Part 43 (1/2)

[Footnote 59: Noteworthy is the fact that parts of the civaite thirteenth book seem to be most Buddhistic (ch. i.; 143. 48, etc.), and monotheistic (16. 12 ff.): though the White Islanders are made Vishnuite in the twelfth. Compare Holtzmann, _ad. loc_.]

[Footnote 60: Nirv[=a]na, loosely used; termini technici; possibly the evils of the fourth age; the mention of (Buddhist) temples, etc.]

[Footnote 61: On this point we agree neither with Weber, who regards the _avatars_ as an imitation of the Incarnation (_Ind. St._ ii. p. 169), nor with Schroeder, who (_Literatur und Cultur_, p. 330) would derive the notion from the birth-stories of Buddha. In our opinion the _avatar_-theory is older than either and is often only an a.s.similation of outlying totem-G.o.ds to the Brahman's G.o.d, or as in the case of the flood-story the necessary belief that the 'fish' must have been the G.o.d of the race. Some of these _avatars_ are Brahmanic, presumably pre-Buddhistic.]

[Footnote 62: Krishna's Geburtsfest (_janm[=a][s.]tam[=i]),_ 1867.]

[Footnote 63: Since they do not appear till after the real epic we date them tentatively as arising after 600 A.D. Most of them are in still later Pur[=a]nas.]

[Footnote 64: Incidental rapport with the Greeks has been pointed out in other instances; the _surang[=a]_, a mine, of the late tale in i. 148. 12, etc (_Ind. St._ ii. p. 395), has been equated with syrinx; Skanda with Alexander, etc. It is needless to say that each of these is only a guess in etymology. But Greek influence is perceptible in the Greek soldiers and names of (Greek) kings that are found in the epic.]

[Footnote 65: _Ind. St._ i. 423; ii. 169. Weber believes that little is native to India which resembles Christianity in the way of theology; lore of G.o.d, special grace, monotheism, all to him are stolen. We regret that we must disagree with him in these instances.]

[Footnote 66: Ekata, Dvita, Trita. A Dvita appears as early as the Rig Veda. Ekata is an a.n.a.logous formation and is old also.]

[Footnote 67: Hrish[=i]keca is 'lord of senses,' a common epithet of Vishnu (Krishna).]

[Footnote 68: i. 107. 1 ff. The spirits of the dead come to him and comfort him in the shape of birds--an old trait, compare B[=a]udh. Dh. c[=a]st. ii. 8. 14. 10; cat. Br. vi.

1. 1. 2.]

[Footnote 69: xii. 300. 20.]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PUR[=A]NAS.--EARLY SECTS, FESTIVALS, THE TRINITY.

Archaeologia, 'ancient lore,' is the meaning of Pur[=a]na _(pur[=a]na_, 'old'). The religious period represented by the extant writings of this cla.s.s is that which immediately follows the completion of the epic.[1] These works, although they contain no real history, yet reflect history very plainly, and since the advent and initial progress of Puranic Hinduism, with its various cults, is contemporary with important political changes, it will be necessary briefly to consider the circ.u.mstances in which arose these new creeds, for they were destined to become in the future the controlling force in the development of Hindu religion.

In speaking of the extension of Buddhism we showed that its growth was influenced in no small degree by the fact that this caste-less and, therefore, democratic religion was adopted by post-Alexandrine rulers in the Graeco-Bactrian period. At this time the Aryans were surrounded with foreigners and pagans. To North and South spread savage or half Hinduized native tribes, while soldiers of Greece and Bactria encamped in the valley of the Ganges. Barbarians had long been active in the North, and some scholars have even claimed that Buddha's own family was of Turanian origin. The Brahmans then as now retained their prestige only as being repositories of ancient wisdom; and outside of their own 'holy land' their influence was reduced to a minimum by the social and political tendencies that accompanied the growth of Buddhism. After the fourth century B.C. the heart of India, the 'middle district,' between the Him[=a]laya and Vindhya mountains from Delhi to Benares,[2] was trampled upon by one Graeco-Bactrian horde after another. The princ.i.p.al effect of this rude dominion was eventually to give political equality to the two great rival religions. The Buddhist and the Brahman lived at last if not harmoniously, at least pacifically, side by side. Members of the same reigning family would profess Buddhism or Brahmanism indifferently.

One king would sometimes patronize both religions. And this continued to be the case till Buddhism faded out, replaced by that Hinduism which owed its origin partly to native un-Aryan influence (paganism), partly to this century-long fusion of the two state religions.

To review these events: In the first decades of the fourth century (320 or 315-291 B.C.) Candragupta, Sandrocottos, had built up a monarchy in Beh[=a]r[3] on the ruins left by the Greek invasion, sharing his power with Seleucus in the Northwest, and had thus prepared the way for his grandson, Ac.o.ka, the great patron of Buddhism (264 or 259). This native power fell before the hosts of Northern barbarians, which, after irruptions into India in the second century, got a permanent foothold there in the first century B.C. These Northern barbarians (their nationality is uncertain), whose greatest king was Kanishka, 78 A.D., ruled for centuries the land they had seized; but they were vanquished at last in the sixth century, probably by Vikram[=a]ditya,[4] and were driven out. The breathing-s.p.a.ce between Northern barbarian and Mohammedan was nominally not a long one, but since the first Moslem conquests had no definitive result the new invaders did not quite overthrow Hindu rule till the end of the tenth century. During this period the native un-Aryan tribes, with their Hinduizing effect, were more destructive as regards the maintenance of the old Brahmanic cult than were outsiders.[5]

When Tamerlane invaded India his was the fourth invasion after the conquest of the Punj[=a]b by the Moslem in 664.[6] In 1525 the fifth conqueror, Baber, fifth too in descent from Tamerlane, founded the Mogul empire that lasted till the fall of this dynasty (nominally till 1857). But it must be remembered that each new conqueror from 997 till 1525 merely conquered old Mohammedan dynasties with new invasions. It was all one to the Hindu. He had the Mohammedan with him all this time only each new rival's success made his lot the harder, But Baber's grandson, the Great Mogul, Akbar (who reigned from 1556 to 1605), gave the land not only peace but kindness; and under him Jew, Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan at last forgot to fear or fight. After this there is only the overthrow of the Mohammedan power to record; and the rise of the Mahratta native kingdoms. A new faith resulted from the amalgamation of Hinduism with Mohammedism (after 1500), as will be shown hereafter. [8] In the pauses before the first Mohammedan invasion, and between the first defeat of the Mohammedans and their successful second conquest, the barbarians being now expelled and Buddhism being decadent, Brahmanism rallied. In the sixth century there was toleration for all faiths. In the seventh century k.u.m[=a]rila renewed the strength of Brahmanism on the ritualistic side with attacks on Buddhism, and in the ninth century cankara placed the philosophy of unsectarian pantheism on a firm basis by his commentary on the Ved[=a]nta S[=u]tra.[7] These two men are the re-makers of ancient Brahmanism, which from this time on continued in its stereotyped form, adopting Hindu G.o.ds very coyly, and only as spirits of small importance, while relying on the laws as well as the G.o.ds of old, on holy _[=a]c[=a]ra_ or 'custom,' and the now systematized exposition of its old (Upanishad) philosophy.[8] Its creative force was already spent. Buddhism, on the other hand, was dying a natural death. The time was ripe for Hinduism, which had been gathering strength for centuries. After the sixth century, and perhaps even as late as 1500, or later, were written the modern Pur[=a]nas, which embody the new belief.[9] They cannot, on account of the distinct advance in their cult, have appeared before the end of the epic age.

The breathing spell (between barbarian and complete Mohammedan conquest) which gave opportunity to k.u.m[=a]rila to take a high hand with Buddhism, was an opportunity also for the codification of the new creeds. It is, therefore, to this era that one has probably to refer the first of the modern sectarian Pur[=a]nas, though the ritualistic Tantras and [=A]gamas of the lower civaite sects doubtless belong rather to the end than to the beginning of the period. We are strengthened in this belief by the fact that the oldest of these works do not pretend to antedate k.u.m[=a]rila's century, though the sects mentioned in the epic are known in the first centuries of the Christian era. The time from the first to the seventh centuries one may accordingly suppose to have been the era during which was developing the Brahmanized form of the early Hindu sects, the literature of these and subsequent sects being composed in the centuries succeeding the latter term. These sects again divide into many subdivisions, of which we shall speak below. At present we take up the character of the Pur[=a]nas and their most important points of difference as compared with the sectarian parts of the earlier pseudo-epic, examining especially the trinitarian doctrine, which they inculcate, and its history.

Save in details, even the special 'faith-scriptures' called Tantras go no further than go the Pur[=a]nas in advocating the cult of their particular divinities. And to this advocacy of special G.o.ds all else in this cla.s.s of writings is subordinated. The ideal Pur[=a]na is divided into five parts, cosmogony, new creations, genealogies of G.o.ds and heroes, _manvantaras_ (descriptions of periodic 'ages,' past and future), and dynasties of kings. But no extant Pur[=a]na is divided thus. In the epic the doctrine of trinitarianism is barely formulated.

Even in the Harivanca, or Genealogy, _va[.n]ca_, of Vishnu, there is no more than an inverted triunity, 'one form, three G.o.ds,' where, in reality, all that is insisted upon is the ident.i.ty of Vishnu and civa, Brahm[=a] being, as it were, perfunctorily added.[10] In the Pur[=a]nas, on the other hand, while the trinity is acknowledged, religion is resolved again into a sort of sectarian monotheism, where the devotee seems to be in the midst of a squabbling horde of temple-priests, each fighting for his own idol. In the calmer aspects of religion, apart from sectarian schism, these writings offer, indeed, much that is of second-rate interest, but little that is of real value. The idle speculations in regard to former divinities are here made cobweb thin. The philosophy is not new, nor is the spirit of religion raised, even in the most inspired pa.s.sages, to the level which it has reached in the Divine Song. Some of these Pur[=a]nas, of which eighteen chief are cited, but with an unknown number of subordinate works,[11] may claim a respectable age; many of them are the most wretched stuff imaginable, bearing about the same literary and historical relation to earlier models as do the later legal Smritis. In fact, save for their religious (sectarian) purport, the Pur[=a]nas for sections together do not differ much in content from legal Smritis, out of which some may have been evolved, though, probably, they were from their inception legendary rather than didactic. It is more probable, therefore, that they appropriated Smriti material just as they did epic material; and though it is now received opinion that legal Smritis are evolved out of S[=u]tras, this yet can be the case only with the oldest, even if the statement then can be accepted in an unqualified form. In our own opinion it is highly probable that Pur[=a]nas and later legal Smritis are divergent developments from the same source.[12] One gives an account of creation, and proceeds to tell about the social side; the other sticks to the accounts of creation, goes on to theology, takes up tales of heroes, introduces speculation, is finally wrenched over to and amplified by sectarian writers, and so presents a composite that resembles epic and law, and yet is generally religious and speculative.

A striking instance of this may be seen in the law-book of 'Vishnu.'

Here there is an old base of legal lore, S[=u]tra, interlarded with Puranic material, and built up with sectarianism. The writer is a Vishnuite, and while recognizing the trinity, does not hesitate to make his law command offerings to Krishna V[=a]sudeva, and his family (Pradyumna, Aniruddha), along with the regular Brahmanic oblations to older spirits.[13] Brahmanism recognized Hindu deities as subordinate powers at an early date, at least as early as the end of the S[=u]tra period; while Manu not only recognizes Vishnu and civa (Hara), but recommends an oblation to cr[=i] and K[=a]l[=i] (Bhadrak[=a]li, here, as elsewhere, is Durg[=a]).[14]

In their original form the Pur[=a]nas were probably Hesiodic in a great extent, and doubtless contained much that was afterwards specially developed in more prolix form in the epic itself. But the works that are come down as Pur[=a]nas are in general of later sectarian character, and the epic language, phraseology, and descriptions of battles are more likely taken straight from the epic than preserved from ante-epic times. Properly speaking one ought to give first place to the Pur[=a]nas that are incorporated into the epic. The epic M[=a]rkandeya Pur[=a]na, for instance, is probably a good type of one of the earlier works that went by this name. That the present Pur[=a]nas are imitations of the epic, in so far as they treat of epic topics, may be presumed from the fact that although they often have the formulae intact of the battlefield,[15] yet do they not remain by epic descriptions but add weapons, etc., of more modern date than are employed in the original.[16]

The sectarian monotheism of the Pur[=a]nas never resulted in dispensing with the pantheon. The Hindu monotheist is a pantheist, and whether sectarian or philosophical, he kept and added to his pantheon.[17] Indra is still for warriors, Maruts for husbandmen, although old views s.h.i.+ft somewhat. So for example, in the K[=u]rma Pur[=a]na the Gandharvas are added for the c[=u]dras.[18] The fourfoldness, which we have shown in the epic to be characteristic of Vishnu, is now represented by the military epithet _caturvy[=u]has_ (agmen quadratum), in that the G.o.d represents peace, wisdom, support, and renunciation; though, as a matter of fact, he is _avy[=u]ha, i.e_., without any of these.[19] Starting with the physical 'G.o.d of the four quarters,' one gets even in the epic the 'controller of four,' or perfect person, conceived like [Greek: aner tetragonos].

Tennyson's 'four-square to all the winds that blow' is a good connecting link in the thought. The Pur[=a]nas are a mine of legend, although most of the stories seem to be but epic tales, more or less distorted. Nala 'the great-great-grandson of R[=a]ma' is described after the history of R[=a]ma himself; the installation of P[=u]ru, when his father had pa.s.sed over his eldest son, and such reminiscences of the epic are the stock in trade of the legendary writers.[20]