Chapter VIII: Introduction (4)

I will cite but one instance, where the parallel is indeed remarkable. In the I--King mention is made of the fallen dragon, or of the spirit of the dragon that, for his presumption in wishing to ascend to heaven, was precipitated into the abyss; and the words in which this event is described are precisely the same, or at least very similar to those which our Scriptures apply to the rebel angel, and the Persian books to Ahriman. However this dragon is whimsically, we might almost say, artlessly, made the sacred symbol of the Chinese empire and Emperor. The paternal power of the latter is understood in a much too absolute sense: not only is the Emperor styled the lord of heaven and earth, and even the son of God; but his will it revered as the will of God, or rather completely identified with it; and even the most determined eulogists of the Chinese constitution and manners cannot deny that the monarch is almost the object of a real worship. Christianity teaches that all power is from God; but it does not thereby declare that all power is one and the same with God. Even a dominion over nature and her powers is ascribed to the Emperor of China, as the illustrious lord of heaven and earth.

Moreover, no hereditary nobility, no classes separated by distinctions of birth, exist in this country, as in India. The Emperor, half identified with the Deity, had alone the privilege in ancient times of offering on the sacred heights the great sacrifice to God. Some European writers have, from this circumstance, conceived the Chinese constitution to be theocratic; but if it be so, it is only in its outward form, or original mould; for it would be difficult to shew in it any trace of a true, vital theocracy. All that pomp of sacred ceremony and religious titles, so strangely abused, forms a striking contrast with real history, and with that long succession of profligate and unfortunate reigns and perpetual revolutions which fill most of the pages of the Chinese annals. We should err greatly were we to regard all these high imperial titles as the mere swell and exaggeration of Eastern phraseology. The Chinese speak of their celestial Empire of the Medium, as they call their country, in terms which no European writer would apply to a Christian state, and such indeed as the Scriptures and religious authors use in reference only to the kingdom of God. They cannot conceive it possible for the earth to contain two emperors at one and the same time, and own the sway of more than one such absolute lord and master. Hence they look on every solemn foreign embassy as a debt of homage; nor is this sentiment the idle effect of vanity, or fancy--it is a firm and settled belief, perfectly coinciding with the whole system of their religious and political doctrines. This political idolatry of the state, which the Chinese identify with the emperor's person, is a pagan error: all excess, all exaggeration is sure to produce opposition and re-action, or a tendency thereto. Hence the pages of Chinese history present by the side of this high boasted ideal of absolute power, as a fearful concomitant, and fitting commentary, one continuous series of political revolutions and catastrophes. Neither the pure morality of those ancient books revered by the Chinese as sacred, whatever be the morality of books in which the principle of rationalism is so exclusively predominant; nor all the high refinement of philosophic speculation in the scientific period of their history, have prevented this people from falling into the grossest of idolatries, and adopting a foreign superstition, which of all false religions is unquestionably the most reprehensible. Some persons have sought to trace a certain resemblance to Christianity in this religion of Fo, partly on account of some external institutions, and partly on account of the fundamental principle of the incarnation, equally perverted and misapplied in this superstition, as in the rival mythology of Brahma. The enemies of Christianity, since the time of Voltaire, have not failed, at the name of Bonzis, to throw out many malicious epigrams against religion. The similarity here observed is not real, but is that caricature resemblance the ape bears to man, and which has led many naturalists into error; for the ape has with man no real affinity, no true internal sympathy in his organic conformation, but merely the likeness of a spiteful parody, such as we may suppose an evil spirit to have devised to mock the image of God--the masterpiece of creation; and indeed the frailties and corruption of degenerate man may well give occasion to such a parody. We may lay it down as a general principle that the greater the apparent resemblance which a false religion, utterly and fundamentally different in its spiritual character, and moral tendency, externally bears to the true, the more reprehensible will it be in itself, and the greater its hostility to the truth. An example near at hand will place the truth of this remark in the clearest light. If, for instance, Mahomet, instead of merely giving himself out as a prophet, had declared he was the son of God, the eternal Word, the incarnate Deity, the true and real Christ, his religious system would certainly have been far more adverse and repulsive to our feelings than it now is, and would have shocked alike every mind trained in the intellectual discipline of Europe, brought up with Christian feelings, and even unconsciously imbued with such. But this is precisely the characteristic feature, the peculiar doctrine of the religion of Buddha; for not only is Buddha himself worshipped as an incarnate divinity, but this prerogative of a divine incarnation has been transmitted to his chief priests through every generation; and thus this personal idolatry has ever been kept alive. In regard to morals, too, a comparison between the religion of the Buddhists and of the Mahometans would be equally disadvantageous to the former. The injurious influence which polygamy, and that degradation of the female sex it necessarily involves, exert on the manners and intellectual character of Mahometan nations, has been often observed, and can never be questioned. But that that other and opposite abuse of marriage, poly-andry, which is legally established among the Buddhist nations, is infinitely more repugnant to, and destructive of morality, and more debasing to the male character, must be perceptible to the feelings of every individual, and can require no comment. I do not find, indeed, in the different accounts of China, any mention made of this abominable practice; and it is very possible that in this, as in other cases, the good old customs of the Chinese have had the ascendancy, and preserved their beneficial influence: but in Thibet, the chief seat of Buddhism, in many parts of India, and in other countries where this religion prevails, the unnatural custom exists.

The writer[46] best versed in the language and writings of the Buddhist Monguls boasts of their superior humanity and mildness of manners, when compared with the Mahometan nations; but this observation must be taken only in a relative sense, and understood of a mere outward polish, and superficial refinement of manner; for history does not show the Monguls to have been at all more humane in their conduct. The indescribable confusion in the mythological system of the Buddhists, their innumerable books of metaphysics, all wearisomely prolix and unintelligible, according to the explicit avowal of the critic just now cited, M. Remusat, prove the essentially false direction of speculation and philosophy among the Buddhists--a philosophy which, by a dialectic or rather ideal course, has been led into a chaos of void abstractions, and a pure nihilism; and more scientific observers have ever judged it to be an absolute system of atheism.

It would appear that the Nestorians, or other degenerate Christian sects, have exerted some influence on Buddhism, and co-operated in its further development;--so we may well imagine that this exotic influence has not tended to the amelioration or improvement of a religion false in its essence, and fundamentally corrupt; but that its vices and absurdities have remained equally flagrant, or, as it is easy to suppose, have been aggravated in the progress of time.

This religion of Fo must not be considered as resembling Christianity, because its followers have monastic institutions, and make use of a kind of rosary; but as the political idolatry of the Chinese for their state and sovereign is widely different from the true principle of Christian government, _that all power is from God_, so this false religion of Buddha is further removed than any other from Christianity: it is on the contrary adverse to our religion, and, so far from being half similar to Christianity, is a decidedly anti-Christian creed.[47]

We may thus sum up the result of our enquiries:--among the great nations of primitive antiquity who stood the nearest, or at least very near, to the source of sacred tradition--the word of primitive revelation,--the Chinese hold a very distinguished place; and many passages in their primitive history, many remarkable vestiges of eternal truth--the heritage of old thoughts--to be found in their ancient classical works, prove the originally high eminence of this people. But at a very early period, their science had taken a course completely erroneous, and even their language partly followed this direction, or at least assumed a very stiff and artificial character. Descending from one degree of political idolatry to a grade still lower, they have at last openly embraced a foreign superstition--a diabolic mimicry of Christianity, which emanated from India, has made Thibet its principal seat, prevails in China, and, widely diffused over the whole middle Asia, reckons a greater number of followers than any other religion on the earth.

END OF LECTURE III.

LECTURE IV.

Of the Institutions of the Indians--the Brahminical caste, and the
hereditary priesthood.--Of the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls, considered as the basis of Indian life, and of Indian
philosophy.

When Alexander the Great had attained the object of his most ardent desires and, realizing the fabulous expedition of Bacchus and his train of followers, had at last reached India, the Greeks found this vast region, even on this side of the Ganges--(for that river, the peculiar object of Alexander's ambition, the conqueror in despite of all his efforts, was unable to reach)--the Greeks found this country extensive, fertile, highly cultivated, populous, and filled with flourishing cities, as it was, divided into a number of great and petty kingdoms. They found there an hereditary division of castes, such as still subsists; although they reckoned not four, but seven castes, a circumstance, however, which, as we shall see later, argues no essential difference in the division of Indian classes at that period. They remarked, also, that the country was divided into two religious parties or sects, the _Brachmans and the Samaneans_. By the first, the Greeks designated the followers of the religion of Brahma, as well as of Vishnoo and Siva, a religion which still subsists, and is more deeply rooted and more widely diffused and prevalent in India than any other religious system; distinguished as it is by its leading dogma of the transmigration of souls, which has exerted the mightiest influence on every department of thought, on the whole bearing of Indian philosophy, and on the whole arrangement of Indian life. But by the Greek denomination of _Samaneans_ we must certainly understand the Buddhists, as, among the rude nations of central Asia, and in other countries, the priests of the religion of Fo bear at this day the name of _Schamans_. These priests indeed appear to be little better than mere sorcerers and jugglers, as are the priests of all idolatrous nations that are sunk to the lowest degree of barbarism and superstition. The word itself is pure Indian, and occurs frequently in the religious and metaphysical treatises of that people; for originally, and before it had received such a mean acceptation among those Buddhist nations, it had quite a philosophical sense, as it still has in the Sanscrit. This word denotes that equability of mind, or that deep internal equanimity which, according to the Indian philosophy, must precede, and is indispensably requisite to the perfect union with the God-head. In general all the names by which Buddha, the priests of his religion, and its important and fundamental doctrines are known, whether in Thibet, or among the Mongul nations, in Siam, in Pegu, or in Japan--in general, we say, all those names are pure Indian words; for the tradition of all those nations, with unanimous accord, deduces the origin of this sect from India.

The name of Buddha, which the Chinese have changed, or shortened into that of Fo, is rather an honorary appellation, and is expressive of the divine wisdom with which, in the opinion of his followers, he was endowed; or which rather, according to their belief, became visible in his person. The period of his existence is fixed by many at six hundred years, by others again at a thousand years, before the Christian era. His real and historical name was Gautama; and it is remarkable that the same name was borne by the author of one of the principal philosophical systems of the Hindoos, the Nyaya philosophy, the leading principles of which will be the subject of future consideration, when we come to speak of the Indian philosophy. Indeed, the dialectic spirit, which pervades the Nyaya philosophy would seem to be of a kindred nature and like origin with the confused metaphysics of the Buddhists. But the names, notwithstanding their identity, denote two different persons; although even the founder of the dialectic system, like almost all other celebrated names in the ancient history, traditions and science of the Indians, figures in the character of a mythological personage. But we must first take a view of the state of manners, and the state of political civilization, in India, in order to be able to form a right judgment and estimate of the intellectual and scientific exertions of its inhabitants, and of the peculiar nature and tendency of the Indian opinions.

By the manner in which the Greek writers speak of the two religious parties, into which Alexander found the country divided, it can scarcely be doubted that the Buddhists at that period were far more numerous, and more extensively diffused throughout India, than they are at the present day, and this inference is even corroborated by many historical vouchers of the Indians themselves. Although the Buddhists are now but an obscure sect of dissenters in the Western Peninsula, they are still tolerably numerous in several of its provinces; while, on the other hand, they have complete possession of the whole Eastern and Indo-Chinese peninsula. Besides this sect, there are many other religious dissenters even in Hindostan; such for instance, as the sect of _Jains_, who steer a middle course between the followers of the old and established religion of Brahma, and the Buddhists; for, like the latter, they reject the Indian division and system of castes. Even the established religion itself is divided into three parties, which, though they do not form precisely separate sects, still are marked by no inconsiderable differences in their opinions, views, and conduct: according as each of these parties acknowledges the supremacy, or renders a nearly exclusive worship to one or other of the three principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva. And, although in the empire of the great Mogul, the number of the Mahometan conquerors, and of those that accompanied them into India, was very small, compared with the mass of the native population, yet, after the total destruction of this empire, there still remain several millions of Mahometans in the country. Even the Persian language, or a corrupt dialect of it, which these conquerors introduced, is still in many places in use as the language of ordinary life, trade, and business; in the same way as the Portuguese in the maritime and commercial cities of India, or the Lingua Franca in our eastern factories, serves as the usual and convenient medium of communication.

The Indian is not the only, or exclusively prevailing, language in the whole peninsula; in several provinces, as for instance, on the southern coast, and in the Isle of Ceylon, quite a different language prevails; and the old cultivated and classical speech of India is there unknown. The name of Sanscrit, by which the latter is designated, denotes a cultivated or highly wrought language; but the Pracrit, which is employed together or alternately with the Sanscrit in the theatrical pieces of the Indians, signifies a natural and artless speech, and is not so much a distinct dialect as a softer pronunciation of the Sanscrit, which smoothes, suppresses, or melts down the hard and crowded consonants, and pays less regard to the more elaborate grammatical forms of this language. The Pracrit, which is used in dramatic pieces, particularly in the female parts, stands from its more simple grammar, in the same relation to the Sanscrit as the softer Italian or Portuguese is to the old Latin, without however the same heterogeneous alloy. But, independently of these variations in the later and beautiful language of Indian poetry, the language of that country is split and divided into a number of dissimilar and widely dissimilar dialects, such as the Malabar, for example; and almost in every province the common language undergoes a variety of changes; and this is the case even in Bengal. The country of the Upper Ganges, especially Benares, is renowned for being the chief seat of the Sanscrit tongue,--the place, at least, where it is best understood, and spoken with the greatest purity.

Those languages which differ totally from the Indian belong in part to quite a different race of men, mostly, perhaps, to the Malays: for, so far is India from being entirely peopled by one single race of inhabitants, that we find in several of its provinces tribes of an origin totally different from that of the Hindoos. This great variety in the whole life, manners, and political institutions of the Indians, forms a striking contrast with the absolute unity, and internal uniformity of the Chinese Empire. It was perhaps this variety in the moral and political aspect of ancient India that gave rise to the denomination which it has received in the old sacred Median books of Zoroaster, where, in the first _fargard_, or section of the Vendidat, it is described as the fifteenth pure region of the earth, created by Ormuzd, and designated by the name of _Hapte Heando_--a name which signifies the seven Indias. As India is still split into a multitude of sects and religions, and divided into different tribes, speaking various languages; so, as Herodotus long ago observed, it has for the most part been ever composed of a multitude of great and petty states, although from its natural boundaries it might easily have been formed into one great monarchy, and really constitutes but one country in its geographical circumscription.

The historian of India would have principally to speak of the successes of a long series of foreign conquerors, who, from Alexander the Great to Nadir Shah, have invaded this country by the North-west side from Persia. The Greeks were indeed told that, before Alexander the Great, no foreign conqueror had ever invaded India; and even after this invasion, and on the death of Sandracottus, when the Indians were liberated from the transient dominion of the Greeks, they were for a long lapse of ages governed by native princes; and their country was parcelled out into a number of great and petty kingdoms, such as those of Magadha, Ayodha, &c. It is a striking incident in the moral, and intellectual history of the Hindoos that amid all the revolutions under their ancient and native rulers, and amid all the later vicissitudes of foreign conquest, their peculiar modes of life and their institution of castes should have been preserved, and, in despite of all the changes of time and of empire, should have stood unchanged, like the one surviving monument of the primitive world. In the administration and government of this country, the absolute monarchical sway which exists in China, and the unlimited despotism of other oriental countries, could never be realized; for that hereditary division of classes, and those hereditary rights belonging to each, which, as they form a part of the Indian constitution, have taken such deep root in the soil; and which, as they rest on the immoveable basis of ancient faith, have become, as it were, the second nature of this people--all these present an unassailable rampart, which not even a foreign conqueror could ever succeed in overthrowing. We can hence understand what led the Greeks to believe and assert that there were Republican states in India. If from prepossessions, which were natural to that people, they asserted too much, or thought they saw more than a nearer investigation proves to be actually the case; still their assertion is not totally without foundation, for the Indian system of castes is in many respects more favourable to institutions of a Republican nature, or at least Republican tendency, than the constitution of any other Asiatic state. When those modern writers therefore, who were the declared enemies of all hereditary rank and hereditary rights, spoke with contempt and abhorence of the Indian constitution of castes, represented it as the peculiar basis of despotism, and even applied the name of caste as a party-word to the social relations of Europe; their assertions were false and utterly opposed to history. The invectives of these writers may be easily accounted for, from their very democratic views, or rather from their doctrine of absolute equality, as this equality itself is ever the attendant of despotism, produces it, or proceeds from it, and is one of its most distinctive characteristics. In confirmation of what we have said, we may observe, that even at the present day most of the cities of India possess municipal institutions, which are much admired by English writers, who attest from their personal experience and observation, their salutary influence on individual and public prosperity. In general the English have paid very great attention to the jurisprudence and civil legislation of India; as the fundamental principle of their Indian government is to rule that country according to its own laws, customs and privileges; while, on the contrary, the other European powers that once had obtained a firm footing in India, formed alliances with, and attached themselves by preference to, the Mahometan sovereigns of the country. By this simple, but enlightened principle in their Indian policy and administration, the English have obtained the ascendency over all their rivals or opponents, and have become complete masters of the whole of this splendid region.

The scholars of Europe began their Indian researches by the study and translation of the laws and jurisprudence of the Hindoos, the text as well as commentaries, and it was only at a later period they extended their inquiries to other subjects. The Indian jurisprudence is undoubtedly a standing proof and monument of the comparatively high and very ancient moral and intellectural refinement of that people; and a more minute and profound investigation of that jurisprudence would no doubt give rise to many interesting points of comparison, and to many striking analogies, partly with the old Athenian, or first Roman laws, partly with the Mosaic legislation, and even in some particular points, with the Germanic constitution. As the caste of warriors in India, who constitute the class of landed proprietors, and the aristocracy of the country, are founded on exactly the same principle as the hereditary nobility of Germany, it cannot excite surprise, if we find in India, not indeed the elaborate and complex feudality of the Germans, but a more simple system of fiefs.

But, according to the plan we have proposed to ourselves, in the history of all ancient, and especially of the primitive Asiatic nations, the matter of greatest moment must be to trace their intellectual progress, their scientific labours, and predominant opinions; all those views of divine and human things, that have a mighty influence on life; and finally the peculiar religious feelings and principles of each of those ancient nations. In the second part of this work, when we shall have to speak of the progress of mankind in modern times, we may perhaps change our point of view, and find it of more importance to trace the mutual relations between the external state of society and the internal development of intellect. But in that remote antiquity, which is contiguous to the primitive ages, the points of greatest moment, as we have already observed, are the intellectual character, the modes of thinking, and the religion of those nations. On the other hand, their civil legislation, and even their political constitutions, however important, interesting and instructive the closer investigation of those subjects may be in other respects, can occupy in this history but a secondary place; and it will suffice for our purpose to point out some leading points of legislation that serve as the foundation and principle of the moral and intellectual character of those nations. In India this leading point is the institution of castes, the most remarkable feature in all Indian life, and which in its essential traits existed in Egypt. This singular phenomenon of Indian life has even some points of connexion with a capital article of their creed, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls--a doctrine which will be later the subject of our enquiries, and which we shall endeavour to place in a nearer and clearer light. In shewing the influence of the institution of castes on the state of manners in India, I may observe, in the first place, that in this division of the social ranks there is no distinct class of _slaves_ (as was indeed long ago remarked by the _Greeks_); that is to say, no such class of bought slaves--no men, the property and merchandise of their fellow-men--as existed in ancient Greece and Rome, as exist even at this day among Mahometan nations; and, as in the case of the Negroes, are still to be found in the colonial possessions of the Christian and European states. The labouring class of the _Sudras_ is undoubtedly not admitted to the high privileges of the first classes, and is in a state of great dependance upon these; but this very caste of Sudras has its hereditary and clearly defined rights. It is only by a crime that a man in India can lose his caste, and the rights annexed to it. These rights are acquired by birth; except in the instance of the offspring of unlawful marriages between persons of different castes. The fate of these hapless wretches is indeed hard,--harder, almost, than that of real slaves among other nations. Ejected, excommunicated as it were, loaded with malediction, they are regarded as the outcasts of society, yea almost, of humanity itself. This terrible exclusion, however, from the rights of citizenship occurs only in certain clearly specified cases. There are even some cases of exception explicitly laid down, where a marriage with a person of different caste is permitted; or where at least the only consequence to the children of such marriage is a degradation to an inferior class of society. But the general rule is that a lawful marriage can be contracted only with a woman of the same caste. Women participate in all the rights of their caste; in the high prerogatives of Brahmins, if they are of the sacerdotal race (although there are not and never were priestesses among the Indians as among the other heathen nations of antiquity); or in the privileges of nobility, if they belong to the caste of the _Cshatriyas_. These privileges which belong and are secured to women, and this participation in the rights and advantages of their respective classes, must tend much undoubtedly to mitigate the injurious effects of polygamy. The latter custom has ever prevailed, and still prevails, in India; though not to the same degree of licentiousness, nor with the same unlimited and despotic controul, as in Mahometan countries; but a plurality of wives is there permitted only under certain conditions, and with certain legal restrictions; consequently in that milder form, under which it existed of old in the warm climes of Asia, and according to the patriarchal simplicity of the yet thinly peopled world. The much higher social rank, and better moral condition of the female sex in India, are apparent from those portraits of Indian life which are drawn in their beautiful works of poetry, whether of a primitive or a later date; and from that deep feeling of tenderness, that affectionate regard and reverence, with which the character of woman and her domestic relations are invariably represented. These few examples suffice to show the moral effects of the Indian division of castes; and while they serve to defend this institution against a sweeping sentence of condemnation, or the indiscriminate censure of too partial prejudice, they place the subject in its true and proper light, and present alike the advantages and defects of the system.

From its connexion with the general plan of my work, I am desirous of entering more deeply into the internal principle of this singular division and rigid separation of the social ranks, and into the historical origin of this strange constitution of human society. When the Greeks, who accompanied or followed Alexander into India, numbered seven instead of four castes in that country, they did not judge inaccurately the outward condition of things; but they paid not sufficient attention to the Indian notions of castes; and their very enumeration of those castes proves they had mistaken some points of detail. In this enumeration they assign the first rank to the _Brachmans_, or wise men; and by the artisans, they no doubt understood the trading and manufacturing class of the Vaisyas. The councillors and intendants of kings and princes do not constitute a distinct caste, but are mere officers and functionaries; who, if they be lawyers, belong to, and must be taken from, the caste of Brahmins; though the other two upper castes are not always rigidly excluded from these functions. The class again that tends the breeding of cattle, and lives by the chase, forms not a distinct caste, but merely follows a peculiar kind of employment. And when the Greeks make two castes of the agriculturists and the warriors, they only mean to draw a distinction between the labourers and the masters, or the real proprietors of the soil. Even the name of _Cshatriyas_ signifies landed proprietor; and, as in the old Germanic constitution, the arriere-ban was composed of landed proprietors, and the very possession of the soil imposed on the nobility the obligation of military service; so, in the Indian constitution, the two ideas of property in land, and military service, are indissolubly connected. Some modern enquirers have attached very great importance to the undoubtedly wide and remarkable separation of the fourth or menial caste of Sudras from the three upper castes. They have thought they perceived, also, a very great difference in the bodily structure and general physiognomy of this fourth caste from those of the others; and have thence concluded that the caste of Sudras is descended from a totally different race, some primitive and barbarous people whom a more civilized nation, to whom the three upper castes must have belonged, have conquered and subdued, and degraded to that menial condition, the lowest grade in the social scale,--a grade to which the iron arm of law eternally binds them down. This hypothesis is in itself not very improbable; and it may be proved from history that the like has really occurred in several Asiatic, and even European, countries. In the back-ground of old, mighty and civilized nations we can almost always trace the primeval inhabitants of the country, who, dispossessed of their territory, have been either reduced to servitude by their conquerors, or have gradually been incorporated with them. These primitive inhabitants, when compared with their later and more civilized conquerors, appear indeed in general rude and barbarous; though we find among them a certain number of ancient customs and arts, which by no means tend to confirm the notion of an original and universal savage state of nature. It is possible that the same circumstances have occurred in India; though this is by no means a necessary inference, for humanity, in its progress, follows not one uniform course, but pursues various and widely different paths; and, hitherto at least, no adequate historical proof has, in my opinion, been adduced for the reality of such an occurrence in India. It has also been conjectured that the caste of warriors, or the princes and hereditary nobility, possessed originally greater power and influence; and that it is only by degrees the race of Brahmins has attained to that great preponderance which it displays in later times, and which it even still possesses. We find, indeed, in the old epic, mythological, and historical poems of the Indians, many passages which describe a contest between these two classes, and which represent the deified heroes of India victoriously defending the wise and pious Brahmins from the attacks of the fierce and presumptuous Cshatriyas. This account, however, is susceptible of another interpretation, and should not be taken exclusively in this political sense. That in the brilliant period of their ancient and national dynasties and governments, the princes and warlike nobility possessed greater weight and importance than at present, is quite in the nature of things, and appears indeed to have been undoubtedly the case. From many indications in the old Indian traditions and histories, it would appear that the caste of Cshatriyas, was partially at least, of foreign extraction; while those traditionary accounts constantly represent the caste of Brahmins as the highest class, and nobler part, nay, the corner-stone of the whole community.

The origin of an hereditary caste of warriors, when considered in itself, may be easily accounted for, and it is no wise contrary to the nature of things that, even in a state of society where legal rights are yet undefined, the son, especially the eldest, should govern and administer the territory or property which his deceased father possessed, and even in those cases where it was necessary, should take possession, administer, and defend this property by open force and the aid of his dependents.

But afterwards, when the social relations became more clearly fixed by law, and an union on a larger scale was formed by a general league, as the duties of military service were annexed to the soil, so the right to the soil was again determined by, and depended on, military service; now, in that primitive period of history, such a political union might have been formed by a common subordination to a higher power, or by a confederacy between several potentates; and this has really been the origin of an hereditary landed nobility in many countries.

The hereditary continuance or transmission of arts and trades, whereby the son pursues the occupation of the father, and learns and applies what the latter has discovered, has nothing singular in itself, and appears indeed to contain its own explanation. But it is not easy, or at least equally so, to account for the exclusive distribution and the exact and rigid separation of castes, particularly by any religious motives and principles, which are, however, indubitably connected with this institution. Still less can we understand the existence of a great hereditary class of priests, eternally divided from the rest of the community, such as existed both in India and Egypt. To comprehend this strange phenomenon, we must endeavour to discover its origin, and trace it back, as far as is possible, to the primitive ages of the world.--If, for the sake of brevity, I have used the expression, "a class of _hereditary priests_," I ought to add, in order to explain my meaning more clearly, that the word _priests_ must not be taken in that limited sense which antiquity attached to it; that the Brahmins are not merely confined to the functions of prayer, but are strictly and eminently theologians, since they alone are permitted to read and interpret the Vedas, while the other castes can read only with their sanction such passages of those sacred writings as are adapted to their circumstances, and the fourth caste are entirely prohibited from hearing any portion of them. The Brahmins are also the lawyers and physicians of India, and hence the Greeks did not designate them erroneously when they termed them the _caste of philosophers_.

We have already had occasion to observe that the Mosaic narrative,--that first monument of all history, (which a very intellectual German writer has called the primitive document of the human race, and which it indeed is even in a mere historical sense, and in the literal acceptation of the word,) that the Mosaic narrative, we say, ascribes to the Cainites the origin of hereditary arts and trades. And there are two which are particularly worthy of remark, and to which I drew your attention--the knowledge of metals, and the art of music. I used the general expression, the knowledge of metals, because in the primitive ages of the world, the art of working mines, or of exploring and extracting metals from the earth, was essentially connected with the art of preparing and polishing them; and this knowledge of metals was very instrumental in forwarding the infant civilization of the primitive world, as the art of working and polishing them has ever contributed to the refinement of mankind. By the music of the Cainites, I said we were not to understand our own more elaborate and sublime system of melody. This art was chiefly consecrated in those ancient times, to the uses of divine service; still older, perhaps, was the medicinal, or rather the magical, use and influence of music. This is at least indicated by the tradition and mythology of all nations; and such a supposition is quite conformable to the spirit of those early ages; and I would here remind you that, in the primitive symbolical writing of the Chinese, the sign of a magician represents also a priest--a character which, as Remusat has observed, is not to be found in the narrow circle of their symbols. I added, that the existence of an hereditary caste of warriors among the Cainites was possible, and even probable; though not so, in my opinion, the existence of an hereditary sacerdotal caste. But though such an institution did not emanate from the Cainites, it may at least have been occasioned by them. As I said before, the Mosaic history represents the vast, boundless, prodigious corruption of the world in the age immediately preceding the deluge, as produced solely by the union of the better and godly portion of mankind with the lawless descendants of Cain. Thus this would supposes a certain dread and apprehension of any alliance and intercourse with a race laden with malediction, and pregnant with calamity. And may not this very circumstance have given rise to the establishment of a distinctly separate and hereditary class, not of priests in the later signification of that word, but of men chosen and consecrated by God, and entirely devoted to his service? and, consequently, is it not among the later Sethites, we must look for the origin of this institution?

We should transport ourselves in imagination to the age of the Patriarchs, and then consider that, with the high powers which they still possessed, they must have watched with the most jealous and far-sighted solicitude over the fate of their posterity, in order to preserve them in their original purity and high hereditary dignity. The Indian traditions acknowledge and revere the succession of the first ancestors of mankind, or the holy Patriarchs of the primitive world, under the name of the seven great _Rishis_, or sages of hoary antiquity; though they invest their history with a cloud of fictions. They place all these Patriarchs in the primitive world, and assign them to the race of Brahmins;--a circumstance which cannot here appear unfitting. It has been often observed that the Indians have no regular histories, no works of real historical science; and the reason is that with them the sense of the primitive world is still fresh and lively, and that not only do they clothe their ideas in a poetical garb, but all their conceptions of human affairs and events are exclusively mythological; so that all the real events of later historical times are absorbed in the element of mythology, or at least strongly tinged with its colours. It is in the same way, the Panegyrists of the Chinese language remark that the almost total absence of grammar in that language, among a people of such highly cultivated intellect, should not be taken merely to denote the poverty and jejuneness of the infancy of speech, as this in a great measure originated in the fact that the profound primitive emotions, which gave birth to those first languages, were too absorbed in the subject of their contemplation, too much bent on giving utterance to the most effective word, or expressing themselves with the most condensed brevity, to perplex or trouble themselves with nicer distinctions, and minor and often superfluous rules.

The providential care of these first Patriarchs for the preservation and prosperity of their offspring and race is evinced in those Patriarchal scenes described not only in the Sagas of other primitive nations, but also in the sacred writings of the Hebrews; and where the hoary grand-sire imparts and transmits to his sons and grand-sons the power of his benediction, which was not a mere empty form of words, as the special inheritance of each. We see, too, that, after assigning the first rank to the eldest son, or to some favourite child, perhaps, originally chosen and preferred by God, the venerable Patriarch utters some words of warning which the succeeding history but too well justifies; or darkly indicates a deep, presentiment of some great impending calamity. But there is, in particular, a passage relative to the first great progenitor of mankind which deserves to be here noticed. When the calamitous epoch of the first fraternal contest, and the first fatal fratricide had elapsed, it is said in Holy Writ, "Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth." The first thing that must strike us in this passage is the great and humiliating inferiority which it involves. Adam was created after the likeness of Almighty God; but Seth is begotten after the likeness of Adam. Yet there is no doubt that, from the peculiar style and manner of Holy Writ, a very high pre-eminence was here conferred on Seth. For in the same way as we have seen that the Patriarchs were wont to impart their blessings to their sons and their posterity, Adam granted and communicated to Seth, as to his first-born in this second commencement of the human race, and as his inheritance and exclusive birth-right, all those prerogatives and high gifts and powers, which he himself had originally received from his Creator, and which, on his reconciliation with his God, he had once more obtained. Nothing similar is said of the other sons and daughters afterwards begotten by Adam, and through whom other nations have derived their descent from the common parent. This circumstance confirms and explains that high pre-eminence which, according to sacred tradition, was conferred on the race of Seth. As to the high powers which the father of mankind had preserved after his fall, or had a second time received, we may well suppose that, after the crime and flight of Cain, he would endeavour to retrieve his errors by the establishment of the better race of Seth, and by a consequent renovation of humanity. This is not a mere arbitrary supposition, for it is expressly said in Holy Writ that the first man, ordained to be "the father of the whole earth," (as he is there called,) became on his reconciliation with his Maker, the wisest of all men, and, according to tradition, the greatest of prophets, who, in his far-reaching ken, foresaw the destinies of all mankind, in all successive ages down to the end of the world. All this must be taken in a strict historical sense, for the moral interpretation we abandon to others. The pre-eminence of the Sethites, chosen by God, and entirely devoted to his service, must be received as an undoubted historical fact, to which we find many pointed allusions even in the traditions of the other Asiatic nations. Nay the hostility between the Sethites and Cainites, and the mutual relations of these two races, form the chief clue to the history of the primitive world, and even of many particular nations of antiquity. That, after the violent but transient interruption occasioned by the deluge, the remembrance of many things might revive, and the same or a similar hostility between the two races; which had existed in the ante-diluvian world, might be a second time displayed, is a matter which it is unnecessary to examine any further. Equally needless would it be to shew that, in the increasing degeneracy of man, every thing was soon more and more disfigured and deranged, and finally became for the most part undistinguishable, till it was afterwards a problem for the historical enquirer to reduce to the simple elements of their origin the greatest, most extraordinary and most remarkable phenomena which still remained, or were remembered, of the primitive ages.

If I think it not impossible that the Indian constitution of castes, and its most important branch, the Brahminical class--that is to say, the moral and general conception of this ancient institution, may be connected with the scriptural history and the sacred tradition respecting the race of Seth; I must observe that to this hypothesis an objection can no more be taken from the present character and moral condition of the Brahmins, than we can estimate the high gifts, the great men and the mighty Prophets, that the Almighty once accorded to the Jewish nation, or such noble natures as those of Moses and Elias, by the present fallen state of that dispersed people.

These remarks may suffice to give an idea of the most important feature in Indian society. Before I attempt to examine the second great characteristic of this people,--the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a principle which, if it has not produced, has at least given the peculiar bent to their whole philosophy; I wish to take a general view of Polytheism, particularly as our notions of it, chiefly derived from the Greeks, are by no means perfectly applicable to the primitive nations of Asia.

We are wont to regard the Grecian mythology, and its many-coloured world of fables, only as the beautiful effusion of poetry, or a playful creation of fancy; and we never think of enquiring deeply or minutely into its details, or of examining its moral import and influence. It is the more natural that the mythology of the Greeks should produce this impression on our minds, and that we should regard it in this light, as all the higher ideas and severer doctrines on the God-head, its sovereign nature and infinite might, on the eternal wisdom and providence that conducts and directs all things to their proper end, on the infinite Mind, and supreme Intelligence that created all things, and that is raised far above external nature; all these higher ideas and severer doctrines have been expounded more or less perfectly by Pythagoras, or by Anaxagoras and Socrates; and have been developed in the most beautiful and luminous manner by Plato and the philosophers that followed him. But all this did not pass into the popular religion of the Greeks, and it remained for the most part a stranger to these exalted doctrines; and, though we find in this mythology many things capable of a deeper import and more spiritual signification, yet they appear but as rare vestiges of ancient truth--vague presentiments--fugitive tones--momentary flashes, revealing a belief in a supreme Being, an almighty Creator of the universe, and the common Father of mankind.

But it is far otherwise in the Indian mythology. There, amid a sensual idolatry of nature more passionate and enthusiastic still than that of the Greeks, amid Pagan fictions and conceptions far more gigantic than those of the latter, we find almost all the truths of natural theology, not indeed without a considerable admixture of error, expressed with the utmost earnestness and dignity. We meet too, in this mythology, with the most rigidly scientific and metaphysical notions of the Supreme Being, his attributes and his relations; and it is the peculiar character of the Indian mythology to combine a gigantic wildness of fantasy, and a boundless enthusiasm for nature, with a deep mystical import, and a profound philosophic sense. If the Pythagoreans had succeeded in the design, which they in all probability entertained, of rendering their lofty notions on the Deity and on man, on the immortality of the soul, and the invisible world, more generally prevalent, and of introducing these ideas into the popular religion; as it was not their intention entirely to reject the vulgar creed, but only to mould it to their own principles, and impart to it a higher and more spiritual sense, (an attempt which was afterwards made by the New Platonists and the Emperor Julian, out of hatred to Christianity, though, as the time had then long gone by, their enterprise was attended with no permanent effects); if the Pythagoreans, we say, had succeeded in their design, the Greek mythology might then have borne some resemblance to the Indian, and we might have instituted a comparison between the two. In the Indian mythology this strange combination, this inconsistent junction of the sublimest truth with the most sensual error, of the wildest and most extravagant fiction with the most abstract metaphysics, and even the purest natural theology (if we may thus call the divine Revelation of the primitive world); this strange combination, we say, has not been the effect of artful interpolation, but the fruit of native growth and of earliest development.

We must now be on our guard not to admit too lightly or too quickly the coincidence of certain symbols and conceptions of mythology with truths and doctrines familiar to ourselves. How much, for instance, would a man err, who would suppose that there was any analogy in the Indian symbol and notion of _Trimurti_, or the divine Triad, I do not say with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, but with the opinion of either of the Platonic schools on the triple essence, or the triple Personality of the one God. In this symbol the heads of the three principal Hindoo divinities, Brahma, Vishnoo, and Siva, the Gods of creation, preservation and destruction, are united in one figure; and this union undoubtedly indicates the primary energy common to all three. If we examine each in particular, we shall see that the attributes assigned to Brahma, and the expressions usually applied to his person, when divested of their poetical garb, and mythic accompaniments, may often, almost literally and in strict truth, be referred to the Deity. The all-pervading and self-transforming Vishnoo is much more the wonderful Prometheus of nature, than a real and well defined divinity. The third in this divine Triad, the formidable and destructive Siva, has but a very remote analogy with the Deity that judges and chastises the world according to justice. This God of destruction, whose worshippers appear to have been formerly the most numerous in India, as those of Vishnoo are at the present day; this God of destruction, with his serpents and bracelets of human skulls, appears evidently to be that demon of corruption who brought death into all creation, and who here, whimsically and inconsistently enough, has been introduced into the symbol, and made a part of the Deity itself. This union or confusion of Eternal Perfection with the Evil Principle is made in another way by the Indian philosophers; as some of them explain the doctrine of Trimurti, or the divine Triad by reference to the _Traigunyan_, or the three _qualities_. These three different regions, or degrees, into which, according to the Indian doctrine, all existence is divided, are the pure world of eternal truth, or of light, the middle region of vain appearance and illusion, and the abyss of darkness. However, it must be observed that the Indians do not express the pure and metaphysical idea of the Supreme Being by either of the names of the two last-mentioned popular divinities; nor do they even denote this idea by the name of Brahma, the first person of their trinity, but by the word _Brahm_, a neuter noun which signifies the Supreme Being.