Volume I Part 22 (2/2)
(1) Rig-Veda, x. 90; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., i. 9.
”Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. On every side enveloping the earth, he overpa.s.sed (it) by a s.p.a.ce of ten fingers. Purusha himself is this whole (universe), whatever is and whatever shall be.... When the G.o.ds performed a sacrifice with Purusha as the oblation, the spring was its b.u.t.ter, the summer its fuel, and the autumn its (accompanying) offering. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they immolated on the sacrificial gra.s.s. With him the G.o.ds, the Sadhyas, and the Ris.h.i.+s sacrificed. From that universal sacrifice were provided curds and b.u.t.ter. It formed those aerial (creatures) and animals both wild and tame. From that universal sacrifice sprang the Ric and Saman verses, the metres and Yajush. From it sprang horses, and all animals with two rows of teeth; kine sprang from it; from it goats and sheep. When (the G.o.ds) divided Purusha, into how many parts did they cut him up? What was his mouth? What arms (had he)? What (two objects) are said (to have been) his thighs and feet? The Brahman was his mouth; the Rajanya was made his arms; the being (called) the Vaisya, he was his thighs; the Sudra sprang from his feet. The moon sprang from his soul (Mahas), the sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his mouth, and Yaiyu from his breath. From his navel arose the air, from his head the sky, from his feet the earth, from his ear the (four) quarters; in this manner (the G.o.ds) formed the world. When the G.o.ds, performing sacrifice, bound Purusha as a victim, there were seven sticks (stuck up) for it (around the fire), and thrice seven pieces of fuel were made. With sacrifice the G.o.ds performed the sacrifice. These were the earliest rites. These great powers have sought the sky, where are the former Sadhyas, G.o.ds.”
The myth here stated is plain enough in its essential facts. The G.o.ds performed a sacrifice with a gigantic anthropomorphic being (Purusha = Man) as the victim. Sacrifice is not found, as a rule, in the religious of the most backward races of all; it is, relatively, an innovation, as shall be shown later. His head, like the head of Ymir, formed the sky, his eye the sun, animals sprang from his body. The four castes are connected with, and it appears to be implied that they sprang from, his mouth, arms, thighs and feet. It is obvious that this last part of the myth is subsequent to the formation of castes. This is one of the chief arguments for the late date of the hymn, as castes are not distinctly recognised elsewhere in the Rig-Veda. Mr. Max Muller(1) believes the hymn to be ”modern both in its character and in its diction,” and this opinion he supports by philological arguments. Dr. Muir(2) says that the hymn ”has every character of modernness both in its diction and ideas”.
Dr Haug, on the other hand,(3) in a paper read in 1871, admits that the present form of the hymn is not older than the greater part of the hymns of the tenth book, and than those of the Atharva Veda; but he adds, ”The ideas which the hymn contains are certainly of a primeval antiquity....
In fact, the hymn is found in the Yajur-Veda among the formulas connected with human sacrifices, which were formerly practised in India.” We have expressly declined to speak about ”primeval antiquity,”
as we have scarcely any evidence as to the myths and mental condition for example, even of palaeolithic man; but we may so far agree with Dr. Haug as to affirm that the fundamental idea of the Purusha Sukta, namely, the creation of the world or portions of the world out of the fragments of a fabulous anthropomorphic being is common to Chaldeans, Iroquois, Egyptians, Greeks, Tinnehs, Mangaians and Aryan Indians. This is presumptive proof of the antiquity of the ideas which Dr. Muir and Mr. Max Muller think relatively modern. The savage and brutal character of the invention needs no demonstration. Among very low savages, for example, the Tinnehs of British North America, not a man, not a G.o.d, but a DOG, is torn up, and the fragments are made into animals.(4) On the Paloure River a beaver suffers in the manner of Purusha. We may, for these reasons, regard the chief idea of the myth as extremely ancient--infinitely more ancient than the diction of the hymn.
(1) Ancient Sanskrit Literature, 570.
(2) Sanskrit Texts, 2nd edit., i. 12.
(3) Sanskrit Text, 2nd edit., ii. 463.
(4) Hearne's Journey, pp. 342-343.
As to the mention of the castes, supposed to be a comparatively modern inst.i.tution, that is not an essential part of the legend. When the idea of creation out of a living being was once received it was easy to extend the conception to any inst.i.tution, of which the origin was forgotten. The Teutonic race had a myth which explained the origin of the cla.s.ses eorl, ceorl and thrall (earl, churl and slave). A South American people, to explain the different ranks in society, hit on the very myth of Plato, the legend of golden, silver and copper races, from which the ranks of society have descended. The Vedic poet, in our opinion, merely extended to the inst.i.tution of caste a myth which had already explained the origin of the sun, the firmament, animals, and so forth, on the usual lines of savage thought. The Purusha Sukta is the type of many other Indian myths of creation, of which the following(1) one is extremely noteworthy. ”Praj.a.pati desired to propagate. He formed the Trivrit (stoma) from his mouth. After it were produced the deity Agni, the metre Gayatri,... of men the Brahman, of beasts the goat;...
from his breast, and from his arms he formed the Panchadasa (stoma).
After it were created the G.o.d Indra, the Trishtubh metre,... of men the Rajanya, of beasts the sheep. Hence they are vigorous, because they were created from vigour. From his middle he formed the Saptadasa (stoma).
After it were created the G.o.ds called the Yisvadevas, the Jagati metre,... of men the Vaisya, of beasts kine. Hence they are to be eaten, because they were created from the receptacle of food.” The form in which we receive this myth is obviously later than the inst.i.tution of caste and the technical names for metres. Yet surely any statement that kine ”are to be eaten” must be older than the universal prohibition to eat that sacred animal the cow. Possibly we might argue that when this theory of creation was first promulgated, goats and sheep were forbidden food.(2)
(1) Taittirya Sanhita, or Yajur-Veda, vii. i. 1-4; Muir, 2nd edit., i.
15.
(2) Mr. M'Lennan has drawn some singular inferences from this pa.s.sage, connecting, as it does, certain G.o.ds and certain cla.s.ses of men with certain animals, in a manner somewhat suggestive of totemism (Fornightly Review), February, 1870.
Turning from the Vedas to the Brahmanas, we find a curiously savage myth of the origin of species.(1) According to this pa.s.sage of the Brahmana, ”this universe was formerly soul only, in the form of Purusha”. He caused himself to fall asunder into two parts. Thence arose a husband and a wife. ”He cohabited with her; from them men were born. She reflected, 'How does he, after having produced me from himself, cohabit with me? Ah, let me disappear.' She became a cow, and the other a bull, and he cohabited with her. From them kine were produced.” After a series of similar metamorphoses of the female into all animal shapes, and a similar series of pursuits by the male in appropriate form, ”in this manner pairs of all sorts of creatures down to ants were created”. This myth is a parallel to the various Greek legends about the amours in b.e.s.t.i.a.l form of Zeus, Nemesis, Cronus, Demeter and other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. In the Brahmanas this myth is an explanation of the origin of species, and such an explanation as could scarcely have occurred to a civilised mind. In other myths in the Brahmanas, Praj.a.pati creates men from his body, or rather the fluid of his body becomes a tortoise, the tortoise becomes a man (purusha), with similar examples of speculation.(2)
(1) Satapatha Brahmana, xiv. 4, 2; Muir, 2nd edit., i. 25.
(2) Similar tales are found among the Khonds.
Among all these Brahmana myths of the part taken by Praj.a.pati in the creation or evoking of things, the question arises who WAS Praj.a.pati?
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