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For some thousands of years these verses have been the daily prayer of the Hindu. They have been incorporated into the ritual in this form. They are rubricated, and the nine stanzas form part of a prescribed service. But, surely, it were a literary hysteron-proteron to conclude for this reason that they were made only to fill a part in an established ceremony.

The praise is neither perfunctory nor lacking in a really religious tone. It has a directness and a simplicity, without affectation, which would incline one to believe that it was not made mechanically, but composed with a devotional spirit that gave voice to genuine feeling.

We will now translate another poem , a hymn

Aloft the lights of Dawn, for beauty gleaming, Have risen resplendent, like to waves of water; She makes fair paths, all accessible; And good is she, munificent and kindly.

Thou lovely lookest, through wide spaces shin'st thou, Up fly thy fiery shining beams to heaven; Thy bosom thou reveals't, thyself adorning, Aurora, goddess gleaming bright in greatness.

The ruddy kine resplendent bear her, The blessed One, who far and wide extendeth. As routs his foes a hero armed with arrows, As driver swift, so she compels the darkness.

Thy ways are fair; thy paths, upon the mountains; In calm, self-shining one, thou cross'st the waters. O thou whose paths are wide, to us, thou lofty Daughter of Heaven, bring wealth for our subsistence.

Bring , thou Dawn, who, with the kine, untroubled Dost bring us good commensurate with pleasure, Daughter of Heaven, who, though thou art a goddess, Didst aye at morning-call come bright and early.

Aloft the birds fly ever from their dwelling, And men, who seek for food, at thy clear dawning. E'en though a mortal stay at home and serve thee, Much joy to him, Dawn, goddess , thou bringest.

The "morning call" might, indeed, suggest the ritual, but it proves only a morning prayer or offering. Is this poem of a "singularly refined character," or "pre?minently sacerdotal" in appearance? One other example may be examined, to see if it bear on its face evidence of having been made with "reference to ritual application," or of being "liturgical from the very start."

'Tis Indra all songs extol, Him huge as ocean in extent; Of warriors chiefest warrior he, Lord, truest lord for booty's gain.

In friendship, Indra, strong as thine Naught will we fear, O lord of strength; To thee we our laudations sing, The conqueror unconquered.

The gifts of Indra many are, And inexhaustible his help Whene'er to them that praise he gives The gift of booty rich in kine.

A fortress-render, youthful, wise, Immeasurably strong was born Indra, the doer of every deed, The lightning-holder, far renowned.

'Twas thou, Bolt-holder, rent'st the cave Of Val, who held the kine; Thee helped the gods, when roused by the fearless one.

Indra, who lords it by his strength, Our praises now have loud proclaimed; His generous gifts a thousand are, Aye, even more than this are they.

This is poetry. Not great poetry perhaps, but certainly not ground out to order, as some of the hymns appear to have been. Yet, it may be said, why could not a poetic hymn have been written in a ritualistic environment? But it is on the hymns themselves that one is forced to depend for the belief in the existence of ritualism, and we claim that such hymns as these, which we have translated as literally as possible, show rather that they were composed without reference to ritual application. It must not be forgotten that the ritual, as it is known in the Brhmanas, without the slightest doubt, from the point of view of language, social conditions, and theology, represents an age that is very different to that illustrated by the mass of the hymns. Such hymns, therefore, and only such as can be proved to have a ritualistic setting can be referred to a ritualistic age. There is no convincing reason why one should not take the fully justified view that some of the hymns represent a freer and more natural age, as they represent a spirit freer and less mechanical than that of other hymns. As to the question which hymns, early or late, be due to poetic feeling, and which to ritualistic mechanism or servile imitation, this can indeed be decided by a judgment based only on the literary quality, never on the accident of subsequent rubrication.

In respect of the method of reading into the Rig Veda what is found in parallel passages in the Atharva Veda and Brhmanas, a practice much favored by Ludwig and others, the results of its application have been singularly futile in passages of importance. Often a varied reading will make clearer a doubtful verse, but it by no means follows that the better reading is the truer. There always remains the lurking suspicion that the reason the variant is more intelligible is that its inventor did not understand the original. As to real elucidation of other sort by the later texts, in the minutiae of the outer world, in details of priestcraft, one may trust early tradition tentatively, just as one does late commentators, but in respect of ideas tradition is as apt to mislead as to lead well. The cleft between the theology of the Rig Veda and that of the Brhmanas, even from the point of view of the mass of hymns that comprise the former, is too great to allow us with any content to explain the conceptions of the one by those of the other. A tradition always is useful when nothing else offers itself, but traditional beliefs are so apt to take the color of new eras that they should be employed only in the last emergency, and then with the understanding that they are of very hypothetical value.

DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT.

The Vedic period is followed by what is usually termed Brahmanism, the religion that is inculcated in the rituals called Brhmana and its later development in the Upanishads. These two classes of works, together with the Yajur Veda, will make the next divisions of the whole subject. The formal religion of Brahmanism, as laid down for popular use and instruction in the law-books, is a side of Brahmanic religion that scarcely has been noticed, but it seems to deserve all the space allotted to it in the chapter on 'The Popular Brahmanic Faith.' We shall then review Jainism and Buddhism, the two chief heresies. Brahmanism penetrates the great epic poem which, however, in its present form is sectarian in tendency, and should be separated as a growth of Hinduism from the literature of pure Brahmanism. Nevertheless, so intricate and perplexing would be the task of unraveling the theologic threads that together make the yarn of the epic, and in many cases it would be so doubtful whether any one thread led to Brahmanism or to the wider and more catholic religion called Hinduism, that we should have preferred to give up the latter name altogether, as one that was for the most part idle, and in some degree misleading. Feeling, however, that a mere manual should not take the initiative in coining titles, we have admitted this unsatisfactory word 'Hinduism' as the title of a chapter which undertakes to give a comprehensive view of the religions endorsed by the many-centuried epic, and to explain their mutual relations. As in the case of the 'Popular Faith,' we have had here no models to go upon, and the mass of matter which it was necessary to handle--the great epic is about eight times as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together--must be our excuse for many imperfections of treatment in this part of the work. The reader will gain at least a view of the religious development as it is exhibited in the literature, and therefore, as, far as possible, in chronological order. The modern sects and the religions of the hill tribes of India form almost a necessary supplement to these nobler religions of the classical literature; the former because they are the logical as well as historical continuation of the great Hindu sectarian schisms, the latter because they give the solution of some problems connected with ?ivaism, and, on the other hand, offer useful un-Aryan parallels to a few traits which have been preserved in the earliest period of the Aryans.

FOOTNOTES:

PEOPLE AND LAND.

The Aryan Hindus, whose religions we describe in this volume, formed one of the Aryan or so-called Indo-European peoples. To the other peoples of this stock, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, Italians, Kelts, Teutons, Slavs, the Hindus were related closely by language, but very remotely from the point of view of their primitive religion. Into India the Aryans brought little that was retained in their religious systems. A few waning gods, the worship of ancestors, and some simple rites are common to them and their western relations; but with the exception of the Iranians , their religious connection with cis-Indic peoples is of the slightest. With the Iranians, the Hindus appear to have lived longest in common after the other members of the Aryan host were dispersed to west and south. They stand in closer religious touch with these, their nearest neighbors, and in the time of the Rig Veda there are traces of a connection comparatively recent between the pantheons of the two nations.

Between the Rig Veda and the formation or completion of the next Veda, called the Atharvan, the interval appears to have been considerable, and the inherent value of the religion inculcated in the latter can be estimated aright only when this is weighed together with the fact, that, as is learned from the Atharvan's own statements, the Aryans were now advanced further southwards and eastwards, had discovered a new land, made new gods, and were now more permanently established, the last a factor of some moment in the religious development. Indications of the difference in time may be seen in the geographical and physical limitations of the older period as compared with those of the later Atharvan. When first the Aryans are found in India, at the time of the Rig Veda, they are located, for the most part, near the Upper Indus . The Ganges, mentioned but twice, is barely known. On the west the Aryans lingered in East Kabulistan ; and even Kandahar appears, at least, to be known as Aryan. That is to say, the 'Hindus' were still in Afghanistan, although the greater mass of the people had already crossed the Indus and were progressed some distance to the east of the Punjb. That the race was still migrating may be seen from the hymns of the Rig Veda itself. Their journey was to the south-east, and both before and after they reached the Indus they left settlements, chiefly about the Indus and in the Punjb , not in the southern but in the northern part of this district.

The Vedic Aryans of this first period were acquainted with the Indus, Sutlej , Beas , Ravi ; the pair of rivers that unite and flow into the Indus, viz.: Jhelum , and Chinb ; and knew the remoter Kubh and the northern Suvstu ; while they appear to have had a legendary remembrance of the Ras, Avestan Raha , supposed by some to be identical with the Araxes or Yaxartes, but probably only a vague 'stream,' the old name travelling with them on their wanderings; for one would err if he regarded similarity or even identity of appellation as a proof of real identity. West of the Indus the Kurum and Gomal appear to be known also. Many rivers are mentioned of which the names are given, but their location is not established. It is from the district west of the Indus that the most famous Sanskrit grammarian comes, and long after the Vedas an Indic people are known in the Kandahar district, while Kashmeer was a late home of culture. The Sarasvati river, the name of which is transferred at least once in historical times, may have been originally one with the Arghandb , for the Persian name of this river is Harahvati , and it is possible that it was really this river, and not the Indus which was first lauded as the Sarasvat. In that case there would be a perfect parallel to what has probably happened in the case of the Ras, the name--in both cases meaning only 'the stream' --being transferred to a new river. But since the Iranian Harahvati fixes the first river of this name, there is here a stronger proof of Indo-Iranian community than is furnished by other examples.

These facts or suggestive parallels of names are of exceeding importance. They indicate between the Vedic Aryans and the Iranians a connection much closer than usually has been assumed. The bearings of such a connection on the religious ideas of the two peoples are self-evident, and will often have to be touched upon in the course of this history. It is of less importance, from the present point of view, to say how the Aryans entered India, but since this question is also connected with that of the religious environment of the first Hindu poets, it will be well to state that, although, as some scholars maintain, and as we believe, the Hindus may have come with the Iranians through the open pass of Herat , it is possible that they parted from the latter south of the Hindukush , and that the two peoples thence diverged south-east and south-west respectively. Neither assumption would prevent the country lying between the Harahvati and Vitast from being, for generations, a common camping-ground for both peoples, who were united still, but gradually diverging. This seems, at least, to be the most reasonable explanation of the fact that these two rivers are to each people their farthest known western and eastern limits respectively. With the exception of the vague and uncertain Ras, the Vedic Hindu's geographical knowledge is limited by Kandahar in the west, as is the Iranian's in the east by the Vitast. North of the Vitast Mount Tricota is venerated, and this together with a Mount Mjavat, of which the situation is probably in the north, is the extent of modern knowledge in respect of the natural boundaries of the Vedic people. One hears, to be sure, at a later time, of 'northern Kurus,' whose felicity is proverbial; and it is very tempting to find in this name a connection with the Iranian Kur, but the Kurus, like the Ras and Sarasvat, are re-located once , and no similarity of name can assure one of a true connection. If not coincidences, such likenesses are too vague to be valuable historically.

Another much disputed point must be spoken of in connection with this subject. In the Veda and in the Avesta there is mentioned the land of the 'seven rivers.' Now seven rivers are often spoken of in the Rig Veda, but only once does this term mean the country, while in the 'Hymn to the Rivers' no less than twenty-one streams are enumerated . In order to make out the 'seven rivers' scholars have made different combinations, that most in favor being M?ller's, the five rivers of the Punjb together with the Kabul and Sarasvat. But in point of fact 'seven' quite as often means many, as it does an exact number, and this, the older use, may well be applied here. It is quite impossible to identify the seven, and it is probable that no Vedic poet ever imagined them to be a group of this precise number. It would be far easier to select a group of seven conspicuous rivers, if anywhere, on the west of the Indus. A very natural group from the Iranian side would be the Herrd, Hilmund, Arghandb, Kurum, Kabul, Indus, and Vitast. Against this, however, can be urged that the term 'seven rivers' may be Bactrian, older than the Vedic period; and that, in particular, the Avesta distinguishes Vaikerta, Urva, and other districts from the 'seven rivers.' It is best to remain uncertain in so doubtful a matter, bearing in mind that even Kurukshetra, the 'holy land,' is said to-day to be watered by 'seven streams,' although some say nine; apropos of which fact Cunningham remarks, giving modern examples, that "the Hindus invariably assign seven branches to all their rivers."

Within the Punjb, the Vedic Aryans, now at last really 'Hindus,' having extended themselves to the ?utudri , a formidable barrier, and eventually having crossed even this, the last tributary's of the Indus, descended to the jumna , over the little stream called 'the Rocky' and the lesser Sarasvat, southeast from Lahore and near Delhi, in the region Kurukshetra, afterwards famed as the seat of the great epic war, and always regarded as holy in the highest degree.

Not till the time of the Atharva Veda do the Aryans appear as far east as Benares , though the Sarayu is mentioned in the Rik. But this scarcely is the tributary of the Ganges, Gogra, for the name seems to refer to a more western stream, since it is associated with the Gomat . One may surmise that in the time of the Rig Veda the Aryans knew only by name the country east of Lucknow. It is in the Punjb and a little to the west and east of it where lies the real theatre of activity of the Rig Vedic people.

Some scholars believe that this people had already heard of the two oceans. This point again is doubtful in the extreme. No descriptions imply a knowledge of ocean, and the word for ocean means merely a 'confluence' of waters, or in general a great oceanic body of water like the air. As the Indus is too wide to be seen across, the name may apply in most cases to this river. An allusion to 'eastern and western floods,' which is held by some to be conclusive evidence for a knowledge of the two seas, is taken by others to apply to the air-oceans. The expression may apply simply to rivers, for it is said that the Vip? and ?utudr empty into the 'ocean', i.e., the Indus or the ?utudr's continuation. One late verse alone speaks of the Sarasvat pouring into the ocean, and this would indicate the Arabian Sea. Whether the Bay of Bengal was known, even by hearsay and in the latest time of this period, remains uncertain. As a body the Aryans of the Rig Veda were certainly not acquainted with either ocean. Some straggling adventurers probably pushed down the Indus, but Zimmer doubtless is correct in asserting that the popular emigration did not extend further south than the junction of the Indus and the Pacanada . The extreme south-eastern geographical limit of the Rig Vedic people may be reckoned as being in Northern Behr . The great desert, Marusthala, formed an impassable southern obstacle for the first immigrants.

The seat of culture shifts in the Brahmanic period, which follows that of the Vedic poems, and is found partly in the 'holy land' of the west, and partly in the east . The literature of this period comes from Aryans that have passed out of the Punjb. Probably, as we have said, settlements were left all along the line of progress. Even before the wider knowledge of the post-Alexandrine imperial age , and, from the Vedic point of view, as late as the end of the Brahmanic period, in the time of the Upanishads, the northwest seems still to have been familiarly known.

FOOTNOTES:

THE RIG VEDA. THE UPPER GODS.

The hymns of the Rig Veda may be divided into three classes, those in which are especially lauded the older divinities, those in which appear as most prominent the sacrificial gods, and those in which a long-weakened polytheism is giving place to the light of a clearer pantheism. In each category there are hymns of different age and quality, for neither did the more ancient with the growth of new divinities cease to be revered, nor did pantheism inhibit the formal acknowledgment of the primitive pantheon. The cult once established persisted, and even when, at a later time, all the gods had been reduced to nominal fractions of the All-god, their ritualistic individuality still was preserved. The chief reason for this lies in the nature of these gods and in the attitude of the worshipper. No matter how much the cult of later gods might prevail, the other gods, who represented the daily phenomena of nature, were still visible, awe-inspiring, divine. The firmest pantheist questioned not the advisability of propitiating the sun-god, however much he might regard this god as but a part of one that was greater. Belief in India was never so philosophical that the believer did not dread the lightning, and seek to avert it by praying to the special god that wielded it. But active veneration in later times was extended in fact only to the strong Powers, while the more passive divinities, although they were kept as a matter of form in the ceremonial, yet had in reality only tongue-worshippers.

With some few exceptions, however, it will be found impossible to say whether any one deity belonged to the first pantheon.

The best one can do is to separate the mass of gods from those that become the popular gods, and endeavor to learn what was the character of each, and what were the conceptions of the poets in regard both to his nature, and to his relations with man. A different grouping of the gods will be followed, therefore, in our exposition.

After what has been said in the introductory chapter concerning the necessity of distinguishing between good and bad poetry, it may be regarded as incumbent upon us to seek to make such a division of the hymns as shall illustrate our words. But we shall not attempt to do this here, because the distinction between late mechanical and poetic hymns is either very evident, and it would be superfluous to burden the pages with the trash contained in the former, or the distinction is one liable to reversion at the hands of those critics whose judgment differs from ours, for there are of course some hymns that to one may seem poetical and to another, artificial. Moreover, we admit that hymns of true feeling may be composed late as well as early, while as to beauty of style the chances are that the best literary production will be found among the latest rather than among the earliest hymns.

It would, indeed, be admissible, if one had any certainty in regard to the age of the different parts of the Rig Veda, simply to divide the hymns into early, middle, and late, as they are sometimes divided in philological works, but here one rests on the weakest of all supports for historical judgment, a linguistic and metrical basis, when one is ignorant alike of what may have been accomplished by imitation, and of the work of those later priests who remade the poems of their ancestors.

Best then, because least hazardous, appears to be the method which we have followed, namely, to take up group by group the most important deities arranged in the order of their relative importance, and by studying each to arrive at a fair understanding of the pantheon as a whole. The Hindus themselves divided their gods into highest, middle, and lowest, or those of the upper sky, the atmosphere, and the earth. This division, from the point of view of one who would enter into the spirit of the seers and at the same time keep in mind the changes to which that spirit gradually was subjected, is an excellent one. For, as will be seen, although the earlier order of regard may have been from below upwards, this order does not apply to the literary monuments. These show on the contrary a worship which steadily tends from above earthwards; and the three periods into which may be divided all Vedic theology are first that of the special worship of sky-gods, when less attention is paid to others; then that of the atmospheric and meteorological divinities; and finally that of terrestrial powers, each later group absorbing, so to speak, the earlier, and therewith preparing the developing Hindu intelligence for the reception of the universal god with whom closes the series.

Other factors than those of an inward development undoubtedly were at work in the formation of this growth. Especially prominent is the amalgamation of the gods of the lower classes with those of the priest-hood. Climatic environment, too, conditioned theological evolution, if not spiritual advance. The cult of the mid-sphere god, Indra, was partly the result of the changing atmospheric surroundings of the Hindus as they advanced into India. The storms and the sun were not those of old. The tempests were more terrific, the display of divine power was more concentrated in the rage of the elements; while appreciation of the goodness of the sun became tinged with apprehension of evil, and he became a deadly power as well as one beneficent. Then the relief of rain after drought gave to Indra the character of a benign god as well as of a fearful one. Nor were lacking in the social condition certain alterations which worked together with climatic changes. The segregated mass of the original people, the braves that hung about the king, a warrior-class rapidly becoming a caste, and politically the most important caste, took the god of thunder and lightning for their god of battle. The fighting race naturally exalted to the highest the fighting god. Then came into prominence the priestly caste, which gradually taught the warrior that mind was stronger than muscle. But this caste was one of thinkers. Their divinity was the product of reflection. Indra remained, but yielded to a higher power, and the god thought out by the priests became God. Yet it must not be supposed that the cogitative energy of the Brahman descended upon the people's gods and suddenly produced a religious revolution. In India no intellectual advance is made suddenly. The older divinities show one by one the transformation that they suffered at the hands of theosophic thinkers. Before the establishment of a general Father-god, and long before that of the pantheistic All-god, the philosophical leaven was actively at work. It will be seen operative at once in the case of the sun-god, and, indeed, there were few of the older divinities that were untouched by it. It worked silently and at first esoterically. One reads of the gods' 'secret names,' of secrets in theology, which 'are not to be revealed,' till at last the disguise is withdrawn, and it is discovered that all the mystery of former generations has been leading up to the declaration now made public: 'all these gods are but names of the One.'

THE SUN-GOD.

Although Srya is differentiated explicitly from Savitar , yet do many of the hymns make no distinction between them. The Enlivener is naturally extolled in fitting phrase, to tally with his title: "The shining-god, the Enlivener, is ascended to enliven the world"; "He gives protection, wealth and children" . The later hymns seem, as one might expect, to show greater confusion between the attributes of the physical and spiritual sun. But what higher power under either name is ascribed to the sun in the later hymns is not due to a higher or more developed homage of the sun as such. On the contrary, as with many other deities, the more the praise the less the individual worship. It is as something more than the sun that the god later receives more fulsome devotion. And, in fact, paradoxical as it seems, it is a decline in sun-worship proper that is here registered. The altar-fire becomes more important, and is revered in the sun, whose hymns, at most, are few, and in part mechanical.

When, later, the Hindus got into a region where the sun was deadly, they said, "Yon burning sun-god is death," but in the Rig Veda' they said, "Yon sun is the source of life," and no other conception of the sun is to be found in the Rig Veda.

There are about a dozen hymns to Srya, and as many to Savitar, in the Rig Veda. It is noteworthy that in the family-books the hymns to Savitar largely prevail, while those to Srya are chiefly late in position or content. Thus, in the family-books, where are found eight or nine of the dozen hymns to Savitar, there are to Srya but three or four, and of these the first is really to Savitar and the A?vins; the second is an imitation of the first; the third appears to be late; and the fourth is a fragment of somewhat doubtful antiquity. The first runs as follows: "The altar-fire has seen well-pleased the dawns' beginning and the offering to the gleaming ones; come, O ye horsemen , to the house of the pious man; the sun , the shining-god, rises with light. The shining-god Savitar has elevated his beams, swinging his banner like a good raiding for cattle. According to rule go Varuna and Mitra when they make rise in the sky the sun whom they have created to dissipate darkness, being sure of their habitation and unswerving in intent. Seven yellow swift-steeds bear this Srya, the seer of all that moves. Thou comest with swiftest steeds unspinning the web, separating, O shining-god, the black robe. The rays of Srya swinging have laid darkness like a skin in the waters. Unconnected, unsupported, downward extending, why does not this fall down? With what nature goes he, who knows ? As a support he touches and guards the vault of the sky" .

SAVITAR.

Of Savitar, the heavenly, that longed-for glory may we win, And may himself inspire our prayers.

God Savitar deserveth now a song from us; To-day, with guiding word, let men direct him here. He who distributes gifts unto the sons of men, Shall here on us bestow whatever thing is best; For thou, O Savitar, dost first upon the gods Who sacrifice deserve, lay immortality, The highest gift, and then to mortals dost extend As their apportionment a long enduring life. Whatever thoughtless thing against the race of gods We do in foolishness and human insolence, Do thou from that, O Savitar, mid gods and men Make us here sinless, etc.

TO SAVITAR .

I call on Agni first for weal; I call on Mitra-Varuna to aid me here; I call upon the Night, who quiets all that moves; On Savitar, the shining god, I call for help.

After this introductory invocation begins the real song in a different metre.

Through space of darkness wending comes he hither, Who puts to rest th' immortal and the mortal, On golden car existent things beholding, The god that rouses, Savitar, the shining; Comes he, the shining one, comes forward, upward, Comes with two yellow steeds, the god revered, Comes shining Savitar from out the distance, All difficulties far away compelling. His pearl-adorned, high, variegated chariot, Of which the pole is golden, he, revered, Hath mounted, Savitar, whose beams are brilliant, Against the darksome spaces strength assuming. Among the people gaze the brown white-footed that the chariot drag whose pole is golden. All peoples stand, and all things made, forever, Within the lap of Savitar, the heavenly.

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