of the three worlds; he is, in fact, anything and all things to the uncertain suppliant who craves his help. And in these perplexities we seem to have a share too; for under the influence of the pantheistic notions of the writers, combined with their conceptions of endless transmigrations and utter indifference to permanent shapes of any kind, individuality seems lost (as when we find Krishna addressed as the younger brother of Indra[130]), and a world of confused phantasmagorial forms seems to dance before us, till we feel dizzy contemplating this distracting and impermanent universe.

But amidst the ever-shifting pageant of existence the Hindu seems to have arrived at and firmly grasped the idea of a periodic law which has given a certain grandeur to his speculations about both the past and the hereafter.

From the orderly sequence of natural phenomena, as in the succession of day and night; in the measured march of the seasons of the revolving year; in the periodic movements of the heavenly bodies; the Hindu recognized an appointed, unvarying and endless cycle of changes. Generalizing from these facts he concluded that this law must hold for the entire Cosmos as well, which would pass through its grand but destined cycle of changes, over and over again, in the æons of eternity. He held these ideas in common with the Greek of old, and, like the Greek of old, he never rose to the conception of progress, development, evolution.[131]

How the Hindu thinker accounted, by his doctrine of _Karma_, for the striking inequalities and apparent injustice inseparable from mundane existence, the reader has learned in sufficient detail already. As to the _moral_ responsibility of man for his actions, the poets of the Epics had thought out the problem in its various aspects and despairingly left it unsolved. For as Sanjaya, the envoy of the Pandavas to their cousins, sadly says, in the true spirit of agnosticism: “In this respect three opinions are entertained; some say that everything is ordained by God;[132] some say that our acts are the results of free will; and others say that our acts are the results of those of our past lives.”[133]

The attribution of righteousness to the gods does not seem to be insisted upon; for Krishna, as we have seen, is particularly prone to guileful arts in order to compass his objects, like the Pallas Athene of Homer, at whose suggestion Pandaros treacherously and unjustifiably wounded Menelaus with an arrow.

In regard to the political condition of India in those earlier times we may, I think, gather from the Epics that the petty rulers who shared the land amongst themselves were very numerous--thousands,[134] indeed, if the poet’s statements could be relied upon,--and we need not doubt that it was the perpetual endeavour of the more able and ambitious of these kings to get as many as possible of their fellow chiefs to acknowledge their supremacy.

No one who studies the narratives attributed to Valmiki and Vyasa will fail to catch glimpses of the simple sagas which formed the ground-work of the great edifices raised by the Indian poets; but, as I have observed in the Introductory Chapter, the value and extent of what is usually considered historical matter to be traced in the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” is so small and so doubtful that it fails to command either my interest or my confidence. It may be due to perversity of character, or to want of historical acumen on my part; but when I am expected to believe that the progress of the _Bhojas_ and their allies eastward may be traced in the legend of Karna, given in the “Mahabharata,” with which the reader of the foregoing pages is familiar, I do not feel inclined to acquiesce. And when I am gravely assured that the romantic story of Satyavati, the fisherman’s daughter, her marriage with Santanu and her previous amour with the father of Vyasa, _although absurd in Vyasa’s own poem_, becomes intelligible,--if we will only put the individual fisherman out of court altogether, _forget_ what the poet tells us about Satyavati, and _imagine_ that the young lady in question was a personage of some importance in the family of the _king of the fishing people_,--I feel such efforts towards constructive history are somewhat beyond my abilities.[135]

While writers of one class strain after the hidden historical elements in the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,” those of another class (represented by both Europeans and Indians), ingeniously discover in these narratives merely solar myths or moral allegories. It were needless to enlarge upon this topic here, and I have already given instances of such interpretations in the Note appended to the “Ramayana” (p. 91) and in the summary of the “Bhagavatgita” (p. 217). I would merely add that if it be the true function of history to reveal to us living pictures of bygone times, to disclose to us the social life of earlier days, and to make us acquainted with the thoughts, ideals and aspirations of former generations, then the Indian Epics are a solid contribution to historical literature even if they do not happen to chronicle actual events.

The heroes of the Epics, being mostly demigods with a long previous history, an appointed destiny, and subject, like mortal men, to pass through many future existences in other forms, do not, I confess, engage my sympathies very much. Even human beings upon this epic stage lose their distinctive character and cease to interest us if we regard them merely as souls masquerading, as it were, for a certain time in particular forms assumed for the occasion, different from the many they have worn in former states, and unlike those which they will wear in future lives. Indeed the doctrine of metempsychosis, with its fluxional succession of beings, human and divine, undermines the conceptions of definite and permanent individuality so thoroughly that I do not wonder that sober human history, with its limited stage and narrow chronology, has had but little charm for the Hindus.

More remarkable than the heroes of Kurukshetra, however, are the Rishis and Hermits, who stand out upon the canvas of the Epic poets with startling distinctness. These sages, with their austerities, their superhuman powers, their irascibility and their terrible curses, are the Hindu representatives of the magicians and sorcerers of other countries, and form a remarkable feature in the life of even modern India. As a rule the saints of Christendom are of another type, yet, strange to say, there are a few of them, St. Renan for example, to whom have been attributed characteristics not unlike those of the Indian Rishis.[136] Elsewhere a large share, perhaps the greater share, of magical power has been credited to the fair sex; but the Hindu has, characteristically, made no such concession to women, who never at any time in India were granted the free and honoured position accorded them amongst the Germans of Tacitus or the Norsemen of the Eddas, and never enjoyed even the restricted liberty which Greek women were privileged to exercise. Nevertheless, there is, undoubtedly, a substratum of chivalrous feeling towards the weaker sex manifested throughout the Epics, often in a distinct and pronounced manner.

As to the social life of the early heroic age, of which we get so many interesting glimpses in the Epics, it is certain that it was extremely simple and rude; as, for instance, to cite a single example, the life of the Pandavas in their primitive “house of lac,” where their mother ministered to them without the assistance of any servants at all, although, be it remembered, the young princes were supposed to be enjoying themselves away from home on a sort of holiday excursion. There is, however, ample evidence to show that by the time the poems were actually compiled or, at any rate, cast into their present forms, a complicated society had been evolved, and a life of luxurious ease and refinement was not unknown. Throughout the period embraced in the Epics the caste-system was well established, animal food commonly used,[137] and spirituous drinks not prohibited. Polygamy was common, and polyandry a recognized institution, while the practice known as _Niyoga_--of raising up offspring to deceased relatives or childless men--was, undoubtedly, fully established.

Now _caste_, with its baleful influences, still dominates Hindu life; polygamy continues to be common in some parts of India; polyandry is still practised, here and there, in backward places; and _Niyoga_, which has never ceased to be orthodox doctrine, has, in these days, had special prominence given to it by Swami Dayanand, and the sect recently founded by him. The practice in question--which is known in a modified form as _levirate_[138] amongst the Jews--has been established in India since time immemorial, and we have had important instances of it in the foregoing pages.

What Manu, the great Indian _lawgiver_, says on the subject of _Niyoga_ is as follows: “On failure of issue by the husband, if he be of the servile class, the desired offspring may be procreated, either by his brother or some other _sapinda_, on the wife, who has been duly authorized. Sprinkled with clarified butter, silent, in the night, let the kinsman thus appointed beget one son, but a second by no means, on the widow or _childless wife_. By men of twice-born classes no widow or childless wife must be authorized to conceive by any other man than her lord.”[139]

Swami Dayanand, however, does not limit the practice of _Niyoga_ to the inferior castes, nor to the cases referred to by Manu. The modern _reformer_ goes much further, teaching a doctrine, _said to be founded on the Vedas_, which allows a latitude in respect to the relations between the sexes that, to say the least, is extremely startling in this nineteenth century.[140] I am bound to add that I have been very positively assured that Swami Dayanand’s precepts in respect to _Niyoga_ are not actually practised by his followers, but their dangerous tendency is, I presume, undeniable.

From the earliest ages known to the writers of the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” cremation of the dead has been the practice in India. Hence in Indian archæology we are deprived of those sources of information--graves, tumuli, cromlechs and sepulchres--which elsewhere, as in Egypt, have furnished such a wealth of facts regarding the earlier races of mankind.

The sacred character of the Brahmans receives abundant recognition in the Epics; and it is noteworthy that, except in the relinquishment of animal food and vinous drinks by a great majority of the Hindus, little change has taken place in the social habits of the people since the heroic age depicted in the Epics. We need not doubt, however, that the abstention from animal food and, with it, from wine and spirits of all kinds has, in the course of many generations, profoundly modified the national character; and has, perhaps, more than anything else, gradually converted the turbulent, aggressive Aryan into the mild and contemplative Hindu.[141]

A high degree of culture had doubtless been attained by the Indians before the Epics were cast into their present forms. The industrial arts would seem to have flourished, and we have seen how highly the poets appreciated and enjoyed the beauty of the woodlands, and how much they were impressed with the scenery of their grand mountains. This in itself is a remarkable fact, as the charms of landscape beauty do not seem to have been realized in the West until a somewhat later time.

The ideal of human (particularly female) beauty which possessed the minds of the Hindu bards has been indicated by several allusions and quotations in the preceding chapters. It is certainly not that embodied in the Venus of Melos or the Apollo Belvedere; but every age and country has its own ideals.

Throughout the foregoing brief narrative there has been ample evidence of the height to which the speculative imagination of the Hindus had carried them in endeavouring to read the riddle of human destiny, and notably so in the subtle pantheism of the “Bhagavatgita,” a work which, even if the date assigned to it by European scholars be accepted, and with that its authors’ supposed acquaintance with Christian ideas, must still excite our admiration by its largeness of conception and liberality of sentiments--expressed many centuries before Luther nailed his famous ninety-five theses upon the door of the church at Wittenberg.

The imaginative faculty never fails the bards of the Indian Epics, who too often indulge in a very delirium of exaggeration. Yet, notwithstanding their supreme contempt for probabilities or consistency, and their lofty scorn of numerical limitations, it cannot be denied that these Hindu poets, with their lawless imaginations, take us completely captive and carry us along with them, surprised and delighted, through the wonderful scenes of their creation; while one cannot but feel in their company that the intellectual atmosphere which surrounds them is a stronger one and more spiritual than that which was breathed by the Greeks of Homer or the Teutons of the Eddas.

On the whole, it may be said that the Indian Epics as they have reached us, reveal to the careful student an ancient free and vigorous primitive social life and turbulent times, overlaid by a later and less healthy, if more refined civilization, which was permeated with ecclesiasticism; and that they exhibit a strange mixture of what Mr. Herbert Spencer would call the “ethics of enmity” and the “ethics of amity.” The later stage of Indian history--the age of Brahmanism succeeding the heroic age and continuing to the present day--may, I think, be well compared with the Middle Ages in Europe, when priestly influence was predominant and national life at a low ebb. Europe, under the influence of the spirit of industrialism and modern science, has emancipated itself from the numbing influences of the Dark Ages. When will India do the same? For how many more centuries is she destined to wrangle over unprofitable theological questions, as did the Byzantine Greeks while the conqueror was thundering at their gates?

My pleasant undertaking has occupied more time than I had anticipated when I took it in hand; but I leave it now with a profound appreciation of the capabilities of a people who have produced such works as the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata.”

In every age--even in an industrial age of busy scientific progress and mechanical triumphs like our own--the human mind turns with fond interest to any picture which shows how men in the fore-time lived and thought, and it listens eagerly to any song which echoes through the vanished years the fervent hopes and lofty aspirations of buried generations. Therefore, I trust that my little work, though it be but a sketch of a great picture and the echo of a grand old song, may find favour with the public, and help to open up to English readers a strange but interesting world of Eastern ideas and conceptions. Above all, however, I hope that my pages represent--as I believe they do--both fairly and adequately the great Epics of India.

CHISWICK PRESS:--CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “No other work in India at the present day possesses the attraction which these epics have for the majority of the people.”--_Life in an Indian Village_, by T. Rama Krishna, B.A. (T. Fisher Unwin, 1891).

[2] Professor Max Müller’s Hibbert Lectures, 1878, p. 50.

[3] Prisoners of war of all ranks were sacrificed in numbers.

[4] Du Chaillu’s “The Viking Age,” vol i., chapter xx., _et seq._

[5] “A Brief History of the Indian People,” by Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I. (Trübner and Co.).

[6] The world has recently been informed by Dr. Brinton that the theory attributed to Dr. Latham was really first advanced by Omalius D’Halloy in the “Bulletins de l’Academie Royale de Belgique” in May, 1848 (“Nature,” July 21st, 1892).

[7] As is maintained by Dr. Hermann Braunehoffer, “Journal of Royal Asiatic Society,” 1890, pp. 687-689.

[8] “The Origin of the Aryans,” by Isaac Taylor, M.A., LL.D. (Walter Scott); “Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples,” by Dr. O. Schrader, translated by F. B. Jevons, M.A. (Charles Griffin and Co.).