THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 Takusei Mizuno 
 
THE VEDIC RELIGION 
 
 THE CREED AND PRACTICE OF THE INDO-ARYANS 
 THREE THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. K S. MACDONALD, M.A. 
 
 MISSIONARY, FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, CALCU1TA 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET 
 
 1881 
 
MORRISON AND GIBB, EDINBURGH, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE. 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 GIFT 
 
PEEFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 AT the request of the Calcutta Missionary Confer- 
 ence I wrote, during the cold-weather holidays of 
 1879-80, a paper on this subject. The following 
 Notes are an expansion of that paper. Members of 
 the Conference and other Missionaries expressed a 
 desire and expectation that the paper be published. 
 Impressed by the importance of the subject, and by 
 the fact that there is no book published upon it, 
 though fully conscious of the shortcomings and 
 imperfections of my attempt, I have yielded to the 
 desire, in the hope that others more qualified may 
 take the matter up. I have neither time nor quali- 
 fications for it. At present, much is published bearing 
 directly or indirectly upon it in Dr. Muir's most 
 learned volumes, of which six or seven are before the 
 public, in Max Miiller's and Monier Williams' more 
 popular works, as well as in many other books 
 containing, among much other matter bearing on 
 Sanskrit literature or the Hindu religion, short 
 sketches of the times and hymns of the Veda. But 
 no one, as far as I am aware, has formally discussed 
 
 033 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 the religious opinions and practices of the ' Sanhita ' 
 (or collection of hymns) of the Eig-Veda from the 
 Christian standpoint. 
 
 There is a special necessity at the present time 
 for such a discussion in connection with the rise of 
 the Theistic Church, called the Arya Samaj, at the 
 head of which is Pundit Dayananda Sarasvati Svami, 
 who is now engaged in propagating his own peculiar 
 view of the Veda, and who accepts as an infallible 
 revelation all the four Vedas, but interprets them 
 monotheistically. The Eev. D. Hutton of Mirzapore 
 writes to me : 'I have read, with a good deal of 
 interest and profit, your lecture, which has been 
 appearing from week to week in the Indian Christian 
 Herald, and I should be glad to get a complete copy 
 of it. We have in Mirzapore a branch of the Arya 
 Samaj the new sect, I suppose, I must call them 
 founded by Dayananda Sarasvati, the Vedic reformer. 
 The secretary often calls on me to talk on religious 
 subjects. It has struck me that parts of your 
 lecture, put into Hindi, would be useful. I feel 
 sure it will be useful in the vernacular. The Svami, 
 as Dayananda Sarasvati is usually called, and his 
 followers believe the ' Sanhita ' of the Vedas to be 
 the work of God and eternal. A few judicious 
 selections from your lecture would put matters in a 
 different light.' ' The Svami travels about lecturing 
 eight months, and rests, like Gotama, four, only he 
 takes his rest in the cold weather. He has a fair 
 
Preface. v 
 
 following in the North- West Provinces, and has 
 printed a number of books.' 
 
 My own feeling is that a missionary to the Hindus 
 should know Hinduism. But no human being can 
 thoroughly know Hinduism with its 10,000 Sanskrit 
 MSS. Happily the highest authority among them is 
 the ' Sanhita ' of the Eig-Veda, There is no appeal 
 from it. This, though about half the size of the 
 Bible, a missionary can master as regards its subject- 
 matter. To help him to do so the following pages 
 have been written, in the hope that the Spirit of God 
 may use them for the pulling down of strongholds, 
 and for the building up of His own kingdom in 
 India. K. S. M. 
 
 CALCUTTA, June 1880. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION, ..... 1 
 
 II. THEORIES OF INSPIRATION AND REVELATION, . 11 
 
 III. THE CONTENTS OF THE RIG- VEDA, ^faty^ ' 18 
 
 IV. WHAT IS NOT FOUND IN THE VEDA, ... 23 
 V. WHAT IS JN THE VEDA-^SIN) . ^ . . . 37 
 
 VI. IMMORTALITY AND THE FUTURE STATE OF MAN, . 47 
 
 VII. WINE, SOMA, AND DRINKING, .... 62 
 
 VIII. SACRIFICE, ...... 73 
 
 IX. MQNOTHEISM OR POLYTHEISM ? ... 94 
 
 X. RELATION OF THE WORSHIPPERS TO THE GODS, AND 
 
 THEIR FAITH IN THEM, . . . .136 
 
 XI. INCARNATION, MEDIATION, AND AGNI, . . . 146 
 XII. WOMEN, POLYGAMY, AND POLYANDRY, . 157 
 
 XIII. PRIESTS AMT> TMflfTTg . . . . .169 
 
 XIV. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND BROTHERHOOD OF 
 
 MAN, ^ . . A I NSltfL - 196 
 
 XV. MIRACLES, CREATION, DELUGE, ETC., . . . 211 
 XVI. CONCLUSION 
 
 (1) THE DEMERITS OF THE VEDA, . . . 224 
 
 (2) TRACES OF THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION, . . 241 
 
 INDEX, ...... 256 
 
Rev. T. Mizuno 
 
 860 -33rd St. OaLlaniCaL 
 
 B 
 
 THE VEDIC RELIGION. 
 L 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Y the Vedic Eeligion I mean the religion 
 practised by the Eishis or composers of the 
 Vedas, and more particularly of the hymns of the 
 Eig-Veda, which are admitted by all the adherents of 
 the various Hindu systems to be the primary and 
 infallible authority in all matters of their religion. 
 Nay more, they are the real theogony of the whole 
 Aryan race, and, as such, are of special interest to 
 Teuton, Kelt, Greek, and Hindu alike. I include in 
 the Vedic Eeligion all doctrines and religious opinions 
 that can be logically inferred to have been in the 
 creed of the composers of the Eig-Veda hymn-book 
 or Sanhita. 
 
 It is of the greatest importance that all who are 
 interested in the Christianization of India, and espe- 
 cially all those who are daily labouring among pro- 
 fessed Hindus with this object, should acquaint 
 
 A 
 
2 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 themselves with the Vedic Beligion. For even those 
 who are at the present moment recognised as the 
 spiritual guides of the people, those whose influence 
 for good or evil is even now immense, especially in 
 villages and country districts, from which many of 
 the most promising Hindu students come, are believers 
 in the supreme authority of the Vedas. Everything, 
 whether founded on individual opinion, or local 
 custom, or Tantras or Puranas, nay, -even on the law- 
 books of Manu, must be given up by the consistent 
 orthodox Hindu as soon as it can be proved to be 
 in direct conflict with a single sentence of the Veda. 
 ' On that point/ says Mr. Miiller, ' there can be no 
 controversy.' * ' The authority of the Veda, in respect 
 to all religious questions,' says the same authority, 
 writing in 1878, ' is as great in India now as it has 
 ever been. To the vast majorities of the orthodox 
 believers, the Veda forms still the highest and only 
 infallible authority, quite as much as the Bible witli 
 us, or the Koran with the Mahomedans.' 2 
 
 Not only do we meet men in Calcutta, and I have 
 no doubt many more in other towns of India, who 
 excuse themselves from becoming Christians, nay, 
 even from taking the claims of Christianity into 
 serious consideration, by professing to believe in the 
 Veda and the Vedic Eeligion ; but there are in our 
 own days those, among the educated and the English- 
 speaking, who study the Veda in connection with our 
 
 1 Miiller's Hibbcrt Lectures, p. 153. - Ibid. p. 167. 
 
Introduction. 3 
 
 University, or who have heard of the high position 
 given to it 1 in the University curriculum, who 
 -publicly, to the rejection of modern Hinduism, advo*- 
 cate the Vedic Keligion as the only true religion, or, 
 at any rate, the proper religion for Hindus, and who 
 profess to stand on the same platform with Pundit 
 Dayananda Sarasvati and his American friends of the 
 ^Theosophic Society. There is a peculiar charm for 
 the patriotic Hindu in such advocacy. We need not 
 wonder, therefore, what the newspapers inform us, 
 that the people rush in crowds to hear the learned 
 vPundit descanting on 'the lofty exalted position the 
 country occupied in Vedic times, some six thousand 
 years ago, when,' the Pundit said, f there was perfect 
 peace and happiness in the country, there being no 
 dissensions as to the form of religion, and all men 
 
 were united by the common ties of a universal reli- 
 
 J 
 
 gion and fellow-feeling.' When such fanciful pictures 
 are publicly and authoritatively given, it is desirable 
 that the missionary be able to give the true, and to 
 prove the truth of it by reference to chapter and 
 verse of the Hindu's own scriptures. 
 
 The early Jesuit missionaries, Eobert de Nobili 
 and his colleagues, felt a knowledge of the Vedas to 
 be of such vital importance to them, as engaged in 
 the promulgation of Christianity, that they not only 
 made them a special study, but with the view of 
 using the immense influence these Vedas had over 
 
 1 It is one of the text-books for the M.A. in Sanskrit. 
 
4 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 the common people, in the interests of Christianity 
 they set about to fabricate an imitation of them 
 which they called the Esur Veda, and which they 
 contended was a relic of the same Vedic times and 
 possessed of the same inspiration. The motive and 
 the end we may admire, while we detest the means. 
 
 The study of the Veda is interesting in itself from 
 the light which it casts, not only on the earliest 
 known condition of the Hindus in India, but of the 
 great Aryan family, from which Kelt and Saxon, as 
 well as Parsee and Hindu, alike have descended. 
 The Veda belongs not to India only, but to the whole 
 Indo-European family of the human race. 
 
 It throws an immense blaze of light on almost 
 every language spoken, or regarded sacred, from St. 
 Kilda in the Atlantic to Singapore on the confines of 
 the Pacific Ocean ; and it proves the common origin 
 of all the many various peoples speaking these. It 
 goes far, besides, to prove where the original seat of 
 this great family was, and what the nature or 
 character of their religion before they had separated, 
 and what their character and their appearance as a 
 white-coinplexioned people, as contrasted with the 
 dark or black coloured peoples whom they conquered 
 or against whom they carried on continual wars. 
 
 We ought also to bear in mind that the position 
 which the classical languages of Greece and Eome 
 and the ancient Saxon occupy as regards their influ- 
 ence in the formation of the modern languages of 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 England, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, is the 
 same position which the Sanskrit occupies in India 
 in regard to Bengali, Mahratta, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, 
 Urya, and Pushto ; yet, as regards their present posi- 
 tion and active influence, Sanskrit occupies a much 
 higher and more important one, inasmuch as Sanskrit 
 literature is really the literature of all India those 
 in the vernaculars being of very minor relative 
 importance. In Europe it is all the other way. The 
 modern language is to each several nation of infinitely 
 greater importance in the matter of literature and of 
 religion than the classical ; besides, the Veda has 
 influenced all other Sanskrit literature much more 
 than the Bible has the literature of Europe. 
 
 The Eig-Veda is the oldest Sanskrit book hitherto 
 discovered, or even allufied to, in all Sanskrit litera- 
 ture. With the exception of some small portions of 
 
 
 
 
 the Bible, it is the oldest book in the world, and it is 
 
 contemporaneous with much of the oldest in the 
 Bible. While the Israelites under the auspicious 
 leadership of Moses were ' sounding the loud timbrel 
 over Egypt's dark sea,' the Aryan emigrants from the 
 high lands of Central Asia were singing the praises 
 of Agni and Indra on the banks of the Sarasvati, in 
 the hymns of the Eig-Veda. 
 
 It consists of two quite distinct works, called 
 respectively Mantras or Sanliita and IfcaJiManas. 
 The mantras, prayers or praise, are embodied in 1017 
 hymns or LQJ500 verses or ricktas (laudations), hence- 
 
6 The Veclic Religion. 
 
 the name Kick or Eig-Veda, composed by some 
 twenty or thirty different authors called Rishis. The 
 hymns are divided into ten Books or Mandates, and 
 those composed by each Eishi are placed in each 
 book together, and so arranged that those addressed 
 to Agni come first, those to Indra next, and then 
 
 those to the other divinities promiscuously. At least 
 
 '' 
 
 this is the order in the first Mandalas. 
 
 The Brahmanas consist of ritualistic precepts for 
 the chanting of these hymns during the sacrifice. 
 They are in prose, and are spoken very disparagingly 
 of by European critics. Max Miiller says that ' No 
 one would have supposed that at so early a period, 
 and in so primitive a state of society, there could have 
 risen up a literature which for pedantry and down- 
 right absurdity can hardly be matched anywhere. . . . 
 It is most important for the historian that he should 
 know how soon the fresh and healthy growth of a 
 nation can be blighted by priestcraft and superstition. 
 It is most important that we should know that 
 nations are liable to these epidemics in their youth 
 as well as in their dotage. These works (the 
 Brahmanas) deserve to be studied as the physician 
 studies the twaddle of idiots and the raving of mad- 
 men. They will disclose to a thoughtful eye the 
 ruins of faded grandeur, the memories of noble 
 aspirations. But let us only try to translate these 
 works into our own language, and we shall feel 
 astonished that human language and human thought 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 should ever have been used for such purposes.' 1 The 
 hymns are worse treated by the old Sanskrit annota- 
 tors, than the Bible was by Origen and other allegorists. 
 These two works are frequently spoken of under 
 the one name of Eig-Veda. We propose to deal only 
 with the first or Mantras, discarding altogether the 
 Bralimanas as of comparatively little interest, though 
 professedly founded on the former. The first is not 
 only the Eig-Veda, but the Veda. For though there 
 are four Vedas, the other three are so closely 
 dependent on the Big- Veda, that the three may be 
 spoken of as appendices to, commentaries of, extracts 
 or selections from the Eig-Veda, made for various 
 purposes. The first of these three, the Yajur-Veda, 
 consists largely of the Eig-Veda hymns arranged for 
 the usual sacrifices ; the second, or Sama-Veda, is also 
 largely a reproduction of the same hymns transposed 
 and arranged for the Soma ceremonies, performed by 
 a different class of priests from those for whom the 
 preceding Veda was compiled. The greatest number 
 of its hymns are taken from one book (the ninth) of 
 the Eig-Veda, which is in praise of the Soma plant. 
 The remaining Veda the Atharva, to which the 
 name Veda is sometimes denied is the most recent. 
 It is more original than the other two, and conse- 
 quently more interesting. Though it repeats a good 
 many of the Eig-Veda hymns, it has many altogether 
 new ones. It is the ' Cursing Veda/ so called because 
 1 Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, p. 389. 
 
8 The Veclic Religion. 
 
 it consists largely of magical spells and incantations 
 for imprecating or averting evils. It has to do greatly 
 with demons or evil spirits who troubled our early 
 ancestors. It marks the transition between the com- 
 paratively simpler faith of the earlier times and the 
 grosser superstitions of the later periods. It is full 
 of imprecations on enemies, prayers against diseases, 
 wild beasts and deadly reptiles, as well as prayers for 
 luck in gambling, etc. Babu C. C. Mookerji says that 
 ' the general character of this Veda is marked by 
 shallow pedantry and dry grandiloquence.' The other 
 two are mere recasts of the Eig-Veda. 
 
 It will thus be seen why we lay so much import- 
 ance on the Eig-Veda Sanhita. 
 
 We know next to nothing, save their names, of 
 most of the authors of these hymns. Mythical or 
 legendary stories are told of some. We know almost 
 as little of the conditions under which they were 
 composed and sung. We say ' composed ' rather than 
 written, for we have every reason to believe that they 
 were not written for many hundreds of years after 
 they were composed, inasmuch as no alphabet or art 
 of writing was known to their authors. Not the 
 slightest allusion has been discovered in them to 
 writing or alphabet, ' or to any writing instrument. 1 
 It is generally agreed that they were composed about 
 1200 years before Christ, that is, about 3000 years 
 
 1 The earliest written characters existing in the country are the 
 inscriptions of Asoka, of date about the 3d century B.C. 
 
Introduction. 9 
 
 ago, though the data on which this date is founded 
 are very unsatisfactory to the general reader. The 
 argument seems to be this. Alexander the Great 
 visited India, say, in 331 B.C. Now every hymn in 
 the Eig-Veda is in Saunaka's Index, and he was 
 anterior to the invasion of Alexander. The Sutras, 
 belonging to the same period as Saunaka, prove the 
 previous existence of every chapter of the Brahmanas ; 
 and every hymn in the Eig-Veda was anterior to the 
 Brahmanas, and the Eig-Veda hymns are of two or 
 more different periods. In these various books we 
 have very distinct Sanskrit dialects, which must have 
 been of very different ages, each requiring, say, at 
 least 200 years for its full development. The Sutras 
 are supposed to have extended from 600 to 200 B.C. 
 The Brahmanas would have required other 200 years, 
 bringing up their date to 800 B.C. Add other 200 
 for the later hymns and other 200 for the older, and 
 you have 1200 B.C. 1 When we regard them, as they 
 really are, the sole relics of that time and age of the 
 Aryan race, they look like a small island in the midst 
 of an immense boundless ocean, from which a hazy 
 view can be got of one or two other islands on the 
 horizon the possessions of quite distinct races. A 
 modern writer says that ' in reading them " we stand 
 in the presence of a veiled life," on which nothing 
 external of record or monument throws light.' 2 This 
 
 1 Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, p. 572. 
 
 2 Dean Church's Sacred Poetry of Early Religions, p. 14. 
 
10 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 is not absolutely true. For just as they throw light 
 on the subsequent Sanskrit literature of India, on 
 the Zend-a- Vesta of the Parsis, and the Tripitakas of 
 the Buddhists, as also on the other languages of the 
 Aryan family and on the lately-discovered inscriptions 
 of Assyria, so these latter reflect more or less light 
 on them. 
 
1 
 
 / 
 
 THEORIES OF INSPIRATION AND REVELATION. 
 
 HOW did the Vedas happen to possess the 
 authority among the Hindus which they have 
 had for so many ages ? This they obtained partly 
 because of their comparatively intrinsic value, largely 
 from their connection with religion, and more par- 
 ticularly from the interested motives and actions of 
 the Brahmins, to whom they had come to be sources 
 of livelihood. Dr. Muir, who has collected a mass of 
 information on this point, remarks that ' as the 
 authors of the hymns, the earliest of them at least, 
 lived in an age of simple conceptions and of spon- 
 taneous and childlike devotion, we shall find that 
 though some of them appear in conformity with the 
 spirit of their times to have regarded their composi- 
 tions as in a certain degree the result of divine 
 inspiration, their primeval and elementary ideas on 
 this subject form a strong contrast to the artificial 
 and systematic definitions of the later scholastic 
 writers.' l I shall state a few of these. The Vishnu 
 and Bhagvata Puranas represent the four Vedas as 
 
 1 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Part iii. p. vii. 
 
12 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 issuing from the mouth of Brahma at the creation. 
 The Vrihad Aranyaka Upanishad describes them as 
 the breath of Brahma ; Hari Vansa speaks of them as 
 produced from the holiest verse in the Vedas, a verse 
 which is still used in ordinary Hindu worship, and 
 which is called the Gayatri. 1 The same author 
 describes them as created by Brahma. The author 
 of the Mahabharata calls ' Sarasvati the mother of 
 the Vedas.' In one passage in the Vedas themselves, 
 they are said to have been derived from the mystical 
 personal victim Purusha, and another makes them 
 spring from Time. In a third passage they are 
 declared to have sprung from the leavings of the 
 sacrifice. These three passages are in hymns added 
 after the rest had been composed and had acquired 
 some authority from their antiquity. In Manu, they 
 are described as the second manifestation of the pure 
 principle (Sattva-Guna), while Brahma is one of its 
 first manifestations. In the Vishnu Purana, which, 
 as we have seen, represents them as issuing from the 
 mouth of Brahma at the creation, they are said to 
 be eternal and one with the god Vishnu. Manu 
 describes them as ' the eternal eye of the patriarchs, 
 of gods and of men/ ' supporting all beings,' ' the 
 refuge of the ignorant as well as of the understand- 
 ing/ ' the refuge of those who are seeking after 
 
 1 Kig-Veda, iii. 62, 10, i.e. the third Book or Mandala, 62d hymn, 
 and the tenth Rickta or verse. Hereafter we shall simply write the 
 figures thus iii. 62, 10 whenever we have to refer to a text in the 
 Kig-Veda. See below, pp. 93, 235. 
 
Theories of Inspiration and Revelation. 1 3 
 
 Paradise, as well as of those who are desiring after 
 Infinity.' ' As a clod thrown into a great lake is 
 dissolved when' it touches the water, so does all sin 
 sink in the triple Veda.' The Atharva-Veda was 
 not at the time acknowledged as a genuine Veda. 
 Madhava defines the Veda as the work which alone 
 reveals the supernatural means of attaining future 
 felicity ; he explains that males only belonging to the 
 three superior castes are competent to study its 
 contents. Such theories led to most absurd myths, 
 such as that given in the Vishnu Purana, iii. 5, of a 
 disobedient pupil being ordered to give back all the 
 knowledge he had received, who at once vomited the 
 Yajur Veda. Forthwith the other pupils assumed 
 the form of partridges (tittiri) and picked it up from 
 the ground in its several dirtied texts. Hence this 
 Veda is called the Taittiriya Krishna [black] Yajur 
 Veda. ' 
 
 The contention of modern critics is more in accord 
 with modern reasoning. The rislds or saints, whose 
 names the several hymns bear, are proved by the 
 contents of the hymns to have been their real authors. 
 Besides, numerous events which have occurred in 
 time, are undoubtedly mentioned in the Vedas. This 
 is admitted by Sankara, the great religious reformer 
 and teacher of the Vedanta Philosophy. These 
 Eishis regarded undoubtedly the hymns as their own 
 compositions, or the compositions of their forefathers. 
 They distinguished the old and new among them, and 
 
14 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 they described themselves as the makers, fabricators, 
 or generators of the hymns, as we shall see below. It 
 is also admitted that in some of the more recent of 
 them a superhuman character or superhuman faculties 
 are ascribed to the earlier Eishis, just as there are 
 similar passages to be met with in Hesiod and Homer. 
 There are other passages in which a mystical, magical, 
 or supernatural efficacy is ascribed to the hymns. 
 But there are others again in which the authors com- 
 plain of their own ignorance. 1 There is no doubt 
 that in course of time these hymns came to be looked 
 upon in a light very different from that in which they 
 were originally regarded. This arose from a sense or 
 feeling of an immeasurable, incalculable time having 
 elapsed since their composition, a time that had made 
 such changes in the language in which they were 
 thought, that the very best scholars and philosophers 
 found them unintelligible. Yet their most ancient 
 MSS. extant are not much more than half the age of 
 our Christian MSS. The oldest of the Veda MSS. dates 
 no further back than A.D. 1000 ; while the oldest of 
 our Christian MSS. goes back to 350 A.D., if not 
 indeed earlier. 
 
 One of the most common objections which the 
 educated Hindu is inclined to urge against the Chris- 
 tian advocate, is that founded on Book Eevelation, 
 and yet, though apparently foreign to the Teutonic, 
 
 1 i. 20, 1 ; 31, 18 ; 61, 16 ; 117, 25 ; ii. 39, 8 ; iii. 30, 20 ; iv. 6, 11 ; 
 16, 20, etc. See Dr. Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Part iii. pp. 232-244. 
 
TJieories of Inspiration and Revelation. 1 5 
 
 Keltic, Greek, and Eoman branches of the great Aryan 
 family, the idea is as familiar to the Parsi and Hindu 
 branches as it is to the Shemitic family. Still, 
 as we have seen, their theories of revelation and 
 inspiration are totally different from those of the 
 Christian, whether verbal or plenary-verbal. The 
 Christian idea is most intimately associated with the 
 written book, the verfatm or word as written ; theirs, 
 at least the Hindus, with it as spoken or uttered. 
 The word Veda and the word Sruti, by which the 
 most sacred works in Hindu literature are charac- 
 terised, mean the uttered or unwritten knowledge, 
 represented as having issued like breath from the 
 Self-Existent, and been heard, and communicated, 
 not to a single person, but to a class of men called 
 Eishis or inspired sages. This knowledge (Veda) they 
 transmitted, not in writing, but by the constant oral 
 repetition of Brahmin to Brahmin. When in course 
 of time it was committed to writing, neither the 
 copying nor the reading of it was encouraged. The 
 reading of the Bible and of the Koran is regarded as 
 a sacred duty by Christians and Mussulmans. To 
 the Hindu masses the Yeda was a sealed book, even 
 after it had been committed to writing ; and to this 
 day it is entirely unknown, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, even to most of the learned orthodox Hindus. 
 Not a single copy was known to exist in all Bengal 
 fifty years ago. The only parties well up in it seem 
 to be European scholars, a few students of the Anglo- 
 
16 The Vedic Eeligion. 
 
 Indian Universities, and a few natives who have 
 come under the influence of European scholarship. 
 I have, over and over again, tested the knowledge .of 
 English educated Hindus and also of learned Pundits, 
 and found all alike practically ignorant of the Rig- 
 Veda Sanhita; yet, singularly enough, it is professedly 
 held in the highest veneration by all, and more so by 
 those who are most ignorant of its contents. Its 
 inspiration is regarded so self-convincing, as Monier 
 Williams remarks, ' as to require no proof, and to be 
 entirely beyond the province of reason or argument/ 1 
 ' It is/ he elsewhere adds, ' at the very root of 
 Hinduism, and is indeed ingrained in the whole 
 Hindu system.' 2 
 
 The inspiration claimed for these hymns by the 
 Rishis themselves is expressed in such words as 
 these : ' They [the Rishis] were associates of the 
 gods ; found out the hidden light and brought forth 
 .the dawn with sincere hymns.' 'The singers seek 
 out the 1000 branched mystery through the union 
 of their hearts.' Their ' hymns are of kin to the 
 god and attract his heart;' for ' Agni is himself a 
 poet.' ' The thoughtful gods produce these hymns/ 
 The Rishis ' prepare the hymn with the heart, the 
 mind, the understanding/ 'They fashion it as a 
 
 1 M. Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 8. 
 
 2 M. Williams' Hinduism, p. 18. See K.-V. vii. 76, 4 ; vii. 33, 9 ; 
 viii. 12, 31; 13, 36; vi. 14, 2; x. 61, 7; i. 61, 2; i. 130, 6; v. 29, 
 15; x. 39,14; vii. 94; i. 116; x. 116; i. 109, 1; i. 165, 15; ii, 39,8; 
 i. 41, 7 5 43, 1 ; 48, 2. 
 
Theories of Inspiration and Revelation. 1 7 
 
 skilful workman a car ; ' ' adorn it as a beautiful 
 garment, as a bride for her husband.' ' They gene- 
 rate it from the soul as rain is born from a cloud ; ' 
 ' send it forth from the soul as wind drives the 
 cloud ; ' ' launch it with praises as a ship on the sea.' 
 ' Indra and Agni, . . . the clear understanding you 
 have given me is given by no one else ; and so gifted, 
 I have composed this hymn to you, intimating my 
 wish for sustenance.' ' This hymn, Maruts, is for you, 
 the work of a venerable author, capable of conferring 
 delight by his laudations.' ' The Gritsamadas have 
 composed their prayer, these praises, Aswins, for your 
 exaltation.' Hymn i. 140, 11-13 runs: ' May this 
 well-composed hymn be more agreeable to thee, O 
 Agni, than an ill-composed one, nay more, even than 
 an agreeable one. . . . Mayst thou, Agni, applaud 
 our hymn alone.' 
 
 From these it will be seen that the Eishis them- 
 selves do not generally claim a very high origin for 
 their hymns, nor any inspiration, in the sense of a 
 superhuman unerring guidance. In those hymns in 
 which a divine assistance is claimed, it is necessary 
 to bear in mind the great familiarity which the 
 Kishis say they enjoyed with their gods. They 
 represent them as their boon companions at the 
 drinking of the soma juice ; and as seated down 
 together with them on the ktisi grass. 
 
 But it is time that we introduced the reader to the 
 contents of this most ancient of hymn-books. 
 
 B 
 
in. 
 
 THE CONTENTS. 
 
 AS to the contents of the Big- Veda, that which 
 strikes the general reader on opening the book, 
 almost anywhere, is the ' tedious repetitions, redun- 
 dant epithets, and far-fetched conceits,' l ' many tedious 
 repetitions and puerilities,' 2 as M. Williams calls 
 them. One meets occasionally with almost pure 
 gold, ' high morality, often expressed in impressive 
 language -worthy of Christianity itself,' side by side 
 ' with precepts implying a social condition scarcely 
 compatible with the lowest grade of culture and 
 civilisation.' 3 In most works upon the Vedas, 
 whether by Max Miiller, Monier Williams, Dr. 
 Banerjea, Dr. Wilson, H. H. Wilson, Dr. Muir, Cole- 
 brooke, etc., the writers 'restrict themselves to the 
 best writings only,' Indian Wisdom, like grains of 
 gold in hard quartz. Max Muller, cognisant to some 
 extent of consequent evil results, remarks : ' Looking 
 at many of the books that have lately been published 
 
 1 M. Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 1. 
 
 2 M. Williams' Hinduism, p. 19. 
 
 3 M. Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 2. 
 
Tlie Contents. 19 
 
 on the religions of the ancient world, I do not 
 wonder that such a belief [as to their being full of 
 primeval wisdom and religious enthusiasm, or at least 
 of sound and simple moral teaching] should have 
 been raised ; but I have long felt that it was high 
 time to dispel such illusions, and to place the study 
 of the ancient religions of the world on a more real 
 and sound, on a more truly historical basis.' After 
 apologizing for the previous state of matters, he adds : 
 ' Whether I am myself one of the guilty or not, I can- 
 not help calling attention to the real mischief that has 
 been done, and is still being. done, by the enthusiasm 
 of those pioneers who have opened the first avenues 
 through the bewildering forest of the sacred literature 
 of the East.' x ' What we want here, as everywhere 
 else, is the truth and the whole truth; and if the whole 
 truth must be told, it is that however radiant the 
 dawn of religious thought, it is not without its dark 
 clouds, its chilling colds, its noxious vapours.' 'I 
 confess it has been for many years a problem to me, 
 ay, and to a great extent is so still (1879), how the 
 Sacred Books of the East should, by the side of so 
 much that is fresh, natural, simple, beautiful, and 
 true, contain so much that is not only unmeaning, 
 artificial, and silly, but even hideous and repellent.' 2 
 Hence he argues the necessity of giving complete 
 translations of the original texts. A photographic 
 
 1 Sacred Books of the East, voL I. pp. ix. x. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. xi. xii. 
 
20 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 album containing beautiful pictures of Government 
 House, the Imperial Museum, the University, the 
 Cathedral, the Post Office, the Town Hall, etc., is apt 
 to give to a stranger a very false impression of the 
 city itself. So do extracts from the Veda. 'No 
 one who collects and publishes such extracts can 
 resist, no one at all events, as far as T know,' adds 
 Max Miiller, ' has ever resisted the temptation of 
 giving what is beautiful, or it may be, what is 
 strange and startling, and leaving out what is 
 commonplace, tedious, or it may be repulsive, or, 
 lastly, what is difficult to construe and under- 
 stand.' 
 
 The same writer had, twelve years before, strongly 
 recommended to missionaries that, instead of looking 
 only for points of difference, they should ' look out 
 more anxiously for any common ground, any spark 
 of the true light that may still be revived, any altar 
 that may be dedicated afresh to the true God.' I 
 think the missionary should do both. He should 
 know, if possible, the whole truth. The sparks will 
 be collected by the men who collect ' Indian Wisdom f 
 and ' Sacred Texts,' like Monier Williams and Dr. 
 John Muir; or men who, like Pundit Dayananda 
 Sarasvati and his followers, go in for the blessedness, 
 the peace and contentment of Vedic times, and the 
 absolute perfection of the Vedic religion. The Indian 
 missionary will meet with many such in our public 
 gardens, our bazaars, and in our colleges, who profess 
 
The Contents. 21 
 
 to despise the Christian religion, and who quote such 
 of its texts as they think they may deftly use against 
 it. It is well that the missionary be able to answer 
 the fool according to his folly, take his own weapons 
 and use them against himself. But, as a rule, it is 
 better far to follow the apostle's example, and quote 
 approvingly the texts that agree with the Christian 
 doctrine which he happens to preach, and to appeal 
 to his Hindu audiences in the words of the great 
 apostle to the Gentile polytheists of old, ' As certain 
 also of your own poets have said.' 
 
 In examining into the contents of the Veda, we 
 have to do with facts, not with speculations, in answer 
 to the question WTiat, not to the questions How or 
 Wliy, or When. The questions which we try to 
 answer are What was really the state of things at 
 the time ? What was the creed then believed in ? * 
 What was the religion then practised ? There may 
 be hints or allusions met with throughout these 
 hymns as to an anterior or shadows of a posterior 
 state of things or of beliefs. The object I have set 
 before me is not to speculate on any such, or as to 
 the origin or developments of the then state of 
 matters. I confine myself also as much as possible 
 to questions bearing directly on their religion. There 
 are found in these hymns, references to domestic 
 and social, political and scientific matters, into which 
 I will not enter. The hymns are all professedly 
 
 1 See Gladstone's article on the Olympic v. the Solar Tlieory. 
 
22 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 religious, and almost all of them are really so. They 
 refer primarily to the state of religious feelings, and 
 beliefs, and practices of the people. To these I wish 
 to confine my remarks. 
 
IV. f| 
 
 WHAT IS NOT FOUND IN THE VEDA'j 
 
 BEFORE indicating more particularly what is in the 
 Veda, I would say a few words as to what is not 
 in it, or rather what has not been discovered in it. But 
 we must bear in mind that the absence of all allusion 
 to such does not prove their non-existence. There is 
 no direct allusion to the Sabbath in the Jewish 
 Psalms, and the name of God does not occur in the 
 Book of Esther. Still the non-existence of all refer- 
 ence in the 10,500 mantras of the Rig- Veda, constitut- 
 ing the entire -literature of a nation for two or three 
 hundred years and the work of some thirty authors, 
 to such things as idols, temples, etc., makes it highly 
 probable that there were no idols or temples. I am 
 not aware that there is any allusion to the division 
 of the month into weeks of seven days each unless 
 it be in the seven ruddy horses of the chariot of 
 Surya, the Sun ; or that there is any allusion to the 
 seventh day being specially sacred. Hence I think 
 there is a very strong probability there were no such 
 divisions of time in the days of the Rig- Veda. The 
 names by which these days are now known in India 
 
24 The Vedie Religion. 
 
 are of comparatively modem origin. 1 ( It is well 
 known/ remarks Max Miiller, in his chapter of Acci- 
 dents in his Comparative Theology, ' that the names 
 of the seven days of the week are derived from the 
 names of the planets, and it is equally well known 
 that in Europe the system of weeks and week-days is 
 comparatively of very modern origin. It was not a 
 Greek, nor a Eoman, nor a Hindu, but a Jewish or 
 Chaldean invention. The Sabbath (Sabbata) .was 
 known and kept at Eome in the first century B.C. 
 with many superstitious practices. ... It is curious 
 that we find the seventh day, the Sabbath, even 
 under its new pagan name, as Saturday, mentioned 
 by Koman and Greek authors, before the names of 
 the other days of the week make their appearance. 
 After the names of the week-days had once been 
 settled, we have no difficulty in tracing their migra- 
 tion towards the East and towards the West. The 
 Hindus had their own peculiar system of reckoning 
 days and months ; but they adopted at a later time 
 the foreign system of counting by weeks of seven 
 days, and assigning a presiding planetary deity to 
 each of the seven days/ corresponding to the Latin 
 or Koman arrangement, which was Saturn, Sun, 
 Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus. This 
 translated into Sanskrit became Sajii, Eavi, Soma, 
 Bhamna, Buddha, Brihaspati, and S.ukra; and into 
 
 1 For a different view, see Catholic Presbyterian, March 1881, 
 p. 204, or British and Foreign Evangelical Review, April 1866. 
 
Wliat is not found in the Veda. 2 5 
 
 Teutonic or English it became Saturn, Sun, Moon, 
 Tiu, Wustan or Odin, Thunar or Thor, and Freyja. 
 
 But to proceed : there is no history, no narrative, 
 no biography, no chronology, no science as such, in 
 the Veda, though there are allusions bearing on all 
 these. There is no religious creed, no system of 
 belief, or indeed of rites or ceremonies, referred to, 
 still less arranged and formulated, in the hymns of 
 the Eig-Veda. Nor am I aware that any attempt 
 has hitherto been made to analyze the Kig-Veda with 
 the view of formulating any such. Certain points 
 have been very thoroughly discussed, and much 
 learning has been devoted to the gathering of texts 
 to illustrate them. In the following pages I shall 
 consequently be able to speak very positively as to 
 the existence or non-existence of some things, and 
 very fully on some points, but on others very falter- 
 ingly, while there are others again of which I shall 
 be able to say nothing. 
 
 I proceed, then, to mention what has not been 
 discovered in the Eig-Veda as regards religion. 
 
 There has not been found in it any allusion to the 
 present most popular of the Hindu gods and goddesses; 
 such as Siva, Mahadeva, Vishnu, Brahma, Durga, 
 Kali, Ganesh, Kartick, Eama, Krishna, JSTarayana, 
 Gunga, and Eudra. If any of them be alluded to, it 
 is as occupying a very subordinate position to that 
 now occupied by them, or with characters totally 
 different from those they possess in later writings. 
 
26 The Vedic Eeligion. 
 
 Gunga is twice J referred to in the Veda, but simply 
 in the words ' like the elevated bank of the Ganges/ 
 and ' accept, Gunga (Ganges), Yamuna (Jumna), 
 Sarasvati, etc., my praise ; ' while the rivers Indus 
 and Sarasvati are frequently referred to as divinities 
 to be worshipped. Eudra is referred to more than 
 once, but not as another name for Siva, who was 
 then unknown, but as the god of the roaring tempest. 
 He is spoken of as the ' braided-haired destroyer of 
 heroes ; ' while Vishnu was the god of the brilliant 
 firmament. Brihaspati was not the planet Jupiter, 
 which he now is, but the ' Lord of prayers,' another 
 name of Agni. Brahma appears simply as the 
 prayer, the mantra or sacrifice, or the * Lord of 
 prayers/ The Vishnu of the Veda has a very 
 different character from that of the member of the 
 Hindu Triad. As regards Rudra, see below, p. 188. 
 There is no allusion to any temple, big or little, or to 
 any special place of worship, church, mundir, synagogue, 
 or mosque, or to any house for the gods, specially con- 
 secrated to their use. No allusion has been discovered 
 to idol or image of wood, mud, stone, silver, or gold, 
 made or graven with man's hand, though it is quite 
 possible, if not indeed probable, that idols were be- 
 ginning to be used, inasmuch as several of the members 
 of the imaginary bodies of some of the gods are rather 
 minutely described, such as Indra's nose, lips, chins, 
 Rudra's limbs, Varuna's coat, the Maruts' gods (images?). 
 
 1 ft.-V., vi. 45, 31, Wilson's, vol. Hi. p. 465; and x. 75, 5. 
 
What is not found in the Veda. 2 7 
 
 There are no fixed genealogies of the gods or 
 goddesses, or settled marriages between them, recog- 
 nised with any definiteness. The relations are a good 
 deal confounded by different Eishis. The son is 
 sometimes the father, the daughter the mother, if not 
 the grandmother ; the mother in one hymn is the 
 wife in another, and the husband in one the brother 
 in another. 
 
 Though the worship of the sun, of the moon, and 
 of the day and night firmament is quite apparent, 
 there is no worship, singularly enough, of the stars 
 or planets, individually or collectively ; and that of 
 the moon is not at all prominent. << 
 
 The Indo-Aryans of the Vedic times apparently 
 did not worship fetishes of wood or stone, or any 
 of those things described by Max Muller as fully 
 tangible, as distinguished from the semi-tangible, such 
 as trees, mountains, rivers, the earth, and the sea ; 
 and the intangible, such as the sky, the sun, and the 
 dawn ; unless we regard the worship of the ac- 
 companiments to the sacrifice, such as the mortar 
 and pestle, the soma juice and the sacrificed horse, 
 the prayer and the kusi grass, the doors, the sacrificial 
 posts, and implements of war, as tangible fetishes 
 worshipped. The adoration of the Eishis was gene- 
 rally directed towards the semi-tangible and the 
 intangible. Max Muller adds : Tangible objects are 
 ' hardly represented at all among the so-called deities 
 of the Eig-Veda. Stones, bones, shells, herbs, and 
 
28 The Vedic Beligion. 
 
 /v 
 
 all the other so-called fetishes are simply absent in 
 the old hymns, though they appear in more modern 
 hymns, particularly those of the Atharva-Veda. . . . 
 But when we come to the second class, the case is 
 very different. Almost every one of the objects 
 which we defined as semi-tangible meets us among 
 the so-called deities of the Veda.' He quotes 
 passages showing that the winds, the trees, the 
 rivers, the mountains, the heavens, and the earth, 
 were all worshipped by the Eishis of the Big- Veda. 1 
 
 There is no mention of any human religious leader 
 like Moses, Mahomed, Zoroaster, Joseph Young, or 
 Keshub Chander Sen. Each hymn-writer was his, 
 own religious guide, and led himself alone. 
 
 There is no distinct teaching of Pantheism in the 
 hymns of the Veda. There are two or three mantras 
 that may have proved germs which suggested the 
 idea to subsequent authors. But the whole spirit of 
 the hymns is opposed to the system as such. 
 
 No reference to metempsychosis or transmigration 
 of the soul has been discovered in the Veda, while 
 on the other hand there are the clearest proofs that 
 animals were used in sacrifice, and partaken of as 
 food. 2 The ancient Indians were unquestionably 
 beef-eaters, and this itself is a presumption against 
 
 1 Miiller's Hibbert Lectures, p. 198 ; British and Foreign Evan- 
 gelical Review, January 1880, p. 29. 
 
 1 Big-Veda, i. 61, 12 ; i. 164, 43 ; vi. 2, 8 ; 39, 1. Wilson's Big- 
 Veda, vol. i. p. 165, and vol. iii. p. 453. Dr. Wilson's India 3000 
 
 ears Ago, p. 69. 
 
WJiat is not found in the Veda. 2 9 
 
 the doctrine of metempsychosis being believed in. 
 There is no allusion, either, to the doctrine of the 
 final absorption of the soul of man into the substance 
 of the divinity. The deification of the sons of 
 Angiras, of the Kibhus who are represented as the 
 sons of Sudhanvan, and of the seven Eishis as the 
 seven- stars of Ursa Major or the Great Bear, is 
 inconsistent with both doctrines. Dr. Wilson of 
 Bombay describes well the degrading effect metem- 
 psychosis has on the human mind. The attempt to 
 
 raise the brutes to the level of man results in de- 
 
 t 
 
 grading man to the level of brutes. According to 
 this doctrine, a man may be to-day an intelligent 
 rational being, to-morrow he may be a chattering 
 monkey ; to-day his mother may be a tender-hearted 
 woman, to-morrow she may be a ravening wolf; to- 
 day his son may be a studious youth, next year he 
 may be a stupid buffalo ; and his daughter may be 
 to-day a playful girl, but next week she may be a 
 skipping goat. The querulous crow watching to 
 snatch a bone off his table may be his own deceased 
 father; the hungry cat his own departed grand- 
 mother ; that raging bear his quondam brother ; and 
 that crawling serpent his late sister. Of this doctrine, 
 so prevalent now and so degrading, there is no trace 
 to be found in the hymns of the Kig-Veda. 
 
 There is no trace of asceticism, as formally practised, 
 now in India; no regularly organized priesthood is 
 to be found in the Veda, not at least in the older 
 
3 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 hymns ; nor is there any trace of any ecclesiastical 
 authority or church organization. They seemed to 
 have had only ' the church in the house/ and it was 
 perfectly independent of all others. 
 - ^ There were no sacred places to which the people 
 went on pilgrimages in these days. There was 
 nothing specially sacred about Juggernath or Boida- 
 nath, Gangoutry or Jumnotry, Kasi or Pryaga, 
 Brindabun or Mathura, Gya, Dwarka or Tribeni, 
 Hurdwar, Tarakeswar or Kalighat. The Aryans had 
 not been sufficiently long in the country for any 
 place to acquire the odour of sanctity from its sup- 
 posed connection with any fact in the imaginary 
 history of their many gods and goddesses. There 
 was not any sacredness attached to the Ganges ; and 
 though some other rivers had been deified, just as the 
 earth, the clouds, and the dawn had been, we do not 
 learn that bathing in their waters was regarded as a 
 religious act, or that it was recommended as effica- 
 cious in purifying the soul from sin, or delivering it 
 from evil. 
 
 In those days there were no hospitals for the sick 
 or the dying, whether man or beast. There were no 
 infirmaries, asylums, or orphanages. The Vedic 
 religion did not consist in visiting the fatherless and 
 widows in their affliction, or in keeping themselves 
 unspotted from the world. It did not consist in 
 feeding the hungry, even hungry Brahmans, or in 
 supporting the poor, or in nursing the sick, or in 
 
What is not found in the Veda. 31 
 
 educating the ignorant/ or in helping the helpless. 
 There were no schools of the priests or prophets, no 
 patshalahs for the young, or any Sunday schools, no 
 Sanskrit toles, or universities ; there were no books, 
 sacred or profane ; no writing or arithmetic, save the 
 mental ; no astronomy beyond identifying a few stars 
 and calculating the age of the moon and of the year 
 of twelve lunar months and the intercalary month. 
 
 There were no missionaries, or propagandists or 
 proselytizers of any kind ; no efforts to bring over to 
 their own religion the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
 land. There was, on the other hand, the most deadly 
 hostility cherished towards them, and every effort 
 was made to exterminate those who were not Aryans 
 and sacrificed not to the Aryans' gods. 
 
 There were no preachers, clergymen, lecturers, or 
 professors attached to secular or theological seminaries, 
 for there were none such. I do not remember 
 to have read even of lawyers or engineers, though 
 there were houses and cities for the latter to look 
 after, as well as rights and disputes for the former 
 to settle. There were, however, 'wise poets' and 
 'eloquent satirists' (i. 141, 7). 
 
 There were no fairs or melas at which multitudes 
 attended on specially appointed days. There were 
 no large congregations or assemblies for worship. It 
 was rather individual or domestic. There were no 
 holy days or holidays, or saints' days. Neither Agni 
 nor Indra, nor any of the other gods, had any days 
 
32 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 specially set apart for their worship. There were no 
 Durgah, Kali, or Lucksmi Pujahs then. 
 
 We find no encouragement given to child marriage, 
 or any text indicating its prevalence. And there is 
 no allusion to the dreadful rite of Sati, or the burning 
 of living widows on their late husbands' funeral pyres. 
 A passage in the Big- Veda used to be quoted by 
 Brahmins in support of this rite, but it proves only 
 their own wickedness. The Brahminical translation 
 of the passage, as given by Colebrooke, is, ' Om I let 
 these women, not to be widowed, good wives adorned 
 with colly r|um, holding clarified butter, consign them- 
 selves to the fire, immortal, not childless, nor husband- 
 less, well adorned with gems, let them pass into the 
 fire, whose element is water.' The correct translation 
 of the passage has been proved, by Wilson and others, 
 to be, ' May these women, who are not widows, draw 
 near with oil and butter. Let those who are mothers 
 go first to the altar without sorrow, but decked with 
 fine jewels.' The false translation had been got by 
 the change of a single syllable, the substitution of 
 agneh for ctgre, so as to make the phrase ' go first to 
 the altar ' read ' go into the fire/ Max Miiller, in 
 noticing the change, says : ' This is perhaps the most 
 flagrant instance of what can be done by an un&cru- 
 pulous priesthood.' 1 The words of the Veda refer 
 
 1 Oxford Essays, 1856, p. 22; Wilson's Article, Journal of Royal 
 Asiatic Society, vol. xvi. p. 201 ; and Dr. Wilson's India 3000 Years 
 Ago, p. 66. 
 
What is not found in the Veda. 3 3 
 
 not to the bereaved widow, but to the visit of condol- 
 ence to her by unbereaved female friends. 
 
 There is no prohibition of the marriage of adult 
 females, or any injunction in favour of the marriage 
 of girls before they arrive at puberty. The following 
 text seems to indicate the opposite state of things : 
 'As a virtuous maiden growing old in the same 
 dwelling with her parents (claims from them her 
 support), so come I to thee for wealth.' The story 
 of the Eishi Syavaswas falling in love with the Eaja's 
 daughter, and qualifying himself to the satisfaction of 
 the mother before he got her, would seem to indicate 
 that the daughter was something more than a mere 
 child. There has been found, as far as I am aware, 
 no instance of the remarriage of widows, or any text 
 prohibiting it ; nor am I aware of the Brahmans having 
 quoted any mantra of the Eig-Veda in support of the 
 present prohibition. Widows seem, however, to have 
 been married to their brothers-in-law. See x. 40, 2 ; 
 compare Deut, xxv. 5 and Matt. xxii. 24 ff. 
 
 There is no prohibition of foreign travel ; on the 
 contrary, there are the clearest references to voyages 
 by sea as well as journeys by land. The absence of 
 caste distinctions would imply the absence of such 
 prohibitions. Further, we must bear in mind that 
 the Aryans were themselves strangers in a strange 
 land. They were at the time on a great conquering 
 expedition, far away from their late home. 
 
 That there were no caste, in the modern Hindu 
 c 
 
34 TJic Veclic Religion. 
 
 sense, is clear from the following considerations : 
 First, there is no allusion to any defilement as result- 
 ing from touching anything ceremonially unclean, 
 or from eating or drinking any particular kind of 
 food, cooked by any one, or from any vessel becom- 
 ing unclean by being touched by any one. Not 
 a single mantra can be quoted, as far as I am 
 aware, indicating that a person could be so defiled. 
 Further, the story of the origin of the four 
 castes is not found in the Veda ; nor indeed was 
 the god Brahma, from whose body they are said to 
 have come, sufficiently developed to become a basis 
 for such a myth. A text is, however, referred to in 
 support of the caste system and of this story. It runs: 
 ' With Ptirusha as victim, they performed 
 A sacrifice. When they divided him, 
 How did they cut him up ? What was his 
 
 mouth ? 
 What were his arms ? And what his thigh and 
 
 feet? 
 
 The Brahman was his mouth, the kingly soldier 
 Was made his arms, the husbandman his thighs, 
 The servile Sudra issued from his feet.' * 
 Here there is no allusion to the god Brahma, and 
 the Brahman is said to have been the mouth of the 
 
 1 R.-V., x. 90 ; see below, p. 84. Emerson, in his short poem on 
 Brahma, represents the Hindu god with greater literalness than 
 possibly he was aware of : 
 
 ' I am the doubter, and the doubt 
 And I the hymn the Brahman sings.' 
 
What is not found in the Veda. 35 
 
 sacrificed victim, instead of to have issued from the 
 mouth of the living god. The text, which is a com- 
 paratively modern one, proves that there were four 
 different classes of people then, but nothing more. 
 Brahma, in the neuter gender, in the Vedic language, 
 means ' prayer,' and Brahma, in the masculine, means 
 ' he-of-prayer.' Agni, the god of fire and sacrifice, is 
 the Brahma, the god of prayer. The modern Brahma 
 is an invention of the ideal Vedanta, a system of 
 Pantheism long posterior to the Vedas, and really 
 designed to supersede them under the assumed name 
 of the ' Aim ' or ' End ' (anta) of the Vedas. 1 There 
 were no Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, or Sudras 
 as castes, technically so called. The profession of 
 priests was beginning to be recognised, and there 
 were soldiers and agriculturists or the common people. 
 The state of matters may be understood from the hymn 
 addressed to the deified Aswins : ' Favour the prayer 
 (brahma), favour the service ; kill the Eakshasas, drive 
 away the evil; . . . favour the power (khatra) and 
 favour the manly strength; .... favour the cow 
 (dhenu, the representative of property) ; and favour 
 the people (or house, visha).' 2 That the priests and 
 Eishis of the Vedic times did not constitute a caste 
 is clearly proved by their intermarrying with others 
 
 1 Wilson's India 3000 Years Ago, p. 58, 53. 
 
 2 K.-V., ix. 79, 16-17, is regarded as very important, being very 
 incorrectly employed by modern Brahmins as justifying caste. We 
 have the Visha of this text preserved in such words as Wick, Wool- 
 wich, etc. See Langlois, vol. iii. p. 311. 
 
I 
 k 
 
 36 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 f ~vye s-tf^t "\ 
 
 outside their own professions, such as Eajas' daughters, 
 they themselves belonging to various professions, and 
 some of these Eishis being females. No honour or 
 privilege is bestowed upon them because of their 
 birth or their origin. There was no law or custom 
 prohibiting inter-caste marriages. 
 
 In a review of Dr. Muir's Texts in Tlu Times, 10th 
 April 1858, by M. Miiller, there occurs the following 
 very emphatic assertion regarding caste : ' Does caste, 
 as we find it in Manu and at the present day, form 
 part of the religious teaching of the Vedas ? We 
 answer with a decided " No." There is no authority 
 whatever in the Veda for the complicated system of 
 castes ; no authority for the offensive privileges claimed 
 by the Brahmans ; no authority for the degraded 
 position of the Sudras. There is no law to prohibit 
 the different classes of the people from living together, 
 from eating and drinking together; no law to pro- 
 hibit the marriage of people belonging to different 
 castes ; no law to brand the offspring of such marriages 
 with an indelible stigma.' 
 

 v. 
 
 rra^ r 75 //v raz* VEDA SIN. 
 
 / 
 
 T 
 
 IT is time that \ve should consider now the positive 
 side of the matter, and introduce our readers 
 to what is actually to be found in this most ancient 
 of hymn-books. 
 
 I begin with the consideration of the Vedic views 
 of morality, depravity and sin ; and first, I notice 
 that there is an undoubted acknowledgment of 'sin. 
 The word occurs very often. ' This day, ye gods, 
 with the rising sun, deliver us from heintius sin.' 
 ' Whatever sin we have committed, Indra, let us 
 obtain the safe light of day : let not the long dark- 
 / ness come upon us.' ( * Preserve us, Agni, by 
 knowledge, from sin/J {^Thou leadest the man who 
 has followed wrong paths to acts of wisdom/) 
 ' Deliver us from evil,' is a frequent prayer. 1 ' The 
 gods are not to be trifled with.' 'They are with 
 the righteous ; they know man in their hearts/ 
 ' They behold all things, and hear no prayers of the 
 wicked/ 'May I, free from sin, propitiate Eudra/ 
 
 1 i. 115, 6; ii. 27, 14; i. 36, 14; i. 35, 3, 11. Johnson's 
 Oriental Religions, p. 119. 
 
38 The Vedic Edigion. 
 
 ' I have committed many faults, which do ye, 
 gods, correct, as a father his ill-behaving sons.' 
 ' Far from me be bonds, far be sins.' ' May our 
 sins be removed,' or 'repented of,' is the burden of 
 a whole hymn. 1 
 
 But all this is very general. No clear idea 
 is given to us from reading such texts, or, in- 
 deed, from the whole book, as to the writers' 
 notion of sin or of repentance, their real relation to 
 god or the gods, and his or theirs to the law of 
 right and wrong. The value of these and sucnlike 
 terms must depend on the meaning put into them 
 by the hymnists, not by us of the 19th century in 
 our daily use of them. To confess sin in the 
 abstract and to deprecate its consequences, to praise 
 the righteous and to denounce the wicked, do not 
 tell us much more than what we learn from a child's 
 saying that such a person is bad, and such another 
 is good. Dean Church 2 correctly remarks, that ' Of 
 that moral conviction, that moral enthusiasm for 
 goodness and justice, that moral hatred of wrong 
 and evil, that zeal for righteousness, that anguish of 
 penitence, which has elsewhere marked religious 
 poetry, there is singularly little trace ' in the Eig- 
 Veda hymns. Baboo Earn Chundra Ghosha's little 
 book, just published, seems to be very fair on the 
 
 Johnson's Oriental Religions, p. 120. R.-V., vii. 32, 9; viii. 
 13, 15 ; ii. 33, 6 ; ii. 24, 5 ; i. 97. 
 
 2 Dean Church's Sacred Poetry of Early Religion-, p. 30. E.-V., 
 i. 24, 15 ; 25, 1. 
 
What is in tJie Veda Sin.- 30 
 
 whole. Not hiding or ignoring the defects, he 
 makes most of the good points. He very justly 
 remarks, that 'although Indo-Aryan mythology is 
 extravagant and ridiculous, and has an icy coldness 
 of meaning in it, yet those mythological dreams 
 have an enduring symbolic value, and stand as date, 
 for primitive history.' f The consciousness of sin,' 
 
 \9 *^^t 
 
 t #P ]je_^dds, ' is the prominent characteristic of the 
 
 ^ religion of the Veda.' It is said that the gods 
 
 : take away from man the burden of his sins, 1 a 
 
 n very common figure for sin ; and so also is darkness ; 
 
 Tm** ^7^ 
 
 bonds consisting of an upper, a middle, and a lower 
 rope ; a sea or flood across which we have to 
 go by means of a boat ; and a defile through 
 which we have to pass while surrounded with 
 enemies. 
 
 Max Mu'ller 2 is very express in asserting that not 
 only is the doctrine of sin to be found there, but 
 also ' the two ideas of justice and mercy, so con- 
 tradictory to the human understanding, and yet so 
 easily reconciled in every human heart. God has 
 established the eternal laws of right and wrong, he 
 >f punishes sin and rewards virtue, and yet the same 
 God is willing to forgive ; just, yet merciful ; a 
 judge and yet a father. Consider, for instance, the 
 following lines :-+-" His path is easy and without / 
 
 1 R. C. Ghose's Peep into the Vedic Age, pp. 82, 93. R.-V., i. 
 162, 22; v. 82, 6 ; viii. 48, 9 ; ii. 27, 14; vii. 87, 7 ; x. 25, 3; 
 iv. 12, 4 ; vi. 93, 7 ; 68, 8 ; 71, 3. 
 
 2 Max Mailer's Chips, vol. i. p. 39. 
 
40 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 thorns who does what is right."^} And again, " Let 
 man fear him who holds the four (dice), before he 
 throws them down (i.e. God who holds the destinies 
 of man in his hand) : (Let no man delight in evil 
 words." 'j Max Mliller specially appeals, in proof of 
 his position, to the well-known hymn to Varuna: 2 
 ' Let me not yet, Varuna, enter into the house 
 
 of clay. 
 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. 
 If I go trembling, like a cloud, driven by the wind, 
 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. 
 Through want of strength, thou strong and high 
 
 god, I have gone on the wrong shore ; 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. 
 Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood 
 
 in the midst of the waves ; 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy. 
 Whenever we men, Varuna, commit an offence 
 before the heavenly host ; whenever we 
 break thy law through thoughtlessness ; 
 Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy.' 
 
 and so on. 
 And again, 
 
 ' Aditi, Mitra, and also Varuna forgive, if we have 
 committed any sin against you ! may I obtain the 
 wide fearless light, Indra ! May not the long 
 
 1 E.-V., i. 41, 4 ; i. 41, 9 ; vii. 89 ; ii. 27, 14. Hibbcrt Lectures, 
 p. 231. R.-V., i. 162, 22; i. 41, 9. 
 
 2 vii. 89. 
 
What is in the Veda Sin. 41 
 
 darkness come over us ! May Aditi grant us sin- 
 lessness.' 
 
 1. 'Wise and mighty are the works of him who 
 stemmed asunder the wide firmaments. He lifted on 
 high the bright and glorious heavens ; he stretched 
 out apart the starry sky and the earth. 
 
 2y ' Do I say this to my own self ? How can I 
 get near to Varuna ? Will he accept my offering 
 without displeasure ? When shall I, with quiet 
 mind, see him propitiated ? 
 
 3. 'I ask Varuna, wishing to know this my siii : 
 I go to ask the wise. The wise all tell me the 
 same : Varuna it is who is angry with thee. 
 
 4. ' Was it an old sin, Varuna, that thou 
 wishest to destroy thy friend, who always praises 
 thee ? Tell me, thou unconquerable lord, and I will 
 quickly turn to thee with praise, freed from sin. 
 
 ^5. 'Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and 
 from those which ice committed with our own bodies. 
 Eelease Vasishtha, 1 King, like a thief who has 
 feasted on stolen cattle ; release him like a calf from 
 the rope. 
 
 6* ' It was not our own doing, Varuna, it was 
 necessity, an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, 
 thoughtlessness. The old is near to mislead the 
 young ; even sleep brings unrighteousness. 
 
 1 Vasishtha was the Rishi who composed the hymn (vii. 86) ; 
 vi. 52, 7 ; vii. 52, 2. A.-V., v. 30, 4; vi. 115, 1. R.-V., x. 37, 12. 
 See Muir's Metrical Translations, p. 316 ; and Wilson's Rig- Veda. 
 vol. iv. p. 23 ; Ex. xx. 5 ; Deut. v. 9. 
 
42 The Vedic Eeligion. 
 
 7. ' Let me, without sin, give satisfaction to the 
 angry god, like a slave to the bounteous lord. The 
 lord god enlightened the foolish ; he, the wisest, 
 leads his worshipper to wealth. 
 
 8. ' Lord, Varuna, may this song go well to thy 
 heart ! May we prosper in keeping and acquiring ! 
 Protect us, O gods, always with your blessings ! ' 
 
 I do not think these hymns justify altogether 
 Max Muller's conclusions concerning the old Kishis' 
 sense of justice, or concerning God as Judge. They 
 undoubtedly believed that the gods could punish 
 iniquity or exercise mercy, and that they could 
 forgive sins. But their sense of the demands of 
 justice were very far from being clear or distinct. 
 They had no idea how God could be just and justify 
 the ungodly. 
 
 I think the 5th verse of the last of these hymns 
 justifies us in asserting that they believed in the 
 doctrine of imputation of sin, the children bearing the 
 sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation 
 the principle underlying the doctrine of ' original 
 sin' as well as those of incarnation and substitution. 
 Max Miiller thinks that c the consciousness of sin is 
 a prominent feature in the religion of the Veda,' and 
 ' the belief that the gods are able to take away from 
 man the heavy burden of his sin.' But there is no 
 attempt whatever to explain how the gods can take 
 away sin. 
 
 There are few sins referred to as such. There are 
 
What is in the Veda Sin. 43 
 
 allusions to irreligion, ihipiety, and having neither 
 rites nor sacrifice, as characteristic of their enemies, 
 the Dasyus, the Eakshasas, and the Asuras. Sins 
 against chastity are also referred to, as we shall see 
 when we consider the Aryan's treatment of women ; 
 but these sins seem to be as characteristic of their 
 gods as of themselves ; and this is specially true of 
 the sin of drunkenness. In support of the latter 
 statement, I shall quote a few verses illustrative of 
 Indra's character. ' Thy inebriety is most intense,' 
 the Bishi addresses him ; ' nevertheless thy acts for 
 our good are most beneficent' (i. 17, 55). 'Thou, 
 Indra, performer of good works, hast suddenly become 
 of augmented vigour for the sake of drinking the 
 libation, and maintaining seniority among the gods. 
 Indra, thou art the object of praises ; may these 
 pervading Soma juices enter into thee ; may they be 
 propitious for thy attainment of superior intelligence ' 
 (i. 5, 6). < The belly of Indra, which quaffs the Soma 
 juice abundantly, swells like the ocean, and is ever 
 moist, like the ample fluids of the palate ' (i. 8, 7). 
 f Indra who tarries to regale himself in every place 
 where Soma is offered' (i. 9, 10 Mahratta trans- 
 lation). ' Voracious Indra has risen up as ardently 
 as .... to partake of the copious libations, in the 
 ladles ; having stayed his well-horsed, golden, and 
 splendid chariot, he plies himself, capable of heroic 
 actions, with the beverage' (i. 56, 1, 15, 1). These 
 must suffice here, for I shall continue this subject 
 
44 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 under the heading 'Wine and Soma juice.' Indra's 
 character is not very clear of other sins. Max Miiller, 
 in reference to one Eishi, says that ' he (the Eishi) 
 wished to represent a squabble between Indra and 
 the Mariits, such as they were familiar with in their 
 own village life, and this was to be followed by a 
 reconciliation. The boorish rudeness, selfishness and 
 boastfulness here ascribed to Indra may seem offensive 
 to those who cannot divest themselves of the modern 
 meaning of deities, but, looked upon from the right 
 point of view, it is really full of interest.' It proves 
 that the highest standard of morality, even among 
 the gods, was not very high. 
 
 This is also seen very clearly in regard to the wars 
 in which they were engaged, which were mere wars 
 of conquest. The Eakshasas, Asuras, etc., were killed 
 simply because they were Eakshasas and Asuras 
 (i. 12, 5). Indra is described (i. 130, 8) ' punishing 
 the riteless ; he subjected the black skin to the (Aryan) 
 man. He burned all greedy enemies, as if he would 
 burn them to ashes ; he burned to ashes the devour- 
 ing enemy' (vi. 62, 8-10). 
 
 Gambling seems to have been common in Vedic 
 times. The actions of the gods are illustrated by 
 means of terms used in gambling, though I am not 
 aware that they themselves gambled. Still gambling 
 was regarded as a fruitful source of evil. The 
 gambler ' finds no comfort in his need ; his dice give 
 transient gifts, and ruin the winner : he is vexed to 
 
What is in the Veda Sin. 45 
 
 see his own wife, and the wives and happy homes of 
 other men.' 1 
 
 ' Harmful sorcerers ' and demons seem to have been 
 very trouhlesome to these old Eishis. Deliverance 
 from them is frequently prayed for (i. 35, 10 ; i. 36, 
 14). So also is deliverance from ' deceitful thieves ' 
 and robbers, ' wicked and covetous, waylaying and 
 evil contemplating ' (i. 42, 2, 3), and * revilers of 
 Soma juice' (i. 43, 8 ; 147, 5). 
 
 The tricks of trade were not unknown in those 
 days. The god Eudra is entreated not to ' take 
 advantage, like a trader, of his worshippers.' Selfish- 
 ness and inhospitality were also known and hated. 
 ' He who keeps his food to himself, has his sin to 
 himself also.' ' The wise man makes tjie giving of 
 gifts his breastplate.' ' The car of bounty rolls on 
 easy wheels,' equals our modern phrase about ' greas- 
 ing one's palm.' 
 
 As we shall see below, they, however, condemned 
 neither polygamy nor polyandry, but speak approv- 
 ingly of both. 
 
 Altogether, as M. Miiller expresses it, the hymns 
 ' represent human nature on a low level of selfishness 
 and worldliness,' and ' ascribe to the gods sentiments 
 and passions unworthy of the ddity, such as anger, 
 revenge, delight in material sacrifices,' 2 especially of 
 the Soma juice. 
 
 1 See Dr. Muir's Metrical Translations, p. 190, and R.-V., x. 34. 
 
 2 Max Miiller 's Chips, vol. i. p. 37. Wilson, vol. iv. p. 133. 
 
46 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 The burden of humanity in Vedic times was sin. 
 Its cry was, Deliver us from sin. And it was felt that 
 the deliverer must be other than man ; yea, divine 
 and human. Yet one prays, ' Eecommend us to Surya 
 as sinless' (i. 123, 3). But more of this hereafter. 
 
 As intimately connected with the doctrine of sin, 
 we pass on to the consideration of Immortality and 
 the Future State of Man. 
 
tf^- 1 ^ 
 
 IMMORTALITY AND THE FUTURE STATE OF MAN. 
 
 TJHE earliest references to immortality in the Eig- 
 Veda are in connection with certain pert, clever 
 artisans, called Eibhus, the three sons (Eibhu, Vibhu 
 and Yaja) of Sudhanwan, a descendant of Arjgiras. 
 The first verse of hymn 111 1 describes them thus: 
 * The Eibhus, possessed of skill in their work, con- 
 structed (for the Aswins) a well-built car. They 
 framed the vigorous horses bearing Indra; they gave 
 youthful existence to their parents ; they gave to the 
 calf its accompanying mother.' Their skill was 
 specially manifested (and frequently referred to) in 
 their making four cups for Indra out of one made for 
 him by the god Tvashtri, the Aryan Yulcan. For 
 this one act of skill they were rendered immortal and 
 deified ; according to one Eishi, to the great disgust 
 of Tvashtri, who is represented as quite (i. 161, 4) 
 ashamed of himself and hiding himself among the 
 goddesses, and also of attempting to kill his riyals. 
 
 1 i. 111, 1 ; 161, 7 ; iv. 33, 3 ; iv. 35, 5 ; iv. 36, 3 ; i. 161, 1, 5 ; 
 iv. 33, 5, 6 ; iv. 35, 3 ; i. 31, 7 ; v. 4, 10 ; i. 191, 1-18 ; 125, 5, 6 ; 
 v. 63, 2 ; viii. 58, 7. See below, pp. 127, 211, 216. 
 
jr ; 
 
 48 The Veclic Religion. 
 
 Another Eishi, on the contrary, says that Tvashtri 
 applauded their design and admired the brilliant 
 results of their skill. All are, however, agreed that 
 they were mortals, made immortal and deified because 
 of this exhibition of skill. In addition to this special 
 case, there are other undoubted references to immor- 
 tality as the portion of the blessed, fully as clearly 
 expressed as the older references in the Bible. Agni 
 is said to render mortals immortal. 'He is called the 
 guardian of immortality. The same powers are also 
 ascribed to Soma. Immortality is promised as the 
 reward of liberality, to the bes tower of largesses. 
 ' Eain, wealth, and immortality ' are the blessings 
 prayed for by one Eishi. Another Eishi is quite 
 familiar with Indra on the subject : ' When we two, 
 Indra and I, go to the region of the sun, to our home, 
 may we, drinking nectar, seek thrice seven, in the 
 realm of the friend.' 
 
 In the above references, and more so in the later 
 hymns, immortality is represented as a gift that might 
 be granted by the gods to the favoured few, a view 
 not unfrequently given of our Christian doctrine in 
 our own day. It is represented as that which the 
 good and righteous might receive, while annihilation 
 would be the portion of the wicked. One thing is 
 very clear to every reader of the Veda, that the desires 
 of the hymnists were ever towards cows, horses, 
 offspring (sons), long life on earth, victory over their 
 earthly enemies, etc. ; that the requests for spiritual 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man. 49 
 
 blessings, or an inheritance in heaven, or immortality, 
 were very few in number, and not very clearly ex- 
 pressed. The visible and the sensible, as far as their 
 hopes and wishes were concerned, occupied their 
 thoughts, almost to the complete exclusion of the 
 invisible and the spiritual. 
 
 It is also worthy of notice that the modern rite of 
 Shraddha, on the proper performance of which by a 
 son the happiness of the parent in the future is sup- 
 posed to depend, is never once alluded to in the Veda, 
 as an explanation of the desire for children, or indeed 
 in any connection. So that we may conclude it had 
 not originated then. 
 
 There are, however, distinct references to the future 
 life of individuals, in the ninth and tenth books of 
 the Big, as well as in the more recent Atharva-Veda, 
 a life of sensual rather than of spiritual joys, and more 
 Mahornedan than Christian. In these references the 
 connection is generally with the worship of the Pitris 
 or Fathers. As for example : ' May the lords of truth 
 be propitious to us, and so may the horses and kine ; 
 may the skilful Eibhus, dexterous of hand, may the 
 Fathers (Pitris) be propitious to us in our invocations.' 
 ' Let not the gods injure us here, nor our early Fathers, 
 who know the realms.' * 
 
 I shall now quote from, the more recent ninth and 
 
 tenth Books, which contain clearer views of the future 
 
 life, and in which also we find more distinct mytho- 
 
 1 vii. 35, 12 ; iii 55, 2 t 
 
 D 
 
50 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 logy than in the first eight books. / As those references 
 have a most intimate connection with Yama, I shall 
 give some details of his life and birth. The god 
 Tvashtri, the skilful Vulcan of the Vedic religion, 
 had a daughter named Saranyu, whom he had espoused 
 to Viva&vat, ' the bright one/ identified with the sun. 
 ' The whole world assembles to the marriage.' Soon 
 after, she gave birth to twins, Yama and Yami. The 
 immortal mother then creates another female exactly 
 like herself, entrusts the twins to her, and puts her 
 in her own place as Vivasvat's wife. She, thereafter, 
 assumed the form of a mare, and disappeared. Vivas- 
 vat, before realizing the deception played upon him, 
 had a son, Monu, by the newly created female. 
 Discovering, somehow, that he had been deceived, 
 and how, he assumed the form of a horse and went 
 in pursuit of his lost wife. In time he overtook her. 
 As a mare she gave birth to other twins, known as 
 the two Kumxiras, who are landed as Aswins (sprung 
 from a horse). This story is briefly stated in the 
 17th hymn of the 10th Book: 'Tvashtri makes 
 a marriage for his daughter. Hearing so, this whole 
 world assembles. The mother of Yama becoming 
 wedded, the wife of the great Vivasvat disappeared. 
 They concealed the immortal bride from mortals. 
 Making another of similar form, she gave her to 
 Vivasvat. And she bore the Aswins, when that 
 happened. Saranyu abandoned the two pairs of .twins.' 
 In the same book occurs another hymn in the form 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man. 51 
 
 of a dialogue between Yama and his twin sister Yami, 
 in which the latter tries to persuade the former, 
 unsuccessfully, to cohabit with her. The reason she 
 gives is that ' the immortals desire this ; they desire 
 a descendant left behind ~by (Yama} the one sole mortal! 
 This Yama is represented as the King of Hades, god 
 of the dead, and the first of men that died, and some- 
 times as death itself. With him the spirits of the 
 departed are said to dwell. The 14th hymn of the 
 same tenth book calls upon men to ' Worship with^_ 
 an oblation to King Yama, son of yivasvat, 'the 
 assembler of men, who departed to the mighty streams, 1 
 and spied out the road for many. Yama was the 
 first who found for us the way. This home is not 
 to be taken from us. Those who are now born 
 follow by their own paths to the place whither our 
 
 ancient fathers have departed Place thyself, 
 
 Yama, on this sacrificial seat in concert with the 
 Angirases 2 and Pitris (departed Fathers). Let the 
 texts recited by the sages bring thee hither. Delight 
 thyself, king, with this oblation. Come with the 
 adorable Angirases ; delight thyself here, Yarna, with 
 the children of Virupa. Seated on the grass at this 
 sacrifice, I invoke Vivasvat, who is thy father. May 
 we enjoy the goodwill and gracious benevolence of 
 those adorable beings the Angirases, our ancestors. . . . 
 
 1 x. 10, 1-14. Muir's Texts, vol. v. pp. 284-313; 2d ed. Langlois, 
 vol. iv. p. 144. 
 
 2 These are represented as the descendants of Angiras, the father of 
 Agui. They are also represented as a class of Pitris or manes. 
 
52 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 Depart thou, depart by the ancient paths to the place 
 whither our early fathers have departed. There shalt 
 thou see the two kings, Yama and the god Varjina, 
 exhilarated by the oblation, meet with the Pitris, meet 
 with Yama, obtain the fulfilment of thy desires in the 
 highest heaven. Throwing off again all imperfection, 
 go to thy home. Become united to a body, and 
 clothed in a shining form. Go ye, depart ye, hasten 
 ye from hence. 1 The Pitris have made for him this 
 place. Yama gives him an abode distinguished by 
 day, and waters, and lights. By an auspicious path 
 do thou hasten past the two four-eyed br/ndled dogs 
 [of Yama which guard the road to his abode, and 
 which the departed are advised to hurry past with 
 all possible speed. They were the offspring of Sarama, 
 the dog of Indra]. Then approach the bountiful 
 Pitris, who dwell in festivity with Yama. Entrust 
 him, Yama, to thy two four-eyed, road -guarding, 
 man-observing watch-dogs ; and bestow on him pros- 
 perity and health. The two brown messengers (the 
 dogs) of Yama, broad of nostril and insatiable, wander 
 about among men. May they give us again the 
 auspicious breath of life, that we may behold the sun. 
 Pour out the soma to Yama, offer him an oblation, 
 To Yama the sacrifice proceeds, when heralded by 
 Agni and prepared. Offer to Yama an oblation with 
 butter, and be active. May he grant us to live a 
 long life among the gods. Offer a most honied obla- 
 1 M Miiller thinks these words are addressed to evil spirits* 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man, 53 
 
 tion to King Yama. Let this salutation be offered 
 to the earliest-born, the ancient Kishis, who made for 
 us a path.' 
 
 The subjects of Yama seem to be divided into 
 classes or ranks ; for we read 1 : ' Let the lower, the 
 upper, and the middle Pitris, the offerers of Soma, 
 arise. May these Pitris, innocuous, and versed in 
 righteousness, who have attained to higher life, protect 
 us in the sacrifices. Let this reverence be to-day 
 paid to the Pitris, who departed first, and who 
 departed last, who are situated in the terrestrial 
 sphere, or who are now among the powerful races 
 (the gods). . . . Invited to these favourite oblations 
 placed on the grass, may the Pitris, the offerers of 
 Soma, come, may they hear us, may they intercede 
 for us, and preserve us. .... Do us no injury, 
 Pitris, on account of any offence which we, after the 
 manner of men, may commit against you. . . . Bestow 
 wealth on the mortal who worships you. May Yama 
 feast according to his desire on the oblations, eager, 
 and sharing his gratification with the eager Vasishthas, 
 our ancient ancestors, who presented a Soma libation. 
 Come, Agni, with 'a thousand of those exalted ancient 
 Pitris, adorers of the gods, sitters at the fire, who are 
 true, who are eaters and drinkers of oblations, and 
 who are received into the same chariot with Indra 
 and the gods. Come hither, ye Agnishvatta Pitris, 
 occupy each a seat, ye wise directors ; eat the obla- 
 
 1 Rig- Veda, x. 15. 
 
54 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 tions which have been arranged on the grass, and then 
 bestow wealth on us, with all our offsprtn^J . . Do 
 thou, self-resplendent god, along with those Pitris, 
 who, whether they have undergone cremation or not, 
 are gladdened by our oblation, grant us this higher 
 vitality, and a body according to our desire.' l From 
 this remarkable hymn we see that the inhabitants of 
 heaven were engaged chiefly in eating and drinking, 
 at least no other employment of any definite kind is 
 ascribed to them. Observe also the reference to a 
 resurrection body. 
 
 Agni's treatment of the body is somewhat mysteri- 
 ous. He consumes it, but destroys nothing of it. 
 The members are separated, but not decomposed into 
 their elements. They all go to heaven, to be reunited 
 there, but they go by different routes. 'Do thou, 
 Agni, burn up or consume him (the deceased) ; do not 
 dissolve his skin, or his body. When thou hast 
 matured him, Yatavedas (Agni), then send him to 
 the Pitris. When thou maturest him, Yatavedas, 
 then consign him to the Pitris. When he shall 
 reach that state of vitality, he shall then fulfil the 
 pleasure of the gods. Let his eye go to the sun, his 
 breath to the wind. Go to the sky, and to the earth, 
 according to the nature of thy several parts ; or go to 
 the waters, if that is suitable for thee ; enter into the 
 plants with thy members. As for his unborn part, 
 
 1 Dr. Muir's Oriental Studies, p. 181 (Article on the Vedic- 
 Doctrine of a Future Life). 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man. 55 
 
 do thou (Agni) kindle it with thy heat ; let thy flame 
 and thy .lustre kindle it; with those forms of thine 
 which are auspicious, convey it to the world of the 
 righteous. Give up again, Agni, to the Pjtris him 
 who comes offered to thee, with oblations. Putting 
 on life, let him approach his remains ; let him meet 
 with his body, Yatavedas.' * 
 
 Here then are hints of a Resurrection of a spiritual 
 "body, a body purified as by fire ; or rather, fire itself 
 is the body of the soul. What else can be the 
 meaning of the statement that the garment of the 
 spirit was to be fire, ' the bright armour of Agni'? In 
 one verse it is said that the dead is rewarded for his 
 good deeds, that he leaves or casts off all evil, and, 
 ' glorified, takes his body.' The same Rishi prayed 
 (x. 14, 11) that the departed dead might be protected 
 from the terrible dogs of Yama, the king of the dead. 
 He must have believed that the departed had bodies 
 to be bit. In the later epjcs, the great sages are 
 represented as casting off their old bodies and ascend- 
 ing in new ones of a splendour like the sun and in 
 chariots of fire. There are hymns in the Veda that 
 ask the fire ' not to burn nor tear the body/ and the 
 fathers ' to rejoice in heaven with all their limbs.' 2 
 
 1 R.-V., x. 16 ; x. 97, 16 ; i. 38, 5 ; ix. 113, 7 ; x. 14, 8-10 ; 15, 14 ; 
 x. 16, 15 ; ix. 113, 9-11 ; x. 14, 14 ; ix. 113, 8-11. See below, p. 250, 
 and above, p. 52. 
 
 2 R.-V., x. 14, 8, 11; 16, 4; 121, 13; ii. 29, 6; x. 14, 11. Chips, 
 p. 47. Johnson's Oriental Religions, p. 130. BournouPs La Veda, 
 p. 186. 
 
o6 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 ' The belief in the immortality of the soul/ says 
 Bournouf, ' not naked and inactive, but living and 
 clothed with a glorious body, was never interrupted 
 for a moment : it is now in India what it was in 
 those ancient times, and even rests on a similar 
 metaphysical basis.' 
 
 Yama, though so thoroughly associated in the 
 Eig-Veda with the happiness of the dead, and in 
 modern Hinduism with the misery of the wicked, is 
 never in the Eig connected with penal retribution. 
 In fact, there is very little mention of hell at all in 
 the Veda. Still, Yama and his messenger, death, and 
 his dogs were naturally enough objects of fear in 
 Vedic times. Deliverance is prayed for from the 
 bonds of Yama. Another prayer runs : ' Let not thy 
 worshipper go along the road of Yama,' even though 
 it be to the realms of eternal light, ' where a delectable 
 abode is provided,' and a perfect life, crowded with 
 the fulfilment of all desires, and passed in the pre- 
 sence of the gods ' in the third heaven, in the third 
 sky, where action is unrestrained, where are pleasures 
 and enjoyments in the sphere of the sun where 
 ambrosia and satisfaction are found ; where there are 
 joys and delights and pleasures and gratifications ; 
 where the objects of desire are attained.' These gratifi- 
 cations and desires are understood to be sensual, such 
 at least is the character of those described in the 
 Athar.va-Yeda, and we have no reason to believe that 
 anything different was understood by the Eishis of 
 
iiW/lia^ 
 
 Immortality and the Future State of Man. 5 7 
 
 the Eig. 'In the celestial sphere they have abun- 
 dance of sexual gratification.' * The offerer of a black- 
 footed sheep ' ascends to the sky where no tribute is 
 paid by the weak to the stronger.' The gods them- 
 selves knew no other pleasures than the carnal and 
 material. Soma, honey, ambrosia, and suchlike, con- 
 stituted their choice food. Yama is described as 
 carousing with them under a leafy tree, and the Pitris 
 as indulging in festivity or revelling with Yama. 
 Indra is described as handsome himself, and as having 
 a handsome wife and pleasure in his house. (See 
 Muir's Metrical Trans., p. 186, and Oriental Studies, 
 p. 98, note.) 
 
 We have already stated that the virtue, above all 
 others, that is represented as gaining immortality to 
 its possessor, is liberality. Other virtues are repre- 
 sented elsewhere as equally, if not more, efficacious. 
 * Let the deceased depart to those for whom the honied 
 beverage flows ; let him depart to those who through 
 vigorous abstraction^ {tapas) are invincible, who, 
 '^ajas, have gone to heaven, to those who 
 ave performed great tapas. Let him depart to the 
 combatants in battles, to the heroes who have sacrificed 
 their lives, or to those who have bestowed thousands 
 of largesses. Let him depart, Yama, to those austere 
 ancient Pitris, who have practised and promoted 
 sacred rites. Let him depart, Yama, to those austere 
 Eishis, born of rigorous abstraction, to those sages 
 
 1 A.-V., iv. 34, 2 ; iii. 29, 3 ; x. 135, 1 ; x. 14, 10 ; iii. 53, 6. 
 
58 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 skilled in a thousand sciences who guard the sun.' 1 
 ' The man who satisfies others by his liberality, abides 
 settled on the summit of the sky ; he goes to the 
 gods ; to him the flowing waters carry butter ; his 
 cow overflows for him continually. Those wonderful 
 things belong to those who give gifts; for them there 
 are suns in the sky. Those who give gifts attain 
 immortality ; they prolong their lives/ ' Those who 
 bestow gifts mount aloft in the sky. The givers of 
 horses abide with the sun. The givers of gold obtain 
 immortality. Those who bestow raiment, Soma, 
 prolong their lives. . . . Liberal men do not die, nor 
 suffer destruction. The liberal are not injured or 
 distressed. Liberality confers on them everything, 
 both this entire world and heaven.' 
 
 The Vedic doctrine of the Pitris bears a close family 
 likeness, not only to the Greek 2 and Eoman doctrine 
 concerning the manes, but also to what is a child of 
 the same Aryan family, the Eoman Catholic doctrine 
 of the Saints who, like the Pitris, are represented as 
 hearing the prayers of their votaries, interceding in 
 their behalf, protecting them from their enemies, and 
 bestowing wealth or luck on their favourites. 
 
 There remains that I should produce the texts 
 concerning the retribution of the wicked. They are 
 not many in number, nor very clear or definite as 
 
 1 x. 154, 2-5 j i. 125, 5, 6 j x. 107, 2, 8 ; x. 117. Muir's Met. Tram., 
 p. 192. 
 
 2 iv. 5, 5 ; vii. 104, 3 ; ix. 73, 8. 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man. 5 9 
 
 to their signification. Dr. Muir quotes only three. 
 ' This deep abyss (pqda) has been produced for those 
 who, being wicked, false, untrue, go about like women 
 without brothers, like females hostile to their hus- 
 bands.' 'Indra and Soma, dash those malicious 
 Bakshasas into the abyss (vavre), into bottomless 
 darkness, so that not even one of them may get out.' 
 ' Knowing, Soma beholds all worlds ; he hurls the 
 hated and the irreligious into the abyss (karte).' 1 
 Another text, ' The druhs, " powers of evil," follow 
 the sins of men, binding as with cords, 5 seems to refer 
 to the future punishment of the wicked. The Kelts 
 of Scotland have the same word ' druh,' meaning 
 ghost, evil spirit, or magician. Wilson's translation 
 of vi. 62, 3, is suggestive in the same connection. 
 It is a prayer to the Aswins : ' Let the injurers of 
 the liberal man (be consigned) by you to (final) 
 repose.' 
 
 In connection with this subject of a future life, we 
 would notice a remarkable verse in the 9th Book that 
 t reminds us of the words of our Lord. Death, Yama's 
 kindly messenger, is represented as ' bringing them 
 to the homes he had gone before to prepare for them, 
 and which could not be taken from them.' One of 
 
 those which Dr. Muir calls the Rw-Vcda Burial 
 ^Xi " 
 
 Hymns, contains the prayer : ' There, make me im- 
 
 ^ mortal, where action is free, and all desires are 
 fulfilled.' Elsewhere the fire gods are asked to 
 1 K.-V., ix. 113, 7. Muir's Sans. Texts, vol. v. p. 312. 
 
60 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 f warm by their heat his immortal part/ a prayer 
 suggestive of a colder climate than that of India. 
 / The Brahmana portions of the Yeda express a 
 more decided belief in a future life, than the mantras 
 or hymns, as a state of rewards and punishments. 
 Monier Williams quotes the following (x. 4, 
 3, 9) : 
 
 ' The gods lived constantly in dread of Death, 
 The mighty Ender ; so with toilsome rites 
 They worshipped and performed religious acts 
 Till they became immortal. Then the Ender 
 Said to the gods, As ye have made yourselves 
 Imperishable, so will men endeavour 
 To free themselves from me ; what portion, then, 
 Shall I possess in man ? The gods replied, 
 " Henceforth no being shall become immortal 
 In his own body ; this his mortal frame 
 Shalt thou still seize ; this shall remain thy own. 
 He who through knowledge or religious works 
 Henceforth attains to immortality 
 Shall first present his body, Death, to thee." ' 
 Mitra and Varuna are addressed, * Beloved Kings 
 of Immortality* (i. 122, 11); while the goddess 
 Ushas (the Dawn) is represented as ' The first of all 
 creation, the winner of spoil, the young damsel, 
 born every day.' 
 
 Katyayana says that sacrifice procures heaven, and 
 in a hymn addressed to Soma we have a description 
 of heaven : 
 
Immortality and the Future State of Man* 6 1 
 
 ' Where there is eternal light, in the world where 
 the sun is placed, in that immortal imperishable world 
 place me, Soma. 
 
 ' Where King Yaivasvata (Yama) reigns, where the 
 secret place of heaven is, where the mighty waters 
 are, there make me immortal. 
 
 ' Where life is free, in the third heaven of 
 heavens, where the worlds are radiant, there make 
 me immortal. 
 
 ' Where wishes and desires are, where the place 
 of the bright sun is, where there is freedom and 
 delight, there make me immortal 
 
 ' Where there is happiness and delight, where joy 
 and pleasure reside, where the desires of our desires 
 are attained, there make me immortal.' J 
 
 This prayer to Soma, as the giver of immortality, 
 suggests the discussion of Wine, Drinking, and the 
 peculiar doctrine of Soma, constituting, as it does, 
 one of the most unique, curious, and characteristic 
 features of the Yedic religion. 
 
 1 M. Miiller's Chips, vol. i. p. 46. 
 
VII. 
 
 SOAIA, AND DRINKING. 
 
 THAT intoxicating drinks were in common use 
 in Vedic times cannot be questioned. In 
 Hymn i. 191, 10, 1 we read the words: C I deposit 
 the poison in the solar orb like a leather bottle in 
 the house of a vendor of spirits ; ' which clearly 
 proves that wine was kept in leathern bottles and 
 sold in the bazaar. Indra is very familiarly addressed : 
 ' Thou, Indra, never findest a rich man to be thy 
 friend; wine-swillers despise thee.' 2 Dr. Eajendra 
 Lala Mitra is very decided upon the fact, that ' the 
 earliest Brahman settlers were a spirit-drinking race, 
 and indulged largely in soma beer and strong spirits,' 
 in the sense of intoxicating drinks. ' The Sautramani 
 and Vajapaya rites, of which libations of strong 
 arrack formed a prominent feature, were held 'in the 
 highest esteem.' ' None will venture to deny that 
 the sura of the Sautramani and Vajapaya was other 
 
 1 Wilson's Rig- Veda, vol. ii. p. 204. 
 
 2 R.-V., viii. 21, 14. See Zend Avesta, ii. 4, 50 ff. Miiller's 
 Hibbert Lectures, pp. 167, 287. Wilson's R.-V., vol. ii. p. xxiv. 
 Vol. i. pp. 21, 118, 149, 232, 240, 263, 278, 327. 
 
IVinc, Soma, and Drinking. 63 
 
 than arrack manufactured from rice-meal ; and that 
 will suffice to show that the Yedic Hindus did 
 countenance the use of spirits. . . . In the hot 
 plains of India, over-indulgence in spirituous drinks, 
 however, gradually bore its evil consequences, and 
 among the thoughtful a revulsion of feeling was the 
 result. The later Yedas accordingly proposed a com- 
 promise, and, leaving the rites intact, prohibited the 
 use of spirits for the gratification of the senses . . . 
 saying, " Wine is unfit to be drunk, unfit to be given, 
 and unfit to be accepted," and denounced drinking 
 to be heinous in the last degree, quite as bad as the 
 murder of a Brahmin.' 1 
 
 The incidents which are said to have led to this 
 prohibition are curious, if not instructive. 
 
 Sukra, the chief priest and preceptor of the Asuras, 
 had a Hevata pupil named Kacha, who was specially 
 anxious to worm out of his master the charm of 
 reviving dead men. The Asuras, fearing that the 
 pupil might succeed and impart the secret to their 
 enemies the Devatas, assassinated him, and mixed 
 his ashes with Sukra's wine. Kacha had, previous 
 to this, secured the affections of his teacher's 
 daughter. The lady, ignorant of the whereabouts of 
 her lover's remains, but believing that he was dead, 
 insisted on the father restoring him to life by means 
 of his great secret. The charm was repeated, and 
 the teacher was not a little astonished to find that 
 
 1 Journal of the Asiatic Society, 1873, p. 2. 
 
64 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 the pupil was restored to life within his own capacious 
 stomach. 
 
 The teacher, with the view of extricating himself 
 from his great difficulty, taught the charm to the 
 imprisoned pupil, and then allowed himself to be 
 ripped open. The first act of the liberated pupil 
 was to repeat the charm for the restoration of the 
 slaughtered master ; and the first act of the restored 
 master, justly divining the prime cause of all this 
 mischief, was to prohibit the use of wine to Brah- 
 mins. ' From this day forward/ said he, ' the 
 Brahmin who, through infatuation, will drink arrack 
 (sura) shall lose all his religious merit ; that wretch 
 will be guilty of the sin of killing Brahmins, and be 
 condemned in this as well as in a future world. 
 Let all pious Brahmins, mindful of their duty to 
 their tutors, as also to the Devas (gods) and man- 
 kind in general, attend to this rule of conduct for 
 Brahmins, ordained by me for all the religious of 
 the universe/ 
 
 Krishna cursed the wine-bibber, because his own 
 kith and kin, the Yadavas, were great drunkards, a 
 reason that is as justly applicable now as it was of 
 old. The punishment ordered by Manu for any 
 Brahmin tasting wine is severe enough for the most 
 rigid teetotaler. It is nothing less than branding 
 the publican's flag or ensign, the bottle, on the 
 Brahmin's forehead, with the further penalty of 
 ' none to eat with him, none to read with him, none 
 
Wine, Sorna, and Drinking. 65 
 
 allied in marriage to him, abject and excluded from 
 all social duties, let him, wander over the earth. 
 Branded with an indelible mark, he shall be deserted 
 by his paternal and maternal relations, treated by 
 none with affection, received by none with respect. 
 Such is the ordinance of Manu.' 
 
 In the Kaniayana, Visvarnitra, the reputed author 
 of a considerable number of the hymns of the Eig- 
 Veda, is said to have been entertained with maireya 
 and sum by his host, Vasishtha. In the same 
 great poem Sita, Kama's queen, is represented as 
 worshipping the Ganges in these words : ' Be 
 merciful to us, goddess, and I shall, on my return 
 home, worship thee with a thousand jars of arrack 
 and dishes of cooked flesh-meat.' To the river 
 Yamuna she was equally liberal. ' Be thou 
 auspicious, goddess ; I am crossing thee. When 
 my husband has accomplished his vow, I shall 
 worship thee with a thousand head of cattle and a 
 hundred jars of arrjick.'^ In the Markandeya 
 Purana, 1 the reading of which constitutes an essential 
 part of the worship of Durga during the great 
 annual holidays, the goddess is represented as parti- 
 cularly addicted to strong drinks. She is served 
 with overflowing goblets, and ' she drinks the best 
 wines again and again, and, with reddened eyes, she 
 now and then puts on a sweet smile, which greatly 
 enhances her beauty.' Addressing the Asura, she 
 
 1 Hindoo Patriot^ 20tli October 1879; 
 E 
 
66 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 said, ' Stay thou, impudent demon, wait till I finish 
 my drink,' rendered by Dr. Mitra, ' Eoar, roar, thou 
 fool, for a moment only, till I finish my drinking/ 
 The same Purana gives another picture of the same 
 goddess to match the above : ' Thus arrayed, the 
 mighty goddess was worshipped by the whole hosts 
 of the gods ; and she sent forth a tremendous 
 laughter, that resounded in the heavens. By this 
 awe-inspiring sound the seven worlds shook with 
 fear ; it went on vibrating in space, and by its 
 undulating motion were produced formidable foamy 
 waves on the " vasty deep." ' 
 
 The Salda Tantras insist upon the use of wine as 
 an element of devotion, and the Kaulas, their most 
 ardent followers, have most disgraceful orgies in con- 
 nection with its religious use. Sukra's curse has, how- 
 ever, to be removed before the liquor can be drunk. 
 
 In modern times various kinds of intoxicating 
 substances have been used, alike in India and in 
 other countries. The drink so often spoken of in the 
 Vedic times as Soma, or Soma juice, is now ad- 
 mitted, we believe, by the best Sanskrit scholars to 
 have been intoxicating. The numerous references to 
 it in the Rig-Veda Sanhita are consistent only with 
 such an interpretation. The authors of the hymns 
 are loud in its praise. Many of their hymns were 
 set apart for repetition at the various stages of its 
 manufacture. It was made from the juice of a 
 creeper called the moon plant (Asdcpias acida or 
 
Wine, Soma, and Drinking. 67 
 
 Sarcostcnia mmincdis), diluted with water, mixed with 
 barley-meal, clarified butter, and the meal of wild 
 paddy (nivara), and fermented in a jar for nine days. 
 The starchy substance of the meal supplied the 
 material for the vinous fermentation, and the Soma 
 juice the part of hops in beer. Its effects on gods 
 and men were those of alcohol. We quote a few 
 verses from the Eig-Veda Sankifca : 
 
 ' The sacred hymnist, desiring your presence, offers 
 to you both, Indra ancLAgrii, for your exhilaration, 
 the Soma libation. Beholders of all things, seated -at 
 this sacrifice upon the sacred grass, be exhilarated by 
 drinking of the effused libation.' * 
 
 ' It, Soma, (generates) the great light of day com- 
 mon to all mankind.' a ' Indra and Yishnu, drinkers 
 of the fermented Soma, . . . drink of this sweet 
 Soma ; fill with it your stomachs ; may the inebriat- 
 ing beverage reach you' (vi. 69, 6, 7; vi. 72). 
 
 Its effects on Indra and his partiality for it are 
 dwelt upon in many of the earliest hymns. He is 
 said to have drunk at one draught 30 bowls of 
 Soma. Thus exhilarated, ' he hurries off escorted by 
 troops of Maruts, and is sometimes attended by his 
 faithful comrade Yishnu, to encounter the hostile 
 powers in the atmosphere.' ' Drink this Soma, 
 Indra, being expressed by means of the stones, even 
 as a bull drinks from a trough filled by means of a 
 bucket even as a most thirsty bull. For thy 
 
 ix. 61. 
 
68 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 delightful exhilaration, for thee to drink this most 
 powerful Soma, may (thy horses) carry thee hither 
 even as the tawny horses bring the sun even as 
 (the tawny horses bring) the sun daily.' ' Soma, 
 give unto us the mastery of a hundred men, great 
 wealth combined with great power. May the revilers 
 of Soma never (hurt) us, may enemies never hurt. 
 Give us, Soma, a share in thy strength. Those, O 
 immortal Soma, who (become) thy subjects in the 
 highest house of sacrifice, love (them as their) king, 
 listen to them as they worship thee at the altar.' 1 
 
 Just as men are represented as dependent on the 
 gods, so the gods are represented as equally dependent 
 on men for their support and nourishment, if not for 
 their very existence. Hence Dr. Haug says : ' Men 
 must present offerings to the gods to increase the 
 power and strength of their divine protectors. They 
 must, for instance, inebriate Indra with Soma, that 
 he might gather strength for conquering the demons.' 2 
 The same writer says that the Soma ceremony is the 
 holiest rite in the whole Brahminical service, just as 
 the Haoana ceremony of the Parsi priests is regarded 
 by them as the most sacred performance. We need 
 not wonder, therefore, that like the sacrifice and the 
 mantra, it also was deified, and worship offered to it. 
 All the hymns in the ninth Book of the Rig- Veda, 
 
 1 i. 130 ; i. 43, 7-9 (Mahratta translation). 
 
 2 Hang's Ait. Brali. , ii. 4. See Dr. Wilson's Caste, vol. ii. p. 2 ; 
 K.-V., ix. 113, 7. 
 
Wine, Soma, and Drinking. 69 
 
 114 in all, are dedicated to it. Professor Whitney 
 says : ' The simple-minded Aryan people had no 
 sooner perceived that this liquid had power to 
 elevate the spirits, and produce a temporary frenzy, 
 under the influence of which the individual was 
 prompted to, and capable of, deeds beyond his natural 
 powers, than they found in it something divine ; it 
 was, to their apprehension, a god, endowing those 
 into whom it entered with . god-like powers ; the 
 plant which afforded it became the king of plants ; 
 the process of preparing it was a holy sacrifice ; the 
 instruments used, therefore, were sacred. The high 
 antiquity of this cultus is attested by the references 
 to it found occurring in the Persian Avcsta! 1 Hence 
 we find Soma addressed as a divinity in such words 
 as these : ' Where there is eternal light, in the world 
 where the sun is placed, in that immortal, imperish- 
 able world, place me, Soma.' 2 
 
 ' This Soma is a god ; he cures 
 The sharpest ills that man endiires. 
 
 He heals the sick, the sad he cheers, 
 I 
 
 He nerves the weak, dispels their fears, 
 
 1 In Bleeck's Avesta, vol. ii., will be found the praises of Haoma, 
 professedly in the form of a conversation between Zaratlmsthra and 
 ' Haoma, the pure, who is far from death.' The conversation extends 
 over three chapters of Yacna. Haoma is described as ' the mightiest, 
 strongest, most active, swiftest, the most victorious amongst the 
 heavenly beings.' The third chapter ends with Zarathusthra's 
 prayer : * Send thou me also, Haoma, pure, the far from death, to 
 the best place of the pure, to the brilliant, adorned with all bright- 
 ness.' 
 
 2 See viii. 48, 2. Muir's Studies, p. 41. Texts, v. p. 2G2. 
 
70 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 The faint with martial ardour fires, 
 
 With lofty thoughts the bard inspires. 
 
 The soul from earth to heaven he lifts ; 
 
 So great and wondrous are his gifts. 
 
 Men feel the god within their veins, 
 
 And cry in loud, exulting strains : 
 
 " We've quaffed the Soma bright, 
 
 And are immortal grown ; 
 
 We've entered into light, 
 
 And all the gods have known. 
 
 What mortal now can harm, 
 
 Or foeman vex us more ? 
 
 Through thee, beyond alarm, 
 
 Immortal god, we soar." ' MUIR. 
 Soma is described as the soul of sacrifice, the king 
 of gods and men, the lord of creatures, the generator 
 of the sky and earth, of Agni, Surja, Indra, and 
 Vishnu. Himself immortal, he confers immortality 
 on gods and men; thousand-eyed, he beholds all 
 worlds and destroys the irreligious. His praises 
 remind us forcibly of those of whisky and John 
 Barleycorn by the Burnses of modern times, and of 
 the orgies of the middle ages in connection with the 
 collecting of the mistletoe and the burning of the 
 yule-tree, as well as of those of Bacchus or Dionysus 
 in more ancient times. 
 
 Some, however, are disposed to look more charit- 
 ably upon the Sonia sacrifices. Canon EawKnson 
 writes in the Sunday at Home thus : ' No doubt the 
 
Wine, Soma, and Drinking. 71 
 
 origin of the Soma ceremony must be referred to the 
 exhilarating properties of the fermented juice, and to 
 the delight and astonishment which the discovery of 
 them excited in simple minds. But exhilaration is 
 a very different thing from drunkenness ; and, though 
 Orientals do not often draw the distinction, we are 
 scarcely justified in concluding, without better evi- 
 dence than any which has been adduced as yet, that 
 the Soma ceremony of the Hindus was in the early 
 ages a mere Bacchanalian orgy, in which the wor- 
 shippers intoxicated themselves in honour of approv- 
 ing deities. Exhilaration will sufficiently explain all 
 that is said of the Soma in the Big- Veda ; and it is 
 charitable to suppose that nothing more was aimed 
 at in the Sorna ceremony.' 
 
 In Siva's vows to Gunga we find wine and cooked 
 flesh-meats associated. From the want of a better 
 place, we also may here connect the two together by 
 remarking that it is very clear the Yedic Hindus 
 were eaters of ' bull, ram, and buffalo/ as a Bengali 
 classifies them. They were beef- eaters. In Rig- 
 Veda i. 29, 19, India is asked to sever the joints of 
 the enemy ( as butchers (or carvers) cut up a cow.' 
 On this verse H. H. Wilson remarks : ' This text at 
 any rate proves that no horror was attached to the 
 notion of a joint of beef in ancient days among the 
 Hindus.' l There are other texts, such as, ' India, 
 
 1 Wilson's Rig- Veda Sanluta, vol. i. p. 165 ; see also vol. iii. pp. 
 163, 276, 416, 453 ; vol. iv. p. 26. R.-V., vi. 75, 11. 
 
72 The Vedic Bdigion. 
 
 bestow upon him who glorifies thee divine food, the 
 chiefest of which is cattle.' ' I saw at a distance 
 smoke coming from burning cow-dung. Yonder, by 
 means of this nether lying and spreading (Agni) the 
 heroes cooked a variegated bull. Those were the 
 first acts of religion.' ' One of them drives the lame 
 cow to the water ; another divides into its parts the 
 flesh cut out with the knife ; the third removes before 
 evening the intestines containing the undigested 
 grass. What, after this, should parents receive from 
 their sons ? ' ( The arrow is bound with the sinews 
 of the cow/ ' Where the pious have recourse to 
 Indra for food, he finds it in the haunts of the gaura 
 and yamya! two well-known Indian species of the 
 cow. In hymn i. 32, Indra is represented as slaying 
 ' the eldest of serpents,' ' the enemy more hostile than 
 other enemies,' Vritra by name, and standing ' over 
 him thus lying low like a slaughtered bull.' Then 
 ' Vritra's mother intervened with all her power. Indra 
 struck her with his thunderbolt. The mother lay on 
 the son, the son underneath the mother. The 
 demoness lay dead like a cow with her calf.' 1 Such 
 language presupposes acquaintance with the slaughter- 
 ing of cows, bulls, and calves, incompatible with the 
 modern Hindu doctrine concerning this subject. 
 
 From Soma, wine, and cows, we pass on to the 
 subject of Sacrifice generally. 
 
 1 The Maliarati Vedarthayatna, i. 32, 8, 9 ; i. 164, 43 ; i. 161, 10. 
 
VIII. 
 
 /SACRIFICED 
 
 THE most prominent feature of the Yedic religion 
 is its sacrifices. Scarcely a hymn is found in 
 which sacrifice is not alluded to. The very first 
 verse of the very first hymn runs 1 : ' I glorify Agni, 
 the high priest (purohit) of the sacrifice, the divine 
 ministrant who presents the oblation (to the gods), 
 and is the possessor of great wealth.' The expres- 
 sion translated by Professor Wilson, ( high 'priest of 
 the sacrifice,' is rendered by Dr. Banerjea, the fore- 
 most minister of the sacrifice. Here Agni is so called. 
 In the first of the hymns to the Maruts, with which 
 Max Muller commences his translation of the Big- 
 Veda Sanhita, 2 we find a similar reference. The 
 eighth verse reads : ' With the beloved hosts of India, 
 with the blameless heaven-tending (Maruts), the 
 sacrificer cries aloud.' The separate history of the 
 Aryan family, whether Hindu, Iranian, Teutonic, or 
 Keltic, can go no further back than these hymns. In 
 
 1 H. H. Wilson's Rig- Veda, vol. i. p. 2. Indian Euanyelical 
 Review, vol. vii. pp. 497, 500. 
 
 2 Mailer's Htlbert Lectures, pp. 294-97, 5. 
 
74 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 them sacrifices are spoken of as if they were coeval with 
 man. They occupy the foremost place in importance, 
 and apparently in age, in the Indo-Aryan worship. 
 There are numerous passages, in this most ancient 
 of hymn-books, most conclusively proving that the 
 ancient Aryans regarded sacrifice as the most sacred 
 act in their worship. It and its symbol of success, 
 fire, were regarded as the ' navel of the world.' * The 
 two most prominent deities in the hymns are Agni 
 and Indra. And the importance of both is most 
 intimately associated with the sacrifice. The first, as 
 we have seen, is its chief minlstrant ; the second, its 
 most regular attendant. The sacrifice undoubtedly 
 existed before there were priests set apart for its 
 celebration, when the householder was high priest in 
 his own family. The following texts, among many, 
 indicate in a very simple way the importance in 
 which it was held : 2 
 
 ' To the regular performers of sacrifices, the breezes 
 are sweet, and the rivers distil sweetness. 
 
 ' Give us, Indra, multitudes of good horses, with 
 which we may offer our oblations, by the repetition 
 of the proper sentences, by the prospering of which 
 we may escape all sins. Do thou now accept our 
 service with much regard. 
 
 ' Do thou lead us safe through all sins by the way 
 of sacrifice.' 
 
 1 R,-V., i. 59, 12; 164, 35. 
 
 2 Pi.-V., i. 90, 6 ; x. 113, 10 ; i. 173, 2. 
 
Sacrifice. 75 
 
 This and other passages connect the sacrifice with 
 the idea of a boat saving from a flood. We also find 
 that the institution of the sacrifice in some texts is 
 connected with Maim, the man who survived the 
 flood, as for example, such texts as these : 
 
 ' Agni, adored by us, bring the gods in a most 
 pleasant chariot. Thou art the invoker appointed 
 by Manu.' f Agni, thou art the accomplisher of 
 the burnt-offering, appointed by Manu.' 1 ' illus- 
 trious Varuna, do thou quicken our understanding 
 we that are practising this ceremony that we may 
 embark on the good ferryingT)oat by which we may 
 escape all sins;' 2 reminding us, as Dr. Banerjea records, 
 not only of Noah's ark, but also of the words in the 
 Baptismal Service of the Church of England, that 
 he ' may be received into the ark of Christ's Church, 
 and may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, 
 that he may finally come to the land of everlasting 
 life.' 
 
 The formula given in the most important of the 
 Brahmanas of the Sama-Veda, throws much light on 
 the view taken of the sacrifice in the Vedic times. 
 It runs : 
 
 ' (0 thou, animal limb, now being consigned to the 
 fire !) thou art the annulment of sins committed by 
 gods. Thou art the annulment of sins committed by 
 the (departed) fathers. Thou art the annulment of 
 
 1 R.-V., i. 13, 4; 14, 11. 
 
 2 R.-V., yiii. 42, 3 ; vii. 65, 3. Wilson, vol. iv. p. 141. 
 
76 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 sins committed by men. Thou art the annulment 
 of sins committed by ourselves. Whatever sins we 
 have committed by clay or by night, thou art the 
 annulment thereof. Whatever sins we have com- 
 mitted, sleeping or waking, thou art the annulment 
 thereof. Whatever sins we have committed, know- 
 ing or unknowing, thou art the annulment thereof. 
 Thou art the annulment of sin of sin.' 1 In this 
 extraordinary passage it will be observed that the 
 sacrifice was regarded in one word, and that a 
 Biblical one, as 'a propitiation for the sins of the 
 whole world.' And though 'it is not possible that 
 the blood of bulls and of goats should take away 
 sin,' it may be the type or shadow of the blood of 
 the 'Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' 
 which was appointed by God for this express purpose. 
 When we consider such texts, we may well conclude, 
 even independent of revelation, that from the begin- 
 ning men regarded sacrifice as an act of worship of 
 the highest importance. The hymns of the Big- Veda 
 are crowded with references to sacrifices of one or 
 other of the following kinds : 2 
 
 .1) Burnt- offerings and libations of Soma, butter 
 and wine. 
 
 (2) Half-monthly sacrifices at new and full moon. 
 
 (3) Sacrifices every four months. 
 
 1 Tandya Maha-Brahmana, p. 55. Dr. Banerjea's Aryan Wit- 
 ness, p. 210. 
 
 2 Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, vol. i. p. 324 ; Indian 
 Wisdom, p. 3. Wilson, vol. iv. p. 63. E.-V., vi. 19, 4. 
 
Sacrifice. 77 
 
 (4) Sacrifices of various lower animals. 
 
 (5) Sacrifice of human beings ; and lastly, 
 
 (6) The sacrifice of the Lord of Creation. 
 
 Of these the most commonly referred to in the 
 Rig- Veda are offerings of (1) the Soma plant, so 
 intimately associated in the mind of the Aryan with 
 life ; of (2) clarified butter, the choicest gift of his 
 herds and of his simple art. These two corresponded 
 with the Jewish offerings of corn and wine. Then 
 there was also (3) the fire, as the purest of elements 
 and the purifier of the metals, the light and life of 
 nature and of man. Whether these were chosen 
 because some divineness was seen in them, or 
 whether they came to be regarded as divine from 
 their use in the sacrifice, it is difficult to say. One 
 thing we know, that the sacrifice in itself, and also 
 the gJii (or clarified butter), Soma, and fire, were 
 regarded as divine and worshipped as gods. 1 
 
 There is something mysterious in the regard paid 
 to the Soma juice by our Aryan brethren of ancient 
 times. But we have discussed the Soma sacrifice at 
 such length above, that we cannot devote more space 
 to it here. 
 
 We have not much to say in regard to animal 
 sacrifices save that of the horse and the human, to the 
 consideration of which we will now proceed. That, 
 during the Vedic period, lower animals, specially the 
 cow, the goat, and the horse, were offered to the gods 
 
 1 R.-V., i. 91 ; vi. 47 ; 16, 42. Johnson's Oriental Religions, p. 138. 
 
78 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 or Devas and eaten by men, is very clear. The 
 sacrifice of both horse and goat is referred to in what 
 are called ' the horse hymns.' * 
 
 ' When the priests at the season (of this ceremony) 
 lead forth the horse, the offering devoted to the gods, 
 thrice round the (sacrificial fire) ; then the goat, the 
 portion of Pushan (or Agni), goes first, announcing the 
 sacrifice to the gods.' That is, the goat is first 
 sacrificed and then the horse. * 
 
 ' May my desire be of itself accomplished such as 
 it has been entertained, that the smooth-backed steed 
 should come to (gratify) the expectations of the gods ; 
 we have made him well secure for the nutriment of 
 the gods ; let the wise saints now rejoice.' 
 
 Then the prayer is addressed to the horse, that the 
 halter, the heel-ropes, the head-ropes, the girths, any 
 other requisite, the grass that was put into his mouth, 
 whatever the flies may have eaten of his raw flesh, 
 whatever was smeared on the brush or axe, on the 
 hands or nails of the immolator, the place of going 
 forth, of tarrying, of rolling on the ground, the water 
 that he had drunk, the grass that he had eaten, might 
 all of them be with him among the gods. Then the 
 roasting and the cooking of his flesh are described ; 
 and every bit of him, even to the smallest that may 
 have fallen from the spit, is to ' be given to the 
 longing gods.' Lastly, a prayer is offered that the 
 exertions of the priests watching the cooking of the 
 
 1 11. -V., i. 16-2, 41. Wilson, vol. ii. p. 113. 
 
Sacrifice. 79 
 
 horse, who say, ' It is fragrant, therefore give us 
 some,' who solicit the flesh of the horse as alms, may 
 be for the good of the composer. 
 
 There was mercy and a feeling of kindness to the 
 noble brute manifested in the treatment received 
 from his sacrificers. A horse or an ox suffers more 
 from a day's hard labour in a cart, or a plough driven 
 by a cruel master, than from the death inflicted by a 
 merciful butcher. Indeed, the excellent kind-hearted 
 officers of the societies for the prevention of cruelty 
 to animals might consider the propriety of printing 
 portions of the hymns, for distribution in our Indian 
 slaughter-houses, bazaars, and kitchens. 
 
 'Whoever has goaded thee in thy paces, either 
 with heel or with whip, whilst snorting in thy 
 strength, all these vekations I pour out with holy 
 prayer, as oblations with the ladle. The axe pene- 
 trates the thirty-four ribs of the swift horse ; the 
 beloved of the gods (the inimolators) cut up the 
 horse with skill, so that the limbs may be unper- 
 f orated, and recapitulating joint by joint. 
 
 ' Let not thy precious body grieve thee, who art 
 going verily to the gods ; let not the axe linger in 
 thy body ; let not the greedy and unskilful (inimo- 
 lator), missing the members, mangle thy limbs need- 
 lessly with his knife. 
 
 ' Verily at this moment thou dost not die, nor 
 art thou harmed, for thou goest by auspicious paths 
 to the gods. The horses of Indra, the steeds of the 
 
80 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 Maruts, shall be yoked (to their cars), and a courser 
 shall be placed in the shaft of the ass of the Aswins 
 (to bear thee to heaven).' 
 
 Then follows the prayer : 
 
 ' May this horse bring to us all sustaining wealth, 
 with abundance of cows, of excellent horses, and of 
 male offspring; may the spirited steed bring us 
 exemption from wickedness ; may this horse, offered 
 in oblation, procure for us bodily vigour.' 
 
 The second hymn 1 I quote in full from Wilson's 
 translation : 
 
 ' 1. Thy great birth, horse, is to be glorified; 
 whether first springing from the firmament or from 
 the water, inasmuch as thou hast neighed (auspi- 
 ciously), for thou hast the wings of the falcon and 
 the limbs of the deer. 
 
 ' 2. Trita harnessed the horse which was given by 
 Yama; Indra first mounted him, and Gandharba 
 seized his reins. Vasus, you fabricated the horse 
 from the sun. 
 
 ( 3. Thou, horse, art Yama ; thou art Aditya ; thou 
 art Trita by a mysterious act ; thou art associated 
 with Soma. The sages have said there are three 
 bindings of thee in heaven. 
 
 ' 4. They have said that three are thy bindings in 
 heaven ; three upon earth ; and three in the firmament. 
 Thou declarest to me, horse, who art (one with) Varuna, 
 that which they have called thy most excellent birth. 
 
 1 Wilson, vol. ii. p. 121. 
 
Sacrifice. 8 1 
 
 ' 5. I have beheld, horse, these thy purifying 
 (regions) ; these impressions of the feet of thee, who 
 sharest in the sacrifice ; and here thy auspicious reins, 
 which are the protectors of the rite that preserve it. 
 
 1 6. I recognise in my mind thy form afar off, 
 going from (the earth) below, by way of heaven, to the 
 sun. I behold thy head soaring aloft, and mounting 
 quickly by unobstructed paths, unsullied by dust. 
 
 ' 7. I behold thy most excellent form coming 
 eagerly to (receive) thy food in thy (holy) place of 
 earth : when thy attendant brings thee nigh to the 
 enjoyment (of the provender), therefore greedy, thou 
 devourest the fodder. 
 
 ' 8. The car follows thee, horse : men attend 
 thee ; cattle follow thee ; the loveliness of maidens 
 (waits) upon thee ; troops of demigods following thee 
 have sought thy friendship ; the gods themselves 
 have been admirers of thy vigour. 
 
 ' 9. His mane is of gold ; his feet are of iron ; and 
 fleet as thought, Indra is his inferior (in speed). The 
 gods have come to partake of his (being offered as) 
 oblation : the first who mounted the horse was Indra. 
 
 ' 10. The full-haunched, slender- waisted, high- 
 spirited, and celestial coursers (of the sun), gallop 
 along like swans in rows, when the horses spread 
 along the heavenly path. 1 
 
 '11. Thy body, horse, is made for motion; thy 
 
 1 As to the Aryan myths about the heavenly path, see The Con- 
 temporary Review for October 1879, vol. xxxvi. p. 259. 
 
 F 
 
82 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 mind is rapid (in intention) as the wind ; the hairs 
 (of thy mane) are tossed in manifold directions ; and 
 spread beautiful in the forests. 
 
 ' 12. The swift horse approaches the place of im- 
 molation, meditating with mind intent upon the gods; 
 the goat bound to him is led before him ; after him 
 follow the priests and the singers. 
 
 ' 1.3. The horse proceeds to that assembly which 
 is most excellent ; to the presence of his father and 
 his mother (heaven and earth). Go, (horse), to-day 
 rejoicing to the gods, that (the sacrifice) may yield 
 blessings to the donor.' 1 
 
 This sacrifice of the horse was regarded as the 
 chief of all animal sacrifices. In later times it came 
 to be so exaggerated in importance, that a hundred 
 horse sacrifices were supposed to entitle the sacrificer 
 to displace Indra from his throne in heaven. 
 
 The words of the first of the hymns about the cook- 
 ing and boiling of his flesh and the remains of it on 
 the axe, etc., make it very clear that it was no make- 
 believe sacrifice, but a real action, the slaughter of 
 our noblest animal for the supposed temporal and 
 spiritual benefit of the sacrificer. 
 
 Goats and buffaloes are still sacrificed to the god- 
 dess Kali, but there are no more horse sacrifices 
 performed in India. 
 
 Of all sacrifices referred to, or supposed to be 
 
 1 i. 163 ; Southey's Curse of Kehama ; Wilson's Eig-Yecla, vol. ii. 
 pp. xii. xiii. 
 
Sacrifice. 83 
 
 referred to, in the Big-Veda, that which has caused 
 most discussion is the human sacrifice. The passages 
 on which the discussion chiefly turns are few in num- 
 ber. I have not observed anywhere the words of 
 vii. 19, 4 used in this discussion: 'Thou, (Indra), 
 hast destroyed, along with the Maruts, numerous 
 enemies at the sacrifice to the gods ; thou hast put 
 to sleep with the thunderbolt the Dasyas, Chumuri, 
 and Dhuni, on behalf of Dabhiti.' Is there not here 
 in this text an allusion to the sacrifice of the Aryans' 
 enemies to their gods ? But the most important 
 hymn is, I suppose, the 90th hymn of the 10th 
 Mandala, remarkable not only as containing what 
 many suppose are references to a human or rather a 
 divine sacrifice, but also attempts are made to find 
 here the earliest references to Pantheism, 1 and to the 
 four Castes. 2 The hymn is known as the Purusha 
 Hymn. In it Purusha is described as a sacrifice, a 
 victim cut to pieces and offered up as an oblation. 
 And Purusha generally means, if not a man, at any 
 rate a person, human or divine. I give both the full 
 prose text as translated by Dr. Muir, and also a few 
 stanzas of it as versified by Monier Williams, leaving, 
 however, the word Purusha untranslated : 
 
 M. Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand 
 eyes, and a thousand feet. On every side enveloping 
 the earth, he transcended it by a space of ten fingers. 
 
 vk 
 
 1 See above, p. 28. 
 
 2 See above, p. 34. See Langlois, vol. iv. p. 340. 
 
84 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 2. Purusha is himself this whole, whatever has been, 
 and whatever shall be. He is also the lord of im- 
 mortality, since through food he expands. 3. Such 
 is his greatness ; and Purusha is superior to this. 
 All existing things are a quarter of him, and that 
 which is immortal in the sky is three quarters of 
 him. 4> With three quarters of him Purusha mounted 
 upwards. A quarter of him was again produced here 
 below. He then became diffused everywhere among 
 things animate and inanimate. 5. From him Viraj 
 was born, and from Viraj, Purusha. As soon as born, 
 he extended beyond the earth, both behind and be- 
 fore. 6. When the gods offered up Purusha as a 
 sacrifice, the spring was its clalified butter, summer 
 its fuel, and autumn the (accompanying) oblation. 
 
 7. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they 
 immolated on the sacrificial grass ; with him as their 
 offering, the gods, Sadhyas and Eishis, sacrificed. 
 
 8. From that universal oblation were produced curds 
 and clarified butter. He (Purusha) formed these 
 aerial creatures, and the animals, both wild and tame. 
 
 9. From that universal sacrifice sprang the hymns 
 called Eicli and Saman, the metres and the Yajush. 
 
 10. From it were produced horses, and all animals 
 with two rows of teeth, cows, goats, and sheep. 
 
 11. When they divided Purusha, into how many 
 parts did they distribute him ? What was his 
 mouth ? What were his arms ? What were called 
 his thighs and feet? 12. The Brahman was his 
 
' Sacrifice. 85 
 
 mouth ; the Rajanya became his arms ; the Vaisya 
 was his thighs; the Sudra sprang from his feet. 
 1 3. The moon was produced from his soul ; the sun 
 from his eye ; Indra and Agni from his mouth ; and 
 Vayu from his breath. 14. From his navel came the 
 atmosphere ; from his head arose the sky ; from his 
 feet came the earth ; from his ear the four quarters : 
 so they formed the worlds. 15. When the gods, in 
 performing their sacrifice, bound Purusha as victim, 
 there were seven pieces of wood laid for him round 
 the fire, and thrice seven pieces of fuel employed. 
 16. With sacrifice the gods worshipped the sacrifice. 
 These were the first institutions. These great beings 
 attained to the heaven where the gods, the ancient 
 Sadhyas, reside.' Monier Williams' translation begins : 
 c The embodied Spirit has a thousand heads, 
 
 A thousand eyes, a thousand feet around ; 
 
 On every side enveloping the earth, 
 
 Yet filling space, no larger than a span. 
 
 He is himself this very Universe ; 
 
 He is whatever is, has been, and shall be ; 
 
 He is the lord of immortality. 
 
 All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths 
 
 Are that which is immortal in the sky. 
 'From him, called Purusha, was born Yiraj, 
 
 And from Viraj was Purusha produced, 
 
 Whom gods and holy men made their oblation.' l 
 Dr. K. M. Banerjea connects this very remarkable 
 
 1 See Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 24, and above, p. 34. 
 
2 
 
 86 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 hymn with verse 2 of the 121st hymn of the same 
 Book, in which Hiranyagarbha, who is identified as 
 Prajapati, 1 the lord of creatures, is called ' Atmada,' 
 giver of self, 'whose shadow, whose death, is immortality 
 to us.' And these verses from the hymns of the Kig- 
 Veda he connects with the following text of the leading 
 Brahmana of the Sonia-Veda i ' The Lord of creatures 
 (Prajapati) offered himself a sacrifice for the Devas.' 2 
 
 Dr. Muir quotes two other hymns of the Big- 
 Veda, besides the Purusha hymn, in which god is 
 represented as either the agent, the object, or the 
 subject of sacrifice. In x. 81, 5, the god Visvakar- 
 inan is said to sacrifice himself or to himself; and 
 in verse 6, to offer up heaven and earth. And in 
 x. 13, 3, it is said that the gods sacrificed to the 
 (supreme) god, or that they offered him up. 3 
 
 The following, from a celebrated Brahmana of the 
 White Jajur-Veda, is to the same effect : 
 
 'To them, (the Devas), the Lord of creatures 
 gave himself. He became their sacrifice. Sacrifice 
 is food for the gods. He having given himself to 
 them, made a reflection of himself which is sacrifice. 
 Therefore they say the Lord of creatures is a sacrifice, 
 for he made it a reflection of himself. By means 
 of this sacrifice he redeemed himself from them.' 4 
 
 1 Miiller's Hiblert Lectures (1878), p. 294. Dr. Banerjea's Aryan 
 Witness, p. 203. 
 ' Tandy a Maka Brahmana, p. 410. 
 
 3 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. p. 372. See below, pp. 92, 146, 243. 
 
 4 Satapatha Brahmana, p. 836. 
 
Sacrifice. 8 7 
 
 This same Prajapati is elsewhere represented as 
 ' one half mortal and the other half immortal, and 
 with that which was mortal he was afraid of death.' 1 
 
 Connect these texts again with other texts proving 
 that these devas, generally translated gods, were im- 
 mortalized mortals, deified men ; and this last text from 
 an Aranyaka Brahmana of the Black Jajur-Veda: 
 
 ' When the gods celebrated a sacrifice with Purusha 
 as their oblation, the spring was its butter, summer 
 its fuel, and autumn its (supplementary) oblation. 
 When the gods celebrating the sacrifice bound 
 Purusha as the victim, they immolated him, the sacri- 
 fice, on the grass, even him, the Purusha who was 
 begotten in the beginning. With him as their offering, 
 the gods, the Sadhyas and Eishis also sacrificed.' 2 
 
 Consider all these texts together, and you will see 
 the force of Dr. Banerjea's conclusion, that it is not 
 easy to account for the genesis of the idea under- 
 lying Prajapati, Hiranyagarbha, the Lord of creatures, 
 or Purusha, the begotten in the beginning, call him 
 by any name you like, offering himself a sacrifice 
 for the benefit of the devas or deified mortals, ' except 
 on the assumption of some primitive tradition of the 
 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' the 
 only begotten of the Father, who, of his own accord, 
 offered himself a sacrifice for men. 
 
 1 Satapatha JSrahmana, x. 1, 3, 1. Midler's Hiblert Lectures, 
 p. 297. 
 
 - Aranyaka, 331, 333. 
 
88 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 Then with these may be connected the story of 
 the Purusha-Medha of Narayana : 
 
 ( The Purusha Narayan (the original male) desired 
 sna ^ surpass all things, I shall become all this. 
 He saw for five nights that Purusha Medha sacrifice. 
 He took it. He sacrificed with it. Having sacrificed 
 with it, he surpassed all things. He who, knowing 
 this, sacrifices with the Purusha Medha, becomes 
 everything whoever knows this. 5 x 
 
 Dr. Banerjea has done great service to the Church 
 of India by unearthing, if I may use the expression, 
 these texts and showing how they may be used, 
 after the apostolic example, in the interests of 
 Christianity. Many other texts he has discovered 
 and used in the same way, to which I cannot at 
 present refer. 
 
 In connection with this subject might also be 
 considered the singular position given to Agni as the 
 high priest of the sacrifice, but I will take it up 
 under the head of Mediation. 
 
 The strength of those who contend that human 
 sacrifices were offered in Vedic times, lies not so 
 much in the verses quoted from the hymns of the 
 Eig-Veda, as in the story of Sunahsepha, given at 
 length in the principal Bralimana of the same Veda. 
 King Hurish Chandra had no son. He earnestly desired 
 for one, and vowed that if one was given he would 
 offer him in sacrifice to the god Varuna. His wish 
 1 Satapatha Bralimana, p. 997. Medha means Sacrifice. 
 
Sacrifice. 89 
 
 was granted. To the son thus given, the father, on 
 his arriving at maturity, imparted the secret. But 
 the son said ' No,' and took his bow and left his 
 father's home. Varuna, displeased, punished Hurish 
 Chundra with dropsy. The son returned not, for 
 long years, though he felt the stings of remorse as 
 well as those of hunger. At last on meeting a 
 Brahmin, attended by his wife and three young sons, 
 he offered a hundred cows for one of the sons to be 
 his substitute in the sacrifice to the god. The father 
 laid hold on the eldest and said, ' I cannot part 
 with him.' The mother clung to the youngest, and, 
 weeping, said, ' I cannot part with him.' Then 
 Sunahsepha, their second son, said, 'Father, I will 
 go.' So he was purchased for a hundred cows. 
 Then the King's son returned to his father, and 
 said : 
 
 ' Father, this boy shall be my substitute.' 
 Then Hurish Chundra went to Varuna 
 And prayed, ' Accept this ransom for my son.' 
 The god replied, ' Let him be sacrificed, 
 A Brahmin is more worthy than a KshaTrlya.' 
 ; Thus the king's son escaped, and preparations 
 were made for the sacrifice of the Brahmin boy. 
 Then difficulties arose as to who would bind him 
 and who would kill him. The Brahmin on each 
 occasion agreed to do it on the promise of an addi- 
 tional hundred of cows. The father whetted his 
 knife to sacrifice the son. 
 
90 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 ' Then said the child, ' Let me implore the gods, 
 | Haply they will deliver me from death.' 
 So Sunahsepha prayed to all the gods 
 With verses from the Veda, and they heard him. 
 Thus was the boy released from sacrifice, 
 And Hurish Chundra was restored to health. 1 
 There are texts in the hymns that are intimately 
 connected with this story, such as (i. 24, 12-13), 
 ' May he whom the fettered Sunahsepha has invoked, 
 may the regal Varuna set us free. Sunahsepha, 
 seized and bound to the three-footed tree, has invoked 
 the son of Aditi. May the regal Varuna, wise and 
 irresistible, liberate him ; may he let loose his bonds.' 
 The hymn from which these words are extracted, 
 and the six following hymns, are all attributed to 
 Sunahsepha as their author. There is another allu- 
 sion to him in hymn v. 2, 7 : ' Thou hast liberated 
 the fettered Sunahsepha from a thousand stakes, for 
 he was patient in endurance : So, Agni, free us from 
 our bonds.' 
 
 As our object is not so much to argue towards any 
 conclusions, as to produce the texts or mantras bear- 
 ing upon the subject, we leave the matter here. 
 
 From the discussion of the sacrifice we proceed to 
 the inquiry, To whom was the sacrifice offered 1 The 
 following very remarkable hymn fittingly introduces 
 the question. Let us bear, however, in mind that the 
 
 1 Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 29. Aitareya Brahma na, 
 Hang's Edition, vii. 13. 
 
Sacrifice. 9 1 
 
 hymn has to do with a question of duty, and with 
 the future action of the Kishi. We have to do with 
 it as a question of fact. To whom did the Bishis, 
 generally, offer sacrifices ? 
 The hymn 1 runs : 
 
 1. 'In the beginning there arose Hiranyagarbha 
 (the source of golden light). He was the only born 
 lord of all that is. He established the earth and this 
 sky; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 2. ' He who gives life, he who gives strength ; 
 whose blessing all the bright gods desire ; whose 
 shadow is immortality ; whose shadow is death ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 3. ' He who through his power is the only king of 
 the breathing and awakening world ; he who governs 
 all, man and beast ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 4. ' He whose power these snowy mountains, whose 
 power the sea proclaims, with the distant river ; 
 he whose these regions are, as it were, his two 
 arms ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 
 sacrifice ? 
 ,5. ' He through whom the sky is bright and the 
 
 1 i. 121. Miiller's Hibbert Lectures, p. 295. 
 
92 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 earth firm; he through whom the heaven was estab- 
 lished nay, the highest heaven ; he who measured 
 out the light in the air ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 Jju ' He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm 
 by his will, look up trembling inwardly ; he over 
 whom the rising sun shines forth ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 7. ' Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where 
 they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose he 
 who is the only life of the bright gods ; 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 8. ' He who by his might looked even over the 
 water-clouds, the clouds which gave strength and let 
 the sacrifice ; he who is god above, all gods ; l 
 
 ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 9. ' May he not destroy us he the creator of 
 the earth; or he the righteous, who created the 
 heaven ; he who also created the bright and mighty 
 waters ; 
 
 ' Who 2 is the god to whom we shall offer our 
 sacrifice ? 
 
 1 Fronde, Celsus, Fraser's Magazine (1878), p. 131. 
 
 2 This pronoun who (ka) was worshipped as a god, and regarded as 
 the same with Prajapati. 
 
Sacrifice. 93 
 
 10. 
 
 1 Prajapati, no other than thou embraces all 
 these created things. May that be ours which we 
 desire when sacrificing to thee. May we be lords of 
 wealth.' 
 
 If the Eishi's question is to be answered by count- 
 ing the number of votaries, or by the greatness of the 
 veneration given to any special text of the Veda, or 
 by the solemnity and universality of his worship, 
 then the god of the Eishi must have been the Sun. 
 All Hindus of every caste worship the Sun every 
 day, and they do so with a seeming solemnity such as 
 is not generally seen in any of their other worships ; 
 and of all texts in all the Scriptures of the Hindus, 
 including the four Yedas, there is none that can be 
 regarded as coming even second in sacredness to the 
 Gaycrfri (iii. 62, 10): * Tat Savitur xarenyam lharr/o 
 devasya dhimahi dliiyo yo naJi prachodayat,' i.e. ' We 
 meditate that excellent glory of the divine Savitri 
 (the Sun) ; may he stimulate our understandings [or 
 hymns or rites].' 
 
 Savitri is identical with Surya, the Sun, though 
 sometimes distinguished from him. See Muir's 
 Studies, p. 66 ; Texts, vol. iii. p. 114. Mliller's 
 Chips, p. 19. 
 
IX. 
 
 MONOTHEISM OR POLYTHEISM? 
 
 AFTER quoting the above hymn in full, Max 
 Muller adds: 'With such ideas as these 
 springing up in the minds of the Vedic poets, we 
 should have thought that the natural development 
 of their old religion could only have been towards 
 monotheism, towards the worship of one personal God, 
 and that thus in India also the highest form would 
 have been reached which man feels inclined to give 
 to the Infinite, after all other forms and names have 
 failed. But it was not so.' 1 
 
 -' The question as to whom did the Indo- Aryans offer 
 sacrifice or worship to, in Vedic times, is of primary 
 importance. It must be clearly distinguished from 
 two other questions very intimately related to it, and 
 frequently confounded with it. I mean the questions, 
 "Whom did the Indo-Aryans worship in Pre- Vedic 
 times ? and whom in Post- Vedic times ? Hints and 
 allusions may be found in the Veda of a state of 
 matters very different from the then existing state ; 
 and there may be also shadows visible of coming 
 
 1 Miiller's Hibbert Lectures, p. 296. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 95 
 
 events. Still neither of these can be regarded as 
 really descriptive of Vedic times or of the Vedic 
 religion. It is also necessary that we should bear in 
 mind that the Big- Veda is not the work of one author 
 or of one age. Like the Jewish Psalter, it is the work 
 of many authors, extending over a period of many 
 centuries. We could scarcely expect, therefore, that 
 there should be much consistency of thought or 
 similarity of expression in a book composed of such 
 materials. As a matter of fact, the Eig-Veda Sanhita 
 has no claim to such. The mythology or Polytheism 
 of some hymns is very marked and distinct. In 
 others it is indistinct and hazy. Some hymns, in the 
 absence of all others, might be regarded as theistic, 
 or at least as henotheistic.^ Others are flatly con- 
 tradictory of such an idea.^ Again, the mythology of 
 one Eishi is thoroughly inconsistent with that of 
 others, or rather with those of others. For there seem 
 to be as many mythologies as there are Eishis. 
 Jit is also necessary that we should look carefully 
 into the meanings of those terms on which the dis- 
 cussion will chiefly turn. I refer more particularly 
 
 "-% &P*. 
 
 to the terms Monotheism and Polytheism. One might 
 suppose that no explanations were required ; for these 
 words seem to have such a clearness and distinctive- 
 ness of meaning as to render definitions unnecessary. 
 Does not Monotheism mean the belief in and worship 
 of one God ; Polytlieum, the belief in and worship of 
 more than one, God ? Yes, but it is necessary to define 
 
90 The Vcdic Ecliyion. 
 
 more fully still. It will be observed that we conjoin 
 the belief with the practice. There might be a people 
 worshipping one god only, while believing in other 
 gods, to the extent of believing in them as false gods, 
 worshipped by other nations undeservedly, but be- 
 tween whom and the one living and true God, the 
 great Creator, there is believed to be no likeness or 
 comparison. To such, if there be any such, we would 
 hesitate in denying the name monotheists. Then 
 there might be individuals believing in many gods 
 as equally or about equally true and powerful, who 
 select one from among the lot and worship him alone, 
 looking to him as likely to take special interest in 
 them because of their special interest in him. A 
 Hindu cannot worship the 330,000,000 gods and 
 goddesses, just, to use a Hindu illustration, as he 
 cannot grasp ten branches of a tree together. He 
 therefore selects one, Siva, Eama, Krishna, or Hari, 
 and worships him only, while professing to believe in 
 all. We have no hesitation in characterising such a 
 man as a polytheist. Again, suppose that under 
 various names, quite distinct in themselves, referring 
 to quite distinct manifestations of the works of God, or 
 to separate and distinct attributes of God, the people 
 actually, consciously or unconsciously, worshipped 
 the great Creator, would they be monotheists ? The 
 answer to this question would depend largely on their 
 consciousness of the unity of the objects of their 
 worship. If they were taken up with the diversity 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism? 97 
 
 and plurality, rather than with the unity, more 
 especially if the diversity and plurality amounted to 
 a practical exclusion of unity in thought and worship, 
 then there would be no hesitation in characterising 
 them as polytheists. This latter, I think, we shall 
 find as we proceed, was the state of matters with 
 some of the Eishis in Vedic times, whatever may 
 have been the case in Pre- Vedic or in Post -Vedic 
 times. They may have had, as Max Miiller remarks, 
 'a relapse into monotheism/ just as the Shemites had 
 many a relapse into polytheism ; but their ordinary 
 normal condition was that of polytheists. 
 
 They may have had also no manufactured idols, 
 and yet be really chargeable with the sin of idolatry. 
 If by idolatry be meant only the worship of graven 
 images, and by polytheism only the acknowledgment 
 of separate gods with equal powers and perfect in- 
 dependence, then the Eig-Veda may be acquitted of 
 the charge of idolatry, and by some even of poly- 
 theism. But such distinctions are not received as 
 true definitions of these terms, as far as sin against 
 God is concerned. The sin of idolatry is not limited 
 to such a meaning of the word. The worship of any 
 substance or any imagination or idea not truly 
 descriptive of God, or worthy of him, must be sinful, 
 though there be no graven images employed. Any 
 acknowledgment of any gods, material or immaterial, 
 to the exclusion of, or in addition to, the worship of 
 the one true God, is polytheism. If so, then the 
 
 o 
 
98 TJie Vedic Religion. 
 
 Rishis of the Rig- Veda, in inculcating and sanctioning 
 the worship of the elements and the heavenly host, 
 even supposing these only to be the objects of their 
 worship, were guilty of the sins of idolatry and poly- 
 theism. Sabaism (or Tsabaism), the worship of the 
 heavenly host, was regarded as both polytheistic and 
 idolatrous. 
 
 ' The true evil of idolatry is this,' says De Quincey. 
 ' There is one sole idea of God which corresponds 
 adequately to his total nature. Of this idea two 
 things may be affirmed, the first being that it is the 
 root of all absolute grandeur, of all truth, of all moral 
 perfection ; [the second being that, natural and easy 
 as it seems when once unfolded, it could only have 
 been unfolded by revelation, and, to all eternity, he 
 that started with a false conception of God could not, 
 through any effort of his own, have exchanged it 
 for a true one. All idolaters alike, though not all 
 in equal degrees, by intercepting the idea of God 
 through the prism of some representative creature, 
 that partially resembles God, refract, splinter, and 
 distort that idea. 
 
 ' Even the idea of light, of the pure, solar light 
 _/ the old Persian symbol of God- has that depraving 
 ^>' necessity. Light itself, besides being an imperfect 
 symbol, is an incarnation for us. However pure in 
 itself, or in its original divine manifestation, for us 
 it is incarnated in forms and in matter that are not 
 ure; it gravitates towards physical alliances, and 
 
 rr- 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
99 
 
 therefore towards un spiritual pollutions. And all 
 experience shows that the tendency for man, left to 
 his own imagination, is downwards. The purest 
 symbol, derived from created things, can and will 
 condescend to the grossness of inferior human natures, 
 by submitting to mirror itself in more and more 
 carnal representative symbols, until finally the mixed 
 element of resemblance to God is altogether buried 
 and lost. 
 
 J God, by this succession of imperfect interceptions, 
 falls more and more under the taint and limitation of 
 the alien elements associated with all created things ; 
 and, for the ruin of all moral grandeur in man, every 
 idolatrous nation left to itself will gradually bring 
 round the idea of God into the idea of a powerful 
 demon. Many things check and disturb this tend- 
 ency for a time ; but finally, and under that intense 
 civilisation to which man intellectually is always 
 hurrying under the eternal evolutions of physical 
 knowledge, such a degradation of God's idea, ruinous 
 to the moral capacities of man, would undoubtedly 
 perfect itself, were it not for the kindling of a purer 
 standard by revelation. Idolatry, therefore, is not 
 merely an evil, and one utterly beyond the power of 
 social institutions to redress, but, in fact, it is the 
 fountain of all other evils that seriously menaces the 
 destiny of the human race ; ' * and it is so by its 
 degradations of the object of worship. This is done 
 
 1 De Quincey's Works, vol. viii. pp. 506-508. Notes on Landor. 
 
100 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 by the worship of the sun, the thunder, the lightning, 
 the dawn, the storms, or the clouds, as much as by the 
 graven images of Jupiter, Mercury, or Mars. In fact, 
 we think the divine idea is degraded more in the 
 former than in the latter, for a good man is far more 
 noble and more to be admired than any natural force 
 or phenomenon. 
 
 Max Miiller, who is very partial to the Kig-Veda, 
 to whose elucidation he has devoted his life, writes :* 
 ' If we must employ technical terms, the religion of 
 the Veda is polytheism, not monotheism.' His idea 
 is, that the Aryans represented the divinity by various 
 names taken from natural phenomena, which names, 
 not being those of attributes, but of things, appear- 
 ances, and forces, led the people very readily to 
 personify them, and to create a mythology about these 
 names ; and this mythology had manifested itself at 
 and before the time in which most of these hymns 
 were composed. Hence this special kind of polytheism 
 has been called physiolatry and meteorolatry. 
 
 Monier Williams' idea is very much the same. 
 He asks us, to the better understanding of the hymns, 
 to bear in mind that the deified forces addressed in 
 them were probably not represented by images or 
 idols in the Vedic period, though doubtless the early 
 worshippers clothed their gods with human form in 
 their own imaginations. 2 However free from the 
 
 1 Miiller's Chips, vol. i. p. 27. 
 
 2 Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 15. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism? 101 
 
 grossness of the image- worship of modem Hinduism 
 their religion may have been, these worshippers are 
 chargeable with the deification and worship of fire, 
 air, the atmosphere in motion or at rest, the sun, 
 moon, dawn, Soma, prayer, etc., and with all the 
 refracting, splintering, and distorting of the idea of 
 God which is implied in such worship. And this is 
 a polytheism which must have been dishonouring to 
 God, and most injurious to the moral and spiritual 
 nature of man. 
 
 - It may be contended, from a merely philosophical 
 point of view, that the primitive religion could not 
 be either monotheistic or polytheistic ; for the first 
 implies a denial of many gods before there were any 
 gods thought of or believed in, and the second implies 
 a worshipping of many simultaneously and from the 
 beginning, that is, worshipping many gods before they 
 had worshipped one, which is absurd. All this is 
 true, on the supposition that there was no revelation 
 from God himself making known the one God, and 
 forbidding any yielding to the unnatural but strong 
 inclination of sinful men to worship the many. The 
 worship of a single god, as the mere antecedent to 
 the worship of the many, would not, however, be 
 monotheism as formulated in the statement, 'there 
 is but one God,' but henotheism, ' there is one 
 God.' This state of things is not, however, that 
 described in the Eig-Veda. The Jews had preserved 
 the original primitive revelation given to our first 
 
102 TJie Vedic Religion. 
 
 parents in Paradise and renewed from time to time 
 to their descendants, but they frequently relapsed 
 into idolatry. The Aryans very soon after the flood 
 would seem to have gone most determinately into the 
 worship of the many the various forms of the creature, 
 God's work, to the neglect of the great Creator, God 
 himself. At least, that is the state in which we find 
 them in the Pag- Vedic hymns, the very oldest records 
 we have of the Aryan family. 
 
 In the 27th hymn of the 1st Book we have, as 
 far as this point is concerned, the spirit of the hymns 
 as a whole. As versified by Mr. J. D. B. Gribble, 
 C.S., the text runs : 
 
 ' We will worship the great gods, 
 And worship the small ones. 
 We will worship the young gods, 
 
 And worship the old ones. 
 We will worship all gods, 
 
 To the best of our power ; 
 Nor may I forget to worship 
 
 The gods of old times.' l 
 
 From the beginning to the end of the Eig-Veda, it 
 is a worshipping of the many. The first hymn is a 
 worshipping of Agni ; the second is a worshipping of 
 Vayu, Indra and Vayu, Mitra and Varuna ; the third 
 is a worshipping of the Aswins (the young gods), of 
 Indra, Viswadevas or collective divinities, and Saras- 
 vati ; and so on they proceed with hymns to Indra, 
 
 1 See The Land oftlie Tamulians, by the Rev. E. K. Baierlein, p. 51. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 103 
 
 the Maruts or storm gods, the Apris or river gods; 
 Eitu, Brahmanaspati, Prajapati, Savitri, Apyaman, the 
 Adityas, Pushan, Eudra, Ushas, Surya, Soma, the 
 Eibhus (deified men), the earth, the sky, Swanaya, 
 Bhavayavya, heaven and earth, the horse, Eati, Pitu, 
 Brihaspati, water, grass, sacrificial posts, the sun, etc. 
 etc., thirty-three, or three hundred and three thousand 
 and thirty and nine in all, according to the Veda 
 itself. All these named are deities to whom hymns 
 are dedicated by the Eishi composers of the 1st 
 Book. Of the 121 hymns contained in the 1st Vol. 
 of Professor Wilson's translation, 37 are to Agni 
 and 45 to Indra, 12 to the Maruts and 11 to the 
 Aswins, 4 to Ushas and 4 to the Viswadevas, and 
 the remainder to inferior divinities. There is the 
 same variety of gods and goddesses addressed in the 
 other volumes, save that the 9th Book contains one 
 hundred and fourteen hymns all addressed to Soma. 
 In some of these, Soma is addressed as the supreme 
 god, the creator. 
 
 We may remark briefly on the singular combina- 
 tions, formed in the Veda, of the gods worshipped. 
 We find, for example, heaven and earth deified, and 
 hymns addressed to them as the parents, not only of 
 the human race, but also of the gods. ' At the sacri- 
 fices,' sings one Eishi, ' I worship with offerings 
 Heaven and Earth, the promoters of righteousness, 
 the great, the wise, the energetic, who having gods 
 for their offspring, thus lavish, with the gods, the 
 
104 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 choicest blessings in consequence of our hymn. . . . 
 Confer on us, Heaven and Earth, through your 
 goodwill, wealth with goods and hundreds of cows.' 
 ' Being lauded, may the mighty Heaven and Earth 
 bestow on us great renown and power.' 1 The Greek 
 and Eoman mythologies retained the same myths 
 under the names of Uranus (Ouranos) the Heaven, 
 and Gsea the Earth, the parents of many sons includ- 
 ing Kronos or Saturn, the father of gods and men. 
 That heaven and earth were regarded as real 
 divinities is clear from the epithets by which they 
 are described, such as wise, promoters of righteous- 
 ness, as above; and omniscient, innocuous or benefi- 
 cent, the great parents of sacrifices, as well as of gods 
 and men ; father and mother ; devaputra, having 
 gods for their children ; janitri, parents ; the parents 
 not only of the gods collectively, but of individual 
 gods, as Brihaspati, Indra, the sun, and Agni. ' The 
 divine Heaven and Earth, the parents of the gods, 
 have augmented Brihaspati by their power;' 'they 
 have fashioned the self-resplendent and prolific 
 (Indra) for energy ; ye two preserve fixed the position 
 of your unswerving son (the sun).' They are also 
 described as having begotten Agni. 2 But how they 
 themselves were produced is a question that has 
 puzzled many of these Eishis, and many were the 
 
 1 i. 159 ; i. 160, 5. 
 
 2 R.-V., iv. 56, 2 ; vi. 70, 6 ; x. 35, 3 ; i. 106, 3 ; i. 185, 1, 4 ; vi. 
 17, 7 ; vii. 53, 1 ; x. 11, 9 ; vii. 97, 8 ; viii. 50, 2 ; i. 159, 3 ; x. 
 2, 7. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism? 105 
 
 answers given. One asks : ' Which of these two 
 
 was the first, and which the last ? How have they 
 
 been produced ? Sages, who knows V No doubt 
 
 other mantras composed by other Eishis can be 
 
 quoted giving a different view of them as far as their 
 
 fatherhood and motherhood are concerned ; but it is 
 
 very patent (see hymns i. 112, 159, 160, 185 ; ii. 
 
 32, etc., specially dedicated to them) that they were 
 
 regarded and formally worshipped as divinities-.-- ~~~^ 
 
 There are other dualisms', not so very formal or ^ 
 
 natural, if we may call any dualism of gods natural, 
 
 such as Mitra and Varuna ; Indra and Varuna ; Indra 
 
 and Agni ; Agni and Soma ; Indra and Vayu ; Yayu 
 
 and Indra; Indra and Soma, the joint creators of 
 
 heaven and earth (vi. 72, 2); Vishnu and Indra ; 
 
 Indra and the Maruts ; Brahmanaspati and Brihas- 
 
 pati; Soma and Pushan, also the joint creators of 
 
 heaven and earth (ii. 40, 1), etc. etc. 1 This dualism 
 
 is quite a favourite idea with some Eishis, so much 
 
 so that they speak of some of the gods going in 
 
 couples like other things and persons that go in pairs. 
 
 We do not refer to the fact that many of the gods, 
 
 such as Indra, Agni, etc., are represented as having 
 
 wives. The dualism referred to in all this is that of 
 
 pairs of good divinities. There is also another kind 
 
 of dualism not obscurely spoken of. The Eev. Dr. 
 
 K. M. Banerjea shows that they had the dualism of 
 
 the Parsis, a good god and a bad one. His words 
 
 1 See Indices to Wilson's translation at the end of the several vols. 
 
106 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 are : ' The distinctive feature of the Zoroastrian 
 doctrine of two eternal principles of good and evil 
 respectively appears in the sacred records of both/ i.e. 
 in the Veda and the Zendavesta. Ahura Mazda, the 
 good principle, and Anghro-mainyus, the evil principle, 
 ' were also acknowledged in the Rig- Veda.' x 
 
 Thus there are various different dualisms of gods 
 found in the Eig-Veda. There is also a tritheism 
 referred to in most unequivocal terms, as in the 
 following classification of the Vedic gods by Yaska 
 in nis Nirukta (vii. 5) as being that given by the 
 ancient expositors of the Veda who preceded him : 
 ' There are three deities, according to the expounders 
 of the Veda, viz. Agni, whose place is on the earth ; 
 Vayu, or Indra, whose place is in the atmosphere ; 
 and Surya, whose place is in the sky.' 2 It is rather 
 curious that every one of these three is described in 
 mantras quoted above as a son of Heaven and Earth. 
 Muir understands these texts not as limiting the 
 number to three, but classifying them under three 
 heads, in accordance with another text (x. 63, 2) 
 which says : ' All your names, ye gods, are to be 
 revered, adored, and worshipped ; ye who were born 
 from Aditi, from the waters, ye who are born from 
 the earth, listen here to my invocation.' See also x. 
 
 1 The Aryan Witness, p. 32. R.-V., i. 24, where Varuna is called 
 the eminently wise Asura (Ahura), and the principle of evil appears 
 under the designation of Uir-riti, the ^lnr^f}hteousness, equivalent, 
 according to Sayana, to Papadevata, ' the deity of sin.' 
 
 2 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 160. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 107 
 
 49, 2 ; 65, 5. The 24th hymn commences with the 
 question, ' Of whom [sometimes made the god Ka], 
 or of which divinity, of the immortals shall we invoke 
 the auspicious name;' and answers in the next verse, 
 ' Let us invoke the auspicious name of Agni, the first 
 divinity of the immortals,' implying a second. The 
 Eishi accordingly proceeds in the very next verse to 
 invoke Savitri, the sun, the possessor of wealth. Then 
 the remaining ten verses are invocations to Varuna, 
 in whom the Eishi had apparently the greatest con- 
 fidence. The concluding invocation is beautiful: 
 ' Varuna, loosen for me the upper, the middle, the 
 lower bond (of sin); so, son of Aditi [the mother of 
 all the gods], shall we, through faultlessness in thy 
 worship, become freed from sin.' Eishi Sunahsepha 1 
 seems to have made up his mind to a triplet of gods, 
 but hesitates as to which of them shall be his 
 favourite. He is satisfied that Agni is first, but that 
 there is on the whole more hope of help from Varuna, 
 as is clear not only from the concluding verses of the 
 hymn before us, but also from the following hymn, 
 which is altogether dedicated to Varuna. Still his 
 third hymn he dedicates to Agni so as to give him no 
 .offence ; his fourth is also to Agni and the Vis- 
 wadevas, the collective divinities. 2 Evidently he 
 sympathises much with the Eishi who asked over and 
 
 1 See above, p. 88. 
 
 2 He is the author of other three hymns in which Indra is the 
 favourite god, the supplanter of Varuna, as represented by Mr. James 
 Darmesteter. 
 
108 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 over again, ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer 
 the sacrifice?' Among so great a multiplicity, it 
 would seem to be difficult to choose, more especially 
 when all seem to possess almost equal powers and 
 equal attractions. 
 
 The favourite number is, however, 33, as in the 
 following mantras : ' Come hither . . . together with 
 the thrice eleven gods, to drink our nectar.' ' Agni, 
 the wise gods lend an ear to their worshipper. God, 
 with the ruddy steeds, who lovest praise, bring hither 
 these three and thirty.' It must be remembered that 
 Agni is the messenger of the gods. ' Ye gods who are 
 eleven in the sky, who are eleven on earth, and who, 
 in your glory, are eleven dwellers in the atmospheric 
 waters, do ye welcome this our offering.' ' May the 
 three over thirty gods who have visited our sacrificial 
 grass recognise us, and give us double.' ' Ye who are 
 the three and thirty gods worshipped by Manu, when 
 thus praised, ye become the destroyers of our foes.' 
 'Aswins, associated with all the thrice eleven gods, 
 with the Waters, the Maruts, the Bhrigus, and united 
 with the Dawn and the Sun, drink the Sorna.' ' 
 pure Soma, all these gods, thrice eleven in number, 
 are in thy secret.' x It is impossible to state with 
 confidence who these 33 were, as not only was not 
 the highest Hindu authority on this subject able to 
 make up his mind with regard to it, but in these very 
 
 1 K.-V., i. 34, 11 ; i. 45, 2 ; i. 139, 11 ; viii. 28, 1 ; viii. 30, 2 ; 
 viii. 35, 3 ; ix. 92, 4. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 109 
 
 mantras we see that the 33 did not include all the 
 gods. We read of ' Agni and the 33 ;' 'the Aswins 
 and the 33 ;' ' the 33 and the Maruts, the Dawn, and 
 the Sun/ all of whom were regarded and worshipped 
 as distinct independent divinities. In another hymn 
 (iii. 9, 9), ' Three hundred, three thousand, thirty and 
 nine gods ' are said to ' have worshipped Agni.' 1 An 
 ingenious and learned Sanskrit scholar, M. Langlois 
 (Kig-Veda, ii. p. 229), gives the following explana- 
 tion : 
 
 First the number, . . . 33 
 Then the same 33 thus, . . 303 
 Then again thus, . . .3003 
 
 Added together, . . 3339 
 
 And other 00 added, making it 303,039. The later 
 Hindus putting all the Os together and making seven 
 in all, the number was raised to 330,000,000. If 
 this be not gods many polytheism I do not know 
 what polytheism is. 
 
 Further, it is to be noticed that some of these are 
 classified according to their parentage, for example, 
 we read much of the Adityas, so called because they 
 are regarded as children of one mother, the goddess 
 Aditi. Their names are Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, 
 Bhaga, Daksha, and Ansa. Indra is sometimes spoken 
 of as a son of the same mother, and hence called an 
 Aditya. He is elsewhere called the son of Nishtigri, 
 1 Wilson, vol. iii. p. 7. K.-V., iii. 9, 9. 
 
110 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 whom Say ana identifies as Aditi. He is said to have 
 conquered Heaven by austerity. 1 
 
 Believing, as we Christians do, in the common 
 origin of all the families of the earth that all are 
 descended from Noah and Adam, and that they 
 and their descendants, for some time before they 
 separated, worshipped the one living and true God, 
 we must believe that originally the ancestors of the 
 great Aryan family worshipped the one God, and 
 Him alone. And as we ascend into the past, and 
 acquire a fuller understanding of the oldest forms of 
 the Vedic religion, we find a nearer approximation 
 to a knowledge of the one living and true God. But 
 by the time the hymns came to be composed and 
 collected, an undoubted polytheism prevailed. This 
 is seen, not only in the number of gods worshipped, 
 but in their separate individuality, their distinct 
 traits of character, and their personal histories. It 
 is quite true that to almost every one of them, 
 supreme sovereignty is given ; but such is given by 
 modern worshippers to Vishnu, Siva, Hari, Ganpati, 
 etc. etc. Take for example the following to Indra : 
 ' There is no one like thee in heaven and earth ; he 
 is not born and will not be born. mighty Indra, 
 we call upon thee as we go fighting for cows and 
 horses,' 2 which, I suppose, means as we go, like the 
 Keltic Katerans of old, a cattle-lifting ; or like the 
 
 1 R.-V., ii. 27, 1 ; x. 110, 12 ; x. 167, 1. 
 
 2 See also Wilson, vol. ii. p. 257. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? Ill 
 
 modern Italian banditti, going to rob and steal, and 
 then share the booty at the shrine of Mary. In the 
 same hymn, the same Indra is quite familiarly ad- 
 dressed. The worshippers anxious for wealth, seated 
 together near the libation, ' like flies round the honey,' 
 ' have placed their desire upon Indra, as we put our 
 foot upon a chariot. Make for the sacred gods a 
 hymn that is not small, that is well set and beauti- 
 ful. Many snares pass by him who abides with 
 Indra, through his sacrifice.' Then follows a verse 
 which reminds one of Martin Elginbrodde's prayer : 
 ' Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde. 
 Hae mercy o' my soul, Lord God, 
 As I wad do were I Lord God 
 And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.' 
 The verse * we refer to runs : ' If I were lord of 
 as much as thou, I should support the sacred bard, 
 thou scatterer of wealth, I should not abandon him 
 to misery.' He was undoubtedly placed as the 
 highest of all the gods by some of the Eishis in 
 some of their hymns. By others a subordinate place 
 is given to him. He is described ' without a fellow, 
 unequalled by men ; ' from which words it might be 
 supposed that Indra was conceived as the one only 
 God. "We do not think so. Indra throughout is 
 regarded as so very human, that such language as 
 the above addressed to him proves nothing in the 
 
 1 See also R.-V,, vii. 32, 18, 19 ; viii. 14, 1, 2; viii. 52, 2; and 
 Miiller's Anct. Sanskrit, p. 545, and Muir's Studies, p. 48. 
 
112 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 absence of everything of a more convincing nature. 
 It shows only that strong language was frequently 
 used by the worshipper while addressing Indra. But 
 all must admit equally flattering language was ad- 
 dressed to almost every member of the Aryan 
 Pantheon, and is so still to all the many gods and 
 goddesses of modern Hinduism. The same is found 
 in the words used to the horse when about to be 
 sacrificed. (See above, p. 80 : Horse, 'who art one 
 with Varuna.') In the very next sentence Agni, the 
 lord of fire, is addressed by the poet. He is spoken 
 of as the first god, not inferior even to Indra. 1 Some- 
 times, while Agni is invoked, Indra may be forgotten ; 
 for there is not competition always between the two, 
 nor a rivalry between them and the other gods. Some 
 may regard this as a most important feature in the 
 religion of the Veda, seldom taken into consideration 
 by those who have written on the history of ancient 
 polytheism. But we do not think so, nor do we 
 know that the one god is forgotten when the other 
 is so praised. In the very hymn before us, reference 
 is made to the other gods; then, further, many of 
 the hymns, as a matter of fact, are addressed to both 
 Indra and Agni together. Of the nine verses in the 
 second hymn of the first book, three are addressed to 
 Vayu, three to Indra, and three to Indra and Vayu 
 conjointly; and three to Mitra and Varuna. The 
 
 1 See Muir's Studies, pp. 53 and 54, and Miiller's Sanskrit Litera* 
 ture, p. 532. See below, p. 185. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 113 
 
 twenty-first hymn is addressed to Indra and Agni, 
 both of them like ' twa brithers ' are addressed as 
 ' both copious drinkers of the Soma juice/ as the 
 ' two who are fierce/ ' who are mighty and guardians 
 of the assembly/ and they are asked to make the 
 Eakhsasas ' destitute of progeny.' The hymnist then 
 prays for the two ( By this unfailing sacrifice, be 
 you rendered vigilant, Indra and Agni.' 
 
 Hymn 3 9 commences with the words to Indra : 
 ' Voracious drinker of the Soma juice, although we be 
 unworthy, do thou, Indra, of boundless wealth, enrich 
 us with thousands of excellent cows and horses ; ' 
 and so on it proceeds to the end of the seventh 
 stanza, each stanza ending with the same prayer 
 ' for thousands of excellent cows and horses.' It is 
 not often that the personal attractions of the gods 
 are dwelt on. But in the second stanza of the same 
 hymn Indra is spoken of as ' he of the handsome, 
 prominent nose/ as elsewhere possessed of ' good lips ' 
 and ' beautiful chin ' (i. 9, 3), and again, ' the long- 
 necked, large-bellied, strong-armed Indra' (viii. 17, 8) ; 
 and the splendour of his dress and decorations are 
 referred to (Wilson, vol. i. p. 223). In addition to 
 the seven times repeated prayer for the 1000 of cows 
 and horses, there are also prayers that ' this ass, our 
 adversary, praising thee with such discordant speech, 
 may be destroyed/ that ' every one that reviles us be 
 destroyed/ and f every one that does us injury be slain.' 
 We give a versified translation of the hymn below. 
 
 ii 
 
114 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 James Darmesteter, no mean authority on this 
 subject, writing in the October (1879) number of the 
 Contemporary Review, contends that the sovereign- 
 ties of the gods of the Aryans were not organized 
 republics, but monarchies under kings : Zeus in 
 Greece, Jupiter in Italy, Varuna in India, Odin in 
 Germany, and Ahura Mazda in Persia. Varuna (the 
 sky), the god of law and order, the universal encom- 
 passer, maker and upholder of heaven and earth, 
 king of gods and men, is described as omnipotent 
 and omniscient, the judge of all. Mr. Darmesteter 
 contends that Zeus is synonymous with Ouranos, 
 which is only another form of the word Varuna, 
 which in Greece soon lost its meaning as a common 
 name for the sky, but kept it longer among the Indo- 
 Aryans ; that as Zeus was father of Athene, so 
 Varuna was of Atharvan, the fire-god, and of Bhrigu, 
 the thunderer; that the supreme god of the Aryans 
 was never a god of unity in the sense that Adonai, 
 or. Jehovah, is represented in the Jewish Scriptures, 
 and ever was. There was by the side of Varuna ' a 
 number of gods, acting of their own accord, and 
 often of independent origin.' If Varuna, the all- 
 encircling god of the heavens, early rose to the 
 supreme rank, others ' with more dramatic action, 
 revealing themselves by sudden, unexpected events, 
 maintained their ancient independence, and religious 
 development led to some of them usurping the power 
 of the king of the heavens.' So it was with the rise 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 115 
 
 of India and Brahma. The former, as we have seen, 
 in the course of time got to the highest throne in the 
 Pantheon, and eclipsed his majestic rival Varuna, by 
 the din of his resounding splendour. See that 
 magnificent but comparatively modern hymn, each 
 verse of which ends with the words, ' He, man, is 
 Indra.' 1 ' But the usurper does not enjoy his triumph 
 long. In the heat of the victory he is already stung 
 to the heart, mortally wounded by a new and majestic 
 power, which is growing at his side, the powei of 
 prayer,' of sacrifice, of oblation, of Soma/of worship 
 in one word, of Brahma (which originally meant all 
 these), whose reign begins to dawn towards the end of 
 the Vedic period, and which is still in existence, not 
 so much with the poor ignorant idolatrous polytheists, 
 who have never set up temples to him, but rather with 
 the learned, civilised scientific Brahmo theist, who 
 claims personal inspiration. Just as Indra usurped 
 Varuna's place, so Brahma in time usurped Indra' s. 
 And it was a woful degradation of the worshipping 2 
 subjects to fall from the reign of Varuna to that of 
 Brahma. We see the process illustrated in the 28th 
 hymn, in which Indra is not very respectfully treated. 
 The first half of the hymn is addressed to Indra, 
 each verse ending with the request to Indra to recog- 
 nise and partake of the effusions of the mortar, that 
 is, the Soma juice, which he is ever drinking. In 
 
 1 R.-Y., ii. 12. Wilson, vol. ii. p. 235. R.- V., x. 86, ends each verse 
 with the words, ' Indra is superior to all,' Langlois, vol. iv. p. 327. 
 
116 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 the next verse, the mortar itself is deified and prayed 
 to. We have seen how the Soma juice also came to 
 reign over a portion, if not the whole, of Inclra's 
 dominions. But his reign was only temporary. 
 Brahma's, 1 on the other hand, seems likely to be of 
 longer duration. By many he is believed to be re- 
 newing his youth. There are signs, however, that 
 his reign is drawing to a close. Those who have 
 taken him under their special protection, seem to 
 have got ashamed of him. The caste mark is seen 
 on the forehead, the name is on the sign-board over 
 the door, but we hear nothing of his ancient history 
 and origin, or of his peculiar qualities, or rather want 
 of all attributes. Under his own peculiar name lie 
 is never spoken of, nor is his name ever seen in their 
 public prints. We seem to hear the muttered threats 
 to take down the sign, and to reprint it with the 
 name of the original ruler in a somewhat new form, 
 as The Theistic CJmrcli of India, or New Dispensation, or 
 of setting up the still younger god Hari in his stead. 
 
 Indra was only in time dethroned, for he com- 
 pletely disgraced himself in the Epic period of Indian 
 history. His character became so very disgraceful, 
 not with drink only, his great sin in Yedic times, 
 but even with worse crimes, 2 so that we cannot soil 
 our pages with an account of it. 
 
 Professors Both and Whitney and Dr. Muir 3 seem 
 
 1 See p. 186. 2 See even i. 101, 1 ; i. 121, 2. 
 
 3 Muir's Studies, p. 49. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism / 117 
 
 to entertain the same opinion in regard to Yaruna's 
 ancient supremacy and superior antiquity to Indra ; 
 and that during the Yedic age the high consideration 
 originally attached to him was in course of being 
 transferred to Indra. One circumstance is patent to 
 any one reading the Veda in the original or in trans- 
 lation, that while Yaruna occupies a most important 
 position in the older hymns, he is nowhere in the 
 later. There is not a single entire hymn addressed 
 to him in the 10th Book. Yaruna must have been 
 worshipped by the whole Aryan family while Kelt, 
 Teuton, Greek, Parsi, and Hindu had one religion 
 and one home, but there is not a trace of Indra to be 
 met with in the "Western mythologies. If Indra had 
 any existence in the earlier mythology of the Aryan 
 family, it must have been confined to some obscure 
 province. In some of the hymns, 1 as we have al- 
 ready seen, they are associated together, Muir thinks, 
 with the view of enhancing the dignity of Indra by 
 attaching him to the older and more venerable deity. 
 They are called friends, suggesting the idea that some 
 may have been regarding them as rivals, if not as 
 enemies. Dr. Muir remarks in regard to the hymns in 
 the 7th Book (82-85), in which they are conjoined, 
 that ' these passages are consistent with the supposi- 
 tion that the two gods were felt to have been rivals, 
 and that their author sought to reconcile their con- 
 flicting claims.' 2 In some half a dozen different 
 
 1 i. 17 ; iv. 41 ; iv. 42 ; vii. 82-85, etc. 2 Muir's Studies, p. 52. 
 
118 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 hymns the singular expression Anindra, 'an unbe- 
 liever in India/ occurs, suggestive of the same fact. 
 In viii. 51, 2, Indra is said to ' have surpassed in 
 power former generations/ which Professor Aufrecht 
 understands to mean ' races of gods anterior to Indra.' 
 In i. 101, 3, Varuna and Surya are said to be sub- 
 ject to the command of Indra; and in x. 89, 8, 9, 
 Indra is said to be able to destroy the enemies 
 of Mitra, Aryaman, and Varuna, thereby evincing, 
 as Dr. Muir 1 argues, ' his superiority to those three 
 gods.' 
 
 Mr. Keary, in his article on Early Religious 
 Development, describes 2 the position of the Kishi 
 composers of the Kig-Veda hymns, as not yet ad- 
 vanced so far that they can worship a being abstracted 
 altogether from the phenomena of sense, but yet so 
 far that their gods have more the character of powers 
 than of natural objects. 'The consequence of this 
 state of mind/ he adds, 'is the most real and 
 unmixed polytheism. So long, and only so long, as 
 the name of the god and the name of the element, 
 the portion of nature, are thought of simultaneously, 
 and the being is thus identified with -the earth or 
 sky or sea, and so long as no being is worshipped 
 under a name which has ceased to be the expression 
 of some outward phenomenon, does the polytheistic 
 condition last. For while this is the case, it is im- 
 
 ' Muir's Studies, p. 53. 
 
 2 Nineteenth Century, August 1878, p. 368. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism / 119 
 
 possible that the deity of one element can have 
 control over the god of another, each is tied and 
 bound within the limits of his individual nature.' 
 That this was the state of the Kishi's mind is, I 
 think, unquestionable, in regard to the worship 
 rendered to most of the gods of his pantheon. This 
 stage Mr. Keary regards as intermediate between 
 -^fetishism and monotheism. The theory that man, in 
 j[ a half-savage state, struggling for the bare necessaries 
 T of life, could not by mere reasoning or generalization 
 find out God, may be quite true ; but it is not true 
 that in such a state he could not receive from without 
 the truth that there is a God. For there are many 
 instances in modern history of such savages believing 
 in God and blessed in the truth. Christians believe 
 that man in his primeval condition did receive from 
 God himself the truth in regard to Himself. Our 
 study of the Vedic religion, so far from contradicting 
 this idea, has confirmed it in a remarkable manner. 
 This does not, however, imply that the idea remained 
 pure with man. Mr. Keary is very positive that 
 while the nature- worship continued unchanged, the 
 religion was no doubt polytheistic. ' There was 
 nothing to give the god of one portion of nature any 
 power or influence over the god of another portion, 
 while he was thought of as that actual phenomenon 
 or series of phenomena, and not in any way ab- 
 stracted from them. So long as the sea or the sky 
 was worshipped directly, not as representatives or 
 
120 The redic Religion. 
 
 habitations, but in their proper persons, so long might 
 they reign side by side in the pantheon, and the 
 religion remain a polytheism. But in time there 
 comes a change. The connection between the world 
 and natural phenomenon is gradually severed.' Then 
 a monotheism becomes possible, but, Mr. Keary 
 contends, not till then. Then also the mythologies 
 proper originate and multiply. This state of matters 
 is observable in the Big- Veda. "While Agni is fire 
 and is worshipped as such, and Heaven, Earth, Sky, 
 and Dawn are worshipped as such, there is pure 
 polytheism as far as they are concerned. Because 
 Dyaus and Varuna do recall some natural appearance, 
 one after the other ceases to be the chief god, and 
 his place is supplied by Indra, which has undoubtedly 
 a less directly physical meaning. He is in turn 
 superseded by Brahma, from which all physical and 
 metaphysical attributes are abstracted. The myths 
 which formed themselves about Agni never crystal- 
 lized into distinct forms like those about Indra. 
 Unfortunately these forms, as we have said, are not 
 of the most inviting character, so that the least said 
 of his post-Vedic history the better. 
 
 "We, however, cannot refrain from giving the 
 following litany, as embodying the whole tone of the 
 Eig-Veda. It was frequently read to modern Brah- 
 mins, in the way of contrast to Matthew v. 44-48, 
 by the Eev. E. E. Baierlein, missionary of the Leipzig 
 Evangelical Lutheran Society, Bangalore : 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 121 
 
 1. Mightiest drinker of the Soma juice, 
 
 Although we are all unworthy of thee ; 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 
 2. Handsome and powerful lord of nourishment, 
 
 Thy favour for ever be with us ; and therefore, 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 
 3. Cast into sleep the two, each other regarding, 
 
 servants of death, 
 
 That they fall into slumber and wake not again; 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 
 4. May those who are our enemies slumber ; 
 
 But our friends, hero, let them ever be 
 
 wakeful : 
 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 
 5. Destroy, Indra, this ass, our opponent, 
 
 Whose praises of thee sound harsh and dis- 
 cordant ; 
 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 ; '"6) And grant that the storm in its crooked course 
 
 May alight afar off on the forest ; 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 
 7. Destroy, thou mighty one, all who despise us ; 
 
 Visit with death all those who would harm us; and 
 
122 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 Indra, whose riches are boundless, grant us ; " 
 Thousands of beautiful cows and of horses. 1 
 
 Composed in a different tone, not so respectful to 
 Indra, but praying for the same material riches and 
 cherishing the same unchangeable feelings towards 
 their enemies, I cull from the same source the follow- 
 ing hymn : 
 
 1. Our prayers and entreaties, when will they 
 
 reach thee, Indra ? 
 
 When wilt thou give thy adorers the means 
 of maintaining thousands ? 
 
 And when will my worship with riches and 
 wealth be rewarded ? 
 
 And my ceremonies bear their fruit in sub- 
 sistence ? 
 
 2. When bringest thou, Indra, the leaders and 
 
 leaders together ? 
 And heroes and heroes to give us the victory 
 
 in battle, 
 Who can conquer from foes the flocks which 
 
 yield nourishment threefold ? 
 And when wilt thou, Indra, bestow on us 
 
 wealth in abundance ? 
 
 3. When, mightiest Indra, when wilt thou deign 
 
 to bestow 
 
 On those who now worship thee, food in 
 sufficience ? 
 
 1 i. 29. See Wilson's Translation, vol. i. p. 73. Also The Land 
 of the Tamulians, p, 49. See above, p. 113. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 123 
 
 And when can we join to our prayers our 
 
 thanksgiving ? 
 When grantest thou herds in return for our 
 
 offerings ? 
 
 4. Give then, Indra, thy worshippers food in 
 
 abundance, 
 
 Herds ever increasing and horses renowned for 
 their strength, 
 
 Let the pasture increase, and the cows that are 
 easily milked, 
 
 And grant they may shine with fat and enjoy- 
 ment of health. 
 
 5. Our foemen be pleased to despatch the wrong 
 
 way [of death], 
 mightiest Indra ! thou hero, and conqueror 
 
 of enemies ! 
 0, may I not weary in praising the giver of 
 
 bounties. 
 
 satisfy, Indra, with food the Angiras. 1 
 That most of the gods were originally mere per- 
 sonifications of those powers of nature on whom the 
 people relied for good harvests and other material 
 creature comforts, is very likely true. But it is 
 equally true that they were conceived of, and 
 worshipped, at the time the hymns were composed, 
 as beings possessed of independent human wills, 
 desires and powers. A late writer in the Calcutta 
 Review (July 1879), not friendly disposed towards 
 1 The Land of the Tamulians, p. 50. 
 
124 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 the Christian religion, is very positive on this point. 
 He says : ' The idea of one god was not yet possible 
 to the early Aryans. In their ignorance, they rather 
 imagined a living actor in every striking natural 
 phenomenon which arrested their imagination. The 
 rising sun dispelling darkness and vivifying the 
 earth ; Indra hurling the thunder and shaking the 
 earth and the heavens, and compelling the reluctant 
 clouds (so it was believed) to give rain, for the good 
 of man : Varuna or the sky, eternally bending over 
 the fertile earth, always changing in light and shade, 
 yet eternally the same ; the beauteous moon, fire, air, 
 and the elements, these and deities like these were 
 invoked to bestow health and comfort, to increase 
 the cattle and prosper the crops, and above all to 
 help the white men (Aryans) against the black 
 aborigines (Dasyas) in the great war which continued 
 for ages, and which ended in the conquest of the 
 whole of India by the nobler race. We see in this 
 religion not the conception of one deity which enters 
 into the belief of races more advanced in knowledge 
 than the early Aryans of India. In the Vedanta we 
 find the first distinct conception of the idea of one true 
 God.' Such is the conclusion of the writer on Recent 
 Investigations into Archaic Forms of Religion ; and we 
 quote it, not because we believe his theory to be true, 
 but because we do believe that the polytheistic nature 
 of the Vedic hymns is of so pronounced a character as 
 almost to justify even such sweeping generalizations. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 125 
 
 Dr. Muir's position does not differ much, from the 
 above. He says these hymns ' are the productions 
 of simple men, who, under the influence of the most 
 impressive phenomena of nature, saw everywhere the 
 presence and agency of divine powers, who imagined 
 that each of the great provinces of the universe was 
 directed and animated by its own separate deity, and 
 who had not yet risen to a clear idea of one supreme 
 creator and governor of all things. This is shown 
 not only by the special functions assigned to parti- 
 cular gods, but in many cases by the very names 
 which they bear, corresponding to those of some of 
 the elements or of the celestial luminaries.' (Studies, 
 p. 142.) 
 
 Earn Chundra Ghose writes : ' As could be the 
 various conceptions of the different poets, so the 
 natures of the gods must have differentiated. The 
 same god is said in one hymn to be supreme and 
 equal, and again in another inferior to others. How- 
 ever, the whole nature of these ideal and imaginary 
 gods is still transparent ; they are merely names of 
 natural phenomena and without being ; they are the 
 creatures of man, and not his creators. Here names 
 play with us.' They were undoubtedly real enough 
 with those old Eishis. They expected blessings, 
 chiefly temporal, it is true ; still blessings, cows and 
 horses, from the deities to whom they gave the Soma 
 juice and their prayers. Some of them occasionally 
 also expected from the same gods spiritual blessings, 
 
126 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 the removal of sin and guilt from their souls. They 
 expected the sacrifice, especially the Soma juice, to 
 have a very decided effect upon the gods ; and the 
 character of each god was so distinct from those of 
 the others, that mythological dictionaries founded 
 upon these distinctions have been written. 
 
 There are not only gods many, but also goddesses, 
 though but few, and most of them of comparatively 
 little importance, save Aditi, Ushas, and Prithivi. 
 The wives of Indra, Agni, and Varuna, called 
 respectively Indrani, Agnani, Varunani, are not 
 associated with their husbands as objects of worship, 
 not even Lakshmi and Sarasvati, any more than 
 other Apsaras or river goddesses. Aditi, the mother 
 of many of the Aryan gods, is by far the most 
 interesting. Daksha was, however, before Aditi. 
 Tor Aditi was born, Daksha, she who is thy 
 daughter ; after her the gods were born, the blessed, 
 who share in immortality.' It is the story of the 
 earth, the elephant, and the tortoise over again. Yet 
 Max Miiller contends that the story of Daksha, the 
 powerful being, the mother of Aditi, the infinite, the 
 mother of the gods, is at least as old as 1000 B.C. 
 
 Then there are such divinities as the Maruts, with 
 whom Indra sometimes quarrels lustily, but who are 
 more generally his friends and boon companions ; 
 the Apsaras, who are represented as the wives of the 
 Gandharvas, and who can change their forms, love 
 and favour gambling, and can produce derangement 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 127 
 
 of mind. As such they are feared as demons, 
 appeased by incantations, and remind one of the 
 fetishes of the negroes. The Lakshmis are partly 
 beneficent, partly mischievous ; the Eibhus and the 
 Devas are deified heroes or glorified men. Hymn 
 110 of the first book is addressed to the Pdbhus. 
 Verse 2 runs : ' When, Eibhus, you were amongst 
 my ancestors, yet immature in wisdom, but desirous 
 of enjoying the Soma libations, retired to the forest 
 to perform penance, then, sons of Sudhanwan, through 
 the plenitude of your completed devotions, you came 
 to the sacrificial hall of the worshipper Savitri. 
 Then Savitri bestowed upon you immortality.' (See 
 above, p. 4*7.) 
 
 Monier Williams thinks, with Max Miiller, that 
 there are traces in the Veda of a pre- existent faith 
 more or less monotheistic in its nature ; but that 
 'in the Veda this unity soon diverged into various 
 ramifications. Only a few of the hymns appear to 
 contain the simple conception of one divine self- 
 existent Being, and even in those the idea of one 
 God present in all nature is somewhat nebulous and 
 undefined ; ' and Max Miiller adds : ' The conscious- 
 ness that all the deities are but different names of 
 one and the same godhead breaks forth here and 
 there in the Veda. But it is far from being general.' 
 He then gives a verse very frequently quoted for 
 the same purpose from a hymn (i. 146) of extra- 
 ordinary length, and of great unintelligibility, con- 
 
128 The Vcclic Religion. 
 
 taining 52 verses. The 46th verse runs: 'They 
 have styled him [the sun] Indra, Mitra, Varuna, 
 Agni, then he is the beautiful winged Garutmut; 
 that which is one, the wise call it in divers manners, 
 they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisman ; ' or as trans- 
 lated by Wilson, for 'learned priests call one by 
 many names, as they speak of Agni, Yama, Mataris- 
 man.' 
 
 We think a great deal too much has been made 
 of this verse. It proves that the sun was spoken of 
 sometimes by various names, and that so also were 
 some of the other gods, but we think nothing more. 
 Pundit Mohesh Chunder Kayaratna, C.I.E., the 
 learned Principal of the Sanskrit College, Calcutta, 
 writes, in his tract on Dayananda Sarasvati : ' It is 
 not clear who is addressed in this mantra. The 
 author of the Nirulda says that it is addressed to fire. 
 Others say that it is addressed to the sun. Be that 
 as it may, it is, to say the least of it, difficult to 
 understand how the word Agni (as Dyananda con- 
 tends) can mean Iswara (God). This mantra is 
 addressed to some one deity, and it has already been 
 seen that, in praising any particular deity, it is usual 
 to address him under the names of several other 
 deities, with a view to magnify his powers.' Other 
 literatures possess similar idioms. Besides, the hymn 
 itself is peculiar, not from its length alone, but also 
 from its style and subject-matter, It is more in the 
 style of the Atharva-Veda than of the Eig, if not of 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 129 
 
 the Upanisliads. Indeed it does occur in the Atharva- 
 Veda in broken bits scattered here and there, as has 
 been found by Mr. Whitney. Further, there are 
 matters in it, such as invocations to the family cow, 
 which must be regarded as comparatively recent ; 
 and the text of the Veda or Vedas is spoken of as 
 * the supreme heaven upon which all the gods have 
 taken their seats/ The priests are referred to as a 
 class who dress the ' Soma ox,' whatever that may 
 mean, 'for such,' the hymn says, 'are their first 
 duties ; ' and the gods themselves are said to ' sacrifice 
 with sacrifice, for such are their first duties ' also. 
 The hymn, according to the best Hindu commentator, 
 Sanaya, should consist of but 41 stanzas; in which 
 case this 46th verse cannot be genuine. See pp. 
 112, 185. 
 
 One of the most remarkable hymns in the Big- 
 Veda is the 129th of the 10th Book. I sulijoin the 
 translation supplied by Max Muller, which differs 
 materially from that given by Monier Williams : 
 * Kor aught, nor naught existed ; yon bright sky 
 Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched 
 
 above. 
 Wliat covered all? What sheltered? What 
 
 concealed ? 
 
 Was it the water's fathomless abyss ? 
 There was not death } hence was there naught 
 
 immortaL 
 
 There was no confine betwixt day and night. 
 i 
 
130 The Vedic Ediyion. 
 
 tThe only One breathed breathless in itself; 
 Other than it there nothing since has been. 
 Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled 
 In gloom profound, an ocean without light, 
 The germ that still lay covered in the husk 
 Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. 
 Then first came love upon it, the new spring 
 Of mind yea, poets in their hearts discerned, 
 Pondering, this bond between created things 
 And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth, 
 Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven ? 
 Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers 
 
 arose 
 
 Nature below, and power and will above : 
 Who knows the secret ? Who proclaimed it 
 
 here, 
 
 Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang ? 
 The gods themselves came later into being : 
 Who knows from whence this great creation 
 
 sprang ? 
 
 He from whom all this great creation came, 
 Whether his will created or was mute, 
 The most high seer that is in highest heaven, 
 He knows it, or, perchance, e'en he knows not.' l 
 To the exposition of this hymn Max Miiller has 
 devoted seven and a half pages of his History of 
 Sanskrit Literature. It is a hymn unique among the 
 thousand and seventeen in the collection. There is 
 
 1 Miiller's History, p. 564, and Chips, vol. i. p. 78. See below, p. 220. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 131 
 
 none other like it. Still I think it may be over- 
 valued. I am sceptical as to the writer having had 
 a clear idea of the unity of the deity. I could 
 easily suppose one producing it as a proof that the 
 most thoughtful of the old Eishis not only believed 
 the gods to have had, all of them, a beginning, but 
 that the world originated of itself, self-created ; or at 
 any rate, that there was profound ignorance upon the 
 whole subject. But whatever may be the scepticism 
 or the faith of the composer, he seems to have a faint 
 recollection of the Biblical story of the creation, as of 
 a dream which he may have dreamt. 
 
 Monier Williams would compare the hymn with 
 27 the 38th chapter of Job, and perceives in 'it the 
 
 /t first dim outline of the remarkable idea that the 
 # 
 
 % Creator willed to produce the universe through the 
 & agency and co-operation of a female principle, an 
 > idea which afterwards acquired more shape in the 
 supposed marriage of Heaven and Earth.' He 
 considers it also 'a good argument for those who 
 maintain that the original faith of the Hindus was 
 monotheistic.' I think it is likely to have helped to 
 originate the character of Brahma (in the neuter), 
 who was imagined as Nirgun* without an attribute 
 neither something nor nothing. It contains, further, 
 I should think, one of the germs from which sprang 
 Pantheism. c The only One breathed breathless in 
 itself; other than it there nothing since has been.' 
 
 1 See Dr. Wilson's Life, by Dr. Geo. Smith, p. 105, 1st Edition. 
 
132 The Vedic Edigion. 
 
 The famous 90th hymn of the 10th Book, 
 regarded by many also as favouring monotheism, is 
 said to be a more recent hymn. It has also en- 
 couraged the growth of Pantheistic ideas. We refer to 
 the already quoted Puruslia-Sukta, or hymn, in which 
 we have the first supposed reference to the four castes. 
 Of the Punish, God, or man, or both, it is said : 
 ' He is himself this very universe ; 
 : He is whatever is, has been, shall be ; 
 
 He is the Lord of immortality.' 
 Yet, singularly enough, in the same hymn, as we 
 have already noticed, as a shadow of the Christian 
 doctrine concerning the sacrifice of ' the only-begotten 
 of the Father,' we have the words, 
 
 ' With Purusha, as victim, they performed 
 A sacrifice. When they divided him, 
 How did they cut him up ? ' etc. 
 In connection with this matter, we refer to another 
 very curious coincidence or shadow of the truth in 
 the deifying of speech, or the ' Word.' Mr. Johnson, 
 the author of Oriented Edigions, p. 74, remarks : ' The 
 Hindu thinker found deity most near to him, not as 
 a person, nor as visible shape, but as Word, the 
 symbol of pure thought.' ' Speech, melodious,' says 
 the Rig-Veda, ' was queen of the gods, generated by 
 them, and divided into many portions.' * 
 
 As monotheistic in its tone and spirit, we are 
 also referred to the 121st hymn of the 1st Book. 
 
 1 viii. 89, 10 ; x. 125. Langlois, vol. iv. p. 415. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 133 
 
 Put into metre by Monier Williams/ it is more 
 favourable to those who find monotheism in it 
 than in its literal prose translation, which we have 
 given above, p. 91, in introducing this part of the 
 subject : 
 
 ' What god shall we adore with sacrifice ? 
 Him let us praise, the golden child that rose 
 In the beginning, who was born the lord 
 The one sole lord of all that is who made 
 The earth, and formed the sky, who giveth life, 
 Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere, 
 Whose hiding-place is immortality, 
 Whose shadow, death ; who by his might is kiug 
 Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world 
 Who governs men and beasts, whose majesty 
 These snowy hills, this ocean with its rivers 
 Declare ; of whom these spreading regions form 
 The arms ; by whom the firmament is strong, 
 Earth firmly planted, and the highest heavens 
 Supported, and the clouds that fill the air 
 Distributed and measured out ; to whom 
 Both earth and heaven, established by his will, 
 Look up with trembling mind ; in whom revealed, 
 The rising sun shines forth above the world. 
 Where'er let loose in space, the mighty waters 
 Have gone, depositing a fruitful seed 
 And generating fire, there he arose, 
 Who is the breath and life of all the gods, 
 
 1 Indian Wisdom, p. 23. 
 
134 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 Whose mighty glance looks round the vast 
 
 expanse 
 
 Of watery vapour source of energy, 
 Cause of the sacrifice the only God 
 Above the gods. May he not injure us ! 
 He the Creator of the earth the righteous 
 Creator of the sky, Creator too 
 Of oceans bright, and far extending waters/ 
 The hymn, even in its bald prose form, is most 
 interesting. Still we are not satisfied that the Eishi 
 who had the honour of composing it was entitled to 
 be regarded as a monotheist. I do not refer to the 
 fact that his successors understood that the interro- 
 gative pronoun who, ka, which commenced the 
 question, ' Who is the god to whom we shall offer 
 our sacrifice ? ' was itself a god, and that they 
 worshipped it as the god Ka} We refer simply to 
 the fact that the Eishi was clearly in doubt as to 
 who was the god, among the many worshipped 
 around him, and very likely by himself also, who 
 was entitled to the sacrifice as the facile princeps 
 among them all. Who ' that golden child, the one 
 born lord of all that is/ was, is also a question 
 difficult, if not impossible, of solution. The opening 
 words bear a remarkable resemblance to the opening 
 words of the Gospel of John. They run : ' In the 
 beginning there arose the golden child ; he was the 
 one born lord of all that is. He established this 
 
 1 Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, p. 433. Williams' Hinduism, p. 27. 
 
Monotheism or Polytheism ? 135 
 
 earth and this sky Who is the god to whom we 
 shall offer our sacrifice ? ' 
 
 The hymn has, we think, been justly quoted as 
 proving a ' feeling after God/ an anxious and per- 
 plexed, yet resolute groping for the light for him 
 who is found by them who seek after him. ' This 
 yearning after a nameless deity/ says Baron Bunsen 
 concerning this very hymn, ' who nowhere manifests 
 himself in the Indian Pantheon of the Vedas, this 
 voice of humanity groping after God has nowhere 
 found so sublime and touching an expression.' Most 
 unfortunately, we do not discover in their writings 
 that the Eishis were finders of the true God. There 
 is a gulf between him, the holy One and the just, 
 and any and every other divinity or divinities, such 
 as cannot be passed over so easily that one does not 
 know whether he has the one or the other. And 
 we have no evidence whatever that the Eishis of old 
 had attained to a knowledge of, and faith in, Him 
 Who is, and beside Whom there is none other. 
 Neither the childishness of the individual or of the 
 nation, nor the imperfection of the language, will 
 prevent the expression of faith in 'our Father in 
 heaven/ the one God. 
 
 Before parting altogether from this subject, on 
 which I have already dwelt too long, I would like to 
 say a word on the Eelation of the Worshippers to the 
 Gods, and their Faith in them. 
 
THE RELATION OF THE WORSHIPPERS TO THE 
 GODS, AND THEIR FAITH IN THEM. , 
 
 IN" one word, the relation was very familiar. There 
 is little or no sense of love or fear, no sense of 
 the holy or the pure or the spiritual. They treat 
 the gods as of themselves, only more powerful, sub- 
 ject to the same weaknesses, the same desires, the 
 same appetites. The Soma, the clarified butter, the 
 horses, etc., in which the worshippers delighted, were 
 supposed to be sources of still greater pleasure to 
 their gods. The strength, the stimulus which they 
 themselves experienced, or imagined they experi- 
 enced, from their drinking of the Soma juice, they 
 supposed their gods to receive in still greater 
 measure. In the 6th hymn Agni is addressed : 
 'Agni, accept this log, conqueror of horses, thou who 
 lovest songs and delightest in riches. Youngest of 
 the gods, their messenger, most deserving of worship, 
 come at our praise.' But for all this there is no 
 communion of heart with heart, no contact of the 
 spirit of man with the gods whom he worships or 
 whom he feeds. There seems to be no love towards 
 their gods, no rejoicing in communion with them. 
 
The Relation of the Worshippers to the Gods. 137 
 
 The relation is more that of traders in the bazaar. 
 ' ' I give this for that ; I give sacrifice, you give cows 
 and horses.' There seems to be little or no gratitude 
 or thanks for past favours. It is altogether a bargain 
 for future temporal or spiritual blessings. Canon 
 Rawlinson points out the relation as almost the very 
 opposite to what one would expect the worshipper 
 being the lord and master, the worshipped being the 
 servant, if not the slave : ' The offerings of praise and 
 sacrifice, and especially the offering of the Soma juice, 
 were considered not merely to please the god, who 
 was the object of them, but to lay him under a bind- 
 ing obligation, and almost to compel him to grant the 
 requests of the worshipper. "The mortal who is 
 strenuous in worship," it is said, " acquires an autho- 
 rity " over the object of his religious regards an 
 authority which is so complete that he may even sell 
 the god's favour to another person, in order to enable 
 him to attain the object of his desires. " Who buys 
 this my Indra," says Vamadeva, a Yedic poet, 
 " with ten milch kine ? When he shall have slain 
 his foes, then let the purchaser give him back to me 
 again ; " which the commentator explains as follows : 
 ".Vamadeva, having ly much praise got Indra into his 
 possession or subjugation, proposes to make a bargain 
 when about to dispose of him ; " and so he offers for 
 ten milch kine to hand him over temporarily, appar- 
 ently to any person who will pay the price, with the 
 proviso that when Indra has subdued the person's 
 
138 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 foes, he is to be returned to the vendor ! ' Wheeler * 
 describes the relation as of ' a childlike and filial 
 character; the evils which the worshippers suffered 
 they ascribed to some offence of omission or commis- 
 sion which had been given to a deity ; whilst the 
 good which they received was in like manner ascribed 
 to his kindness or favour in return for the sacrifices, 
 prayers, hymns, etc., which they gave to him.' Mr. 
 Wheeler refers to Eig-Veda, i. 83, 2, in proof ' that 
 it is said that the gods, filled with food, are as 
 impatient to enjoy the Soma as bridegrooms long for 
 their brides/ In another hymn in praise of Vishnu, 
 ' men worship him, offering him their libation face to 
 face.' ' The worshipper offers his Varuna honey, 
 sweet things which the god is sure to like, and then 
 appeals to him. "Now be good, and let us speak 
 together again." ' ' Let us speak together again, 
 because my honey has been brought. Thou eatest 
 what thou likest like a priest.' 
 
 We do not read much of Faith in the Eig-Veda. 
 Still it is referred to ; and it is associated with its 
 opposite Scepticism. You have such texts connected 
 with Indra, in whom faith began to wane even in 
 Vedic times. ' The sun, moon, and Indra perform 
 their revolutions, that we may see and have/a^ in 
 what we see.' ' Excite in us, Indra, veneration for 
 
 1 Talboys Wheeler's History of India, vol. i. pp. 13-16. K.-Y., 
 i. 83, 3; x. 1, 3. Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, pp. 535-537. 
 AVilson, vol. i. p. xxxvii. K.-V., iv. 15, 5; iv. 24, 10. Wilson, 
 vol. iii. p. 170, note 2. 
 
The Relation of the Worshippers to the Gods. 139 
 
 the sun, for the waters, and for those who are worthy 
 of the praise of living beings, as exempt from sin ; 
 injure not our nearest kin, for our trust is in thy 
 mighty power.' ' When Indra hurls his fatal shaft, 
 every one immediately has faith in the resplendent 
 Indra.' 
 
 In spite of these reasons for faith in Indra, we 
 read : ' Offer praise to Indra, if you desire booty ; 
 true praise, if he truly exists. One and the other says, 
 There is no Indra. Who has seen him ? Whom 
 shall we praise ? ' Indra himself is represented as 
 answering, Here I am, O worshipper ; behold me 
 here. In might I overcome all creatures. In 
 another hymn we find the same scepticism manifest- 
 ing itself : ' The terrible one, of whom they ask where 
 he is, and of whom they say that he is not ; he takes 
 away the riches of his enemy, like the stakes at a 
 game. Believe in him, ye men, for he is indeed 
 Indra.' In another text scepticism and indifferentism 
 are associated with the race for riches and wine- 
 drinking : ' Thou Indra never findest a rich man to 
 be thy friend. Wine-swillers despise thee. But 
 when thou thunderest, when thou gatherest the 
 clouds, then thou art called like a father.' l 
 
 The most pronounced scepticism is found in a 
 hymn in which gods and Brahmans alike are turned 
 into ridicule. The deities to whom the hymn is 
 
 1 i. 102 ; i. 104 ; i. 55, 5 ; viii. 2 ; ii. 12, 5 ; viii. 21, 14. Miiller's 
 Hibbert Lectures, p. 302. Chips, vol. i. p. 42. 
 
140 . The Tedic Religion. 
 
 professedly dedicated are frogs. It is, in form, a 
 panegyric of the frogs, while it is really, as Max 
 Miiller says, ' a satire on the priests.' It commences : 
 ' When lying prostrate for a year, like Brahmans 
 performing a vow, the frogs have emitted their voice, 
 roused by the showers of heaven. When the heavenly 
 waters fell upon them as upon a dry fish lying in a 
 pond, the music of the frogs comes together like the 
 lowing of cows with their calves. When, at the 
 approach of the rainy season, the rain has wetted 
 them, as they were longing and thirsting, one goes to 
 the other while he talks, like a son to his father, 
 saying, akJchala.' (Greek, Brekekex koaxkoax.) 1 
 
 Almost equally literal is Dr. Muir's versified trans- 
 lation, which proceeds thus : 
 
 ' Afar is heard their merry croak. 
 Well drenched, they jump aloft in glee, 
 And join in noisy colloquy. 
 They leap upon each other's Lacks, 
 And each to t'other cries ko-ax. 
 As teachers first call out a word, 
 Then boys repeat what they have heard, 
 Just so the frogs croak out once more 
 What other frogs had croaked before. 
 Sounds diverse issue from their throats, 
 Some low like cows, some bleat like goats, 
 Though one in name, of various sheen, 
 For one is brown, another green. 
 
 1 Muller's History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 494. 
 
The Relation of the Worshippers to the Gods. 141 
 
 As Brahmans at a Soma-rite, 
 Around the bowl in talk unite, 
 This day the frogs their pond surround, 
 And make the air with noise resound. 
 These priests, the frogs, their voices raise, 
 And sing their annual hymn of praise. 
 As priests who sweated o'er a pot, 
 Soon quit the fire they find too hot, 
 The frogs, so long oppressed with heat, 
 Emerge in haste from their retreat.' * 
 I give the concluding verse from Wilson's trans- 
 lation. It is in the usual form of a prayer for riches 
 and cows : ' May the cow-toned, the goat-toned, the 
 speckled, the green (frog, severally), grant us riches. 
 May the frogs in the fertilizing (season of the rains), 
 bestowing upon us hundreds of cows, prolong our 
 lives.' 2 In a note in MS. to the edition of Mitller's 
 History before me, I read: 'If this was meant for 
 a satire, the age must have been degenerate indeed, 
 which could include this in a Sanhita of sacred 
 hymns.' I add, if this was not intended for satire, 
 the age was fallen, if possible, still lower. Which is 
 worse, to have ridiculed gods and priests, their 
 hymns and their rites, or to have worshipped frogs 
 as gods, and to have expected from them riches, 
 cows, and long life ? Either view implies a low state 
 of religious feeling and of faith. The worship of the 
 
 1 Muir's Metrical Translations, p. 194. 
 
 2 vii. 103. Wilson's Translation, vol. iv. p. 204. 
 
142 The Vedic Eeligion. 
 
 sacrificial post and the hymn (iii. 8) addressed to it, 
 are almost equally ridiculous. (See Wilson, vol. iii. 
 p. 4.) 
 
 Dr. Banerjea connects the modern Hindu doctrine 
 of faith, as opposed to that of ceremonial works, with 
 the worship of Vishnu, Siva (the Eudra of the Eig- 
 Veda) or SaUi; and more particularly with that of 
 the first under the names of Krishna and Hari; and 
 also makes it to be an exotic, not a true Indo- Aryan 
 plant. Though the subject is to a missionary most 
 interesting, it is scarcely within my scope. 
 
 In the Mahabharata 1 it is recorded that Narada, the 
 son of Brahma, addressed the incarnate Narayana (a 
 name given by the Hindus to Krishna, and by some 
 Bengali Christians to Christ, as meaning the Refuge 
 of men} ' We do not know what god or father you 
 worship.' Narayana tells Narada to contemplate the 
 supreme spirit as the one object of meditation. 
 Narada, under divine direction, ' goes to the mount 
 Meru for a vision of that supreme spirit.' Looking 
 to the north-west of that mountain, he obtained that 
 wonderful vision. To the north of the Ocean of 
 Milk, at a distance, as poets make out, of more than 
 456,000 miles from Meru (Merv ?), there was a large 
 continent by the name of ' White! There lived white 
 people without sensuousness, . . . freed from all sin, 
 etc. In the following chapter, Narayana is repre- 
 
 1 Mahabharata, Santiparva, chapters 336, 337, 338. Dr. Baner- 
 jea's Aryan Witness, pp. 230-235 . 
 
The Relation of the Worshippers to the Gods. 143 
 
 sented as saying 'You, full of devotion, desire to 
 know where you may get a sight of the Lord. North 
 of the Ocean of Milk is a continent called White. 
 The men of that place, resplendent as the moon, are 
 votaries of Narayana (lit. the Eefuge of men). Single- 
 minded, they are devoted to the most excellent 
 Purusha. Those men, inhabitants of the white con- 
 tinent, are called Ekantins (monotheists). Go there, 
 ye Eishis ; there is our spirit manifested/ This 
 ' excellent Purusha,' it turns out, is none other than 
 Krishna. Narada accordingly went, it is supposed, 
 to Meru, and had the vision. 
 
 Again, in the Bhagavat Parana, written about the 
 twelfth century A.D., Narada is represented as inform- 
 ing its distinguished author that he had almost ignored 
 the unspotted glory of the Lord, and that the Darsana 
 or Philosophy, which was not grateful to him, counted 
 for nothing. ' You have not/ he added, ' celebrated 
 the glory of the son of Vasudeva (i.e. Krishna) in the 
 same manner as you have described Dharma or 
 Eitualistic ceremonies.' This text, Dr, Banerjea 
 truly contends, proves conclusively that down to the 
 time this was written, the glory of Krishna, the son 
 of Vasudeva, had not been duly celebrated, nor the 
 doctrine of faith as opposed to ceremonial observances 
 introduced. Narada, who had received the vision of 
 the supreme God in the fair land of the whites at a 
 great distance, north-west of Mount Meru, warns the 
 founder of the Yedanta School and the author of the 
 
144 The Vcdic Eeligion. 
 
 Brahma-Sutras, of the futility of philosophical specu- 
 lations, which are not grateful to the Lord, the 
 Saviour of the world. He moves him to recount his 
 acts; this accordingly he did in the Bhagavat or 
 Krishna's Purana, 
 
 Again, in another work of great authority, written 
 about 800 A.D. and called Narada Pancharatra, the 
 writer is introduced telling his son Suka-Deva that 
 Narada was on one occasion practising some austerities, 
 when suddenly he heard a voice from heaven: 
 
 ' If. Hari (Krishna) is worshipped, what is the use 
 of austerities ? If Hari is not worshipped, what is 
 the use of austerities ? If Hari is within and without, 
 what is the use of austerities ? If Hari is not within 
 and without, what is the use of austerities ? Stop, 
 stop, Brahman ! Why do you engage in austerities ? 
 Go, Brahman ! do go quickly to Siva, the ocean of 
 knowledge. Get, get matured faith in Hari, as 
 described by the guild of Vishnu, the splitter and 
 snapper of the fetters of the world.' 
 
 From these texts we see that this modern doctrine 
 of faith was foreign, and was received from the fair- 
 complexion ed living to the north-west of Mem. 
 Narada had got it there, in the form of a vision of 
 Vishnu. He persuaded the author of the Krishna 
 Purana to recount the Lord's acts. This he did in 
 the said work. 
 
 Then, as a further step, we have a voice from 
 heaven telling Narada to give up all ceremonial works 
 
The Relation of the Worshippers to the Gods. 145 
 
 for this faith in Hari the taker away of sins. The 
 whole of this was written not earlier than 800 A.D. If 
 so, the whole was very likely founded on the Christian 
 doctrine of faith, as preached by the Christian Ekan- 
 tins or monotheists. 
 
 It will be observed that the part of the story found 
 in the Mahabharata goes only to prove that this faith, 
 the Krishna-cultus, did not originate at the time. On 
 the other hand, its origin cannot be traced further 
 back than the Narada Pancharatra and the Bhagavat 
 Purana, written not earlier than 800 A.D. Thus Dr. 
 Banerjea's texts seem certainly to go towards proving 
 that the doctrine is an exotic, and that it was not 
 fully developed until a comparatively recent period. 
 /We need greater light on this acknowledgment 
 which the Vaishnava Shastras seem to make of ' light 
 from Christian sources in brightening the colour 
 imparted to their personation of Krishna as some 
 compensation for the dark hue of his Braja-lila.' l 
 
 1 The Mahabharata gives, in the story of Narada's visit to Meru 
 (Merv), and his vision of the White Continent, the land of Ekantins, 
 a clue to the real origin of the Vaishnava dogmas. That story, 
 coupled with Narada's having suggested the worship of Krishna, and 
 the voice from heaven which he had heard, all these amount to a 
 strong presumption that the doctrine of Krishna is an imitation of 
 Christian teaching. The premises on which the presumption relies 
 are contained in the authorized and acknowledged Scriptures of the 
 Vaishnavas themselves. The original introducers of the doctrine 
 must have construed the sensualities of Krishna in a mystic sense, 
 and they w r ere only too glad to accept Narada's importations 
 though the Vaishnavas, as a body, may not confess to all this. 
 
XT. 
 
 INCARNATION, MEDIATION, AND AGNI. 
 
 THOUGH the doctrine of Incarnation is not 
 formally found in the Eig-Veda, Vishnu, who 
 is in later Hindu writings so closely connected with 
 Avatars or incarnations, is there, and is remarkable, 
 not for being among the first three, which he is not, 
 but for having strid across the seven regions of the 
 universe in three steps, and enveloping all things 
 with the dust of his beams. In this we have a very 
 pronounced anthropomorphic representation of the 
 divine. "We meet with many instances of men be- 
 coming gods, but no god is, in so many words, said to 
 have become human, though most of the gods are 
 represented as human in the worst, 1 as well as in the 
 best sense. Purusha and Prajapati's sacrifice of himself 
 or themselves, in which undoubted reference is made 
 to the body, is the most remarkable instance in point. 2 
 We have a very interesting confirmation of this in 
 relics preserved of the old Aryan religion by the 
 Teutonic branch of the family. In one of the old 
 Rune songs, Odin, the chief deity of the Teutons, is 
 1 "Wilson's Kig-Veda, vol. iv. p. 243. 2 See above, pp. 43, 44, 83-90. 
 
Incarnation, Mediation, and Ayni. 147 
 
 represented as hanging during nine long nights in 
 the wind-rocked tree, ' with a spear wounded, offering 
 himself to himself.' Karl Blind, to whose article on 
 the Odinic Songs in Shetland 1 we are indebted for 
 our information, adds : ' Odin, the representative of 
 thought, seems to be God and man at one and the same 
 time ; he offers " himself to himself." He is the fruit of 
 a tree the origin of which none can fathom.' The words 
 of the Rune, Rick, or hymn, in which Odin speaks to 
 himself, are sufficiently curious and illustrative of the 
 Yedic religion to justify us in giving them here : 
 
 1. I wot that I hung on the wind-rocked tree 
 Nine long nights, 
 
 With a spear wounded, 
 
 And to Odin offered 
 
 Myself to myself 
 
 On that tree of which none knows 
 
 From what root it springs. 
 
 2. Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of mead. 
 JN"etherward I peered. 
 
 On Eunes intent, I learned them sighing 
 Then fell down thence. . . . 
 
 3. Then I began to thrive, and began to think. 
 I grew, and gained in strength. 
 
 Word by word rose to me from the Word ; 
 Deed after deed rose to me from the deed. 2 
 
 1 Nineteenth Century, June 1879, p. 1092. 
 
 2 Observe the alliteration, in which the original abounds, repro- 
 duced by the translator. 
 
148 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 The Shetland Odinic song, lately discovered, is on 
 the same idea : 
 
 ' Nine days he hung on the rootless tree ; 
 
 For bad was the folk, and good was he. 
 
 A bloody mark was in his side 
 
 Made with a lance that would not hide [skin]. 
 
 Nine long nights, in the nipping rime, 
 
 Hung he there with his naked limb.' 
 This incarnation of the Divine is seen largely in 
 the character given to Agni, the god who is specially 
 praised for his abiding with men, so as to become one 
 of them. This trait of his is a prominent one through- 
 out the hymns, and is closely allied to his mediatorial 
 character. As there are few doctrines in the Christian 
 religion more persistently objected to by the Hindu 
 than the doctrine of Mediation, I shall cull largely 
 from Dr. Muir's texts 1 to show how this feature is 
 pictured in the old Eig-Veda hymns. Many object 
 to the doctrine of mediation more than to that of 
 incarnation, which is so closely allied to it. The 
 doctrine of incarnation is well known as a modern 
 Hindu doctrine, but that of mediation is not so much 
 so. Still, the latter is very pronouncedly found in 
 the character of Agni, ' the youngest of the gods, their 
 messenger ;' who ' goes wisely between these two 
 creations (heaven and earth, gods and men) like a 
 friendly messenger between two hamlets.' 2 On the 
 
 1 Oriental Studies, pp. 67-74. 
 
 2 Miiller's Chips, vol. i. p. 34. E.-V., ii. 6, 7. 
 
Incarnation, Mediation, and Agni. 149 
 
 strength of hymn iv. 1, 5, Max Miiller 1 expressly calls 
 him ' the messenger and mediator between god and 
 men.' He is spoken of in various hymns 2 as enjoy- 
 ing perpetual youth, travelling in a red-horsed car, an 
 immortal who has taken up his abode among mortals 
 as their guest, and as the domestic priest, appointed 
 both by men and gods. He is described as a sage, 
 the divinest among sages, who enables men to serve 
 the gods in a correct and acceptable manner, in cases 
 where this would be beyond their unaided skill. He 
 is spoken of as the outward sign or manifestation and 
 the end of the sacrifice. It is said of him that his 
 father begot him to be the revelation, and a brilliant 
 banner of all sacrifices. He is also the religious leader 
 or priest of the gods, a swift messenger moving be- 
 tween heaven and earth, appointed both by gods and 
 by men, to maintain their mutual communications, 
 to announce to the gods the hymns, and to convey 
 to them the oblations of their worshippers. Being 
 acquainted with the innermost recesses of the sky (iv. 
 
 1 Sanskrit Literature, p. 462. 
 
 2 i. 44, 6 ; i. 58, 1 ; i. 36, 15 ; iv. 5 ; i. 44, 4 ; i. 58, 6 ; ii. 4, 1 ; 
 i. 1, 1, 3, 8; i. 12, 1 ; i. 94, 6 ; ii. 1, 2 ; ii. 5, 2, 3 ; iii. 3, 4 ; i. 1, 
 
 4 ; i. 31, 1 ; x. 2, 3-5 ; iii. 33, 4 ; iii. 10, 4 ; iii. 11, 2 ; iv. 3, 1; vi. 
 2-3 ; x. 20, 9 ; x. 110, 11 ; x. 150, 4 ; i. 12, 1, 2, 4, 8 ; i. 27, 45 ; 
 i. 36, 3, 4, 5 ; i. 44, 2, 3, 5, 9, 12 ; i. 58, 1 ; i. 74, 4, 7 ; i. 188, 1 ; 
 ii. 6, 6 ; iii. 4, 11 ; vii. 11, 1 ; x. 70, 2 ; vii. 11, 1 ; vii. 11, 3 ; viii. 
 91, 16 ; x. 7, 6 ; ii. 1, 13, 14 ; x. 51, 52 ; i. 12, 2, 6 ; i. 26, 7 ; i. 36, 
 
 5 ; i. 31, 11 ; i. 96, 4 ; i. 1, 8 ; i. 60, 4 ; v. 8, 2 ; viii. 15, 2 ; i. 26, 
 3 ; i. 31, 10, 14, 16 ; i. 75, 4 ; ii. 1, 9 ; vi. 1, 5 ; iii. 15, 1 ; vii. 13, 
 1 ; vii. 15, 10 ; viii. 13, 3 ; viii. 43, 26 ; iii. 2, 2 ; iii. 25, 1 ; x. 12, 
 7 ; ii. 12, 3 ; i. 60, 1 ; i. 93, 6 ; vi. 7, 1 ; viii. 91, 17 ; i. 59, 2. 
 
150 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 8, 2, 4), he is well fitted to summon the gods to the 
 sacrifices ; and he himself comes to them seated on 
 the same car, or in advance of them. Without him 
 the gods experience no satisfaction. He offers them 
 worship. He is the mouth and tongue through which 
 both gods and men taste the sacrifice. The other 
 gods plead with him to convey to them the sacrifice. 
 On the promise of long life and a share in the sacri- 
 fice, he agrees, declaring himself ready to obey the 
 commands of the gods. He is the Lord Protector and 
 Leader of the people, the Lord of the house, dwelling 
 in every abode ; he is kinsman and friend as well as 
 father and brother. He drives away and destroys 
 Rakshasas and demons. 
 
 Sometimes a divine origin is ascribed to him, while 
 at other times his production, or at least his mani- 
 festation, is described as earthly, and through human 
 appliances. He is said to have been the son of 
 Heaven and Earth, and to have come down from the 
 sky, where he was generated by Indra. Elsewhere 
 he is said to have been generated by the gods as a 
 light to the Aryans, and placed by the gods among 
 the tribes of Manu, that is, of men, for their benefit. 1 
 
 In some parts he is spoken of as having a three- 
 
 1 i. 36, 10 ; ii. 4, 3 ; vi. 16, 1 ; viii. 73, 2 ; v. 4, 8 ; iii. 36, 7 ; 
 viii. 39, 8 ; i. 149, 4 ; ii. 9, 3 ; viii. 39, 8 ; vii. 6, 1 ; iii. 6, 5 ; i. 96, 4 .; 
 vi. 5, 6 ; vii. 7, 7 ; vi. 8, 2 ; x. 156, 4 ; x. 88, 4 ; i. 59, 1, 2, 5 ; 
 vi. 7, 1 ; iii. 3, 10 ; vii. 6, 2 ; ii. 8, 3 ; ii. 9, 1 ; viii. 5, 4 ; i. 188, 1 ; 
 x. 187, 4 ; i. 70, 2, 6 ; iii. 4, 11 ; viii. 39, 6 ; vi. 2, 4, 5 ; vi. 5, 5 ; 
 vi. 10, 3. See the fearful picture of Agni below, p. 200. 
 
Incarnation, Mediation, and Agni. 151 
 
 fold existence at one and the same time, in heaven, 
 in the air, and on the earth ; while elsewhere he is 
 said to have only two, an upper and a lower sphere. 
 The highest divine functions are ascribed to him. 
 He is called the divine king, strong as Indra ; he is 
 said to have stretched out the heavens and the earth, 
 though, as we have seen above, their son ; to have 
 produced them ; to have measured out the mundane 
 regions and the luminaries of heaven ; to have caused 
 the sun, the imperishable orb, to ascend the sky ; to 
 have made all that flies or walks or stands or moves. 
 He is the head or summit of the sky, the centre of 
 the earth, and his greatness exceeds that of heaven 
 and all the worlds. He achieved famous exploits of 
 old; men tremble at his mighty deeds, and his 
 ordinances cannot be resisted. Earth and heaven 
 obey his commands. He is the conqueror of thou- 
 sands, sees all worlds, knows the races of gods and 
 men, and the secrets of mortals. His followers 
 prosper ; he is the friend of the man who entertains 
 him as a guest, and bestows protection and wealth on 
 the worshipper who sweats to bring him fuel, or 
 wearies his head to serve him. He watches with a 
 thousand eyes over the man who brings him food 
 and oblations. He also confers, and is the guardian 
 lord of immortality. He was made by the gods the 
 centre of immortality. He carries men across calami- 
 ties or preserves them from them. All treasures 
 are congregated in him. All blessings proceed from 
 
152 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 him as branches from a tree. He is master of all 
 the treasures in the earth, the atmosphere, and the 
 sky. He is in consequence continually supplicated 
 for various boons, such as to forgive sin, to avert 
 Varana's wrath, and to release from (his ?) bond. 1 
 
 The simplicity with which he is addressed once 
 or twice is suggestive of Martin Elginbrodde's prayer, 
 as quoted above; as in viii. 44, 23 'If I were 
 thou,' says the worshipper naively to Agni, ' and thou 
 wert I, thy aspirations should be fulfilled;' and again 
 (viii. 19, 256) ' If, Agni, thou wert a mortal and 
 I an immortal, I would not abandon thee to wrong 
 or to penury; my worshipper should not be poor, 
 nor distressed, nor miserable/ Another worshipper 
 addresses him, ' Why hast tJwu, among all the gods, 
 forsaken and injured us ? I ask thee in my ignor- 
 ance.' After the manner of orientals, in addressing 
 him, all attributes are given to him. ' The extrava- 
 gance of oriental adulation,' remarks Talboys Wheeler 
 while writing of Agni, ' will permit an Asiatic courtier 
 to address some petty chief or Kaja as the king of 
 kings, but this by no means implies an idea of uni- 
 versal empire' (vol. i. p. 20). Hence we read that 
 all gods are comprehended in him. He surrounds 
 them as the tire of the wheel its spokes. But Agni 
 
 1 iir. 4, 10 ; x. 79, 5 ; i. 31, 7 ; vi. 7, 4, 7 ; vii. 4, 6 ; iii. 17, 4 ; 
 iii. 20, 4 ; v. 4, 9 ; vii. 12, 2 ; x. 6, 6 ; vi. 13, 1 ; vii. 6, 7 ; x. 91, 3 ; 
 iv. 2, 4, 18, 9; i. 36, 14, 16; i. 58, 8, 9; iv. 12, 4; vi. 93, 7; 
 iv. 1, 4, 5 ; v. 2, 7 ; x. 79, 6 ; v. 3, 1 ; i. 141, 9 ; v. 13, 6 ; vi. 59, 2 ; 
 vii. 93, 6 ; viii. 38, 4, 7, 9 ; vii. 5, 6 j viii. 92, 1 ; vii. C, 3. 
 
Incarnation, Mediation, and Agni. 153 
 
 is particularly associated with Indra as his twin 
 brother, drinkers together of the same Soma juice. 
 He is also, unlike the fire or the sun, rather partial 
 in dispensing his gifts driving away the Dasyas 
 from the house, thus creating a large light for the 
 Aryans, as the promoter of the Aryans, and as the 
 vanquisher of the irreligious Panis. Such are the 
 leading attributes and deeds ascribed to Agni in the 
 hymns of the Eig-Veda. 
 
 Professor Whitney describes him at full length, as 
 the chief of the earthly divinities of the Eig-Veda, 
 accounts for his origin by remarking that there was 
 only one terrestrial, as distinguished from celestial 
 or atmospheric phenomena, namely fire, calculated to 
 give rise to so distinct a conception of something 
 divine as to appear as a fully developed divinity 
 among the Indo- Aryans. ' Agni, the god of fire,' he 
 remarks, ( is one of the most prominent in the whole 
 Pantheon. His hymns are more numerous than 
 those of any other god. Astonishment and admira- 
 tion at the properties of this element as the most 
 wonderful and mysterious * of all with which man 
 comes into daily and familiar contact, and exultation 
 
 1 ' The bonnie, bonnie bairn, who sits poking in the ase, 
 Glowering in the fire wi' his wee round face ; 
 Laughing at the fuffin' lowe, what sees he there ? 
 Ha, the young dreamer's bigging castles in the air. 
 Glowering at the imps wi' their castles in the air. ' 
 This is said of a little boy in one of the most popular ditties of the 
 19th century. It seems to have been literally and seriously true of 
 grown-up men and women in India three thousand years ago. 
 
154 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 over its reduction to the service and partial control 
 of mankind, are abundantly expressed in the manner 
 in which he is addressed. He is praised as an im- 
 mortal among mortals, a divinity upon earth; his 
 nobleness and condescension, that he, a god, deigns 
 to sit in the very dwellings of men, are extolled. 
 The other gods have established him here as high 
 priest and mediator for the human race ; he was the 
 first who made sacrifice, and taught men to have 
 recourse above. He is messenger between heaven 
 and earth ; he, on the one hand, bears aloft the 
 prayers and offerings, and secures their gaining in 
 return the blessings demanded ; and, on the other 
 hand, brings the gods themselves to the altars of their 
 worshipper, and puts them in possession there of the 
 gifts presented to them. When the sun is down and 
 the daylight gone, Agni is the only divinity left on 
 earth to protect mortals till the following dawn ; his 
 beams then shine abroad, and dispel the demons of 
 darkness, the EaJksliasas, whose peculiar enemy and 
 destroyer he is. These attributes and offices form 
 the staple theme of his songs, amplified and varied 
 without limit, and coupled with general ascriptions of 
 praise, and prayers for blessings to be directly be- 
 stowed by him or granted through his intercession. 
 Among his frequent appellations are, " belonging to 
 all men," " bearer of the offering," " all possessing," 
 " purifier," and " demon-slayer." He is styled son of 
 the lightning or of the sun, as sometimes kindled by 
 
Incarnation, Mediation, and Agni. 155 
 
 them ; but, as in all primitive nations, the ordinary 
 mode of his production is by the friction of two dry 
 billets of wood. And this birth of his, as a wonder 
 and mystery unparalleled, is painted in the hymns in 
 dark and highly figurative language : ten fingers of 
 the kindler are ten virgins who bring him to birth ; 
 the two bits of wood are his mothers ; once born he 
 grows up rapidly in their lap, as they lie there pros- 
 trate upon the earth ; he turns upon them, but not 
 for milk he devours them ; the arms of the kindler 
 fear him, and lift themselves above them in wonder.' 1 
 Monier Williams versifies the texts on Agni : 
 -'Agni, thou art a sage, a priest, a king, 
 Protector, father of the sacrifice ; 
 Commissioned by us men, thou dost ascend. 
 A messenger, conveying to the sky 
 Our hymns and offerings. Though thy origin 
 Be threefold, now from air, and now from water, 
 Now from the mystic double Arani, 
 Thou art thyself a mighty god, a lord, 
 Giver of life and immortality, 
 One in thy essence, but to mortals three, 
 Displaying thine eternal triple form, 
 As fire on earth, as lightning in the air, 
 As sun in heaven. Thou art a cherished guest 
 In every household father, brother, son, 
 Friend, benefactor, guardian, all in one. 
 Bright, seven-rayed god ! How manifold thy shapes 
 
 1 Whitney's Oriental and Linguistic Studies, pp. 22, 33. 
 
156 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 Eevealed to us by votaries ! Now we see thee, 
 With body all of gold, and radiant hair, 
 Flaming from three terrific heads, and mouths 
 Whose burning jaws and teeth devour all things ; 
 Now with a thousand glowing horns ; and now 
 Flashing thy lustre from a thousand eyes. 
 Thou'rt borne towards us in a golden chariot, 
 Impelled by winds, and drawn by ruddy steeds, 
 Marking thy car's destructive course with blackness. 
 Deliver, mighty lord, thy worshippers. 
 Purge us from taint of sin ; and when we die, 
 Deal mercifully with us on the pyre, 
 Burning our bodies with their load of guilt, 
 But bearing our eternal part on high 
 To luminous bodies and realms of bliss, 
 For ever there to dwell with righteous men.' 1 
 In this character of Agni, I think the missionary 
 can discover many things which he may use to ad- 
 vantage, by way of comparison and of contrast, in 
 commending him who is ' The Light of the World,' and 
 ' The Sun of Eighteousness/ ' Him who was given for 
 a light to the Gentiles, and glory of the people of 
 Israel.' 
 
 1 Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 18. 
 
XII. 
 
 +* 
 
 WOMEN, POLYGAMY, AND POLYANDRY. 
 
 IN Vedic times we have every reason to believe 
 that our Aryan forefathers generally practised 
 monogamy, or marriage in its true primal conception 
 and intention, as instituted in Paradise, as the per- 
 manent union of one woman to one man. In one of 
 the hymns the inseparable duality of two of the 
 Aryan gods is set forth under the comparison of 
 ' pairs that usually run in couples,' such as ' husband 
 and wife.' In another hymn, husbands and wives, 
 as married pairs or couples, are described as uniting 
 in worship and presenting their sacrifices together, 
 ' Married couples desirous of thy protection, to obtain 
 herds of cows, importune thee with prayers, Indra, 
 because thou joinest together two persons desirous 
 of bovine wealth and seeking to go to heaven.* 
 ' They anoint thee (Agni), like a welcome friend, 
 with milk and butter, when thou makest husband 
 and wife of one mind.' l Indeed, the original normal 
 Vedic idea of religious worship appears to have been 
 that it should be performed by a married couple, the 
 1 i. 131, 3 ; v. 3, 2. 
 
158 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 husband being the officiating priest and his wife 
 assisting. 
 
 The normal household had one husband and one 
 wife on a level of equality, at the hearth, which was 
 the altar of sacrifice. The wife had charge of the 
 sacred vessels, prepared the sacrifice and even some- 
 times composed the hymn, as we shall presently see. 
 Marriage is likened to ' the embrace of Indra by the 
 hymn.' ' The sun follows the dawn as a man a 
 woman ;' and the dawn, itself deified, is likened to a 
 ' radiant bride.' The piety and happiness of a 
 married couple is well described in hymn viii. 31, 
 5-9. We quote also the following: 'As a loving 
 wife shows herself to her husband, so does she [the 
 dawn], smiling, reveal her form ; moving forth to 
 arouse all creatures to their labours.' ' A man's wife 
 is his dwelling, verily she is his place of birth.' 
 ' All life, all breath is in thee, Dawn, as thou 
 ascendest. Kise, daughter of heaven, with blessings.' * 
 
 Raka, the full moon, is prayed to in the words, 
 'May she [Raka] sew her work with an infallible 
 needle, or with a needle that is not capable of being 
 cut or broken,' with one of which the stitches will 
 endure ; in like manner as clothes, as explained by 
 the learned Sanskrit commentator, wrought with a 
 needle last a long time. As goddess of parturition, 
 
 1 Miiller's Sanskrit Literature, p. 28 ; "Wilson's R.-V., vol. ii. pp. 
 xi. and 288 ; ii. 39, 2 ; iv. 53, 4 ; i. 1, 23 ; x. 43, 1 ; i. 48, 92 ; ii. 
 10, 4 ; viii. 31, 5-9. 
 
Women, Polygamy, and Polyandry. 159 
 
 this same Kaka is represented as sewing the umbilical 
 cord. 
 
 There is a rather remarkable rnantra in the 142d 
 hymn, indicative of the influence of woman as a 
 mediator, the position which Eoinan Catholics are so 
 fond of giving to Mary the mother of Jesus. The 
 verse to which I refer runs: 'May pure Bharati, 
 established as the invoker between the gods and the 
 mortals, and also Ila, and the great Sarasvati the 
 three adorable goddesses sit on the kusi grass.' 1 
 The mode in which female influence was exerted 
 seems to be indicated in a hymn to Ushas, who is 
 addressed 'Proudly manifesting thy person like a 
 young damsel, thou comest, goddess, to the man 
 who worships the gods. Smiling beautifully like a 
 young woman, thou, bright Ushas, dost exhibit thy 
 breasts.' ' This is the altar which we have decorated 
 for thee, as a wife attached to her husband puts on 
 elegant garments to gratify him.' And again 
 ' Ushas is smilingly exhibiting her beauty as a well- 
 dressed loving wife before her husband.' 'As 
 maidens decorating themselves with unguents to go 
 to the bridegroom.' 'The wife of Purukutsa pro- 
 pitiated you two, Indra and Varuna, with oblations 
 and prostrations, and therefore you gave her [as a 
 son] the king Trasadasyu, the slayer of foes, dwelling 
 near the gods/ 
 
 As we have said, at least one of the hymns was 
 1 i, 142, SVadartliayatna. 
 
160 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 actually composed by a woman of the name of Vis- 
 wavara, of the family of Atri. She was not only a 
 Kishi, the composer of Kicks, but also a priestess, 
 discharging the priestly office, worshipping the gods 
 at dawn with hymns and oblations.. Her hymn 
 commences: 'Agni, when kindled, spreads lustre 
 through the firmament, and shines widely in the 
 presence of the dawn. Viswavara, facing the east, 
 glorifying the gods with praises, and bearing the 
 ladle with the oblation, proceeds to the sacred fire.' 
 The third verse contains a very appropriate prayer 
 from a wife : ' Preserve in concord the relation of 
 man and wife.' 1 
 
 Still, though monogamy seems to have been the 
 normal state of matters, there are to be found, 
 without any accompanying note of reprobation or 
 disapproval, traces of Polygamy? There is allusion 
 to ' the husband of many maidens,' with approbation. 
 In one hymn the Aswins are praised : ' You stripped 
 off from the aged Chyavana his entire skin, as if it 
 had been a coat of mail ; you reversed the life of the 
 sage who was without kindred, and constituted him 
 the husband of many maidens.' The same idea 
 seems to underlie the words addressed to Indra : 
 * Powerful Indra, the minds [of the pious and wise] 
 adhere to thee as affectionate wives to a loving 
 husband.' The collective divinities (Visvadevas) are 
 
 1 i. 124, 10 ; iv. 3, 2 ; i. 124, 7 ; v. 28, 1-3. 
 
 2 i. 62, 11 ; i. 71, 1 ; i. 105, 8 ; vii. 26, 3. 
 
Women, Polygamy, and Polyandry. 161 
 
 addressed by a Eishi in misery : ' The ribs of the 
 well close round me, like the rival wives (of one 
 husband) ; cares consume me, although thy worship- 
 per, as a rat gnaws a weaver's threads.' There are 
 certain hymns addressed to the Dawn, which the 
 Eig-Vidhana directs the worshipper to repeat, as by 
 so doing he will obtain, among other things, ' male 
 offspring and wives,' an expression suggestive of 
 polygamy. The *75th hymn of the 7th Book is 
 one of these hymns. One Eishi exclaims, ' The 
 magnificent lord, the protector of the virtuous, . . . 
 has given me five hundred wives.' The following 
 verse addressed to Indra is suggestive of a recognised 
 and permitted cruelty to wives as well as of poly- 
 gamy more especially when we consider the feelings 
 with which Dasyas, Asiiras, and Eakshasas were re- 
 garded, as we shall see below : ' May Indra, equal 
 to the task, and unaided, possess all the cities (of the 
 Asuras) as a husband his wives.' 1 He is also ad- 
 dressed : ' Thou dwellest with thy glories like a Eaja 
 with his wives.' * Praising the liberality of Sudas, 
 the donor of two hundred cows, and two chariots 
 with two wives.' The gods are generally represented 
 with only one wife each, but there are expressions of 
 doubtful interpretation, such as 'Agni and Sarasvati 
 with the Sarasvatas : may the three goddesses sit 
 down before us upon this sacred grass.' It is difficult 
 to understand what Agni has to do here among the 
 
 1 i. 116, 10 j i. 62, 11 ; i. 105, 8 ; viii. 19, 36 ; vii. 26, 3. 
 L 
 
162 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 goddesses. The expression ' wives of the gods ' occurs 
 pretty often, though in some cases human wives 
 would be more in keeping with the context. ' May 
 Swashtri with the wives of the gods be with us for 
 our happiness, and hear us at this solemnity/ ' May 
 the pious couple (the Yajamana and his wife) con- 
 jointly appreciate the beauty of the sacrifice.' The 
 same couple are referred to in the words, ' The pious 
 pair, like two riders in a chariot, follow the path of 
 the ceremony.' 1 Ushas (Dawn) and Night are repre- 
 sented 2 as ' manifesting themselves variously and 
 going to promote the first invocation, like two wives,' 
 I suppose, of one man. 
 
 Kakshivat, the reputed author of the above, and of 
 as many as ten other hymns 3 of the same 1st Book, 
 was the grandson of a slave. Having finished his 
 studies, and taken leave of his preceptor, he was 
 journeying homeward, when night came on, and he 
 fell asleep by the road-side. Early in the morning a 
 Jfcaja, attended by his retinue, came to the 'spot, and 
 disturbed the Brahmin's slumbers. On his starting 
 up the Raja accosted him with great cordiality, and, 
 being very favourably impressed by him, inquired as 
 to his rank and birth, and finding them satisfactory, 
 brought him home with him, and married him to his 
 ten daughters. At the same time he presented him 
 
 1 vi. 18, 2 ; vii. 18, 22 ; vii. 2, 8 ; vii. 34, 20 ; 35, 6 ; vii. 42, 1 ; 
 vii. 39, 1. 
 
 2 i. 122, 2. 3 i. 116-126. 
 
Women, Polygamy, and Polyandry. 163 
 
 with 100 nishkas of gold, 100 horses, 100 bull's, 
 1060 cows, and 11 chariots, one for each of his 
 wives, and one for himself, each drawn by four 
 horses. Such is the story told in Dwiveda's Niti- 
 manjari, and cited in Sayana's commentary on hymn 
 i. 125, which professes to have been recited in ac- 
 knowledgment of the Kaja's liberality. It contains 
 the following mantra : ' From which generous prince 
 soliciting my acceptance, I, Kakshivat, unhesitatingly 
 accepted 100 nishkas, 100 vigorous steeds, and 
 100 bulls, whereby he has spread his imperishable 
 fame through heaven. Ten chariots drawn by 
 bay steeds, and carrying my wives, stood near 
 me, given by Swanya; and 1060 cows followed. 
 Forty bay horses harnessed to the chariots lead 
 the procession in front of 1000 followers/ 
 The story, if true, and truly interpreted, proves 
 not only that polygamy existed, but also that 
 marriages were celebrated between Brahmins and 
 Kshatriyas. 
 
 But not only was polygamy tolerated, it would 
 appear that polyandry, a still more disgusting crime 
 (yet prevalent among some of the aboriginal tribes of 
 India, alike in the north and in the south), was also 
 acknowledged among the Indo-Aryans. We read J of 
 a chariot race, at which the renowned Aswins gained 
 a damsel as their joint or common property. This 
 we would fain believe was, however, quite exceptional. 
 
 1 i. 119, 5. 
 
164 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 A very remarkable case of polyandry insisted on by 
 Siva is given in the Mahabharata, where Draupadi 
 is given to be the common wife of five men. The 
 story runs : In a former life Draupadi had performed 
 severe penance in order to get a husband. Siva was 
 pleased, and appeared to her, and promised her five 
 husbands. She answered that she had asked for only 
 one. The god replied, ' Five times you said to me, 
 "Grant me a husband," therefore you shall have 
 five husbands/ 1 There is, apparently, older authority 
 for the vile practice than either Siva or Draupadi. 
 In hymn i. 1 6 7, we read in praise of the Maruts : 
 ' Maruts, with whom their consort Eodasi is united, 
 perfect, rich in milky rain-water and of golden colour, 
 like a spear at hand ; Eodasi, united like the youth- 
 ful wife of a man walking in secret, and like the 
 sacrificial praise [hymn], delighting in company. The 
 resplendent and impetuous Maruts united with the 
 youthful Kodasi as with one 2 common to many. 
 The dreadful Maruts were not rejected by Eodasi; 
 they, the brilliant ones, became fond of the delightful 
 Eodasi for her friendship. When the divine Eodasi 
 of dishevelled hair, and filled with passion for the 
 Maruts, accepted these Maruts for union, she of the 
 bright face mounted the chariot of the admiring troop 
 of Maruts, even as bright- faced Surya mounted that 
 
 1 Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 387. 
 
 2 Wilson translates ' a public or common woman, ' and adds, ' The 
 allusion is not without interest, as indicative of manners.' The 
 translation given in the text is from the Vedarthayatna. 
 
Women, Polygamy, and Polyandry. 165 
 
 of the Aswins.' Wilson adds in a footnote : 
 'Kodasi is said to signify the lightning or the 
 bride of the Maruts;' and Surya, or rather Sur- 
 yeva, the wife or daughter of Surya. Sanyana 
 understands Kodasi as 'the wife of the Maruts.' 
 If so, then there is here an undoubted sanction of 
 polyandry. 
 
 QThat woman was not always held in very high 
 respect is clear from various passages, as, for example, 
 the highest praise which the Eishi Syavaswa could 
 give to a queen, his greatest benefactor, who had not 
 only treated him with reverence, but had given him 
 a. herd of cattle and costly ornaments, and put him 
 in the way of obtaining the woman on whom he had 
 set his heart, is ' Sasiyasi, though a female, is more 
 excellent than a man who reverences not the gods 
 nor bestows wealth,' on the principle that a-iiving 
 dog is better than a dead lion. 1 Verse 3 is even 
 more disrespectful, but is unquotable. The same 
 thing is very clear from, the absence of all prayers for 
 daughters. Indeed, daughters are conspicuous in the 
 Kig-Veda by their absence. We meet in every other 
 hymn with prayers for sons and grandsons, male 
 offspring, male descendants, and male issue, and 
 occasionally for wives, but never for daughters. 
 Even forgiveness is asked, as in iv. 12, 5, for 'our 
 
 1 R.-V., v. 61, 6. Wilson, iii. pp. 344, 345. R. C. Ghose, 
 p. 51. Mdana-Sutra, iii. 8. Satapatha Bralmiana, iii. 2, 1, 40; 
 ii. 5, 2, 20. 
 
166 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 sons and grandsons, the reward of what has been well 
 done ;' but no blessing is ever prayed for, for a 
 daughter. Indra is called ' the showerer of benefits, 
 the giver of wives ;' but no god is ever complimented 
 on giving daughters. Indra is spoken of also as 
 glorified like a man boasting of his wife, but no one 
 is ever spoken of as boasting of a daughter. But a 
 Kishi does compare himself, in his misery praying 
 to his god, 'to humble females begging for food/ 
 When Agni is born, it is ' as if it was a male infant,' 
 that is, they clap their hands and make sounds of 
 rejoicing like the parents of a new-born son. There 
 were no such rejoicings over the birth of a daughter. 
 
 Special praise is given to some gods (or Aswins) 
 for 'having got a husband for one Ghosha [a 
 leper] who was growing old, and tarrying in 
 her father's dwelling.' Something like an elope- 
 ment is the subject of praise to the same gods 
 ' They who gave a bride to the youthful Vimada, 
 and bore her away in their car, outstripping the rival 
 host/ 
 
 Hell (pada) is said to have been ' produced for 
 those who, being wicked, false, untrue, go about like 
 women without brothers, like females hostile to their 
 husbands/ (iv. 5, 5.) 
 
 That husbands did not live always very faithful 
 to their wives seems to have been fully acknow- 
 ledged. Ushas, the Dawn, is addressed: 'Thou, 
 Ushas, hast been beheld like a wife repairing to 
 
Women, Polygamy, and Polyandry. 167 
 
 an inconstant husband, and not like one deserting 
 him.' 1 
 
 Sin against chastity was not, apparently, uncommon. 
 'Weber advances some astounding proofs of the 
 little confidence entertained in ancient times by the 
 Indo- Aryans in the chastity of their women.' There 
 are references to conjugal infidelity, to common 
 women, and to secret births, of all of which there 
 seemed to have been no shame. In the Satapatha 
 Brahmana of the Yajur-Veda, it is stated that the 
 wife of the person offering pragliasa to Varuna must 
 have one or more paramours, a doctrine which has 
 led to the frightful immoralities openly associated 
 with the Hindu temples of modern times, specially in 
 Southern India ; 2 and which has led Monier Williams 
 to conclude his Introduction to his Indian Wisdom 
 with the words: ' In conclusion, let me note one other 
 point which, of itself, stamps our religion [Chris- 
 tianity] as the only system adapted to the require- 
 ments of the whole human race the only message 
 of salvation intended by God to be gradually pressed 
 upon the acceptance of all his intelligent creatures, 
 whether male or female, in all four quarters of the 
 globe, I mean the position it assigns to women in 
 relation to the stronger sex. It is not too much to 
 affirm that the evils arising from the degradation of 
 
 1 vii. 77, 8. Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. xlv. See 
 Wheeler's History, ii. p. 502. E.-V., i. 117, 7 ; i. 116, 1. 
 
 2 Dr. George Smith's Life of Dr. Duff, Pop. Ed., p. 290, and 
 below, pp. 209, 210. 
 
168 The Vcclic Religion. 
 
 women, or at least the assumption of their supposed 
 inferiority, in the great religious systems of the East, 
 constitute the principal bar to the progress and 
 elevation of Asiatic nations.' 1 "Women could not be 
 highly respected if Indra spoke the truth in viii. 
 33, 17 : ' Indra declared that the mind of a woman 
 was ungovernable and her temper ficMe.' Yet we 
 find a Eislii praying, yea, repeating his prayer (ix. 
 67,10 ff.), not only that Pushan should protect him 
 in all his doings, but should also ' provide him with 
 a supply of damsels ' ! That Kishis did not claim to 
 be very moral, see x. 192, 1-3. Langlois, vol. iv. 
 p. 477. 
 
 1 We have not referred in the text to the custom of the ' self- 
 choice,' called Sivayamvura, of the maiden, in accordance with which 
 a Kshatriya maiden was offered as a prize (as above, p. 163) in an 
 archery match. But she had, it is said, the privilege of prohibiting 
 any objectionable person from entering the lists. The question is 
 more social than religious. 
 
XIII. 
 
 ! PRIESTS AND RlSfflS. 
 
 THE common idea current among Indians is that 
 the ancient Eishi was an ascetic, living in the 
 jungle, always engaged in the contemplation of divine 
 things ; that he was another John the Baptist or a 
 modern Jogi or Sunyasi. A favourite contrast of the 
 Bengali is the modern Christian missionary and the 
 ancient Hindu Eishi. The former lives outwardly 
 like a man of the world, knows the full value of 
 money, has a wife and children, wears good clothes, 
 eats good food, and drives to his preaching or to his 
 school or college in a garry or buggy. The ancient 
 Eishi is supposed to have lived day and night under 
 the shade of a tree in the jungle, half starved from 
 want of food, totally indifferent to wealth of every 
 kind, and having no house, no furniture of any kind, 
 not even a bed or any clothing, save his tiger-skin 
 and his yellow rag and dirt, without wife or child, 
 or any desire for either the one or the other. His 
 sanctity is supposed to have consisted largely in these 
 things. As the Eishi is so very highly honoured, it 
 is desirable that we should know, as far as possible, 
 what he was and how he lived, at least so far as this 
 
170 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 can be discovered from the pages of the Eig-Veda. 
 We proceed, then, to produce what information we 
 can gather on this point. 
 
 Opening one of Wilson's volumes 1 at random, we 
 read the prayer of Eishi Devatithi, the conclusion of 
 hymn 4, of Book viii. : 
 
 ' Illustrious (Ptishan) my cattle go forth occasionally 
 to pasture, may that wealth (of herds), immortal deity, 
 be permanent; being my protector, Pushan, be the 
 granter of felicity, be most bountiful in bestowing 
 food. We acknowledge the substantial wealth (of 
 the gift) of a hundred horses, the donation made to 
 us amongst men at the holy solemnities of the illus- 
 trious and auspicious Eaja Kurunga. I, the Eishi 
 (Devatithi), have received subsequently, the complete 
 donation, the 60,000 herds of pure cattle merited by 
 the devotions of the pious son of Kanwa, and by the 
 illustrious Priyamedhas. Upon the acceptance of 
 this donation to me, the very trees have exclaimed, 
 "(See these Eishis) have acquired excellent cows, 
 excellent horses ! " 
 
 In the next hymn, by Eishi Brahmatithi, we read : 
 'Bringers of the day, (bestow) upon us food with 
 cattle, or donations of wealth ; and close the path 
 (against aggression) upon our gains. Bring to us, 
 Aswins, riches comprising cattle, male offspring, 
 chariots, horses, food. Affluent in sacrifices, grant to 
 us who are opulent (in oblations) a spacious unassail- 
 1 Wilson's Translation^ vol. iv. p. 234 to end of vol. 
 
Priests and Rishis. 171 
 
 able dwelling. Bring unto us riches by hundreds 
 and by thousands, desired by many, sustaining all. 
 Affluent in oblations, bring to us with that (chariot) 
 abundant food, so that there may be prosperity 
 in horses, progeny, and cattle. Immortal Aswins, 
 destroyers of the cities of the Dasyas, ye bring to us 
 food from afar. Come to us, Aswins, with food, with 
 fame, with riches, Nasatyas, delighters of many. 
 Affluent in showers, taste the wakeful desirable Soma : 
 combine for us riches with food. Become apprised, 
 Aswins, of my recent gifts, how that Kasu, the sou 
 of Chedi, has presented me with a hundred camels 
 and ten thousand cows. The son of Chedi, who has 
 given me for servants ten Eajas, bright as gold, for all 
 men are beneath his feet ; all those around him wear 
 cuirasses of leather. [Having taken these Eajas 
 prisoners in battle, he gives them to me in servitude.] ' 
 _} The very next hymn, by Eishi Vatsa, goes on in a 
 like strain : ' Be willing to grant us abundant food 
 with cattle : (to grant us) protection, progeny, and 
 vigour. May that herd of swift horses, which 
 formerly shone among the people of Nahusha (be 
 granted), Indra, to us. ... Thou art a Eishi, the 
 first born (of the gods), the chief, the ruler (over all) 
 by thy strength : thou givest repeatedly, Indra, wealth. 
 The mortal (adorer) selects at the sacrifice Indra from 
 among the mighty (gods) : he who is desirous of 
 wealth (worships) Indra for protection. I have 
 accepted from Tirindira, the son of Parsu, hundreds 
 
172 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 and thousands of the treasures of men. (These 
 princes) have given to the chaunter, Pajra, three 
 hundred horses, ten thousand cattle. The exalted 
 (prince) has been raised by fame to heaven, for he 
 has given camels laden with four (loads of gold) and 
 Yadva people (as slaves).' 
 
 Hymn 7th, by Eishi Panarvatsa, contains similar 
 prayers : ' Send us, Maruts, from heaven exhilarat- 
 ing, many-lauded, all- sustaining riches. Munificent 
 (Maruts), may these (sacrificial) viands, nutritious as 
 butter, together with the praises of the descendant of 
 Kanwa, afford you augmentation. When, Maruts, 
 will you repair with joy-bestowing riches to the sage 
 thus adoring you, and soliciting (you for wealth) ? ' 
 
 Hymn 8th, by Eishi Sadhwansa [Vatsa], goes 
 on : ' From wheresoever (you may be) come, Aswins, 
 with your thousandfold diversified chariot : the sage 
 Vatsa, the son of Kavi, has addressed you with sweet 
 words. Delighters of many, abounding in wealth, 
 bestowers of riches, Aswins, sustainers of all, approve 
 of this mine adoration. Grant us, Aswins, all riches 
 that may not bring us shame, make us the begetters 
 of progeny in due season, subject us not to reproach. 
 Give, Nasatyas, food of many kinds dripping with 
 butter to him, the Eishi Vatsa, who has magnified 
 you both with hymns. Give, Aswins, invigorating 
 food, dripping with butter, to him who praises you, 
 the lords of liberality, to obtain happiness ; who desires 
 affluence. Confounders of the malignant, partakers of 
 
Priests and Risliis. 1*73 
 
 many (oblations), come to this our adoration ; render 
 us prosperous leaders (of rites) ; give these (good 
 things of earth) to our desires.' 
 
 In hymn 9th, by Kishi Sasakarna, we find the very 
 same requests: 'Whatever wealth may be in the 
 firmament, in heaven, or among the five (classes) of 
 men, bestow, Aswins, (upon us). I awake with the 
 pious praise of the Aswins ; scatter, goddess, (the dark- 
 ness) at my eulogy, bestow wealth upon (us) mortals. 
 Endowed with great wisdom, preserve us for fame, 
 for strength, for victory, for happiness, for prosperity.' 
 
 In hymn llth of the same Book, by Rishi Vatsa, 
 we read: 'Desiring strength, we call upon Agni 
 for protection in battles; upon him who is granter 
 of wonderful riches (won) in conflicts. Thou, the 
 ancient, are to be hymned at sacrifices ; from eternity 
 the invoker of the gods, thou sittest (at the solemnity) 
 entitled to laudation ; cherish, Agni, thine own person 
 and grant us prosperity.' 
 
 We cull the following prayers, wishes, and desires 
 from hymns by Eishis Parvata, Narada, Goshuktin, 
 etc. etc., as they turn up in course : ' (I glorify Indra) 
 the deity, who, coming from afar, has given us, through 
 friendship, (riches), heaping (them upon us) like rain 
 from heaven, thou hast borne us (to our objects). 
 Bestow upon us, Indra, (wealth) comprising worthy 
 male offspring, excellent horses, and good cattle ; like 
 the ministrant priest (I worship thee) at the sacrifice, 
 (to secure) thy prior consideration.' ' When, Indra, 
 
174 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 who delightest in praise, may thy worshipper be 
 entirely happy ? When wilt thou establish us in 
 (the affluence of) cattle, of horses, of dwellings ? Or, 
 when will thy renowned and vigorous horses bring 
 the chariot of thee, who art exempt from decay, that 
 exhilarating (wealth) which we solicit V 'If, Indra, 
 I were as thou art, sole lord over wealth, then 
 should my eulogist be possessed of cattle. Lord of 
 might, I would give to that intelligent worshipper 
 that which I should wish to give if I were the 
 possessor of cattle. Thy praise, Indra, is a milch 
 cow to the worshipper offering the libations; it 
 milks him in abundance of cattle and horses. 
 Neither god nor man, Indra, is the obstructor of thy 
 affluence, (of) the wealth which thou, when praised, 
 designest to bestow.' ' Thou, the praised of many, 
 reignest ; thou, single, hast slain many enemies, in 
 order to acquire the spoils of victory and abundant 
 food. The heaven invigorates thy manhood, Indra, 
 the earth (spreads) the renown; the waters, the 
 mountains, propitiate thee.' ' They honour him with 
 animating (hymns), men (honour) him with sacred 
 rites, for Indra is the giver of wealth.' < May this 
 Soma, invested (with milk), approach thee, observant 
 Indra, like a bride (clad in white apparel). Long- 
 necked, large-bellied, strong-armed Indra, in the exhila- 
 ration of the (sacrificial) food, destroys his enemies. 
 Long be thy goad [crook], wherewith thou bestowest 
 wealth upon the sacrificer offering libations. With head 
 
Priests and Rishis. 175 
 
 uplifted like a serpent, adorable, the recoverer of the 
 cattle, Indra, single, is superior to multitudes : (the 
 worshipper) brings Indra to drink the Soma by a 
 rapid seizure, like a loaded horse (by a halter).' ' Let 
 a mortal now earnestly solicit at the worship of these 
 Adityas unprecedented riches.' ' May the two divine 
 physicians, the Aswins, grant us health; may they 
 drive away from hence iniquity; (may they drive) 
 away our foes. May Agni with his fires grant us 
 happiness ; may the sun beam upon us felicity ; may 
 the unoffending wind blow us happiness ; (may they 
 all drive) away our foes. Adityas, remove (from us) 
 disease, enemies, malignity; keep us afar from sin. 
 Keep afar from us, Adityas, malignity, ill-will; do 
 you who are all-wise keep afar those who hate us. 
 Eadiant Adityas, grant to our sons and grandsons to 
 enjoy long life. We solicit of the divine protector of 
 the Maruts, of the Aswins, of Mitra, and of Varuna, 
 a spacious dwelling for our welfare. Mitra, Aryaman, 
 Varuna, and Maruts, grant us a secure, excellent, and 
 well-peopled dwelling, a threefold shelter [Triva- 
 rutham, a guard against heat, cold, and wet; or it 
 may mean, according to the scholiast, tribhumikam, 
 " three-storied." Sayana, therefore, did not believe 
 that the Eishis of the Vedic period lived in huts or 
 hovels]. Since, Adityas, we mortals are of kin to 
 death, do you benevolently (exert yourselves to) pro- 
 long our lives.' ' He over whose sacrifices thou pre- 
 sidest prospers, having his dwelling filled with male 
 
176 The Vedic Eeligion. 
 
 offspring ; he is the effecter of his purposes through 
 his horses, through his wise (counsellors), his valiant 
 adherents. Auspicious (Agni), they have set up the 
 altars, have presented oblations, have expressed the 
 libation on a (fortunate) clay ; they have won by their 
 efforts infinite wealth who have placed their affection 
 upon thee.' ' May I propitiate thee, Agni, by wor- 
 shipping thee, by the gifts presented to thee, by thy 
 praises ; verily, Vasu, they have called thee the bene- 
 volent-minded ; delight, Agni, to give me wealth. 
 He, Agni, whose friendship thou acceptest prospers 
 through thy favours, granting male progeny and ample 
 food.' ' Agni, on whom thy other fires are dependent, 
 like branches (on the. stem of the tree), may I among 
 men, magnifying thy powers, become possessed, (like) 
 other votaries, of (abundant) food.' ' The magnificent 
 lord, the protector of the virtuous, Trasadasyu, the 
 son of Purukutsa, has given me five hundred brides. 
 The affluent Syava, the lord of kine, has given to me 
 upon the banks of the Suvastu a present of seventy- 
 three' cows.' ' The voice (of the Maruts) blends with 
 the songs of the [Eishis] Sobharis in the receptacle 
 of their golden chariot; may the mighty well-born 
 Maruts, the offspring of the (brindled) cow, be (gracious) 
 to us in regard of food, enjoyment, and kindness. 
 Praise, [Pdshi] Sobhari, (and attract hither) by a new 
 song the youthful purifying showerers, as (a plough- 
 man) repeatedly drags his oxen/ - ' Whatever medi- 
 cament there may be in the Sinlm, in the Asikni, in 
 
Priests and Risliis. 177 
 
 the oceans, in the mountains, Maruts, who are gratified 
 by sacrifice, do you, beholding every sort, collect them 
 for (the good of) our bodies, and instruct us in their 
 (uses) ; let the cure of sickness (be the portion), 
 Maruts, of him among us who for his wickedness is 
 sick ; re-establish his enfeebled (frame).' * 
 
 Such is a fair specimen of the prayers and desires 
 of the ancient Kishis. They lived apparently like 
 other men. Their desires were equally worldly. 
 Their hearts were set on their wives, their sons 
 (observe no mention of daughters), their cows and 
 horses, abundant food, and good dwellings ; and more 
 especially on money, riches, wealth, or earthly pro- 
 sperity. Our lengthy quotations will serve another 
 purpose. The reader will observe the tedious repeti- 
 tions which are so characteristic a feature of these 
 hymns. The same prayers for the gratification of 
 the sensual, carnal, and worldly desires occur so con- 
 tinuously, that it is a positive pain to read any large 
 number of hymns at a sitting. One becomes sick of 
 such praises and prayers, and longs to see men and 
 women go about their ordinary occupations. As 
 Macaulay says of the Faerie Queene, we doubt whether 
 any heart less stout than that of a commentator, or, 
 
 1 viii. 4, 19-21 ; 5, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 31, 32, 36-38 ; 6, 23, 24, 41, 
 44, 46-48 ; 7, 13, 19, 30 ; 8, 11-17 ; 9, 2, 16, 20 ; 11, 9, 10 ; 12, 
 16, 33 ; 13, 22, 23 ; 14, 1-4, 13 ; 15, 3, 8 ; 16, 6 j 17, 7, 8, 10, 15 ; 
 18j 1, 8-11, 18-22 ; 19, 10, 18, 29, 30, 33, 36, 37 ; 20, 8, 19, 25, 26 ; 
 including extracts from every hymn from the 4th to the 20th, except 
 the 10th. 
 
 1C 
 
178 The Veclic Religion. 
 
 we add, than that of a Sanskritist or antiquarian 
 enthusiast, would have held out to the end. But the 
 Faerie Queene is infinitely more interesting than the 
 Kig-Veda to the ordinary reader. There is thought, 
 sustained and deep, in the Faerie Queene. It is almost 
 altogether wanting in 9 9 per cent, of the hymns of the 
 Kig-Veda. In addition to adventitious circumstances 
 that give it a special interest of its own, the reader 
 has ' the satisfaction at finding it, in places, intel- 
 ligible,' an element that constitutes frequently the 
 principal pleasure connected with the study of many 
 foreign authors, and even of some books composed in 
 old forms of our mother tongues. 
 oYou could scarcely expect, in the circumstances, 
 much thought in the Veda, and your expectations are 
 not exceeded by the facts. But one would expect 
 sanctity, holy aspirations, contendings with sin, mor- 
 tifications of the body and its lusts, ascetic penances. 
 The present state of matters in India would lead one 
 to form such expectations, whether we refer to the 
 few ascetics, Vairagis, Jogis, Sunyasis, etc., met with, 
 or to the opinions now current in regard to these 
 Kishis of olden time, but the reading of large portions 
 of the hymns does not justify such expectations. 
 There is very little evidence that many Kishis, if any, 
 lived such a life as they are credited with. 
 
 Tedious as these repetitions are, it is necessary 
 that to these texts, taken at random, I should add a 
 few selected passages further illustrative of the Kishis' 
 
Priests and Risliis. 179 
 
 manner of life. Take the following: ' Earning 200 
 cows and two cars with mares (or wives), 1 the gift 
 of Sudas, grandson of Devavat and son of Pijavana, 
 I walk about, as a priest does round a house offering 
 praises. The four robust, richly caparisoned brown 
 horses of Sudas, the son of Pijavana, standing on the 
 earth, carry me, son to son, onward to renown in 
 perpetuity.' Some think the two mares or females 
 mentioned above were women. Dr. Muir says that in 
 viii. 46, 37, 'reference is distinctly made to the gift 
 of a woman.' ' Let the 2 ungodly man come forward 
 who has received as large a present as this which 
 Vasa, the son of Asva, has received at the break of 
 to-day's dawn from the Prithusravas, the son of Kanita. 
 I have received the sixty thousand and ten thousand 
 (appropriated to) the son of Asva, two thousand 
 camels, ten hundreds of brown (mares), ten of (mares) 
 with three ruddy spots, and ten thousand cows. Ten 
 brown, impetuous, irresistible, swift, over-bearing steeds 
 of the bountiful Prithusravas, son of Kanita, cause the 
 circumference of the chariot wheel to whirl round. 
 Bestowing a golden chariot, he has shown himself a 
 most bountiful sage, and acquired the most extended 
 renown. As oxen approach the herd, so they draw 
 near to me. Then when he had called for a hundred 
 camels from amongst the grazing herd, and two thou- 
 
 1 vii. 18, 22. Wilson translates the word wives; Muir, mares. 
 Langlois makes the 500 brides of "Wilson 50 cows. See viii. 19, 36, 
 and above, pp. 161, 176. 
 
 2 viii. 46, 21-33. 
 
180 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 sand among the white cattle, I, the Bishi, received a 
 hundred slaves from Balbutha, the deliverer. These 
 men of thine, Vayu, protected by Indra, rejoice ; 
 protected by the gods, they rejoice. Then that large 
 woman is laid away, covered with jewels, towards 
 Vasa, son of Asva.' ' May the opulent prince who 
 bestows on me speckled cows with golden housings, 
 never perish, gods. Over and above the thousand 
 speckled cows, I received a bright, large, broad shining 
 piece of gold. Men have exalted to the gods the 
 renown of the grandson of Durgaha, who was bounti- 
 ful to me in (bestowing) a thousand (cows).' ' Near 
 me stand six men, in pairs, in the exhilaration of the 
 Soma juice, bestowing delightful gifts. Of Indrota 
 I received two brown horses, from the son of Bak- 
 sha two tawny, and from the son of Asvamedha, 
 two ruddy horses. From the son of Atithigva (I 
 received) horses with a beautiful car, from the son of 
 Baksha horses with beautiful reins, and from the son 
 of Asvamedha horses of beautiful form. Along with 
 Putakrata, I obtained six horses with mares from 
 Indrota, the son of Atithigva. Among these brown 
 horses was perceived a bay mare with a stallion, and 
 with beautiful reins and a whip. May no mortal, 
 however desirous of reviling, fasten any fault upon 
 you, ye possessors of food.' ' Eat, Indra, our cakes 
 and butter. Be pleased by our praises, as a libertine 
 [by the caresses] of a woman. We solicit Indra for a 
 thousand well-trained, swift-going horses, for a hundred 
 
Priests and RisJiis. 181 
 
 jars of Soma juice. We seek to bring down from thee 
 thousands and hundreds of cattle ; may riches come to 
 us from thee. May we obtain from thee ten golden 
 ewers, for thou, slayer of Vritra, art a bountiful giver/ 
 ' I, a Kishi, have solicited king Kurusravana, descendant 
 of Trasadasyu, the most bountiful of sages. Let me 
 celebrate, at the (sacrifice), attended with a thousand 
 gifts, (that prince) whose three tawny mares convey 
 me excellently in a car. Of which, father of Upamas- 
 ravas, the agreeable words were like a pleasant field 
 to him who uttered them. Attend, Upamasravas, 
 son (of Kurusravana), and grandson of Mitratithi I 
 am the encomiast of thy father. If I had power 
 over the immortals, or over mortals, my magnificent 
 (patron) should still be alive. The man, even of a 
 hundred years, lives not beyond the period ordained 
 by the gods ; so hath (every thing) continually re- 
 volved.' ' The Virupas, who sprang from Agni, from 
 the sky, Navagva, and Dasagva, who perfectly pos- 
 sesses the character of an Angiras, is elevated to the 
 gods. The sages (princes) in concert with Indra 
 lavished a herd of cows and of horses. Men have 
 exalted to the gods the renown of me Ashtakarni, 
 who bestowed a thousand. Let this man now mul- 
 tiply ; may he shoot up like a sprout, he who at once 
 lavishes a thousand hundred horses for a gift. No 
 one equals him, as no one succeeds in grasping the 
 summit of the sky. The largesses of the son of 
 Savarna have been diffused as widely as the sea. 
 
182 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 Yadu and Turva gave two robust bondmen to serve 
 (me) with abundance of kine. Let not this man, the 
 leader of the people, who lavishes thousands, suffer 
 calamity. Let his largesses go on vying with the 
 sun. May the gods prolong the life of the son of 
 Savarna, from whom we, without fatiguing labour [or 
 without cessation], have received food.' ' I have 
 spoken this (in praise) of Duhsima, Prithavana, Vena, 
 and Eama, a god among the magnificent, who having 
 yoked five hundred horses for our benefit, their 
 (liberality) became renowned by (this) course. Over 
 and above this, Tanva straightway assigned, Parthya 
 straightway assigned, Mayava straightway assigned 
 (to us) here seventy-seven/ * 
 
 These Eishis were either in possession of these 
 enormous riches or they were not. If they were, 
 then their manner of life must have been luxuriant to 
 a degree : they must have been among the wealthiest 
 in the land, almost wallowing in wealth. If they 
 were not 2 in possession of all this wealth, then it is 
 clear that, with the view of increasing their own pre- 
 tensions and exalting their own dignity, they inserted 
 in their own hymns what they knew was not true. 
 
 I leave the matter undecided, and pass on to remark 
 
 1 viii. 54, 10-13 ; 57, 14-19 ; x. 33, 4-9 ; 62, 6-11 ; 93, 14-15 ; 
 iv. 32, 16-19. 
 
 2 Dr. Muir thinks these Rishis ' enormously exaggerated ' the value 
 of the presents bestowed. Oriential Studies, p. 121. He also notices 
 that 'in these eulogies of liberality, mention is nowhere made of 
 Brahmans as the recipients of the gifts. In viii. 4-20 and x. 33-4, 
 a Eishi is expressly mentioned as the receiver' (p. 122). 
 
Priests and Eisliis. 183 
 
 that the Rishis' teaching or practice was not always 
 very holy, as would appear from one hymn, which is 
 understood to be a direct encouragement to theft. 
 Rishi Vasishtha, one of the seven most renowned, 
 had passed three days without being able to get any 
 food. On the night of the fourth he entered the 
 house of Varuna to steal something to eat, and had 
 made his way to the larder, when the dog set upon 
 him ; the dog was however put to sleep by the 
 following hymn, composed on the occasion by the 
 starving Pashi. At least such is Sayana's story 
 given in the Niti-manjari. The hymn is the 55th 
 of the 7th Book. The second verse, with which 
 I begin, is addressed to the dog, a descendant of 
 Sarama, 'the bitch of Indra.' The verses, we are 
 told, are to be recited on similar occasions by thieves 
 and burglars. ' White offspring of Sarama with 
 tawny limbs, although barking thou displayest thy 
 teeth against me, bristling like lances in thy gums, 
 nevertheless go quietly to sleep. Offspring of Sarama, 
 returning to the charge, attack the pilferer or the 
 thief : why dost thou assail the worshippers of 
 Indra ? Why dost thou intimidate us ? Go quietly 
 to sleep. Do thou rend the hog: let the hog rend 
 thee. Why dost thou assail the worshippers of 
 Indra ? Why dost thou intimidate us ? Go quietly 
 to sleep. Let the mother sleep, let the father sleep, 
 let the dog sleep, let the son-in-law sleep, let all 
 the kindred sleep, let the people who are stationed 
 
184 The Vedic Ecligion. 
 
 around sleep. 1 The man who sits, or he who walks, 
 or he who sees us, of these we shut up the eyes, so 
 that they may be as unconscious as the mansion. 
 We put men to sleep through the irresistible might 
 of the bull with a thousand horns [the sun], who 
 rises out of the ocean. We put to sleep all these 
 women who are lying in the courtyard in litter or 
 in bed, the women who are decorated with holiday 
 perfumes/ or ' wearing garlands of fragrant flowers on 
 festival occasions, as at marriages and the like.' 2 
 
 Eishi Vasishtha must have been a bit of a wag. 
 He addressed the Maruts : ' Vasishtha overlooks not 
 the very lowest among you ; Maruts, you are desirous 
 of the libation, do you all drink together to-day of 
 our effused Soma juices ; come quickly, eager to drink 
 the Soma ; may the Maruts yet unrevealed, decorat- 
 ing their persons, descend like black-backed swans : 
 let the entire company gather round me like happy 
 men rejoicing together at a solemn rite.' 3 
 
 We have mentioned above that at least one of the 
 Bishis of the Eig-Veda was a woman. Another was 
 no less than a king ' the royal sage Trasadasyu,' 
 the author of hymn 42 of Book iv. 4 He was a king 
 of the CsBsar and Herod stamp filled with pride and 
 self-importance. The hymn consists of ten verses, 
 
 1 Baboo Peary Chand Mittra quotes this verse to prove that in Vedic 
 times ' the feeling for rest was not only for the home, but for the 
 neighbour ! ' Calcutta Review, January 1879, p. 171. 
 
 2 Wilson's Translation, vol. iv. pp. 122, 123. 
 
 3 vii. 59, 3-7. * Wilson's Translation, vol. iii. p. 203. 
 
Priests and Eisliis. 185 
 
 and the first six are in his own praise. Hence, 
 according to the usages of the Eishis, he himself is 
 his own deity in these verses. The other four verses 
 are dedicated to Indra and Varuna. I shall give the 
 six verses. The Eishi speaks in the first person : 
 ' Twofold is my empire, that of the whole Kshatriya 
 race and all the immortals are ours. The gods asso- 
 ciate me with the acts of Varuna. I rule over (those) 
 of the proximate form of man. I am the king 
 Varuna ; on me (the gods) bestow those principal 
 energies, (that are) destructive of the Asuras ; (they) 
 associate me with the worship of Varuna ; I rule over 
 (the acts) of the proximate form of man. I am 
 Indra, I am Varuna, I am those two in greatness ; (I 
 am) the vast, profound, beautiful, heaven and earth ; 
 intelligent, I give Tvashtri animation to all beings. 
 I uphold earth and heaven. I have distributed the 
 moisture-shedding waters ; I have upheld the sky as 
 the abode of the water ; by the water I have become 
 preserver of the water, the son of Aditi, illustrat- 
 ing the threefold elementary space. Warriors well 
 mounted, ardent for contest, invoke me. Selected 
 combatants invoke me in battle ; I, the affluent Indra, 
 instigate the conflict, and endowed with victorious 
 prowess, I raise up the dust (in the battle). I have 
 done all these (deeds); no one resists my divine, 
 unsurpassed vigour ; and when the Soma juices, when 
 sacred songs exhilarate me, then the unbounded heaven 
 and earth are both alarmed.' 
 
186 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 It is very clear from many of the passages just 
 quoted that the Eishis were to all intents and purposes 
 priests. They not only composed hymns, on account 
 of which they were entitled to be regarded as Eishis 
 and sages, but they offered sacrifices, oblations, and 
 libations, as well as composed, chanted, and offered 
 the hymns to the divinities worshipped. They were 
 in these various capacities called by various titles, 
 such as Brahmans, vipras, vedhas, kavis, etc. On 
 account of its modern developments, the history of 
 the word Brahma has come to be of special interest. 
 To it I would devote a few remarks, and, first, I 
 notice that the original word Bralima was used in the 
 sense of liymn or prayer. Dr. Muir quotes as many 
 as 73 passages in which it is used in this sense. 
 Hence Brahman * in the masculine, from Brahma in 
 the neuter gender, means simply the person who com- 
 poses or repeats the hymn or prayer (the Brahma). 
 There are many texts in which this is the meaning 
 which is attached to the word Brahman. As we have 
 reason to believe that in the Keltic order the Bard, 
 the composer of the hymns, was the same person with 
 the Druid the priest, so the poet or Eishi was the 
 same with the Brahman or priest, and called indis- 
 criminately priest or Eishi. Afterwards, when the 
 duties of the priesthood were largely multiplied, the 
 
 1 ' From Bralima, Brahman was formed, its meaning being chanter 
 of prayers.' Peary Chand Mittra, in Calcutta Review, April 1880, 
 p. 726. See above, p. 116, and below, p. 192. 
 
Priests and Risliis. 1,8 7 
 
 offices of KisM and priest became quite distinct, and 
 that of the priest was again subdivided among various 
 classes of priests. Dr. Muir quotes in full some 
 eleven texts in proof that the word Brahman was 
 used in the sense of ' contemplator, sage, or poet,' and 
 upwards of thirty texts in which the word is used 
 more in the sense of worshipper or priest, than in that 
 of ' sage or poet.' Then he gives more texts to show 
 that it came to be used in contradistinction with 
 other words, also meaning priests, such as hotri, 
 udyatri, and adlivaryu ; thus meaning a special class 
 of priests so called. It is worthy of notice that in 
 the eulogies of liberality quoted above at length, 
 the gifts are invariably spoken of as made to the 
 composers of the hymns, never to the Brahmans as 
 different from the Rislii. We ought also to bear in 
 mind that the priests, as a class, came to be recognised 
 in Vedic times as a profession ; and though it may 
 have, in course of time, come to be hereditary like the 
 English nobility, that was very different from its 
 becoming a caste in the modern sense of the term, of 
 which there is not a trace, as we have already shown. 
 We have also seen how kings were Eishis, and kings' 
 daughters were married by Eishis. 1 
 
 The strange thing is that some of these Eishis 
 seem to have been accused in their own day of being 
 demons, evil spirits, or Eakshasas, and worshippers of 
 
 1 See Muir's Studies, p. 126 ; and v. 27, whose Eishis were three 
 kings. 
 
188 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 false gods, at least that is Dr. Muir's interpretation 
 of such mantras as ' Soma slays the Eakshasas, he 
 slays the liar, they both sleep in the fetters of Indra. 
 If I am either one whose gods are false, or if I have 
 conceived of the gods untruly, why art thou angry 
 with us, Yatavedas ? let slanderers fall into thy 
 destruction ; may I die to-day if I am a Yatudhana, 
 or if I have injured any man's life. Then let him be 
 separated from his ten sons who addresses to me the 
 words " Yatudhana." ' * In explanation of this 
 passage, Sayana refers to a Eakshasa having taken the 
 form of the Eishi and killed one hundred of his sons, 
 and that the Eishi uttered these words in the way of 
 protest against his being supposed to be possessed by 
 the demon. This again raises the question whether or 
 not these demons, Eakshasas, whom the Aryans and the 
 Aryan gods hated with such deadly hatred, were not 
 rivals for worship and adoration. Hence the question 
 has been raised, was not Eudra a demon originally, 
 worshipped by the aboriginal tribes ? Dr. Muir seems 
 to favour this view, and adds : ' His malignant, 2 
 homicidal, and cattle-destroying character assimilates 
 him to the Eakshasas and Yatudhanas. ... If, how- 
 ever, Eudra really represents a god or demon borrowed 
 by the Aryans from the aborigines, it was to be expected 
 that, when adopted by the former, he would be in- 
 
 1 vii. 104, 13 ; Dr. Muir's Studies, p. 136 ; vii. 34, 8 ; vii. 21, 5 ; 
 vi. 62, 8 ; vii. 85, 1 ; v. 42, 10. 
 
 2 iv. 3, 6 ; i. 114, 10. 
 
Priests and Eisliis. 189 
 
 vested with the general characteristics which they 
 assigned to their other deities/ But we cannot enter 
 into this question, nor is this the place for it. It, 
 however, naturally leads us up to another question 
 of much importance, the relation of these Eishis and 
 Aryans generally to the aboriginal inhabitants and to 
 the now very popular doctrine of the fatherhood of 
 God. This I shall take up in the next chapter. In 
 the meantime, there are two or three further remarks 
 that I would like to make on the large body of texts 
 inserted in this chapter. And first, 
 
 I have not produced these texts as samples of the 
 prayers of the old Indo-Aryans with the sole view of 
 finding fault with them. I think it is a great thing 
 in favour of these Eishis that they had such faith in 
 prayer, even in prayers for temporal blessings, as most 
 of them are. It is a commendable circumstance in 
 their lives that their aspirations were towards the 
 gods, and that these aspirations ascended on the wings 
 of prayer. If their conceptions of the divine had 
 been higher, holier, nobler, then the very means to 
 raise themselves to a higher, holier, nobler platform 
 would be to hold continual communion by means of 
 prayer with that source, and to put themselves in the 
 position of humble petitioners before the Creator's 
 throne. A man cannot, day after day, besiege heaven 
 with petitions for blessings on what he believes is 
 base, mean, and wicked ; he cannot always ask for 
 what he believes to be contrary to the will and nature 
 
190 The Veclic Religion. 
 
 of his god. A bad man cannot long pray to a good 
 god. Prayer is an element in which a bad, sensual, 
 wicked man cannot live, unless he believes his god to 
 be equally wicked or sensual. Observe further, that 
 the Kishis' prayers were their own. However these 
 prayers came to be afterwards regarded, in the Kig- 
 Veda they are the simple, personal soul-outpourings 
 of the Kishi composers. They were no forms of 
 prayers. The book was not a common prayer book. 
 Afterwards they came to be used as mere charms or 
 talismans. But it was not so in the beginning. The 
 Eishis of old clearly believed in the efficacy of prayer. 
 Such verses as the following are common : ' May he 
 [Indra] hear us, for he has ears to hear. He is asked 
 for riches ; will he despise our prayers ? He could 
 soon give hundreds and thousands ; no one could 
 check him if he wishes to give.' ' May the strong 
 mountains hear us' (iii. 54, 20). 'Even from afar 
 come to our feast ! or, if thou [Indra] art here, listen 
 to us ! ' ' Thou, wise god [Varuna], art lord of all, 
 of heaven and earth ; listen on thy way.' ' We pray 
 to the rivers, the mothers, and to the grassy moun- 
 tains, to the sun and the dawn, to keep us from guilt. 
 May the Soma juice bring us health and wealth 
 to-day' (x. 35, 2). 
 
 The two hymns afterwards set apart for the con- 
 secration of the home, being the last two of the 7th 
 Book, contain such petitions addressed to the guardian 
 spirit of the house : ' Lord of the dwelling ! bid us 
 
Priests and RisJiis. 191 
 
 welcome hither; freedom from harm grant us, and 
 happy entrance ; as we approach with prayer, accept 
 it of us ; propitious be to bipeds and to quadrupeds. 5 1 
 They believed, it is very clear, in the efficacy of 
 prayer, and regarded their gods as prayer-hearing and 
 prayer -answering gods. And though their hymns 
 abound in repetitions, tedious repetitions, some of 
 them in the style of choruses or refrains to modern 
 hymns as in the songs and solos of Sankey, or the 
 Jubilee Songs there is nothing in their prayers, as 
 far as I am aware, of the ' Kama, Kama,' ' Hari, Hari/ 
 ' Ave Maria, Ave Maria, 5 repetitions of the modern 
 Hindu or the Koman Catholic, nor is there any trace 
 of the use of the rosaries of the Hindus or prayer 
 machines of the Buddhists. The prayers are partly 
 laudatory, and partly supplicatory. The gods are 
 invited to accept the sacrifices offered, or rather to 
 sit down and partake of them, then and there, and to 
 confer blessings in return. They are also largely praised 
 for their supposed excellences, their great deeds, their 
 personal appearance, or their accompaniments. Many 
 of the prayers conclude with doxological sentences, 
 like ' Let your spacious and bright-rayed chariots, 
 Mitra and Varuna, blaze like the sun.' ' Praise- 
 worthy Ushas, be glorified by this hymn.' There are 
 some prayers or hymns that are mere invitations to 
 the feast or the sacrifice, like that to Agni and the 
 Maruts, commencing : ' Thou art called forth to this 
 1 Colebrooke's Essays, vol. i. p, 112 (Whitney's translation). 
 
192 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 fair sacrifice for a draught of milk. With the Maruts 
 come hither, Agni. They [the Maruts] who are 
 in heaven are enthroned as gods in the light of the 
 firmament. With the Maruts come hither, Agni/ 
 And so it proceeds, every stanza ending with the 
 same invitation to Agni ' With the Maruts come 
 hither, Agni.' 
 
 Bralimanaspali or Brihaspati, literally meaning 
 ' god of prayer,' is simply a deification of prayer, and 
 is represented of equal power with Indra or Agni, if 
 not, indeed, of superior power. Just as food is neces- 
 sary for the support of men, so it would seem to 
 have been the opinion of these old hymn-makers 
 that food was necessary to the very existence of the 
 gods. Prayer is put upon the same platform with 
 food, and is regarded as equally necessary, so neces- 
 sary, indeed, that without it the gods could not exist. 
 They would become, if not lifeless, at least powerless. 
 This efficacy of prayer and of other religious actions 
 came latterly to be regarded as equal to the dethrone- 
 ment of the gods. In fact, prayer is Brahma. 
 ' Brahmana] Dr. K. M. Banerjea, in his learned and 
 most useful book, The Aryan Witness, expressly 
 states, what I believe is now universally conceded, 
 comes from ' Brahma/ the original meaning of which 
 is a verse or prayer of the Veda. Thus Brahma ^ 
 prayer, came to be deified as the highest, the first of 
 all the gods of the Hindu Pantheon ; and the word is 
 now made to do duty for the name of a society that 
 
Priests and Risliis. 193 
 
 claims to be monotheistic. However, as far as matters 
 of taste are concerned, many would prefer to fall down 
 and worship one of these old hymns and prayers, or 
 even the interrogative pronoun ' ka,' w]w, than the 
 gods Eama, Krishna, and Indra, as they are described 
 in the later mythologies of India. But we have 
 already referred to this point, pp. 116, 186. 
 
 Praise, we have no doubt, constituted a prominent 
 part of the primitive religion. When the morning 
 stars sang together, creation thrilled at the melody of 
 sound : 
 
 ' From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 
 This universal frame began ; 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 The diapason closing full in man.' 
 The song of praise, we have no doubt, was heard 
 among the trees of Paradise, before discord was intro- 
 duced through the machinations of the evil one. We 
 know that at the annunciation of the incarnation of 
 the Son, there was a multitude of the heavenly host 
 praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the 
 highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men ; ' 
 and in the mansions of glory will be heard the voice 
 as of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder, 
 the voice of harpers harping with their harps, and 
 singing a new song from the throne. 
 
 ' What know we of the blest above ? 
 But that they sing, and that they love.' 
 Coeval with the heavens, the destiny of sacred song 
 
 N 
 
194 The Vedic Rdifjion. 
 
 is not like them to wax old. Throughout the whole 
 history of man, from his creation onwards, praise to 
 the Power above, the great Creator, has formed a 
 chief element of his religion. Choral symphonies 
 consecrated the worship of the Jewish temple; and 
 however far some Christian sects may have separated 
 from one another, and however far some of them may 
 have separated from the truth, they have all retained 
 the hallowing power of sacred music. There is no 
 sign that in the religion of the future there will be 
 any departure in this respect from that of the 
 past. 
 
 The Kishis of India were sacred singers, chanters, 
 hymnists, or psalmists. They composed sweet music, 
 words and tunes, for divine service, and they them- 
 selves sang them. The whole Big- Veda, from begin- 
 ning to end, is nothing more or less than a hymn-book 
 containing a thousand and seventeen hymns, each 
 hymn set to some particular tune, and every hymn 
 intended to be sung to the praise of some one or 
 more of the gods in whom they trusted. 
 
 So much were these ancient Eishis under the 
 influence of music, the sweet harmony of their own 
 words and sounds, that they deified their hymns and 
 worshipped them under the name of Brahma, just as 
 the poet imagines was the case with the ancient 
 shell. 
 
 ' What passion cannot music raise and quell ? 
 When Jubal struck the corded shell, 
 
Priests and Eisliis. 195 
 
 His listening brethren stood around, 
 
 And, wondering, on their faces fell 
 
 To worship that celestial sound. 
 
 Less than a god they thought there could not dwell 
 
 Within the hollow of that shell, 
 
 That spoke so sweetly and so well.' 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD AND BJtOTl 
 OF MAN. 
 
 THEEE is no doctrine that has of late years 
 become more popular among the more advanced 
 Hindus of the Presidency towns than this. Sermons, 
 lectures, essays, and speeches multiplied upon it. This 
 is specially true of the Brahmo Somaj. The doctrine 
 may be regarded as the foundation on which the Somaj 
 is built, only that of late it has assumed with some 
 another form the Motherhood of God, leading natur- 
 ally to the sisterhood of man ! God is represented as 
 a mother, with tender sympathizing feelings of a more 
 effeminate and gentle character than is supposed to 
 be consistent with mere fatherhood. In any case, the 
 favourite representation given of God is that of one 
 who will not punish, but will always forgive, all whose 
 creatures will be eternally happy, and between whom 
 there will be no distinctions of favour or happiness. 
 The great duty inculcated is to love all men without 
 distinction of creed, race, or nationality, and with a 
 love not only equal to that wherewith we love our- 
 selves, but infinitely excelling. And all this is said 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 197 
 
 to be intuitive. That it was not the creed of the 
 ancient Eishis will, I think, be made very clear from 
 the following texts. Though the old Indo-Aryans 
 had not yet attained to the modern Hindu doctrine 
 of castes, which inculcates the idea that, even as 
 regards the Aryan race alone, there were three if not 
 four separate independent creations of men, they 
 undoubtedly taught that the Aryans were separately 
 created, and were of altogether different blood from 
 all other men. They are generally spoken of as 
 'descendants of Manu,' who is identified by some 
 with Noah. However this may be, the following 
 texts show to us very clearly that they did not 
 regard the non- Aryan races as brothers, nor did they 
 wish any good to the non-worshippers of the Aryan 
 gods. They wished their extirpation, their annihilation; 
 and they seemed to cherish neither a wish nor a hope 
 that they should ever be blessed in the Aryan's 
 religion or by the Aryan's gods. Out of a large 
 number of texts bearing on this subject, I quote the 
 following : 
 
 )( ' Distinguish between the Aryans, and those who 
 are Dasyas : chastising those who observe no sacred 
 rites, subject them to the sacrificer. Be a strong 
 supporter of him who sacrifices. I desire to (celebrate) 
 all these thy (deeds) at the festivals. Indra subjects 
 the impious to the pious, and destroys the irreligious 
 by the religious.' ' Do ye, lords of the virtuous, 
 slay our Aryan enemies, slay our Dasya enemies, 
 
198 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 destroy all those who hate us.' Dr. Muir well remarks, 
 with regard to these and like texts, that they ' seem 
 to leave no doubt that the Eig-Veda recognises a 
 distinction between the tribe to which the authors of 
 the hymns belonged, and a hostile people who ob- 
 served different rites, and were regarded with contempt 
 and hatred by the superior race.' * There is no doubt 
 that in many passages of the Eig-Veda the words 
 Dasya and Dasa are applied to demons of different 
 orders, or goblins (Asuras, Eakshasas, etc.), but it is 
 equally clear that in many texts the barbarous ab- 
 original tribes of India are intended. Manu expressly 
 says : ' Those tribes in the world which are without 
 the pale of the castes sprung from the mouth, arms, 
 thighs, and feet [of Brahma], whether they speak the 
 language of the Mlechhas or of the Aryas, are all 
 called Dasyas.' 2 It is probable, therefore, that the 
 word Dasya, as employed generally in the Eig-Veda, 
 is to be understood of men, and consequently of the 
 wild aboriginal tribes, whom the Aryan-Indians en- 
 countered on their occupation of Hindustan. We see 
 in the passages quoted how the Eishis regarded them, 
 and what treatment they prayed for them from the 
 gods. This will appear still more in the following 
 texts : ' Indra, the slayer of Vritra, and destroyer of 
 cities, scattered the servile (hosts) of black descent. 
 
 1 i. 51, 8-9 ; vi. 60, 6 ; Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. ii. p. 378. See 
 Warrior's Hymn, vi. 75 ; "Wilson, vol. iv. pp. 22-28. 
 
 2 Manu, x. 45. 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 199 
 
 He created the earth and waters for Maim.' ' Thou 
 hast preserved Trasudasyu, son of Purukutsa and 
 Puru, in fights for the acquisition of land.' ' The 
 deceitful, priestless Dasya has perished.' ' Kemove 
 from the sun the irreligious, the haters of the priest 
 [or of sacred rites], who increase in progeny.' ' The 
 Dasya, irreligious, foolish, observing other rites, and 
 inhuman, is against us : do thou, slayer of our 
 foes, subdue the strength of this Dasa.' 
 
 Frequent mention is made of the cities of the 
 Dasyas and of the Asuras, as in the following : 
 ' Exhilarated, I have destroyed at once the ninety-nine 
 cities of Sambura : the hundredth I gave to be in- 
 habited, when I protected Divadasya Atithigva at the 
 sacrifice.' ' Indra has thrown down a hundred cities 
 built of stone for his worshipper Divadasa.' 
 
 What language could be stronger against one's 
 enemies than the following, or indicate greater 
 sectarian bigotry ? ' Kill all those who make no 
 oblations, though difficult to destroy, and who cause 
 thee no gladness ; give us their wealth : the worship- 
 per expects it.' 'Encountering those (Asuras) who 
 carried away Dabhiti, he burned all their weapons in 
 the blazing fire, and presented Dabhiti with their 
 cows, horses, and chariots.' 'Boot up like an ancient 
 tree overgrown by a creeping plant, subdue the 
 might of the Dasya ; may we share with Indra 
 (or divide by means of Indra) his collected wealth/ 
 ' This lord humbled and subjugated the roaring Dasya, 
 
200 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 with six eyes and three heads. Trita, increasing in 
 strength, struck this boar with his iron-tipped finger.' 
 ' Thou, Indra, hast hurled down the Dasyas, who, by 
 their magical powers, were mounting upwards, and 
 seeking to scale heaven.' ' Hereupon, Agni, may 
 Atri overcome the irreligious Dasyas ; may he over- 
 come hostile men.' A suggestive epithet applied to 
 the wild tribes infesting the seats of the Aryans is 
 anagnitm 'they do not keep the fire.' Thus we 
 read, 'Agni, drive away from us the enemies trioes 
 who keep no sacred fires came to attack us.' In a 
 famous hymn of Yasishtha we read, ' Indra and Soma, 
 burn the Eakshasas, destroy them, throw them down, 
 ye two Bulls, the people that grow in darkness. 
 Hew down the madmen, suffocate them, kill them, 
 hurl them away, and slay the voracious. Indra 
 and Soma, up together, against the cursing demon ! 
 May he burn and hiss like an oblation in the fire ! 
 Put your everlasting hatred on the villain who hates 
 the Brahman, who *eats flesh, and whose look is 
 abominable/ Agni is represented under a form as 
 hideous as the beings he is invoked to devour. He 
 sharpens his two iron tusks, puts his enemies into 
 his mouth and swallows them (x. 87, 2 if.). He 
 heats the edges of his shafts, and sends them into 
 the hearts of the Eakshasas. He tears their skin, 
 minces their members, and throws them before the 
 wolves to be eaten by them, or by the shrieking 
 vultures. These Eakshasas are themselves called 
 
Fatherhood of Gocl and Brotherhood of Man. 201 
 
 mad, and ' worshippers of mad gods.' c A sound has 
 been heard by our nearest foes ; hurl upon them thy 
 hottest bolt [0 Indra], cut them up from beneath, 
 shatter them, overpower them ; kill and subdue the 
 Eakshasas, Maghavan ! Tear up the Eakshasas 
 by the roots, Indra, cut him in the midst, destroy 
 him at the extremities. How long dost thou delay ? 
 Hurl thy burning shaft against the enemy of the 
 priest.' ' May the man who seeks, with Eakshasas- 
 like atrocity, to injure us, perish by his own mis- 
 conduct. May they thy enemies be dead, then and 
 there, through the greatness of thy thunderbolt.' 1 
 
 There were three very different classes of men 
 most heartily hated by the Kishis (1) the aboriginal 
 inhabitants of the country, spoken of under various 
 names ; (2) the despisers of the Yedic religion, who 
 chiefly belonged to the preceding class ; and (3) the 
 niggard, illiberal Aryans, who gave no gifts or presents 
 to the Eishi himself, either in his capacity of a bard 
 or poet, or in that of priest, but <more especially the 
 former. The quotations already made sufficiently 
 illustrate his hatred of the first class. The following 
 will suffice for the last two classes: 'Indra, who 
 alone distributes riches to the sacrificing mortal, is 
 lord and irresistible. When will Indra crush the 
 
 1 ii. 20, 7 ; vii. 19, 3 ; iv. 16, 9 ; v. 42, 9 ; x. 22, 7, 8 ; vii. 18, 
 16 ; vii. 6, 3 ; iv. 26, 3 ; iv. 30, 20 ; i. 176, 4 ; ii. 15, 4 ; viii. 40, 
 6 ; vii. 19, 2 ; ii. 14, 4 ; x. 99, 6 ; viii. 14, 14 ; v. 7, 10 ; vii. 104, 
 1 ; Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. ii. p. 407 ; iii. 30, 15, 17 ; viii. 18, 
 13 ; i. 174, 4. 
 
202 The Vcclic Religion. 
 
 illiberal man like a bush with, his foot ? When will 
 he hear our hymns ? ' ' Indra, who is the slayer of 
 him, however strong, who offers no libations.' ' Wake, 
 magnificent Dawn (Ushas), the men who present 
 offerings ; let the thoughtless niggards sleep.' ' Slay 
 every one who offers no oblations though difficult 
 to destroy who is displeasing to thee. Give us his 
 wealth ; the sage expects it.' ' What do ye here, 
 powerful (Aswins) ? Why do ye sit in the house of 
 any man who offers no sacrifice, and yet is honoured ? 
 Assail, wear away the breath of the niggard, and 
 create light for the sage who desires to praise you.' 
 ' This impetuous and heroic Indra regards, as pecu- 
 liarly his own, the cooked oblation of the devout 
 Soma offerer ; he is not the relation, or friend, or 
 kinsman of the man who offers no libations ; he 
 destroys the prostrate irreligious man. Let the 
 niggards sleep in gloom, and the regardless in the 
 midst of darkness.' ' Indra desires no support from 
 five or from ten (allies) ; he consorts not with the 
 man who offers no libation, however flourishing ; but 
 overwhelms and at once destroys such a person, 
 whilst he gives the godly man a herd of kine as his 
 portion.' 'Whoever, Maruts, regards himself as 
 superior to us, or reviles our worship when performed, 
 may scorching calamities light upon him ; may the 
 sky consume that hater of devotion. Why, Soma, 
 do they call thee the protector of devotion or our 
 preserver from imprecation ? Why dost thou see us 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 203 
 
 reviled ? ' ' Hurl thy burning bolt against the hater 
 of devotion, wise deity ; pierce the hearts of the 
 niggards with a probe ; and then subject them to us. 
 Pierce them with a goad, Pushan ; seek (for us) 
 that which is dear to the heart of the niggard ; and 
 then subject them to us. With that prayer -pro- 
 moting probe which thou boldest, burning Pushan, 
 penetrate and tear the heart of every (such man)/ 
 In regard to the first verse of hymn viii. 83, Dr. Muir 
 remarks that Indra and Varuna are said to have 
 slain both the Dasya and Arya enemies of Sudas. 
 His enemies were therefore in part Aryans, and the 
 ten kings alluded to in the sixth verse were no doubt 
 of this race. And yet it is to be observed that in 
 v. 7 they are described as ' unsacrificing.' It would 
 seem, therefore, that there were Aryan kings who did 
 not worship Indra and Varuna. 
 
 We supply a few further texts from Dr. Muir : 
 ' The gods love a man who offers oblations ; they 
 do not approve sleep. The active obtain delight.' 
 ' Let not violent fools, let not deriders insult thee. 
 Love not the haters of devotion.' ' Let us praise 
 Indra truly, not falsely. Great destruction overtakes 
 the man who offers no libations, whilst he who offers 
 them has many lights.' ' Let our hymns exhilarate 
 thee ; give us wealth, Thunderer. Slay the haters 
 of devotion. Crush with thy foot the niggards who 
 bestow nothing. Thou art great ; no one equals thee.' 
 'Let the godless man who performs no rites, and 
 
204 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 sleeps an incessant sleep, destroy by his own acts the 
 wealth which sustains him ; k sever him from it.' ' I 
 slay the man who utters no praises, who is an enemy 
 of truth, a sinner, and empty.' ' May the (worshippers) 
 who constantly bring thee to the sacrifices slay the 
 boasters (or talkers) who give no presents.' ' What- 
 ever godless man, whether Dasya or Aryan, much 
 lauded Indra, seeks after us to vanquish us, let these 
 enemies be easy for us to overcome ; through thee 
 may we slay them in the conflict.' This passage 
 shows that Aryans, as well as Dasyas, were charged 
 with being deniers of the Aryan gods, unless we are 
 to consider the term ' godless ' as employed, as in 
 modern times, to describe persons who were practi- 
 cally, though not theoretically, atheists. We end 
 these texts with the following pretty strong one as 
 to the way in which Indra would treat ' the rich 
 man who offered to him no oblation : ' ' Maghavat 
 (i.e. Indra) grasps him in his fist, and slays the haters 
 of devotion though unsolicited.' 1 
 .^pAs far as we have seen, there is no trace to be 
 found in the hymns of the Eig-Veda of the doctrine 
 of the Fatherhood of God or the Brotherhood of man. 
 There is no trace of such a close and endearing 
 relation between the gods generally, or any god in 
 particular, and the human family, as to entitle any 
 
 1 i. 84, 7 ; i. 101, 4 ; i. 124, 10 ; i. 176, 4 ; i. 182, 3 ; 25, 6 ; iv. 
 51, 3 ; v. 34, 4 ; vi. 62, 2-3 ; vi. 53, 58 ; viii. 2, 18 ; viii. 45, 23 ; 
 viii. 51, 12 ; viii. 53, 1, 2 ; viii. 85, 3 ; x. 27, 1 ; x. 32 ; x. 38, 3 ; 
 x. 160, 4. Muir's Oriental Studies, p. 134. 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 205 
 
 of them to be called the Father of the children of 
 men. The terms father and son are used to illustrate 
 the relation of the god and the sacrificer, but only in 
 the way of the latter praying that the god should 
 confer some favour upon him, or treat him as a father 
 treats a son. As to the brotherhood of man, there is 
 no trace of it as far as I am aware, while there is 
 abundant evidence, as we have seen, of an intense 
 hostility cherished towards the non- Aryan tribes, as 
 also towards some Aryans like the Iranians of the 
 Zend-Avesta, an hostility which has come down in 
 all its strength to the present day among orthodox 
 Hindus. There was not the very best of feelings 
 even among the Eishis towards one another. There 
 are unmistakable references in the hymns to a deadly 
 feud between Eishi Vasishtha and Eishi Visvamitra, 
 and of a curse laid on the former by the latter. It 
 is even said that the curse took effect, and that 
 Vasishtha was changed into a starling, who, in turn, 
 cursed his enemy and changed him into a crane. 1 
 
 The horizon of the Eishi is confined almost invari- 
 ably to himself. He prays for the happiness of neither 
 wife nor child, not for the good of his village or his 
 clan, nor yet for his nation or people. His eye is 
 shut to the sufferings of his fellows. He manifests no 
 common joys, any more than common sorrows. He 
 does not look forward upon a more hopeful state of 
 things. He knows of no promised Eedeemer of the 
 1 See "Weber's History of Indian Literature, p. 37. 
 
206 The Vedic Edigion. 
 
 nation or race. There is some enthusiasm manifested 
 in beholding the storm gods, the rivers, and the 
 mountains ; none at the manifestations of righteousness 
 and judgment and mercy. The Eishi is always in 
 the outer courts of the temple, never in the inner or 
 holy place of the Most High. In the Veda you have 
 what may be called the earthly poetry of religion, but 
 the downright serious grave religion of the Bible and 
 of modern times is wanting. In reading Shelley's 
 poem to the West Wind, I could not help being 
 struck by the resemblance in form and spirit to the 
 Vedic hymns. The Kishis heard the voice of their 
 gods in the wind and the fire and the storm, but 
 never in the still small voice. The only combinations 
 into which these Indo-Aryans seem to have entered, 
 were those of war. We read of very little even of 
 that kind, very little of generals or leaders of armies, 
 or of great pitched battles. Yet the lives they led 
 seems to have been one continuous state of war, ever 
 ready to avail themselves of any opportunity of 
 making reprisals on their enemies. There was a 
 recognition of a common relationship between all the 
 Arya'ns as such, as descended from one common 
 father Manu. The rest of the human race seem to 
 have been regarded as altogether outside the pale of 
 mercy or the ordinary demands of humanity. 
 
 How different is all this from the religion which 
 represents all men as descended from one pair and 
 made of one blood, which teaches all men to hope 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 207 
 
 that the time is coming when the seed of the woman 
 will crush the serpent's head, and when all the nations 
 of the earth will be blessed in Him, the sum of all 
 whose commandments is 'love God and love thy 
 neighbour,' the latter term including the despised 
 and contemned whether because of race or of religion, 
 which teaches us to honour all men, and even to love 
 our enemies and to bless them that curse us, and 
 which commands its followers to go forth and disciple 
 all creatures, announcing the glorious news to all 
 men that God has loved the world with so great a love 
 that he has given his own, his only-begotten Son, to 
 the death, that all who believe in him may not perish, 
 but have life everlasting in him! Even M. Eenan, 
 who cannot be accused of being partial to either Jew or 
 Christian, could say ' What characterised the Jew 
 above all, what had always been his profound belief, 
 was his confidence in a brilliant and happy future for 
 mankind.' * 
 
 o I n regard to this subject there is one bright spot 
 in modern Hinduism for which I must make space. 
 And I cannot do better than give an account of it in 
 the words of Dr. W. W. Hunter. I refer to a slight 
 approach to the idea of the Brotherhood of man and 
 the Fatherhood of God as illustrated at the Temple 
 of Jagannath in Orissa, at least in theory, though in 
 practice we have really only an illustration of, and a 
 return to, the Vedic state of things. Dr. Hunter 
 1 Hibbert Lectures, 1880. 
 
208 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 writes: 1 ' The true source of Jagannath's undying 
 hold upon the Hindu race consists in the fact that he 
 is the god of the people. As long as his towers rise 
 upon the Puri sands, so long will there be in India 
 a perpetual and visible protest of the equality of man 
 before God. His apostles penetrate to every hamlet 
 of Hindustan preaching the sacrament of the Holy 
 Food. 2 The poor outcast learns that there is a city 
 on the far eastern shore where high and low eat 
 together. In his own village, if he accidentally 
 touches the clothes of a man of good caste, he has 
 committed a crime, and his outraged superior has to 
 wash away the pollution before he can partake of 
 food or approach his god. In some parts of the 
 country the lowest castes are not permitted to build 
 within the towns, and their miserable hovels cluster 
 amid heaps of broken potsherds and dunghills on the 
 outskirts. Throughout the southern part of the 
 continent it used to be a law, that no man of these 
 degraded castes might enter the village before nine in 
 the morning or after four in the evening, lest the 
 slanting rays of the sun should cast his shadow across 
 the path of a Brahmin. But in the presence of 
 the Lord of the world priest and peasant are equal. 
 The rice that has once been placed before the god 
 can never cease to be pure, or lose its reflected 
 
 1 Orissa, vol. i. p. 85. 
 
 2 Mahaprasad, rice offered to Jagannatli and then eaten by tho 
 pilgrims and others. 
 
Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. 209 
 
 sanctity. In the courts of Jagannath, and outside 
 the Lion Gate, 100,000 pilgrims every year are 
 joined in the sacrament of eating the holy food. The 
 lowest may demand it from, or give it to, the highest. 
 Its sanctity overleaps all barriers, not only of caste, 
 but of race and hostile faiths ; and I have seen a 
 Puri priest put to the test of receiving the food from 
 a Christian's hand.' ' " God's pity," says the chief 
 apostle of Jagannath, "knows neither family nor 
 tribe." ' Such is the ancient doctrine, still preached. 
 The following, from the same pen, 1 is a statement of 
 the present practice: 'It would be well for Jagan- 
 nath if these old calumnies were the only charges 
 which his priests had to answer. Lascivious sculp- 
 tures disfigure his walls, indecent ceremonies disgrace 
 his ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the 
 modest female worshippers to the blush. . . . But 
 these are not the sole corruptions of the faith. The 
 Temple of Jagannath, that colluvio religionum in which 
 every creed obtained an asylum, and in which every 
 class and sect can find its god, now closes its gates 
 against the low- caste population. . . . Speaking 
 generally, only those castes are shut out who retain 
 the flesh-eating and animal-life-destroying propensities 
 of the aboriginal tribes. A man must be a very 
 pronounced non- Aryan to be excluded. Certain of 
 the low castes, such as the washermen and potters, 
 may enter half-way, and, standing humbly in the 
 1 Orlssa, vol. i. p, 135. 
 
 
210 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 court outside the great temple, catch a glimpse of the 
 jewelled god within. But unquestionable non- 
 Aryans, like the neighbouring hill tribes or forest 
 races, and the landless servile castes of the lowlands, 
 cannot go in at all. . . . Criminals who have been 
 in jail and women of bad character, except the 
 privileged girls, are also excluded.' Here we have 
 the hatred of 3000 years' standing towards the non- 
 Aryan races in much of its strength, and that where 
 one would least expect it. 
 
XV. 
 
 \MIRACLES, CREATION, DELUGE, ETC. 
 
 BEFORE concluding these notes, there are various 
 other things on which a few remarks might be 
 made, such as miracles, creation, the deluge, etc. % j 
 The miracles referred to are not many, nor are they 
 very edifying. Indra is eulogized for having made a 
 mare bring forth a calf, the young of a cow. His 
 killing the pregnant wives of Krishna? I suppose 
 the black non-Aryans, could scarcely be regarded as 
 a miraculous act. Miracles are more associated in the 
 Rig with the doings of the Aswins and Ribhus, whose 
 exploits are catalogued in a number of hymns, 2 some 
 of them of more than usual length. The former 
 healed of leprosy the unmarried Ghosha, while ad- 
 vanced in years. Yet, singularly enough, there is no 
 direct allusion to her leprosy in the hymns, one of 
 which runs : ' You bestowed, Aswins, a husband upon 
 Ghosha, growing old and tarrying in her father's 
 dwelling.' Further on, in the same hymn, 3 she is 
 supposed to be spoken of in the words : ' You, 
 (Aswins), have made whole the maimed ; therefore 
 1 Wilson, vol. i. p. 260. 2 i. 113-120. 3 i. 117, 7. 
 
212 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 has the intelligent (Ghosha) called upon you.' In 
 another hymn 1 there seems to be a more direct allusion 
 to her leprosy: 'The son of Usy addresses to you 
 (Aswins) audible praises, in like manner as Ghosha 
 praised you for the removal of her white-tinted skin.' 
 The story is that the Aswins restored her to youth and 
 beauty, so that she obtained a husband. A similar 
 miracle is said to have been performed by them upon 
 Eishi Sayana, whom they cured of black leprosy, and 
 to whom they afterwards gave ' a lovely bride.' Some 
 others of their miraculous doings are referred to in 
 the words : ' You have restored milk to the cow ; 
 you have brought down the prior mature (secretion) 
 into the unripe (or barren udder) of the cow. The 
 devout offerer worships you ... as vigilant in the 
 midst of the ceremony, as a thief in the midst of a 
 thicket. You rendered the heat as soothing as sweet 
 butter to Atri.' 2 Another miracle of theirs recounted 
 to their praise is : ' You constructed a pleasant sub- 
 stantial winged bark, borne on the ocean waters, for 
 the son of Tugra, . . . and you made a path for him 
 across the great waters. Four ships launched into 
 the midst of the receptacle (of the waters), sent by 
 the Aswins, brought safe to shore the son of Tugra, 
 who had been cast headlong into the waters, and 
 plunged into inextricable darkness. What was the 
 tree that was stationed in the midst of the ocean to 
 which the supplicating son of Tugra clung ? ' 3 Tugra had 
 1 i. 122, 5. 2 i. 181, 3. 3 i. 182, 5. 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 213 
 
 been much annoyed by enemies residing in a distant 
 island. He sent his son with an army against them, 
 but the vessel was foundered in a gale. The Aswins, 
 Tugra's friends, assisted as recorded above. Else- 
 where 1 the same Aswins are spoken of as those ' who 
 gave milk to the barren cow,' who raised up from the 
 water Eebha who had been cast bound into a well, 
 who rescued Antaka when cast by the Asuras into a 
 deep pool, who enriched Suchanti and gave him a 
 handsome habitation, and rendered the scorching heat 
 pleasurable to Atri, who enabled the lame Paravrji to 
 walk, the blind Eijraswas to see, and the cripple 
 Srona to go, and who set free the quail when seized 
 by a wolf. Atri is said to have been enclosed in a 
 cave, having a hundred doors, at all of which fires of 
 chaff were kindled. The Aswins poured cold water 
 on the fires, and thus the heat was made pleasurable 
 to him. So says Sayana. The quail may have been 
 with equal ease liberated. But we are told in the 
 same hymn of still stranger exploits ! They enabled 
 the opulent Vispala, when she was unable to move, 
 to go to the battle rich in a thousand spoils, and 
 they enabled Eishi Trisoka to recover his stolen 
 cattle. "We need not wonder at the frequent mention 
 made of the stolen cattle of Eishis, when we remember 
 the large numbers, according to their own statements, 
 which they possessed. But more than all this, they 
 ' encompassed the sun, when afar off, to extricate him 
 
 1 i. 112, 8. 
 
214 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 from an eclipse.' They protected Kali when he had 
 taken a wife, and Prithi when he had lost his horse ; 
 they caused the royal Eishi Pathawan to shine with 
 strength of form in battle, like a blazing fire piled up 
 with fuel ; and preceded the gods to the cavern to 
 recover the stolen cattle, a feat similar to that ascribed 
 to Indra. They gave a wife to Vimada, recovered 
 the ruddy kine, and conferred excellent wealth upon 
 Sudas. Such, among less important ones, are the 
 great feats of the Aswins as recorded by Eishi Kutsa 
 in the 112th hymn. The Eishi speaks from experi- 
 ence, for among the exploits he records, rather 
 indefinitely it must be admitted, that they ' protected 
 Kutsa,' how, when, or where we are not informed. 
 In the same vague manner, he adds that they ( pro- 
 tected the devout Kakshivat.' Kakshivat, however, 
 speaks for himself at great length, but almost in the 
 same words with his brother Eishi. He has devoted 
 five hymns, two of them of unusual length, to the 
 glorification of the Aswins. They are the 116th to 
 the 120th inclusive. The feats are very much the 
 same, but with additions or other variations. Thus 
 Kakshivat tells us that the Aswins not only ' gave a 
 bride to the youthful Vimada,' but that they ' bore 
 her away in their car, outstripping the rival host.' 
 So he tells us that Tugra sent his son to sea ' as a 
 dying man parts with his riches ; but the Aswins 
 brought him back in vessels of their own, floating 
 over the ocean and keeping out the waters.' Nay 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 215 
 
 more, ' that three nights and three days, they con- 
 veyed him in three rapid revolving cars, having a 
 hundred wheels, and drawn by six horses along the 
 dry bed of the ocean to the shore of the sea.' Still 
 further, he tells them that this exploit they achieved 
 ' in the ocean, where there is nothing to give support, 
 nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to,' yet they 
 brought Tugra's son ' sailing in a hundred-oared ship 
 to his father's house.' To another royal Eishi they 
 gave ' a white horse, through the possession of which 
 he was always victorious over his enemies.' This 
 horse was ' always to be invoked.' To the composer 
 himself they ' filled from the hoof of their vigorous 
 steed, as if from a cask, a hundred jars of wine.' 
 One of the most extraordinary miracles recorded is, 
 in one hymn, attributed to the Aswins, in another it 
 is ascribed to the Maruts. They are said to have, in 
 some mysterious unintelligible manner, ' raised up the 
 well, and made the base, which had been turned 
 upwards, the curved mouth, so that the water issued 
 for the beverage of the thirsty Gotama, the offerer.' 
 Another miracle, scarcely less extraordinary, was ' the 
 stripping off from the aged Chyavana his entire skin, 
 as if it had been a coat of mail,' and giving him a 
 new one, that of a young man, and ' constituting him 
 the husband of many maidens.' But, in the opinion 
 of the Eishi, these were nothing comparable to their 
 extricating Vendana from a well. This last is spoken 
 of as ' a glorious exploit, one to be celebrated, and to 
 
216 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 be adored ; ' yet apparently this was to be done simply 
 ' with the view of acquiring wealth.' Another miracle, 
 suggestive of modern mechanical skill and of Miss 
 Kilmansegge's experience, is in these words : ' The 
 foot of the wife of Khela was cut off, like the wing 
 of a bird, in an engagement by night ; immediately 
 the Aswins gave her an iron leg that she might walk, 
 the hidden treasure of the enemy being the object of 
 the conflict.' These and many more wonderful things, 
 Kakshivat tells them, they did, some of them while 
 driving ' in their chariot, to which the bull and the 
 porpoise were yoked together.' ' Thus, Aswins,' the 
 Eishi ends his hymn, 1 ' have I declared your exploits ;, 
 may I become the master of this place, having abun- 
 dant cattle and a numerous progeny, and retaining 
 rny sight, and enjoying a long life ; may I enter old 
 age, as a master enters his house.' These must 
 suffice as specimens of the exploits of the ever young 
 and beautiful Aswins, the swift sons of the sun, the 
 phj'Sicians of Swarga. 
 
 !? I must not, however, forget the miracles of the 
 Pdbhus, as it was because of them and their prayers 
 that they were deified. 2 These are not very numerous, 
 nothing like those of the Aswins. The first men- 
 tioned is the ' making fourfold the ladle for the 
 sacrificial viands which the Asura [Tvashtri] 3 had 
 
 1 i. 116. 2 See above, pp. 47, 127, 211. 
 
 3 This word Asura has given much trouble to Vedic commentators, 
 from Sayana to Dr. K. M. Banerjea. In all modern Sanskrit litera- 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 217 
 
 made single/ Another is, as in other hymns, 1 that 
 they ' covered the cow with a hide and re-united the 
 mother with the calf.' The story is that a certain 
 Eishi's cow had died, leaving a calf motherless. The 
 Eishi prayed to the Eibhus, who immediately formed 
 a living cow, and covered it with the skin of the dead 
 one, from which the calf imagined it to be its own 
 mother. In some parts of the world the custom still 
 prevails of killing the calf, and filling its skin with 
 straw, and making the cow believe it to be its own 
 living calf. This is with the view of prevailing on 
 her to supply her milk. Such calf's are called Tul- 
 chans. Again we read : ( Through their good works/ 
 the same Eibhus, as we are told in the same hymn, 
 ' rendered their aged parents young/ or, as it is ex- 
 
 ture it means a demon, an evil spirit, an enemy of the gods or Daevas. 
 And this is its meaning in many parts of the Rig-Veda. Yet here 
 the good god Tvashtri is called an Asura, and in other places, 
 Varuna, Indra, Prajapati, Mitra, Rudra, Agni, Pushan, and, in fact, 
 all the gods are called Asuras. The Zend-Avesta also calls the 
 Supreme Being Asura or Ahura. Dr. Banerjea has entered very 
 fully into the whole subject in an article in the Bengal Magazine for 
 April and May 1880. He thinks the word was got from the Assyrians, 
 with whom it meant the supreme God. "While the Iranians or 
 Parsis and the Indo-Aryans or Hindus were on good terms with one 
 another and with the Assyrians, the word was adopted and used for 
 God. Then those hymns of the Rig-Yeda using the word in the 
 good sense were composed. After a time the Indo- Aryans fell out 
 with both the Assyrians and the Iranians, and a fierce mutual hatred, 
 as the hymns bear witness, was the result. Then the word, as 
 applicable to the Assyrians and to their god or gods, came to be used 
 in a bad sense, and have continued to be so used by the Hindus to 
 the present day. 
 1 i. 20, 110, 111, 161. 
 
218 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 pressed in the following hymn, ' they gave youthful 
 existence to their parents.' 
 
 These must suffice as specimens of the Eibhus' 
 miraculous displays of power. There is a miracle 
 recorded of Indra's power at the expense of his 
 omniscience ; ' Indra, finding it impossible to discover 
 his friend's stolen cows because of darkness, caused 
 the sun to rise that he might see them.' * 
 
 Who should have the credit (?) of the miracle 
 recorded at length in hymn iv. 18, 2 whether Indra, 
 Aditi, or the Eishi Vamadeva ? It is difficult to say. 
 Indeed, all three are both the deities and the Eishis 
 of the hymn, and I suppose all alike claim a share in 
 the miracle. The hymn opens by a remonstrance 
 from Indra to the Eishi, who is represented as in his 
 mother's womb, protesting against being born in the 
 usual way. 'Indra speaks: "This is the old and 
 recognised path by which all the gods are born ; so, 
 when full grown, let him be born in the same 
 manner. Let him not cause the loss of this his 
 mother." The Eishi answers: "Let me not come 
 forth by this path, for it is difficult of issue ; let me 
 come forth obliquely from the side. Many acts 
 unperformed by others are to be accomplished by 
 me. . . . Indra has asserted that it will cause the 
 death of rny mother. Let me not proceed by the 
 usual way, but proceed quickly, according to my will. 
 In the dwelling of Tvashtri, Indra drank the costly 
 
 1 viii. 78, 7. 2 Wilson, vol. iii. p. 153. 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 219 
 
 Soma from the vessels of the offerer." ' This the 
 Eishi had advanced as something irregular on the 
 part of Indra, and therefore justifying an irregu- 
 larity on the part of the Eishi. Indra's mother, 
 Aditi, who had also been sent for, to plead with the 
 unreasonable Eishi, ' speaks : " What irregular act 
 has he (Indra) committed whom I, his mother, bore 
 for a thousand months and for many years ? There 
 is no analogy between him and those who have been 
 or will be born. Deeming it disreputable that he 
 should be brought forth in secret [i.e. in the privacy 
 of the lying-in chamber], his mother endowed Indra 
 with extraordinary vigour ; therefore, as soon as born, 
 he sprung up of his own accord, invested with splen- 
 dour, and filled both heaven and earth." ' On this 
 the Eishi breaks out in praise of Indra : ' Vameda 
 speaks " Exulting, the youthful mother brought thee 
 forth. Exulting, Kushava [a Eakshasi whom Indra, 
 although at first swallowed by her, drove out of the 
 lying-in chamber] swallowed thee. Exulting, the 
 waters gave delight to the infant. Indra, exulting, 
 rose up to his strength ; ... as a heifer bears a calf, 
 his mother, Aditi, bore Indra, mature in years. . . . 
 Who has made thy mother a widow? Who has 
 sought to slay the sleeping and the waking ? 
 What deity has been more gracious than thou, since 
 thou hast slain thy father, having seized him by the 
 foot." ' It is difficult to say what the allusion here 
 is, but it would seem to say that Indra slew his own 
 
220 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 father, just as Saturn mutilated and slew his father. 
 The . Eishi ends the hymn very sadly : ' In extreme 
 destitution I have cooked the entrails of a dog; I 
 have not found a comforter among the gods ; I have 
 beheld my wife disrespected ; then the falcon (Indra) 
 has brought to me sweet water.' It is not easy to 
 see what earthly connection exists between this last 
 verse and the preceding dialogue carried on between 
 the Eishi in the womb on the one hand, and Indra 
 and Aditi on the other. Did the Eishi in the cir- 
 cumstances lose caste after cooking, and no doubt 
 eating, the entrails of the dog ? Another interesting 
 fact connected with this hymn is that the story on 
 which it is founded, absurd as it is, is in accord with 
 that of the birth of Sakya, the founder of Buddhism. 
 But I must hurry on. 
 
 The Eishis' view of the great miracle of Creation, 
 and the legend current at the time, I have already 
 given. 1 But I would here add Dr. K. M. Banerjea's 
 valuable remarks on the hymn. 2 He asserts that the 
 things which Moses recognised as characterising the 
 earth at its creation, ' are all mentioned in the above 
 hymn. "Darkness there was." "This universe was 
 undistinguishable water." " The abyss " or deep, 
 identified with the water, was also allowed. The 
 productive " energy above," and " nature beneath," in 
 the Yeda, were an apt representation of the Spirit 
 moving upon the face of the waters. Here, then, we 
 1 See above, pp. 129, 130. 2 Aryan Witness, p. 126. 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 221 
 
 find the elementary existences mentioned by Moses 
 all confirmed in the hymn. And it is in this con- 
 firmation that the best part of the hymn consists. 
 As to the rest, we can only admire it as a candid 
 recognition of the shortcomings of human nature, and 
 a confession of the apostolical adage, The world 
 by wisdom knew not God. We cannot, however, 
 absolutely admire this ignorance or scepticism on the 
 very foundation of all religion. There cannot be 
 any religion in man, unless it has for its basis the 
 relation of the creature to the Creator. But when a 
 philosopher doubts whether there was any creation at 
 all, or whether any supreme intelligence himself 
 created it, and again whether he knew anything on 
 the subject, we cannot recognise in it anything to 
 laud or admire. "We can only exclaim with the 
 apostle, " Where is the wise ? Where is the scribe ? 
 Where is the disputer of this world ? Hath not God 
 made foolish the wisdom of this world ? " 
 
 In the hymns of the Big-Veda themselves there 
 is no distinct account of the Deluge, but there are 
 expressions which are suggestive of the story given 
 in the Satqpatlia, the most complete and systematic, 
 as well as the most important, of all the BraJimanas. 
 The story may have been known to the ancient Eishi 
 authors of the Eig, though they make no direct allusion 
 to it. As translated by Dr. Muir, it runs as follows : 
 
 ' In the beginning they brought to Manu water for 
 washing, as men are in the habit of bringing it to 
 
222 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 wash with the hands. As he was thus washing, 
 a fish came into his hands, which spake to him 
 " Preserve me ; I shall save thee." Manu inquired, 
 " From what wilt thou save me ? " The fish replied, 
 3 "A flood shall sweep away all these creatures ; from 
 *) , it will I rescue thee." Manu asked, "How shall 
 ffi thy preservation be effected ? " The fish said : " So 
 long as we are small we are in great peril, for fish 
 devour fish; thou shalt preserve me first in a jar. 
 When I grow too large for the jar, then thou shalt dig a 
 trench, and preserve me in that. When I grow too large 
 for the trench, then thou shalt carry me away to the 
 ocean, I shall then be beyond the reach of danger." 
 Straightway he became a large fish ; for he waxed to 
 the utmost. He said : " Now in such and such a year, 
 then the flood will come ; thou shalt therefore con- 
 struct a ship, and resort to me ; thou shalt embark in 
 the ship when the flood rises, and I shall deliver thee 
 from it." Having thus preserved the fish, Manu 
 carried him away to the sea. Then in the same year, 
 which the fish had enjoined, he constructed a ship, 
 and resorted to him. When the flood rose, Manu 
 embarked in the ship. The fish swam towards him. 
 He fastened the cable of the ship to the fish's horn. 
 By this means he passed over this northern mountain. 
 The fish said: "I have delivered thee; fasten the 
 ship to a tree. But lest the water should cut thee 
 off whilst thou art on the mountain, as much as the 
 water subsides, so much shalt thou descend after it." 
 
Miracles, Creation, Deluge, etc. 223 
 
 He accordingly descended after it as much as it sub- 
 sided. Wherefore also this, viz. " Mann's descent," 
 is the name of the northern mountain. Now the 
 flood had swept away all these creatures ; so Manu 
 alone was left here. Desirous of offspring, he lived 
 worshipping, and toiling in arduous religious rites. 
 Among these he also sacrificed with the paka [proper] 
 offering. He cast clarified butter, thickened milk, 
 whey and curds, as an oblation, into the waters. 
 Thence in a year a woman [called Ida] was produced.' * 
 The rest of the story I give in Monier Williams' 
 versified translation : 
 1 She came to Manu ; then he said to her, 
 "Who art thou?" She replied, "I am thy 
 
 daughter." 
 
 I He said, " How, lovely lady, can that be ? " 
 " I came forth," she rejoined, " from thine oblations 
 Cast on the waters ; thou wilt find in me 
 A blessing, use me in the sacrifice." 
 With her he worshipped, and with toilsome zeal 
 Performed religious rites, hoping for offspring. 
 Thus were created men, called sons of Manu. 
 Whatever benediction he implored 
 With her, was thus vouchsafed in full abundance/ 
 As this legend, though I believe older in itself 
 than the hymns, is not found in any of them, I shall 
 not stay to point out its significancy from a Christian 
 point of view. 
 
 1 Muir's Texts, vol. i, p, 183. 
 
XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 FROM our survey of the various articles of belief, 
 and religious and moral practices referred to 
 in the Big- Veda Sanhita, one can easily see that the 
 Vedic religion can make no claim on the allegiance 
 of any intelligent Aryan of the present day. T * 
 
 : l.j Its representations of the divine are always 
 defective, generally false, and sometimes in the highest 
 degree revolting. Such is the character of Agni (see 
 above, p. 200) and of ' Mighty Eudra, with the braided 
 hair, the destroyer of heroes' 1 (as given at p. 188). 
 Even the ridiculousness of some of the descriptions is 
 enough to condemn them. That given of frogs may 
 be regarded as a satire, but no one, as far as I am 
 aware, regards the hymn (iii. 8) dedicated to sacri- 
 ficial posts as a satire, though about equally ridiculous. 
 The hymn commences, ' Vanaspati [the post of 
 wood to which the victim is tied], the devout anoint 
 thee with sacred butter at the sacrifice, and whether v 
 thou standest erect, or thine abode be on the lap of 
 
 this thy mother (earth), grant us riches Be 
 
 1 "Wilson, vol. i. p. 300. 
 
Conclusion. 22 5 
 
 exalted, Vanaspati, upon this sacred spot of earth, 
 being measured with careful measurement, and bestow 
 food upon the offerer of the sacrifice. . . . May those 
 posts bestow upon us wealth with progeny.' The 
 hymn ends with the doxological prayer : ' Arrayed in 
 bright garments, entire in their parts, these pillars 
 ranging in rows like swans have come to us erected 
 by pious sages on the east of the fire ; they proceeded 
 resplendent on the path of the gods. Entire in all 
 parts and girded with rings, they appear upon the 
 earth like the horns of horned cattle, hearing their 
 praises by the priests : may they protect us in battle. 
 Yanaspati, mount up with a hundred branches, that 
 we may mount with a thousand, thou whom the 
 sharpened hatchet has brought for great auspicious- 
 ness.' Or take the deification of doors in the words : 
 ' Let the great divine doors, the promoters of worship, 
 holy, and dear to many, stand open, without touching 
 each other' (i. 142, 6). In the preceding stanza the 
 sacrificial grass is honoured in the same manner. 
 Again, Pushan is addressed (iv. 30, 24), 'May the 
 toothless deity bestow the desired wealth,' because at 
 Daksha's sacrifice his teeth had been knocked out by 
 Virbhadra's followers. Further, the implements of 
 war are worshipped in a hymn specially dedicated 
 to the arrow. 'Weapons, persons, and implements 
 employed in war are considered as the deities,' is the 
 heading given to the hymn by Professor Wilson. 
 The arrow has a feathery wing, and the horn of the 
 
 p 
 
-*7 
 
 r 
 
 226 The Veilic Religion. 
 
 deer for its point, c bound to it with the sinews of the 
 cow.' It is addressed : ' Arrow, whetted by charms, 
 fly when discharged; go, light amongst the adver- 
 saries ; spare not one of the enemy.' The concluding 
 prayer is not very Christian : ' Whoever, whether an 
 unfriendly relative or a stranger, desires to kill us, 
 may all the gods destroy him : prayer is my best 
 armour.' 
 
 Then, besides, there are such extraordinary incon- 
 sistencies as to who these gods are, and what their 
 relation to one another. Angiras, for example, is in 
 some texts identified with Agni, in others he is 
 represented as the father of Agni, and, yet again, in 
 others as his son. 1 Such instances could be greatly 
 multiplied, and others may be culled from the pre- 
 ceding pages. 
 
 The ridiculous manner in which the gods are 
 addressed, or speak of themselves, is very damaging 
 to the claims of the Eig-Veda. Vasishtha addresses 
 Indra ' desirous of milking thee like a milch cow at 
 pasture, Vasishtha has let loose his prayers to thee.' 2 
 And his goddess queen Indrani cries out, 'This 
 mischievous creature treats me with disdain, as if I 
 had no husband or sons, and yet I am the wife of 
 Indra, and the mother of a hero,' etc. In the same 
 hymn she is spoken of ' as the most fortunate of all 
 these females, for never at any future time shall her 
 husband die from decay.' 3 Poor Indrani, both she 
 
 1 i. 1, G; 33, 1. 2 vii. IS, 4. 3 x. 86, 6. 
 
Conclusion. 227 
 
 and her husband have been dead for many ages, and 
 embalmed in the pages of the Eig-Veda. Indra seems 
 to have had more than one wife. In iv. 16, 10, he 
 is said to have conquered the enemies of the royal 
 Eishi Kutsha, and thereafter to have brought Kutsha 
 to his (Indra's) palace, and Sachi, the wife of Indra, 
 could not tell which of the two was her husband, as 
 they were both exactly alike. 1 
 
 Nothing, indeed, could appear more degrading to the 
 divine nature than some of the pictures given of the 
 gods and goddesses of the Vedic Aryans, unless it be 
 those given by their successors, the Puranic Hindus. 
 The Eig-Veda consists very largely of just the deified 
 forces of nature figured by a depraved imagination, 
 and frequently fired by the worst of passions. And 
 we are asked to fall down and worship these, simply 
 because there are to be found in them various con- 
 flicting ideas of God, or in the worship some traces of 
 a pure conception and of a holy worship. Why, such 
 polytheism may be worse than atheism, as Professor 
 Blackie shows. ' That man,' says he, ' is a traitor and 
 a rebel, not only who pastes a public proclamation up 
 in the market-place that the king has no right to 
 reign, but much more rather the man who refuses to 
 pay the taxes, disdains the accepted tokens of homage 
 and draws his sword for the head of his own clan, 
 and in the cause of his own kinship only, not for the 
 head of the State. So, if the celebrated Macdonald 
 
 1 Wilson, vol. iii. p. 148. 
 
228 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 of the Isles lost his haughty position in the Hebridean 
 seas, was fined of his lordship, and swept all his clan 
 with himself into ruin, as the natural issue of reiterated 
 attempts to shake off the legitimate authority of the 
 monarch to whom he had sworn fealty, in the same 
 way it may be in the religious world, that if any 
 people prostrate themselves before gods which are no 
 ods. and whose intervention hinders the true God 
 
 i5 ' 
 
 from being seen and recognised, they may be guilty 
 of a conduct which is practically as bad, or even 
 worse, than absolute atheism.' Such is the conduct 
 of those who set up Indra, Agni, or Brahma to be 
 worshipped, simply because they are Indian, and 
 consequently ' National,' and thus prevent the people 
 from knowing and worshipping the one true God. 
 Such a religion may in certain circumstances be 
 worse than no religion. The Hindu conception of the 
 Divine Being has oscillated between the base low 
 gods of mythology and the merely absolute, uncon- 
 ditioned, unconscious existence of metaphysics ; and 
 both conceptions prevent our seeing the holy, just, 
 and good Father and Ruler of the universe. Both 
 are consequently to be condemned and to be warned 
 against. 
 
 The presence and the character of the Vedic god- 
 desses increase the difficulties. Though Indrani be 
 the wife of Indra and the mother of heroes, she does 
 not command much respect. 
 
 2. There is about an equally erroneous conception 
 
Conclusion. 229 
 
 of man, his duties and his relations to other men. In 
 the Veda, mail is generally looked upon as essentially 
 of this world. He is constantly represented as taken 
 up with the things of this world, what he sees, hears, 
 tastes, and feels in it, the glowing of the fire, the 
 flashing of the lightning, the howling of the storm, 
 the rushing of the wind, the splash of the rain, the 
 rising and setting of the sun, the dawning and gloam- 
 ing of the day, the -number of his cows, camels, sons, 
 and horses, the burning of his enemies' towns and the 
 carrying of booty, the slaughter of the Dasyas and 
 Kakshasas, the offering of ylii and Soma to Indra and 
 Agui in the hope of receiving more sons and cattle 
 and slaughtering more enemies. These and suchlike 
 "things seem to constitute the whole duty of man as 
 he is represented in the hymns of the Rig- Veda. As 
 a matter of fact, there is no attempt in the Vedas, or 
 indeed in modern Hinduism, to give a correct concep- 
 tion of man's duties. The attempt, as far as any is 
 made, generally misleads, as in the whole doctrine of 
 caste, from its origin in the race distinctions of Aryan 
 and non- Aryan to the endless ramifications of it in 
 the present day. The Hindu religion throughout its 
 whole history was regarded as far above such petty 
 considerations as social duties. The duties of life 
 were not inculcated in the ancient Vedic hymns, nor 
 are they now taught in any Hindu temple. The gods 
 never insist on their discharge, nor are there any 
 prayers in the Veda to any god or goddess for help 
 
ra 
 
 230 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 to enable the worshipper to discharge them. Hence 
 morality and religion are completely severed in Hindu 
 lives. And hence the fearful and bloodthirsty prayers 
 to be met with in the Veda for the extermination of 
 the non- Aryan races, and even of some Aryans, and 
 the spirit of animosity cherished by some Eishis 
 against others. A Vasishtha commentator leaves 
 passages of the Fag-Veda unexpounded, because a 
 curse is recorded in them against him and his family- 
 Yet this bitter enmity is said to have originated in 
 Vasishtha having at one time been appointed chief 
 priest, instead of Visvaniitra, by one of the petty 
 kings of the time. 
 
 The relation of the sexes to one another is far from 
 satisfactory, though much better than in modern 
 Hinduism. 
 
 It has been well said, that if a person accustomed 
 to compare and reflect were to read the whole of the 
 Old Testament through, and 'were to state what two 
 things struck him more than anything else as charac- 
 teristic of it, he would answer, (1) Zeal for the unity 
 of God, and (2) zeal for righteousness ; or both in two 
 words, ' Ethical monotheism.' Xow in the Veda there 
 is zeal for neither. There is neither ethics nor 
 righteousness. In our survey, I think, I have made 
 it very clear that instead of simple monotheism we 
 have rank polytheism and the ethics is all but 
 absent altogether. Dr. Caldwell has certainly stated 
 my experience when he says, ' If any person reads 
 
Conclusion. 231 
 
 the hymns of the Vedas for the first time, he will be 
 struck with surprise at the utterly worldly, unethical, 
 unspiritual tone by which they are generally pervaded.' 
 A religion of such a character had not sufficient 
 amount of the salt of truth in it to preserve it from 
 death, rottenness, and putrefaction. Hence what 
 Baron Bunsen calls the ' great tragedy of India and 
 of humanity/ the tragic catastrophe which landed the 
 great bulk of the population in one of the most 
 polluted forms of undisguised idolatry and of mon- 
 strous and cruel heathenism, and the few in a search 
 after alitfihilation as the only refuge left, the single 
 hope of man. Whatever may have been the inten- 
 tion of these hymns, they have become the parents of 
 the rankest idolatry, the most unblushing atheism, 
 and the most comprehensive pantheism. The parents 
 are dead. What remains of them are these children, 
 they themselves now suffering from the decrepitude 
 of age. Of the hymns, we have simply the dead 
 relics enshrined under the foundations of systems of 
 thought and worship with which, in their life, they 
 had no sympathy or likeness. But to proceed : 
 
 3. While most of the authors of these hymns have 
 set up for themselves no claims of being inspired, the 
 claims set up in their behalf by their successors are 
 so inconsistent with one another, or so absurd in 
 themselves, that no one can nowadays accept any 
 of them. Vasishtha thus sings his own and Agni's 
 praises: 'Vasishtha, illustrious in both heaven and 
 
232 The Vcdic Ecligion. 
 
 earth, rich \vith hundreds and thousands heads of 
 cattle, has addressed this hymn to Agni. that such 
 fame- conferring, fiend-destroying hymn may be the 
 means of happiness to the eulogist and their kindred.' 1 
 Again, ' Well - kindled Agni, for thee the prayer 
 (brahma) has been composed,' or in other words, 
 ' The prayer a praise has been made ' a statement, 
 as Prof. Wilson remarks, rather unfavourable to the 
 doctrine of the uncreated origin of the Veda. Another 
 sings, ' I compose to Agni, the son of might, a most 
 invigorating and entirely new hymn and a prayer 
 expressed in words.' 2 Some of these hymns were 
 composed really to glorify men, as for example i. 126, 
 which begins, ' I compose with delight no mean 
 hymns to Bhavya who lives on the Indus, which 
 indomitable king, desiring renown, performed a 
 thousand Sonia sacrifices for my benefit. ... I, Kak- 
 shivat, accepted a hundred bulls of the great king.' 3 
 But it is unnecessary to multiply such texts. There 
 is not a particle of evidence, internal or external, for 
 the inspiration of these hymns. For, 
 
 4. The miracles recorded were never intended to 
 be used as evidences of any kind. They cannot carry 
 themselves, and still less anything else. They have 
 no historical or moral evidence of any kind in their 
 favour, and they were not intended to have. They 
 are too absurd to be believed in by any who has col- 
 
 1 vii. 8, 6. - iv. 6, 11 ; Wilson's E.-V., vol. iii. p. 134. 
 
 3 i. 143, 1. 
 
Conclusion. 233 
 
 lected or compared them. The miracle of creation is 
 not given as a miracle, but as a tradition believed in, 
 and received solely as such. 
 
 5. But, to my mind, the most damaging feature to 
 the Eig- Veda's being regarded as a true religion, is 
 the utter absence of any clear or definite information 
 as to any reasonable way or manner by which men 
 may be saved from sin, and all its fearful conse- 
 quences. Though not formally stated, the way 
 indicated is the composing of hymns laudatory of the 
 gods, and the offering of Soma libations to the same. 
 These seem to be the most efficacious, unless one be 
 able to offer horses ; but even these latter in Vedic 
 times seemed to have had no pre-eminence over the 
 hynrn and the Soma juice. No one, nowadays, 
 would look at either as having any pretensions what- 
 ever to be regarded as reasonable means of salvation. 
 
 It is rather remarkable that repentance has no 
 place in such a scheme, nor have good works, labours 
 of love, or acts of charity towards the poor, the _^ 
 widow, or the orphan. There is no saviour, properly ^ 
 so called, proclaimed, and none is promised. There -^ 
 is no one set forth as an authoritative teacher on the -3, 
 subject. No Eishi, as far as I ain aware, has ever 
 claimed to be commissioned by God, or by the gods, 
 or any of the gods, to enlighten men in regard to 
 his will concerning men, or men's duties to God, or 
 to one another. No one claimed to have any 
 authoritative announcement to make as to whence 
 
234 The Vedic Edujion, 
 
 man came, or whither he is going, what his chief end 
 here or hereafter. Though I have met thousands 
 of Hindus who profess to revere the Big- Veda as the 
 highest religious authority, I have not met a single 
 person who professes to guide his life by the examples 
 or precepts therein recorded, or perform the religious 
 rites or ceremonies, or worship the gods and goddesses 
 of the Kig-Veda. I am aware that there are a few 
 believers in Agni still to be met with, 1 but I have 
 met none. And I question if any of them worship 
 Agni according to the hymns of the Eig-Veda. They 
 are mere fossils of a past age. The worship of Agni 
 brings with it the worship of the whole Vedic Pan- 
 theon, as will be seen from his very character for 
 
 1 The two main divisions of the present Hindu worshippers of 
 Agui are the (A.) Shagnika and (B.) Niragnika. 
 
 (A.) Shagnika worshippers are of two sorts, (a) Jatagnika and 
 (b) Grihitagnika. 
 
 () A Jatagnika is one whose birthday ceremony is performed with 
 fire which is kindled before his umbilical cord is cut, and which is 
 preserved and worshipped daily till his death, when he is burned 
 with the same fire. 
 
 (b) A Grihitagnika worshipper kindles fire at a Darsapaurna 
 mashika yaya (a ceremony extending over a whole lunar month), and 
 preserves it alive till his death, when he is burned with it. 
 
 These worshippers of the two classes are very nearly, if not alto- 
 gether, extinct. 
 
 (B. ) A Niragnika worshipper does not preserve alive the fire con - 
 tinuously, but kindles it at the time of sacrifice or Homa. This Homa 
 is essentially necessary at the time of the investment of the so-called 
 holy thread or poita ; and of the marriage of a twice-born. It is 
 also part of the great worships or poojahs, such as the Doorga poojah, 
 etc. ceremonials which require a pratistha such as brata, and graha- 
 yaya or the propitiation of the nine planets (including sun and moon). 
 In a Homa, Agni is first invoked or invited. He is then requested 
 
Conclusion. 235 
 
 ' three hundred, three thousand, aud thirty-nine gods 
 worshipped Agni.' l 
 
 The defence which some set up of heno theism will 
 not stand any more for the Vedic religion than for 
 modern Hinduism. It has been well said a man 
 cannot grasp ten branches of a large tree all at once, 
 so he cannot worship 330,000,000 gods and god- 
 desses ; he has therefore to rest satisfied in worship- 
 ping one, whether it be Agni, Brahma, Siva, or 
 Krishna, leaving the others more or less neglected. 
 
 a No theory can be set up that will explain the 
 llig-Veda, as a whole, in such a way as to commend 
 it in our day, as a religion to be practised, with any 
 expectation of eternal or even temporal benefit to the 
 soul of man. 
 
 In a lecture delivered lately in Calcutta, and which 
 made a good deal of noise at the time, not only in 
 
 Bengal but throughout all India, twelve points were 
 singled out as establishing a claim to regard Hindu- 
 ism as superior to all other religions. The second of 
 
 to be seated, and afterwards, on being purified, he is worshipped. 
 ULi, or clarified butter, is made pure by the chanting of mantras, 
 and is then poured on the fire as a sacrifice to Agni, and through him 
 to the other gods. After the sacrifice is over, Agni is worshipped with 
 a mantra. This is a brief description of a Homa. There are now 
 living in Bengal many who perform these sacrifices. 
 x - It must, however, be admitted that almost all Hindus still worship 
 the sun. They do so at the beginning of eveiy religious act. I 
 see them so engaged every day, especially at the time of bathing. 
 The repetition of the Gayatri (see above, pp. 12, 93) is really a 
 worshipping of the sun. 
 
 1 iii. 9. See Wilson, vol. iii. p. 7. 
 
236 The Vcdic Eetigion. 
 
 these was, ' that it does not acknowledge a mediator 
 between the object of devotion and the worshipper.' 
 Now Agni most clearly occupied this position of 
 mediator between the worshipper and ' the older gods/ 
 he himself being regarded as 'one of the younger 
 gods ' employed specially in the capacity of mediator. 
 Further, the same lecturer adds ' The idea of Nubcc 
 or prophet is peculiar to the Semitic religions.' This 
 is not true, as Keshub Chunder Sen so forcibly proves. 
 The word prophet, as used in the Bible and in Chris- 
 tian literature, is by no means confined to the office 
 of foretelling. It means one who tells and teaches 
 God's will, one who informs us in regard to God with 
 authority from God. And this is exactly the claim 
 which Hinduism, all these years, has been making in 
 behalf of all its Eishis, as well as the authors of the 
 Puranas, including what are called Itihashes, the 
 liamayau, and the Mahabharata, and by many even 
 the authors of the Tantras. 
 
 I may also refer to another claim which the same 
 Bengali lecturer set up for the superiority of Hindu- 
 ism. It is his fifth : ( That the Scriptures of other 
 nations inculcate the practice of piety and virtue for 
 the sake of eternal happiness, while Hinduism main- 
 tains that we should worship God for the sake of 
 God alone, and practise virtue for the sake of virtue.' 
 The lecturer must have been either totally ignorant 
 of what he was speaking, or else he must have been 
 speaking in irony, or intentionally trying to humbug 
 
Conclusion. 237 
 
 his audience. Why, the most marked feature of the 
 Vedic hymns is their inculcation of piety, not for the 
 sake of God, but for the sake of cows, sons, riches, 
 and food all temporal good. The sixth is on a par 
 with the fifth. It is, ' that the Hindu Scriptures 
 inculcate universal benevolence.' Benevolence to the 
 non- Aryan ! 1 Enough. Yet this is the lecture that 
 received a notice even in the London Times, the 
 writer of which says that the incident ' shows how 
 necessary it is to have an able and thoroughly educated 
 class of men as missionaries in India.' I think it is 
 time that an effort be made to disabuse the Hindu 
 mind of the pretensions set up for Hinduism, as far 
 as these are founded on the Veda. It requires some 
 knowledge of Hinduism, as found in the Vedas, to 
 separate the truth from the fiction in the following, 
 which is from the same pen : ' The lecturer then 
 proceeded to show the especial excellence of Gyan 
 Kanda, or the superior portion of Hinduism, as testi- 
 fied in its ideas of the nature of God and of revela- 
 tion, its disbelief in incarnation and mediation, its 
 rejection of all ritual observances, the stress which 
 
 1 Tndra, ' the hero and protector of the fair-complexioned Aryans, 
 and the enemy and destroyer of the black-complexioned aborigines. 
 ... He was thus a national deity, showering gifts upon his wor- 
 shippers, but trampling upon those who gave him no libations, as a 
 strong man tramples upon a coiled-up snake. He slew his enemies by 
 thousands, and destroyed their cities by hundreds ; he brought back 
 the spoil and recovered the cows which they had carried away. His 
 worshippers called upon him to hasten, assail, subdue ; to destroy 
 his enemies with the thunderbolt.' Wheeler's History of India, 
 vol. i. p. 15. 
 
238 The Vtilie fol if/ion > 
 
 it lays on Dhyan, or the contemplation of God, as 
 transcending the inferior offices of prayer and praise, 
 and its having no appointed time or place of worship, 
 and recognising no pilgrimages to distant shrines.' 
 Of course the Eig-Veda is the first and highest of all 
 the Hindu Shasters, even the highest of the highest, 
 the Srutis. Yet it recognises incarnation, mediation, 
 ritual observances, and appointed times for worship ; 
 and prayer and praise do not occupy inferior places, 
 but the very highest, as the most superficial know- 
 ledge of the Eig-Veda must convince even the most 
 prejudiced against it. As to appointed times the Eig 
 does not say much, but what does the lecturer think 
 of the following hymn : 
 
 ' 1. Agni, accept our offering, the cake, Yatave- 
 das, at the morning libation, thou rich in prayer. 
 
 ( 2} The baked cake, Agni, is prepared for thee 
 alone indeed ; accept it, youngest of all the gods. 
 
 ' 3. Agni, eat the cake, offered to thee when tlw 
 day is over ; thou art the son of strength, stationed at 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 ' 4. At. the midday Illation, Yatavedas, accept 
 here the cake ; sage Agni, the wise do not diminish 
 at the share of thee, who art great. 
 
 ' 5. Agni, as thou lovest at the third libation the 
 cake, son of strength, that is offered to thee, there- 
 fore, moved by our praise, take this precious oblation 
 to the immortal gods to rouse them. 
 
 ' 6. Agni, thou who art growing, accept, 
 
Conclusion. 239 
 
 Yatavedas, the offering, the cake, at the dose of 
 day: 
 
 The Book and the temple of Hinduism are both 
 shut to the Children of men. The highest and best, 
 the holiest and most philanthropic, were excluded. 
 Right of admission was not founded on such con- 
 siderations as either character or conduct, likeness to 
 God, or brotheiiiness towards men. The Christian 
 Book and the Christian Church are opened to all, 
 without distinction of race, country, colour, or nation- 
 ality. The Bible, though not Indian, has been trans- 
 lated into almost every language of India, the Piig- 
 Veda into not one. A commencement has been made 
 with regard to a Bengali * and a Marathi translation ; 
 but not many of the present generation are likely to 
 see either completed. If the Vedic religion be able 
 to save from sin and its dire results, the blood of 
 many is on the heads of those pundits who profess 
 to have the key of knowledge, and have never opened 
 the door. The Christian and the European have 
 forced the key out of the hands of those who entered 
 not themselves and would not allow others to enter, 
 and they have entered and found the place filled 
 with dead men's bones and a few mummies of some 
 beauty, which are now being placed in our museums. 
 How different is all this from Christianity, within 
 whose portals all are invited, and when you enter you 
 
 1 The Bengali translation was discontinued two years ago, and the 
 Marathi has only just finished the first of ten Books. Aug. 1881. 
 
240 The Vedic Religion. 
 
 find life, light, love and law, beauty and order 3 You 
 meet there in loving embrace Aryan and non- Aryan, 
 all the races of men glorifying one loving Father. I 
 have never met with a single Vedic hymn, or a selec- 
 tion of such, put into circulation by a Hindu for the 
 instruction or spiritual edification of the millions who 
 profess to venerate it. Whatever circulation these 
 have attained, they have found at the hands of Chris- 
 tians. What a contrast this to the action of our 
 various Bible Societies ! 
 
 I must forbear. I have said enough to convince 
 any one open to conviction, that the Eig-Veda, what- 
 ever its beauties and its truths may be (and these, as 
 we shall presently see, are neither very few nor 
 unimportant), cannot be received in our day as God- 
 given. It must be rejected as a false religion by 
 every true son of man who thoroughly knows it. 
 8 Let us now proceed, then, to the pleasanter task of 
 considering some of its truths, its beauties, that must 
 commend it, so far, to the truly pious of all ages. 
 For as one ' finds tongues in trees, books in the 
 running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every- 
 thing,' so one finds truths of much importance and 
 beauties of some value in the hymns of the Eig-Veda. 
 My study of the Eig-Veda has convinced me that 
 there are in it things that suggest, if they do not 
 prove, that at the beginning a revelation was given 
 bjr God to man of himself, of his will concerning 
 man, and of the duties of man towards God and 
 
Conclusion. !24i 
 
 towards his brother man. Before closing my remarks, 
 I would like to indicate some of these. 
 
 1). Precise, as we have seen, forms a largo part of 
 the Rig-Veda. It is laudatory of the divine. The 
 gods are praised for what they are, and for what they 
 have done for man. This praise is invariably in 
 metre, set to music. I think this is primitive and sug- 
 gestive of the true religion. It is a formal dedication 
 of the sense of music, which is original, to the highest 
 and holiest purpose. Metre and music were evidently 
 largely developed at the time when the Sanhita was 
 written, but the talent was original, and early conse- 
 crated to God's service. It is still more developed 
 now, but yet its connection with God's praise con- 
 tinues, and will, I believe, continue throughout all 
 eternity. 
 
 2 K Prayrr. About equally prominent in the Veda 
 is the element of prayer, implying trust and confi- 
 dence in the divine. All religion implies this. 
 Without faith no one can worship God aright ; and 
 faith in him leads at once to prayer to him, prayer 
 always for the supply of man's most pressing wants 
 and the removal of his greatest sources of trouble. 
 The Kishis were troubled more with the physical and 
 the carnal. Hence their prayers had more to do with 
 such. But as to the fact of prayer why, they were 
 apparently ' praying without ceasing.' Would that 
 their descendants were equally mindful of prayer, 
 and equally earnest in the practice of it ! Not mere 
 
 Q 
 
-42 The Vcdic Rdiyivn. 
 
 forms, but downright earnest prayer in the firm faith 
 that they would be answered. Still it was prayer in 
 the dark. Tor they were but 
 
 ' Infants crying in the night : 
 Infants crying for the light : 
 And with no language but a cry.' 
 3. Sacrifice. There is something mysterious in 
 regard to the nature and position of the Vedic sacri- 
 fices, whether they be cakes, soma, bulls, horses, the 
 human or the divine. They sacrificed morning, noon, 
 evening, and night, with new and full moon, to get 
 rid of sin ; but their experience may be described in 
 the words of the well-known hymn (with the change 
 of one word) : 
 
 ' Not all the blood of beasts, 
 
 On Aryan altars slain, 
 Could give the guilty conscience peace, 
 
 Or wash away the stain.' 
 
 They seem to have had an idea of this, and at the 
 same time a faint recollection of some great doctrine 
 taught them in the past concerning the 'Lord of 
 creatures' himself, whose death was to be immor- 
 tality to men, and who was to be the sacrifice for 
 men. 
 
 Whether this be true or not, there are, undoubt- 
 edly, references to sacrifices by the divinities them- 
 selves, of themselves, for the benefit of glorified 
 men ; for so, it is held, is the meaning of such 
 texts as ; ' The gods, in performing their sacrifice, 
 
Conclusion. 243 
 
 bound Purusha [a divine being] as victim.' The 
 hymn from which the above is an extract is known 
 as the Piirusha hymn, the 90th of the 10th Book. 
 In the 121st hymn of the same Book, Hirauya- 
 garbha, who is identified as Prajapati, the Lord of 
 creatures, is called Atmada (giver of self), ' whose 
 shadow, whose death, is immortality to us.' Else- 
 where it is said that Prajapati, ' the Lord of creatures, 
 offered himself a sacrifice for the Devas,' who, as we 
 have said, were glorified men. In hymn x. 81, Yis- 
 vakarman, ' the lord of speech,' is also said to have 
 ' offered himself a sacrifice to himself,' or, as Nirukta 
 explains it, ' the omniscient (for that is the meaning 
 of the name) Creator first of all offered up all worlds 
 in a general sacrifice, and ended by sacrificing him- 
 self.' In the absence of any other more reasonable 
 explanation of the Vedic sacrifices generally, and of 
 the Puruslia or Prajapati sacrifice in particular, I 
 conclude, with the learned and venerable Dr. K. M. 
 Banerjea, that in these sacrifices we find traces of 
 'a primitive tradition of the Lamb slain from the 
 foundation of the world.' 
 
 As an illustration of the power of sacrifice, take 
 the story of the leading Brahman a of the Ixig : l 
 ' The gods and demons were engaged in warfare. 
 The evil demons, like to mighty kings, 
 Made these worlds castles ; then they formed 
 the earth 
 l Aitarcya Brahmana, Hiiug's Edition, i. 23, 
 
244 The Vcclic Religion. 
 
 Into an iron citadel, the air 
 Into a silver fortress, and the sky 
 Into a fort of gold. Whereat the gods 
 Said to each other, " Frame we other worlds 
 In opposition to these fortresses." 
 Then they constructed sacrificial places, 
 Where they performed a triple burnt oblation. 
 ]>y the first sacrifice they drove the demons 
 Out of their earthly fortress, by the second 
 Out of the air, and by the third oblation 
 Out of the sky. Thus were the evil spirits 
 Chased by the gods in triumph from the 
 
 worlds.' * 
 
 Dr. Banerjea classifies the Yedic uses of the sacri- 
 fice as follows : (1) The sacrifice! 1 was identified with 
 the victim, as the ransom for sin ; (2) Sacrifice was 
 the great remedy for the ills of life, the ship or ark 
 by which we escape sin and all worldly perils ; and 
 (3) Sacrifice was the instrument by which sin and 
 death are annulled and abolished. In proof of the 
 first he quotes the words : ' The sacrifice!' is himself 
 the victim. It takes the very sacrificer himself to 
 heaven.' 2 The Brahman commentator explains: 'The 
 animal being for the redemption of the sacrificer, it 
 leads the sacrifice!' himself to heaven.' So again, 
 'Even by this the sacrificer redeems himself.' 3 'The 
 
 1 Monier "Williams' Indian Wisdom, p. 32, 
 " Taittiriya Brakmana, pp. 202, 448. 
 3 Aitarcya Brakmana, p. 27. 
 
Conclusion. 245 
 
 sacrifice! 1 kills on the day previous to the Soma 
 festival an animal devoted to Agni-Sorna, thus re- 
 deeming himself from the obligation of being himself 
 sacrificed. He then brings his Soma sacrifice, after 
 having thus redeemed himself and become free from 
 debts. Thence the sacrificer ought not to eat of tho 
 flesh of this (animal).' 
 
 We have already quoted enough in support of the 
 second position. I have also quoted above that 
 remarkable passage in support of the third, in which 
 the sacrifice is represented as the annulment of sin, 
 not only of the sacrificer's own sins, but of the sins 
 of all dcvas and men, that is to say, of the whole 
 world, suggestive of the Lamb slain from the founda- 
 tion of the world, and who is a propitiation ' not for 
 our sins only, but for the whole world.' 
 
 4. In the traditions of the Creation, the Deluge, 
 etc., and more particularly the first of these, we find, 
 I think, traces of the primitive religion. I have 
 given the tradition of the creation above, as recorded 
 in one of the hymns, and would now only draw 
 attention to the resemblance subsisting between it 
 and the account given in Genesis. Let one observe 
 the position which darkness, water, the abyss, the 
 brooding spirit or energy above, and Nature beneath, 
 occupy in both, and he must be persuaded that they 
 must have had a common origin, and that origin 
 none other than that recorded in the first chapters of 
 Genesis. 
 
24G The Vedic Religion. 
 
 ^ 
 
 5. The. depravation of the I ndo- Art/an* conceptions 
 
 of the Divine. We have in the Rig comparatively 
 pure and lofty conceptions of the divine; but we 
 have also very ignoble, gross, and mean ideas. There 
 are undoubted forms of fetishism to be met with ; 
 there are other texts that might, in the absence of 
 all others, be regarded as monotheistic. Which of 
 these is the oldest and which the latest ? I think 
 the evidence hitherto produced goes very clearly to 
 prove that the best is the oldest. These are associ- 
 ated with Varuna and Dyaus ; and they are spoken 
 of as ' the oldest of the gods.' Whatever fetishism 
 manifests itself in the Eig- Veda is very plainly a 
 much later growth than these older gods. Such 
 worship as we observe given to rivers, posts, water, 
 grass, doors, the hymns under the name of Brahma, 
 etc., is evidently of a more modern origin. 
 
 There is something of the old truth to be found even 
 in fetishism as a worship of the phenomena of Nature, 
 or the works of God, in which there is something to 
 be venerated, as the poetic feelings of some of the 
 greatest of men in all ages of the world have felt. 
 It was so with Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth, Cowper. 
 Of course there may be much of this without any 
 true religion, but it generally accompanies the 
 highest and the most complete manifestations of the 
 true religion. And so it is also with polytheism, or 
 the worship of the many as distinguished from the 
 worship of the one, God does manifest Himself in 
 
Conclusion. 247 
 
 the many, manifoldly. The plural was used from 
 the beginning in connection with the name and 
 nature of God, and so far there is truth even in 
 polytheism; and all the truth that is in it finds a 
 place in Christianity, in whose idea of God there is 
 plurality as well as unity, a trinity in unity and a 
 unity in trinity. The sin of fetishism and of poly- 
 theism is one. It is placing something before the 
 eye, even though that be God's- creature and in itself 
 good, true, and beautiful, so as to prevent the wor- 
 shipper from seeing God in his beauty, and worship- 
 ping Him who is a Spirit in spirit and in truth. 
 
 More of God was seen in the worship of the earlier 
 gods of the Big than in the later. Max Miiller 
 asserts this very plainly in his History of Sanskrit 
 Literature : ' There is a monotheism that precedes 
 the polytheism of the Veda, and even in the invoca- 
 tions of their innumerable gods the remembrance of a 
 God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of an 
 idolatrous phraseology, like the blue sky that is 
 hidden by passing clouds.' The same doctrine, in 
 spite of other things which seem to contradict, 
 appears in his latest iitterance the sixth of the 
 Hillcrt Lectures, where he says : ' The ancient Aryans 
 felt from the beginning, ay, it may be, more in the 
 beginning than afterwards, the presence of a "beyond, 
 of an infinite, of a divine, or whatever else we may 
 call it now ; and they tried to grasp and comprehend 
 it, as we all do, by giving to it name after name/ 
 
248 The, Vcdic Religion. 
 
 The history of the rise of Brahma given above (pp. 116, 
 186, 192) proves very conclusively the depravation 
 to which the conception of the divine was subjected. 
 One of the latest additions to the Hindu Pantheon 
 must have been Jagannath in Orissa. It was 
 originally a fetish of the non- Aryan forest -men. 
 The common story current in Cuttack as given by 
 Dr. Hunter proves this. It shows how ' the bhie 
 god,' Nil Madhub, of the aboriginal fowler, became 
 the Jagannath, the Lord of the World, of the 
 Brahman. The non-caste food of the Mahaprasad, 
 even though now the non- Aryan himself is excluded, 
 is a natural fruit of its non- Aryan origin. Hinduism 
 is very receptive. Many of its gods were those 
 originally of the aboriginal fetish-worshippers. The 
 processions of Jagannath's car, and even the shape of 
 the idol, are said to have been of Buddhistic origin ; 
 and just as Hinduism is ever ready to receive and 
 borrow from outside, so it is also equally ready to 
 throw away what it no longer uses. All the Vedic 
 gods are really disposed of. They are no longer 
 worshipped. Agni is scarcely an exception. The 
 Veda itself was really buried, and if Europeans had 
 not resuscitated it, it would have remained buried. 
 Some of its words are still, no doubt, used in the 
 daily sacrifice by every Brahman, but used unintelli- 
 gibly, as mere cabalistic sounds. The Gayatri is still 
 repeated every morning by the orthodox Brahman, 
 but scarcely one in a hundred knows its meaning. 
 
Conclusion. 249 
 
 Altogether, I think, the Rig- Veda supports Lessing's 
 position in his work on The Education of Mankind : 
 'Even if the first man was immediately furnished 
 with a conception of the one true God, this conception, 
 which was communicated and not acquired, could not 
 possibly remain long in its purity. As soon as human 
 reason, left to itself, began to work upon this con- 
 ception, it dissected the one Infinite Being into many 
 finite ones, and gave a characteristic to each of these 
 parts. Thus polytheism and idolatry naturally arose.' 
 Hence the absolute necessity of a family being 
 specially set apart and instructed to preserve it pure. 
 Professor Ebrard claims to have proved, in his learned 
 \vork on Apoloydics, that there is found ' in all the 
 civilised peoples of antiquity, and in proportion as 
 we ascend into the past, a greater approximation to 
 the knowledge of the one, living, holy God, in con- 
 junction with a more vivid ethical consciousness of 
 the difference between good and evil, and a more 
 ardent longing for an expected Redeemer ; and that 
 as we come down the course of time, we mark a 
 depravation of this primitive religion, owing to the 
 diminution of moral earnestness, so that the knowledge 
 of God is corrupted into gross polytheism, which in 
 some peoples passes over into pantheism; and along 
 with this religious depravation we mark a growing 
 moral degeneracy, notwithstanding all outward ad- 
 vances in the arts, in civilisation, and culture. And 
 when we engage in the investigation of savage nations, 
 
250 The Vedic Religion, 
 
 of their conditions, languages, and traditions, we find 
 here too, where we possess any reliable data to proceed 
 on, a constant sinking lower and lower, and at the same 
 time, almost everywhere, reminiscences of an older 
 and better state; and here and there we meet with 
 visible monuments which bear witness to this former 
 higher condition.' There are in the Big-Veda, I 
 think, what goes very far to prove the truth of all 
 this. Though scarcely belonging to my subject, T 
 ran hardly withhold all reference to the Weddas, a 
 thoroughly savage race in Ceylon, who are believed 
 to be descended from the comparatively civilised 
 Aryan followers of Bama, But I must hurry on to 
 ^remark on, 
 
 G. The Resurrection of the lody. The wise men of 
 mediaeval Hinduism, as well of the heathenism of 
 Greek and Home, used to speak rather slightingly of 
 the body, if not indeed contemptuously. Many modern 
 Hindus are apt to do the same. So also do positivists 
 in regard to the bodies of the great mass of men ; the 
 soul, as immortal and immaterial, they deny altogether. 
 Christians, all along, have spoken respectfully of the 
 body and treated it accordingly, as they hold all 
 the work of God should. But, further, they looked 
 forward, beyond death and the grave, to a renewed 
 association with a glorified, risen, spiritualized body. 
 As God is the God of Abraham, so he is our God, 
 not of the soul only, but of ourselves body, soul, and 
 spirit, without distinction in all our substantial parts 
 
Conclusion. 251 
 
 and attributes. We cannot determine in what exact 
 sense our bodies will be, at the resurrection, the same 
 bodies that we have at present, because we have no 
 idea what constitutes identity. The elemental or 
 constituent parts do not, for these continually change. 
 The form does not, for it also changes. Yet we have 
 no hesitation in predicating identity of the old man 
 now of eighty and the boy who was only ten, seventy 
 years ago. Thus, though we cannot explain or under- 
 stand, we have no difficulty in believing. Of the 
 essence of matter or of mind we know nothing, as 
 separated from certain attributes or qualities ; and 
 these vary in varying circumstances. (See pp. 52-55.) 
 The Eishis of the Rig- Veda clearly believed in risen 
 bodies. The deified Piibhis had bodies, and so indeed 
 had all the gods. Indra had, in any case, a beautiful 
 nose and chin and a powerful fist. Piishun was 
 toothless, while Agni had dreadful tusks ; and he was 
 particularly careful of the bodies of those committed 
 to his care. They believed that the body was, some- 
 how, purified by fire, but still carried perfect in all 
 its parts to heaven. The Fathers or Pitris were 
 believed to ' rejoice in heaven with all their limbs.' 
 ^i/ &i n and jliscase. The Indo-Aryans of the Eig- 
 Veda period had sad acquaintance with sin, and with 
 disease as the fruit of sin. They spoke of the bonds, 
 the burden, and the darkness of sin. And they spoke 
 of sacrifice as the boat by means of which we might 
 escape over the deluge of sin, True, they could not 
 
252 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 explain how sacrifice could be a boat. They had no 
 knowledge of ' the Lamb slain.' But yet they were 
 conscious of sin, and believed in sacrifice as the means 
 of escape. Was it a gleam they had of the great 
 coming Sacrifice, or a dream of the primitive reve- 
 lation given to their own ancestors ? They were 
 groping in the darkness. Was it of the passing day 
 and the coming night, or of the passing night and 
 approaching day ? We believe the former. They 
 were, as one of themselves expressed it, ' yearning for 
 Varuna, the far-seeing, their thoughts moved onward 
 as kme move to their pastures.' 1 But, unfortunately 
 for them, they had turned their backs on God, and 
 the more they moved onwards the farther they went 
 from God. Their souls thirsted for God, but to them 
 he was an unknown God. They felt the need of a 
 being, divine and human, who would represent them 
 in the Court of Heaven, and yet would condescend 
 to take up his abode with men on earth. This they 
 thought they found in Agni. 
 
 8. The next point, therefore, to which I would liko 
 to refer in the Rig- Veda as evidential of the primitive 
 religion, is the doctrine of a Mediator, of which we 
 find traces in almost all hymns addressed to Agni. 
 The Piishis addressed themselves directly to the gods, 
 as Christians do to God. Still they continually 
 looked up to Agni as the mediator and the messenger 
 between heaven and earth, between gods and men, 
 
 1 Johnson's Orti'titnl ReHy'ion*, pp. 120-122, 
 
Conclusion. 253 
 
 who, on the one hand, carried the sacrifice and pre- 
 sented it to the gods, and on the other, brought down 
 the gods to men, and brought the expected blessing 
 with him. The Eig-Veda is filled with Agni, 
 
 ' Who bears aloft, 
 And offers to the gods the sacrifice.' 
 
 In him also we think we can find traces of the 
 traditions of Him in Whom all the nations of the 
 earth were to be blessed, and whose heel was to 
 crush the serpent's head. 
 
 From the above it will be seen that Christianity 
 contains the complement and full development of 
 some portions of the Yeclic religion, portions which 
 the Hindus themselves have failed to appreciate. In 
 Christianity is to be found the secret of their sacri- 
 fices, their mediators, their incarnations, their search- 
 ings after the divine, their inspirations and their 
 revelations. Well may we say with the apostle, 
 ' Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare 
 we unto you.' 
 
 , In our investigations into the truth in regard to 
 anything, it is of the greatest importance that we 
 should consider differences as well as points of like- 
 ness. I, for one, am delighted to find what I regard 
 as points of likeness to Christianity in these ancient 
 hymns, and still more to find ' grains of truth ' among 
 so much rubbish ; but I must not shut my eyes to the 
 fact that so very large a portion is rubbish, and that 
 large portions are worse than rubbish, even poisonous 
 
254 The Vcdic Religion. 
 
 weeds, or seeds that very soon developed into coarser 
 forms of undisguised irretrievable idolatry, monstrous, 
 immoral, absurd, and cruel, never varied during these 
 three thousand years except it be by atheism and 
 pantheism ; while, on the other hand, the ( grains of 
 truth ' were the seeds of no spiritual truth to the 
 many millions that succeeded during the ages that 
 followed. These grains were like those of wheat 
 found buried with the mummies of Egypt for thousands 
 of years, useless, dry, and unproductive. Or, changing 
 the figure, the hymns of the Veda might be likened 
 to the dry dead surface of the moon, with its burnt- 
 out and extinct volcanoes, shedding a dim light on 
 the malarious deadly jungles of the Terai, powerless 
 to contend with its poisonous gases; while the Bible 
 is the bright unexhausted sun, shedding its powerful 
 light upon perhaps the same malarious jungle, but 
 rendering its deadly atmosphere iniiocuous and safe, j 
 
 THE books most serviceable to a missionary study - 
 ing the liig-Yeda are, in addition to Aufrecht's and 
 Max Miiller's original texts ; 
 
 /TD Wilson's English Translation, in 4 vols., bringing 
 it down to Mandala, viii. 20. 
 
 2. Langlois' French Translation, complete, 4 Vols. 
 
 ;>. Itosen's Latin Translation of the first Ashtaka. 
 
 4/ Max Miiller's English Translation of various 
 hymns, scattered in his works, and of twelve hymns 
 
Conclusion. 255 
 
 to the Maruts in the 1st vol. of his Translation 
 (1869). The 2d vol. is not yet (1881) published. 
 
 5. Shankar Pundit's English and Marathi Trans- 
 lation, with notes, commentaries, etc. ; 4 vols., of 
 upwards of nine hundred pages each. These volumes, 
 containing in all two hundred and seventy-five hymns, 
 have been published in five years. If it has taken 
 iive years to publish the 275 hymns, when will the 
 1017 be finished ? This work is frequently quoted 
 above under the title Vcdarthayatna. 
 
 6. Itomanath Saras vati's Bengali Translation of the 
 first sixty-one hymns, published during the last five 
 years. 
 
 7< Dr. Bauerjea's very fully English-annotated 
 text of the first thirty-two hymns, prepared for the 
 Calcutta University. 
 
 8/ Dr. Muir's Sanskrit Texts, 5 vols. The original 
 Sanskrit of very many texts is given in the last three 
 vols. in the Roman character, with an English trans- 
 lation. The texts are classified under various heads. 
 
 0. Monier Williams' Indian Wisdom, Hinduism, etc. 
 
 1 0. Weber's History of Indian Literature. 
 
 11, Benfey's German Translation of i. 1-118. 
 
 In addition to these, there are many other books 
 that will be of more or less use to the student. He 
 will find some of them quoted above. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABOKIGINES, 122, 124, ISO, 205, 
 
 210. 
 
 Abstraction ((a}>as), 36. 
 Aditi, 107, 126, 218. 
 Adityas, 109. 
 Age of Veda, 9. 
 Age of Veda M.S.S., 14. 
 Agiii, 73, 107, 128, 136, 148-156, 
 
 200, 217, 232, 234, 238. 
 Ahura, 65, 106, 114, 11)9. 
 Angiras, 123, 226. 
 Angirasas, 51. 
 Aiiindra, 118. 
 Annihilation, 48, 231. 
 Annulment, 75. 
 Apsaras, 126. 
 Ark, 75, 251. 
 Asceticism, 29, 169, 178. 
 Assyrians, 217. 
 A suras, 65, 106, 114, 199. 
 Aswins, 47, 102, 127, 163, 211, 
 
 216. 
 
 A thai- va- Veda, 7, 49, 128, 
 Alharvan, 114. 
 Atheism, 204, 231. 
 Atmada, 86, 243. 
 Atri, 160, 213. 
 Authors of Veda, 8, 13, 95. 
 Avatars, 146. 
 Avesta, 69, 106, 205, 217. 
 
 BEEF, 71. 
 
 Benevolence, 237. 
 
 Body, 52, 54, 250. 
 
 Brahma, 26, 34, 115, 131, 186, 
 
 192, 194, 247. 
 Brahman, 32, 64, 140, 186. 
 Brahmanas, 5. 
 Brahmo-Somaj, 116, 196. 
 Brotherhood, 196. 
 ! Buffaloes, 82. 
 
 CASTE, 32, 36, 187, 208, 229. 
 Chastity, 44, 167, 209. 
 ' Child-marriage, 32. 
 Chyavana, 160, 215. 
 Contents of Veda, 18. 
 Couples, 157. 
 Cows, 71, 179, 212. 
 Creation, 126, 131, 220, 245. 
 
 DAKSHA, 126. 
 
 Daughters, 165, 177. 
 
 Deliverance, 34, 46, 55. 
 
 Deluge, 221, 245, 
 
 Demons, 188, 198, 200, 217, 243 
 
 Depravation, 245. 
 
 De Quincey, 98. 
 
 Devas, 87. 
 I Dogs, 52, 183. 
 i Doors worshipped, 225. 
 
Index. 
 
 257 
 
 Draupadi, 164. 
 Drunkenness, 43, 63. 
 Dualisms, 103. 
 Durga, 65. 
 
 Dyananda, iv, 3, 20, 128. 
 Dyaus, 120, 246. 
 
 EKANTINS, 143. 
 Esur-Veda, 4. 
 Exaggerations, 182. 
 
 FAITH, 138-145. 
 False gods, 188, 201. 
 Fatherhood, 196-210. 
 Female Eishi, 160. 
 Fetishes, 127, 246, 248. 
 Frogs, 140. 
 Future life, 47. 
 
 GAMBLING, 44, 126. 
 
 Gandharvas, 126. 
 
 Ganges, 26. 
 
 Gayatri, 12, 93, 248. 
 
 Ghi (clarified butter), 229. 
 
 Ghosha, 166, 212. 
 
 Gift of a woman, 179. 
 
 Gladstone, 21. 
 
 Goat, 82. 
 
 Goddesses, 25, 126, 159, 161, 
 
 Gods, 25. 
 
 Gotama, 215. 
 
 HAOMI, 68. 
 
 Heaven, 49, 103, 216. 
 
 Hell, 58. 
 
 Henotheism, 95, 101, 235. 
 
 Hinduism, 235. 
 
 Hiranyagarbha, 86, 91. 
 
 Holidays, 31. 
 
 Home, 190. 
 
 Horse, 77. 
 
 IDOLATRY, 23, 26, 97. 
 
 Images, 26, 97. 
 
 Immortality, 47. 
 
 Imputation, 42. 
 
 Incarnation, 146. 
 
 Inconsistencies, 226. 
 
 Indifierentism, 139. 
 
 Indra, 67, 74, 109, 110-114, 117, 
 
 121, 124, 204, 219, 237. 
 Indrani, 228. 
 Inspiration, 11, 16, 231. 
 Intoxication, 43, 62. 
 Iranians, 205, 217. 
 
 JAGANNATH, 207, 248. 
 Jesuits, 3. 
 Job, 131. 
 Jubal, 194. 
 Justice, 42. 
 
 KA (who), 82, 107, 134. 
 Kacha, 63. 
 Kakshivat, 162, 214. 
 Kali, 82. 
 Khela, 216. 
 
 Kilmansegge, Miss, 216. 
 King, Kishi, 184. 
 Knowledge of Vedas, 16. 
 Krishna, 64, 143, 211. 
 Kushava, 219. 
 
 LAKSHMIS, 127. 
 Leper, 166, 212. 
 .iberality, 45, 48, 57, 182, 201. 
 Light, 98, 156. 
 
 MAHAPRASAD, 208, 248. 
 Man, 229. 
 Mandalas (Book), 6. 
 
 Vlantras, 5. 
 
 anu, 197, 206, 221. 
 Markandeya, 65. 
 
258 
 
 Index. 
 
 Marriage, 33, 157. 
 Martin Elginbrodde, 111, 152. 
 Marats, 126, 164. 
 Mediation, 148, 236, 252. 
 Meru (Merv), 142. 
 Metempsychosis, 29. 
 Meteorolatry, 100. 
 Miracles, 211, 232. 
 Monarchies of gods, 114. 
 Monogamy, 157-160. 
 Monotheism, 94-135, 230. 
 Morality, 37, 230. 
 Motherhood, 116, 196. 
 Music, 194. 
 
 NARADA, 143, 173. 
 Narayana, 142. 
 Navel of world, 74. 
 New dispensation, 116. 
 Nil Madhub, 248. 
 Non-Aryans, 205, 210, 248. 
 Number of gods, 96, 108. 
 
 OCEAN of milk, 143. 
 Odin, 114, 147. 
 Odinic song, 148. 
 Ouranos, 114. 
 
 PANTHEISM, 28, 131, 231. 
 Partridges, 13. 
 Path, Heavenly, 81. 
 Physiolatry, 100. 
 Pitris (Fathers), 49, 51, 55. 
 Places, Sacred, 30. 
 Polyandry, 163. 
 Polygamy, 160. 
 Polytheism, 94. 
 Posts worshipped, 224. 
 Praise, 193, 241. 
 Prajapati, 86, 92, 146, 243. 
 Prayers, 189, 192, 241. 
 Priesthood, 29. 
 
 Priests, 169, 187. 
 
 Primitive religion, 101. 
 
 Prophet, 236. 
 
 Puri, 208. 
 
 Purusha, 34, 83, 88, 132. 
 
 Pushan (Agni), 225. 
 
 QUAIL, 213. 
 
 KARA, 158. 
 
 Eakshasas, 113, 150, 154, 188, 
 
 201. 
 
 Relation to gods, 136. 
 Repentance, 233. 
 Repetitions, 178, 191. 
 Resurrection, 52, 54, 250. 
 Revelation, 11, 14. 
 Ribhus, 29, 47, 127, 211, 216. 
 Rlshis, 1, 6, 13, 169. 
 Rival gods, 117. 
 Rodasi, 164. 
 Rudra, 26, 142, 188, 217, 224. 
 
 SABAISM, 98. 
 
 Sabbath, 24. 
 
 Sacrifice, 73, 242. 
 
 Sakta Tantras, 66. 
 
 Sakti, 142. 
 
 Sama-Veda, 7. 
 
 Sanhita (collection of hymns), 
 
 iv, 1. 
 
 Sanscrit, 5. 
 Saranyu, 50. 
 Sati, 32. 
 Satire, 31, 141. 
 Sautramani, 62. 
 Savitri, 93, 127. 
 Scepticism, 87, 138, 204, 221. 
 Sewing, 158. 
 Shraddha, 49. 
 Sin, 37, 97, 106, 251. 
 Social duties, 229. 
 
Index. 
 
 259 
 
 Soma, 61-70, 116. 
 
 Soma-juice, 66. 
 
 Soma-ox, 129. 
 
 Speech, 132. 
 
 Sukra, 66. 
 
 Sun, 93, 100, 104, 108, 124, 128, 
 
 235. 
 
 Sunahsepha, 88, 107. 
 Swarga (heaven), 49, 103, 216. 
 Swayamvura, 168. 
 
 TANGIBLE gods, 27. 
 Theft, 45, 183. 
 Times, 36, 237, 238. 
 Transmigration, 28. 
 Trasadasyu, 176, 184. 
 Travel, 33. 
 Tricks of trade, 45. 
 Tritheism, 106. 
 Tugra, 214. 
 Tvashtri, 47, 50, 216. 
 
 UNIVEKSITY, Calcutta, 3. 
 Ushas (Dawn), 60, 159, 162 
 166. 
 
 YAISHNAVAS (worshippers of 
 
 Yishnu or Hari), 145. 
 Yamadeva, 137, 218. 
 
 ! Yaruna, 75, 107, 114, 117, 124, 
 182, 185, 246. 
 
 Yasishtha, 41, 182, 184, 205, 226, 
 230, 231. 
 
 Yedanta, 35. 
 ! Yedas, Four, 7. 
 j Yenaspati, 224. 
 : Yeridana, 215. 
 | Yimada, 214. 
 
 Yishnu, 67, 142. 
 
 Yisvakarman, 86. 
 
 Visvamitra, 65, 205, 230. 
 
 Yiswadevas, 102. ' 
 
 Yivasvat, 50. 
 
 Yritra, 72, 198. 
 
 WEEK, 24. 
 
 Who (god Ka), 82, 107. 
 Widows, 32, 33. 
 Wine, 62, 139. 
 Women, 157, 179. 
 Word, 132. 
 
 YADAVAS, 64. 
 Yajur-Yeda, 7. 
 Yama, 50, 56. 
 Yatavedas (Agni), 54. 
 Yatudhanas, 188. 
 
 ZEUS, 114. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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