Chapter IV (2)

The torments provided in hell for the sinners could not satisfy the system which the priests had established in the doctrine of the world-soul. In this the holy and pure being had allowed the world to emanate from itself; the further this world was removed from its origin and source, the more melancholy and gloomy it became. If the gods, the holy and pious men in the past, and the heaven of light of Indra, were nearest to the purity of Brahman, the pure nature of this being became seriously adulterated in the lower stages of removal. In the present world, purity and impurity, virtue and passion, wisdom and folly, were at least in equipoise. The worlds of animals, plants, and dead matter were obviously still further removed from the pure Brahman. If, according to this view, the world was an adulterated, broken, impure Brahman, it received, along with this corruption, the duty of regaining its original purity. All beings had received their origin from Brahman, and to him all must return. From this point of view, and the requirement that every being must work out its way to perfection, in order to be adapted to its perfect origin, the priests arrived at the idea that every creature must go through all the gradations of being as they emanated from Brahman, before it could attain to rest. The Çudra must become a Vaiçya, the Vaiçya a Kshatriya, the Kshatriya a Brahman, and the Brahman a wholly sinless and sacred man, a pure spirit, before he can pass into Brahman. From the necessity that every one should work up to Brahman, arose the monstrous doctrine of regenerations. The Çudra who had lived a virtuous life, was, it was thought, by the power of this virtue and the practice of it, changed in his nature, and born anew in the higher existence of a Vaiçya; the Kshatriya became a Brahman, and so on.[170] In this manner the pure and holy life, according as it was freed from all sensuality and corporeality, from the whole material world, succeeded in winning a return to supersensual and incorporeal Brahman. Conversely, the impure, spotted, and sinful were born again in a lower order, and in the worst shape according to the measure of the offence--sometimes they did not even become men at all, but animals--in order to struggle back again through unutterable torments, and innumerable regenerations, to their former condition, and finally to Brahman. Thus a wide field was opened to the fancy of the Indians, on which it soon erected a complete system of regenerations; and into this the theory of hell was adopted. The man who had committed grievous sins, sinks after death into hell, and for long periods is tortured in the various departments there, that thus, after expiation of his sins, he may begin again the scale of migration from the lowest and worst form of existence. One who was guilty of less serious offences was born again according to their measure as a Çudra or an elephant, a lion or a tiger, a bird or a dancer.[171] One who had committed acts of cruelty was re-born as a beast of prey.[172] One who had attempted the murder of a Brahman was punished in hell one hundred or a thousand years, according to the progress of the attempt, and then saw the light of the world in twenty-one births, each time proceeding from the body of some common animal. He who had shed the blood of a Brahman, was torn in hell by beasts of prey for so many years as the flowing blood had touched grains of sand; and if any one had slain a Brahman his soul was born again in the bodies of the animals held in greatest contempt on the Ganges, the dog and the goat.[173] If any one had stolen a cow he was born again as a crocodile, or a lizard; if corn, as a rat;[174] if fruits and roots, as an ape.[175] He who defiled his father's bed was to be born a hundred times as a herb, or a liana--the creepers embracing the trees;[176] the Brahman who is guilty of a fault in the sacrifice is born again for a hundred years as a crow or kite, and those who eat forbidden food will again see light as worms. He who reproaches a free man with being the son of a slave-woman, will himself be born five times from the body of a slave.[177] In this manner, partly fanciful, partly pedantic, the priests built up the system of regenerations. According to the law-book of the priests, inorganic matter, worms, insects, frogs, rats, crows, swine, dogs, and asses, were on the lowest stage in the scale of creation; above them came first, elephants, horses, lions, boars, the Çudras and the Mlechhas; _i.e._ the nations who did not speak Sanskrit. Above these were rogues, players, demons (Raksheras), Piçachas, _i.e._ blood-suckers, vampyres; above these wrestlers and boxers, dancers, armour-smiths, drunkards, and Vaiçyas; above them the Kshatriyas and the kings, the men eminent in battle and speech, the genii of heaven, the Gandharvas and Apsarasas. Above these were the Brahmans, the pious penitents, the gods, the great saints, and finally, Brahman.

Thus the new system effaced the specific distinctions between plants and beasts, men and gods. Everywhere it saw nothing but spirits, which have to work their way in a similar manner from greater or less impurity to purity, from incompleteness to completeness and the original source of their existence. The souls, when they had once been created and had emanated from Brahman, found no rest or end till they had returned once more to this their starting-point; and this they were unable to do till they had been raised to the purity and sanctity of Brahman.

However indifferent the kings, nobles, and peasants may have been to this doctrine of the world-soul and Brahman, these new, severe, and terrible consequences, derived from it by the priests for the life after death, could not be without a deep impression. They operated with immense force on the spirit of the Indians. To endure the torments of hell in continuous heat, while even on earth the warmth of the climate was so hard to bear, was a terrible prospect. But even this appeared only as the lesser evil. Along with and after the torments of hell those who committed grievous sins had to expect a ceaseless regeneration in the bodies of men and animals until they had worked their way up to Brahman. At the same time the priests took care to impress upon the hearts of the people the fate which awaited those who did not follow their ordinances. They reminded them perpetually of "the casting of the soul into hell and hell-torments." The sinner was to think, "what migrations the soul would have to undergo owing to his sin; of the regeneration through ten thousand millions of mothers."[178] These endless terrors and torments now in prospect for the man who did not fulfil the vocation assigned to him by the creator at birth, or the prescripts of the priests, were only too well adapted to win respect for their requirements. Who would venture to trespass on the divine arrangement of the world, according to which the first place was secured on earth to the Brahman in preference to the wealthy armed noble, the peasant, and the miserable Çudra, who was only on a level with the higher order of animals? Who would not look up with reverence to the purer incarnation of the world-soul, the holier spirit, which dwelt in the Brahmans? Even though the theory of the world-soul remained unintelligible to the many, they understood that the Brahmans, who busied themselves with sacrifice, prayers, and sacred things, stood nearer to the deity than they did; they understood that if they misconducted themselves towards the sacred race or disregarded the vocation of birth, they must expect endless torments in hell, and endless regenerations in the most loathsome worms and insects, or in the despised class of the Çudras--"those animals in human form."

The priesthood cannot have succeeded in making good their claims to superiority over the Kshatriyas, their new doctrine and ethics, without long-continued struggles and contests. If the two first centuries after the foundation of the states--the period between 1400 and 1200 B.C.--were occupied, as we assumed above, with the arrangement and consolidation of the new kingdom, the establishment of the position of the nobles, and the composition of songs of heroism and victory, we may assign to the next two centuries--from 1200 to 1000 B.C.--the sharper distinction of the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas, the amalgamation of the families of minstrels and priests into an order; the rise of this order in the states on the Ganges as the preserver of the ancient faith and ancient mode of worship; the combination of the customs, formulæ, and invocations hitherto handed down separately in the separate states. If in the first period the immigrant Aryas separated themselves as a common race from the Çudras, in the next the three orders of the Aryas became distinguished. Only the man who was born a Kshatriya could partake in the honour of this order; only one who sprung from a family of priests could be allowed to assist in the holy acts of sacrifice; and he who was born a Vaiçya must continue to till the field.

At the beginning of the ensuing century--_i.e._ in the period from 1000 B.C. downwards--the priests, now in possession of all the ancient invocations and formulæ, may have begun their meditations with the comparison of the invocations, the attempt to find out the right meaning of them, and to grasp the unity of the divine nature. The hymns of the latest portion of the Vedas, which are obviously a product of these meditations, may perhaps have arisen in the first half of this period. From the mysterious secret of the worship, the spirit of prayer, and the idea of the mighty, ever-recurring stream of birth and decay in the land of the Ganges, the Brahmans arrived at the idea of Brahman, the world-soul, and from this deduced its consequences. We may with certainty presuppose a long and severe struggle of the nobles against the dominion of the priests--a struggle which went on for several generations. Even the Vaiçyas can hardly have submitted without resistance to all the requirements of the Brahmans. The impassable gulf between the orders, the exclusion of intermarriage, was only carried out, as we can show, with difficulty; and even the ethics of the new doctrine must have met with resistance.

We have already referred to the circumstances which rendered victory easier to the Brahmans, to the changed conditions of life, and the nature of the land of the Ganges. Another fact in their favour was that the new doctrines of the Brahmans did not attack the monarchy. This continued to remain in the order of the Kshatriyas, and no essential limitation of their powers was required by the new doctrine from the princes on the Ganges. It is true that it demanded recognition of the superiority of the Brahmans to the other orders, and acknowledgment of the special sanctity of the order even from the kings; it required reverence, respect, and liberality, towards the Brahmans; yet in all other respects the new system was calculated to increase rather than diminish the power of the kings. The rule of unconditional submission to the existing order must have strengthened considerably the authority of the kings, and assisted them in removing the limitations hitherto, without doubt, imposed upon them by the importance of the Kshatriyas; and we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the kingdom on the Ganges was first raised by the new doctrine to absolute power; on this foundation it became a despotism.

We may feel confident in assuming that the victory of the Brahmans in the land of the Ganges was completed about the time when the dynasty of the Pradyotas ascended the throne of Magadha, _i.e._ about the year 800 B.C.[179] The districts from the Sarasvati eastward as far as the upper Ganges are after that time a sacred land to the Indians. The country between the Sarasvati and the Drishadvati is called Brahmavarta, _i.e._ Brahma-land. Kurukshetra (between the Drishadvati and the Yamuna), the districts of the Bharatas and Panchalas, of the Matsyas and Çurasenas, _i.e._ the entire doab of the Yamuna and the Ganges, are comprised under the name Brahmarshideça, _i.e._ the land of the holy sages. Here were situated the famous residences of the Kurus and Pandus, Hastinapura, Indraprastha, Kauçambi, and on the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges, Pratishthana; here, finally, was the city of Krishna, Krishnapura, and the sacred Mathura on the Yamuna; and elsewhere also in this district we find consecrated places and shrines of pilgrimage. It is maintained that the bravest Kshatriyas and the holiest priests are to be found in this district; the customs and observances here are regarded as the best, and as giving the rule to the remainder. The law-book of the priests requires that every Arya shall learn the right walk in life from a Brahman born in Brahmarshideça, and that, properly, all Aryas should live there.[180] It cannot have been any reminiscence of the great war which caused the priests to set such a value on these regions, and make these demands, nor even the fact that these districts were the first occupied by the emigrants from the Indus, so that here first in the new country were consecrated places set up for the worship of the immigrants, and the least intermixture took place with the ancient population. It is due rather to the fact that in these regions the civilisation and culture of the Indians were consolidated in an especial degree; here the priestly reform of the religion, if it did not receive the first impulse, yet acquired the victory and became supreme, owing perhaps to the support of the princes of the dynasty of Pandu, who reigned at Kauçambi. As these were the regions in which the priests first regulated the ancient customs of worship, morals, and justice according to the new doctrine, they could afterwards serve as a pattern for all the rest. If the Brahmans, soon after they had succeeded in carrying through their demands here, revised the Epos of the great war in the light of their new system, they could claim the thanks of the kings of the Bharatas for their support, they could show that the kings who in ancient times had won the dominion in these lands, the ancestors of the race then on the throne, had even in early times obediently followed the commands of the priests, and they could set up the conquerors in that struggle as patterns of the proper conduct of kings to Brahmans (p. 101).

Hence we may perhaps assume that it was in the districts on the upper Yamuna and the upper Ganges that the priesthood first got the upper hand, and the same change followed in the lands still further to the east, after the great priestly families, with more or less difficulty, delay and completeness, established themselves among the Kshatriyas of these districts--the Vasishthas with the kings of the Koçalas, the Gautamas with the kings of the Videhas, to whom no doubt they made very clear the services their forefathers had rendered to the predecessors on the throne. According as the previous circumstances offered more resistance in one place, and less in another, the new system was sometimes carried out more rapidly and thoroughly, and at others more slowly and with less severity.

No historical tradition has come down to us of the resistance made by the nobles to the priestly order in defence of their possession, or by the kings in questions affecting their power. It was the interest of the Brahmans to establish and describe the position they had won by conquest as occupied by them from the first. No nation has gone so far as the Indians in their eagerness to forget the old condition of affairs in every succeeding evolution, and to establish the new point of view as one existing from the first. The liveliness and force of their fancy must have unconsciously led them to regard the new and the present as the old and the original after comparatively short intervals of time.

In some episodes of the Epos and narratives of the Puranas we find legends of kings and warriors who because they did not show the proper respect for the Brahmans, or opposed them, were severely punished, and of saintly heroes who slew the Kshatriyas. We cannot, however, assume, that in the one or the other there is concealed any historic reminiscence. They are merely intended to set up terrifying examples of the lot which awaited kings and Kshatriyas who ventured to disregard the Brahmans. The book of the law tells us that the wise king Vena became infirm in mind owing to sensuality, and in this condition he brought about the mixture of the orders.[181] King Nahusha, Sudas, the son of Pijavana, and Nimi perished through want of humility, but Viçvamitra by his humility was raised to the rank of a Brahman.[182] All these names are taken from the legend as it existed previously to the great war.

In the Rigveda, Vena is mentioned as the father of Prithu;[183] the Ramayana enumerates Vena and his son Prithu among the first successors of Ikshvaku, the progenitor of the kings of the Koçalas (p. 106). The Vishnu-Purana, which assigns the same position to Vena, tells us that he took upon himself to arrange the duties of men, and forbade the Brahmans to sacrifice to the gods; no one might be worshipped but himself. Then the holy Brahmans slew the sinner with swords of the sacred sacrificial grass, which had been purified by invocations. And when, on the death of the king, robbers sprung up on every side, the Brahmans rubbed the right arm of the dead king, and from it sprung the pious and wise Prithu, who shone like Agni; he ruled between the Yamuna and Ganges, and subdued the earth, and by this noble son Vena's soul was freed from hell. The Mahabharata tells us that Prithu inquired with folded hands of the great saints about his duties, and that they bade him maintain the Veda, abstain from punishing Brahmans, and protect society from the intermixture of the castes.[184]

King Nahusha belongs to the royal race of the Bharatas; he is mentioned as the second successor of Pururavas (p. 82). The Mahabharata tells us that he was a mighty king, but he laid tribute on the saints, and forced them to carry him. Once he caused his palanquin to be carried by a thousand great sages, and because they did not go fast enough, he struck with his foot the holy Agastya who was among them. Then Agastya cursed him and he was changed into a serpent.[185]

Nimi, according to the Ramayana, is a son of Ikshvaku, the progenitor of the Koçalas. He bade Vasishtha his priest offer a sacrifice for him, and Vasishtha undertook to perform the second half of it. But the king caused the sacrifice to be offered by another saint, by Gautama. When Vasishtha heard this he pronounced a curse on Nimi that he should lose his body, and Nimi forthwith died. He was not punished for rebellion against a Brahman, but because he had not submitted himself with absolute obedience to his own priest.

Lastly Viçvamitra is said to have obtained the rank of a Brahman by humility. Viçvamitra is known to us from the hymns of the seventh book of the Rigveda as offering sacrifice for the Bharatas, while Vasishtha or his race offer prayer and sacrifice for their opponent, Sudas, the king of the Tritsus, who afterwards settle on the Sarayu and bear the name of Koçalas (p. 66). But the Ramayana and the Puranas also place Vasishtha at the side of the kings of the Koçalas, not at the time of Nimi only, as we have seen, who is the son of the tribal ancestor Ikshvaku, but at the side of Ikshvaku's descendants in the fifth century, like Vena, and even in the twentieth and fiftieth generations. The imagination of the Indians was not disturbed by such things in the case of a great priest of the old time. Yet in other parts of the Rigveda besides those quoted above, in the third book, we find prayers offered by Viçvamitra for Sudas, and some obscure expressions may be regarded as curses directed by Vasishtha against Viçvamitra. From the circumstance that Viçvamitra at one time offers prayers for the king of the Tritsus, and at another for the king of the Bharatas, we may draw the conclusion, that the family of the Kuçikas to which Viçvamitra belonged was driven out among the Tritsus by another family--that of Vasishtha, and that afterwards the Kuçikas offered their services to the kings of the Bharatas, and were allowed to perform them. Out of the opposition of Viçvamitra and Vasishtha, indicated in the Rigveda, the priestly literature of the Indians has invented a great contest between Viçvamitra and the Kshatriyas, in order to bring to light the superiority of the Brahmans. Even with the aid of his weapons, Viçvamitra the Kshatriya cannot prevail against the Brahman Vasishtha. At length he recognises the majesty of the Brahman, submits to Brahmanic ordinances, and distinguishes himself by sanctity to such a degree "that he became like a Brahman, and possessed all the qualifications of one."[186]

In the Vishnu-Purana Sudas is the fiftieth successor of Ikshvaku on the throne of the Koçalas. His priest was Vasishtha; and Viçvamitra, the son of a great Kshatriya, the king of Kanyakubja (Kanoja), wished to drive him out. One day, while hunting, Sudas met a Brahman, who would not move out of the way for him, and he struck him with his whip. The Brahman was Çakti, the eldest of Vasishtha's hundred sons. Çakti pronounced on the king the curse that he should become a cannibal, and the curse was fulfilled. But by the help of an evil spirit Viçvamitra was able to bring the consequences of the curse on the sons of Vasishtha; Çakti himself and all his brothers were eaten by the king. In despair at the death of his sons, Vasishtha sought to put an end to his own life, but in vain. When at length he returned to his settlement, he found that the widow of his eldest son was pregnant; and when she brought forth Paraçara the hope of progeny revived in him. But Sudas desired to eat Paraçara also. Then the holy Vasishtha blew on Sudas, sprinkled him with holy water, and took the curse from him, and in return the king promised never to despise Brahmans, to obey their commands, and show them all honour. And when Paraçara grew up, and wished to avenge the death of his father, Vasishtha told him that under the rule of Kritavirya (he is said to have reigned over a tribe of the Yadavas) the Bhrigus, the priests of the king, had become rich in corn and gold by his liberality. Arjuna, the successor of Kritavirya, had fallen into distress, and sought aid from the Bhrigus. Then some of them buried their possessions out of fear of the Kshatriyas, and when by accident a Kshatriya discovered the treasure hidden in the house of a Bhrigu they slew all the Bhrigus. But their widows fled to the Himalayas, and there one of them brought forth Aurva, who desired to avenge the death of the Bhrigus by the slaughter of the Kshatriyas. But the spirits of the holy Bhrigus warned him to give up his passion, and curb his anger; by concealment they had roused the anger of the Kshatriyas, in order to arrive the sooner in heaven. In like manner Paraçara abandoned the idea of avenging his father.

No greater historical value is to be attached to a legend of the destruction of the Kshatriyas by a Brahman. Gadhi, the father of Viçvamitra, had given his daughter to wife to a saint, Richika, the son of Aurva, of the race of the Bhrigus. She bore Jamadagni to Richika, who lived as an eremite after the example of his father. One day Arjuna came to the abode of Jamadagni, and though he received the king with honour, Arjuna caused the calf of his cow to be carried away. Then Paraçurama, _i.e._ Rama with the axe, the youngest son of Jamadagni, slew the king, and the king's sons slew Jamadagni. To avenge the death of his father, Paraçurama swore to destroy all the Kshatriyas from the earth. Thrice seven times with his irresistible axe he cut down the Kshatriyas, and appeased the manes of Jamadagni and the Bhrigus with the blood of the slain. Then he offered a great sacrifice to Indra, and presented the earth to the saint Kaçyapa. But Kaçyapa gave it to the Brahmans, and went into the forest. Then the stronger oppressed the weaker, and the Vaiçyas and Çudras behaved themselves wickedly towards the wives of the Brahmans, and the earth besought Kaçyapa for a protector and a king; a few Kshatriyas were still left among the women; and Paraçara had brought up Sarvakarma, the son of Sudas. And Kaçyapa did as the earth entreated him, and made the son of Sudas and the other Kshatriyas to be kings. This was long before the great war.[187] In the Ramayana, Paraçurama rebels when Rama has broken Çiva's great bow. All were in terror lest he should again destroy the Kshatriyas. But Rama also strings Paraçurama's great bow, shoots the arrow to the sky, not towards Paraçurama, "because he was a Brahman," and Paraçurama returned to Mount Mahendra.

FOOTNOTES:

[151] Cunningham, "Survey," 1. 301 ff.

[152] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 168 _n._

[153] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 168.

[154] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 671, 951.

[155] Manu, 1. 91.

[156] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 966 _n._

[157] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 1, 4, 5, in Benfey's translation.

[158] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 5, 266 ff.

[159] "Rigveda," 1, 40, 5, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 272 ff.

[160] "Rigveda," 10, 68, 8 ff. Roth, "Z. D. M. G." 1. 75.

[161] _Brahmán_, from the root _barh_, connected with the root _vardh_ (to become, to grow), means to raise, to elevate. The masc. _brahmán_ means "he who elevates, makes to increase;" the neuter _bráhman_ means first, "growth," the "creative power," and then, "the elevating and elevated mood," the prayer and sacred form of words, the creative, reproducing power. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 2, 303; 9, 305.

[162] Roth, _loc. cit._ 1. 73.

[163]Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 382.

[164] So in Manu, _e.g._ 6. 65. _Atman_ means "_breathing_;" _paramatman_ "the highest breathing."

[165] "Rigveda," 10, 72, 1-3; 10, 129, 1-6, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 48 ff. 356.

[166] Manu, 1, 28, 29.

[167] "Rigveda," 10, 90; Manu, 1, 31 and in the Puranas; Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 5, 371. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 9, 7.

[168] Manu, 1, 88-91, and in many other places.

[169] In Manu, 4, 88-90 (cf. 12, 75, 76) eight hells are mentioned and described, in each of which the torments grow worse as the offences are more serious. The Buddhists retain these eight hot hells, and add eight cold; Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 320, 366, 367, 201. The Singhalese have increased the number to 136, the Siamese to 462. Koppen, "Relig. des Buddha," s. 244. Cf. A. Weber, in "Z. D. M. G." 9, 237.

[170] _e.g._ Manu, 9, 335.

[171] Manu, 12, 43, 44.

[172] Manu, 12, 59.

[173] Manu, 12, 55.

[174] Manu, 12, 62, 64.

[175] Manu, 12, 67.

[176] Manu, 12, 58.

[177] Manu, 12, 59. Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 274. Bohlen has already observed that many of these regenerations are merely fanciful, "Indien," 24.

[178] Manu, 6, 61-63.

[179] In the sixth century B.C. the Brahmanic arrangement of the state was in full force in the cities on the Ganges, and carried out most strictly. Hence it must have obtained the upper hand about 800 B.C. at the latest. It was not only established by law about the year 600 B.C., but the doctrine of the Brahmans had already created scholastic and heterodox systems of philosophy. Before this system could become current, the idea of Brahman must have been discovered; the strong elements of resistance in the ancient life and faith must have been overcome. This would occupy a space of about two centuries, and may therefore have filled the period from 1000 to 800 B.C., as assumed in the text. Buddhism required a space of three centuries in order to become the recognised religion in the kingdom of Magadha. Before the idea of the world-soul could be discovered, the hymns of the Veda must have reached a certain point of combination and synopsis, and the confusing multitude of divine forms must have been sufficiently felt to call forth the opposite idea of unity. From the book of the law it is clear that the three Vedas were in existence before it was drawn up. It refers perpetually to the triple Veda. The evidence of the Sutras proves that four Vedas existed at the time of the appearance of Buddha. If these were in existence in the sixth century the three which are acknowledged to be older must have existed as early as the seventh century B.C.

[180] Manu, 2, 6, 12, 18, 20.

[181] Manu, 9, 67.

[182] Manu, 7, 38-42, 8, 110.

[183] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 1, 268, 305.

[184] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 297 ff.

[185] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 307 ff.

[186] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 157.

[187] Muir, _loc. cit._ 1, 151, 200.