Part 22 (1/2)

Distinct from the wors.h.i.+p offered to these primitive ancestors, is the reverence which from an early time was felt to be due by children to their departed father, soon also to their grandfather, and great-grandfather. The ceremonies in which these more personal feelings found expression were of a more domestic character, and allowed therefore of greater local variety.

It would be quite impossible to give here even an abstract only of the minute regulations which have been preserved to us in the Brahma_n_as, the _S_rauta, G_ri_hya, and Samaya_k_arika Sutras, the Law-books, and a ma.s.s of later manuals on the performance of endless rites, all intended to honor the Departed. Such are the minute prescriptions as to times and seasons, as to altars and offerings, as to the number and shape of the sacrificial vessels, as to the proper postures of the sacrificers, and the different arrangements of the vessels, that it is extremely difficult to catch hold of what we really care for, namely, the thoughts and intentions of those who first devised all these intricacies. Much has been written on this cla.s.s of sacrifices by European scholars also, beginning with Colebrooke's excellent essays on ”The Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus,” first published in the ”Asiatic Researches,” vol. v. Calcutta, 1798. But when we ask the simple question, What was the thought from whence all this outward ceremonial sprang, and what was the natural craving of the human heart which it seemed to satisfy, we hardly get an intelligible answer anywhere. It is true that _S_raddhas continue to be performed all over India to the present day, but we know how widely the modern ceremonial has diverged from the rules laid down in the old _S_astras, and it is quite clear from the descriptions given to us by recent travellers that no one can understand the purport even of these survivals of the old ceremonial, unless he understands Sanskrit and can read the old Sutras. We are indeed told in full detail how the cakes were made which the Spirits wore supposed to eat, how many stalks of gra.s.s were to be used on which they had to be offered, how long each stalk ought to be, and in what direction it should be held. All the things which teach us nothing are explained to us in abundance, but the few things which the true scholar really cares for are pa.s.sed over, as if they had no interest to us at all, and have to be discovered under heaps of rubbish.

In order to gain a little light, I think we ought to distinguish between--

1. The daily ancestral sacrifice, the Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, as one of the five Great Sacrifices (Mahaya_gn_as);

2. The monthly ancestral sacrifice, the Pi_nd_a-pit_ri_-ya_gn_a, as part of the New and Full-moon sacrifice;

3. The funeral ceremonies on the death of a householder;

4. The Agapes, or feasts of love and charity, commonly called _S_raddhas, at which food and other charitable gifts were bestowed on deserving persons in memory of the deceased ancestors. The name of _S_raddha belongs properly to this last cla.s.s only, but it has been transferred to the second and third cla.s.s of sacrifices also, because _S_raddha formed an important part in them.

The daily Pit_ri_ya_gn_a or Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is one of the five sacrifices, sometimes called the Great Sacrifices,[293] which every married man ought to perform day by day. They are mentioned in the G_ri_hya-sutras (a_s_v. III. 1), as Devaya_gn_a, for the Devas, Bhutaya_gn_a, for animals, etc., Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, for the Fathers, Brahmaya_gn_a, for Brahman, _i.e._ study of the Veda, and Ma.n.u.shyaya_gn_a, for men, _i.e._ hospitality, etc.

Manu (III. 70) tells us the same, namely, that a married man has five great religious duties to perform:

1. The Brahma-sacrifice, _i.e._ the studying and teaching of the Veda (sometimes called Ahuta).

2. The Pit_ri_-sacrifice, _i.e._ the offering of cakes and water to the Manes (sometimes called Pra_s_ita).

3. The Deva-sacrifice, _i.e._ the offering of oblations to the G.o.ds (sometimes called Huta).

4. The Bhuta-sacrifice, _i.e._ the giving of food to living creatures (sometimes called Prahuta).

5. The Ma.n.u.shya-sacrifice, _i.e._ the receiving of guests with hospitality (sometimes called Brahmya huta).[294]

The performance of this daily Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, seems to have been extremely simple. The householder had to put his sacred cord on the right shoulder, to say ”Svadha to the Fathers,” and to throw the remains of certain offerings toward the south.[295]

The human impulse to this sacrifice, if sacrifice it can be called, is clear enough. The five ”great sacrifices” comprehended in early times the whole duty of man from day to day. They were connected with his daily meal.[296] When this meal was preparing, and before he could touch it himself, he was to offer something to the G.o.ds, a Vai_s_vadeva offering,[297] in which the chief deities were Agni, fire, Soma the Vi_s_ve Devas, Dhanvantari, the kind of aesculapius, Kuhu and Anumati (phases of the moon), Pra_g_apati, lord of creatures, Dyava-p_ri_thivi, Heaven and Earth, and Svish_t_ak_ri_t, the fire on the hearth.[298]

After having thus satisfied the G.o.ds in the four quarters, the householder had to throw some oblations into the open air, which were intended for animals, and in some cases for invisible beings, ghosts and such like. Then he was to remember the Departed, the Pit_ri_s, with some offerings; but even after having done this he was not yet to begin his own repast, unless he had also given something to strangers (at.i.this).

When all this had been fulfilled, and when, besides, the householder, as we should say, had said his daily prayers, or repeated what he had learned of the Veda, then and then only was he in harmony with the world that surrounded him, the five Great Sacrifices had been performed by him, and he was free from all the sins arising from a thoughtless and selfish life.

This Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, as one of the five daily sacrifices, is described in the Brahma_n_as, the G_ri_hya and Samaya_k_arika Sutras, and, of course, in the legal Sa_m_hitas. Rajendralal Mitra[299] informs us that ”orthodox Brahmans to this day profess to observe all these five ceremonies, but that in reality only the offerings to the G.o.ds and manes are strictly observed, while the reading is completed by the repet.i.tion of the Gayatri only, and charity and feeding of animals are casual and uncertain.”

Quite different from this simple daily ancestral offering is the Pit_ri_ya_gn_a or Pi_nd_a-pit_ri_ya_gn_a, which forms part of many of the statutable sacrifices, and, first of all, of the New and Full-moon sacrifice. Here again the human motive is intelligible enough. It was the contemplation of the regular course of nature, the discovery of order in the coming and going of the heavenly bodies, the growing confidence in some ruling power of the world which lifted man's thoughts from his daily work to higher regions, and filled his heart with a desire to approach these higher powers with praise, thanksgiving, and offerings. And it was at such moments as the waning of the moon that his thoughts would most naturally turn to those whose life had waned, whose bright faces were no longer visible on earth, his fathers or ancestors. Therefore at the very beginning of the New-moon sacrifice, we are told in the Brahma_n_as[300] and in the _S_rauta-sutras, that a Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, a sacrifice to the Fathers, has to be performed. A _K_aru or pie had to be prepared in the Daks.h.i.+_n_agni, the southern fire, and the offerings, consisting of water and round cakes (pi_nd_as), were specially dedicated to father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, while the wife of the sacrificer, if she wished for a son, was allowed to eat one of the cakes.[301]

Similar ancestral offerings took place during other sacrifices too, of which the New and Full-moon sacrifices form the general type.

It may be quite true that these two kinds of ancestral sacrifices have the same object and share the same name, but their character is different; and if, as has often been the case, they are mixed up together, we lose the most important lessons which a study of the ancient ceremonial should teach us. I cannot describe the difference between these two Pit_ri_ya_gn_as more decisively than by pointing out that the former was performed by the father of a family, or, if we may say so, by a layman, the latter by a regular priest, or a cla.s.s of priests, selected by the sacrificer to act in his behalf. As the Hindus themselves would put it, the former is a g_ri_hya, a domestic, the latter a _s_rauta, a priestly ceremony.[302]

We now come to a third cla.s.s of ceremonies which are likewise domestic and personal, but which differ from the two preceding ceremonies by their occasional character, I mean the funeral, as distinct from the ancestral ceremonies. In one respect these funeral ceremonies may represent an earlier phase of wors.h.i.+p than the daily and monthly ancestral sacrifices. They lead up to them, and, as it were, prepare the departed for their future dignity as Pit_ri_s or Ancestors. On the other hand, the conception of Ancestors in general must have existed before any departed person could have been raised to that rank, and I therefore preferred to describe the ancestral sacrifices first.

Nor need I enter here very fully into the character of the special funeral ceremonies of India. I described them in a special paper, ”On Sepulture and Sacrificial Customs in the Veda,” nearly thirty years ago.[303] Their spirit is the same as that of the funeral ceremonies of Greeks, Romans, Slavonic, and Teutonic nations, and the coincidences between them all are often most surprising.

In Vedic times the people in India both burned and buried their dead, and they did this with a certain solemnity, and, after a time, according to fixed rules. Their ideas about the status of the departed, after their body had been burned and their ashes buried, varied considerably, but in the main they seem to have believed in a life to come, not very different from our life on earth, and in the power of the departed to confer blessings on their descendants. It soon therefore became the interest of the survivors to secure the favor of their departed friends by observances and offerings which, at first, were the spontaneous manifestation of human feelings, but which soon became traditional, technical, in fact, ritual.

On the day on which the corpse had been burned, the relatives (samanodakas) bathed and poured out a handful of water to the deceased, p.r.o.nouncing his name and that of his family.[304] At sunset they returned home, and, as was but natural, they were told to cook nothing during the first night, and to observe certain rules during the next day up to ten days, according to the character of the deceased. These were days of mourning, or, as they were afterward called, days of impurity, when the mourners withdrew from contact with the world, and shrank by a natural impulse from the ordinary occupations and pleasures of life.[305]