Volume I Part 23 (1/2)
His role is that of the great Hare in American myth; he is a kind of demiurge, and his name means ”The Master of Things Created,” like the Australian Biamban, ”Master,” and the American t.i.tle of the chief Manitou, ”Master of Life”,(1) Dr. Muir remarks that, as the Vedic mind advances from mere divine beings who ”reside and operate in fire”
(Agni), ”dwell and s.h.i.+ne in the sun” (Surya), or ”in the atmosphere”
(Indra), towards a conception of deity, ”the farther step would be taken of speaking of the deity under such new names as Visvakarman and Praj.a.pati”. These are ”appellatives which do not designate any limited functions connected with any single department of Nature, but the more general and abstract notions of divine power operating in the production and government of the universe”. Now the interesting point is that round this new and abstract NAME gravitate the most savage and crudest myths, exactly the myths we meet among Hottentots and Nootkas. For example, among the Hottentots it is Heitsi Eibib, among the Huarochiri Indians it is Uiracocha, who confers, by curse or blessing, on the animals their proper attributes and characteristics.(2) In the Satapatha Brahmana it is Praj.a.pati who takes this part, that falls to rude culture-heroes of Hottentots and Huarochiris.(3) How Praj.a.pati made experiments in a kind of state-aided evolution, so to speak, or evolution superintended and a.s.sisted from above, will presently be set forth.
(1) Bergaigne, iii. 40.
(2) Avila, Fables of the Yncas, p. 127.
(3) English translation, ii. 361.
In the Puranas creation is a process renewed after each kalpa, or vast mundane period. Brahma awakes from his slumber, and finds the world a waste of water. Then, just as in the American myths of the coyote, and the Slavonic myths of the devil and the doves, a boar or a fish or a tortoise fishes up the world out of the waters. That boar, fish, tortoise, or what not, is Brahma or Vishnu. This savage conception of the beginnings of creation in the act of a tortoise, fish, or boar is not first found in the Puranas, as Mr. Muir points out, but is indicated in the Black Yajur Veda and in the Satapatha Brahmana.(1) In the Satapatha Brahmana, xiv. 1, 2, 11, we discover the idea, so common in savage myths--for example, in that of the Navajoes--that the earth was at first very small, a mere patch, and grew bigger after the animal fished it up. ”Formerly this earth was only so large, of the size of a span. A boar called Emusha raised her up.” Here the boar makes no pretence of being the incarnation of a G.o.d, but is a mere boar sans phrase, like the creative coyote of the Papogas and Chinooks, or the musk-rat of the Tacullies. This is a good example of the development of myths. Savages begin, as we saw, by mythically regarding various animals, spiders, gra.s.shoppers, ravens, eagles, c.o.c.katoos, as the creators or recoverers of the world. As civilisation advances, those animals still perform their beneficent functions, but are looked on as G.o.ds in disguise. In time the animals are often dropped altogether, though they hold their place with great tenacity in the cosmogonic traditions of the Aryans in India. When we find the Satapatha Brahmana alleging(2) ”that all creatures are descended from a tortoise,” we seem to be among the rude Indians of the Pacific Coast. But when the tortoise is identified with Aditya, and when Adityas prove to be solar deities, sons of Aditi, and when Aditi is recognised by Mr. Muller as the Dawn, we see that the Aryan mind has not been idle, but has added a good deal to the savage idea of the descent of men and beasts from a tortoise.(3)
(1) Muir, 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 52.
(2) Muir, 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 54.
(3) See Ternaux Compans' Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, lx.x.xvi. p. 5.
For Mexican traditions, ”Mexican and Australian Hurricane World's End,”
Bancroft, v. 64.
Another feature of savage myths of creation we found to be the introduction of a crude theory of evolution. We saw that among the Potoyante tribe of the Digger Indians, and among certain Australian tribes, men and beasts were supposed to have been slowly evolved and improved out of the forms first of reptiles and then of quadrupeds. In the mythologies of the more civilised South American races, the idea of the survival of the fittest was otherwise expressed. The G.o.ds made several attempts at creation, and each set of created beings proving in one way or other unsuited to its environment, was permitted to die out or degenerated into apes, and was succeeded by a set better adapted for survival.(1) In much the same way the Satapatha Brahmana(2) represents mammals as the last result of a series of creative experiments.
”Praj.a.pati created living beings, which perished for want of food. Birds and serpents perished thus. Praj.a.pati reflected, 'How is it that my creatures perish after having been formed?' He perceived this: 'They perish from want of food'. In his own presence he caused milk to be supplied to b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He created living beings, which, resorting to the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, were thus preserved. These are the creatures which did not perish.”
(1) This myth is found in Popol Vuh. A Chinook myth of the same sort, Bancroft, v. 95.
(2) ii. 5, 11; Muir, 2nd edit., i. 70.
The common myth which derives the world from a great egg--the myth perhaps most familiar in its Finnish shape--is found in the Satapatha Brahmana.(1) ”In the beginning this universe was waters, nothing but waters. The waters desired: 'How can we be reproduced?' So saying, they toiled, they performed austerity. While they were performing austerity, a golden egg came into existence. It then became a year.... From it in a year a man came into existence, who was Praj.a.pati.... He conceived progeny in himself; with his mouth he created the G.o.ds.” According to another text,(2) ”Praj.a.pati took the form of a tortoise”. The tortoise is the same as Aditya.(3)
(1) xi. 1, 6, 1; Muir, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, 1863.
(2) Satapatha Brahmana, vii. 4, 3, 5.
(3) Aitareya Brahmana, iii. 34 (11, 219), a very discreditable origin of species.
It is now time to examine the Aryan shape of the widely spread myth about the marriage of heaven and earth, and the fortunes of their children. We have already seen that in New Zealand heaven and earth were regarded as real persons, of bodily parts and pa.s.sions, united in a secular embrace. We shall apply the same explanation to the Greek myth of Gaea and of the mutilation of Cronus. In India, Dyaus (heaven) answers to the Greek Ura.n.u.s and the Maori Rangi, while Prithivi (earth) is the Greek Gaea, the Maori Papa. In the Veda, heaven and earth are constantly styled ”parents”;(1) but this we might regard as a mere metaphorical expression, still common in poetry. A pa.s.sage of the Aitareya Brahmana, however, retains the old conception, in which there was nothing metaphorical at all.(2) These two worlds, heaven and earth, were once joined. Subsequently they were separated (according to one account, by Indra, who thus plays the part of Cronus and of Tane Mahuta). ”Heaven and earth,” says Dr. Muir, ”are regarded as the parents not only of men, but of the G.o.ds also, as appears from the various texts where they are designated by the epithet Devapatre, 'having G.o.ds for their children'.” By men in an early stage of thought this myth was accepted along with others in which heaven and earth were regarded as objects created by one of their own children, as by Indra,(3) who ”stretched them out like a hide,” who, like Atlas, ”sustains and upholds them”(4) or, again, Tvashtri, the divine smith, wrought them by his craft; or, once more, heaven and earth sprung from the head and feet of Purusha. In short, if any one wished to give an example of that recklessness of orthodoxy or consistency which is the mark of early myth, he could find no better example than the Indian legends of the origin of things. Perhaps there is not one of the myths current among the lower races which has not its counterpart in the Indian Brahmanas.
It has been enough for us to give a selection of examples.
(1) Muir, v. 22.