'a:;\^^ 
 
 ..nv oi ^^^^ ^l»f«'''J)«>«/ ^^.,, 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 BL 430 .M83 1891 
 
 M uller, F. Max 1823-1900 
 
 Physical religion 
 
 
 H^: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION 
 
 MAX mOLLER 
 
Physical Religion 
 
 Cfe (Biffot^ ButuKte 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 BEFOBE THE UNIVEBSITY OF GLASGOW 
 IN 1890 
 
 BY 
 
 F. MAX MULLER, K.M. 
 
 FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE FRENCH INSTITUTK 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST 16th STREET 
 1891 
 
 I A II rights reserved^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This volume contains my second course of GiflTord 
 Lectures, as I delivered them before the University of 
 Glasgow in the beginning of this year, with a few 
 additions, mostly printed at the end of the volume. 
 
 In lecturing before an academic audience, I felt in 
 duty bound to make my meaning as clear as possible, 
 even at the risk of becomiiig tedious in driving the 
 nail home more than once. 
 
 Nor could I avoid repeating here and there what I 
 had written elsewhere, if I wished to place the subject 
 before my hearers in a complete and systematic form. 
 
 Attentive readers will find, however, that in re- 
 stating what I had said before, I often had to modify 
 or correct my former statements, and I hope the time 
 may never coiae, when I can no longer say. We live 
 and learn. 
 
 F. MAX MULLER. 
 
 OxFOED, Dec. 6, 1890. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PA OB 
 
 PftEFACE "V 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 How TO STUDY Physical Eeligiott. 
 
 The three divisions of natural religion. — The three phnses cf 
 religion often contemporaneous. — Physical religion. — The historical 
 method. — Historical continuity. — Varieties of physical religion. — 
 Physical religion best studied in India.— The Vedic period. — 
 Natural phenomena as viewed by nomad and agricultural people. — 
 Physical religion outs'de of In-lia.— Tlie meaning of primitive. — 
 Discoveries of ancient life.— Discovery of the Veda.— Unique 
 character of the Veda 1-21 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 The Yeda and the Testimonies to its early existence. 
 
 How did the Veda become known ?— No foreign nations men- 
 tioned in the Veda.— The Veda not mentioned by foreign nations. — 
 Early contact between India and Egypt, Babylon, and Persia. — 
 Greek accounts of India.— Skylax.— Alexander's expedition to 
 India.— Contact with China.— Buddhist Pilgrims.— Later contact 
 with Persia.— Al-Birunl, ICOO A.D.— The Emperor A kbar, 1556- 
 1605 — Prince Dara, translator of the Upanishads. — Schopen- 
 hauer 22-36 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 The Veda as studied by European Scholaks. 
 
 Thread of our argument. — European missionaries in India. — 
 European scholars acquainted with the Vedas.— Asiatic Society of 
 Bengal.— Interest aroused in Germany .—Bunsen's projected journey 
 to India.- MSS. of the Veda brought to Europe.— Eugbne Burnouf 
 in France. — First edition of the Big-veda . . • 37-54 
 
VUl TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 Survey of Vedic Litekatuee. 
 
 • PAQB 
 
 Peculiar cliaracter of Indian antiquity. — Meaning of Veda. — ^The 
 Rig-veda, the only true Veda. — Brahiuanic view of the Vedas. — 
 The Rig-veda — The ten ManJalas. — Method in the collection of 
 the ten Ma/ifZalai!. — Number of hymns. — The Pratisakhyas. — Date 
 of the P^ati^•akhya. — Minutiae of the Pratisakhya. — The Anukra- 
 ma?jis of >S'aunaka. — Number of verges in the Rig-veda. — The Sama- 
 veda. — Ya^ur-veda. — The AViandas or Mantra period. — The prose 
 Brahmajias. — The Brahmanas of the Va^/ur-veda. — The Brahmai^as 
 of the Sarna-veda. — The Brahmnnas of the Rig-veda. — The true 
 Veda. — The Brahmawas of the Brahmans. — Life during the Vedic 
 period. — Poem on trades and professions. — Poem of the gambler. — 
 Independent speculation. — Ara??yakas and Upanishads. — Duration 
 of Brahmana period. — The Atharva-veda .... 55-88 
 
 LECTUPvE V. 
 Age of the Yeda. 
 
 An accurate knowleilge of the Veda necessary for a study of 
 physical religion. — How to fix the date of the Veda. — Aryan immi- 
 gration into India. — Sindhu, cotton, mentioned 3000 B. c. — The 
 Siltras. — The three literary periods of the Vedic age — Chronological 
 terminus ad qiiein. — Sandrocot!;us, died 291 B. c. — Buddhi.sm, a re- 
 action against the Vedic religion. — Tlie word Upanishad. — The 
 word Sfttra. — Relation of Buddhism to Brahmanism. — Constructivft 
 chronology. — Character of the Veda. — Simplicity of Vedic hymns. — 
 Moral elements. — Eai-ly sacrifices. — Childish thoughts iu the Veda.^ 
 More exalted ideas. — The sacrificial character of the Vedic 
 hymns. — Vug. to sacrifice. — Hu, to pour out. — Sacrificial terms. — 
 Other sacrificial terms. — Prayer better than sacrifice. — The 
 primitive sacrifice. — Morning and evening meal. — Lighting and 
 keeping of the fire. — New and full moon. — The three seasons. — 
 The meaning of solemn ... . • • • 84-114 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 Physical Religion. 
 
 Dt^finition of physical religion. — God as a predicate. — Deifica- 
 tion. — The natural and the supernatm-al.-^Agni, fire, as one of the 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Devas. — Early conceptions of fire. — The etymological meaning of 
 Agni. — Names of fire. — Fire, named as active. — Agui as a human or 
 animal agent. — New explanation of animism, personification, and 
 anthropomorphi.<m. — Mr. Herbert Spencer, against animism. — Pro- 
 fessor Title's theory of the gods as facteurs. — Tlie agents in 
 nature. — The categories of the understanding. — The categories of 
 language. — Fire, a^ a Deva. — Greek and Roman gods. — Ruskin on 
 the ancient gods. — Evolution of the word deva. — Natural revela- 
 tion of God. — The biography of Agni 115-143 
 
 LECTUEE VIL 
 The Biography of Agni. 
 
 Facts against theories. — Premature generalisati«^n. — Agni in his 
 physical character. — Agni, as the sun. — Agni, the sun, or the fire on 
 the hearth. — Sun and fire in America. — Sun and fire among the 
 Fins. — Agni, as lightning. — Matari^van. — Fire from flint. — Fire 
 from wood. — Mythological ideas connected with fire. — Agni, as 
 deva, bright, ainartya, undying, &c. — Agni, the immortal among 
 mortab. — Agni, the friend, helper, father. — Agni, helper in 
 battle. — Fireless races. — Agricultural Aryas. — Agni, destioying 
 forests. — Agni's horses. — Agni, as sacrificial fire. — Agni, the 
 messenger between gods and men. — Agni, as priest. — Hymn to 
 Agni . . . 144-176 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Agni, as divested of his Material Chaeactee. 
 
 Later development of Agni. — Agni identical with other gods. — 
 Henotheism. — Henotheism in Finland. — Early scepticism. — Ex- 
 change of gods. — Dual deities. — Reconciliaiion of the solar and 
 meteoric theories. — Supremacy of Agni. — The general name of 
 deity. — Evolution of concepts — The highest concept of deity.^ 
 Agni, as creator, rulei*, judge. — The dark side of Indian religion. 
 — Anthropomorphism. — The sage Narada. — Influence of children 
 on religion 177-203 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 The Usefulness of the Vedic Religion for a 
 
 Comparative Study of Other Religions. 
 
 Agni, fire, in other religions. — No religious literature in 
 
 Greece and Italy. — Religion in Egypt. — Brugsch on Egyptian 
 
 religion. — Le Page Renouf on the gods of Egypt. — Religion in 
 
X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Babylon and Assyria. — Where to study the historical growth of 
 relio-ious ideas. — The Old TestMiuent. — Invention of alphabetic 
 ■wanting. — The sixth century B. C. — The Old Testament as an his- 
 torical book. — Moiiotheistic instinct of the Semitic race. — 
 Abraham.~Elijah.— The god of fire in the Old Testament . 204-224 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 FlEE AS CONCEIVED IN OtHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 Fire widely worshipped. — Fire in the Avesta. — Ormazd, not fire. 
 — Atar, fire. — Atar fights with Azi Dahaka. — Plurality of Atar.^ 
 Atar, son of Ormazd. — Difference between Atar and Agni. — Is the . 
 Avestic raligion dualistic ? — Fire in Egypt. — Modern character of 
 the Egyptian religion. — Ra. — Osiris. — Ptah. — Tva.shtn in the Veda. 
 —Fire in Greece, Hephaestos.— Fire in Italy, Vulcmnus.— Philo- 
 sophical concepts of fire in Greece. — The fire of Herakleitos. — 
 Zoroaster. — Fire and water in the Brahmawas. — Fire as worshipped 
 in Babylon.— The true antiquity of the Veda , . . 225 «251 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 The Mythological Development of Agni. 
 
 Tales about Agni. — Euhemeristic explanations of mythology.— 
 Ancient riddles. — Brahmodya. — The disappearance of Agni. — 
 Dialogue between Agni and Varu?7a. — Later accounts of the hiding 
 of Agni. — The meaning or hyponoia of mythology. — Lessons of 
 comparative mythology . • • 252-275 
 
 LECTURE XIL 
 Religion, Myth, and Custom. 
 
 Difference between religion and mythology. — Secular ideas be- 
 come religious. — Lighting and keeping of fire. — Religious sanction 
 for customs. — Baptism by water and fire. — Purification by fire. — 
 Lustration of animals. — Need-fire. — Tinegin in Ireland. — Purpose 
 of customs often forgotten. — Essential ditl'erence between religion, 
 mythology, and ceremonial. — Theogonic development of Agni. 
 — Mythological development of Agni. — Ceremonial development 
 of Agni. — Definition of religion re-examined. — The meaning of 
 the Infinite. — The religious element 276-802 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 
 
 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Other Gods of Nature. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The development of fire. — The agents behind the other pheno- 
 mena of nature. — The tlieogonic process. — Wordsworth. — The storm- 
 wind. — The storm-wind in America. — The storm-wind in Babylon. 
 — ^The storm-wind in India. — The Marus of the Buddhists. — 
 Rudra, the father of the Maruts. — The storm- wind in Germany. — 
 Odin, Wuotan. — The mixed character of ancient gods. — The theo- 
 gonic development 303-328 
 
 LECTURE XIV. 
 What does it lead to? 
 
 Value of historical studies. — Lessons of natural religion. — ^The 
 agents in nature, — One agent in nature. — Craving for the super- 
 natural. — Miracles condemned by Mohammed. — Miracles con- 
 demned by Buddha. — Miracles condemned by Christ. — The super- 
 natural as natural. — Common elements of all religions; the Ten 
 Commandments. — Similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. 
 — Divine character ascribed to the founders of religions. — Buddha's 
 birth. — Birth of Mahavlra. — Mohammed's birth. — Other prophets. 
 — The birth of Christ. — Signs changed to miracles. — Dr. Robert 
 Lee. — The highest commandments. — Conclusion . • • 329-367 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 Appendix I. 
 Are Parthians, Persians, and Bactrians mentioned in the Veda? 369 
 
 Appendix II. 
 Skylax and the Paktyes, the Pashtu or Afghans • • • 371 
 
 Appendix III. 
 
 Buddhist Pilgrims acquainted with the Veda • * . 373 
 
Xll 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Appendix IV. 
 
 Sanskrit MSS. bought by Guizot . 
 
 Appendix V. 
 Date of the Prati*akhya , . . • 
 
 Appendix VI. 
 
 Minutiae of the Pratisakhya 
 
 Appendix VII. 
 Number of verses in the Rig-veda 
 
 Appendix VIII. 
 Brahma72as of the Sama-veda • . • 
 
 Appendix IX. 
 Sanskrit words in Sumerian ...» 
 
 Appendix X. 
 Technical terms borrowed by the Buddhists • 
 
 Appendix XI. 
 
 Pischel and Geldner's ' Vedische Studien ' . 
 
 Appendix XII. 
 Egyptian Zoolatry 
 
 Appendix XIII. 
 Writing mentioned in the Old Testament • 
 
 Appendix XIV. 
 Need-fire • • • . • • • 
 Appendix XV. 
 
 Similarities between Christianity and Buddhism 
 
 IHDEX 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 KOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 
 The Three Divisions of Natural Relig-ion. 
 
 ri^HE first course of lectures on Natural Religion 
 I which I had the honour to deliver in this Uni- 
 versity was chieli}^ of an introductory character. It 
 was then my object to discuss, and to answer, as far as 
 was in my power, three principal questions : 
 
 (1) What are the limits of Natural Religion ? 
 
 (2) What is the proper method of studying it? and 
 (8) Wliat are the materials accessible for such study ? 
 In the present course of lectures I mep^n to treat of 
 
 Natural Religion in one of its three great manifesta- 
 tions, namely, as Physical Religion. Natural Reli- 
 gion, as I tried to show last year, manifests itself 
 under three different aspects, according as its object, 
 what I called the Infinite or the Divine, is discovered 
 either in nature, or in man, or in the self. I shall 
 repeat from the last lecture of my first course a short 
 description of these three forms of religious thought. 
 
 ' In treating of Physical Religion,' I said, ' we shall 
 Lave to examine the numerous names, derived from the 
 (2) ^ 
 
2 LECTURE I. 
 
 phenomena of nature, by which the early inhabitants 
 of this small planet of ours — some of them our direct 
 fincestors — endeavoured to apprehend what lies behind 
 the veil of nature, beyond the horizon of our sensuous 
 perception. We shall meet there w^ith the so-called 
 gods of the sky, the earth, the air, the fire, the storm 
 and lightning, the rivers and mountains, and we shall 
 see how the god of the sky, or, in some countries, the 
 god of the fire and of the storm-wind, assumes gradu- 
 ally a supreme character, and then is slowly divested 
 again, in the minds of his more enlightened worshippers, 
 of what we may call his original, purely physical, or 
 mythological attributes. When the idea had once 
 sprung up in the human mind that nothing unworthy 
 should ever be believed of the gods, or, at least, of the 
 father of gods and men, this process of divestment 
 proceeded very rapidly, and there remained in the end 
 the concept of a Supreme Being, still called, it may be, 
 by its ancient and often no longer intelligible names, 
 but representing in reality the highest ideal of the Infi- 
 nite, as a father, as a creator, and as a wise and loving 
 ruler of the universe. What we ourselves call our 
 belief in God, the Father, is the last result of this irre- 
 sistible development of human thought. 
 
 'But the Infinite has been discovered, not only 
 behind the phenomena of nature, but likewise behind 
 man, taking man as an objective reality, and as the 
 representative of all that we comprehend under the 
 name of mankind. Something not merely human, or 
 very soon, something superhuman was discovered at a 
 very early time in parents and ancestors, particularly 
 after they had departed this life. Their names were 
 preserved, their memory was honoured, their sayings 
 
HOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 3 
 
 were recorded, and assumed very soon the authority of 
 law, of sacred law, of revealed truth. As the recollec- 
 tion of fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and 
 still more distant ancestors became vaguer and vaguer, 
 their names were surrounded by a dim religious light. 
 The ancestors, no longer merely human, approached 
 more and more to the superhuman, and this is never 
 very far removed from the divine. 
 
 ' Offerings, similar to those that had been presented 
 to the gods of nature, were tendered likewise to the 
 ancestral spirits, and when the very natural question 
 arose, who was the ancestor of all ancestors, the father 
 of all fathers, the answer was equally natural, — it 
 could only be the same father, the same creator, the 
 same wise and loving ruler of the universe who had 
 been discovered behind the veil of nature. 
 
 'This second sphere of thought may be compre- 
 hended under the name of Anthropological Religion. 
 Under the form of worship of ancestral spirits it 
 seems among some people to constitute almost the 
 whole of their religion, but more generally we find it 
 mixed with what we call Physical Religion, not only 
 in ancient, but also in modern times. Christianity 
 itself has been obliged to admit some remnants of that 
 ancestral worship, and in Roman Catholic countries 
 the immense popularity of the Festival of All Souls 
 seems to show that a loving homage paid to the 
 spirits of the departed satisfies one of the deepest and 
 oldest yearnings of the human heart. 
 
 'The third sphere of religious thought, the Ft^yrho- 
 logical, is filled with endeavours to discover what lies 
 hidden in man, considered not merely as a creature, or 
 as a part of nature, but as a self-conscious subject. 
 
 Ji 2 
 
4 LECTURE I. 
 
 That self of which man be:ame conscious, as different 
 from his merely phenomenal, or even his personal 
 being, has been called by many names in the different 
 languages of the world. It was called breath, spirit, 
 ghost, soul, mind, genius, and many more names, 
 which constitute a kind of psychological mythology, 
 full of interest to the student of religion as well as to 
 ^he student of language and thought. It was after- 
 wards called the Ego, or the i^er^oyi, but even these 
 names did not satisfy man, as he became more and 
 more conscious of his higher self. The person was 
 discovered to be a i^evsona only, that is a mask ; and 
 even the Ego was but a pronoun, not yet the true 
 noun, the true word which self-conscious man was in 
 search of. At last, the consciousness of self arose from 
 out the clouds of psychological mythology, and be- 
 came the consciousness of the Infinite or the Divine 
 within us. The individual self found itself again in 
 the Divine Self, not absorbed in it, but hidden in it, 
 and united with it by a half-human and half-divine 
 relationship. We find the earliest name for the Infi- 
 nite, as discovered by man within himself, in the 
 ancient Upanishads. There it is called Atman, the 
 Self, or Prat yag-atman, the Self that lies behind, 
 looking and longing for the Par a m at m an, the Highest 
 Self — and yet it is not far from every one of us. So- 
 krates knew the same Self, but he called it Daimonion, 
 the indwelling God. The early Christian philosophers 
 called it the Holy Ghost, a name which has received 
 many interpretations and misinterpretations in dif- 
 ferent schools of theology, but which ought to become 
 again, what it was meant for in the beginning, the 
 spirit which unites all that is holy within man with 
 
HOW TO STUDY PllYS CAL RELIGION. 5 
 
 the Holy of Holies or the Infinite hehind the veil of 
 the Ego, or of the merely personal and phenomenal 
 self.' 
 
 The Three Phases of Religion, often contemporaneous. 
 
 It must not be supposed that these three phases of 
 natural religion, the Physical, the Ayithropological, 
 and the Ptychologiccd, exist each by itself, that one 
 race worships the powers of nature only, while an- 
 other venerates the spirits of human ancestors, and a 
 third meditates on the Divine, as discovered in the 
 deepest depth of the human heart. As a general rule, 
 physical religion everywhere comes first, and is suc- 
 ceeded by anthropological, and lastly by psychological 
 relio'ion. Amonof most nations whose historical ante- 
 cedents are known to us, we can see that the idea of 
 something divine is elaborated first from elements 
 supplied by nature, and that afterwards the spirits 
 of the departed are raised to a fellowship with the 
 gods of nature, while the recognition of a universal 
 Self, underlying the gods of nature, and the spirits 
 of the departed, and recognised as the immortal 
 element within ourselves, comes last, nay belongs 
 even now to the future rather than to the past. The 
 germs of these three developments may be discovered 
 in most reliirions. Sometimes the one. sometimes the 
 other, becomes more prominent. But I doubt whether 
 any nation, whose earlier history is known to us, has 
 been found devoted exclusively to the worship of 
 physical deities, still less, devoted exclusively to the 
 worship of ancestral spirits. What I call psychological 
 religion is a phase of thought which W(^ generally com- 
 
6 LECTURE I. 
 
 prebend under the name of philosophy rather than 
 under that of religion, and though it may have been 
 anticipated here and there by prophets and poets, it 
 presupposes in its developed form the existence of 
 religion, both physical and anthropological. 
 
 The ancient Vedic religion, for instance, is pre- 
 eminently a physical religion, but to maintain, as 
 some philosophers have done, that it contained no 
 traces of ancestor-worship, shows simply an ignorance 
 of facts. The worship of the Fathers, the Pitaras, 
 is presupposed by a number of Vedic hymns, and to 
 the present day, the most truly religious ceremony of 
 the Hindus, that which still touches their hearts, and 
 not their eyes only, is the so-called /S'raddha, the 
 sacrifice in memory of their ancestors. 
 
 Even the third phase, the Psychological, though in 
 its fully elaborated form it belongs to a later age, and 
 assumes the character of a philosophy rather than of 
 a religion, is never entirely absent in any religion. 
 The very recognition of superior beings implies some 
 kind of perception of man's own being, some recogni- 
 tion of what really constitutes his own self. If he 
 calls the gods immortals, that would seem to imply 
 that he considered himself as mortal ; but when he 
 begins to implore the favour of the immortal gods, 
 not only for this life, but for a life to come, when he 
 prays to be united again with those whom he loved 
 and lost on earth, a new conception of his own self 
 must have sprung up in his heart, and though mortal 
 and liable to death, he must have felt himself or 
 something within himself as eternal, and as beyond 
 the reach of annihilation. 
 
 Ancestor-worship also implies always the recogni- 
 
HOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 7 
 
 tion of something immortal in man, however dim that 
 primitive belief in immoitalit}^ may have been. 
 
 Physical Religrion. 
 
 But thoiiofh we find these three roads on which a 
 belief in the Infinite was reached by different nations, 
 running closely parallel or even crossing each other, 
 it is possible, and, for the sake of systematic study, 
 almost indispensable, that w^e should explore each of 
 them by itself. This present course of lectures will 
 therefore be devoted to a study of Physical Religion^ 
 though from time to time we shall hardly be able to 
 avoid a consideration of such influences as Anthro- 
 pological and Psychological ideas exercise on Physical 
 Religion in its historical progress to higher ideas. 
 
 The Historical Method. 
 
 How that exploration is to be carried out I need 
 not tell you, after what I have said in my first course 
 of lectures. There is but. one method that leads to 
 really trustworthy and solid results, and that is the 
 Historical Method. We must try to discover the his- 
 torical vestiges of that long pilgrimage which the 
 human i-ace has performed, not once, but many times, 
 in search of what lies beyond the horizon of our 
 senses, — in search of the Infinite, in search of a true 
 religion ; and this we can only achieve by a careful 
 study of all truly historical documents in which that 
 pilgrimage has been recorded. 
 
 Historical Continuity. 
 
 There is an unbroken continuity in the religious 
 and philosophical concepts, as there is in the Ian- 
 
8 LECTURE I. 
 
 gnages of the world. We know that the language 
 spoken by Hume and Kant is substantially the same 
 as that which was spoken by the poets of the Veda 
 in India, four thousand years ago. And we shall see 
 that the problem of causality which occupied the 
 powerful minds of Hume and Kant is substantially 
 the same as that which occupied the earliest framers 
 o? Aryan language and Aryan thought, when, driven 
 by the very necessities of pure reason, or, as we may 
 now call it by a better name, by the very necessities 
 of Logos or language, they conceived and named for 
 the first time the sky, the sun, the fire, and all the 
 other great phenomena of nature by means of roots, 
 expressive of agency, of force, or, in the end, of 
 , /causahty. Physical Rehgion owes its origin to the 
 ^ category of causality, or, in other words, to the pre- 
 dicating of roots, expressive of agency and causality, 
 as apphed to the phenomena of nature. And this in- 
 tellectual work, performed thousands of years ago by 
 millions of human beings, deserves, it would seem, at 
 least as much attention as the speculations of two 
 individuals, even though they be Hume and Kant, as 
 to the legitimacy of the concept of causality, when 
 applied to the data of the senses. ' Without the doc- 
 trine, the true doctrine, of substance and of cause,' 
 I am quoting the words of the founder of these 
 lectures, Lord Gifford, ' philosophy would be a de- 
 , / lusion, and religion a dream ' (Lord GifFord's Lectures, 
 pp. 139-140). 'Just let me say,' he adds, 'and I say 
 it with the deep seriousness of profoundest conviction, 
 that true philosophy and true religion must stand or 
 fall together. If philosophy be a delusion, religion 
 can hardly escape being shown to be a dream.' 
 
HOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 9 
 
 Varieties of Physical Beligfion. 
 
 But here, again, we must not try to attempt too 
 much. Though we find traces of physical rehgion 
 everywhere among ancient and modern, among civi- 
 lised and uncivihsed races, it would lead to confusion 
 only were we to attempt to treat them all as one. 
 Physical Religion is the same, and yet not the same 
 at different times and in different places. The lessons 
 which nature teaches in a small and fertile island, 
 surrounded by a horizon, half sky and half sea, are 
 very different from the lessons which man reads 
 when living in narrow valleys, overawed by snow- 
 decked mountains, and hemmed in by rivers which, 
 though they are looked upon as beneficent, may at 
 any moment bring destruction and death on what 
 man calls his own, his home on earth. The Nile in 
 Egypt assumes a very different aspect in the religious 
 imagery of its worshippers from that which the river 
 Sarasvati bears in the hvmns of the Risj-veda ; and 
 the cupola of the sky, resting all around on the 
 monotonous desert as its sole foundation, forms a very 
 different temple from that in which the most gigantic 
 snowy mountains support on all sides, like lofty 
 pillars, the blue roof of heaven. 
 
 For practical purposes, therefore, it will be best to 
 study, first of all, the origin and growth of Physical 
 Religion in one country only^ and then to turn our 
 eyes to other countries where the same ideas, though 
 under varying outward conditions, have found ex- 
 pression in mythology or religion. 
 
 Physical Selig^ion best studied in ludia. 
 
 And here there can be little doubt as to which 
 
10 LECTURE T. 
 
 country is the typical country for the study of Physical 
 Religion. In no country do we find Physical Religion 
 in its simplest form so completely developed as in 
 India. Not in India, as it is popularly known, not 
 in modern Inc.ia, not in mediaeval India, not even in 
 the ancient India, as represented to us in the Epic 
 Foems of the Mahabharata and Ramayar^a, least of all 
 in the India of the Buddhists, whose religion, old as it 
 is — for Buddha died 477 b c— was built up on the very 
 ruins of that religion which interests us at present. 
 
 No, the original, simple, and intelligible religion of 
 India is to be found in the Vedic period only, which 
 preceded the rise of Buddhism, just as the religion 
 of the Old Testament preceded that of the New. Here 
 and here only can we see Physical Religion in all 
 its fulness, in all its simplicity, nay, 1 should say, in 
 all its necessity. Suppose we had known Christianity 
 only as it appears after the Council of Nicaea, after 
 it had become a state-religion, and had once for all 
 settled its dogmas and ceremonial, and then had 
 suddenly discovered a manuscript of the Gospels — 
 the new insight into the true nature of Christianity 
 could not have been more startling and surprising 
 than was the new light which the discovery of the 
 Veda has thrown on the origin and growth of religion, 
 not only in India, but in every part of the world. 
 That the gods of the Greeks and the Romans, the 
 Teutonic, Slavonic, and Celtic nations, that the gods 
 of the Babylonians and Assyrians and other Semitic 
 nations, not excepting the Jews, that the gods of Egypt 
 and the whole of Africa, that the gods of Finland 
 and Lapland, of Mongolia and China, of the Poly- 
 nesian islands, and of the North as well as the South 
 
HOW TO STUDY THYSICAL RELIGION. 11 
 
 of America, that all these gods had in the beginning 
 something to do with the most prominent sights of 
 nature, could hardly have escaped even the least 
 thoughtful student of antiquity. But it was only like 
 guessing at the former existence of a geological stratum 
 which does not come to the surface except in scattered 
 fragments. That Helios was originally the sun and 
 Mene the moon, no one could have doubted, except 
 he who is proud of his ignorance of Greek ; but that 
 Apollo too had a solar, and Lucina a lunar, origin 
 was contested by many a classical scholar with the 
 same eagerness with which many a theologian w^ould 
 fight even now against the admission of physical 
 ekments in the original character of Jehovah. 
 
 The Vedic Period. 
 
 With the discovery of the Veda all this has been 
 changed. Here was the very stratum, the very period 
 of language and thought before our eyes, the existence, 
 nay, the very possibility of which had been so keenly 
 contested. That Zeus was originally a name of the 
 sky, could hardly have been denied by any Greek 
 scholar ; but it was not till the corresponding deity, 
 Dyaus, was discovered in the Veda that all opposition 
 was silenced, and silenced for ever. 
 
 How can we imagine, it used to be said again and 
 again, that the whole of the ancient Greek religion 
 and mythology should have consisted in talk about 
 the sun and the moon, the sky and the dawn, day 
 and night, summer and winter. Surely the Greeks 
 would have been mere idiots if they had found nothing 
 better to engage their thoughts or to supply their 
 religious cravings. 
 
12 LECTURE I. 
 
 Natural Phenomena as viewed by Nomad and Agrictatural 
 People. 
 
 No doubt, even without the evidence supplied by 
 the Veda, one might have asked in return what better 
 subjects there could have been in an early state of 
 society, to engage the thoughts and to satisfy even 
 the higher aspirations of mankind, than the wonders 
 of nature — the daily return of the sun, which meant 
 the return of light and warmth, that is, the possibility 
 of life and the joy of life, — or the yearly return of the 
 sun, which meant again the return of spring and 
 summer after the horrors of winter, that is, the possi- 
 bility of life and the joy of life In days when a 
 violent storm might turn a happy homestead to wrack 
 and ruin, when a sudden rain might sweep away a 
 whole harvest, and bring famine and death on a 
 prosperous village, when the hot rays of the sun 
 might parch the fields, kill the cattle, and spread 
 pestilence among children and servants what subjects 
 could there have been nearer to the heart of man than 
 the strange and startling movements of the heavenly 
 bodies, the apparent cause of all their happiness, the 
 apparent cause of all their misery on earth ? 
 
 What does a farmer talk about even now, before and 
 during and after the harvest, but the weather? We 
 have now calendars to tell us when the spring returns, 
 when the summer heat may be expected, how long 
 the autumn may last, and when the winter will set 
 in with its snow and frost. But with the ancient 
 tillers of the soil, the most highly-prized wisdom con- 
 sisted in sayings and rules, handed down from father 
 to son, which told when it was safe to sow, when it 
 was time to mow, and how much provision was 
 
HOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 13 
 
 wanted for a long winter, to prevent children and 
 parents from dying of hunger. In our days, with 
 all the experience gathered in our books, with all 
 the precautions taken against the violent freaks of 
 nature, with the forecasts of the weather published 
 in all the newspapers, we can afford to neglect the 
 signs and warnings of nature, or leave their observation 
 to those whom they more specially concern. Eut 
 ancient superstitions connected with Physical Re- 
 ligion are not quite extinct even now. We may be 
 sceptical as to the Halcyon birds having the power of 
 quieting the sea, and unwilling to postpone our voyage 
 until the return of the Pleiades. We sli^uld hardly 
 believe that if Zeus has visited the earth with rain 
 on a certain day, he will repeat his visits for many 
 days to follow. But sailors still object to embark on 
 a Friday, and farmers still believe that if St. S within 
 sends rain, rain will continue for forty days. If, then, 
 even in our own enlightened century, a simple-minded 
 peasant may still be found here or there uttering a 
 prayer or presenting an offering to St. S within, is it 
 so very strange that in early days, when the very 
 possibility of life depended on the success of the 
 harvest, the thoughts of people should have been 
 almost entirely absorbed in watching those powers of 
 nature on whom they felt themselves dependent for 
 life, and breath, and all things 1 
 
 If these powders had to be named, they could be 
 named, as I tried to explain in my first course of 
 lectures, as active only, as doing deeds, as working 
 works ; as raining, not as rain ; as storming, not as 
 storm ; as feeding and protecting, like a loving father, 
 or as punishing and chastising, like an angry father, 
 
14 LECTURE I. 
 
 Given these few germs of thought wliich are found 
 in every human heart, what is there strange or un- 
 intelligible in the luxuriant growth of ph3'sical 
 mythology and physical religion? 
 
 But we need not argue this point any more. What 
 was a mere postulate before the discovery of the Veda, 
 ^has now^ become a fact. We have that whole primi- 
 tive stratum of thought laid open before our eyes, in 
 one, and that a very important pai-t of the world. To 
 those who will not see, who will put what they think 
 ought to be in the place of what is, we can only say 
 with all the frankness of the Hindu logician, ' It is not 
 the fault offlthe post, if the blind man does not see it.' 
 
 Physical Relig'ion outside of India. 
 
 On the other hand, we must guard against exagger- 
 ating the importance of the Veda. If we wished to 
 study Dutch art, w^e should feel it our duty, first of all, 
 to go to Holland, and to examine there on the spot, 
 not only the master-works, but the whole school of 
 Dutch painters. But we should not imagine that we 
 had thus done our whole duty, and that the vast 
 galleries in the other capitals of Europe had nothing 
 to teach us. In the same wa^^ Physical Religion has 
 to be studied, not only in the Veda and in India, but 
 almost everywhere where historical documents enable 
 us to study the gradual growth of rehgion. A study 
 of the Veda is the best preparation for the study of 
 Physical Religion ; but it does not claim to teach us 
 all that can be known about the gods of nature. 
 
 The meaning' of Primitive. 
 
 Secondly, if we call the Veda primitive, it must not 
 
now TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. 15 
 
 be supposed that we imagine we can find in the Veda 
 the earliest thoughts that ever passed through a human 
 brain. If we call the Veda primitive, we mean two 
 things ; first, that it is more primitive than any other 
 hterary work we are acquainted with ; secondly, that 
 it contains many thoughts which require no antece- 
 dents, which are perfectly intelhgible in themselves, 
 thoughts, in fact, which we should call primitive, even 
 if we met with them in th6 works of modern poets. 
 
 But it would be the greatest mistake to imagine 
 that everything in the Veda is primitive, everything is 
 intelligible, everything without antecedents. The stu- 
 dent of the Veda knows but too well how much there 
 still remains in the Veda that is hard, petrified, unin- 
 telligible, artificial, secondary, nay tertiary, and alto- 
 gether modern in one sense of the word. The collection 
 of hymns which w^e chiefly mean when we speak of 
 the Veda in general, is a collection of various collec- 
 tions, and in each of these there are relics of different 
 ages, mixed up together. We have to search carefully 
 for what is really primary in thought, for the later 
 rubbish is much more abundant than the original gold. 
 The Vedic poets themselves make no secret of this. 
 They speak of old and of living poets, they know^ of 
 ancient and recent deeds of the gods. Their very lan- 
 guage bewrays the date of many of the Vedic hymns. 
 The distances between the intellectual layers forming 
 the collection of the Rig-veda are so enormous that 
 most scholars would hesitate to translate them into 
 any chronological language. And yet, for all that and 
 for all that, we possess in the whole world no literary 
 relics intellectually older than the oldest hymns of 
 the Rig-veda, and I doubt w^hether we possess any 
 
 {/ 
 
16 LECTURE I. 
 
 literary relics chronologically older, at all events in 
 our own, the Aryan world. 
 
 Discoveries of Ancient Life. 
 
 We have lived to see many discoveries, revealing to 
 us the buried life of ancient nations. I still remember 
 the amazement produced by the resurrection of Pompeii 
 and Herculanura. If you want to realise the feelings 
 with which the highest intellects regarded that dis- 
 covery, read Schiller's poems, or read a novel which I 
 can still read with undiminished admiration, particu- 
 larly when I remember that it was written in 1832 by 
 a young man, not more than twenty-seven years of 
 age — I mean Bulwer's ' Last Days of Pompeii.' I have 
 seen and known the most learned and the most bril- 
 liant young men whom our Universities now send out 
 into the world — I must confess I have never met with 
 one who, at the age of twenty-seven, could have pro- 
 duced a work so full of genius and so full of learning 
 also. 
 
 Then followed the wonderful discoveries in Egypt, 
 the Rosetta stone supplying to Champollion the key 
 to the decipherment of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
 and every year adding new treasures to our museums, 
 new materials to our Egyptian grammars and dic- 
 tionaries, till now it would seem as if all Egyptian 
 mysteries had been revealed, and the ancient language, 
 spoken and written there thousands of years B, c, 
 could be read with the same ease as Greek and 
 Latin. 
 
 About the same time the kingdoms of Persia, of 
 Babylon and Nineveh shook oiF the shroud of sand 
 under which they had so long been buried. And here 
 
HOW TO STUDY rilYSICAL RELIGION. 17 
 
 too the genius of Grotefend, of Burnouf, Lassen and 
 Rawlinson broke the spell of those long rows of wedges 
 or arrows, which seemed more meaningless even than 
 hieroglyphics, and restored to us first the contempora- 
 neous edicts of Darius and Xerxes, and afterwards the 
 very archives of the ancient kings of Babylon and 
 Nineveh. With the help of cuneiform grammars and 
 dictionaries the Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian 
 texts can now be read by all who possess the patience 
 of real students. We were told at the International 
 Congress of Orientah'sts at Stockholm in 1889 that 
 there are at present in the United States of America 
 thirty chairs filled by professors who lecture to good 
 audiences on Cuneiform Inscriptions, on the language, 
 rehgion, and history of Persia, Babylon, Nineveh, and 
 Accadia. This shows how rapidly a discovery can 
 progress, and how widely- spread an interest still exists, 
 even in our utilitarian age, in the earliest history of 
 the human race. 
 
 Discovery of the Veda. 
 
 Less remarked, though certainly not less remarkable 
 than these unexpected finds in Egypt and Babylon, 
 was the discovery of the Veda, which took place about 
 the same time. It was in one sense even more im- 
 portant, for it revealed to us, not only inscriptions, 
 but a real full-grown literature, and a literature con- 
 taining the annals of our own, the Aryan, race. The 
 French have a saying that it is always the unexpected 
 that happens. And certainly, if anything was unex- 
 pected, it was the discovery of a literature in India, iji 
 distant India, among dark-skinned people, of a litera- 
 ture more ancient than Homer, of a janguage less 
 
 (2) • C 
 
18 LECTURE I. 
 
 changed than Latin, of a religion more primitive than 
 that of the Germans as described by Tacitus, and yet 
 intimately connected with all of them. It is true the 
 literature of ancient India had not been buried in the 
 earth, it was never altogether lost in its own country. 
 But so far as Europe and European science were con- 
 cerned, the Veda was as good as buried, nay as non- 
 existent, and what is more extraordinary still, it 
 remained as if non-existent for European scholars long 
 after the discovery of India, long after the discovery 
 of the ordinary Sanskrit literature. 
 
 The Veda has now become the foundation of all 
 linguistic, mythological, and religious studies. Even 
 the minutest changes of vowels in Greek and in 
 English find their final explanation nowhere but in 
 the accents of Vedic words. Many of the most impor- 
 tant names of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses 
 remain dumb, till they are made to speak once more, 
 when brought face to face with the gods and goddesses 
 of the Veda. Nay, religion itself, which seemed to 
 some scholars so irrational and unnatural a creation 
 ' that it could have been invented by one man only, 
 and he probably a madman/ assumes, when watched 
 in the Veda, a character so perfectly natural and 
 rational, that we may boldly call it now an inevitable 
 phase in the growth of the human mind. 
 
 Unique Character of the Veda. 
 
 In saying this I am not afraid that I shall be 
 charged with exaggerating the importance of the 
 Veda. There was a time when it was thought neces- 
 sary to protest against the assumption that the Veda 
 reHected the image of the earliest phase of Aryan life. 
 
HOW TO STUDY THYSICAL RELIGION. 19 
 
 nay of all human life on earth. I am not aware that 
 so preposterous a claim in favour of the Veda had 
 really ever been made by any scholar. It seems only 
 another instance of a very common practice in the 
 republic of letters. A purely imaginary danger is con- 
 jured up, in order to claim the merit of having 
 stemmed it. I do not mean to say that there may 
 not have been an unguarded expression here and 
 there which could be construed as claiming for the 
 Veda a primordial antiquity. After all, scholars write 
 for scholars, and they take it for granted that even 
 their somewhat enthusiastic expressions will not be 
 misinterpreted so as to become unmeaning and absurd. 
 Now for a scholar it would be nothing short of absurd 
 to claim for the Vedic poetry a primordial character. 
 Whoever the fost inhabitants of our earthly Paradise 
 may have been, they certainly did not speak the lan- 
 guage of the Veda, which show^s as many rings within 
 rings as the oldest trunks in the Ycsemite valley. 
 Nor would it be less absurd to represent the Veda as 
 a literary monument dating from the undivided Aryan 
 period. The division of the Aryan race into its two 
 chief branches, the North- Western and South-Eastern, 
 belongs to a time beyond the reach of historical chro- 
 nology, whereas the date claimed for the Veda does 
 not exceed the second millennium b. c. 
 
 There are misunderstandings against which one 
 does not guard, because they seem impossible, at least 
 ' within the profession.' 
 
 But, on the other hand, who can deny that the 
 Veda is the oldest monument of Aryan speech and 
 Aryan thought which we possess ? Who can w^onder 
 at the enthusiasm with which its discovery was 
 
 c 2 
 
20 LECTURE I. 
 
 orreeted, at the eao-erness with which the Vedic MSS. 
 were seized, copied, collated, and published, and at 
 the zeal with which its treasures have been ransacked 
 and brought to light? What Aryan nation could 
 produce anything to match the Veda "? Beautiful as 
 the Homeric poems are — for power of description infi- 
 niitely superior to anything in the Veda— yet they 
 exhibit a far more advanced state of society, so 
 modern in many of its aspects that we ourselves 
 could almost feel at home in it. Besides, they repre- 
 sent chiefly the outward life, and allow us but few 
 glimpses into those inward thoughts about gods and 
 men, about this life and the next, which find ex- 
 pression in the hymns of the Veda. And if no one 
 would blame the historian who drew the picture of 
 early chivalry from the Iliad, or the idyl of early 
 domestic life from the Odyssey, why should we wonder 
 at the student of religion di-awing his most valuable 
 lessons from the Veda ? We shall certainly not find 
 in the Veda the archives either of the first man or of 
 the undivided Aryan race, but we do find there, and 
 there alone, the oldest record of what one branch of 
 that race thought about this life and its many pro- 
 blems, and what it believed about the gods and another 
 life. And if among the gods worshipped in the Veda 
 we find some that have the same names as the gods 
 of other Aryan nations, such as, for instance, Dyaus 
 and Zeus, is it so wild an assumption to maintain 
 that some of the antecedents of the Greek and Roman 
 gods may be discovered in the Veda ? May we not 
 say with the Preacher, ' Be not righteous over much, 
 neither make thyself over wise : why shouldest thou 
 destroy thyself?' 
 
HOW TO STUDY PHYSICAL RELIGION. !21 
 
 Neither the hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt nor 
 the cylinders of Babylon can lend us such assistance 
 for our studies more particularly for the study of the 
 historical growth of that Aryan race, to which we 
 and the greatest historical nations of the world belong, 
 as the Veda. The first thing, therefore, which I shall 
 have to do is to give you an account of how the Veda 
 was discovered, and what the Veda really is. 
 
LECTURE IL 
 
 THE VEDA AND THE TESTIMONIES TO ITS EARLY 
 EXISTENCE. 
 
 How did tlie Veda "become known? 
 
 ri^HERE seems to be a general agreement among 
 JL Sanskrit scholars that the Vedie hymns, as we 
 now possess them, collected in the Rig-veda-sawhita, 
 were composed between 1500 and 1000 B.C. Why that 
 date has been fixed upon we shall have to consider 
 hereafter, but it is well to say at once, that we roust 
 not expect the same kind of historical evidence for a 
 date reaching back to 1500 B.C. which we have a right 
 to demand for a date 1500 A. D. There are different 
 degrees o': certainty, and it is the neglect of this in- 
 evitable fact which causes so much needless controversy 
 between specialists and outsiders. The date assigned 
 to the poetry of the Veda is and will always remain 
 hypothetical. To critical scholars it would, I believe, 
 be a real relief if a later date could be assigned to 
 some portions of that sacred collection. But we can 
 hardly hope for new evidence to enable us to fix Vedic 
 dates. Historical dates require the evidence of con- 
 temporary witnesses, and it is difficult to say where 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EARLY EXISTENCE. 23 
 
 we should look for witnesses, outside of India, and 
 contemporary with the Vedic Rishis. 
 
 No Foreig-n Nations mentioned in the Veda. 
 
 We find no traces in the ancient Vedic hterature of 
 India of any contact with foreign nations. It has 
 been supposed by some scholars that the names of the 
 Parthians and Persians, or even of the Bactrians, were 
 known to the poets of the Veda, but the evidence on 
 which they rely is very uncertain ^ 
 
 The Veda not mentioned by Foreign Nations. 
 
 Nor do we find in the annals of other nations any 
 traces of their acquaintance with India before the 
 sixth century B.C. 
 
 Early Contact between India and Egypt, Babylon, Persia. 
 
 Whether there had heen any intercourse, direct or 
 indirect, between India and Greece before the sixth 
 century B. c. we cannot tell. Some scholars imagine 
 that Homer's Ethiopians, who dwelt towards the 
 rising of the sun, were meant for the people of India, 
 but this belongs to a class of conjectures to which we 
 can say neither yes nor no. If India was known to 
 the Greeks at that early time, it could only have been 
 through the Phenicians. It is well known that among 
 the articles of merchandise brought home by the 
 fleets of Hiram and Solomon, there were some which 
 by their origin and name point to India. If we look 
 at a map on which the stations are marked which 
 were established by Phenician merchants before 
 
 ' See Ax^peudix I. 
 
24 LECTURE II. 
 
 500 B.C., we see that the whole coast of the Medi- 
 terranean, from T3a'e and Sidon to Gibraltar, fi'om 
 Carthage to Marseilles, had been explored by them. 
 The Mediterranean was then, as it is still, the mart of 
 the world. The Greeks in Asia Minor and in Europe, 
 the Phenicians and the Egyptians occupied its borders, 
 *nd we know now from Babylonian and Egyptian 
 inscriptions that there was a very early diplomatic and 
 commercial intercourse between Egypt and Babylon. 
 We must remember also that the people on the 
 Egyptian or Ethiopian side of the Red Sea could 
 hardly have been ignorant of the people on the 
 Arabian side, or the people on the Arabian side of 
 the Persian gulf unacquainted with the existence 
 of people on the Persian side. Commerce was even 
 then a magnetic force that attracted nation to nation, 
 and merchants, less bold even than the Phenicians, 
 would not have been frightened by a voyage from the 
 sea that received the Tigris and Euphrates to the sea 
 that received the Indus and the rivers of the Penjab. 
 
 Yet the name of India, to say nothing of the name 
 of the Veda, is never mentioned in the more ancient 
 inscriptions of Egypt and Babylon. The only evidence 
 of a possible contact between India and Egypt at that 
 early time is the occurrence of the word hafii, ape, 
 which is said b}^ Professor Diimichen to be found in a 
 text of the seventeenth century ^. This hifn is sup- 
 posed to be the same word as the Hebrew hoph, ape, 
 which occurs in the first book of Kings, x. S2. Here 
 we read that ' Solomon had at sea a navy of Tharshish 
 with the navy of Hiram, and that once in three years 
 
 ^ Die Flotte einer aegyptischen Konigin in dem 17. Jahrhundert, 
 lS6b ; table II, p. 17. 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EAKLY EXISTENCE. 25 
 
 came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, silver, 
 ivory, and apes, and peacocks.' All these articles were 
 the products of the soil and climate of India, and the 
 Sanskrit name for ape is kapL Here then the single 
 word kapi may possibly indicate the route of commerce 
 from India to Judaea and Phenicia, and from thence 
 to Egypt, in the seventeenth century B. C. 
 
 The same animal, the ape, is supposed to attest an 
 early intercourse between India and Babylon also. It 
 occurs with other animals on the black obelise from 
 Nineveh, now in the British Museum. 
 
 Though the armies of the great conquerors of 
 Mesopotamia must have approached very near to the 
 frontiers of India, they have left no traces of their 
 presence there, nor have they brought any intelligence 
 of India back to Babylon or Nineveh. The idea that 
 the Indian division of the heavens into twenty-seven 
 or twenty-eight Nakshatras was of Babylonian origin, 
 and the assertion that the name of the Babylonian 
 weio'ht, mna or mina. occurred in the Veda as man a, 
 rest both on no valid authority. la the half-legendary 
 account given by Diodorus Sxulus (ii. 16-19) of the 
 expedition of Semiramis against India, possibly 
 derived from Ctesias, the name of the Indian king 
 who in the end repels the foreign invaders, has been 
 supposed to bear evidence of the Sanskrit language 
 being known to the people of Babylon. It is Stabro- 
 hates, which may represent the Sk. sthavira-pati, 
 the strong lord ; but this also is doubtful K 
 
 1 Lassen explains Stabrobates as sthauri-pati, lord of bulls; 
 Bolilen as sthavara-pati, lord of the continent, both impossible. 
 
26 LECTURE IT. 
 
 Greek Accounts of India. — Skylax. 
 
 The first Greek who is supposed to have actually 
 visited India and to have written an account of it, 
 was Skylax. He lived before Herodotus, who tells us 
 (iv. 44-) that Darius Hystargus (51.2-486), wishing to 
 know where the river Indus fell into the sea, sent 
 \ naval expedition, and with it Sky lax of Karyanda 
 in Karia ^. 
 
 As soon, however, as Greek historiogi'aphy begins, 
 we find that the name of India was known. Hekataeos 
 knows it, Herodotus knows it, both living in Asia 
 Minor. But why did they call the country India ? 
 
 Persia has formed at all times a connecting link 
 between India and the Greeks of Asia Minor. In the 
 ancient sacred literature of Media and Persia, in the 
 Avesta of Zoroaster, India is mentioned under the 
 same peculiar name which it has in the Veda. In the 
 Veda the home of the Aryas in India is called Sapta 
 Sindhava/i, the Seven Rivers, that is, the five rivers 
 of the Penjab with the Sarasvati, a river which after- 
 wards disappeared, and the Indus. The very same 
 peculiar name, which is used during the Vedic age 
 only, appears in the Avesta as Hap t a He?idu. This 
 cannot be a mere accident, but proves, like many 
 other coincidences between Vedic Sanskrit and Zend, 
 that, long after the Aryan separation, there was a 
 continued historical contact between the Vedic poets 
 and the people among whom at one time the 
 Zoroastrian religion flourished. 
 
 Hapta He7idu is exactly the same name as 
 Sapta Sindhu, by a change of s into h. The name 
 
 ' See Appendix II. 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EARLY EXISTENCE. 27 
 
 of India must have reached the Greeks through a 
 language in which, as in Persian, every initial s was 
 represented by h, for it is thus only that we can 
 account for the Greek form India, instead of what we 
 should expect, if the Sanskrit word Sindhu had 
 reached the Greeks directly, namely Sindia. 
 
 Persia continued to serve as a bridge between India 
 and Greece in later times also, for in the Persian 
 cuneiform inscription at Nakshi Rustam w^e find 
 among the provinces paying tribute to Darius, Hindu 
 mentioned by the side of lonians, Spartans, Badrians, 
 Parthians, and Medes. Long before Alexander's dis- 
 covery of India, Greek writers, such as Hekataeos 
 (b.c. 549-486) and Herodotus, possessed some in- 
 formation about that distant country beyond its mere 
 name. Hekataeos mentions the river Indus, Herodotus 
 speaks of the Gandarioi, a race evidently identical 
 with the G and haras, mentioned in the Rig-veda, 
 whose town Kaspapyros was known to Hekataeos. 
 Herodotus (i. 131) knows even the name of one of the 
 deities, worshipped in common by the Vedic Indians 
 and the Persian Zoroastrians, namely Mitra ; but how 
 superficial his knowledge was is best shown by the 
 fact that he takes Mitra for a female deity, corre- 
 sponding to the Assyrian Mylitta, the Arabian Alitta. 
 
 Alexander's Expedition to India. 
 
 There seems to have been from very early times a 
 vague impression that India, like Egypt, was the home 
 of an ancient wisdom. Alexander himself shared that 
 idea, and w^as most anxious therefore to get a glimpse 
 of the wisdom of the Brahmans, by conversing with 
 them through the aid of various interpreters. It is 
 
28 LECTURE II. 
 
 quite possible that those of his companions who were 
 entrusted with a description of Alexander's campaigns 
 may have written down a full account of the Brahmans, 
 particularly of the so-called Hylobioi, the dwellers in 
 the forest, called in Sanskrit vanaprastha, and of the 
 ancient literature Avhich they possessed. But whether 
 by accident or through the indifference of the later 
 Greeks, scanty fragments only have been preserved of 
 these writings. Nor do we possess more than frag- 
 ments of the description of India, composed by Mega- 
 sthenes, who stayed at Patua (Pa^aliputra == Pali- 
 bothra) as ambassador of Seleucos to the King of the 
 Prasii, the famous A^andragupta, about 295 B.C.; still 
 less of Ktesias, who, though he did not actually live in 
 India^ gathered much information about that w^onderful 
 country, when staying at the court of Darius II and 
 Artaxerxes Mnemon, about 400 B.C. 
 
 Certain it is that the name of the Veda is never 
 mentioned in Greek literature, and that nothing but 
 vague ideas about the wisdom of the Erahmans were 
 current among the philosophers of Greece and Rome. 
 Early Christian writers also, wdio speak of the religions 
 of India, and are able to distinguish between the reli- 
 gion of Brahmans and Buddhists, never refer to the 
 sacred literature of the Brahmans under the name of 
 Veda. 
 
 Contact with China. 
 
 The first people who give us authentic information 
 about the Veda, you will be surprised to hear, are the 
 Chinese. There exists a curious prejudice against all 
 that is Chinese. We seem to look upon the Chinese 
 very much as they look upon us, as Outer Barbarians. 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EAKLY EXISTENCE. ' 29 
 
 We find it very difficult to take them, as the French 
 say, au grand serieux. They seem to us queer, funny, 
 not quite like other people — certainly not like Greeks 
 and Romans, not even like Indians and Persians, 
 And yet when we examine their literature, whether 
 ancient or modern, it is by no means so very different 
 from that of other nations. Their interests are much 
 the same as ours, and there is certainly no lack of 
 seriousness in their treatment of the highest problems 
 of religion, morality, and philosophy. 
 
 There are in China three religions, that of Confucius, 
 that of Lao-tze, and that of Buddha. Confucius and 
 Lao-tze lived both in the sixth century B.C. They 
 were, however, restorers rather than founders of reli- 
 gion. The religion of Buddha reached China from 
 India about the beoimiino- of our era. 
 
 The name of iiina occurs in the epic literature of 
 India as the name of a people on the North-Eastern 
 frontiers of the country. But whether it was intended 
 as a name of China is doubtful ^. 
 
 The three religions of China have had their contro- 
 versies and their hostile conflicts. But all three are 
 now regarded as recognised systems of faith in China, 
 and the Emperor of China is expected to profess all 
 three, and to attend their special services on great 
 occasions. Here we are at once inclined to smile, and 
 to doubt the seriousness of a rehgious faith that could 
 thus conform to three systems, so different from each 
 other as Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. We 
 pride ourselves on attending the services of none but 
 our own sect or subdivision of the great divisions of 
 
 ^ See Lassen, IwUschc Alterthunv^kundc , P. p. 1029- 
 
30 LECTURE II. 
 
 Christendom. We are apt to suspect indifference, 
 latitudinarianism, or scepticism in any member of the 
 Church of Eno-land who should attend the communion 
 of any other Christian sect. But the official attendance 
 of the Emperor of China in the temples of Confucian- 
 ists, Taoists, and Buddhists admits of a different inter- 
 ^pretation also. May it not show that the wisest of 
 their statesmen. had recognised that there was some 
 truth, some eternal truth, in every one of these three 
 religions ; that the amount of truth on which they all 
 agreed was much greater and much more important 
 than the points of doctrine on which they differed, and 
 that the presence of the Emperor at the services of 
 the three religions of his subjects was the most efficient 
 way of preaching tolerance, humility, or, if you like, 
 Christian charity. We are but too ready to judge 
 heathen nations, without considering how much of 
 charitable interpretation we have to claim for our- 
 selves. 
 
 Buddhist Filgrims. 
 
 How serious a Chinaman can be about his religion, 
 you will be able to gather from the lives of those 
 Buddhist Pilgrims to whom we owe the first authentic 
 account of the Veda. Why did these pilgrims go from 
 China to India — a journey which even now is con- 
 sidered by geographical explorers as one of the most 
 perilous, and as requiring no less of human endurance 
 and bravery than Stanley's exploration of Africa? 
 
 They went there for the sake of their religion. India 
 was to them their Holy Land. Buddhism had reached 
 China at the beoinnino^ of our era from Northern 
 India, and to visit the holy places where Buddha had 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EARLY EXISTENCE. 31 
 
 been born, had lived, taught, and died, was as much 
 the dream of a devout Tuddhist in China as to visit 
 the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem was the dream of 
 many a poor palmer and many a valiant Crusader in 
 Christendom. 
 
 We possess the descriptions of these Buddhist pil- 
 gi'images, extending from about 400 A. D. to 1000 A. D. 
 The most important are those of Fa-hian, 399-414, 
 Hiouen-thsang, 629-645, and I-tsing, 673-695. Their 
 works have been translated into French and into 
 English too by Stanislas Julien, Professor Legge, 
 Dr. Eeal, and others. While the companions of 
 Alexander had no eyes to see the existence of 
 Sacred Books, such as the Veda, in India, the 
 Chinese pilgrims not only give us the name of the 
 Veda, but they actually learnt Sanskrit, and they were 
 able to point out the differences between the ordinary 
 Sanskrit and the more ancient language used in the 
 Veda. You know how highly Christian apologists 
 value any mention of, or quotations from the New 
 Testament, occurring in ancient authors, in order to 
 prove the existence of the Gospels at a certain date, 
 or to confirin the authenticity of certain Epistles as 
 read in the fost, second, and third centuries A. D. The 
 critical student of the Veda has the same interest in 
 collecting independent testimonies as to the existence 
 and authenticity of the Veda from century to century, 
 and here the testimony of the Chinese pilgrims stands 
 first among those coming from people outside India, 
 from what the Brahmans also would call ' Outer Bar- 
 barians,' or M 1 e /c /j A a s \ 
 
 ^ See note in Appendix III. 
 
32 LECTURE II. 
 
 Later Contact with Persia. 
 
 The next people from whom we might have ex- 
 pected direct information about the ancient Vedic 
 literature of India are the Persians. I do not mean 
 the ancient Persians, the subjects of Darius or Xerxes, 
 J'or they have left us no information about their own 
 sacred literature, much less about that of their neiirh- 
 hours. I mean the Persians of the sixth century A. D. 
 The kings of Persia at that time, such as Khosru 
 Nushirvan, were men of hterary tastes, patrons of 
 poets and philosophers. We know that they enter- 
 tained the greatest admiration for the literature of 
 India, and patronised the translation of several San- 
 skrit works into Pehlevi, the literary language of 
 Persia at that time. But we look in vain for any 
 mention of the sacred books of the Brahman, and it 
 is doubtful whether the translators of the other San- 
 skrit texts were aware of their existence ^ 
 
 Al-Biruni, 1000 A. D. 
 
 Some of the books which during the Sassanian 
 
 ^ It is stated in the Dinkard, as translated by Mr. West, that the 
 Sassanians collected information from Arum (the Byzantine Empire) 
 and from Hindukdn (ih.Q Hindus\ The names even of MSS. are 
 given, but there is nothing in them that points to India. One 
 curious coincidence, however, has been pointed out by Mr. West. 
 The human body is apportioned between the four professions, priest- 
 hood being on the head, warriorship on the hand, husbandry on the 
 belly, and artizanship on the foot. The names of the four castes 
 are derived from the Avesta, but the idea itself seems to have been 
 borrowed from the Veda. Hei-e we read, X. 90, 12, 
 
 Bi-ahmana/i asya mukham asit, biihu raganya/i knta^ 
 Uru tat asya yat vaisya/i padbhyam sudra/i a^/ayata. 
 
 'The Brahmana was his mouth, the Raj/anya was made his two 
 arms. Ills two legs were the Vaisya, from his two feet the /Sudra 
 was born.' 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EARLY EXISTENCE. 33 
 
 period had been translated from Sanskrit into Pehlevi 
 or ancient Persian were afterwards, in the eighth 
 century, translated into Arabic, and some of them, 
 such as the fables of Bidpai, have served to carry the 
 fame of the wisdom of the Prahmans all over Europe. 
 But the Vedas remained unknown to other Oriental 
 nations till about 1000 a. D. At that time the north 
 of India was conquered by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, 
 who from time to time made predatory expeditions to 
 plunder and destroy the richest temples of India at 
 Taneshar, Mathura, Kanoj, and Sornnath ^. After 
 takino' Khiva in 1017, he carried off amono- other 
 prisoners and hostages a learned astronomer and 
 astrologer, best known by the name of Al-Biruni. 
 During thirteen years which he spent in India, 1017- 
 1030, Al-Biruni devoted himself sedulously to the 
 study of Sanskrit and Sanskrit literature. It was for- 
 merly supposed that he translated not only from San- 
 skrit into Arabic and Persian, but likewise, what would 
 have been a much more arduous task, from Arabic 
 and Persian into Sanskrit. Dr. Sachau, the learned 
 editor and translator of Al-Biruni's great work on 
 India, has shown that this was not the case, and that 
 all we can say with safety is that he was able to read 
 Sanskrit texts with the help of native Pandits. But 
 for all that, Al-Biruni was a most remarkable and 
 exceptional man for his time, a man of wide sympa- 
 thies, a true philosopher, and an acute observer. The 
 very idea of learning a foreign language, except perhaps 
 Persian or Turkish, had never entered at that time the 
 head of any Mohammedan. As to studying the religion 
 
 ^ Al-Biruni, translated by Sachau, vol. i. p. xvii. 
 (2^ D 
 
34 LECTURE II. 
 
 of the infidels, it would have been considered damnable. 
 Al-Birimi showed himself free from all such prejudices, 
 and the world owes to him the fiist accurate and com- 
 prehensive account of Indian literature and religion ^. 
 If his writings had been more widely known, and if, 
 more particularly, European scholars had been ac- 
 quainted w^ith them at the time when Sanskrit litera- 
 ture began to attract the interest of Sir William Jones, 
 Colebrooke, and others, many discoveries which taxed 
 the ingenuity of European scholars need not have 
 been made at all, for Al-Birimi would have told us all 
 we wanted to know. He knew the four Vedas, the 
 Eig-veda, Ya^ur-veda, Sama-veda, and Atharva-veda. 
 He knew that the Vedas, even in his time, in the 
 eleventh century, were not allowed to be written, but 
 were handed down by oral tradition, which w^as con- 
 sidered far safer than the pen of a ready writer (vol. i. p. 
 126). He tells us, what we can hardly accept as true for 
 the whole of India, that it was not long before his time 
 when Vasukra, a native of Kashmir, a famous Brahman, 
 undertook the task of explaining the Veda and com- 
 mitting it to writing (vol.i. p. 126), because he was afraid 
 that it might be forgotten and entirely vanish from 
 the memories of men. He asserts that the Hindu con- 
 sider as canonical only that which is known by heart, 
 not that which is written, and he remarks that even 
 their scientific works were composed in metre, in order 
 to facilitate their being learnt by heart (vol. i. p. 19). 
 All this and a great deal more he teUs us as an eye- 
 
 ^ Al-Biruni's India, An Accotmt of the Religion, Phllosoj)hy, Literature, 
 CJironologij, Astronomy, Customs, Law, and Astrology of India, about 1030, 
 edited and translated by Dr. Sachau. 
 
THE VEDA, ITS EAELY EXISTENCE. 35 
 
 witness, and as one who could command the services 
 of the best native scholars. 
 
 Emperor Aklbar, 155S 1605. 
 
 It is strange, however, that the account he gave 
 of the Vedas should have attracted so little attention 
 either in the East or in the West. Five centuries 
 passed before the Vedas were really placed in the 
 bright light of history, and even then only a small 
 portion of the Vedas was rendered accessible by means 
 of translation. This took place during the reign of 
 the great Emperor Akbar, 1556-1605. He knew of 
 the Vedas, and in his eagerness to become acquainted 
 with all the relio^ions of the w^orld before fuundino- 
 his own religion, he made great efforts to obtain a 
 translation of them. But his efforts w^ere in vain. 
 We hear indeed of a translation of the Atharva-veda, 
 made for Akbar. But the Atharva-veda, as we shall 
 see, is very different from the other Vedas, and the 
 portions of that Veda, translated for Akbar, were most 
 likely the Upanishads only. These Upanishads are 
 the philosophical appendices of the Veda, more par- 
 ticularly of the Atharva-veda. They are deeply in- 
 teresting, though as philosophy rather than as religion. 
 
 Prince Dara, translator of the Upanishads. 
 
 One hundred years after Akbar they fascinated Dara, 
 the unfortunate son of Shah Jehan, as they have 
 fascinated others in later times. Biince Dara is said 
 to have learnt Sanskrit in order to translate the 
 Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian, and a year 
 after he had accomplished his task; he was murdered 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LECTURE II. 
 
 by his brother AuriiDgzebe. It was this Persian 
 translation of the Upanishads which Anquetil Du- 
 perron translated again into Latin in 1795, and it 
 was Du perron's Latin translation which inspired 
 Schopenhauer, and furnished to him, as he himself 
 declares, the fundamental principles of his own phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 Schopenhauer. 
 
 Nothing shows more clearly the indefatigable in- 
 dustry and at the same time the wonderful perspicacity 
 of that great philosopher, than his being able to find his 
 way through the labyrinth of an uncouth Latin trans- 
 lation, and to discover behind the strangest disguises 
 the sublime truths hidden in the Upanishads. Honest 
 as he was, Schopenhauer declared openly that his own 
 philosophy was founded on that of the Upanishads. 
 * From every sentence of these Upanishads,' he writes, 
 'deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise, and the 
 whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest 
 spirit. Indian air surrounds us, and original thoughts 
 of kindred spirits. And oh, how thoroughly is the 
 mind here washed clean of all early engrafted Jewish 
 superstitions, and of all philosophy that cringes before 
 those superstitions ! In the whole world there is no 
 study, except that of the originals, so beneficial and 
 so elevating as that of the Oupnekhat. It has been 
 the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my 
 death V 
 
 1 The Upanishads, translated by F. M. M., in Sacred Books qf the 
 East, vol. i. p. Ixi. 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 
 Thread of our Argument. 
 
 IN a course of lectures we must try never to lose 
 our way. 
 
 Where are we ? 
 
 We are studying Physical Religion — the roads that 
 led from Nature to Nature's gods— to Nature's God. 
 I stated that this phase of religious growth can best 
 be studied in the Veda. And the next question was. 
 What is the Veda — and, How did we come to know 
 it? 
 
 Now, if you had asked the most learned Professor, 
 not more than a hundred years ago. What is the 
 Veda 1 — he would most likely have had to say, what 
 no Professor likes to say, / dont knoiv. Not quite 
 so many years ago, when Professor Wilson offered 
 a translation of the Veda to one of our greatest 
 publishers, he was met by the question, ' And pray, 
 Sir, what is the VedaV 
 
 I therefore feel in duty bound to explain, first of 
 all, how the Avorld came to know the Veda, and who 
 are the first people outside of India that bear witness 
 to its existence. 
 
38 LECTURE III; 
 
 The Greeks did not mention the Veda, though no 
 doubt it existed long before Alexander, nor the 
 Persians, nor the Jews. The first people outside 
 India who knew the Veda were the Chinese. Then 
 followed Al-Biruni, at the court of Mahmud of 
 Ghazna (about 1000 A.D.), and lastly the Emperor 
 Akbar and his literary friends, in the second half 
 of the sixteenth century. All these bear w^itness to 
 the existence of the Veda. But they are witnesses 
 who lived in the East. We have now to see how 
 the Veda became known in the West, how a know- 
 ledo-e of that ancient literature reached the scholars 
 of Europe. 
 
 European Missionaries in India. 
 
 At the court of Al^bar, and again at the court of 
 Aurungzebe (1658-1707), there were several European 
 missionaries who took part in the religious and phi- 
 losophical discussions of the time, and wdio ought to 
 have been acquainted with the Vedas, if only by 
 name. But it would seem as if the Brahmans. though 
 anxious to have their literature known and appre- 
 ciated by their conquerors, were more anxious still 
 to keep their sacred literature, the Vedas, out of sight 
 of any strangers. Their law-books are full of threaten- 
 ings against any one who should divulge the Veda, 
 and it seems certainly a fact that the Emperor Akbar, 
 omnipotent as he was, did not succeed in persuading 
 any Brahman to translate the real Veda for him ^. 
 
 It was only when Christian missionaries began 
 themselves to learn the classical language of the 
 Brahmans, the so-called Sanskrit, that they became 
 
 ^ See a story about an attempted translation of the Veda in 
 Scie ce of Lanc/x'.age, vol. 1. p. 206. 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 39 
 
 aware of the existence of the old sacred books, called 
 the Veda. 
 
 Francis Xavicr, Avho went as a missionary to India 
 in the first halt' of the sixteenth century, w^as honest 
 enough to confess that he could not learn the language. 
 ' I do not understand that people,' he writes, ' nor do 
 they understand me.' Yet this is the same Xavier 
 who is always mentioned as one of the first successful 
 missionaries in India, nay to w^hom, under the name 
 of St. Francis Xavier, his admirers ascribed the gift 
 of tongues. 
 
 In the second half of that centur}^, however, a 
 successful attempt was made by some Roman Catholic 
 missionaries at Goa to learn Sanskrit with the help 
 of a converted Brahman, and early in the seventeenth 
 century the famous missionar}^, Roberto de' Nobili, 
 had made himself thoroughly acquainted, not only 
 with the Sanskrit language, but with Sanskrit litera- 
 ture also. That he knew the Veda, and that he had 
 learnt to appreciate its enormous authority among 
 the higher classes in India, is best shown by the fact 
 that he announced himself as come to preach a new 
 Veda. Whether he actually composed such a work 
 we do not know, but it seems quite certain that the 
 notorious Ezour-veda was not his work. This 
 Ezour-veda was a poor compilation of Hindu and 
 Christian doctrines mixed up together in the most 
 childish way, and was probably the w^ork of a half- 
 educated native convert at Pondicherry. A French 
 translation of this woi'k was sent to Voltaire, who 
 presented it to the Royal Library at Paris in 1761. 
 It w^as published by Sainte-Croix in 1778, under the 
 title of L'Ezour Vedam, ou ancien commentaire dvb 
 
40 LECTURE III. 
 
 Vedam, contenant V exposition cles opinions religieuses 
 et xMlosophiques des Indous, traduit du Samscretam 
 par un Brame. How a man of Voltaire's taste could 
 have been taken in by such a work is difficult to 
 understand to any one who takes the trouble to read 
 the two volumes. Yet Voltaire spoke of it as ' the 
 most precious gift for which the West has ever been 
 indebted to the East,' and he placed its date four 
 centuries before Alexander. In plain English, the 
 whole book is childish drivel. 
 
 To us the book is chiefly interesting as showing 
 when the name of Veda began first to be more generally 
 known among the literary men of Europe. The 
 Roman Catholic missionaries in India had begun to 
 grapple with the real Veda early in the eighteenth 
 century, but their communications in th-e Lettres 
 edifiantes attracted much less attention than the 
 eulogies of a spurious Veda, trumpeted forth by so 
 powerful a trumpeter as Voltaire. Father Calmette, 
 for instance, in a letter from Carnata in the south of 
 India, dated January, 1 733, assures us that his friends 
 were not only well grounded in Sanskrit, but were 
 able to read the Veda. This shows decided progress, 
 and a recognition of the fact of which Sanskrit students 
 are painfully aware, that a man may be well grounded 
 in Sanskrit, and yet unable to read the Veda. He 
 also knows that there are four Vedas which, as he 
 states, ' contain the law of the Brahmans, and which 
 the Indians from time immemorial regarded as their 
 sacred book's, as books of an irrefragable authority and 
 as coming from God Himself.' Father Calmette was 
 evidently quite aware of the importance of a knowledge 
 of the Vedas for missionary purposes, and of the im- 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 41 
 
 mense influence which the Vedas continued to exercise 
 on the religious convictions of the people. ' From the 
 time,' he writes, ' that missionaries first went to India, 
 it has'always been thought to be impossible to find this 
 book Avhich is so much respected by the Indians. And, 
 indeed, w^e should never have succeeded, if we had 
 not had Brahmans, wdio are Christians, hidden among 
 them. For how would they have communicated this 
 book to Europeans, and particularly to the enemies of 
 their religion, as they do not communicate it even to 
 the Indians, except to those of their own caste.' He 
 then adds what shows that his informants had been 
 bona fide students of the Veda. 'The most extra- 
 ordinary part is that those who are the depositaries of 
 the Veda do not understand its meaning; for the 
 Veda is written in a very ancient language, and the 
 Samouscroutam (that is, the Sanskrit), which is as 
 familiar to their learned men as Latin is to us, is not 
 sufficient, without the help of a commentary, to ex- 
 plain the thoughts as w^ell as the words of the Veda.' 
 This statement is important in several respects. 
 You will have remarked the expression, ' those who 
 are the depositaries of the Veda.' He does not say 
 that he has as yet seen or handled the books con- 
 taining the text of the Veda; he speaks only of 
 depositaries of the Veda. This shows, w^hat we now 
 know to have been the case always that the Brahmans 
 at his time, and in the south of India, did not depend 
 on books or manuscripts for the preservation of the 
 Veda, but that they knew it by heart, and learnt 
 it by heart from the mouth of a teacher. It does 
 not follow^ that they did not possess manuscripts 
 also of the Veda. It is true that in their law- 
 
42 LECTuiiE in. 
 
 books the copying of the Veda and the selling of 
 manuscripts is strictly forbidden, but the fact that 
 it was necessary to forbid this shows, of course, 
 that the law was broken. Manuscripts of the Veda 
 did exist in the last century, for we possess them, 
 and Father Calmette also succeeded after a time in 
 procuring some of them. They may have existed 
 as soon as the art of writing for literary purposes 
 began to be practised in India, say a century or two 
 before the beginning of the Christian era. But they 
 never assumed the authority which the litera scripta 
 assumed in Europe. The Brahmans themselves were 
 the true depositaries of the Veda ; they were the 
 books, and more than the books, inasmuch as an 
 unbroken oral tradition was supposed to connect each 
 successive generation with the original composers, or, 
 speaking more accui'ately, with the original recipients 
 of these sacred hymns. 
 
 Another remark too of Father Calmette is very 
 significant. He says, ' They who are the deposi- 
 taries of the Veda, do not understand its meaning.' 
 Now this is again perfectly true. The Veda is learnt by 
 heart at first, without any attempt at understanding it. 
 It is only after the text has thus been mechanically 
 engraved on the tablets of the memory, that the more 
 learned among the Brahmans endeavour to understand 
 it under the guidance of their teachers and with the 
 help of ancient commentaries. All this is in accord- 
 ance with their ancient law-books, and exists still as 
 the recognised system of education in several parts of 
 India, particularly in the south. Some schools go 
 even so far as to maintain that a text of the Veda, if 
 not understood, is more efficient at a sacrifice than if 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 43 
 
 ifc is understood by the person Avho recites it. I doubt 
 whether any other priesthood has gone so far in their 
 admiration of ignorance. 
 
 However, it is quite clear that Father Cabnette 
 was one of the first who succeeded in getting hold of 
 actual manuscripts of the Veda. 
 
 . Father Calmette tells us that for a long time he 
 thought that the Vedas could not be found in manu- 
 script. Other missionaries also tell the same story. 
 Marco della Tomba, for instance, who was in India 
 between 1757 and 1774, and who declares that he 
 knew Sanskrit well enough to carry on disputations 
 in it with the Brahmans, confesses that he was never 
 allowed to see a manuscript of the Vedas. He 
 doubts the vei-y existence of the Vedas, but he 
 speaks with the greatest admiration of the Brahmans 
 who knew whole books by heart. At last, however, 
 Father Calmette was successful. 'It is only five or 
 six years ago,' he writes, ' that I was allowed to form 
 an Oriental library for the King, and charged to seek 
 for Indian books for that purpose. I then made 
 discoveries of great importance for religion^ among 
 w^hich I count that of the four Vedas or sacred books.' 
 
 And here, after Father Calmette had got actual 
 possession of the Veda, and had succeeded with the help 
 of some Brahmans to decipher some of its chapters, 
 it is most instructive to watch the bent of his 
 thoughts, and of the thoughts of many of the early 
 missionaries in India. He is not bent on extracting 
 from the Veda passages showing the depravity and 
 absurdity of the ancient Indian religion, an occupation 
 which some of our present missionaries seem to con- 
 sider their principal duty. No, the very contrary. 
 
44 LECTURE III. 
 
 ' Since the Veda is in our hands,' he writes, ' we have 
 extracted from it texts which serve to convince them of 
 those fundamental truths that must destroy idolatry ; 
 for the unity of God, the qualities of the true God, and 
 a state of blessedness and condemnation, are all in the 
 Veda. But the truths which are to be found in this 
 book are only scattered there like grains of gold in 
 *a heap of sand.' 
 
 What would some of the present Bishops in India 
 say to this truly Pauline sentiment, to this attempt to 
 discover in the sacred books of other nations some 
 grains of gold, some common ground, on which a 
 mutual understandino^ and a real brotherhood mio^ht 
 be established between Christians and non-Christians? 
 The Brahmans themselves are quite aware of the 
 existence of these grains of gold, and when accused of 
 polytheism and idolatry, they themselves quote certain 
 verses from the Veda to show that even in ancient 
 times their prophets knew perfectly well that the 
 different gods invoked for different blessings were 
 only different names of the one Supreme Being. Thus 
 they quote from Rig-veda I. 164, 46: 
 
 Indram Mitram Varuwam Agnim ahuh, 
 Atho divjdh sa/i supar«aA Garutman. 
 Ekam sat viprM bahudha vadanti, 
 Agnim, Yamam, Matarisvanam ahuh. 
 
 ' They call Indra, Mitra, Varu/ia, Agni, then there is 
 that heavenly Garutmat with beautiful wings: the 
 One that is they speak of in different ways, they call 
 it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.' 
 
 This is a clear confession, if not of Monotheism, at 
 least of Monism, for it should be remarked that the 
 Vedic poet, when he speaks of the one that truly 
 exists, the bearer of many divine names, does not 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 45 
 
 even venture to put it in the masculine gender, but 
 calls it the Ekam Sat, the only Being that exists. 
 
 Another well-known verse of a similar character, in 
 which, however, the masculine gender and a certain 
 amount of human metaphor are still preserved, occurs 
 in Rig-veda X. 82, 3 : 
 
 YAh T\Sih pita granita y^i^ vidhata, 
 dhamani veda, bhuvanani visva, 
 Ya/i devanam namadlul'/i eka/t eva, 
 tiim samprasnam bhuvana yanti anya. 
 
 * He who is our father that begot us, he who is the creator, 
 He who knows all places and all creatures, 
 He who gave names to the gods, being one only, 
 To him all other creatures go, to ask him.' 
 
 I could add other passages, particularly from the 
 BrahmaT^as and Upani shads, all confirming Father 
 Calmette's idea that the Veda is the best key to the 
 religion of India, and that a thorough knowledge of 
 it, of its strong as well as of its weak points, is in- 
 dispensable to the student of religion, and more 
 particularly to the missionary who is anxious to 
 make sincere converts. What is extraordinary is that 
 the announcement of Father Calmette's discovery of 
 the Veda passed off almost unheeded in Europe. 
 
 Another French missionary. Father Pons, in 1740, 
 sent a still more complete account of the literary 
 treasures discovered in India. In it he describes the 
 four Vedas, the grammatical treatises, the six systems 
 of philosophy, and the astronomy of the Hindus. 
 But his communications also excited no curiosity 
 except among a few members of the French Institute. 
 The world at large, which would have greeted the 
 discovery of a single ancient Greek statue with shouts 
 of applause, had nothing to say to the unearthing 
 
46 LECTURE III. 
 
 of a whole literature, of a whole world of ancient 
 thought. 
 
 European Scholars acquainted with the Vedas. 
 
 The Abbe Earthelemy was one of the few European 
 scholars who perceived the true import of the com- 
 munications sent home from India by French mis- 
 sionaries, and he asked Father Coeurdoux in 1763 to 
 send home a Sanskrit grammar. This shows that 
 he was in real earnest, and felt impressed with the 
 duty which these extraordinary Indian discoveries 
 imposed on the learned men of Europe. After a time, 
 grammars of the Sanskrit language reached Europe, 
 and it will always remain an honour to Rome that 
 the first grammar of the Sanskrit language was pub- 
 lished at Rome in 1790, by a Carmelite friar, Paolino 
 da S. Baitolomeo. He was a Gorman, by name of 
 Johann Philip Werdin, not Wesdin, as he is often 
 called, and had been actively employed as a mis- 
 sionary in the south of India from 1776 to 1789. 
 
 But after giving full credit to the labours of Paolino 
 da S. Bartolomeo and other Roman missionaries, the 
 fact remains that there was as yet a smouldering 
 curiosity only for all that concerned India. The 
 flames of a true scientific enthusiasm for the ancient 
 literature of that country did not burst forth till they 
 were lighted by a spark of genius. That spark came 
 from Sir William Jones. Sir William Jones was a 
 man of classical culture and of wide interests. He 
 was at home in the best literary society of the age. 
 He could speak with authority, as a scholar to 
 scholars, as a philosopher to philosophers, and as 
 a man of the world to men of the world. When in 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUKOrEAN SCHOLARS. 47 
 
 1789^ he published his translation of >S^akuntala, he 
 forced the attention of the world, not only by the unex- 
 pected character of his discovery of a perfect dramatic 
 work composed by a dark-skinned poet, but by the pure 
 and classical style of his translation. His subsequent 
 translation of the Laws of Manu did infinite credit to 
 his patience and his ingenuity, and coming from the 
 hand of a professed lawyer and a judge, it could not 
 but attract the serious attention of all who were 
 interested in ancient history, and more particularly, 
 in ancient law. Of course, Sanskrit scholarship has 
 made progress since the days of Sir William Jones, 
 and it is easy now to point out a few mistakes in his 
 renderings. But true scholars who, like Professor 
 Blihler, have given us better translations of Manu, 
 have been the first to acknowledge Sir William Jones' 
 great merits: w^hereas others who have never done a 
 stitch of independent work, have dared to call his 
 translations 'meretricious.' 
 
 Asiatic Society of Eeng'al 
 
 With the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 
 in 1784, the history of Sanskrit philology begins, and 
 after a hundred years that society still holds the fore- 
 most place as the Royal Exchange between Asia and 
 Europe. I cannot here attempt to give an account 
 of all the brilliant work done by Sanskrit scholars 
 during the first century of Indo-European scholarship. 
 We are concerned with the Vedas only. And here it 
 
 ^ A translation of the Bhagavadglta, by Charles Wilkins, had 
 appeared before, in 17^-5. Wilkins' translation of the Ilitopadesa 
 appeared in 17b7. The first original Sanskrit text published was, 
 I believe, the i?«tusamhara, in 17'^-, under the auspices of Sir 
 William Jones. 
 
48 LECTURE III. 
 
 is certainly surprising that the Vedas, the supreme 
 importance of which was so clearly perceived by men 
 like Father Calmette, Pons, Paolino da S. Bartolomeo, 
 and others, should have remained so long neglected. 
 Sir W. Jones was fully impressed with their im- 
 portance. He knew that the Laws of Manu, to which 
 he assigned the extravagant antiquity of 1500 B.C. 
 •(they are now referred to about 400 A. D.), were modern 
 in comparison with the Vedas, and derived their chief 
 authority from them. 
 
 A much greater scholar than even Sir William 
 Jones, Henry Thomas Colebrooke, who with indefatig- 
 able industry had worked his way through the text 
 and the enormous commentaries of the Veda, and 
 whose essay on the Vedas, published in 1805, is still 
 a work of the highest authority, so far from exciting 
 an active interest in these works, rather damped the 
 enthusiasm of scholars who might have wished to 
 devote themselves to Vedic studies, by saying, as he 
 does at the end of his essay : ' The Vedas are too 
 voluminous for a complete translation of the whole, 
 and what they contain would hardly reward the 
 labour of the reader, much less that of the trans- 
 lator.' 
 
 Interest aroused in Germany. 
 
 Still the curiosity of the learned world had been 
 roused, nst only in England, but in Germany also. 
 While Goethe admired the graceful simplicity of 
 ^'akimtala, his friend Herder, with the true instinct 
 of the historian, was thirsting for the Veda. While 
 others ascribed an extreme antiquity to the Laws 
 of Manu and even to plays like >S'akuntala, he saw 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 49 
 
 clearly that whatever had been hitherto published of 
 Sanskrit literature, was comparatively modern and 
 secondary in its character. ' For the real Veda of the 
 Indians,' he sighed, 'as well as for the real Sanskrit 
 language, we shall probably have to wait a long time.' 
 
 Bunsen's projected Journey to India. 
 
 How strong a desire had been awakened in Germany 
 at that time for a real and authentic knowledge of the 
 Veda, I learnt from my dear old friend Bunsen, when 
 I first made his acquaintance in London in 1846. He 
 was then Prussian Minister in London. He told me 
 that when he was quite a young man, he had made up 
 his mind to go himself to India, to see whether there 
 really was such a book as the Veda, and what it was 
 like. But Bunsen was then a poor student at Gottingen, 
 poorer even, I believe, than the poorest stuclent in 
 Eno'land or Scotland. What did he do to realize his 
 dream? He became tutor to a young and very rich 
 American gentleman, well known in later life as one 
 of the American millionaires, Mr. Astor. Instead of 
 accepting payment for his lessons, he stipulated with 
 the young American, who had to return to the United 
 States, that they should meet in Italy, and from thence 
 proceed together to India on a voyage of literary dis- 
 covery. Bunsen went to Italy, and waited and waited 
 for his friend, but in vain. Mr. Astor was detained at 
 home, and Bunsen, in despair, had to become private 
 secretary to Niebuhr, who was then Prussian ^linister 
 at Rome. Brilliant as Bunsen's career became after- 
 wards, he always regretted the failure of his youthful 
 scheme. ' I have been stranded,' he uaod to say, ' on 
 the sands of diplomacy ; I should have been happier 
 (2) E 
 
50 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 had I remained a scholar.' This was the origin of my 
 own friendship with Bunsen. 
 
 When I called on him as Prussian Minister to have 
 my passport vise in order to return to Germany, and 
 when I explained to him how I had worked to bring 
 out an edition of the text and commentary of the Rig- 
 veda from MSS. scattered about in different libraries 
 * in Europe, and was now obhged to return to Germany, 
 unable to complete my copies and collations of manu- 
 scripts, he took my hand, and said, ' I look upon you 
 as myself, young again. Stay in London, and as to 
 ways and means, let me see to that.' Mind, I was then 
 a young, unknown man. Bunsen had never seen me 
 before. Let that be a lesson to young men, never to 
 despair. If you have found a w^ork to which you are 
 ready to sacrifice the whole of your hfe, and if you 
 have faith in yourselves, others will have faith in you, 
 and, sooner or later, a work that must be done will be 
 done. 
 
 MSS. of the Veda brougrht to Europe. 
 
 But I have not yet finished the account of the final 
 discovery of the Veda. 
 
 After Colebrooke's return from India, manuscripts 
 of the Veda and its commentaries had become acces- 
 sible in Lond' n. The first who made an attempt to 
 study these m.anuscripts. to copy and collate them, 
 and prepare them for publication, was Rosen. As the 
 result of his labours he published in 1830 his Rigvedae 
 Specimen. It contained a few hymns only, but it 
 produced a great impression, because, after all, it was 
 the first authentic specimen of the ancient Vedic lan- 
 guage submitted to the scholars of Europe. Rosen 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 51 
 
 undertook to bring out the whole of the Rig-veda, but 
 he found the preliminary work, the study of Sayaiia's 
 commentary and of all the literature pertaining to it, 
 far more difficult than he expected. When after seven 
 years of hard and patient labour Rosen died in 1837, 
 all that there was to be published after his death in 
 1838, was the first book of the Rig-veda in Sanskrit, 
 with a Latin translation and notes. 
 
 With Rosen's death the thread of the history of Vedic 
 scholarship seems broken again. Many learned papers 
 were written on the Veda, all based on Rosen's post- 
 humous volume. Bopp constantly availed himself 
 of the Veda for his Cowjyarative Gramrnar. Lassen, 
 Benfey, Kuhn, and others, all drew as much informa- 
 tion as possible out of the 121 hymns which Rosen 
 had placed within their reach. But the only scholar 
 in Europe who went beyond Rosen, and who really 
 forms the connecting link between the first and the 
 second periods of Vedic scholarship, was Eugene 
 Burnouf at Paris. 
 
 Eugene Burnouf In France. 
 
 Historical justice requires that Burnouf s merits 
 should be fully recognised, because, owiug to his being 
 called away to Buddhistic studies, and owing to his 
 early death, very little of his work on the Veda has 
 come to the knowledge of the world, except through 
 bis disciples. First of all, Burnouf worked hard in 
 collecting MSS. of the principal Vedas, of their com- 
 mentaries, and of other works necessary for their 
 elucidation. He had persuaded Guizot\who was then 
 
 * Sec Appendix IV. 
 E 2 
 
52 LECTURE III. 
 
 Prime Minister in France, to provide the funds neces- 
 sary for the acquisition of these MSS. ; others he had 
 acquired at his own expense. AVith the help of these 
 MSS. he gained a wider acquaintance wdth Vedio 
 literature than was possessed at that time by any 
 other scholar. Scholars came from all parts of Europe 
 to attend his lectures. These lectures were given at 
 the College de France. They were attended by Neve, 
 Gorresio, Roth, Goldstiicker, Bartbelemy St. Hilaire, 
 Bardelli, and others, who have all done good work, 
 though some of them have gone to rest from their 
 labours. In these lectures Burnouf laid before us in 
 the most generous spirit his own views on the inter- 
 pretation of the Veda, his own results, and his own 
 plans for the future. The true principles of the inter- 
 pretation of the Veda, the necessity of beginning with 
 the native commentaries, and the equal necessity of 
 going beyond them and discovering the true meaning 
 of the Vedic language by the same method of decipher- 
 ment which Burnouf himself had so triumphantly 
 applied to the Avesta and to the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions, were then for the first time clearly enunciated. 
 And not only was all his knowledge freely communi- 
 cated to his pupils, but his own MSS. were readily 
 placed at their disposal, if only they would work and 
 help in the advancement of Vedic scholarship. 
 
 We were allowed to handle for the first time, not 
 only the texts of the Vedas and their commentaries, 
 but such books as the Nirukta the Pratisakhyas, 
 the Kalpa-sutras were freely placed at our disposal. 
 There can be no question whatever that the founder 
 of the critical school of Vedic scholarship was Burnouf, 
 though he himself was the very last man to claim any 
 
THE VEDA AS STUDIED BY EUROPEAN SCHOLARS. 53 
 
 credit for what he had done. The seed which he had 
 sown bore ample fruit, and that was all he cared for. 
 In Roth's Essays on the Veda (1846) we see the first 
 results of Burnouf s teaching, and in his later works, 
 his edition of the Nirukta (1852) and his valuable 
 contributions to the Petersburg Dictionary, the same 
 scholar has proved himself a worthy disciple of that 
 great French savant. 
 
 My edition of tlie Rig'-veda. 
 
 I had come to Paris to attend Burnouf's lectures, 
 and with very vague notions as to an edition of the 
 text and the commentary of the Eig-veda. You must 
 remember that the Vedas had never been published in 
 India, though for more than three thousand years they 
 had held there the same place which the Bible holds 
 w^ith us. They existed both in oral tradition, as they 
 still exist, and in MSS., more or less perfect, more or 
 less correct. These MSS. therefore had to be copied, 
 and then to be collated. This was comparatively 
 an easy task. The real difficulty began with the 
 commentary. First of all, that commentary was 
 enormous, and filled about four volumes quarto of 
 a thousand pages each. While the MSS. of the text 
 were generally correct, those of the commentary were 
 mostly very carelessly written, full of omissions, and 
 often perfectly unintelligible. But the greatest diffi- 
 culty of all was that Sayayia, the compiler of the great 
 commentary, who lived in the fourteenth century 
 A.D.\ quoted largely from a literature which was at 
 that time entirely unknown to us, which existed in 
 
 ^ He became prejsident of the College of S/iiigeri in 1331, aud died 
 in 13b6. 
 
54 LECTURE III. 
 
 MSS. only, and often not even in MSS. accessible in 
 Europe. My idea was to give extracts only from this 
 commentary, but on this point Burnouf resisted with 
 all his might. We must have the whole or nothing, 
 he used to say, and often when I despaired of my 
 task, he encouraged and helped me with his advice. 
 Before I could begin the first volume of my edition of 
 •Saya»a's connnentary, I had to read, to copy, and to 
 index the principal works which were constantly 
 referred to by Saya?ia— a little library by itself. 
 However, in 1849 the first volume appeared, and 
 twenty-five years later, in 1875, the whole work was 
 finished. 
 
 I have thus tried to give you a short sketch of the 
 discovery of the Veda. My own task was not that of 
 a discoverer, but that of a patient excavator only. 
 With every new platform that was laid bare, with 
 every new volume that was published, scholai-s rushed 
 in to examine what had been found, to sift the ashes, 
 to clear the genuine antiquities from the rubbish. 
 Critical scholarship did not wait till the whole of 
 Saya7(ia's commentary was finished. A number of 
 excellent young scholars have been at work on the 
 Veda in every country of Europe. In India also a 
 new interest has sprung up in Vedic literature, and 
 with every ^ear new light is thrown on the enig- 
 matic utterances of the Vedic Rishis. What these 
 utterances are, what the Rig-veda really is, what the 
 whole of Vedic literature contains^ I shall have to 
 explain to you in my next lecture. 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 
 Peculiar Character of Indian Antiquity. 
 
 WE saw how the Veda was discovered, how the 
 ancient city of Vedic thought was excavated, 
 and how a world which had lain buried for thousands 
 of years was called back to life in our own time. No 
 doubt the ruins of Carnac in Egypt look grander, the 
 palaces of Nineveh are more magnificent, the streets 
 and houses and temples at Pompeii are more imposing 
 than a hundred volumes of Vedic literature. But 
 what is it that gives life to the colossal ruins of 
 Carnac, what allows us a real insight into the palaces 
 of Nineveh, what imparts to the streets and houses 
 and temples of Pompeii a meaning and a real human 
 interest, if not the inscriptions on their walls and the 
 rolls of papyrus and parchment which tell us of the 
 thoughts of the ancient Egyptians, or Assyrians, or 
 Romans '? Mere monuments, mere lists of kings, mere 
 names of battles, what do they teach us ? But give us 
 one thought, one truly human sentiment, and we feel 
 at home among those ancient ruins, the Babylonian 
 statues begin to live, the Egyptian mummies begin 
 to speak, and the streets of ancient Pompeii swarm 
 
56 LECTURE IV. 
 
 once more with senators, with philosophers, and the 
 gay society of ancient Italy. 
 
 Here it is where the discoveries in India assert 
 their superiority over all other discoveries in ancient 
 history. It is true we have no really ancient temples 
 or palaces in that country. Massive stone buildings 
 were probably unknown in India before the rise of 
 • Buddhism and the conquests of Alexander, and even 
 if they had existed, they woidd have perished long 
 ago in the peculiar climate of India. The Indian 
 mind had no faith in that small immortality which 
 the kings of Egypt and Babylon valued so much, and 
 strove to secure for themselves by their stupendous 
 edifices. The Hindu always felt himself a mere 
 stranger on earth, a sojourner in a foreign land, and 
 the idea of perpetuating his name and fame for a few 
 thousand years by brick and mortar never entered his 
 mind, till he had learnt it from outsiders. 
 
 But if the Aryas in India have left us no stones, 
 they have left us bread — thoughts to feed on, riddles 
 to solve, lessons to learn, such as we find nowhere 
 else. 
 
 Meaning" of Veda. 
 
 We call what they have left us Veda. Now what 
 does Veda mean? It means knowledge, and it is 
 ^ letter by letter the same word as the Greek olba, i.e. 
 ^ c Folha, only that Veda is a noun, while olha is a verb. 
 But the verb also exists in Sanskrit and as we have 
 to learn in Greek that otha is a perfect with the 
 meaning of the present, we have to learn in Sanskrit 
 that veda is a perfect, but means 'I know.' 
 
 Is this a mere accident, a mere coincidence ? Cer- 
 tainly not. It is one of those small facts of the 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC T.TTEPvATL'UE. 57 
 
 Science of Language which can teach iis vohimes. 
 This similarity between, or rather this identity of, 
 Sanskrit veda and Greek olba, clenches w^ith the 
 force of an hydraulic hammer the original unity of 
 the speakers of Greek and Sanskrit. If perfect San- 
 skrit was spoken 1500 B.C., and if perfect Greek was 
 spoken about the same time, then these two streams 
 of laniiuasfe which had diverojed even at that time so 
 
 1 u 
 
 much that not one word in them was exactly the 
 same, that Homer and Vasish^Aa would have been 
 perfectly unintelligible to each other, these two 
 streams of language, I say, must once have formed 
 one stream, and in that one stream this so-called 
 irregular perfect must have been formed once for all. 
 No other explanation is possible for that simple 
 equation veda=^ot8a. 
 
 But this perfect veda and oUa, with the meaning 
 of the present, may teach us another lesson also, 
 namely, that these early framers of language held the 
 same, whether right or w^rong, view on the nature of 
 human knowledge which Locke held. If he said, 
 JS'ihil in intellectu quod iion ante fiierit in sensu, 
 they expressed 'I know' by 'I have seen,'— the 
 only saving clause being in the implied I, which may 
 represent what Leibnitz added, nihil, nisi intellectus. 
 
 But it is time now to ask what this Veda really is. 
 The Veda has become such a power, not only in 
 linguistic research, but in all antiquarian, religious, 
 and philosophical studies, that no honest student can 
 be satisfied with a vague idea of what the Veda is. 
 I am alraid a more detailed survey of Vedic literature 
 will prove somewhat tedious, but to a real student of 
 religion such knowledge is absolutely indispensable. 
 
58 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The Kig-veda, the only true Veda. 
 
 It has been usual to speak of three or even of four 
 Vedas, namely, the Rig-veda, Ya^ur-veda, Sama- 
 veda, to which the Atharva-veda has been added 
 as the fourth. Now although from an Indian point 
 of view this is perfectly correct, nothing can be more 
 .misleading from an historical point of view. From 
 an historical point of view there is but one real Veda, 
 the Rig-veda, and when we say the Rig-veda, what 
 we mean is the Rig-veda-sa77ihita only, the collection 
 of hymns, and nothing else. When we speak of the 
 Veda as representing the earliest phase of thought 
 and language accessible to the historian on Aryan 
 ground, that phase of thought must not be looked for 
 in what are called the Ya//ur-veda and Sama-veda, 
 but in the hymns of the Rig-veda only, to which 
 possibly some popular verses collected in the Atharva- 
 veda may have to be added. Whenever therefore I 
 speak of the Veda in general, whenever I appeal to 
 the Veda as the foundation of the science of language, 
 mythology, and religion, what I mean is the Rig- 
 \ / veda, the Veda of the sacred hymns which belonged 
 to the ancient inhabitants of the country of the Seven 
 Rivers. 
 
 Brahmauic View of the Vedas. 
 
 In order to explain how the confusion between the 
 Rig-veda and the other so-called Vedas arose, I must 
 explain to you the view which the Brahmans them- 
 selves take of their ancient sacred literature. 
 
 According to them there are three Vedas (trayi 
 vidya), or, according to later authorities, four, the 
 Rig-veda, Ya(/ur-veda, Sama-veda, and, as the 
 fourth, the Atharva-veda. 
 
SURVFA' OF.VEDIC LITERATURE. 59 
 
 Each of these Veclas, as we now possess it, consists 
 of two parts, called Sa77?hita and Brahma77a. The 
 Sa77ihitas, literally collections, consist of Mantras, 
 or metrical compositions, the Brahma?! as are in 
 prose. 
 
 The Rig'-veda. 
 
 Let us begin with the Rig-veda. Big, which is a 
 modification of i-ik, means a verse, originally a verse 
 of praise, for the root ark in one of its ramifications 
 has taken the sense of praising and celebrating. 
 Hence ark a also, a hymn of praise. 
 
 The Sa77diita of the Rig-veda, as we find it in our 
 MSS., is a large collection of hymns, chiefly but not 
 exclusively of a religious character. It is really a 
 collection of collections, for it consists of ten so-called 
 Ma7ic?alas, lit. rounds or spheres, and each of these 
 Ma?7C?alas forms by itself an independent collection, 
 and belonged originally to one or other of the great 
 Vedic families. 
 
 The Ten Manc^alas. 
 
 We can distinguish between Ma7ir/alas II to VII, 
 which are distinctly Ma,nda]siS belonging to certain 
 families, and the remaining four Ma?ic7alas, which are 
 less distinctly the property of Vedic families. 
 
 Thus the second Mawc/ala belongs to the family 
 of Grz'tsamada (Bhargava). 
 
 The third to that of Visvamitra. 
 
 The fourth „ „ Vamadeva (Gautama). 
 
 The fifth „ „ Atri. 
 
 The sixth „ „ Bharadv%a. 
 
 The seventh „ ,, Vasish^Aa. 
 
60 LECTURE IV. 
 
 The first Msindala, is not ascribed to any family in 
 particular, but is called by native authorities the 
 Ma?7C?ala of the iS^atar/dns, that is of the poets who 
 each contributed about a hundred verses to this book. 
 The eighth Ma?icZala contains a large number of 
 hymns composed in a peculiar metre, called Pra- 
 gathas. 
 
 While the eighth Msindala, seems to have been col- 
 lected chiefly on the strength of the similarity of 
 metre, the ninth was evidently intended to com- 
 prehend hymns addressed to one and the same deity, 
 namely, Soma. 
 
 The families who principally contributed to these 
 three books, the first, the eighth, and the ninth, are 
 the Kaiivas and Anirirasas. thoudi other families are 
 not excluded. 
 
 Lastly, the tenth book seems to contain whatever 
 was left over of Vedic poetry. It is called the 
 Msindalsi of the long and short, or miscellaneous 
 hymns. The poets also seem to belong promiscuously 
 to every one of the ancient Vedic families. 
 
 It was very natural on the strength of these facts 
 to suppose that the six Family Ma^ic^alas, II to VII, 
 were the oldest collections ; that they were followed 
 by the eighth and ninth Ma^idalas, each having its 
 own distinctive character and purpose, and that in 
 the end the first and tenth Ma?K/alas were added, 
 containing the last gleanings of the ancient col- 
 lectors. 
 
 Method in the Collection of the Ten Man^Zalas. 
 
 But if we examine the character of the ten Ma?i- 
 cZalas more closely, we shall find that such a theory 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. CI 
 
 can hardly be justified. There is clearly one and the 
 same system, according to which every one of these 
 ten books has been collected. It is not by accident, 
 as I pointed out long ago\ that in every one of these 
 Ma^ic/alas, except the eighth^ and ninth, the first hymns 
 are those addressed to Agni, and that these are followed 
 by hymns addressed to Indra. Native students of the 
 Veda were fully aware of this fact, and we can only 
 account for it by admitting that the collection of all, 
 or at least of eight of the Ma')ic/alas, was carried out 
 under the same presiding spirit. 
 
 Another feature common to several of the Ma?ic/alas ^ 
 is a certain arithmetical order of the hymns. Here 
 I should mention first of all that each Ma'}7//ala is 
 divided into a number of Anuvakas, i.e. recitations 
 or chapters. In many of these Anuvgikas the hymns 
 follow each other according to the diminishing number 
 of verses. This fact no one could help perceiving 
 who looked at the tabular index printed at the end 
 of my edition of the Rig-veda*. But the frequency 
 with which this law was broken prevented most 
 scholars from drawing the important lesson which, 
 I believe, Professor Grassmann was the first to draw, 
 namely, that whenever that rule is broken, there 
 must have been a reason for it. The chief reason 
 is supposed to have been that the hymns which break 
 the rule were later additions, and that in some cases 
 shorter hymns at the end of an Anuvaka had been 
 
 ^ Rig-veda-Sanhita. translation, vol. i. p. xxv. 
 
 2 The eighth MancZala begins with hymns to Indra. not, as Prof. 
 Weber asserts, with hymns to Agni. The tenth Ma>irfala begins 
 with hymns to Agni. 
 
 ^ Cf. Delbriick in Jenaer Literafurzeitung, 1875, p. 867. 
 
 * Borgaigne, Journal Asiatique, 1886, p. 197. 
 
62 LECTURE IV. 
 
 wrongly united into one large hymn. This has been 
 a most useful lesson for critical purposes, though in 
 some cases the knife of the operating critics may have 
 been handled with too great boldness ^. 
 
 There are many characteristics, however, which all 
 the Ma?i(r/alas share in common, and which show the 
 working of a common system on the part of the 
 collectors. The collectors were evidently impressed 
 with the idea that every hymn must have a poet, 
 and that every poet must belong, to a certain family. 
 In many cases it is quite evident that these names 
 were fanciful ; still in none of the Ma72c?alas do we 
 find a hymn without the names of poet or deity. 
 That hymns addressed to the same deity were 
 generally kept together, we have seen already. 
 There is the same tendency also to keep hymns of 
 the same poets together. Nor can there be any doubt 
 that the same general theory of metre had been ac- 
 cepted by the compilers of all the ten Ma7i(ialas. 
 
 It seems to me quite clear from these facts that we 
 must admit a period, it may be of one or of two 
 generations only, during which a few individuals 
 agreed to collect the sacred poetry that had been 
 preserved in six of the most prominent Erahmanic 
 
 ^ This, as has been shown b}' Delbriick, Grassmann, and others, 
 is very clear in the seventh Ma>?f?ala. There the hymns addressed 
 to each deity diminish regularly in succession, except at the end of 
 each group. 
 
 (1) Hymns addressed to Agni, regular 1-14, irregular 15-17. 
 
 (2) ,, „ Indra, ,, 18-30, ,, 31-33. 
 
 (3) „ „ the Vi.sve, regular 34-54, irregular 55. 
 
 (4) „ „ the Marutas, regular 56-58, irregular 59. 
 
 (5) „ „ Surya, the Marutas, and Varuwa, regular 
 
 60-65, irregular 66. 
 
 (6) „ „ the Asvinau, regular 67-73, irregular 74. 
 
 (7) ,, „ Ushas, regular 75-80, irregular 81. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITEPvATURE. 63 
 
 families, that the same individuals, or their immediate 
 successors, superintended the other four collections 
 also, vv^hich are contained in the eighth, the ninth, 
 the first, and the tenth Ma7K?alas, and that in this 
 way one great collection, the Kig-veda-samhita, was 
 finished. The whole collection of hymns is sometimes 
 called Dasatayi, i.e. consisting of ten parts, as it 
 were, the Decamerone. Da^ataya is an adjective, 
 meaning what belongs to the ten Ma^uZalas. 
 
 Number of Hymns. 
 
 This collection, as we now possess it, handed down 
 in the school of the >S'akalas, consists of 1017 hymns 
 (Mantras or Suktas), while in the school of the Bash- 
 kalas their number amounted to 1025. There aro 
 besides eleven hymns, called the Valakhilya hymns ^, 
 which were added at the end of the sixth Anuvaka 
 of the eighth Ma^u/ala. If we count them together 
 with the 1017 hymns of the >S'akalas, we get a sum 
 total of 1028 Vedic hymns. There are other spurious 
 hymns called Khilas, but they are not counted with 
 the hymns of the Samhita. 
 
 The Pratisakhyas. 
 
 These 1028 hymns became soon the subject of a 
 most minute study, a kind of Masoretic exegesis. They 
 had to be learnt by heart, and their exact pronuncia- 
 tion was laid down with the greatest care in works 
 called Pratitfakhyas^. The date of these Pratisa- 
 
 ^ There can be no doubt that these eleven hymns were added at 
 a later time, and that they had existed before as a separate collec- 
 tion. This is best shown by the fact that they admit Galitas from 
 themselves only, except in one doubtful case, tam tva vayam. 
 
 2 The Pratisakhyas form one of the six Vedangas, viz. the Siksha. 
 Goldstiicker denied it. but he is refuted by the S'/k-prati.sakhya itself, 
 which says, S. 827, that it is kritsna^/i vedangam anindyam 
 
64 LECTURE IV. 
 
 khyas has been fixed with as much probability as is 
 attainable in such matters, in about the fifth or sixth 
 century B.C. They are certainly prior to the great 
 grammarian F-Xnim who quotes verbatim from the 
 Prati^akhya belonging to the /S'akala school of the 
 Rig-veda ^ 
 
 Date of the Pratisakhya. 
 
 In this Pratisakhya we have clear proof that the 
 author of it, commonly called iS'aunaka, knew our 
 collection of hymns, consisting of ten Ma^ic/alas. He 
 speaks of dasatayi^ verses, i.e. verses found in the 
 ten Ma7ic?alas. He actually quotes a passage as 
 coming from the tenth Ma7?(/ala ^ (Sutra 313). In 
 fact, his various rules presuppose not only the col- 
 lection of the ten Ma72c/alas, but the exact collocation 
 also of the hymns in each MaiicZala, such as we now 
 possess them. It is thus and thus only that he is 
 able to say, as he does, that a certain verse (I. 133, 6) 
 is the longest, and another the shortest (VI. 45, 29), 
 among all the verses of the ten Ma^i'ialas. 
 
 He goes even further, and he shows himself so 
 certain of ever}^ consonant and vowel of the whole 
 text of the ten Ma?zr/alas being in its right place, that 
 he can say (S. 309) with perfect assurance and with 
 
 arsham , * a complete Vedanga, faultless, and canonical.' The first 
 Prati.'akhj^a published Avas that of the Eig-veda (1856-69). There 
 are, lesides the two Pratisakhyas of the Yagrur-veda, one for the 
 Vagasaneyi saw/hita, the other for the Taittiriya, and the Atharva- 
 pratisakhya. A Sama-pratisukhya has been published by Satyavrata 
 Samasrami in the Usha, vol. i. No. 3 seq. 
 
 ^ See Appendix V. 
 
 2 Rig-veda-pratisakhya, 997,9^^esh/M dasatayishu r?7ram,the longest 
 of the verses among the Dasatayis. I thought that Dasatayi 
 might here be meant as a name of ManrZala, because the text has 
 rikXm, not rikshu. See, however, Sutras 946 and 993. 
 
 " The technical term Mandala occurs first in the Aitareya-arauyaka 
 and iu the G?7hya-sutras. 
 
SURVEY OF TEDTC LITERATURE. 65 
 
 perfect correctness, that, for instance, compounds 
 ending with the words varu?ia and vrata shorten 
 their last vowel, provided a consonant or semi-vowel 
 follows, and this throui^h the whole of the Rio^-veda, 
 except in thirteen hymns which are ascribed to Medha- 
 tithii (I. 12; I. 24). 
 
 Minutiae of tlie Pratisakliya. 
 
 Such statements occur again and again, and leave 
 us in no doubt that not a single hymn could have 
 been added to our collection, nor a single line be 
 changed, after the date of the Pratisakhyas. 
 
 This is a most important point, for unless our argu- 
 ments can be upset, we now possess the certainty 
 that the Masoretic studies of the sixth and fifth cen- 
 turies B. c. presuppose, nay postulate the existence, 
 not only of Vedic hymns in general, but of our collec- 
 tion of these hymns in ten Ma7ic/alas ; and not only 
 of our collection in ten Mar^c/alas, but of every hymn 
 exactly in that place in which we now find it, with 
 every word in its right place, nay with every vowel, 
 either lengthened or shortened, exactly as they are 
 lengthened or shortened in our MSS. This means that 
 the text, exactly as we possess it in MSS. not more 
 than about 500 years old, had become the subject of 
 most minute scholastic studies about 500 B. c. 
 
 The Auukramaiiis of Sauuaka. 
 
 And now we may advance another step. The same 
 author, >S'aunaka, to whom the authorship of one 
 Pnitisakhya is ascribed, is also mentioned as the 
 author of certain indices to the Rig-veda, called Anu- 
 kramaTiis, literally, ' after-steppings.' Thtse indices 
 
 ^ See Appendix VI. 
 (2) F 
 
66 LECTURE IV. 
 
 contain the number of Ma7?(ialas, of Anuvakas, and 
 of hymns, the names of the authors and the deities, 
 and the metres. 
 
 Most of these single indices have been preserved to 
 us, or they existed at least as late as the time of 
 Saya?za, fourteenth century. They were superseded, 
 however, by the more comprehensive index of Katya- 
 yana, the SarvanukramaTii. These indices again pre- 
 suppose the text of the ten Ma?itMas in all its 
 important features exactly such as we now possess 
 it, and thus enable us to say that the bridge of our 
 argument spangi a distance of more than two thousand 
 years, and lands us about 500 b. c. in the schools of 
 the Brahmans. the so-called Parishads, where we see 
 teacher and pupils learning by heart exactly the 
 same Veda which we are studying at present. 
 
 Number of Verses of the Rigr-veda. 
 
 We saw that, according to the calculation of those 
 ancient scholars, the Rig-veda-sa7>ihita consisted then, 
 as it does now, of ten Ma'Jif/alas, eighty-five Anuvakas, 
 and 1028 Suktas or hymns. But they went fur- 
 ther in their calculations, and counted 10.40.2 verses^, 
 153,826 words, 432,000 syllables. These calculations, 
 I am obliged to confess, have not yet been checked, 
 except that of the verses, and here there is a dis- 
 crepancy, but only a slight one. On an average, how- 
 ever, a hymn may be said to consist of ten verses, so 
 that the number of 10,402 verses for 1028 hymns 
 cannot be far wrong. 
 
 This will give you an idea of the extent of the real 
 Veda, or the Rig-veda-sa^^ihita. If we take into 
 
 ^ See Appendix VH. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 67 
 
 account the length of the Vedic verses, as compared 
 with the Greek hexameter, the Rig-veda may be said 
 to contain nearly as much as the Iliad and Odyssey 
 together. 
 
 This is all we have and ever shall have for studying 
 that ancient period in the history of the Aryan race 
 which precedes in language, mythology, and religion 
 the Homeric period, hitherto the most ancient known 
 period in the history of our race. 
 
 The Sama-veda. 
 
 If all the rest of what is called Vedic literature had 
 been lost, we should not have been much the poorer 
 for it. To the student of the history of Sanskrit 
 literature the other so-called Vedas are no doubt of 
 very high interest, as they form the connecting link 
 between the ancient Vedic period and the later 
 Sanskrit literature. But in the eyes of the general 
 historian they cannot compare with what is really 
 unique in the literature of the whole world, the 
 hymns of the Rig-veda. 
 
 What then are the other so-called Vedas? 
 
 What is called the Sama-veda-sa')7?hita is no 
 more than a compilation of verses contained in the 
 Rig-veda, which had to be sung at certain sacrifices, 
 and not simply to be recited, as were the hymns of the 
 Rig-veda. Sam an means melody. Very often single 
 verses are taken out of the hymn to which they ori- 
 ginally belonged, in order to be sung together at 
 certain sacrifices. There are only seventy- eight out 
 of the 1549 verses of the Sama-veda^ which have not 
 
 1 See Ludwig, Rig-veda, iii. pp. 419-426. Aufrecht, Rig-veda, 
 second edition, vol. ii. p. xlv. 
 
 F 3 
 
68 LECTURE IV. 
 
 been found in our text of the Rig-veda. All the rest 
 are simply the same as we find them in the Rig-veda, 
 with slight variations, representing the various read- 
 ings of different recensions (b'akha), but by no means, 
 as was once supposed ^, a more ancient text. 
 
 Ya^r-veda. 
 
 What we call the Ya(/ur-veda-sa')7ihita is a col- 
 lection of verses and sacrificial formulas, intended for 
 the use of the priests who, while performing the sacri- 
 fice, had to mutter these verses and formulas. Ya(/us^ 
 is the name for these sacrificial formulas, as ya</;7a is 
 the name of sacrifice. 
 
 What then is the difference between the collection 
 of hymns of the Rig-veda and the two collections of 
 hymns of the Ya^ur-veda and Sama-veda ? 
 
 The collection of hymns of the Rig-veda represents 
 an historical event, like the final collection of the 
 books of the Old Testament. It arose from a desire 
 to preserve from destruction the sacred poetry that 
 was the property of certain families, in order to hand 
 it down as a whole from generation to generation. 
 
 The Kha.nda.s or Mantra Period. 
 
 I have formerly called the period during which the 
 hymns collected in the Rig-veda were originally com- 
 posed, the ir/(fandas period, A/^andas being one of 
 
 ^ This idea of Prof. Weber's has been sufficiently refuted by 
 Burnell, Arsheya-brahma>ia, p. xvi, and by Aufrecht, Rig-veda, 
 second edition, p. xxxvii. 
 
 ^ The distinction of rik, saman, and yugns is clearly laid 
 down in the Aitareya-aranyaka, II. 3, 6, 8 : 'A rik verse, a gatha, 
 a kumbya (a moral saw) are measured (metrical). A Ya^/us line, 
 an invocation (nigada), and general remarks, these are not measured. 
 A Saman, or any portion of it (geshna, i. e. parvan) is musical.' 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 69 
 
 the oldest names for these sacred verses, and I have 
 tried to distinguish it from the period in which these 
 verses were collected and studied as a whole, which I 
 called the Mantra period, mantra being the tech- 
 nical name for these hymns. But later researches 
 have convinced me that with reg^ard to the Rio-'-veda 
 the Mantra period simply represents the closing of 
 the A7^andas period, while with legard to the Ya^ur- 
 veda and Sama-veda it has now become clear that 
 there never was a Mantra period at all, but that even 
 the first collection of these hymns and formulas 
 belongs to a later period^ that of the prose Brah- 
 ma?zas, and certainly did not precede that period. 
 
 The Prose Brahmawas. 
 
 I mentioned before that, according to Hindu autho- 
 rities, every Veda consists of a collection of hymns, 
 Sa'?7ihitas, and Brahma?! as. These Brahma^^as are 
 the earliest specimens of prose literature in India 
 which we possess, and their object was to describe 
 the elaborate system of sacrifices which had grown up 
 among the Brahmans, and to show how the hymns 
 or portions of the hymns should be used at each 
 sacrifice. 
 
 For the performance of these sacrifices, particularly 
 of the great sacrifices, three distinct classes of priests 
 were required. One class had to perform the manual 
 labour, which was very considerable, the clearing of 
 the sacrificial ground, the erection of altars, the 
 lighting of the fire, the preparation of the offerings, 
 &c. They were called Adhvaryus, the labouring 
 priests, and their duties, mixed up with endless specu- 
 lations, were described in the Brahmav/as of the 
 
70 LECTUEE IV. 
 
 Adhvaryus. They formed the Brahma^ias of the 
 Yar/ur-veda. 
 
 Another class of priests had to ?ing. They were 
 called Udgatr^s, the singing priests, and their re- 
 spective duties were in the same way described in the 
 Brahma7ias of the Udgat7^/s, or, as they are also called, 
 the A'Aandogas, i.e. the singers of the A:Aandas. 
 ^ These formed the Brahma?ias of the Sama-veda. 
 
 A third class of priests had to recite certain hymns 
 with the utmost correctness of articulation. They 
 were called Hotr^s, the reciting priests, and their 
 duties were described in the Brahma ?< as of the Hotri 
 priests. They formed the Erahma'Jias of the Rig-veda. 
 
 The Brahmanas of the Yagur-veda. 
 
 We can best study the historical growth of the 
 Brahma?ias in the case of the Adhvaryu priests, the 
 actual performers of the sacrifices. 
 
 We possess for the Adhvaryus four ancient works 
 containing explanations of the sacrifice, — 
 
 (1) The Kkthaka, belonging to the school of the 
 KafAas, 
 
 (2) The Kapish^Aala-kafAa Sa'?7ihita, belonging to 
 the school of the Kapish^Aala-ka^^as, 
 
 (3) The MaitrayaTii Sa^iJiita, belonging to the 
 school of the Maitraya^ias, and 
 
 (4) The Taittiriyaka. 
 
 In these four works the verses to be used by the 
 Adhvaryu priest are given in proper order for each 
 sacrifice, and they are accompanied by prose portions, 
 containing instructions and general observations. 
 
 It will be observed that two of them are called 
 Samhitas, though they would more correctly have 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 71 
 
 been called Brahma-nas. There is. in fact, no other 
 Brahmavm for the Kapish^/^ala-ka^/ms and the Maitra- 
 yarayas, besides what is here called their Sa7?diita. The 
 Taittiriyaka, however, exists in two portions, one called 
 Sa77diita, the other Brahma?ia. But here again there is 
 really no distinction between the two, the Brahma'Jia 
 being simply a continuation and appendix of the Sa?7i- 
 hita. S a^)/ h ita, in fact, is a misnomer, as applied to the 
 Maitrayaraya and the Kapish^//ala-kaMa SaiJihitas, 
 and, in spite of native tradition, it would be far better 
 to call these collections of the Taittiriyas, Maitra- 
 yar<as, and Kapish^/mla-ka^/^as, Brahma?ms. 
 
 After a time, however, it was felt to be useful for 
 the priests, when performing the sacrifice, to have a 
 separate collection of the hymns and sacrificial for- 
 mulas, and another containing the rules of the sacri- 
 fice and the explanatory notes. And thus we find in 
 the school of the Var/asaneyins a Sa7nhita, con- 
 taining nothing but the hymns, and a Brahmana, 
 containing nothing but the explanations. In this 
 form the Ya^ur-veda is called the Bright Yac^'ur- 
 veda, in contradistinction from the Dark Yap^ur- 
 veda, in which hymns and explanations are mixed. 
 The Brahma^^a of the Bright Ya^/ur-veda is called the 
 /Satapatha-brahma7ia, and it exists in two texts, 
 as handed down by the two schools of the Madhy- 
 andinas and Ka7ivas. 
 
 We are thus enabled to see how the so-called 
 Sa77ihita of the Yaf/ur-veda, the collection of verses 
 and formulas to be used by the Adhvaryu priest, arose. 
 It existed first as part and parcel of a Brahmaria, and 
 was afterwards extracted and separated from it for 
 the benefit of the officiating priest. It is therefore 
 
72 LECTURE IV. 
 
 really subsequent, not antecedent to the Brahma?ia. 
 It is no more than a manual fpr the use of the Adh- 
 varyus, the labouring priests, extracted from a pre- 
 vious work in prose, which gave a full account of 
 that portion of the sacrifice which this one cl^s of 
 priests, the Adhvaryus, had to perform, together with 
 the necessary verses. 
 
 The Brahmawas of the Sama-veda. 
 
 Exactly the same seems to have taken place with 
 the Sama-veda. Here too w^e have Brahma^ias, such 
 as the Ta7ic?ya-brahma7ia in twenty-five books, dis- 
 coursing on that portion of the sacrifice which fell 
 to the share of the singing priests. After a time a 
 hymn-book was felt to be useful, and a Sama-veda- 
 samhita was put together which we still possess in 
 two forms, either as simple texts (Sama-veda-ar/dka), 
 or as adapted to the melodies (Gramageyagana, Araii- 
 yagana)!. 
 
 We shall now be better able to see the difference 
 between the collection of the hymns of the Rig-veda, 
 the Rig-veda- sa77ihita, and the other collections of 
 hymns, the Ya^ur-veda-sa'jnhita, and the Sama-veda- 
 sa77ihita. The latter were collected for the special 
 benefit of certain classes of priests, and were, so far 
 as we can judge, put together subsequently to the 
 composition of the prose Brahma^ias. They were 
 mere extracts from more ancient Brahma^^as. The 
 Rig-veda-sar/ihita, on the contrar^^, has nothing to do 
 with the sacrifice. It is true that a third class of 
 priests, the Hot?' is, have likewise to recite many 
 
 * See Appendix VIII. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 73 
 
 of the hymns of the Rig-veda during the performance 
 of the sacrifice. But there is no collection giving 
 these hymns In the order in which they have to be 
 recited by the Hotri priests. Such a collection would 
 have been analogous to the hymn-books of the labour- 
 ing and the singing priests, while the collection of the 
 Rig-veda hymns, as Ave possess it, is really an his- 
 torical collection, carried out in common, as we saw, 
 by a number of Brahmanic families, and by itself 
 utterly useless for sacrificial purposes. 
 
 The Brahmana of the Rig'-veda. 
 
 It seems that the Hot?^^ priests, the reciters, were 
 the most highly educated Brahmans. It was their 
 duty not only to know the whole of the hymns of 
 the Rig-veda by heart, and to learn to pronounce 
 them with the greatest accuracy, but Hkewise to 
 learn from their Brahma?? as at what part of the 
 sacrifice certain hymns and portions of hymns had 
 to be recited. We still possess two of these Brah- 
 ma7ias, intended for the use of the reciting priests, 
 
 (1) The Aitareya-brahma'Jia, belonging, according to 
 Satyavrata, to the >Sakha of the >Sakalas, 
 
 (2) The Kaushitaki - brahmana, also called the 
 >Sankhayana-brahma?ia. 
 
 If, according to the indications contained in these 
 Brahma 77 as, the hymns and verses to be recited by 
 the Hotri priests had been collected and arranged 
 according to the order of the different sacrifices, we 
 should then have had a Rig-veda- sa/'/diita on a level 
 with the Sa9?thitas of the other Vedas. As it is, the 
 Rig-veda-samhita stands by itself. It had a different, 
 not a purely priestly origin, and, so far as we can 
 
74 LECTURE IV. 
 
 judge at present, it was anterior, not posterior, to the 
 Brahma^^a period. 
 
 The true Veda. 
 
 What is the result of all this ? It is this, that we 
 really possess one collection only of ancient hymns 
 which by itself represents the earliest period of Indian 
 language, mythology, and religion. This is called the 
 ► Rig-veda-sa^uhita, and can alone be spoken of as the 
 true Veda. 
 
 Between the period represented by these hymns, 
 the duration of which may have been many cen- 
 turies, and the period which gave rise to the prcse 
 works called Brahma?ias, there is a complete break. 
 How it came about we cannot tell, but it is a fact 
 that the authors of the Brahma7ias had completely 
 lost the true meaning of the Vedic hymns. Their 
 interpretations^ or rather misinterpretations, of these 
 ancient hymns are perfectly astounding. Their one 
 idea is the sacrifice, which had assumed such pro- 
 portions, and had been elaborated with such hair- 
 splitting minuteness that we may well understand 
 how the Brahmans had no thoughts left for anything 
 else. The hymns had become in time a merely subor- 
 dinate portion of the sacrifice. The proper position 
 of a log of wood or of a blade of grass round the 
 sacrificial fire, seemed of more consequence than the 
 expressions of gratitude, the prayers for forgiveness 
 of sin, or the praises of the mighty deeds of the gods, 
 contained in the hymns of their ancestors. 
 
 The Brahmanas of the Brahmans. 
 
 I think, therefore, that we may speak of a period 
 of Brahma?ias following on the period of the hymns, 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 75 
 
 and the very name of Biahmaiia period would fully 
 characterise it. The name Brahmana has nothing to 
 do with brahman, in the special sense of prayer, 
 or sacrificial formula and ceremony. These are not 
 the principal or exclusive objects of the Brahma^ias. 
 The name Brahma?ia was derived either from brah- 
 man, neuter, meaning the clergy or priesthood, just 
 as kshatram means the nobilit}^, or directly from 
 brahman, nom., brahma, masc, the priest, and 
 more especially the superintending priest. For it 
 should be remembered that, in addition to the three 
 classes of priests whom I mentioned before, the 
 labouring, the singing, and the reciting priests, there 
 was a fourth class who had to watch the progress of 
 the sacrifice and see that all was done and spoken and 
 sung correctly and in proper order. For that purpose 
 the priests who performed the office of the Brahman 
 had to be acquainted with the other Vedas also, and 
 especially with the rules laid down in the works 
 which were called Brahma?ias. These Brahma^ias 
 could hardly have been so called except because 
 they were the books of the Brahman, neut., the 
 clergy in general, or of the Brahman, masc, the 
 superintending priest. Brahmana, the Biahman, is 
 a derivative of brahman, masc. 
 
 We possess at present a limited number of these 
 Brahma'^ias only, but the number of Brahma7ias 
 quoted is very large. We also know of numerous 
 schools who followed the same Brahma^ia, thougfh 
 with slight variations — variations which may seem 
 small to us, but which seemed very important in 
 the eyes of the Vedic priesthood. That there were 
 ancient and modern Brahma^ms we know from un- 
 
76 LECTURE IV. 
 
 impeachable authorities of the fourth century B.C., 
 for instance, the great grammarian, Pa?dni. We saw 
 before how the separation of tlie hymns from the 
 Erahma7ias, a work ascribed to Y%//avalkya, led to 
 the introduction of a new Brahman a for the Yayur- 
 veda, viz. the >S'atapatha-brahma9ia, and this very 
 Brahma^ia, ascribed to Yac/yyavalkya, is reckoned 
 among those which were not old ^ 
 
 Life duringf the Vedic Period. 
 
 It ought not to be supposed, however, that what we 
 call the Brahma7ia period represents to us the whole of 
 the intellectual, or even of the religious life of India. 
 It would be fearful to think that millions of people 
 should for generations have fed on such stuff as we 
 find in the Brahmaj^as, and on nothing else. All w^e 
 can say is that these Brahmanas represent to us the 
 only pillars left standing in a vast field of ruins, but 
 that they need not have been the pillars of the only 
 temples which once stood there. Besides, every temple 
 presupposes a vast surrounding of busy life, without 
 which a priesthood would find itself stranded high 
 and dry. 
 
 Even in the hymns of the Big-veda we find a great 
 deal more than merely religious sentiments. We find 
 in them traces of a busy life in all its phases, peace 
 and war, study and trade. Thus we read in hymn IX. 
 112: 
 
 Poem on Trades and Professions. 
 
 ' Different indeed are our desires, different the works 
 of men. The carpenter looks for something that is 
 
 1 Pan. IV. 3, 105, vartt., IV. 2, 6^, vurtt. History of Ancient Sanskrit 
 Literature, p. 329. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 11 
 
 broken, the leach for somethiug that is sprained, the 
 priest for one who offers oblations. . . . The smith with 
 his dry sticks, with his wings of birds (in place of 
 bellows), and his stones (anvil), looks day after day for 
 a man who possesses gold. ... I am a poet, my father 
 is a leach, my mother works the mill ; with different 
 desires, all striving for wealth, we are as if running 
 after cows ^.' 
 
 Poem of the Gambler. 
 
 The next hymn, if hymn it can be called, contains 
 the lamentations of a gambler. That gambling is not 
 a modern invention, but one of the oldest, one of the 
 most universal vices of the human race, has been 
 clearly proved, not only from ancient literature, but 
 likewise from the study of the customs of uncivilised 
 races. Still it is startling when we meet in this 
 poem, not only with dice and public gambling places, 
 but with all the miseries entailed on wife and mother 
 and brothers by the recklessness of a gambler. Some 
 people who know all about primitive society declare 
 without hesitation that such verses cannot be genuine. 
 If they would prove it, we should feel most grateful. 
 As it is, we must simply take note of them ; we must 
 live and learn. 
 
 * ' Nananam vai u na/i dhiya/j vi vratani gananam ; 
 
 taksha rish^am rutam bhishak brahma sunvantam iWt7iati. . . 
 Garatibhi/« oshadhibhi/* parnebhi/i sakunanani 
 karmara/i asmabhi/j dyubhi/i hiraytyavantam i/i7.7«ati . . . 
 Karu/i aham tata/i bhishak upalaprakshiwi nana ; 
 nanadhiya/i vasuyava/i anu ga/j iva tasthinia'. . . 
 
 Biy-veda IX. 112, 1-3. 
 
78 LECTURE IV. 
 
 X. 34. 
 
 1. These dice that have grown in the air on the 
 great (Vibhidaka) tree, drive me wild when they 
 rbll about on the board. This Vibhidaka seems 
 to me intoxicatiDg like a draught of Soma, that has 
 grown on mount Mur/avat. 
 
 2. She (my wife) never troubled or chid me, she 
 was kind to me and to my friends. But I, for the 
 sake of these only-beloved dice, have spurned my 
 devoted wife. 
 
 3. My mother-in-law hates me, my wife avoids me, 
 the miserable finds no one to pity him ; nor do I see 
 what is the use of a gambler, as little as of an old horse, 
 offered for sale. 
 
 4. Others pet his wife, while his w^ar-horse, the 
 dice, thirsts for booty. Father, mother, and brothers 
 say of him, ' We do not know him, lead him away 
 bound.' 
 
 5. And when I think that I shall not play w^ith them 
 again, then I am left by my friends who run away. 
 But when the brown dice are thrown down and utter 
 speech, then I rush to their rendezvous, like a love- 
 sick maiden. 
 
 6. The gambler goes to the assembly, his body 
 glowing, asking, Shall I win? Alas, the dice cross 
 his desire, handing over to his opponent all that he 
 has made. 
 
 7. These dice hook, prick, undo, burn, and inflame. 
 After giving childish playthings they ruin the winner; 
 yet to the gambler they are all covered with honey. 
 
 8. Their company of fifty-three plays about, like 
 the brio^ht Savit7'i, whose laws are never broken. 
 
SUKVEY OF VEDTC LITERATURE. 79 
 
 They do not bend before the anger of the mighty, even 
 the kinof bends down before them. 
 
 9. They roll down, they jump up; though having 
 no hands themselves, they resist him who has bands. 
 These playing^ coals, though cold, when thrown on 
 the board, burn the heart through and through. 
 
 10. The wife of the gambler mourns forlorn, so does 
 the mother of the son who is gone away, she knows 
 not whither. In debt, trembliug, longing for money, 
 the gambler goes to the house of others by night. 
 
 11. It grieves the gambler when he sees his wife, 
 and the wives of others and their well-ordered house. 
 In the fore-noon he has harnessed his brown horses (the 
 dice) ; and when the fire is out, the wretch sinks down. 
 
 12. He who is the general of your large company, 
 the king of the troop, the first, to him I stretch forth 
 my ten fingers to swear, — I do not refuse my stake, — 
 I now speak the truth : 
 
 13. 'Do not play with dice, plough thy field, enjoy 
 what thou hast, consider it much. There are thy 
 cows, O gambler, there thy wife— this is what the 
 noble Savit?'/ has told me. 
 
 14. ' Make (other) friends, O dice, have mercy on us, 
 do not bewitch us with powerful enchantment. May 
 your wrath abate, and your enmity ; let some one else 
 be held in the snare of the brown dice.' 
 
 Independent Speculation. 
 
 In the Brahma7ias, particularly in the legends scat- 
 tered about in them, we get many a glimpse of active 
 life, and we see at all events that the Brahmans did 
 not constitute the whole of India. On the contrai-y, 
 
 ^ Read divya/i for divya/h 
 
80 LECTURE IV. 
 
 the nobility, though willing to work together with 
 the priests, had evidently opened for themselves new 
 avenues of thought, and begun to assert great inde- 
 pendence in religious speculation, while among some 
 of the Brahmans also a desire seems to have arisen 
 to be freed from the tedious routine of their life, and 
 to retire into the forest for silent contemplation. It 
 is curious that in both directions the Brahmanic 
 system should have yielded so readily. People who 
 had done their duty as students and as married men, 
 were allowed to retire into the forest, free from nearly 
 all religious restrictions, and to meditate there with 
 perfect freedom on the highest problems of life. In 
 these philosophical meditations princes and noblemen 
 took an active part, and we hear of kings instructing 
 the wisest among the Brahmans in the knowledge of 
 the Highest Self. 
 
 Ara^iyakas and Upanishads. 
 
 All these later phases of life are reflected in the 
 Brahmaims, and particularly in the latest portions 
 of them, the so-called Aranyakas and Upanishads. 
 Arariyaka means a forest-book, Upanishad^ a 
 sitting down at the feet of a teacher to listen to his 
 instruction 2. 
 
 ^ See Upanishads, translated by M. M., in S. B. E., vol. i. p. Ixxx. 
 2 We have for the R i g - v e d a , 
 
 the Aitareya-ara//yaka, with an Upanishad, 
 and the Kaushitaki-araHyaka, with an Upanishad ; 
 for the Taittiriya, 
 
 the Taittiriya-aranyaka, with an Upanishad ; 
 for the Va^asaneyins, 
 
 the B/ihad-aranyaka, with an Upanishad ; 
 for the iT/iandogas, 
 
 the A7jandogya-upanishad, following the Mantra-brahmawa. 
 The number of independent Upanishads is very large. See M. M., 
 Sacred Books of the East, vol. i. p Ixviii. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDrC LITERATURE, 81 
 
 Duration of Braliina>?a Period. 
 
 How long that Brahmana period lasted, how long 
 it took to elaborate the stupendous system of sacri- 
 ficial rules, and afterwards the lofty speculations of 
 the Araiiyakas and Upanishads, which in their turn 
 may be said to have neutralised and superseded all 
 sacrifices, we can only guess. If we allowed ourselves 
 to be guided by the large number of ancient and 
 modern authorities quoted in the Brahma^ias, and by 
 the long lists of successive teachers preserved in 
 different schools, we should say that three or four 
 centuries would hardly suffice for the whole of the 
 Brahma?^a period. But ancient Indian chronology is 
 built up on ever so many ifs, and against an uncom- 
 promising scepticism our arguments would prove of 
 little avail. 
 
 The Atharva-veda. 
 
 Before we proceed, however, to a consideration of 
 these chronological questions, I have still a few words 
 to say about the fourth so-called Veda, the Atharva- 
 veda. 
 
 The Atharva-veda possesses a Sa'}7ihita or collection 
 of verses, a Brahma^ia, and Sutras, like the other 
 Vedas. But it is difficult as yet to say what special 
 purpose this Veda was intended to serve. Some native 
 authorities maintain that the Atharva-veda was meant 
 specially for the superintending priest, the Brahman, 
 and was therefore called Brahma-veda ; but there is 
 nothino: to confirm this view. It seems a mere guess 
 that, because there are four classes of pricvsts and four 
 \^edas, therefore the fourth Veda must have belonged 
 (2) G 
 
82 LECTURE IV. 
 
 to the fourtli class of priests. So far as we know at 
 present, hymns from the Atharva-veda were used for 
 domestic ceremonies, at the celebration of the birth of 
 children, at weddings, funerals, and likewise at the 
 coronation of kings. Many of its verses are simply 
 taken from the Rig-veda; the rest, and these the most 
 interesting, contain all kinds of imprecations, bless- 
 ings, charms, formulas to drive away diseases, prayers 
 for success on journeys or in gambling, and lines for 
 conjuring, often quite unintelligible. Supposing that 
 these verses had been in use among the people, they 
 would allow us an insight into their more homely 
 thoughts, and deserve therefore to be studied more 
 carefully than they have hitherto been. Some native 
 authorities stoutly refuse to recognise the Atharva as a 
 real Veda, others defend its authority with equal zeal. 
 The old name of the Atharva-veda is Atharvangirasas, 
 which would seem to indicate that the families of the 
 Atharva ns and the Angiras, or the Atharvangiras, were 
 the original collectors or possessors of this Veda. 
 
 We possess the text of the Atharva-veda as handed 
 down in two schools, the /S'aunakas and the Paippa- 
 ladas ; but there is as yet no really critical edition 
 of the text. A commentary lately discovered in India 
 has not yet been published. 
 
 In our next lecture I shall try to explain to you 
 how it is possible to assign certain dates to this large 
 mass of Vedic literature which has come down to us, 
 partly by oral tradition, partly in MSS. If you con- 
 sider that most of these MSS. do not go back beyond 
 the fifteenth century, you will understand that it is 
 no easy undertaking to throw a bridge from the 
 fifteenth century a. d. to the fifteenth century B. c. 
 
SURVEY OF VEDIC LITERATURE. 83 
 
 Still the attempt must be made, for unless an histo- 
 rical date can be assigned to these relics of an ancient 
 world, they would dwindle down in the eyes of the 
 historian to mere curiosities. They would lose what 
 alone makes them worthy of serious study, their 
 historical character. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 AGE OF THE VEDA. 
 
 Accurate knowledge of the Veda necessary for a study of 
 Pliysical Religion. 
 
 rpHE survey of the Vedic literature which I en- 
 X 'deavoured to place before you in my last lecture, 
 may seem to have occupied a great deal of our time. 
 But for studies such as we are engaged in, it is abso- 
 lutely necessary to make our foundation sure. It 
 really makes one shiver if one sees how the Veda is 
 spoken of by some very eminent writers, in their 
 treatises on the origin of mythology and religion. 
 First of all, I hope I shall not hear the Veda any 
 longer spoken of as the Veeda. As I explained to 
 you before, Veda means knowledge, and is derived 
 from the root vid, to see, which we have in Latin 
 videre. The vowel in Veda is a diphthong, consisting 
 of a + i. This a + i is pronounced in Sanskrit like 
 ai in aid, and should properly be written e. It is the 
 same diphthong which in Greek is represented by 
 o + I, as in oi8a, I know, which stands for Fulda. 
 Secondly, though Veda ends in a, it is not a feminine 
 in Sanskrit, but a masculine, and I hope that French 
 
AGE OF THE VKDA. 85 
 
 and German writers more particularly will no longer 
 speak of the Veda as she. 
 
 It is not to be expected that every student of the 
 science of mythology and religion should read the 
 Veda in the original. But it is essential that they 
 should know more than the name ; that they should 
 have a clear idea what the Vedic literature consists 
 of, how it arose, when it arose, where it arose, how it 
 was handed down, when it was consigned to writing, 
 how it is to be interpreted, and what is the reason 
 why so much of it is still doubtful and uuintelligible, 
 and why scholars so frequently differ in their transla- 
 tions of difficult passages. No knowledge is better 
 than knowledge that cannot give an account of itself, 
 and I do not think that a scholarlike study of Phy- 
 sical Religion would be possible without a clear and 
 accurate conception of what the Veda is, which has 
 been truly called the Bible of Physical Religion. 
 
 How to fix the Date of the Veda. 
 
 As yet the whole of the Vedic literature, such as I 
 described it to you, hangs, so to say, in the air. There 
 was a time, not very long ago, when the whole of 
 Sanskrit literature, the Veda included, was repre- 
 sented as a forgery of the Brahmans, It seemed too 
 bad to be true that the lanouaoje of India should be 
 as perfect as Greek, and that the mythology of Greece 
 should have the same roots as the my thology of India. 
 And though this uncompromising scepticism finds but 
 few representatives at present, Sanskrit is still looked 
 upon as an unwelcome guest by many classical 
 scholars, and anything that can be said against it, 
 
86 LECTURE V. 
 
 is welcomed by all who dislike the trouble of learning 
 a new language. 
 
 Aryan immigration into India. 
 
 Not long ago my friend, Professor Sayce, stated 
 as the result of his Babylonian researches, that the 
 migration of the Aryas towards India could not have 
 taken place before about 600 or 700 b. c. Now consider 
 what a complete upheaval of all our ideas on the 
 ancient history of the Aryas in general, and more 
 especially on the growth of religious thought in India, 
 would be caused if this discovery could be maintained. 
 Between the migration of the Aryas into the land of 
 the Seven Bivers and the composition of hymns, 
 addressed to the rivers of the Penjab^ and containing 
 allusions even to the Ganges, some time must have 
 elapsed. We have then to find room for successive 
 generations of Vedic poets and Vedic princes, for re- 
 peated collections of ancient hymns, for a period filled 
 by the composition of the Brahmaims, written in prose 
 and in a dialect different from that of the hymns, and 
 lastly for the rise of that philosophical literature 
 which we find in the Upanishads. If this Upanishad 
 literature is, as I have tried to show, presupposed by 
 Buddhism, and if Buddha lived about 500 B. c, what 
 becomes of the first immigration of the Aryas into 
 India about 600 or 700 B.c.1 
 
 Bindhu, cotton, mentioned 3000 B.C. 
 
 But while Professor Sayce has given us no argu- 
 ments in support of this very recent date assigned 
 "by him to the first appearance of Aryas in India, he 
 
AGE OP THE VEDA. 87 
 
 has placed at our disposal some facts which, if true, 
 would seem to prove that Sanskrit must have been 
 the lano'uacfc of India at least 3000 B. c. 
 
 We are told ^ that ' in the copy of an old list of 
 clothing one article is mentioned which has to be pro- 
 nounced sindhu in Assyro-Baby Ionian, and has the 
 two ideographs " cloth + vegetable fibre." The copy 
 of the list now extant was made for the library of 
 Assur-bani-pal, but the original Babylonian tablet 
 was of a much earlier date, possibly as early as the 
 age of Khammuragas, say about 3000 B.C., though 
 this is not quite certain.' 
 
 If we trust to these facts, and if, as Professor Sayce 
 susrsrests, this vegetable fibre was cotton, and was 
 called sindhu by the Babylonians, because it came 
 from the river Sindhu, i.e. from India, this would 
 prove the presence of Sanskrit-speaking Aryas in 
 India about at least 3000 b. c. 
 
 Professor Sayce further identifies the Assyro-Baby- 
 lonian word sindhu with the Greek oLvbcor, which 
 occurs in Homer, and he thinks that the Hebrew 
 satin^, a linen shirt, mentioned in Isaiah iii.'^ 3, was 
 borrowed from Greek. I confess I see no similarity, 
 whether in form or meaning, between the Hebrew 
 satin and the Greek o-trgw/-, particularly as we have 
 in Arabic the word satin, meaning a covering in 
 general. But if, a.^ he argues the Phenicians brought 
 this word from the Sindhu, the Indus, and if both the 
 Greeks and the Babylonians borrowed that word from 
 the Phenicians, the presence of Sanskrit-speaking 
 Aryas on the shores of the Indus would go back to a 
 
 » Hibheri LecAures, by Snyoe p. 138. 
 
88 LECTURE y. 
 
 far more distant antiquity than we hitherto ventured 
 to assign to it. 
 
 It should likewise be considered that cotton is not 
 yet mentioned in the Vedic hymns, nor in the ancient 
 Brahma'jms. It appears for the first time in the 
 Sutras (Asval. /SVauta Sutra, IX. 4) as the name of a 
 dress made of karpasa, cotton. The other names, 
 pi/i;u, pi/iJula, and tula are certainly post- Vedic. 
 However, a cloth made of vegetable substances need 
 not necessarily be cotton. It may have been valka, 
 the bark of certain trees, which was used from a very 
 early time in India for making cloth, while in the 
 Veda wool is the principal material used for weaving ^ 
 
 This discrepancy between two such dates as 600 B.C. 
 and 3000 b. c, as the time of the migration of the 
 Vedic Aryas into India, w411 show at all events how 
 necessary it is to defend every approach to the for- 
 tress of Vedic chronology, and how essential for our 
 own purposes, to settle once for all the true antiquity 
 and the really historical character of the Veda. 
 
 There are but few chronological sheet-anchors which 
 hold the ancient history of India, and we must try to 
 fasten the floating literature of the Veda to one of 
 them, as firmly and securel}^ as we can. In order to 
 do that I must, however, first say a few words more 
 on another class of literary compositions which form 
 the last products of the Vedic age, and which will have 
 to serve as our hawsers to connect the ancient history 
 of India with the terra firma of Greek chronology. 
 
 The Sutras. 
 
 If you could read some of the Brahma^ias, which I 
 ^ See Appendix IX. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 89 
 
 described to you in my last lecture, you would easily 
 understand why, even for tlie purposes for which they 
 were principally intended, they proved in the long run 
 utterly useless. I defy any one to learn the correct 
 performance of a Vedic sacrifice from these treatises. 
 This explains the rise of a new kind of literature, 
 in style the very opposite of the BrahmaTias, in which 
 the performance of the same sacrifices which we saw 
 described in theBrahma7/as, is explained in the shortest 
 and the most business-like manner. These works are 
 called Sutra, which means literally threads. Some 
 passages occurring in the Brahma?ias and containing 
 short rules are called by the same name, and it is 
 quite clear that these Sutras, though independent 
 works, are entirely based on ancient Brahma72as. 
 Their style is almost enigmatical by its terseness, 
 their grammar retains but few traces of the Vedic 
 language, though Vedic irregularities are tolerated in 
 them, while the language of the Brahma7ias is still 
 entirely Vedic, and contains many ancient forms, even 
 such as do not occur in the Vedic hymns. 
 
 The introduction of this new class of literature 
 must have been the result of some social or re- 
 ligious change. The change from the careless dif- 
 fuseness of the Brahma^ias to the studied brevity of 
 the Sutras must have had a definite purpose. 
 
 I can think of two explanations only. It is just 
 possible that a knowledge of the art of writing, which 
 was unknown to the authors of the Brahmarms, 
 may have reached India sooner than we know, and 
 that its inherent difficulties may have produced 
 at first this almost lapidary style of the Sutras. 
 What is against this supposition is the non-ap- 
 
90 LECTURE V. 
 
 pearance of any allusion to writing in the Sutras 
 themselves. 
 
 We are therefore driven to the other explanation, 
 that the Brahmans themselves could no longer trust 
 to a traditional knowledge of the different sacrifices ; 
 that the text of the Brahma^ias, even if learnt by 
 heart, was no longer found sufficient to enable priests 
 to perform their respective duties correctly, and that 
 therefore these new practical manuals were com- 
 posed, containing no useless speculations, but simply 
 an outline of the duties of the three classes of priests, 
 a thread of rules to be learnt by heart by the priests 
 who had to perform the sacrifices. 
 
 These Sutras are called Kalpa-sutras, and are 
 divided into two classes, ^'rauta and Smarta. 
 ♦Sfrauta ivS derived from sruti, hearing, which means 
 revelation, Smarta is derived from smriti, memory, 
 which means tradition. 
 
 Each class of priests, the labouring, the singing, 
 and the reciting priests, have their own Sutras, as 
 they had their own Brahma ?ias and Sar^ihitas. 
 
 When this Sutra-style had once become popular, 
 other subjects also were treated in it. The rules of 
 pronunciation, for instance, which were at first taught 
 in metrical form, as in the Rig-veda-pratisakhya, 
 were afterwards reduced to the form of Sutras. The 
 rules of metre also were composed in Sutras, and 
 not only does the Sutra-style prevail in the great 
 grammar ascribed to Pardni, but the quotations from 
 earlier grammarians also seem to indicate that they 
 were handed down in the same short, pithy sen- 
 tences. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 91 
 
 The Three Literary Periods of the Vedic Ag-e. 
 
 We have now finished our survey of the ancient 
 literature of India, as it passes through three distinct 
 stages, each marked by its own style. We saw Vedic 
 Sanskrit at first in the metrical hymns of the Rig- 
 veda ; w^e saw it afterwards in the diffuse prose of 
 the Brahma?ias, and we saw it last of all in the strait- 
 jacket of the Sutras. 
 
 We also saw that the Sutras presupposed the 
 existence of the Brahmaria literature, and that the 
 Brahma?m literature presupposed the existence of 
 the hymns as collected in the Rig-veda-sa'J7ihita. 
 
 If now we ask how we can fix the date of these 
 three periods, it is quite clear that we cannot hope 
 to fix a terininiLs a quo. Whether the Vedic hymns 
 were composed ICOO, or 1500, or 2000, or 3000 years 
 B. c, no power on earth will ever determine. 
 
 Ghronolog'ical terminus ad quem. 
 
 The question then arises, can we fix on a terminus 
 ad quem, can we determine the date of the last Vedic 
 period, that of th^ Sutras, and then work our way 
 back to the two preceding literary periods ? 
 
 Sandrocottus, died 291 B.C. 
 
 I believe this is possible. You know that the 
 sheet-anchor of ancient Indian chronology is the date 
 of the contemporary of Alexander the Great, Sandro- 
 cottus, who is the A'andragupta of Indian history. 
 You may also know that this Sandrocottus, who died 
 291 B. c, was the grandfather of Asoka, who reigned 
 from 259 to 222 B.C., and whose inscriptions we 
 
92 LECTURE V. 
 
 possess eDgraved on rocks and pillars in numerous 
 places in India. This A6oka tolerated, or even ac- 
 cepted the religion founded by Buddha, and it was 
 during his reign that the second great Buddhist 
 Council was held at Pa^aliputra. 
 
 On the strength of the information contained in 
 the Buddhist Canon, as settled at the Council under 
 A8oka, we are enabled to place the rise of Buddhism 
 at about 500 B, c, and the death of its founder at 
 477 B. 0. 
 
 These are dates as certain in the eyes of the general 
 historian as we can ever expect to extract from the 
 extant literature of India. 
 
 Buddhism, a reaction ag-ainst the Vedic Beligion. 
 
 Now Buddhism is not a completely new religion. 
 On the contrary, it represents a reaction against some 
 other already existing religion, and more particularly 
 against some of the extravagant theories of the 
 Brahmans. In one sense it may really be said to 
 be a practical carrying out of the theories, proclaimed 
 for the first time in the Ara'nyakas and Upanishads. 
 While the Brahmans allowed members of the three 
 upper castes to retire from the world after they had 
 performed all the duties of their youth and manhood, 
 the Buddhists allowed everybody to become a Bhik- 
 shu, a mendicant, whether he had passed this previous 
 apprenticeship or not. Again, while the Brahmans 
 reserved the right of teaching to themselves, Buddha, 
 who belonged to the caste of the nobles, claimed that 
 right for himself, and for aU who were ' enlightened,' 
 i. e. buddha. These are two essential points of 
 difference between Brahmans and Buddhists, and 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 93 
 
 orthodox Brahmans constantly harp on them as 
 proving the heterodoxy of Buddha. 
 
 But we can not only show that Buddhism was a 
 kind of Protestantism, as compared with Brahmanism, 
 we can point out also a number of words and thoughts, 
 the growth of which we can watch in the periods of 
 Vedic literature, and which were taken over bodily by 
 the Buddhists, though sometimes with a change of 
 meaning. 
 
 The word Upanisliad. 
 
 For instance, the very name of Upanishad can 
 have been formed and can have grown up towards 
 the end of the Brahmana period only. Its original 
 meaning was a sitting (sad), below (ni), towards (up a) 
 the teacher ^. It became the recognised name of the 
 attitude assumed by the pupil when listening to his 
 teacher. It then was fixed as the name of the teach- 
 ing itself, and at last conveyed the meaning of secret 
 doctrine (adesa). In that sense which it had slowly 
 acquired in the Brahma?ia and Sutra periods, we find 
 it used again in the sacred canon of the Southern 
 Buddhists, who use upanisa in the sense of secret 
 and cause. The Northern Buddhists also knew the 
 word upanishad^. We may safely conclude there- 
 fore that this title and what it signified must have 
 existed previous to the rise of Buddhism, that is, 
 previous to 500 B. c. 
 
 1 5. B. E., vol. i. p. Ixxix seq. In Pali also the verb upa-ni-sad 
 occurs with reference to a king and his friends seating themselves 
 at the feet of a teacher. See Mahavansa, p. 82 ; Childcrs, Pali Die- 
 tionanj, s. v. 
 
 ^ Var/raA7iedika, § 16, p 35 ; § 24, p. 42. There it seems to mean 
 approach, comijarison. 
 
94 LECTURE V. 
 
 The word Sutra. 
 
 The same applies to the word Sutra. We do not 
 know exactly why Satra should have become the 
 name of those short sentences to which the scholastic 
 knowledge of the Brahmans was finally reduced. 
 But that word must have assumed the more general 
 meaning of teaching or lesson, before the Buddhists 
 could have employed it as they do, namely, as the 
 name of the long Sermons delivered by Buddha, and 
 collected in one of the three divisions of their sacred 
 canon, the Sutta-pi^aka^. 
 
 I could mention other words more or less technical, 
 which have their history in the Brahma^ias and 
 Sutras, and which in that form and with that 
 meaning which they had gradually assumed among 
 the Brahmans of the Vedic period, were taken over 
 by the Buddhists. But even these two words, 
 Upanishad and Siitra, will suffice, for it is beyond 
 the limits of probability to suppose that such tech- 
 nical terms as these could have been formed twice 
 and independently one from the other. They were 
 formed by the Brahmans, and accepted by the 
 Buddhists, though often with a slightly modified 
 meaning. 
 
 Kelation of Buddhism to Brahmanism. 
 Nor must we forget that though Buddhism, as a 
 religious, social, and philosophical s}-stemj is a re- 
 action against Brahmanism, there is an unbroken 
 continuity between the two. We could not under- 
 stand the antiigonism between Buddhism and the 
 ancient religion of India, unless the Vedic religion 
 
 ' See Appendix X. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 95 
 
 had first reached that artificial and corrupt stage in 
 which we find it in the BrahmaTias. Buddha himself, 
 as represented to us in the canonical writings of the 
 Buddhists, shows no hostility to the Brahmans in 
 general, nor does he seem to have been fond of 
 arguing against Brahmanism. If the prevailing re- 
 ligion of India at his time had consisted of the simple 
 Vedic hymns only, Buddha's position would become 
 quite unintelligible. He docs not argue against the 
 Vedic gods. He tolerates them in that subordinate 
 capacity in which they were tolerated by the authors 
 of the Upanishads, after they had discovered the 
 higher truth of Brahman, and the identity of their 
 own self with the Highest Self, the Paramatman. 
 What he attacks is the Brahmanic sacrifice, as it had 
 been developed in the Brahmanas, the privileges arro- 
 gated to their caste by the Brahmans, and the claim 
 of a divine revelation set up for the Veda, particu- 
 larly for the Brahmaims. It is curious to see how 
 a modern reformer. Dayananda Sarasvati, takes a 
 very similar position. He admits the hymns of the 
 Veda as divinely inspired, but he insists on the Brah- 
 maiias being the works of men. 
 
 If then the very origin of the Buddhistic reform in 
 India would be unintelligible without the latest. phnse 
 of the Vedic religion, if Upanishads and Sutras must 
 have existed, if the word Upanishad must have come 
 to mean secret doctrine, before it could be used in the 
 sense of secret and cause, as it is in Buddhism, and if 
 the word Sutra must have assumed the general mean- 
 ing of teaching, before it could have been apphed to 
 Buddha's sermons, we have found a teT7)iinus ad qiiem 
 for our Vedic literature. It must have reached its 
 
• 
 
 96 LECTURE V. 
 
 final shape before the birth of Buddha, that is about 
 eOO B. c. Before that date we must make room for 
 three whole periods of literature, each presupposing 
 the other. 
 
 Constructive Clironology. 
 
 Here, no doubt, our chronology becomes purely con- 
 structive. We can no longer build on solid rock, but 
 must be satisfied to erect our chronological structure, 
 like the palaces of Venice, on piles carefully driven 
 into the shifting sands of historical tradition. If then 
 we place the rise of Buddhism between 500 and 600 
 B. c, and assign provisionally 200 years to the Sutra 
 period, and another 200 years to the Brahma?ia period, 
 we should arrive at about 1000 B.C. as the date when 
 the collection of the ten books of the ancient hymns 
 must have taken place. How long a time it took for 
 these hymns, some of them very ancient, some of them 
 very modern in character, to grow up, we shall never 
 be able to determine. Some scholars postulate 500, 
 others 1000 or even 2000 years. These are all vague 
 guesses, and cannot be anything else. To us it suffices 
 that the Brahma?ms presuppose the Rig-veda as we 
 have it, including even such very late hymns as the 
 Valakhilyas in the eighth Ma7?c?ala. It is possible 
 that further critical researches may enable us to dis- 
 tinguish between the present collection of hymns and 
 an older one on which our Rig-veda was founded. 
 But even our Rig-veda, such as it is, with every 
 Ma-nd-alsi and every hymn, with every verse and every 
 word counted, must have existed, so far as we know 
 at present, about 1000 B. c, and that is more than can 
 be said of any work of any other Aryan literature. 
 
 We have thus thrown our bridge from our own 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 97 
 
 MSS , say 1000 A.D., to the first arch, represented by 
 the collected Vedic hymns in 1000 B.C. It is a bridge 
 that requires careful testing. But I can honestly say 
 I see no flaw in our chronological argument, and we 
 must leave it as it is, for the present. But I should 
 not be honest towards myself or towards others, if I 
 did not state at the same time that there are hymns 
 in the Eig-veda which make me shiver v/hon I am 
 asked to look upon them as representing the thoughts 
 and language of our humanity three thousand years 
 ago. And yet, how to find a loophole through which 
 what we should consider modern hymns might have 
 crept into the collection of older hymns, I cannot tell. 
 I have tried my best to find it, but I have not suc- 
 ceeded. Perhaps we shall have to confess that, after 
 all, our ideas of what human beings in India ought to 
 have thought 3000 years ago, are evolved from our 
 inner consciousness, and that we must learn to digest 
 facts, though they do not agree with our tastes and 
 our preconceived ideas ^. 
 
 Character of the Veda. 
 
 I should like now to give you an idea of what the 
 general character of the Vedic hymns is, such as we 
 find them collected in the Rig-veda-sa^izhita, and 
 commented upon in the Brahmarias, in the Prati- 
 sakhyas, in the Nirukta, and later works. But this 
 is extremely difficult, partly on account of the long 
 period of time during which these hymns were com- 
 posed, partly on account of the different families or 
 localities where they were collected. 
 
 * See Appendix XL 
 (2) H 
 
98 LECTURE V. 
 
 Simplicity of Vedic Hsrmns. 
 
 The Vedic hymns have often been characterised as 
 very simple and primitive. It may be that this simple 
 and primitive character of the Vedic hymns has some- 
 times been exaggerated, not so much by Vedic scholars 
 as by outsiders, who were led to imagine that what 
 was called simple and primitive meant really what 
 psychologists imagine to have been the very first 
 manifestations of human thought and language. They 
 thought that the Veda would give them what Adam 
 said to Eve, or, as we should say now, what the first 
 anthropoid ape confided to his mate, when his self- 
 consciousness had been roused for the first time, on 
 his discovering that he differed from other apes by the 
 absence of a tail, or when he sighed over the pre- 
 mature falling off* of his hair, which left him at last 
 hairless and naked, as the first Homo sapiens. These 
 expectations have, no doubt, been disappointed by 
 the publication of the Eig-veda. But the reaction 
 that set in has gone much too far. We are now told 
 that there is nothing simple and primitive in the 
 Vedic hymns, nay, that these verses are no more than 
 the fabrications of priests who wished to accompany 
 certain acts of their complicated sacrifices with sacred 
 hymns. 
 
 Let us consider each of these objections by itself. 
 If one class of scholars maintain that they find 
 nothing simple or primitive in the Veda, they ought 
 to tell us, first of all, what they mean by simple and 
 primitive. Surely we may call primitive what re- 
 quires no antecedents, and simple what is natural, 
 intelligible, and requires no explanation. Of such 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 99 
 
 thoughts I still maintain, as strongly as ever, that we 
 find more in the Rig-veda than in any other book, 
 Aryan or Semitic. 
 
 I call many of the hymns addressed to the Dawn, 
 the Sun, the Sky, the Fire, the Waters and Rivers, per- 
 fectly simple. If Devas or so-called gods had once 
 been recognised, — and this^ as language teaches us^ 
 must have been the case before the Aryas separated, — 
 we require no explanation why human beings should 
 have addressed the sun in the mornino- and eveninof, 
 asking him to bring light and warmth, on which their 
 very life depended, deprecating his scorching rays, 
 which might destroy their harvest and kill their 
 cattle, and imploring him to return when he had 
 vanished for a time, and had left them helpless in 
 cold and darkness. The phases of the moon, too, 
 might well excite in an observant mind thoughts fit 
 for expression, particularly as we know that it was 
 the moon who first helped men to reckon time, with- 
 out which no well-regulated social life was possible. 
 Lastly, the return of the seasons and the year would 
 likewise turn the thoughts of husbandmen, hunters, 
 or sailors to powers above them who controlled their 
 life and its occupations, but who themselves could not 
 be controlled either by force or cunning, though they, 
 like animals or men, might be softened, they thought, 
 by kind words and kind deeds. 
 
 Nor could the profound and unvarying order that 
 pervades and sustains the whole of nature, escape even 
 the most careless observers. It was perceived by the 
 Vedic poets in the return of day and night, in the 
 changes of the moon, the seasons and the years. They 
 called that order Bita., and they soon began to look 
 
 H 2 
 
100 LECTURE V. 
 
 upon their gods as the guardians of that order (r^'ta- 
 pa), while they suspected in storms and floods and 
 other convulsions of nature the working of powers 
 opposed to their gods. The order of nature and belief 
 in their gods were so intimately connected in the 
 minds of the early poets that one of them said (Rv. I. 
 10.2, 2), ' Sun and moon move in regular succession, in 
 order that we may see and believe.' 
 
 Moral Elements. 
 
 The moral relation between men and the Devas or 
 gods was also in its origin of the simplest character. 
 We meet in the Vedic hymns with such homely 
 phrases, addressed to their gods, as ' If you give me 
 this, I shall give you that/ or, ' As you have given me 
 this, I shall give you that.' This was a mere barter 
 as yet between men and gods, and yet the former 
 sentiment might grow in time into a prayer, the latter 
 into a thank-offering. Sometimes the poet expostu- 
 lates with the gods, and tells them that ' if he were as 
 rich as they are, he would not allow his worshippers 
 to go begging.' 
 
 Surely, nothing can be more simple and more 
 natural than all this, provided always that we are 
 dealing with men w^ho had elaborated a perfect 
 language, not with missing links between brute and 
 man. 
 
 Early Sacrifices. 
 
 Even when sacrificial ofi'erings came in, they 
 consisted at first of nothing but some kinds of food 
 relished by men themselves, such as water, milk, 
 butter, oil, grains, and berries, prepared in different 
 
AGE OP THE VEDA. 101 
 
 ways as puddings, cakes, etc. Of sacrificial animals 
 we find goats, sheep, oxen ; for later and greater 
 sacrifices, horses and even men. There are dark 
 traditions of human sacrifices, but in the recognised 
 ceremonial of the Veda a man is never killed. Incense 
 also is mentioned, and in some sacrifices an intoxicat- 
 ing beverage, the Soma, is very prominent, and must 
 have been known before the Zoroastrians separated 
 from the Vedic people, because it forms a very 
 prominent feature in both religions. 
 
 Childish Thoxig-hts in the Veda. 
 
 As to almost childish thoughts, surely they abound 
 in the Veda. It is rather hard to have to pick out 
 childish and absurd thoughts, in order to prove the 
 primitive and unsophisticated character of the Veda. 
 But if it must be done, it can be done. The Vedic poets 
 wonder again and again why a dark or a red cow 
 should give white milk^ Can we imagine anything 
 more primitive? Yet that thought is not peculiar to 
 India, and some people might feel inclined to refer it 
 to a period previous to the Aryan separation. There 
 is a common saying or riddle in German, which you 
 may hear repeated by children to the present day, 
 
 '0 sagt mir cloch, wie geht es zu, 
 Dass weiss die Milch der rothen Kuh.* 
 
 * Tell me how does it happen 
 That the milk of the red cow is white.* 
 
 There is perhaps more excuse for their wondering 
 at another miracle. In I. 68, 2, we read, ' that men 
 were pleased with the power of Agni, that he should 
 
 » Rv. I. 62, 9 ; Aufrecht, vol. ii. pref. p xvii. 
 
102 LECTURE V. 
 
 be bom alive from a dry stick,' at it te wisve kratum 
 ^ushanta sushkat yat deva giwah gs^mshthkh. 
 
 Again, can anything be more primitive than the 
 wonderment expressed by Vedic poets, that the sun 
 should not tumble down from the sky? Thus we 
 read, Rv. IV. 13, 5, 
 
 • ' Unsupported, not fastened, how does he (the sun) 
 rising up, not fall down?' 
 
 Anayata/i anibaddha/i katha ayam nyan uttanaA 
 ava padyate na. 
 
 Other nations have wondered why the ocean should 
 receive all the rivers and yet never overflow (Eccles. i. 
 7). The Vedic poet too discovers signs of the great 
 might of what he calls the wisest Being, in that 
 
 'The bright inpouring rivers never fill the ocean 
 with water° (Rv. V. 85, 6). 
 
 My object in quoting these passages is simply 
 to show the lowest level of Vedic thought. In no 
 other literature do we find a record of the world's real 
 childhood to be compared with that of the Veda. It 
 is easy to call these utterances childish and absurd. 
 They are childish and absurd. But if we want to 
 study the early childhood, if not the infancy, of the 
 human race ; if we think that there is something to 
 be gained from that study, as there is from a study of 
 the scattered boulders of unstratified rocks in geology, 
 then even these childish sayings are welcome to the 
 student of religion, welcome for the simple fact that, 
 whatever their chronological age may be, they cannot 
 easily be matched anywhere else. 
 
 More exalted Ideas. 
 
 These childish ideas, however, this simple wonder- 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 108 
 
 ment at the commonest events in nature, soon led 
 on to more exalted ideas. One poet asks (Rv. X. 
 88, 18), 
 
 ' How many fires are there, how many suns, how 
 many dawns, and how many waters ? I do not say 
 this, O fathers, to worry you ; I ask you, seers, that 
 I may know it.' 
 
 Another says : 
 
 ' What was the wood, and what was the tree from 
 which they have cut out heaven and earth ? ' 
 
 (Rv. X. 31, 7 ; 81, 4.) Kim svit vanam kah u sa/i 
 vriksha/i asa yata/i dj avapy^'thivi ni/i-tatakshii/i. 
 
 Or again, X. 81, 2: 
 
 ' What was the stand on which he rested, which 
 was it and how, from whence the All-maker, the all- 
 seeing, created the earth and spread out the sky by 
 his might?' 
 
 Kim svit asit adhish^/^anam arambhai?am katamat 
 svit katha asit, yata/^, bhumim ^(/anayan vi6vakarma 
 vi dyam aiii-not mahina vi»va/i;aksha/i. 
 
 We see here how difficult it would be to draw 
 a line between what we call childishness and what we 
 call wisdom from the mouths of babes. If it is true 
 that il ny a quun pas du sublime au ridicule, it 
 would seem to be equally true that il i^'y a quun pas 
 du ridicule au sublime. A childish question may 
 call forth an answer full of profound wisdom. But to 
 say that we look in vain for simple and primitive 
 thoughts in the Veda is to set up a standard of 
 simplicity and primitiveness that w^ould apply to 
 cave-dwellers rather and prehistoric monsters, and 
 not to people who, as long as we know them, were in 
 full possession of one of the most perfect of Aryan 
 
104 LECTURE V. 
 
 lanffuao-es. No doubt there are in the Veda thoughts 
 and sentiments also that might have been uttered in 
 the nineteenth century. But this only serves to show 
 how large a period is covered by those ancient hymns, 
 and how many different minds are reflected in it. 
 
 The Sacrificial Character of the Vedic Hymns. 
 
 Another view of the Veda, first advanced by 
 Professor Ludwig, has of late been defended with 
 great ingenuity by a French scholar, M. Bergaigne, a 
 man whose death has been a serious loss to our 
 studies. He held that all, or nearly all the Vedic 
 hymns, were modern, artificial and chiefly composed 
 for the sake of the sacrifice. Other scholars have 
 followed his lead, till at last it has almost become a 
 new doctrine that everywhere in the world sacrifice 
 preceded sacred poetry. Here again we find truth 
 and untruth strangely mixed together. 
 
 It is well known that in several cases verses con- 
 tained in hymns, totally unconnected with the 
 sacrifice, were slightly changed in order to adapt 
 them to the requirements of the sacrificial ceremonial. 
 The first verse, for instance, of the dialogue between 
 Yama and Yami (Rv. .X. 10, 1), is 
 
 6 kit sakhayam sakhya vavr/ty&m, 
 'May I bring near the friend by friendship.' 
 
 In the Sama-veda, X. 340, the same verse appears as 
 
 a tva sakhaya/« sakhya xaxrityuh, 
 ' May the friends bring thee near by friendship/ 
 
 that is, 'May the priests bring the god to the sacrifice ^.' 
 
 1 Von Schroeder, Indiens Literaiur, p. ]68; A past. Paribh Sutra 
 129. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 1U5 
 
 That many Vedic hymny, however, contain allusions 
 to what may be called sacriticial customs, no one who 
 has ever looked into the Veda can deny. Some of 
 the hymns, and generally those which for other 
 reasons also would be treated as comparatively late, 
 presuppose what we should call a highly developed 
 system of sacrificial technicalities. The distinction, 
 for instance, between a verse {rlk), and a song 
 (saman), and a sacrificial formula (ya^us), the dis- 
 tinction on which, as we saw, rests the division of the 
 Veda into Rig-veda, Sama-veda, and Ya(/ur-veda. is 
 found in one of the hymns, X. 90, and there only. 
 But curiously enough, this very hymn is one of those 
 that occur at the end of an Anuvaka, and contains 
 several other indications of its relatively modern 
 character. Many similar passages, full of sacrificial 
 technicalities, have been pointed out ^ in the Rig-veda, 
 and they certainly show that when these passages 
 were composed, the sacrifice in India had already 
 assumed what seems to us a very advanced, or, if you 
 like, a very degraded and artificial character. 
 
 But there are other passages also where the poet 
 says, ' Whosoever sacrifices to Agni with a stick of 
 wood, with a libation, w^ith a bundle of herbs, or with 
 an inclination of his head,' he will be blessed with 
 many blessings (Rv. VIII. 19, 5 ; 10'?, 19). 
 
 This whole question, so hotly discussed of late, 
 whether sacrifice comes first or prayer, whether the 
 Vedic poets waited till the ceremonial was fully 
 
 ^ The most complete collection of sacrificial terms occurring in 
 the hymns of the Rig-veda may be found in Ludwig's Die Manfra- 
 Utferatur, 1878. pp. 35-3-415. Bergaigne's Religion Vedique appeared 
 from 1878 to 1883. 
 
106 LECTURE V. 
 
 developed before they invoked the Dawn, and the 
 Sun, and the Storms to bless them, or whether, on 
 the contrary, their spontaneous prayers suggested the 
 performance of sacrificial acts, repeated at certain 
 times of the day, of the month, of the year, is im- 
 possible to solve, because, as it seems to me, it is 
 4i\rrongly put. 
 
 ' Sacrifice,' as Grimm remarked long ago, ' is only 
 a prayer ofi'ered with gifts.' We nowhere hear of 
 a mute sacrifice. What we call sacrifice, the ancients 
 called simply karma, an act. Now in one sense 
 a simple prayer, preceded by a washing of the hands, 
 or accompanied by an inclination of the head, may be 
 called a karma, an act^. On the other hand, a man 
 who in lighting the fire on the hearth or in putting 
 one log on the smouldering ashes, bows his head 
 (namas)^ raises his arms (uttanahasta/i^ Rv. VI. 
 16, 46), and utters the name of Agni with some 
 kind epithets (ya^/us), may be said to have addressed 
 a hymn of praise to the god of fire. Prayer and 
 sacrifice may have been originally inseparable, but in 
 human nature I should say that prayer comes always 
 fii'st, sacrifice second. 
 
 That the idea of sacrifice did not exist at a very 
 early period, we may gather from the fact that in the 
 common dictionary of the Aryan nations there is no 
 word for it, while Sanskrit and Zend have not only 
 the same name for sacrifice, but share together a great 
 many words which refer to minute technicalities of 
 the ancient ceremonial. 
 
 ^ Kalpa, act, in the plural, occurs Rv. IX. 9, 7. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 107 
 
 Yag, to sacrifice. 
 
 The usual word for sacrificing in Sanskrit is YAG, 
 Zend yaz, from which ya(/;la, sacrifice, yag-us, 
 sacrificial formula, ya^ami, I sacrifice, ya^ya, to be 
 worshipped. This ya^ya has been compared with 
 Greek aytoj, sacred, though this is not certain ^ Why 
 ya^ should have taken that meaning of sacrificing, 
 or giving to the gods, we cannot tell ^, for it is 
 impossible to trace that root back to any other root of 
 a more general meaning. 
 
 Hu, to sacrifice. 
 
 Another Sanskrit root which has frequently to be 
 translated by sacrificing is HU, In this case we can 
 clearly see the original intention of the root. It meant 
 to pour out, and was chiefly applied to the act of 
 throwing barley and oil and other substances into 
 the fii'e -K It afterwards took a more general meaning, 
 not so general, however, as to be applicable to animal 
 sacrifices. From it we have in Sanskrit ha vis, 
 havya, sacrifice, a-hava, a jug, gruhu, a spoon, 
 ho-t7'^, priest, homa and ahuti, libation. In Greek 
 Xy or xeF means simply to pour out, yv-rpa, an earthen- 
 ware pot*, (dveiv, to sacrifice, might phonetically 
 
 ' The Greek d-yos or ayos does not mean sacrifice, but rather ex- 
 piation. It cannot be the Sk. agas, because in Greek the a is short. 
 
 2 Sanskrit theologians connect yar/ with iysig, to give up, to leave, 
 but there is no analogy for this. Comparative philologists used to 
 place bha^, to worship, by the side of yag, assigning to bh (bhi) 
 and y (ni or ti; a prepositional origin, but this is a pure hypothesis, 
 which has long been surrendered. 
 
 3 Al-Biruni, ii. p. 96. 
 
 ^ Aufrecht in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xiv. p. 2C8. This root hu, to 
 pour out, exists also in the Latin fuHs, a water-jug, and in vasa 
 futiU'a, which Paulus, Ejnt. p. 89, explains rightly as derived a fim- 
 dendo. Ftdilis, in the sense of futile, may have been conceived either 
 as a man who always pours forth, or as a vessel, leaky, not holding 
 
108 LECTURE V. 
 
 be traced back to the same source, but its meanings 
 cause difficulty. 
 
 Sacrificial Terms. 
 
 A third word for sacrifice in Sanskrit is adhvara, 
 which is generally, though I doubt whether correctly, 
 explained as a compound of the negative a and 
 dhvara, flaw. From it, adhvaryu, the name of the 
 officiating priest. 
 
 Stress is frequently laid on the sacrificial offering 
 being without a flaw, or free from any blemish. This 
 may account for the meaning of the English holy, 
 which is the AS. hdlig, derived from hdl, that is, hale 
 and ivhole. The Greek tepo?, sacred, holy, had a 
 similar origin. It is identical with the Sk. ishira, 
 which means alive, strong, vigorous, a meaning still 
 perceptible in the Greek of Homer, who speaks of 
 Upo9 Ix^vs (11. ii. 407), a lively fish, Upov yiivo^, a 
 vigorous mind, while in later Greek Up6^ means 
 sacred only, and upevs, a priest, like adhvar-yu. 
 
 This is all that we can discover as to the original 
 conception of a sacrifice among some of the Aryan 
 nations. The equation of y a(/, to sacrifice, with Greek 
 a(op.ai, to stand in awe, is difficult, if not impossible, 
 on account of the difterence of meaning. Nothing, in 
 fact, justifies us in supposiug that the idea of a 
 sacrifice, in our sense of the word, existed among 
 the Aryas before they separated. The concept of gods 
 or devas had, no doubt, been elaborated before their 
 final separation. Words also for metrical language 
 (/ijAandas = scandere, sas-man = carmen in cas- 
 
 water. Fvndo is a nasalised form otfiid, and fiid is a secondary form 
 of/((, Sk. hu. The Gothic yinta means to pour out. 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. 109 
 
 men a) existed. Such expressions as dataras vasii- 
 nam or vasnam in the Veda, dataro vohunam 
 and data vaiihvam in Zend, and borijpes eciwi; (i.e. 
 Fea-Faooi') in Homer, would seem to show that the idea 
 of the gods giving gifts to men had been fully realised^, 
 though not yet the idea of men giving gifts to the gods. 
 If in boTTJpes €d(t)v and dataras vasuam we may 
 recognise, as Kuhn suggested, a phrase that had 
 become fixed and idiomatic before the Aryan nations 
 separated, it would have to be kept as a perfect gem 
 in our linguistic museums. 
 
 Prayer better than Sacrifice. 
 
 In spite of the preponderance which the sacrifice 
 has assumed in India, it is important to observe that 
 the Vedic poets themselves Avere strongly impressed 
 with the feeling that after all prayer was better than 
 sacrifice. Thus we read, Rv. VIII. 24, 20 : 
 
 dasmyam vaAa/i ghritat svadiya/t madhuna/i Aa voAata, 
 
 * Utter a poweiful speech to Indra, which is sweeter than butter 
 and honey.' 
 
 Rv.VI. 16,47: 
 
 a te agne riksi havi/i hrzda tash/am bliaramasi, te te bhavantu 
 uksha?ia/i jvshabhasa/i vasa/i uta. 
 
 ' We offer to thee, Agni, an oblation made by the heart with a 
 verse, let this be thy oxen, thy bulls, and thy cows ^.' 
 
 Rv. I. 109, 1 : 
 
 Vi hi akhyam manasa vasya/i ikkhAn 
 Indragni guiisah vita va sa(/atan, 
 Na anya yuvat pnimati/i asti mahyam, 
 Sa/i vam dhiyam va(/ayantim ataksham, 
 
 *I looked about in my mind, O Indra and Agni. wishing for wealth, 
 among acquaintances and kinsfolk. But there is no guardian for 
 me but you, therefore did I compose this song for you.' 
 
 ^ Benfey, Vocativ, p. 57 ; M. M., Selected Essays, i. p. 224, 
 ^ It may also mean, ' Let these oxen be thine.' 
 
110 LECTURE V, 
 
 Rv. 111.53, 2: 
 
 Pitu/j na putrji/i siAam a rabhe te 
 Indra svadisli//<aj'a gira sakivdh. 
 
 ' With the sweetest song I lay hold of the hem of thy garment, 
 Indra, as a son lays hold of hfs father's garment, helper.' 
 
 The gods are quite as frequently invoked in the 
 hymns to hear as to eat and to drink, and hymns 
 of praise are among the most precious offerings 
 presented to the gods. 
 
 The Primitive Sacrifice. 
 
 But sacrifices certainly occupy a very prominent 
 part in the Vedic hymns. Only we must distinguish. 
 When ice hear of sacrifices, we cannot help thinking at 
 once of sacred and solemn acts. But the very names 
 and concepts of sacred and solemn are secondary 
 names and concepts, and presuppose a long develop- 
 ment. In Sanskrit a sacrifice is simply called an 
 act, karma, though in time that name assumed the 
 technical meaning of a sacred and solemn act. We 
 must never forget that many of the ancient sacrifices 
 were indeed nothing but the most natural acts, and 
 that some of them are found with slight variations in 
 the most distant parts of the world, and among 
 people entirely unrelated and unconnected. 
 
 Morning* and Evening- Meal. 
 
 A morning and evening ofi'ering, for instance, is 
 met wdth among Semitic quite as much as among 
 Aryan nations. It was originally the morning and 
 evening meal, to w^hich in many places a third 
 ofi'ering was added, connected with the midday meal. 
 Throwing a few grains of corn on the fire, pouring 
 
AGE OF THE VEDA. Ill 
 
 a few drops of their own drink on the altar, whether 
 in memory of their departed parents, or with a thought 
 of the sun, the giver of light and life, as he rose, and 
 culminated and set every day, was the beginning of 
 the daily sacrifice among the Aryas. These two or 
 three libations in the morning, in the evening, and at 
 noon, were quite familiar to the poets of the Rig-veda. 
 For instance, Rv. IV. 35, 7: 
 
 Pratji^ sutam apiba/i haryasva, 
 Madhyandinam savanam kevalam te, 
 Sam n■bhubhi/^ pibasva ratnadhebhi^ 
 Sakhin yan indra Aakr/she sukjjtya. 
 
 'O Indra, thou hast drunk what was poured out in the morning, 
 the midday libation is thine alone ; drink now with the liberal 
 JRibhus, whom thou hast made friends for their good deeds ^.' 
 
 The name savana, libation, occurs in the Veda; 
 but the technical term trishava7ia, the threefold 
 libation, is not yet found in the hymns of the Rig- 
 veda. 
 
 Ligrhtingr and keeping- of the Fire. 
 
 Another most simple and natural act, which in time 
 came to be called a sacrifice^, consisted in the making 
 up of the fire on the hearth, at sunrise and sunset, also 
 at noon. It was a useful and necessary act, and 
 would probably soon have to be sanctioned by habit, 
 or enforced by law. It was the beginning of what 
 afterwards became the solemn Agnihotra, or fire- 
 sacrifice. Thus we read, Rv. IV. 2, 8 : 
 
 Y-Ah tva dosha yil/^ ushasi prasa»?sat, 
 Pi'iyam va tva k/mavate havishman. 
 
 * He who praises thee, Agni, in the evening or at dawn. Or who 
 makes thee pleased with his oblation.' 
 
 1 See also III. 26, 1, 4, 5 ; V. 76, 3. 
 
112 LECTURE V. 
 
 Or again, IV. 12, 1 : 
 
 Ya/i tvam agne inadhate yat^sruk 
 Trih te annam krinavat sasmin ahan. 
 
 ' He who lights thee, Agni, stretching foi-th his spoon, he who 
 gives thee food three times on the same day.' 
 
 But while the simple act of the making-up of the 
 fire, and pouring some fat on it to make it flare up, is 
 often mentioned, the technical term of the Agnihotra 
 sacrifice is not yet met with in the hymns of the Rig- 
 veda. 
 
 New and Full Moon. 
 
 Again, the observation of the phases of the moon, 
 which was essential in order to remember the months, 
 the fortnights, and the seven days, nay, without which 
 no well-regulated social life was possible, is clearly 
 presupposed by the hymns. But the technical name 
 of the New and Full-moon sacrifice, Darsa-pur/ia- 
 masa, does not occur in the hymns. 
 
 The Three Seasons. 
 
 Another probably very primitive sacrifice was the 
 Four-monthly sacrifice, marking the three most im- 
 portant seasons of the year. Here again the technical 
 name ifaturmasya is later than the hymns of the 
 Rig-veda. 
 
 In all these acts, whether they lasted one moment 
 only, or a whole day, or even many days, we can 
 still discover a simple and natural purpose. They 
 are not sacrifices, in our sense of the word. They 
 prove no more than the existence of festive gather- 
 ings in a family or a village, to commemorate and 
 impress on the mind of the young the important 
 
AGE OP THE VEDA. 113 
 
 divisions of the year, or to make sure of the regular 
 performance of certain essential household duties. 
 After a time, what was natural became artificial, 
 what was simple became complicated ; and there 
 cannot be the slightest doubt that in many of the 
 Vedic hymns the poets show themselves already well 
 acquainted with the later complicated phases of the 
 sacrifice in India. Many priests are mentioned with 
 their technical titles ; the times and seasons for certain 
 sacrifices are accurately fixed ; sacrificial offerings have 
 received their special names, they are restricted to 
 certain deities \ and the original purpose of the sacri- 
 fice is often completely lost in a mass of ritual that 
 seems perfectly meaningless. 
 
 The meaning' of Solemn. 
 
 Eut what I wish to make quite clear is this, that 
 there is a growth, or a natural development in all 
 this. The mere fact that these simple offerings or 
 these festive gatherings were repeated every day, or 
 every month, or every year, imparted to them a 
 sacred and solemn character. Language itself teaches 
 us that lesson. For how did we get the idea of 
 solemn ? How did we come to call anything solemm? 
 Simply by regular repetition. Solemn, the Latin 
 sollennis, was derived, as the Romans themselves tell 
 us, from sollus, whole, and annus for ar)inus, year. 
 It meant therefore originally no more than annual, 
 and then by slow degrees came to supply the new 
 idea of solemn. 
 
 ^ The three Savanas or libations, are chiefly intended for Indra, 
 the Agnihotra for Agni. See Ludwig, MantraUtteratur, p. 384. 
 
 (2) I 
 
114 LECTURE V. 
 
 I should say then that we are perfectly justified, 
 whenever we find in the Veda hymns full of allusions 
 to minute ceremonial technicalities,, to class such 
 hymns as secondary or tertiary. But there remains 
 the fact, and in spite of all eftbrts, I do not see how 
 we can escape from it — that all the 1017 hymns, and 
 even the eleven Valakhilya hymns, in which these 
 technicalities occur, must have been collected not later 
 than about 1000 B.C. Can any other Aryan litera- 
 ture match this'? If anybody can break through the 
 net of our chronological argument, let him do so. No 
 one would rejoice more than myself. But until that 
 is done, we must learn to bear the slavery of facts. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 PHYSICAL RELIGION. 
 Definition of Physical Religion. 
 
 PHYSICAL Religion is generally defined as a 
 worship of the powers of nature. We hear it 
 said of ancient as well as of modern nations, that 
 their gods were the sun or the moon, the sky with j 
 its thunder and lightning, the rivers and the sea, the | 
 earth, and even the powers under the earth. As ' 
 Aaron said to the Israelites, the poets and prophets | 
 of the heathens are supposed to have said to their I 
 people, ' These be thy gods.' ! 
 
 There are some well-known philosophers who go i 
 even further, and who, repeating again and again the 
 old mistake of De Brosses and Comte, maintain that \ 
 the earliest phase of all religion is represented by ' 
 people believing in stones and bones and fetishes of 
 all kinds as their gods. 
 
 God, as a predicate. 
 
 As their ofods ! Does it never strike these theorisers 
 that the whole secret of the origin of religion lies , 
 in that predicate, theh' gods. Where did the human j/ 
 mind find that concept and that name ? That is the j 
 
 iz i 
 
116 LECTURE VI. 
 
 problem which has to be solved ; everything else is 
 mere childs play. 
 
 We ourselves, the heirs of so many centuries 
 of toil and thought, possess, of course, the name 
 and concept of God, and we can hardly imagine a 
 human mind without that name and concept. But, 
 ^s a matter of fact, the child's mind is without that 
 name and concept, and such is the difference of 
 meaning assigned by different religions, nay, even 
 by members of the same religion, to the name of 
 God, that a general definition of it has almost become 
 an impossibility. Nevertheless, however our ideas 
 of God may differ, for us to say that the sun or the 
 moon, or a pebble, or the tail of a tiger was God, 
 would be absurd and self- contradictory. 
 
 The Greeks also, at least the more enlightened 
 among them, who had arrived at the name and 
 concept of God,— men, I mean, like Socrates and 
 Plato, — could never have brought themselves to say 
 that any one of their mythological deities, such as 
 Hermes or Apollo, was God, 6 Oeos. The Greeks, 
 however, had likewise the name and concept of 
 gods in the plural, but even that name, which has 
 a meaning totally different from that of Gcd in the 
 singular, could never have been applied by them to 
 wdiat are called fetishes, bones, feathers, or rags. 
 MqsI of the Negro tribes, who are so glibly classed 
 las fetish-worshippers, possess a name of God, quite 
 apart from their fetishes ; nay, their concept of God 
 is often very pure and simple and true. But they 
 w^ould never apply that name to Avhat we, not they% 
 have called their fetish-gods. All they really do is to 
 preserve with a kind of superstitious awe some casual 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 117 
 
 objects, just as we nail a horse-shoe on our stable- 
 doors, or keep a farthing for luck in our purse. 
 These objects they call grigrl, or juju'^. This may 
 mean anything, but certainly it does not mean fetish 
 in the sense given to this word by De Brosses and 
 others, neither does it mean God. 
 
 It has led to the greatest confusion of thought that 
 our modern languages had to take the singular of the 
 Greek plural, 6€ol, the gods, and use it for ^eo?, God. 
 It is quite true historically that the idea of Oeos, 
 God, was evolved from the idea of Oeoi, gods ; but in 
 passing through that process of intellectual evolution, 
 the meaning of the word became changed as com- 
 pletely as the most insignificant seed is changed when 
 it has blossomed into a full-blown rose. 0eo?, God, 
 admits of no plural, ^eot always implies plurality. 
 
 The problem of Physical Religion has now assumed 
 a totally different aspect, as treated by the Historical 
 School. Instead of endeavouring to explain how 
 human beings could ever worship the sky as a god, 
 we ask, how did any human being come into pos- 
 session of the predicate god ? We then try to discover 
 what that predicate meant when applied to the sky, 
 or the sun, or the dawn, or the fire. With us the con- 
 cept of God excludes fire, the dawn, the sun, and the 
 sky ; at all events, the two concepts no longer cover 
 each other. What we want to study therefore is that 
 ever- varying circumference of the predicate god, which 
 becomes wider or narrower from century to century, 
 according to the objects which it was made to include, 
 and after a time to exclude aoain. 
 
 * Hibbert Lectures, p. 103. The nsxmes _fi() so, fetish, and ./f/t'.syro. priest, 
 are traced back to Portuguese sailors in Africa by W. J Miiller, Die 
 Afrikcousche Landschoft Fetu, 1675. 
 
118 LECTURE VI. 
 
 This problem, and a most difficult problem it is, 
 can be studied nowhere so well as in the Veda, that 
 is, in the ancient hymns of the Rig-veda. I doubt 
 whether we should ever have understood the real 
 nature of the problem with which we have to deal, 
 unless we had become acquainted with the Rig- 
 ► veda. 
 
 Deification. 
 
 It is quite clear that other nations also passed 
 through the same phases of thought as the Aryan 
 conquerors of India. We see the results of that 
 process everywhere. In Africa, in America, in the 
 Polynesian islands, everywhere we catch glimpses of 
 the process of deification. But the whole of that 
 process is nowhere laid open before our eyes in such 
 fulness and with such perspicuity as in the Veda. 
 Deification, as we can watch it in the Veda, does not 
 mean the application of the name and concept of god 
 to certain phenomena of nature. No, it means the 
 slow and inevitable development of the concept and 
 name of God out of these very phenomena of nature- 
 it means the primitive theogony that takes place in 
 the human mind as living in human language. 
 
 It has always been perfectly well known that 
 Zens, for instance, had something to do with the sky, 
 Foseidon with the sea, Hades with the lower regions. 
 It might have been guessed that Aj^oUo, like Fhoehos 
 and Helios, had a solar, Artemis, like Mene, a lunar 
 character. But all this remained vague, the divine 
 epithet applied to them all remained unintelligible, 
 till the Veda opened to r*s a stratum of thought and 
 language in which the growth of that predicate could 
 
PHYSICAL KELTGION. 119 
 
 be watched, and its application to various phenomena 
 of nature be clearly understood. 
 
 It will be the chief object of this course of lectures 
 to elucidate this process of religious evolution, to 
 place clearly before you, chiefly from the facts sup- 
 plied by the hymns of the Veda, the gradual and 
 perfectly intelligible development of the predicate god 
 from out of the simplest perceptions and conceptions 
 which the human mind gained from that objective 
 nature by which man found himself surrounded. 
 
 The Natxiral and the Supernatural. 
 
 We have now classified the whole of our experience 
 which we derive from nature under two heads, as 
 either natural or supernatural, natural comprising 
 all that seems to us regular, conformable to rule, and 
 intelligible, siq^ernatural all that we consider as yet 
 or altogether as beyond the reach of rule and reason. 
 This, however, as you Avill see, is but the last result 
 of a long succession of intellectual labour. At first 
 sio'ht, nothinof seemed less natural than nature. 
 Nature was the greatest surprise, a terror, a marvel, 
 a standing miracle, and it was only on account of 
 their permanence, constancy, and regular recurrence 
 that certain features of that standing miracle were 
 called natural, in the sense of foreseen, common, in- 
 telligible. Every advance of natural science meant 
 the wresting of a province from the supernatural, if 
 we may use that word in the sense of what remains 
 as yet a surprise, a terror, a marvel, or a miracle in 
 man's experience of objective nature. 
 
 It was that vast domain of surprise, of terror, of 
 marvel, and miracle, the unknown, as distinguished 
 
120 LECTURE VI. 
 
 from the known, or, as I like to express it, the in- 
 finite, as distinct from the finite, which supplied from 
 the earliest times the impulse to religious thought 
 and language, though in the beginning these thoughts 
 and names had little of what we now call religions 
 about them. You remember that the very name of 
 deva in Sanskrit, of dens in Latin, which afterwards 
 became the name of God, meant originally bright, 
 and no more. It came to mean God after a long pro- 
 cess of evolution, which took place even before the 
 Aryan separation, and of which we can only just catch 
 the last glimpses in the phraseology of the Vedic poets. 
 
 Ag-ni, rire, as one of the Devas. 
 
 How this came about we shall, I think, best learn 
 to understand if we anal^^se the growth of one of the 
 many Devas or gods who form the Pantheon of the 
 Veda. Many of these Vedic Devas appear likewise 
 under more or less puzzling disguises in the mythology 
 and religion of the other Aryan nations. Some, how- 
 ever, exist in the Veda only as real Devas, while we 
 find no trace of them, as mythological or divine 
 beings, in other countries of the Aryan world. I shall 
 begin my analysis of Physical Religion with a Deva, 
 belonging to this latter class, with the god of fire, 
 called Agni in the Veda, but unknown under that 
 name in any of the other Aryan mythologies, though 
 the word agni, in the sense of fire, occurs in Latin as 
 ignis, in Lituanian as ugnl, in old Slavonic as ogni. 
 
 When I say the god of fire, I use an expression 
 which has become familiar to us from classical my- 
 thology. We speak of a god of the sky, or of the 
 wind, or of the rain. But you will see that in the 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 121 
 
 Veda we can watch this god of fire long before he 
 is a god at all ; and, on the other hand, we shall be 
 able to trace his further growth till he is no longer 
 a god of fire merely, but a supreme god, a god above 
 all other gods, a creator and ruler of the world. 
 
 In fact we shall learn to understand by this one 
 instance the authentic history of that long psycho- 
 logical process which, beginning with the simplest 
 and purely material perceptions, has led the human 
 mind to that highest concept of deity which we have 
 inherited together with our language, as members of 
 the great Aryan, and not of the Semitic family. 
 
 Early conceptions of Fire. 
 
 If you can for a moment transfer yourselves to that 
 early stage of life to which we must refer not only 
 the origin, but likewise the early phases of Physical 
 Religion, you can easily understand what an im- 
 pression the first appearance of Fire must have made 
 on the human mind. Fire was not given as some- 
 thing permanent or eternal, like the sky, or the earth, 
 or the water. In whatever way it first appeared, 
 whether through lightning or through the friction 
 of the branches of trees, or through the sparks of 
 flints, it came and went, it had to be guarded, it 
 brought destruction, but at the same time it made 
 life possible in winter, it served as a protection 
 during the night, it became a weapon of defence and 
 offence, and last, not least, it changed man from a 
 devourer of raw flesh into an eater of cooked meat. 
 At a later time it became the means of working metal, 
 of making tools and weapons, it became an indispen- 
 sable factor in all mechanical and artistic progress, 
 
122 LECTUEE VI. 
 
 and has remained so ever since. What should we be 
 ■without lire even now"? 
 
 The etymological meauingf of Agni. 
 
 What then did the early Aryas think of it, or, what 
 is the same, how did they name it? Its oldest name 
 • in Sanskrit is Agni, and this has been preserved in 
 Latin as ignis, in Lituanian as ngin, in old Slavonic 
 as ogni. It was therefore a very old name. So far 
 as we can venture to interpret such ancient names, 
 Agni seems to have expressed the idea of quickly 
 moving, from a root AG or AG, to drive. The nearest 
 approach would be the Latin ag-ilis. Another San- 
 skrit name for fire is vah-ni, and this, too, coming 
 from the same root which we have in veho and ve- 
 hemens, would have meant originally what moves 
 about quickly. In the Veda Agni is called raghu- 
 patvan, quickly flying (X. 6, 4). 
 
 Names of Fire. 
 
 It will be useful to examine some more of the old 
 names of fire, because every one of them, if we can 
 still interpret it etymologically, wiU enable us to 
 see in how many different ways fire was conceived 
 by the Aryas, how it struck them, what they thought 
 of it, 
 
 Dahana means simply the burner. 
 
 r"^ Anal a, from an, to breathe, would seem to mean 
 
 \ the breathing, or blowing fire, just as anila is a 
 
 \ name for wind. The root AN, to breathe, is the 
 
 V \ same which we have in animus, anima, and in 
 
 Greek av€\ios. In the Veda the fire is often said to 
 
 I be breathing (abhi-svasan, I. 140^, 5). 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 123 
 
 Pavaka, a frequent name of Agni, conveys the 
 meaning of cleaning, clearing, illuminating. Some 
 scholars have derived irvp and fire from the same 
 root. 
 
 Tanunapat is a Vedic name of Agni. It is ex- 
 plained as meaning ' offspring of himself.' It is 
 possible, no doubt, to conceive Agni as self-born. 
 He is called sva-yoni in the Mahabharata (19, 
 13931). But the usual idea in the Veda is that he 
 has a father and mother, namely, the two fire-sticks. 
 
 (ratavedas, another name for Agni, means all- 
 seeing, all-knowing, like visvavedas. 
 
 Vaisvanara seems to convey the meaning of kept 
 by all men, or useful and kind to a]l, universal. 
 
 Another epithet applied to Agni is Bhura^iyu. 
 Bhurar/yu means quick, and is. formed on the same 
 lines as Agni and Vahni. Derived as it is from a 
 root BHAR, to bear, to carry, it seems to have meant 
 originally, carried along headlong, borne away, or 
 possibly, bearing away, like the Greek </)epo/x62^oj. 
 This Sanskrit word bhura^iyu is almost the same 
 word as the Greek 't>opcoi'€vs, who is supposed to have 
 brought to men the gift of fire, and to have become 
 the founder of cities (Paus. ii. 15, 5)^. 
 
 Pire, named as active. 
 
 We ourselves occupy, of course, a totally different 
 position from those who had first to conceive and 
 to name fire. We learn the name mechanically from 
 our parents, and the sound fire is a mere outward 
 sign for what burns and hurts, or warms and cheers 
 us. In after life we may learn to call fire with the 
 
 ' Kuhn, Mythologische Studi^n, i. p. 211. 
 
124 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ancient Greek philosophers one of the four elements ; 
 and, later on, a study of natural philosophy may 
 teach us that fu*e consists of luminous and calorific 
 rays, that it is a natural force, or, it may be, a motion 
 of something unknown which ^\G call ether. But in 
 all this we deal with predicates only, and the under- 
 lying substance remains as unknown as the underlying 
 agent whom the, as yet, undivided Aryas called simply 
 Agni, the mover. 
 
 At all events w^e may well understand that the 
 early inhabitants of the earth were puzzled by the 
 fire. There was nothing like it in the whole world 
 • — now visible, now invisible, tangible, yet dangerous 
 to touch, destroying whole forests and the habitations 
 of men, and yet most welcome on the hearth, most 
 cheerful in winter. 
 
 We can well understand how, after the senses had 
 once taken note of this luminous apparition in its 
 ever-varying aspects, a desire arose in the human 
 mind, and in the human mind only, to know it ; to 
 know it, not simply in the sense of seeing or feeling 
 it, but to know it in the sense of conceiving and 
 naming it, which is a very different thing. 
 
 How could that be done ? I cannot explain here 
 once more the whole of the process of conceiving and 
 naming, or naming and conceiving. You will find 
 that subject treated in my first course of Gifford 
 Lectures, and more fully in my work On the Science 
 of Thought, published in 1887. 
 
 I can here only state it as a fact that the only 
 instruments by which man could achieve this process 
 of naming were what we call roots, and that all these 
 roots, owing to the manner in which they first came into 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 125 
 
 existence, expressed actions, the ordinary actions per- 
 formed by men in an early state of society. There were 
 roots expressive of striking, pushing, carrying, binding, 
 lifting, squeezing, rubbing, and all the rest, and with 
 these roots all that we now call namino* and conceivino-, 
 the whole of our language, the whole of our thought, 
 has been elaborated. 
 
 This is a fact, simply a fact, and not a mere theory. 
 To doubt it, as has been done of late again, is to doubt 
 the laws of thought. We may differ as to the exact 
 form in which those roots existed from the first. Such 
 doubts are allowable with regard to roots, as elements 
 of speech, they are allow^able w^ith regard to letters, as 
 the elements of sound, nay even with regard to the 
 chemical elements, as constituting the whole material 
 world. But to doubt the existence of any of these 
 three classes of elements is either ignorance or 
 unreason. 
 
 No one denies that we name and conceive by means 
 of signs. These signs might have been anything, but, 
 as a matter of fact, they were sounds ; and again, as a 
 matter of fact, these sounds were what in the Science 
 of Lanoruasre we call roots. When we examine these 
 roots, as the actual elements of speech, we find that 
 they signify acts, and we conclude that their sound 
 was originally the involuntary clamor concomitans 
 of the simplest acts of man. This last conclusion 
 may no doubt be called an hypothesis only, and 
 I have never represented it as anything else ; but, 
 till a better hypothesis has been suggested, I retain it 
 as the bcvSt working hypothesis. 
 
 If then the Aryas possessed a root, such as AG, by 
 wdiich they expressed their own acts of marching, 
 
J 
 
 126 LECTURE VI. 
 
 running, jumping, and,, at last, moving in general, all 
 they did in naming and conceiving the marching, 
 running, jumping, or quickly moving luminous 
 appearances of fire, was to say to each of them : ' Mov- 
 ing here,' 'Moving there,' or in Sanskrit Ag-ni-s^. 
 
 Agni therefore meant originally the mover, and no 
 more. Many more qualities of the mover might be 
 recalled by the name of Agni, but they were not 
 definitely expressed by that one name. We must 
 remember, however, that by calling him Agni, or the 
 quick mover, the ancient people knew no more who 
 or what that mover was than we do when speaking 
 of fire as an element, or as a force of nature, or, as we 
 do now, as a form of motion. It sounds very learned 
 when we say that ' a mass of matter becomes a source 
 of light and heat in consequence of an extremely 
 rapid vibratory movement of its smallest particles, 
 which is propagated as a series of undulations into 
 the surrounding ether, and is felt by our tactile nerves 
 as heat, and by our optic nerves, if the undulations 
 are sufficiently rapid, as light.' 
 
 I confess, from a philosophical point of view, I 
 see little difference between this Ether, and Agni, 
 the god of fire. Both are mythological. Professor 
 Tyndal asks quite rightly : ' Is it in the human mind 
 to imagine motion, without at the same time imagin- 
 ino- something moved? Certainly not. The very 
 
 ^ From the same root we have in Greek 0170;, to drive, aypa, the 
 chase; in Latin ago, agmen. The Sk. at/ra, Gr. a-ypd'i, Lat. ager, 
 Goth, akr-s, mean meadow and field, possibly from the cattle being 
 driven over it. The German Trift comes likewise from treiben. The 
 words for goat also may be referred to this root, if they meant 
 originally quickly moving or agile ; Sk. agra, Greek a'l^, Lit. ozys. 
 Consider the drift of an argument, and what arc you driving at. 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 127 
 
 conception of motion includes that of a moving body. 
 What then is the thini^r moved in the case of sunlio-ht ? 
 The undulatory theory replies that it is a- substance 
 of determinate mechanical properties, a body which 
 may or may not be a form of ordinary matter, but to 
 which, whether it is or not, we give the name ol 
 Ether/ 
 
 May not the ancient Aryas say with the same right : 
 ' Is it in the human mind to imag:ine motion without 
 at the same time imao-inino- some one that moves?' 
 Certainly not. The very conception of motion in- 
 cludes that of a mover, and, in the end, of a prime 
 mover. Who then is that mover ? The ancient Aryas 
 reply that it is a subject of determinate properties, a 
 person who may or may not be like ordinary persons, 
 but to whom, whether he is or not, we give the name 
 of Agni. 
 
 Agni as a Kximan or Animal Ag-ent. 
 
 When that step had once been made, when the 
 word Agni, Fire, had once been coined, the temptation 
 w^as great, nay almost irresistible, as Agni was con- 
 ceived as an agent, to conceive him also as something- 
 like the only other agents known to man, as either 
 an animal or human agent. 
 
 We often read in theVedaof the tono:ue or the tono-ues 
 of Agni, which are meant for what we call his lambent 
 flames. We read of his bright teeth (su/tidan, VII. 4, 2), 
 of his jaws, his burning forehead (tapu/^-miirdhan, VII. 
 3, 1), nay, even of his flaming and golden h^r (soJcih- 
 kessi, V. 8, 2 ; hira^iyake^a, I. 79. 1), and of his golden 
 beard (hiri^masru, V. 7, 7). His face (anikam) is 
 mentioned, but that means no more than his appear- 
 
128 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ance, aud when lie is called winged (I. 58, 5 ; VIII. 32, 
 4), or even the hawk of the sky (diva/i syenaJi, VII. 15, 
 4), that is simply intended to express, what his very 
 name expresses, his swift movement. 
 
 This may help to explain how some nations, 
 particularly the Egyptians \ were led on to conceive 
 some of their gods in the shape of animals. It arose 
 from a necessity of language. This was not the case, 
 however, in India. Agni and the other gods of the 
 Veda, if they are imagined at all in their bodily shape, 
 are always imagined as human, though never as so 
 intensely human as the gods and goddesses of the 
 Greeks. Beauty, human, superhuman, ideal beauty, 
 is not an Indian conception. When in later times 
 the Indians also invented plastic representations of 
 their gods, they did not shrink from unnatural and 
 monstrous combinations, so long as they helped to 
 convey the character of each god. 
 
 All this is perfectly intelligible, and a careful study 
 of language supplies us with the key to almost all the 
 riddles of ancient mythology. 
 
 New explanation of Animism, Personification, and 
 Anthropomorphism . 
 
 Formerly the attribution of movement, of life, of 
 personality and of other human or animal qualities to 
 the great phenomena of nature, was explained by 
 names such as Animism, Personification, Anthropo- 
 mar plasm. It seemed as if people imagined that to 
 name a process was to explain it. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, against Animism. 
 
 Here we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Herbert 
 
 ^ See Appendix XII. 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 129 
 
 Spencer for having stood up for once as the champion 
 of primitive man. I have often pointed out the bad 
 treatment which these poor primitive creatures receive 
 at the hands of anthropologists. Whatever the 
 anthropologists wish these primitives to do or not 
 to do, to believe or not to believe, they must obey, 
 like silent Karyatides supporting the airy structures 
 of ethnological psychology ( Vijlkerpsychologie). liAni- 
 Tiiism is to be supported, they must say, ' Of course, 
 the storm has a soul.' If Personification is doubted, 
 they are called in as witnesses that their fetish is 
 very personal indeed. If Anthropomiorphisin has to 
 be proved as a universal feature of early religion, 
 primitive man is dragged in again, and has to confess 
 that the uncouth stone which he worships is certainly 
 a man, and a great deal more than a man. 
 
 Whenever I protested against this system of 
 establishing Animism, Personification, and Anthropo- 
 morphism as the primeval springs of all religion, I 
 was told that I knew nothing of primitive man, nor 
 of his direct descendants, the modern savages. I have 
 always pleaded guilty of a complete want of acquaint- 
 ance with primitive man, and have never ventured to 
 speak about savages, whether ancient or modern, 
 unless I knew something, however little, of the nature 
 of their language. Mr. H. Spencer, however, cannot 
 be disposed of so easily. If any one knows the 
 savages, surely he does. But even he has had to pro- 
 test at last against the theory that the primitive man 
 is a kind of maid-of-all-work, at the beck and call 
 of every anthropologist. ' The assumption,' he writes 
 {Sociology, p. 143), ' tacit or avowed, that the primitive 
 man tends to ascribe life to things which arc not 
 
 (-2, K 
 
130 LECTURE VI. 
 
 living, is clearly an untenable assumption.' He 
 defends even the child, which has likewise had to 
 do service again and again for what I called Nursery- 
 psychology, against the charge of animism. When a 
 child says, 'Naughty chair to hurt baby — beat it/ 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer shows that this burst of anger 
 ,admits of very different explanations, and that no one 
 would be more frightened than the child if the chair, 
 on being beaten, began to kick, to bite, or to cry. 
 
 Bat though Mr. Herbert Spencer does not believe 
 that any human being ever mistook an inanimate for an 
 animate object, for even animals have learnt to make 
 that distinction, he still considers them capable of 
 very wonderful follies. He thinks thr.t they do not dis- 
 tinguish between what they see in dreams and what 
 they see while awake (p. 147), nay, he considers them 
 capable of mistaking their actual shadows for their 
 souls. On this point we shall have to touch at a later 
 time. 
 
 At present it suffices to state that all these processes 
 have now been traced back to their vera causa, namely, 
 to language, and more particularly to what are called 
 the roots of language. As every one of these roots 
 expressed, owing to their very origin, one of the many 
 acts with which men in an early state of society were 
 most familiar, the objects thus named could not be 
 named and conceived except as agents of such acts or 
 as subjects. 
 
 If the Aryan nations wished to speak of fire, they 
 could only speak of it as doing something. If they 
 called it Agni, they meant the agent of fire. Instead 
 of this understood agent, implied in the name of 
 Agni, we hear other nations speak of the heart, the 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 131 
 
 soul, the spirit, the lord, or the god of fire ^. But all 
 these expressions belong to a later phase of thought, for 
 they presuppose the former elaboration of such con- 
 cepts as soul, spirit, god, or they are based on meta- 
 phor, as in the case of heart. 
 
 Prof. Tiele's Theory of the Gods as fadeurs. 
 
 Professor Tiele in his Le Mythe de Kronos, 1886, 
 came nearest to my own view on the development of 
 the concept of God. ' The ancient gods,' he says 
 (p. 9), *are what, according to our abstract manner of 
 speaking, we should call " des facteurs, des forces, des 
 sources de vie.'' ' He does not indeed lay stress on the 
 fact that there was in our very language and thought 
 an irresistible necessity of our speaking of the sky, the 
 sun, the fire, if we speak of them at all, as agents. 
 He only warns us against supposing that ' the gods 
 are ever the phenomena of nature themselves, con- 
 sidered as acting persons, but always what he calls 
 souls or spirits, represented as analogous to the, soul 
 of man, that impart movement to the celestial bodies 
 and produce all the effects for good or evil which 
 appear in nature.' This is most true, but does it not 
 explain one difficulty by another? Was the soul of 
 man a matter of more easy discovery than the soul of 
 the sky ? When we have once arrived at the concept of 
 a spirit, as something substantial, yet different from 
 the material body, the task of the religious and mytho- 
 logical poet is easy enough. In another place (p. 30) 
 Professor Tiele most rightly defines the physical deities, 
 not as ^ des ohjets naturels quel on a personnijies,'' but 
 as 'des etres positifs, des espr'ds^ que Von a vus a 
 
 ^ Biintorij Myths oj the New World, pp. 48 seq. 
 
 K2 
 
132 » LECTURE VI. 
 
 Vceiivre dans la nature, oil Us se manifestent par 
 leuT action.' All this is perfectly true in our modern 
 languages, which supply us with such terms as esprits 
 and etres positifs, ready made, but if we have to 
 account for the more ancient formations and the 
 earliest strata of religious thought, the science of lan- 
 ' guage alone will solve the riddle why the great pheno- 
 mena of nature were named as agents, as facteurs, 
 nay, it will show that what at first seemed a mere 
 freak of fancy was in reality a necessity of language. 
 While I accept Professor Tide's facteurs, I cannot, 
 for the early periods of human thought, accept his 
 forces or sources cle vie. While I gladly accept Mr. H. 
 Spencer's agents, I cannot accept his agencies'^. 
 
 The Agents in Nature. 
 
 Facts are stronger than theories, and unless the 
 facts as collected in my Science of Thought can be 
 shown to be no facts, the fact remains and will 
 remain for ever, that all objects which were named 
 and conceived at all, were named and conceived at 
 first as agents. The sky was he who covers, the sun 
 he who warms, the moon he who measures night and 
 day, the cloud he who rains, the fire he who moves, 
 the horse he who runs, the bird he who flies, the tree 
 he who grows or shades, even the stone he who cuts. 
 We need not wonder at this, for we ourselves still 
 speak of a cutter, a tender, a sucker, a slipper, of 
 clinkers and splinters, without thinking of the activi- 
 ties ascribed to all these objects by the primitive 
 framers of words. 
 
 Though the agents of the different acts of nature 
 
 ^ Sociology, p. 237. 
 
PHYSICAL rtELIGTON. 133 
 
 remained unknown, yet as the agents of the light of 
 the sun or of the rain of the clouds, they were con- 
 ceived as very real agents. All this was the work, 
 the almost inevitable work of language, provided 
 always that we take language in the sense of the 
 Greek lajos, comprehending both speech and thought 
 as one. 
 
 The Categ-ories of tlie Understanding-. 
 
 If we once have accustomed ourselves to speak of 
 thought as something different from language, then of 
 course, instead of appealing to the necessities of 
 lano-uao-e as a whole, we should, with Kant, have to 
 appeal to the categories of the understanding. We 
 should then have to recognise the category of substance 
 as embodied in the active character of roots. We 
 should thus gain, perhaps, a clearer insight into the 
 abstract process of thought, but we should lose all 
 that is most important to as, namely, the historical 
 growth of the human mind. 
 
 I have neither forgotten Kant, nor surrendered my 
 belief in his categories. Eut the study of language, 
 as the embodiment of thought, has made it clear to 
 me that Kant's categories are abstractions only. They 
 have no existence by themselves. They are not 
 pigeon-holes made of a pine and covered with cloth — 
 they are simply the inside of language. 
 
 The Categories of Lang-uagfe. 
 
 Justice has at last been done to language. At 
 first Aristotle learnt from language what he very 
 properly called the categories, that is, the predica- 
 ments, or what we can predicate of our experience. 
 
\l 
 
 134 LTXTURE yi. 
 
 Afterwards these categories, though originally ab- 
 stracted from language, claimed complete independence 
 and became extremely masterful in their relation to 
 language and grammar. At last, however, language 
 has now resumed her proper position as the only 
 possible embodiment of deliberate thought, and the 
 categories, so far from being the moulds in which 
 lanffuao'e was cast, are recoo^nised once more as the 
 inherent forms of thought-language. 
 
 We shall thus understand why fire, if it was to be 
 named at all, could at first be named in one way only, 
 namely, as an agent. 
 
 Fire, as a Deva. 
 
 We may now advance a step further, and ask how 
 it was that Agni in the Veda is not conceived as an 
 agent only, but as a god, or, if not, as yet, as a god in 
 the Greek sense of the word, at least as a Deva. 
 How shall we account for that ? 
 
 Here we touch at once on the most vital point in our 
 analysis. Certainly in the Veda Agni was called deva, 
 perhaps more frequently than any other god. But 
 fortunately in the Veda we can still discover the 
 original meaning of the word deva. It did not mean 
 divine, for how should such a concept have been 
 suddenly called into being? Deva is derived from 
 the root DIV, and meant originally bright. From 
 the same root we have in Sanskrit diva, sky, divasa, 
 day, in Lat. dies, and many more, all originally ex- 
 pressive of light and brightness. In many passages 
 where Agni, or the Dawn, or the Sky, or the Sun are 
 called deva, it is far better to translate deva by 
 bright than by divine, the former conveying a natural 
 meaning in harmony with the whole tenour of the 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 135 
 
 Vedic hymns, the latter conveying hardly any mean- 
 ing at all. 
 
 But it is true nevertheless that this epithet deva, 
 meaning originally bright, became in time, in the 
 Vedic, nay even in the Ar^^an period ah-eady, the 
 recoofniscd name of those natural ao-ents whom we 
 have been accustomed to call gods. We can watch 
 the evolutionary process before our very eyes. When 
 the different phenomena of nature representing light, 
 such as the morning, the dawn, the sun, the moon, 
 the sky, had been invoked each by its own name, they 
 could all be spoken of by the one epithet which they 
 shared in common, namely deva, bright. In this 
 general concept of those Bright ones, all that was 
 special and peculiar to each was dropt, and there re- 
 mained only the one epithet deva, to embrace them 
 all. Here then there arose, as if by necessity, a new 
 concept, in which the distinctive features of the various 
 bright beings had all been merged in that of brightness, 
 and in which even the original meaning of brightness, 
 being shared by so many very different beings, had 
 been considerably dimmed or generalised, so that there 
 remained little more than the concept of agent which, 
 as modified by brightness, had been from the begin- 
 ning contained in the root DIV. 
 
 You will now perceive the difference between our 
 saying that the ancient Aryas applied the name of 
 gods to the fire, the sun, or the sky, or our watching 
 the process by which these Aryas were brought to 
 extract or abstract from the concepts of fire, sun, moon, 
 and sky, all being bright beings, the general con- 
 cept of Deva -hood. But, though we cannot help 
 translating deva by god, you will easily understand 
 
1/ 
 
 136 LECTURE VI. 
 
 what a distaDce there is from Deva-hood to God- 
 hood. A Deva is as yet no more than a bright 
 agent, then a kind agent, then a powerful agent, a 
 more than human agent, nay, if you hke, a super- 
 human agent ; and then only, by another step, by 
 what may be called a step in the dark, a divine 
 ^gent. 
 
 Greek and Roman Gods. 
 
 In Greece the process was slightly different. The 
 Greeks very soon endowed these powerful agents 
 with human qualities, to such an extent that immor- 
 tality seems almost the only quality which they do 
 not share in common with human beings. In Italy 
 the old gods had less of that anthropomorphic 
 character which they had in Greece. It is, in fact, 
 a distinguishing feature of ancient Koman mythology 
 that there are few family ties that hold the gods to- 
 gether, while the Greek gods are all related with one 
 another most intimately, if not always, most coiTectly. 
 
 The eal-ly Christians invented still another concept 
 for these Greek and Roman gods. They did not deny 
 their substantial existence, but they accepted them 
 as living beings, as spirits, as they called them, but 
 as evil spirits. This idea has remained till almost 
 to our own time, when the study of ancient religion 
 and ancient language has enabled us to see what 
 the DeVas of the Aryas really were — not evil spirits, 
 not human or superhuman beings, but names given 
 to the most prominent phenomena of nature, which 
 naturally and necessarily implied the idea of agents. 
 With the progress of language and thought ice are 
 now able to speak instead of agents, of agencies, of 
 
PHYSICAL RELiaiON. 137 
 
 forces, foi'ces of nature, as we call them ; but what 
 is behind those agencies, what is behind warmth or 
 light or ether, we know as little as the Vedic 
 Kishis knew what was behind their Agni or their 
 other Devas. 
 
 Buskin on the Ancient Gods. 
 
 How powerful the influence of words may be, how 
 long they may continue to charm and to mislead 
 even the wisest, we may see from an eloquent passage 
 in Mr. Kuskin's Fraeterita, vol. iii. p. 172. He tries 
 to explain to himself and to others what he means 
 when he speaks, as he often does, half poet, half 
 philosopher as he is, of gods. 'By gods in the 
 plural,' he writes, 'I mean the totality of spiritual 
 powers, delegated by the Lord of the universe to do, 
 in their several heights, or offices, parts of His will 
 respecting man, or the world that man is imprisoned 
 in ; not as myself knowing, or in security believing, 
 that there are such, but in meekness accepting the 
 testimony and belief of all ages, to the presence, in 
 teaven and earth, of angels, principalities, powers, 
 thrones, and the like — with genii, fairies, or spirits 
 ministering and guarding, or destroying and tempting, 
 or aiding good w^ork and inspiring the mightiest. 
 For all these I take the general w^ord "gods," as the 
 best UAderstood in all languages, and the truest and 
 widest in meaning, including the minor ones of 
 seraph, cherub, ghost, wraith, and the like ; and 
 myself knowing for indisputable fact, that no true 
 happiness exists, nor is any good work ever done by 
 human creatures, but in the sense or imagination of 
 such presences.' 
 
\ 
 
 138 LECTURE VI. 
 
 Does not this confirm the words of Rosmini when 
 he said : ' The deeper we penetrate into this matter, 
 the more do we find that all our intellectual errors, 
 all the pernicious theories, the deceptive sophistries 
 by which individuals and nations have been deluded, 
 can be traced back to the vague and improper use of 
 words ^' 
 
 Evolution of the word Deva. 
 
 It is very important that you should clearly appre- 
 hend this process by which the word deva, originally 
 meaning bright, assumed in time the meaning of god. 
 in that sense at least in which the Hindus, like the 
 Greeks and Romans ^ would speak of Agni, the fire, 
 Us has, the dawn, Dyaus, the sky, as their Devas, 
 or their gods. It is one of the most interesting cases 
 of intellectual evolution, for it shows us how a word, 
 having originally the purely material meaning of 
 brightness, came in the end by the most natural 
 process to mean divine. There was nothing inten- 
 tional in that process. It was impossible that there 
 should have been a conscious intention to express 
 the divine, for, if there had been such a conscious 
 intention, there would have been already in the 
 human mind a pre-existent name and concept of 
 the divine. The process was one of the most natural 
 evolution. You may say that nothing could be 
 evolved that was not involved in the word deva, 
 and in one sense this is perfectly true. In the 
 idea of agency, which was involved in every root, 
 there lay the germ which, as one outside envelope 
 
 ' The Ruling Principle of Method, applied to Education by Rosmini. 
 Translated by Mrs. W. Grey, 1887, p. 262. 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 139 
 
 after the other was removed, came out in the end 
 in all its simplicity and purity. But it came out 
 nevertheless after it had been coloured or deter- 
 mined by these former envelopments. It bad passed 
 through an historical process, and had thus grown 
 into an historical concept. 
 
 Nor must we suppose that the evolution of the 
 word deva was the only evolution which gave us in J 
 the end the idea of divine. That idea was evolved V-^ 
 in many different ways, but nowhere can we watch 
 every stage in the evolution so well as in the history 
 of the word deva. Our own word God must have 
 passed through a similar evolution, provided it be j ^ 
 an old w^ord. But unfortunately nearly all its ante--^ ^^-^ 
 cedents are lost, and its etymology is quite unknown. 
 
 We have as yet traced the history, or, if you like, 
 the evolution of the word deva to that stage only 
 when it signifies a number of bright, kind, powerful 
 agents, such as Mr. Ruskin declared he could still 
 accept on the testimony and belief of all ages. But 
 its history, as we shall see, does not end there. It 
 gradually rises to the highest concept of deity, to a 
 belief in a God above all gods, a creator, a ruler of 
 the world, a judge, and yet a compassionate father, 
 60 that w^hat seems at fu*st a mere matter of lino-uistic 
 archaeology, will stand before us in the end as the 
 solution of one of the most vital questions of religious 
 philosophy. How many times has the question been 
 asked, Whence comes the idea of God ? and how many 
 different answers has it elicited ! Some people main- 
 tain it is inherent in the human mind it is an innate 
 idea, or a precept, as it has lately been called. Others 
 assert that it could have come to man by a special 
 
140 LECTURE YI. 
 
 revelation only. Others again, like Professor Gruppe, 
 maintain that it is a mere hallucination that took 
 possession of one man, and was then disseminated 
 through well-known channels over the whole world. 
 We do not want any of these guesses. We have a 
 guide that does not leave us in the dark when we are 
 searching for the first germs of the idea of God. 
 Guided by language, we can see as clearly as possible 
 how. in the case of deva, the idea of God grev/ out 
 of the idea of light, of active light, of an awakening, 
 shining, illuminating, and warming light. We are 
 apt to despise the decayed seed when the majestic 
 loak stands before our eyes, and it may cause a certain 
 jdismay in the hearts of some philosophers that the 
 fvoice of God should first have spoken to man from 
 cut the fire. Still as there is no break between 
 deva, bright, as applied to Agni, the fire, and many 
 other powers of nature, and the Deus Optlinus MaxlmiuB 
 of the Romans, nay, as the God whom the Greeks 
 ignorantly worshipped Avas the same God whom 
 St. Paul declared unto them, we must learn the lesson. 
 and a most valuable lesson it will turn out to be — 
 that the idea of God is the result of an unbroken 
 historical evolution, call it a development, an unveil- 
 ing, or a purification, but not of a sudden revelation. 
 
 Natural Bevelation of God. 
 
 It seems almost incredible that in our days such 
 a lesson, confirmed as it is by the irrefragable evidence 
 of historical documents, should be objected to as 
 dangerous to tLc interests of religion, nay, should 
 form the object of virulent attacks. 
 
 For some reason or other, our opponents claim for 
 
PHYSICAL RELIGION. 141 
 
 their own theories the character of orthodoxy, while 
 they try to prejudge the whole question by stigma- 
 tising our own argument as heterodox. Now I 
 should like to ask our opponents, first of all, b}^ what 
 authority such metaphysical theories as that of innate 
 ideas can possibly claim the name of orthodox, or 
 where they can point to chapter and verse in support 
 of what they call either a special or a universal 
 primeval revelation, imparting to human beings the 
 first concept and name of God? To a student of 
 the religions of the world, in their immense variety 
 and their constant divisions, the names of orthodox 
 and heterodox, so freely used at all times and on all 
 sides, have lost much both of their charm and their 
 terror. What right have we to find fault with the 
 manner in which the Divine revealed itself, first 
 to the eyes, and then to the mind of man? Is the 
 revelation in nature really so contemptible a thing 
 tliat we can afford to despise it, or at the utmost treat 
 it as good enough for the heathen world? Our eyes 
 must have grown very dim, our mind very dull, if we 
 can no longer perceive how the heavens declare the 
 glory of God. We have now named and classified the 
 whole of nature, and nothing seems able any longer 
 to surprise, to terrify, to overwhelm us. But if the 
 mind of man had to be roused for the first time, and 
 to be lifted up to the conception of something beyond 
 itself, what language could have been more powerful 
 than that which spoke in mountains and torrents, in 
 clouds and thunderstorms, in skies and dawns, in sun 
 and moon, in day and night, in life and death ? Is 
 there no voice, no meaning, is there no revelation in 
 all this? Was it possible to contemplate the move- 
 
 l/ 
 
142 LECTURE VI. 
 
 ments of the heavenly bodies, the regular return of 
 day and night, of spring and winter, of birth and 
 death, without the deepest emotion ? 
 
 Of course, people may say now, We know all this, 
 we can account for it all, and philosophy has taught 
 us Nil adrnirari. If that is so, then it may be true 
 ^ indeed that the sluggish mind of man had to be 
 stirred once more by a more than natural revelation. 
 But in the early days of the world, the world was 
 too full of wonders to require any other miracles. 
 The whole world was a miracle and a revelation, 
 there was no need for any special disclosure. At 
 that time the heavens, the waters, the sun and 
 moon, the stars of heaven, the showers and dew, 
 the winds of God, fire and heat, winter and sum- 
 mer, ice and snow, nights and days, lightnings and 
 clouds, the earth, the mountains and hills, the green 
 things upon the earth, the wells, and seas, and floods, 
 — all blessed the Lord, praised Him, and magnified 
 Him for ever. 
 
 Can we imagine a more powerful revelation ? Is it 
 for us to say that for the children of men to join in 
 praising and magnifying Him who revealed Himself in 
 His own way in all the magnificence, the wisdom, 
 and order of nature, is mere paganism, polytheism, 
 pantheism, and abominable idolatry ? I have heard 
 many blasphemies, I have heard none greater than 
 this. 
 
 It may be said, however, that the road from nature 
 
 leads only to nature's goch, to a belief in many, not in 
 
 one supreme God. It certainly leads through that 
 
 gate, but it does not stop there. If we return to the 
 
 \j Veda, the oldest record of a polytheistic faith, and if 
 
PHYSICAL RELTGIOX. 143 
 
 we take up once more the thread where we left it, we 
 shall be able to see how Agni, the god of fire^ being 
 at first but one by the side of many other gods, 
 develops into something much higher. He does not 
 remain one out of many gods. He becomes in the 
 end a supreme god, the Supreme God, till his very 
 name is thrown away, or is recognised as but one out 
 of many names by which ancient seers in their help- 
 less language called that which is, the One and All. 
 You may remember the passage from the Veda which 
 I quoted before : ' That which is one, the seers call in 
 many ways, they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan. 
 
 The Biogrraphy of Agni. 
 
 This process, which I call the theogonic process, is 
 so important that we must study it carefully, and 
 step by step, in the case of at least one of the ancient 
 gods. If I select for that purpose the god of fire, 
 Agni, and not D\aus, Zeus, Jupiter, the supreme god 
 of the Aryan Pantheon, it is because the biography 
 of Dyaus, having been fully worked out by me on 
 former occasions, need not be gone through again in 
 full detail \ It is my chief object at present to show 
 how many roads, starting from different beginnings, 
 all converged and met in the end in the same central 
 point, the belief in one Supreme Agent, manifested in 
 all that is and moves and lives, and how the perception 
 of the Infinite was revealed everywhere in what we 
 caU the perceptions of the Finite. 
 
 ^ bcietux of Language, vol. ii. chap. IL 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE BIOaRAPHY OF AGNI. 
 Facts ag-ainst Theories. 
 
 WE begin to-day the biography of Agni, the god 
 of fire, and shall try to follow it from the first 
 chapter to the last. That biography may sometimes 
 seem lengthy and wearisome, but we must go through 
 all its chapters patiently, for the whole question of 
 Natural Religion depends really on the success of our 
 present inquiry. The only successful way of contro- 
 verting the prevalent theories of the origin of religion 
 is an appeal to facts. I maintain that the ancient 
 records of religion, more particularly in India, supply 
 historical evidences that the human mind was able by 
 its own inherent powers to ascend from nature to 
 nature's gods, and, in the end, to the God of nature. 
 If we can prove this, the verdict cannot be doubtful, 
 for even in theological discus^sion facts are still 
 stronofer than theories. In answer to those who have 
 recourse to what they call innate faculties or special 
 revelations, we appeal to historical records, and, 
 where so much is at stake, we must not shrink 
 from wearisome labour. Some of the details in 
 the historical evolution of Agni, fire, may seem unim- 
 portant for our purpose, but we have watchful and 
 powerful enemies, and we must not leave any posi- 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 145 
 
 tion in our onward march exposed to surprise and 
 capture. 
 
 Premature Generalisation. 
 
 Nothing does so much mischief in our sphere of 
 work as premature generalisation. It seems that 
 Professor Weber ^ remarked, in one of his early publi- 
 cations, that 'Agni is adored essentially as earthly 
 sacrificial fire, and not as an elemental force.' This 
 statement has been repeated again and again, till at 
 last it was supposed that Agni was really a mere in- 
 vention of priests, and unknown, at all events, before 
 the development of the sacrificial system in India. It 
 is perfectly true that Agni, as the fire on the altar, 
 takes a very prominent place in the Yedic hymns. 
 Agni, in fact, is, together with Indra, the Deva to 
 whom most hymns are addressed, and in many of 
 them the same praises are repeated and the same 
 epithets used which apply to the sacrificial fire. But 
 there are other passages, less numerous, no doubt, but, 
 for that very reason, more important to us, in which 
 Agni is celebrated without any reference as yet to the 
 fire on the altar. 
 
 I shall begin by examining these passages in which 
 Agni is described in his purely physical character. 
 
 Agni in his Physical Character. 
 
 The first question was. Whence did he come ? To 
 this many answers are given. We read, Rv. II. 1,1: 
 
 Tv^m agne dyiibhi/i tvam asusukshjiMi/i tvam adbhya/i tvam 
 asmana/i pari, 
 
 * History of Sanskrit Literature, p. 40. 
 (2) L 
 
146 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Tvam vdnebhya/i tvam 6shadhibhya/i tvam nrmam nnpate 
 grayase sukih. 
 
 <Thou, O Agni, art born wishing to shine forth, thou art born 
 from the skies, thou from the waters, thou from the stone, thou 
 from the wood, thou from the herbs, thou, king of men, the 
 bright one.' 
 
 Here we learn in one verse all the possible ways in 
 which Agni could have appeared to man. First, from 
 the skies, as the fiery and scorching sun, which by its 
 heat could kindle inflammable substances ; secondly, 
 from the waters, that is, from the clouds, as lightning ; 
 thirdly, from the stone, which must be meant for the 
 Hint, though the striking fiie out of flint is not recog- 
 nised in the Veda as a sacrificial act ; fourthly, from 
 the wood and the herbs that is, from the fii'e-sticks 
 and from dry leaves which, like our tinder, caught the 
 spark and kept it safe, till, by means of blowing, it 
 would burst forth into flames. 
 
 Let us now examine these four kinds of Agni's birth 
 more in detail. 
 
 Ag-ui, as ths Sun. 
 
 That Agni was often taken as the sun, is proved by 
 many passages in the hymns of the Rig-veda. For 
 instance, Rv. VI. 9, 1 : 
 
 Aha/i k£i kr?shnam aha/i argfunam k& vi vartete ragrasi vedy- 
 
 abhi/t, 
 Vaisvanara/z gayamana/i na ra^a ava atirat gryotisha agni^ 
 
 tcimaJHsi. 
 
 The black day and the red day (night and day) turn heaven 
 and earth by their different colours. Agni strides down across 
 the darkness, beloved by all men, like a born king.' 
 
 Here Agni, striding down across the darkness, is 
 evidently meant for the sun itself. In another verse, 
 III. 14, 4, Agni is called Surya, sun. 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI 147 
 
 Yat soAishii sahasa/i putra iishthiih 
 abhi kshtiti/i prathayan surya/t nnn. 
 
 ' (Agni) when thou, son of strength, stoodst as the sun, spread- 
 ing wide over men and their dwellings.' 
 
 In the Erahma)?as it is stated explicitly that Agni 
 in his third character is the sun^ (Yad asya divi 
 tr/tiyam tad asav aditya iti hi brahma>iam, Nir. VII. 
 28.) In other passages, however^ the two are distin- 
 guished from, though also compared with, one another. 
 Thus the sun is said to spring from the nocturnal 
 Agni. For instance^ Rv. X. 88, 6 : 
 
 Murdha bhuva/i bhavati naktam agni/i tata/i surya/i gayate 
 pratci/i udyan. 
 'Agni is the head of the world by night ; from him is born the 
 sun, rising in the morning.' 
 
 The two, Agni and the sun, are compared, as when 
 it is said, V. 1, 4, that ' the minds of worshippers turn 
 together towards Agni, as our eyes turn towards the 
 sun.' Or, VII. 8, 4, surya/i na roAate, ' Agni, who shines 
 like the sun.' 
 
 And again, VIII. 43, 5: 
 
 Ete tye v/v'thak agmiya/i iddhasa/i sam ad/v'kshata ushasiim 
 iva ketava/i. 
 
 * These lighted fires are seen scattered, like the splendours of the 
 dawn.' 
 
 We often read, particularly in the Brahmar^as, that 
 Agni is the liglit by night, the sun by day. There is 
 a passage often quoted from the Aitareya-BrahmaTia, 
 VIII. 28, ' The sun (Aditya), when setting, enters Agni, 
 and vanishes — Agni, flaring up, enters the air (Vayu), 
 and vanishes.' And afterwards, ' Agni is born from the 
 air, the sun is born from Agni, fu-e.' 
 
 ^ Bergaigne, Religion Vedique, i. p. 13. 
 ^ Cf. X. «8, 16, sirshata/i (/atam. 
 
 L2 
 
148 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Ag-ni, the Sun, or the Fire on the Hearth. 
 
 There are other passages where it is doubtful whe- 
 ther the poets thought of the sun rising in the morn- 
 ino- and filling the world with splendour, or of the fire 
 on the hearth and the altar, which may likewise be 
 •aid to rise in the morning and fill the world with 
 light. For instance J Bv. X. 1, 1 : 
 
 Agre b?7han ushasam urclhva/? asth^t 
 ni/i yaganvan tamasa/t gryotisha a agat, 
 Agni/i bhanuna rusata svanga/i 
 a g-dtah visva sadmani apra/i. 
 
 ' Agni stood up mighty at the head of the dawn, he approached, 
 coming with light out of darkness. Born with beautiful limbs, he 
 has filled all dwellings with his shining light.' 
 
 And again, X. 88, 12 : 
 
 Visvasmai agnim bhuvanaya derak 
 vaisvanaram ketum ahnam akrmvan, 
 X ya/i tatana ushasa/j vibhati'/i 
 apo urnoti tama/i ar/oisha yan. 
 
 'The gods made Agni Vaisvanara the light of days for the whole 
 world, he who stretched out the shining dawns, and drove away 
 the darkness, coming with splendour.' 
 
 VII. 78, 3 : 
 
 Agi(jsina.n sdryam yag>1am agnim apaM'nam tama/i agat dgoish/am. 
 
 'They, the Dawns, created the sun, the sacrifice, the fire; the 
 unloved darkness went away.' (Cf. VII. 99, 4.) 
 
 Though the commentators often prefer to apply 
 such passages to the fire on the altar, or to look upon 
 that fire, when lighted in the morning, as a symbol of 
 the rising sun, it is quite clear that the idea of Agni, 
 as manifested in the sun, was perfectly familiar to the 
 Vedic poets. 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 149 
 
 Sun and Pire in America. 
 
 It requires a certain effort with us to understand 
 how two such different percepts as that of the fire, 
 burning on the hearth, and that of the sun, rising in 
 the morning, crossing the sky, and setting in the 
 evenino-, could be brouoht into the same mental focus, 
 and be conceived as one and the same object. Here, 
 however, as elsewhere, a comparison of other religions, 
 more particularly of religions which cannot claim any 
 genealogical relationship with the Veda, is very useful 
 in either removing or confirming our doubts and 
 difficulties. 
 
 Let us look to the American religions. It is true, 
 there are but few cases where fii*e and sun have actu- 
 ally received the same name. Brinton, however, in 
 his Myths of the Neiv World, p. 143, tells us that the 
 Tezuque of New Mexico use tah both for sun and fire, 
 and that the Kolosh of British America derive at least 
 their names for sun and fire from the same root, fii'e 
 being kan, sun kakan. But in their accounts of the 
 creation, the sun is always spoken of as fire. It is not 
 represented as anterior to the world, but as manu- 
 factured by the old people (Navajos), as kindled and 
 set going by the first of men (Algonkins), or as freed 
 from a dark cave by a kindly deity (Haitians). 
 
 J. G. Mliller, also, in his History of the American 
 original Religions, teljs us that fire was kept burning 
 in the temples of the Sun, as a constant representation, 
 it would seem, of the solar deity (pp. 54, 69, 519). 
 Worship of fire, he remarks, was intimately connected 
 with worship of the sun (p. 125). And again: 'The 
 worship of fire continued under the Incas, but it was 
 
150 LECTURE VII. 
 
 brouofbt into the most intimate relation with sun- 
 worship. In the temple of the sun. as well as in the 
 house of the virgins of the sun, the eternal fire was 
 always kept burning. At the high festival Raymi, in 
 winter, this fire was lighted, as at Rome, by means ot 
 a golden concave mirror. Only if the sky was clouded, 
 ^d they try, according to the most ancient custom, to 
 get fire by means of rubbing two pieces of wood.' 
 
 In Peru, we hear of a fight between two gods, one 
 called Con or Viracocha, the other Pachacamac. 
 The former is said to be the god of water or fertilising 
 rain, the latter of fire, particularly of life-giving fire. 
 This Pachacamac is represented as the son of the sun, 
 thus showing once more the close relation in which, 
 in the imagination of primitive people, sun and fire 
 stood to one another. 
 
 Sun and Fire among the Fins. 
 
 If now we turn for a moment to the Fins, who, as 
 little as the Americans, can be suspected of having 
 borrowed anything from the Veda, we find there also 
 that Panu, the god of fire, is conceived as a son of 
 the sun. Thus we read in the Kalevala^, the famous 
 epic poem of the Fins : 
 
 * Panu, son of the sun, 
 Offspring thou of the dear day, 
 Lift the fire up to tlie sky. 
 In the middle of the goklen ring, 
 Within the rock of copper, 
 Carry it as a child to the mother, 
 Into the lap of the dear old woman. 
 Put it there, to shine by day, 
 And to rest at night, 
 Let it rise every morning, 
 Let it set every evening.' 
 
 ^ Rune xxvi, w. 431-441. 
 
THE BT03TIAPHY OF AGNI. 151 
 
 Castren remarks on this passage, that ' it clearly 
 shows how the ancient Fins looked upon the sun as 
 an enclosed mass of fire, and upon earthly fire as an 
 emanation from the sun, or, to adopt the language of 
 the runes, as a child of the sun-mother. As therefore, 
 sun and fire,' he continues, 'are originally one and 
 the same thing, it is clear that with our ancestors 
 the worship of the Fire coincided with the worship 
 of the Sun, and that Panu, Fire, could not be wor- 
 shipped as an independent deity, but only as a son of 
 the sun.' 
 
 After these parallels, to which many more might be 
 added, we shall be better able to enter into the ideas 
 of our own Aryan, not Finnish, ancestors, when 
 they comprehended under the name of Agni both 
 the fire on the hearth or the altar, and the sun in 
 the sky. 
 
 Agni, as Iiig-Mningf. 
 
 We now come to a second class of passages, where 
 Agni is said to be the son of Dycnis, the sky (Diva^ 
 sunu^, or s'lsuh), and likewise to spring from the 
 waters, or to be the child of the waters (apam gar- 
 bha/i, Rv. III. 1, 12). Here he must be understood 
 as lightning coming from the clouds. For instance, 
 Rv. VI. 6, 2 : 
 
 Sii^ svitana/t tanyatu^ rofcanasthafe. 
 * This Agni, brilliant, thundering in heaven.* 
 
 Or again, VII. 3, 6 : 
 
 Divd/i na te tanyatu/j eti sushmaA. 
 * Thy fierceness comes like the thunder of heavea.' 
 
152 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Rv. X. 45, 4: 
 
 Akrandat ngnih stanjtyan iva dyauft, 
 • Agni rattled like the thundering sky/ 
 
 Rv. I 143,2: 
 
 SAfi gajamanah parame vyomani 
 SLvih agni/t abhavat matarisvane, 
 Asya kratva samidhanasya mat/man^ 
 * pra dyava sokih prjthivf aroAayat. 
 
 * Agni, born in the highest heaven, appeared to Matarisvan. His 
 splendour, when he had been kindled by wisdom and strength, 
 lighted up heaven and earth/ 
 
 Matarisvan. 
 
 This Matarisvan, to whom Agni appeared as light- 
 ning, is frequently mentioned, and we here reach a 
 stratum of mythology, which crops up again and again 
 in the Veda, but which hitherto has resisted all 
 analysis. We do not know what is meant by 
 Matarisvan, the name admits of no satisfactory 
 etymology ^, and seems to date from a remoter period 
 of language. We may gather, however, from the 
 passages in which Matarisvan occurs that he was 
 meant for the air or for the wind that seemed to carry 
 the fire of lightning from heaven through the air to 
 the earth ^. I quote again from Rv. I. 143, 2 
 
 Sa/i grayamana/i parame vyomani 
 Sivih agni/i abhavat matarisvane. 
 
 'Agni, born in the highest heaven, appeared to Matarisvan.* 
 
 ^ The oldest etymology is that given in Rv. III. 29, 11, matarisv^ 
 yat cimimita matari. 
 
 ^ 'Among the Creeks also the four winds from the four corners of 
 the earth are believed to have brought the sacred fire and pointed 
 out the seven sacred plants. After having rendered this service to 
 men, the kindly visitors disappeared in the clouds, returning 
 whence they came.' (^Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 77.) 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 153 
 
 In III. 5, 10 Matarifevan is said to have lighted 
 Agni, when he was hidden, for the Ehr/gus (see also 
 III. 2, 13), and these Bh^v'gus are often mentioned as 
 having spread Agni among men (I. 58, 6). In VI. 8, 4 
 Mataii^van is called the Messenger of Vivas vat, who 
 brought Agni. 
 
 It is but natural that this Matarisvan, who is said 
 to have brought down lightning from the sky to man, 
 should have been compared to Prometheus. Eut though 
 in one point their functions are similar, their names 
 are different, and we shall have to consider hereafter 
 some other well-known attempts to trace the very 
 name of Prometheus in the language of the Veda. 
 
 Fire from Flint. 
 
 The striking fire out of a stone seems almost un- 
 known in the Eig-veda. In one passage, however, 
 II. 12, 3, Indra is said to have produced Agni from 
 two stones : 
 
 Ydh asmano^ antdh agnim gsigana. 
 
 ' He who produced fire from two stones,' or, as others explain, 
 ' from two clouds, acting as stones ' 
 
 In either case the mere fact that fire may be struck 
 from a flint seems to have been known in Vedic times. 
 
 Fire from Wood. 
 
 The fourth process, that of eliciting fire by means of 
 rubbing two fire-sticks and catching the spark in dry 
 herbs, is mentioned again and again. It was evidently 
 considered to require both force and skill. One of the 
 standing epithets of Agni is 'the son of strength' 
 (sunuA sahasa^. III. 1_, 8), and among ancient families 
 
154 LECTUBE VIT. 
 
 tlie Bh)'/gus are often mentioned as having possessed 
 the secret of making and keeping a fire in the house ^ 
 Thus we read, I. 143, 4 : 
 
 Yam erir«5 bh//gava^t vi.svavedasam 
 nabha p»ithivya/t bhuvanasya mafirmana. 
 
 ' The Bhr/gus excited or kindled Agni in the centre of the earth 
 ^ by the strength of man.' 
 
 And again, II. 4, 2 : 
 
 dvita adadhu/i bhr?gava7i vikshu ayoft. 
 ' The Bh>igus phiced Agni twofold among the tribes of men.* 
 
 It is curious that the name Bhrigu. should correspond 
 letter by letter to the (i>Aeyyey of Greek mythology. 
 
 Mythological Ideas connected witli Fire. 
 
 This last process of producing fire by rubbing is a 
 very favourite subject of the Vedic poets. Of the two 
 pieces of wood used for rubbing out fire, one is called 
 the mother, the other the father of Agni. Thus we 
 read, V. 9, 3 : 
 
 Uta sma yam sisum yatha navam ganish/a arani, 
 dhartaram manushinam visam agnim svadhvaram. 
 
 'He whom the two fire-sticks (arani) produced, like a new-born 
 babe. Agni, the supporter of the tribes of man, good at the 
 sacrifice.' 
 
 This myth of the new-born babe soon assumes 
 greater proportions. Thus it is said, Rv. X. 7 9, 4 : 
 
 Tat vam ritsim rodasi pra bravimi grayamana/i matara garbha/i 
 
 atti, 
 na aham devasya m&vtySLh Mketa agnih angii \iketah sAh pra- 
 
 ketsih. 
 
 ^ It is curious to observe that in many of the languages of 
 Australia there is but one word both for fire and for wood. See 
 Curr, The Australian Race, vol. i. p. 9. 
 
THE BTOGEAPHY OF AGNI. 155 
 
 *0 Heaven and Earth, I proclaim this truthful fact, that the 
 child, as soon as born, eats his parents. I, a mortal, do not 
 understand this (act) of a god ; Agni indeed understands, for he 
 is wise ! ' 
 
 It was considered another wonderful thing, as we saw 
 before, that a living thing, like Agni, should be born 
 from a dry sticky or that, though his mother does not 
 suckle him, he yet should grow so rapidly, and proceed 
 at once to do his work as messenger between gods 
 and men (X. 115, 1). Again (V. 9, 4), he is said to be 
 difficult to catch, like a brood of serpents, and to con- 
 sume forests, as cattle do on their pasture. 
 
 But all this is a beginning only. The subject grows, 
 and is varied in every possible way. You know how 
 often our critics have expressed their inability to 
 believe that the conversation of the Vedic Aryas 
 should have turned on nothing but the trivial events 
 of every day. I can understand their incredulity, so 
 long as they do not open the pages of the Rig-veda. 
 But on every one of these pages they will find facts 
 which are stronger than all theories, and which leave 
 us no doubt that the poetry of the Vedic Aryas turned 
 chiefly on the sun, the moon, the sky, the wind, the 
 storm, and the fii-e. 
 
 The repetition of the same ideas is apt to become 
 tedious, but even this tedious repetition contains a 
 lesson, if it helps to give us a truer idea of the slow 
 but natural growth of the human intellect where we 
 can best watch it, — in the hymns of the Eig-veda ; 
 and, if it makes us understand that even a belief 
 in Agents, whether in the fire, or in the sun, or in the 
 sky, need not be considered as mere paganism and 
 idolatry, but as containing healthy seeds, which in 
 time were meant to grow into a rich harvest. 
 
156 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Ag-ni, as Deva, Bright, Amartya, Undying", &c. 
 
 We saw how naturally Agni, the fire, could be called 
 deva, bright, without any thought, as yet, of calling 
 him a god. Even when the light of Agni is spoken 
 of as immortal, that need not mean, as yet, any more 
 than that it lasts for ever, if properly kept up. We 
 read, for instance, Rv. VI. 9, 4, idam gjdiA-h amritam 
 martyeshu, ' See this light immortal among mortals.' 
 Here immortal might still be translated by the never- 
 d^^ing light. The fire, as a masculine, or rather as an 
 agent, was also called, I. 58, 4, a^ara, not-aging, and 
 the Vedic poets dwelt again and again on the contrast 
 between the undying Agrd and his dying friends. 
 Of other Devas also it was said that they were not, 
 like human beings, subject to decay and death. 
 
 Agfni, the Immortal among- Mortals. 
 
 But while the ancient poets brought themselves to 
 think of an impassable gulf between the mortals on 
 one side and the immortals on the other, this gulf 
 vanished again in the case of Agni. He, immortal as 
 he was, dwelt among men. He was the guest (atithi, 
 II. 4, 1) of men, often called the immortal among 
 mortals (amWta/i- martyeshu, VIII. 71, 11). 
 
 Now this expression, 'immortal among mortals,* 
 seems at fii'st sight of no great consequence. But 
 like many of these ancient phrases, it contains germs 
 wait i no* for a most important development in the 
 future. We may recognise in that simple expression 
 of an immortal, dwelling among mortals, being the 
 guest, the friend, the benefactor of mortals, the first 
 attempt at bridging over the gulf which human Ian- 
 
THE BIOGKAPHY OF AGNI. 157 
 
 guage and human thought had themselves created 
 between the mortal and the immortal, between the 
 visible and the invifeible, between the finite and the 
 infinite. Such ideas appear at first in a very simple 
 and almost unconscious form, they present themselves 
 without being looked for, but they remain fixed in 
 the mind, they gain from year to year in strength and 
 depth, and they form at last a fertile soil from which in 
 later ages may spring up the most sublime conceptions 
 of the unity between the mortal and the immortal, 
 between the visible and the invisible, between the 
 finite and the infinite, such as are expressed in the 
 dark words of Heraclitus, aOdvaTOL dvqroL, 6vr]To\ 
 adaj-aroL. There is a continuity in all our thoughts, 
 and there is nothing more important for a true ap- 
 preciation of our intellectual organisation than the 
 discovery of the coarse threads that form the woof 
 of our most abstract thoughts. 
 
 Agni, the Friend, Helper, Father. 
 
 If Agni had once been recognised as a friend or as 
 a welcome guest in the house, there soon followed a 
 shower of other epithets expressive of man^s apprecia- 
 tion of Agni's benefits. lean mention here a few only. 
 He is called master of the house gJ'/hapatiA, I. 12, 6 ; 
 lord of the people vispati/i, I. 12, 2 • leader, puraeta, 
 III. 11, 5; king, r%a, I. 59, 5. In I. 31, 10 we 
 read : 
 
 Tvam ague pramati/i tvam pita asi na^, tvam vayask)zt tava 
 ^aniaya^ vayam. 
 
 * Thou, Agni, art our providence, our father ; thou givcst us 
 vigour, we are thy kindred.' 
 
158 LECTURE VII. 
 
 11. 1,9: 
 
 Tvam putra/i bhavasi yah te avidhat. 
 ' Thou art a son to him who worships thee.' 
 
 VI. 1,5: 
 
 Pita mata sadam it manushanam. 
 * Thou art always father and mother for men.' 
 
 X. 7, 3 : 
 
 Agnim manye pitaram agnim apim 
 agnim bhrataram sadam it sakhayam ; 
 agne/i anikam br^hata/^ saparyam 
 divi sukram ya^/atam silryasya. 
 
 ' I hold Agni to be my father, I hold him to be my kinsman, my 
 brother, and always my friend. I worshipped the face of the 
 mighty Agni, the holy light of the sun in heaven.' 
 
 Agni, Helper in Battle. 
 
 But Agni was not only beneficial in the house, he 
 was also a powerful helper in battle, the destroyer of 
 enemies, whether human or superhuman. It is easy 
 to imagine what an advantage the possession of fire 
 must have proved in primitive warfare. How easy it 
 was with a well flung torch to set a whole forest on 
 fii-e, or to smoke out enemies who had taken refuge 
 in a cave. 
 
 Fireless Races. 
 
 The enemies of the Aryas in the Vedic times are 
 called Dasyu\ or even Rakshas and Yatudhana, 
 giants and devils. These wild tribes are often called 
 an-agni-tra, those who do not keep the fire. Thus 
 we read, I. 189, 3 : 
 
 Agne tvam asmat yuyodhi 
 amiva/i, anagnitra/i abhi amanta krishtih, 
 puna/i asmabhyam suvitaya deva 
 ksham visvebhi/i araritebhih yag^atra. 
 
 * Letter on the Turanian Languages, pp. 83 sq. 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 159 
 
 * Agni, drive aAvay from us the enemies, — tribes ■who keep no fire 
 came to attack us. Come again to the earth for our welfare, sacrod 
 god -witli all the immortals.' 
 
 These fireless races are also called kravya-ad, 
 eating raw flesh (Kpeo(f)dyoi),a.m\ amad (X. 87, 7) {o)iio- 
 (f)dyoL). They are eA^en suspected of feeding on human 
 flesh, X. 87, 16 (yah paurusheyer/a kravisha sa- 
 mankte). They are described very much in the same 
 way in which lower races are described even now by 
 those who covet their land. Thus, in Ev. VII. 104, 
 two of the warlike gods of the Vedic people, Indra 
 and Soma, are invoked by Yasish^/^a to help him and 
 his people to destroy these who do not worship his 
 gods, who do not speak the truth, and who keep no 
 fire in their houses. 
 
 1. Indrasoma tclpatam raksha^ ubr/atam 
 ni arpayatam vrishana tama/j-vn'dha^ ; 
 para s//nitam akitah ni oshatam 
 hatam nudetham ni sisitam atrinah. 
 
 2. Indrasoma sam aghasa/nsam abhi agham 
 tapu/i yayast'u karuh agnivan iva, 
 brahmadvishe kravya ade ghoraAakshase 
 dvesha/i dhattam anavayam kimidine. 
 
 8. Indi-asoma duh-kritah vavre antaA 
 anarambha/ie tamasi pra vidhyatam, 
 yatha na ata/^ puna/* eka/i Aana. udayat 
 tat vam astu sahase manyumat sa\ah. 
 
 4. Indrasoma vartayatam divaA vadham 
 sam prithiryah aghasawsaya tarha^mm, 
 ut takshatam svaryam parvatebhya/i 
 yena raksha/i vavr/dhanam ni(/urvathaA. 
 
 1. *0 Indra and Soma, burn the devils (Eakshas), hold them 
 under, throw them down, they who grow in darkness. Tear them 
 off, the madmen, burn them, kill them, hurl them away, slay the 
 gluttons. 
 
 2. '0 Indra and Soma, up together against the cursing demon ! 
 May he burn and hiss like an oblation on the fire. Put your ever- 
 lasting hatred upon the villain who hates the Brahman, who eats 
 flesh, and who looks abominable. 
 
 3. ' Indra and Soma, hurl the evil-doer into the pit, into un- 
 
160 LECTURE VII. 
 
 fathomed darkness, that no one may come out again — such may be 
 your wrathful strength to hold out. 
 
 4. ' Indra and Soma, hurl from the sky and from the earth the 
 bolt to fell the cursing demon. Shape the rattling lightning from 
 out the clouds to crush the growing devil.' 
 
 The descriptions given of these enemies are so real 
 that we can hardly doubt that they refer to the abori- 
 ginal inhabitants of India whose descendants survive 
 to the present day, speaking non- Aryan dialects. The 
 poets of the Veda often distinguish between their 
 Aryan and non- Aryan enemies. They praise their gods 
 for having destroyed their enemies, both Aryan and 
 barbarian (dasa /oa vr/tra hatam, arya?2i ka), and we 
 frequently find such expressions as ' Kill our Aryan 
 enemies and the Dasa enemies, yea, kill all our 
 enemies.' 
 
 In my letter to Bunsen ' On the Turanian Lan- 
 guages,'' published in 1854 in his ^Christianity and 
 Mankind' vol. iii, I pointed out that these indigenous 
 races were black-skinned, wdiile the Aryas prided 
 themselves on their bright colour. They were called 
 kravyad, eating raw flesh ; anagnitra, not keeping 
 fire; vr^sha-sipra, bull-nosed; a-nasa, flat-nosed or 
 noseless, &c. These enemies had strongholds, and their 
 wealth consisted chiefly in cattle. 
 
 Sometimes, no doubt, these enemies are represented 
 as demons and devils, as enemies of the gods rather 
 than of men. But that again is perfectly natural, and 
 need not surprise us after we have read more recent 
 descriptions of savage races occupying land which is 
 coveted by the white man. You remember that even 
 Darwin spoke of certain tribes in South America as 
 being more like devils than human beings. On the 
 contrary, these warlike hymns, which describe the 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 161 
 
 enemies whom the advancing Aryas had to conquer, 
 contain some of the few glimpses of real history, and 
 are all the more valuable at present, when we have so 
 often been told that the Vedic hymns w^ere nothing 
 but the lucubrations of priests, Avhen performing their 
 intricate ceremonies. It must be clear that the work 
 on which Vasish^/^a is bent in this hymn has little to 
 do w^ith intricate ceremonial ; it is the simple and 
 always recurring work of men killing men, of the 
 stronger depriving the weaker of his land, his servants, 
 and his cattle — what we now more euphemistically 
 call ' the struggle for life,' and ' the survival of the 
 fittest.' 
 
 Agricultural Aryas. 
 
 From the glimpses which w^e catch from the hymns 
 of the Veda, it is safe to conclude that the Aryas who 
 settled in North- Western India were agricultural 
 tribes. Their very name arya, as I have tried to show 
 (Emyd. Brit., s.v. Arya), meant ploughers, from ar, to 
 plough, to ear. Even before the great Aryan separation, 
 agriculture must have been known, for Greek apovpa, 
 as Benfey has shown and Meyer has not disproved, 
 corresponds to the Sk. and Zend urvara, a culti- 
 vated field. The Aryas in India call themselves 
 krish^is, tribes, and that too is derived from karsh, 
 to plough^. 
 
 The poets of the Veda begin to complain that the 
 land is not large enough for them. Thus we read, 
 Rv. VI. 47, 20 : 
 
 ' O gods, we have come to a country without 
 meadows, the earth which is wide, has become narrow.' 
 
 ' See Biographies of Words, p. 174. 
 (2) M 
 
162 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The wealth of these Indian Aryas consisted chiefly 
 in cattle, in cows, horses, sheep, goats, and in men. 
 Corn was cut with sickles and afterwards thrashed. 
 Their settlements were called wigsma,, clearings, 
 grama, villages; while outside the grama was the 
 araTiya, the heath or the forest which belonged to no 
 one. Towns, in our sense, did not exist, thouojh strong- 
 holds and camps are mentioned. 
 
 Each family had its house and hearth. Several 
 families together formed a vis, vicus, or grama, 
 pagus, and several of such settlements seem to have 
 formed a (/ana. i.e. kin or clan. We hear of the vis- 
 pati, the lord of a vis, of gramaiiis, leaders of 
 villages, and of kings, rkgsin, who are also called 
 gopa ^anasya, shepherds of a clan. We even hear of 
 leagues of five (/anas or clans. We read of kings, 
 both hereditary and elective. They led the armies, 
 and received booty and tribute. We also hear of public 
 assemblies, samitis or vidathas, held in a sabha, a 
 public hall. The king was present. Discussions took 
 place, and likewise social amusements. 
 
 The cultivated land seems to have belonged to the 
 village, but booty in war teems to have constituted the 
 first private property. 
 
 In the struggles between the Aryan invaders and 
 the dark-skinned natives the possession of Agni or fire, 
 as an ally, was in those distant days as great an 
 advantage as the possession of armour or gunpow^der 
 in later days, and we may w^ell undei'stand, therefore, 
 that Agni' or fire should have been celebrated, till he 
 became a familiar name, as a protector, a leader, a 
 ruler, a poAverful something, whether he was called 
 deva, bright, or am arty a, immortal. 
 
THE BIOGRArilY OF AGNI. 163 
 
 What Agni was, or what he did, was often called a 
 miracle (vapus). 
 
 Rv. IV. 7, 9 : 
 
 K?7shnam te ^ma rusata^ pura/i bha^ Aarishnu arJcih vapusham 
 it ekam. 
 
 'Thy path is black, but there is light before thee when thou 
 shinest ; — thy flame moves swiftly — this is one of (many) wonders.' 
 
 Agni, destroying' Forests. 
 
 More particularly his power of destroying or devour- 
 ing whole forests imparts to Agni in the eyes of the 
 Aryas a terrible character. We saw before how his 
 flames were represented as tongues, licking (I. 140, 9) 
 what they meant to consume. These tongues of Agni 
 are called brilliant {II. 9, 1), and sharp (tigma, IV. 7, 10). 
 They are also conceived as teeth, golden (V. 2, 3) and 
 bright (VII. 4, 2), as tusks strong like metal (X. 87, 2), 
 as jaws strong (III. 29, 13), sharp (I. 79, 6), and burning 
 (I. 36, 16). In VIII. 43, 3, we read : 
 
 Dadbhi^ vanani bapsati. 
 *He eats the forests with his teeth.' 
 
 In I. 143, 5 : 
 
 Na ya^ vara3^a marutam iva svana^ 
 sena iva snsh^a divya yatha asani/i, 
 agni/i (/ambhai/i tigitai/* atti bharvati 
 yodha/i na satrun sa/i vanii ni riugsLte. 
 
 *He who cannot be resisted, like the blast of the Maruts, like a 
 hurled weapon, like the heavenly thunder-bolt, Agni eats with his 
 sharpened jaws, he champs, he prostrates forests, like a warrior his 
 enemies.' 
 
 I. 58, 4-5 
 
 Vi vata^iita/j ataseshu tish^/<ate 
 Vn'tha ^uhiibhi/i snnya tuvi-svani/i; 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LECTURE VII. 
 
 tr/shu y^t agne vanina/i vnshayase 
 k/ish?2am te 6ma rusat urme agrara. 
 Tiipu/j-gfambha/t vane a vata-A-oditaA 
 yuthe na salivan ava vati Ycvnsagah ; 
 abhivraf/an akshitam paV/asa raga/i 
 sthatu/j Aanitham bhayate patatri>?,a^. 
 
 ' Roused by the wind, he moves about among the shrubs every- 
 wliere with his tongues, and resounding with his sickle. When 
 th<ni in a moment doest violence to the trees in the forest, thy 
 path is black, thou never-aging Agni, thou whose waves are 
 brilliant. 
 
 'With fiery jaws, roused by the wind, he blows down on the 
 forest like a powerful bull on his herd, moving with splendour to- 
 wards the eternal sky. What moves and stands trembles before the 
 bird^' 
 
 VIII. 43, 6-8: 
 
 6. K)v'sh??a ra^amsi patsuta^i prayawe 
 gfatavedasa/i agni/i yat rodhati kshami. 
 
 7. Dhasim k? j)iviina/i oshadhi/i bapsat 
 agni/i na vayati puna/i yan taru»i/i api. 
 
 8. Gihvabhi/i aha na»znamat arAisha 
 gufigankhhsivskn agni/t vaneshu roAate. 
 
 ' The clouds are black under his feet at his advance, when Agni 
 descends to the earth, 
 
 ' Making the herbs his food Agni never tires, eating, coming again 
 and again, even the tall herbs. 
 
 ' Turning about with his tongues of fire, as if laughing with his 
 light, Agni flares up in the forests.' 
 
 I. 65, 8: 
 
 Yat Yatsi-guiah v^na vi asthat 
 agni/t ha dati roma pr<thivya/i. 
 
 'When roused by the wind he strides about on to the forests, 
 Agni shaves off" the hair of the earth.' 
 
 His horses also when let loose are said to shave 
 the earth (VI. 6, 4), and much the same is meant 
 when Agni is said to lick the garment of the earth 
 (I. 140, 9). 
 
 ' See, however, 1. 94, 11. 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 165 
 
 Ag^ni's Horses, 
 
 Agni's horses are frequently mentioned, and they 
 appear in different colours, as red (arusha and rohita, 
 I. 1^4, 10), as dark (6yava, II. 10, 2), as bright (harit, 
 I. 130, 2), and as brilliant white (^ukra, VI. 6, 4). All 
 this is quite intelligible, nor is the next step so very 
 bold which leads the pcets to speak of Agni himself 
 as a horse. I know that some philosophers would 
 see in this at once a sign of what they call zoolatry, 
 whereas to the student of language such expressions, 
 particularly if they occur as in the Veda but casually, 
 are nothing but poetical metaphor-. If the poet has 
 once brought himself to say that Agni chews like a 
 horse (VI. 3, 4), or that he shakes his tail like the 
 horse of a chariot (II. 4, 4), why should he not say as 
 he does in IV. 15, 1 : 
 
 Agnih hotel na/« adhvar^ 
 
 va^r san pari nij^ate 
 
 deva/t deveshu yaguiy&h. 
 'Agni, our priest, is led about at the sacrifice, being a horse.' 
 The leading about is an expression that applies to 
 horses being led round or exercised, and the words, 
 ' being a horse,' are no more than a metaphor. They 
 mean that, as he is supposed to be a horse, therefore he 
 is led about at the sacrifice. And this is exactly what 
 has often to be done with the fire also, which at a 
 sacrifice is carried about from one altar to another. 
 This is not zoolatry, it is nothing but the natural play 
 of lanouaoe. 
 
 o o 
 
 Ag-ni, as Sacrificial Pire. 
 
 Hitherto it must be clear that all that has been said 
 of Agni in the Veda applies to fire, such as it is, with- 
 out any necessary reference as yet to the sacrificial fire. 
 
166 LECTURE VII. 
 
 This, as we shall see, occupies, no doubt, a very large 
 place in the poetry of the ancient Rishis, but all that 
 is said about it tells us very little of what w^e really 
 care to know, the historical genesis of the concept of 
 fire and its elevation to a divine rank. 
 
 That the Vedic poets were not entirely overawed by 
 this sacrificial or sacred character of Agni, is best 
 shown by their painting the same Agni occasionally in 
 the most hideous colours. We saw how they spoke 
 with horror of the black inhabitants of India as flesh- 
 eaters, kravyad. But they could not help seeing that 
 Agni, the fire, also was a kind of flesh- eater. He not 
 only served to cook the meat, whether for feasts or for 
 sacrifices, he also devoured it, and he became parti- 
 cularly terrible in the eyes of the Vedic poets, w^hen 
 used for cremating the corpses of animals or men. 
 In one hymn of the tenth Ma?it?ala (X. 87) he is asked 
 to sharpen his two iron tusks, and to put the enemies 
 into his mouth to devour them. He is implored to 
 heat the edges of his shafts and to send them into the 
 heart of the Rakshas, and to break their outstretched 
 arms. He is supposed to tear their skin, to mince 
 their members, and to throw then- bodies before shriek- 
 ing vultures, to be eaten by them. 
 
 However, we have only to open the Veda in order 
 to see that the sacrificial character of Agni is certainly 
 very predominant in our collection of hymns. It 
 began, as w^e saw, with the very natural feeling 
 towards Agni, that is, towards the fire, which was 
 carefully preserved on the hearth of every house. 
 Agni, the fire on the hearth, was the centre of the 
 family. Whoever belonged to a family, shared the 
 game fire, and whoever was driven away from that 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 167 
 
 fire was what the Komans called aqua et igni Mer- 
 didus^. The fire on the hearth was looked upon as 
 a friend and benefactor, round whom the members of 
 a family, old and young., gathered in the morning and 
 the evenini?. At meals, ao*ain, and at more solemn 
 festivals, the fire was always present, and when liba- 
 tions and offerings were introduced, either in memory 
 of the departed or in gratitude to the powers above, 
 the fire on the hearth was the most convenient place 
 to receive them. The people of Mexico threw the first 
 morsel of their meals into the fire, they did not know 
 why ^. Many Tungusian, Mongolian, and Turkish 
 tribes would never dare to eat meat without first 
 throwing a piece on the fire of the hearth^. Here 
 then we see what we call by the grand names of 
 sacrifices and ceremonial, springing up in the most 
 natural manner. The people, while feasting and en- 
 joying themselves, thought in their childish way that 
 something should be given up to their departed friends, 
 and that the bright friends also whose presence they 
 thought they had discovered in the genial sky, in the 
 seasonable rain, or in the cheerful breezes of the 
 morning, should not be forgotten. Everything else 
 followed without any effort. The fire burning on the 
 hearth, when it flared up with the fat or butter that 
 had been poured upon it, was supposed to be carrying 
 the offerings- to the sky in clouds of smoke and fire. 
 
 ^ Thus Festus, p. 78, explains exfrarius as qui extra focum sacra- 
 mentuni jusque sit; cf. Leist, Jus Gentium, p. 608. According to the 
 judicial law, the same idea is expressed by declaring that a man 
 ■who does not keep his fires becomes like a Sudra, Vasish^/iia III. 1 ; 
 or that to desert one's fires is as great a crime as to desert one's father, 
 mother, son, or wife, Vish»u XXXVII. 6. 
 
 ^ J. Gr. Miiller, Geschichte der Arnerikanischen Urreligionen. p. 626. 
 
 ^ Castren, Finniidie Mythologie, p. 57. 
 
168 LECTUKE VII. 
 
 Or when it consumed itself the more substantial gifts, 
 the fire was looked upon as the representative of gods 
 or ancestors, accepting and enjoying what had been 
 ottered to them (Rv. II. 1, 13). 
 
 A^ni, the Messenger between Gods and Men. 
 
 Here comes in the very natural idea that Agni is 
 the messenger between gods and men, the swift carrier 
 travelling between heaven and earth. At first he is con- 
 ceived as carrying prayers and offerings to the abode of 
 the gods ; but very soon he is also supposed to bring 
 the gods down from their abodes to the abodes of men, 
 and more particularly, to the places where sacrifices 
 were performed. Thus we read, Rv. X. 70, 11 : 
 
 A agne vaha varu)?am ishMye na^ 
 indram diva/i maruta/i antarikshat. 
 •O Agni, bring hither Varuna-to our offering, bring Indra from 
 the sky, tlie Maruts from the air.' 
 
 Agni, as Priest. 
 
 All this is still more or less natural, but after Agni 
 has once been raised to the rank of messenger, he soon 
 assumes the office of priest in all its endless varieties. 
 The Vedic poets never weary of this subject. Agni is 
 called the priest, and with the refinements of the 
 priestly offices, every special office also is assigned to 
 him. He is called the Hot7^i,the priest who pours out 
 the libation ; he is the Ritw'ig, the priest who performs 
 at the great seasons of the year ^ ; he is the Purohita, 
 the domestic priest; he is the Brahman, the super- 
 intending priest, who sees that no mistakes may be 
 made in the performance of the sacrifice, or, if they 
 have been made, corrects them. Even the more special 
 ^ Kv. X. 2, 1 : Vidvan ritiin ntupate ya^a iha. 
 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF AGNI. 1C9 
 
 ceremonial offices of the minor priests are all assigned 
 to him, and nothing gives us so strong an impression 
 of what we should call the modern character of the 
 Vedic hymns as these trivial and paltry ritualistic 
 devices which are actually transferred from the human 
 priesthood to the gods. Still, in this case also we 
 must live and learn, and it is not for us to say that 
 ancient sages were utterly incapable of follies which 
 we are too much inclined to consider as peculiar to 
 our own age. 
 
 However, as Agni, the sacrificial fire, was identified 
 with the sacrificer and the priest, he participated like- 
 wise in all the good qualities of his prototypes, and 
 was represented as kind, as wise, as enlightened, and 
 as omniscient (visvavit, X. 91, 3). Thus he is called, 
 VI. 14, 2, pra/teta/i, wise ; VII. 4, 4, ay am kavi^ 
 akavishu -praketkh, the sage wise among the foolish ; 
 VI. 14, 2, vedhastama/i rishih, the wisest poet. If any 
 mistake has been committed, Agni is supposed to be 
 able and wilhng to correct it. For instance, X. 2, 
 4-5; 
 
 4. Y-At va/i va5'am praminama vratani 
 
 vidiishclm deva/< avidushfarasa/i, 
 
 agnih tat vi.svam a p?mati vidvan 
 
 yebhi/i devan ntiibhi/i kalpayati. 
 6. Yat pakatra manasa dinadaksha^ 
 
 na yRgiidsja, manvate martyasaA, 
 
 agni/i tat hota kratuvit vigranan 
 
 jagishiha,h devan n'tusa/i yaf/ati. 
 
 'If we, gods, impair your statutes, we ignorant among the 
 wise, Agni makes it all good, he who knows at what seasons to 
 place the gods, 
 
 ' Whatever of the sacrifice weak mortals with their feeble in- 
 tellect do not comprehend, Agni, the Hot/i priest, wlio knows all 
 rites, comprehends it, and he will worship the gods at the proper 
 seasons.' 
 
170 LECTURE VII. 
 
 Hymn to Agni. 
 
 in order to give you an idea what an ordinary Vedic 
 hymn to Agni is like,, I shall read you now the first 
 hymn of the Rig-veda which is addi'essed to Agni. It is 
 a poor hymn in many respects. First of all, it belongs 
 to the first MsLnd&l&, which, as I pointed out before, 
 contains many hymns merely put together for the sake 
 of the sacrifice, and possibly of a later date. It repeats 
 the ordinary praises and invocations of Agni which we 
 find elsewhere in the Veda, and treats Agni simply as 
 the sacrificial fire, as the divine priest by the side of 
 the ordinary human priests. Yet it contains a few 
 expressions which are of value to us, because expres- 
 sive of a genuine human feeling, particularly the last 
 verse, where Agni is implored to be ' easy of approach 
 as a father is to his son.' 
 
 Hymn to Agni, 
 
 ascribed to MadhuH7^andas of the family of Visv^- 
 mitra, written in Gayatri metre. 
 
 1. Ao;nim i^e purohitam yap-ndsya devam Wtvi^am, 
 hotaraw ratnadhataraam. 
 
 *I implore Agni, the chief priest, the divine minister of 
 the sacrifice, the Hotn priest, the best giver of wealth.' 
 
 The verb ile is not only ' I praise,' but ' I implore ;' and the Ni- 
 rukta explains it by adhyeshana, solicitation, or pii^a, worship. 
 Thus, Rv. III. 48, 3, we read upasthaya mataram annam aitta, 
 he (the new-born Indra) having approached his mother asked for 
 food ; unless we prefer to translate, he having approached, asked his 
 mother for food, making both accusatives dependent on the verb. 
 Cf Rv. VII. 5)3, 4. The verb id is construed with the accusative of 
 the god implored, with the dative of the object for which, and the in- 
 strumental of the means by which, he is implored ; cf. Rv. VIII. 71, 
 14, agnim iHshva avase gathabhi/i. Stress ought to be laid 
 
THE BIOGKAPHY OF AGNI. 171 
 
 on devam, divine, the adjective to ritvig, minister, Agni being 
 here called the divine minister as contz-asted with the ministering 
 priests. 
 
 2. Affnih purvebhi/i rhhihhih \dyo nutanaIZi utd, 
 sa/i devan a iha vakshati. 
 
 * Agni, worthy to be implored by former poets and by new, 
 may he bring the gods hither !' 
 
 Eemarkable only for its allusion to former poets or Rishis, an ex- 
 pression which frequently occurs. 
 
 3. Agnina rayim asnavat posham eva dive-dive, 
 ya^cisam vrravattaniam. 
 
 ' Through Agni man gained wealth, satisfying even day by 
 day, glorious wealth of vigorous kindred.' 
 
 The imperfect as n a vat implies that man always gained wealth 
 through their sacrifices. The third person singular is used without 
 a noun, in the sense of 'one gains.' The adjective viravattama 
 is well explained by Sayawa, and well translated by Benfey, heldeti- 
 reichsfen. It implies that the wealth consists in a large number of 
 sons, and relations, and slaves, who constituted the wealth and 
 strength of the ancient Aryan settlers in India. 
 
 4. Agne yam yngn-dm adhvaram visvata^ parlbhuA ^si, 
 skh it deveshu gnkkhaii. 
 
 'Agni, tlie offering which thou encirclest on all sides, un- 
 hurt, that alone goes to the gods.' 
 
 The adjective adh vara, unhurt, belongs to ya^j'a, an offering. 
 There is no necessity for translating adh vara by 'without fraud,' as 
 Benfey does. Adh vara means originally 'without hurt,' from a, 
 and dhvara, root dhvar. The idea that whatever is offered to 
 the gods must be free from hurt and blemish is common to Aryan 
 and Semitic nations. In Homer the victim must be rtAet- s, perfect 
 (Friedrich, Realien, p. 444), and Upa riXeia, are perfect sacrifices, 
 performed with all rites. Moses (Leviticus iii. 1) commands : ' And 
 if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the 
 herd ; whether it be a male or a female, he shall offer it wiilwut 
 blemish before the Lord.' In the ritual Sutras of the Brahmans the 
 same idea is constantly expressed, and the whole chapter on Frk- 
 yasAitta or penance refers to remedies against accidents happening 
 during a sacrifice. Agni, in particular, is implored not to injure the 
 offering. (Rv. X. 16, 1 ; see also History of Anc. S. L., p. 553 seq., and 
 Nirukta, ed Roth, p. xl.) From being originally an adjective con- 
 
172 LECTURE VII. 
 
 stantly applied to sacrifices, adhvara, masc, came to be used by 
 itself in the sense of sacrifice, and adhvaryu became the name of 
 the ministering priest. 
 
 5. AgwUi h'Sta kavikratuA satya/i A-Itra«ravastHma/fc, 
 deva/t (leveblii^ a gamat. 
 
 * Agni, the Hot?'i priest, the wise counsellor*, the truthful, 
 the most glorious, may he, the god, come with the gods ! ' 
 
 ^ It is next to impossible to render these pregnant Sanskrit words. 
 There is in most of them the etymological background discernible 
 without great effort, and not too distant from the real and tradi- 
 tional meaning. In kavikratu we have kavi, a poet, a sage, and 
 kratu. counsel, agreeing with the German Bath, as meaning both 
 thought and deed. Wise counsellor renders only half of the San- 
 skrit term ; wise-minded is not much better. On Bath and its sup- 
 posed connection with r ad has, see Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vi. 390. 
 
 6. Yat anga dasushe tvam ague bhadram karishyasi, 
 tava it tat satyani angira/i. 
 
 ' Whatever wealth thou. Agui, shalt bestow on the sacii- 
 ficer, thine it will be \ forsooth, O Angiras ^. 
 
 * The idea of bargaining with the gods is frequent in the Veda. 
 
 2 Angiras is a name of Agni, but it also became a name of a 
 family or clan, the Angiras. Its original meaning seems to have 
 been bright or shining, and popular etymology naturally, and it 
 seems rightly, connected it with an gar a, cinders. As there were 
 two kinds of Angiras, namely, the bright rays of light personified 
 in various aspects of nature, and represented by Agni, the chief of 
 the Angiras {gyeshtham angirasam, the oldest of the Angiras, Rv. 
 I. 127, 2), and secondly the clan of the Angiras, many of them dis- 
 tinguished as priests and poets, the race of the Angiras is often 
 derived from Agni, and the two are often confounded. 
 
 7. ujDa tva 'agne dive-dive dosha-vasta/i dliiya vaydm, 
 ndma/i bh^iranta/i a imasi. 
 
 * To thee, O Agni, we come day by day, bringing piaise in 
 mind, illuminator of darkness.' 
 
 To bring praise in mind is to pray. Doshavastar occurs three 
 times in the Rig-veda. In ovir passage the commentator explains it 
 as an adverb, by night and by day. Rv. IV. 4, 9, he allows both 
 meanings, either by night and by day, or illuminator and dispeller 
 of darkness. In VII. 15, 15, he only gives the second interpretation, 
 because diva naktam, by day and by night, occurs in the same 
 verse. The true meaning therefore seems the second, irradiator of 
 
THE BIOGRAniY OF AGNI. 173 
 
 night or of darkness, from dosha, darkness, and vastar, a vocative 
 of vastri, lightener. With this the accent too agrees. Rv. VII. 1, 
 6, the expression dosha vast o/t occurs, meaning by night and by 
 day. Cf. Rv. VIII. 25, 21 ; V. '62, 11, &c. 
 
 8. Ea<7antam aclhvai a;^im gopam Wtasya didivim, 
 vardhamaiiam sve dame. 
 
 * To tliee, the loid of sacrifices, the bright guardian of tlie 
 law, who art growing in thy own house.' 
 
 Didivi occurs but once in the Rig-veda. It is formed from div 
 or dyu, to shine, like gagriyih. Cf. Uufidi-sutras IV. 54-56. It 
 miglit be a substantive as well as an adjectiv^e. As, however, the 
 phrases rag^antam adhvarawam and gopam ritasya are 
 stereotyped phrases, we could not well connect didivim with 
 ritasya, as it were, the lord or ruler of law ; but must take it as 
 an adjective. (Ra^/antam adhvaranam, Rv. I. 45, 4 ; I. 27, 1 (sam); 
 VIII. 8, 18 (asvinau\) If it were not for this, the interpretation of 
 Sc\yaj?a might be adopted : ' To thee, the brilliant, the guardian of 
 sacrifices, the revealer of order.' 
 
 Ritsk means what is settled, ordered, what is right and holy. 
 This is the primitive meaning which can be perceived in all its 
 manifold applications. 
 
 9. Sa/i na/i pita iva siinave ague siipayana/i bhava, 
 saA'asva na/i svastaye. 
 
 ' Thou, then, O Agni, be gracious to us like as a father to 
 his son ; stay with us for our welfare ! ' 
 
 Supayana, gracious, literally of easy access. The comparison of 
 the god Agni with a father being gracious to his son, the worshipper, 
 is remarkable. The number of such simple and genuine sentiments 
 is small in the Veda. 
 
 The next hymn is less formal, though again full of 
 references to the ceremonial. Verse • 6, however, is 
 probably a later addition. 
 
 Ma7i(iala I, Sukta 94. 
 
 1. Let us skilfully build up this hymn of praise, 
 like a chariot, for the worthy Gatavedas (the omni- 
 scient Agni) ; for his protection is blissful to our 
 homestead : — Agni, let us not suffer in thy friend- 
 ship ! 
 
174 LECTURE VII. 
 
 2. He for whom thou sacrificest, succeeds, he dwells 
 unhurt, he gathers strength. He prospers, and evil 
 does not touch him: — Agni, let us not suffer in 
 thy friendship ! 
 
 3. May we be able to light thee, fulfil thou our 
 prayers ; in thee the gods consume the poured-out 
 libation. Bring thou hither the Adityas, for we long 
 for them: — Agni, let us not suffer in thy friend- 
 ship ! 
 
 4. Let us bring wood, let us prepare the libations, 
 thinking of thee at every phase of the moon. Fulfil 
 our prayers that we may live longer : — Agni, let us 
 not suffer in thy friendship ! 
 
 5. He is the guardian of men\ his creatures — all 
 that is two-footed and four-footed — move about 
 freely by night. Thou art the bright and great 
 shine of the dawn: — O Agni, let us not suffer in 
 thy friendship ! 
 
 [6. Thou art the Adhvaryu priest, and the old 
 B-otri priest, thou art the Pra.hast7'i^ and Pot?'^ priest, 
 and the Purohita by birth ; knowing all duties of the 
 priests, thou prosperest, O wise one : — Agni, let us 
 not suffer in thy friendship !] 
 
 7. Thou who art always alike ^, beautiful to behold 
 on every side, thou blazest forth, like lightning, 
 though being far off; thou glancest forth even above 
 the darkness of the night : — Agni, let us not suffer 
 in thy friendship ! 
 
 8. gods, let the chariot of the sacrificer come 
 fiist, let our cur^e overcome the wicked. Accept and 
 
 ' Cf. I 06, 4. 
 
 ^ It might be better to read ydh visvata/e supratikafe susawdn'saftj 
 8ce I. Ii3, 6. 
 
THE BIOOKAPHY OF AGNI. 175 
 
 prosper tins our speech : — Agni, let us not suffer in 
 thy friendship ! 
 
 9. Strike away with thy weapons the evil-wishers, 
 and the wicked, the devourers, whether they be far or 
 near ; then make it easy for thy praiser to sacrifice : — 
 O Agni, let us not suffer in thy friendship ! 
 
 10. When thou hast yoked the two red mares to 
 the chariot, quick like the wind, then thy roar is like 
 a bull's, and thou stirrest the trees with thy smoke- 
 bannered flame: — Agni, let us not suffer in thy 
 friendship ! 
 
 11. Then the birds also tremble before thy shout; 
 when thy grass-devouring sparks are scattered about, 
 the road is made easy for thee and thy chariot : — O 
 Agni, let us not suffer in thy friendship! 
 
 VJ. This is the marvellous fury of the storm winds, 
 for the support of Mitra and Varur/a. have pity 
 on us, let their (kind) mind return to us : — O Agni, 
 let us not sufier in thy friendship ! 
 
 13. Thou art the god of gods, the marvellous friend, 
 thou art the Vasu of Vasus, beautiful at the sacrifice. 
 O let us abide under thy far-reaching protection : — 
 Agni, let us not suffer in thy friendship ! 
 
 14. This is thy blessing that, when once kindled in 
 his house and fed with Soma, thou bestirrest thyself 
 as the most gracious friend, and givest treasure and 
 wealth to thy worshipper : — O Agni, let us not suffer 
 in thy friendship ! 
 
 15. May we be of those to whom thou, O wealthy 
 god, grantest sinlessness, O Aditi, at all times, and 
 whom thou fillest with happy strength, and with 
 wealth of offspring. 
 
 16. thou, Agni, who knowest true welfare, 
 
176 LECTURE VII. 
 
 leDgtben our life, god. May Mitra and Varu^^a 
 achieve this for us, also Aditi, Sindhu, the Earth and 
 the Sky ! 
 
 We have now finished the biography of Agni as a 
 purely mythological god. In our next lecture I shall 
 try to show, how Agni is slowly being divested of all 
 that is mythological, and stands before us in the end 
 with the name of Agni, but with the nature of true 
 Divinity. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 AGNl AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 
 Later Development of Agni. 
 
 "TTT^E saw in our last lecture how Agni, the fire, 
 ▼ ▼ grew as it were before our eyes, from a mere 
 spark of light to the dignity of a kind and omniscient 
 being, a Deva, or, if you like, a god. Nowhere in 
 the annals of the human intellect have we an oppor- 
 tunity of watching this natural theogonic process 
 in such fulness as in India, for I need not tell you 
 that the specimens which I was able to place before 
 you, form but an insignificant portion of what the 
 Vedic poets have to say about Agni. The most 
 important lesson which the evidence, so far as we 
 have examined it, should teach us is this, that there is 
 nothing that is not perfectly natural and intelligible 
 in the development of this concept up to the stage 
 which we have now reached, where Agni stands be- 
 fore us in every respect the equal of such beings as 
 we are accustomed to call gods, I mean Apollo in 
 Greece, or Mercury in Italy, or Odin in Germany. We 
 saw that Agni, like other gods, could boast of many 
 fathers and mothers, and, like other gods in Greece 
 (2) N 
 
178 LECTURE Yin. 
 
 and Italy, he also has acquired a wife. Agnayi (Rv. I. 
 22, 12 ; V. 46, 8), though we do not know much more 
 of her thanlier name. Agni, so far, has become what 
 we should call a mythological god. 
 
 But his career does not end there ; on the contrary, 
 it becomes more and more interesting and important 
 to us, as show^ing how the natural theogonic process 
 which we have hitherto watched, does not stop there, 
 but forms the foundation only, and the only safe 
 foundation from which in later times the highest, tae 
 truest, nay, from which something exactly like our 
 own conception of the Deity has sprung. 
 
 If you remember the many things that were said of 
 Agni, the various names by which he was called, the 
 different phenomena of nature in which his presence 
 was suspected, you will find it easy to understand how 
 behind these various apparitions a more and more 
 general character grew up, a being that was Agni, but 
 was nevertheless distinct from all these individual 
 manifestati' ns. We saw how Agni was perceived in 
 the fire on the altar, in the spark produced by a 
 powerful friction of fire-sticks, in the lightning that 
 sprang from the sky and the clouds and consumed 
 vast forests, like a horse champing his hay, and finally 
 in the immortal light of the sun. 
 
 Now, it is clear that Ao;ni, who was all these thino-s, 
 could also be divested of every one of these attributes, 
 and yet remain Agni. This led to two trains of 
 thought. Agni was either identified with other Devas 
 who likewise represented the sun, the sky, and the 
 lio-htninof, or he was more and more divested of his 
 purely material attributes, and recognised as a supreme 
 deity, in every sense of the word. 
 
AG^^I AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 179 
 Agni identical with other Gods. 
 
 The first process, that of identification, is very 
 prominent in the Veda. It could hardly be otherwise 
 but that, after nature had been peopled with ever 
 so many Devas, some of them should encroach en 
 each other's domains, and be no longer distinguishable 
 one from the other. This has been very well brought 
 out by Professor von Schroeder in his book on the 
 Literature and Culture of India (p. 77). * It should 
 be pointed out,' he says, ' that many of the Yedic 
 gods coincide from the beginning in their spheres of 
 action, and cover one another almost entirely in their 
 character and functions, so that each may be said to 
 represent but a slightly varying conception of the 
 same phenomenon. Thus Dyaus was the sky as shin- 
 ing, but Varu77a also was originally the sky, as all- 
 embracing. Surya was the sun, but Savitar also 
 was the sun, as imparting movement and life to all 
 creatures. Pushan also was the sun, as giving pros- 
 perity to the flocks, and light and leading to the 
 w^anderer on his journey. Yish tiu lastly was the sun, 
 as striding across the regions of the sky. Indra was 
 the powerful lord, the begetter of storm, thunder, 
 lightning, and rain. Eut the same is said of Par- 
 ^anya, and Brihaspati also performs much the same 
 work. Rudra is the storm, the Maruts are the 
 storms, Vata is the wind, and so is Vayu. It seems 
 clear that this peculiarity of the Vedic gods is closely 
 connected with what has been called their henotheistic 
 character, and that it contributed to its formation.' 
 
 N 2 
 
180 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Kenotheisin. 
 
 What Professor von Schroeder here calls the heno- 
 theistic character is, indeed, a very important and 
 instructive feature in the development of all religious 
 thought though it is nowhere so prominent as in the 
 religion of the Veda. It was formerly supposed that 
 there were only three forms of religion possible, 
 Polytheism, Monotheism, and Atheism. But in the 
 Veda, and elsewhere also, it has become necessary to 
 distinguish Polytheism from a previous stage, which 
 may best be called Henotheism. What we mean by 
 Polytheism is a belief in many gods, who, by the 
 very fact that they are many and stand side by side, 
 are limited in their divine character. They generally 
 form together a kind of Pantheon, and are mostly, 
 though not always, represented as subject to a supreme 
 god. Polytheism therefore implies the admission of a 
 number of beings who all claim a kind of equality, so 
 far as their divine character is concerned, who are 
 conceived, in fact, as members of one class, and whose 
 divinity is consequently a limited divinity, or, if we 
 hold that divinity cannot be limited, no true divinity 
 at all. 
 
 But there are, as I said just now, clear traces of 
 a totally different phase of religious thought in the 
 Veda. No doubt, the number of gods invoked in the 
 hymns of the Big-veda is very considerable, and in 
 this sense the Vedic religion may be called polytheistic. 
 In many hymns where different gods are invoked 
 together, the conception of divinity shared by them 
 all, is as limited as in Homer. But there are other 
 hymns in which the pcet seems to know, for the time 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATEllIAL CIIAKACTEK. 181 
 
 being, of one single god only. That single god is 
 to him the only god, and in the momentary vision of 
 the poets his divinity is not limited by the thought 
 of any other god. This phase of thought, this wor- 
 ship, not of many, nor of one only god, but of a 
 single god, I called Henotheism, a name which is now 
 accepted by the most competent authorities as repre- 
 senting an important phase in the development of 
 religious ideas ^. It may be that India, where social 
 life was chiefly developed in families, clans, and 
 village-communities, favoured the growth and per- 
 manence of this worship of single deities more than 
 any other country ; but, from a psychological point of 
 view, it seems as if all polytheism must have passed 
 through this previous phase, and as if everywhere, 
 whether consciously or unconsciously, the progress 
 must have been from the single to the many, and 
 finally to the one. 
 
 But apart from all theories, the fact remains that in 
 the religious childhood of India, as represented to us 
 in the hymns of the Veda, we can see this henotheistic 
 tendency fully developed. We can see a poet, or a 
 family, or a clan, or a village believing in this or 
 that god as for the time and for certain purposes the 
 only god; yet quite ready, under new circumstances, to 
 invoke the help of another god who again stands 
 supreme, or, more correctly, stands alone, before the 
 mind of the suppliant, as his only helper in distress. 
 
 ' It is to be regretted that other scholars shovild have used the 
 name henotheistic in a different sense from that which I assigned 
 to it. Nothing causes so much confusion as the equivocal use of 
 technical terms, and the framer of a new term has generally had 
 the right of defining it. 
 
182 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Henotheisni in Finland. 
 
 The same henotheistic character was pointed out by 
 Castren in his Lectures on Finnish Mytliology. He 
 described it fully, though he did not give it any 
 definite name. 'In general,' he writes, 'the single 
 deities of the Finnish mythology do not, as in Greek 
 and Roman mythology, seem dependent on each other. 
 Each god, however small he may be, acts in his own 
 sphere as a free and independent power, or, if we use 
 the laDguage of the runes, as host in his own house. 
 As among mortals, so among immortals, one host is 
 rich and powerful, possessed of wide- stretching lands, 
 large Hocks, numerous man- and maid-servants, while 
 another has but a small property, a small family or 
 none at all. Yet within their own walls each enjoys 
 the same independence. The god of a star rules only 
 over an insignificant spot in the sky, but on that spTot 
 be is his own host and master.' 
 
 Early Scepticism. 
 
 I must protest against the supposition that I had 
 ever represented the whole of the Yedic religion as 
 henotheistic. I seldom speak of the whole of the 
 Vedic religion, for the simple reason that it does not 
 form a whole, but represents to us in its numerous 
 hymns sevei-al phases of the early religious thought 
 of India. That is the very^ thing which makes the 
 Veda so instructive to students of religion. There are 
 hymns in which the gods have been counted and 
 represented as all alike, none greater, none smaller. 
 There are others in* which one god is praised as greater 
 than another god, nay, as greater than all other gods. 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 183 
 
 It could not be otherwise. The great natural pheno- 
 mena of which the gods were supposed to be the 
 secret agents, though they might seem all powerful 
 by themselves, showed also clear traces of their 
 mutual limitations. When the fire was seen quenched 
 by water, or the sun was seen hidden in the clouds 
 or sunk into the sea, the poet could only repeat what 
 he saw, that Agni was hidden in the water, that the 
 sun was swallowed by the clouds. We saw how these 
 ideas were expressed mythologically, but they acted 
 also in a different direction. They provoked the first 
 doubts in the omnipotence, nay in the very existence 
 of certain gods of nature. 
 
 We find traces of this early scepticism in the well- 
 known dialogue ascribed to Abraham and Nimrod ^. 
 Here it is said that fire should not be worshipped, 
 because w^ater can quench it ; nor water, because the 
 clouds can carry it ; nor the clouds, because the winds 
 tear them ; nor the winds, because even men can 
 withstand them^. 
 
 The same scepticism appears in the remarkable 
 story of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui as told by Garcilasso 
 (viii. 8). Though it may have been embellished by 
 the Jesuit Bias Valera, on w^hose authority Garcilasso 
 tells it, it seems to have had an historical foundation. 
 That Inca, though himself reputed a son of the sun 
 began to doubt the divine omnipotence of his divine 
 ancestor ^. 
 
 At a great religious council, held at the consecration 
 of the newly-built temple of the Sun at Cazco, about 
 
 ^ Beer. Lehen Jhrnhmns, p. xi. 
 2 See Whitley Stokes Academy, No. 933, p. 207. 
 ^ Reville, Les Eeligions du Mexique, p. 321 ; Brinton, Myths of the New 
 World, p. 55. 
 
184 LECTURE YIIT. 
 
 1440, he rose before the assembled mnltitnde to deny 
 the divinity of the Sim. ' Many say,' he began, 'that 
 the Sun is the maker of all things. But he who 
 makes should abide by what he has made. Now 
 many things happen when the Sun is absent ; there- 
 fore he cannot be the universal Creator. And that he 
 is alive at all, is doubtful, for his journeys do not 
 tire him. Were he a living thing, he would grow 
 weary like ourselves ; were he fire, he would visit 
 other parts of the heavens. He is like a tethered 
 beast who makes a daily round ; he is like an arrow 
 which must ffo whither it is sent, not whither it wishes. 
 I tell you that he, our Father and Maker, the Sun, 
 must have a lord and master more powerful than 
 himself, who constrains him to his daily circuit without 
 pause or rest.' 
 
 Surely, this speech forms one of the brightest 
 moments in the whole history of religion, and our 
 bold Inca deserves a place by the side of Luther at 
 the Diet of Worms. 
 
 Exchang'e of Gods. 
 
 If I have succeeded in making the henotheistic 
 phase of religious thought clear to you, you will 
 understand how rightly Professor von Schroeder re- 
 marked that the later identification of several gods, 
 which is also very prominent in the Veda, is closely 
 connected with this henotheistic tendency. If two 
 families or two villages, each having their own name 
 for the god of fire, came into closer contact nothing 
 was more natural for them than to say, What you 
 call the morning sun we call the dawn; what you 
 call Agni, fire, we call Dyaus, light; what you call 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CIIARACTEK. 185 
 
 Silrya, the sun, we call Savit^-?, the enlivener. If 
 Agni, as we saw, meant light and fire and warmth 
 in its various manifestations, no wonder that the 
 Vedic poets identified Agni with the various names 
 under which light and fire and warmth had assumed 
 a certain individuality in their ancient religious 
 phraseology. Thus we read, Rv. V. 3, 1-2 ; 
 
 Tvam agne Ydrxinah ^ayase ycit 
 tvam mitral bhavasi yat samiddhaA, 
 tve \is\e sahasa/i putra deva/i 
 tvam indra/t dilsushe niartyaya. 
 Tvam aryama bhavasi yat kaninAm 
 nama svadhavan guhyam bibharshi, 
 Siug-Anti mitram sudhitam iici gobhiA 
 yat dampati samanasa kru«6shi. 
 
 'Thou, Agni, art Varu??a, when thou art born ; thou art Mitra, 
 when thou art kindled ; in thee, O son of strength, are all the gods ; 
 thou art Indra to the generous mortal. 
 
 ' Thou art Aryaman, when with the girls, thou bearest a secret 
 name. When thou makest the husband and wife to be of one mind, 
 they anoint thee with butter as a welcome friend.' 
 
 Or again in the Atharva-veda^ (XIII. 3, 13) we read: 
 
 Sa/i varuna/i sayam agni/i bhavati 
 
 sa/i mitra/i bhavati prata/i udyan ; 
 
 sa/i savita bhutva antarikshena yati 
 
 s^h indra/i bhutva tapati madhyataTi divam. 
 
 * In the evening Agni becomes Varuna ; he becomes Mitra when 
 rising in the morning ; having become Savitri he passes through 
 the sky ; having become Indra he warms the heaven in the centre.' 
 
 In another place the idea that Agni is or com- 
 prehends all other gods is expressed metaphorically, 
 Rv.V. 13, 6: 
 
 Agne nemiA aran iva devan tvam paribhu/i asi. 
 
 * Agni, thou surroundest the gods, as a felly the spokes of a 
 wheel.' 
 
 * Eibbert Lectures, p. 297. 
 
186 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 In other hymns ^ this idea of identifying Agni with 
 every possible god is carried to excess, and may be 
 merely the fancy of individual poets. 
 
 Dual Deities. 
 
 But that the common character of certain gods was 
 clearly perceived by the people at large, we can see 
 best in a number of dual names which have become 
 the reco<ynised titles of certain deities^. Thus we find 
 hymns addressed to Agni and Indra as one deity, 
 called Indragni : to Agni and Soma,then called A gni- 
 shomau — a process similar, probably, to that which 
 in Greek led to such combined names as Phoebos 
 Ajwllon and Pallas Athene, where two originally 
 distinct names were likewise recognised as, to all 
 int.nts and purposes, identical names, and the gods as 
 identical gods. 
 
 Reconciliation of the Solar and Meteoric Theories. 
 
 A clear recognition of this religious syncretism, or 
 rather of the common foundation of three such gods as 
 those of the sun, the lightning, and the fire, may help 
 us to remove a difiiculty which has hitherto divided 
 Comparative Mythologists into two hostile, or, at all 
 events, separate camps. The two schools, called the 
 solar and meteorological, were often driven to explain 
 the same myth as developed originally from solar 
 phenomena, such as the sudden eftulgence of the dawn, 
 the fight of the sun against the darkness of the night, 
 and the victorious return of the light of the morn- 
 ing ; or from meteoric events ; such as the sudden 
 
 1 Rv. II. 1. 2 jiiijjeH Lectures, p. 297. 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHArtACTER. 187 
 
 effulgence of the lightning, the fight of the storm-god 
 against the dark clouds, and the victorious return of 
 the blue sky at the end of a thunder-storm. 
 
 These two systems of mythological interpretation, 
 which for a time seemed irreconcilable, may after all 
 find their common justification in the fact which we 
 discovered in our analysis of the grcnvth of Agni, 
 recognised as present not only in the sun, but in the 
 lio-htnino' also, both beino- manifestations of the same 
 bright power, both performiug similar deeds, though 
 under different circumstances. Professor Tiele. in his 
 excellent essay, Le Mythe de Kronos. 1886 (p. 17), has 
 shown very clearly that there are deities wdio are at 
 the same time gods of the dawn, the sun. and the 
 thunder. 
 
 Supremacy of Agfni. 
 
 But besides this process of identification which led 
 to such conceptions as the Vi6've Devas, the All-gods, 
 and in the end to the more or less well-founded sus- 
 picion that all the names* of the gods Avere names of 
 one nameless power, there was another result, springing 
 from what I explained before as the henotheistic ten- 
 dency of the Vedic Eishis, namely, the exaltation of 
 one or other of these single gods to the rank of a 
 supreme deity. 
 
 This last stage in the development of divine beings 
 is again very fully represented in the cast of Agni. 
 Other gods also share the same fatel Indra, for 
 instance, is constantly celebrated as the strongest 
 and most heroic of gods, and in one of the hymns 
 addressed to him, every verse ends with the words, 
 visvasmad Indra uttara/?, 'Indra is greater than 
 
 * Hihheri Lectures, p. 293. 
 
188 LECTUEE viri. 
 
 all.' Of Variiria it is said that he is lord of all^ of 
 heaven and earth, that he is king of gods and men, 
 that he rules the world, that he knows the past and 
 the future, and that he rewards the virtuous and 
 punishes the evil-doer. Nor is this character of 
 supremacy ascribed to such mighty gods only as 
 Inilra and yaru7ia. Soma, a god of whose original 
 character we perceive but few traces in the Veda, and 
 who has become identified simply with an intoxi- 
 cating drink u^ed at the sacrifice, is nevertheless 
 praised as the king of heaven and earth, of men and 
 gods, the giver of life, nay, the giver of immortality. 
 
 Let us now return to Agni. Let us remember that 
 Agni was at first simply ignis, the fire. It was a 
 name for certain luminous manifestations, compre- 
 hended under the name of Agni, which, so far as we 
 know, meant originally not much more than agiley 
 quickly moving. 
 
 The General Name of Deity. 
 
 Let us remember also that, in accordance with the 
 fact that most words are formed from roots, and most 
 roots are expressive of human acts^ Agni, the agile, 
 had to be conceived and named as an agent, an actor, 
 thouoh nothinoj was said as to who that actor was. 
 It was enough that he was known and named from 
 
 o 
 
 one of his manifestations as a quick mover or runner. 
 Other names and epithets were added from time to 
 time to make him better known and better named in 
 every one of his modes of acting and modes of being, 
 but he always remained Agni, the quick. 
 
 We saw also that one of his earliest epithets was 
 deva, bright, and that he shared that epithet with 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 189 
 
 many other unknown agents, the sun, the sky, the 
 dawn, and others, who were all called Dcvas, the 
 bright. Now it is clear that when a number of 
 different objects are comprehended under the same 
 name, that name becomes ijjso facto a general name. 
 These general names mark a most important period in 
 the growth of language, and, what is the same, in the 
 growth of the human mind. Individual objects, when 
 brought under a general name, are divested for the 
 time of their distinguishing features, and named or 
 known by one prominent feature only, which they all 
 share in common, and which is expressed by the 
 general name. On the other hand, the general name, 
 applied to them all becomes likewise less definite than 
 it was when applied to one object only, so that in 
 the end it expresses not much more than some very 
 general quality shared in common by a number of 
 otherwise quite different beings. 
 
 When Agni, fire, was called deva, bright, there 
 •could be little doubt what was meant. But Avhen the 
 sun, the sky, the dawn, the day, the spring, and the 
 rivers were all called deva, the brightness they shared 
 in common had become, if I may say so, a very diluted 
 brightness. On the other hand, the different objects 
 or agents, now comprehended under the name of 
 Devas, had so far to surrender their respective 
 characters, or their peculiar modes of agency, that 
 when they had all alike become conceived as Devas, 
 deva could mean hardly more than sunny, cheerful, 
 kind, and beneficent. If then Agni, fire, and Dyaus, 
 the sky, and Ushas, the dawn, and all the rest were all 
 called Devas, or sunny, cheerful, kind, and beneficent 
 agents, unknown agents, powerful agents, never 
 
190 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 ceasing, never dying, immortal agents, — "had not tlie 
 word Deva then reached very nearly the general or 
 abstract meaning of gods, at least of what we call 
 the gods of the ancient world ? 
 
 Evolution of Concepts. 
 
 So far, I think, it will be admitted that nothing of 
 what is called supernatural, no miracles in the modern 
 sense of that word, no superhuman revelation were 
 required to account for the simple and perfectly in- 
 telligible evolution of the concept of deity. What 
 should we give if in any realm of nature we could 
 watch that wonderful process of evolution, of growth 
 or development, so clearly as here in the realm of 
 thought ? If some students of physical science come 
 to us and tell us of the great discovery of evolution in 
 the nineteenth century, and express a hope that we 
 also, we poor metaphysicians, and psychologists, and 
 philologists should become evolutionists, one hardly 
 knows what to say. 
 
 What have we been doing all this time but trying 
 to understand how things have become what they are, 
 how from a few roots language, by an uninterrupted 
 growth, developed into the endless varieties, now 
 scattered all over the world ; how from a few simple 
 concepts the infinitude of thought was evolved which 
 represents the intellectual wealth of mankind ; and 
 how philosophers, as distant from one another as 
 Kant and Thales, are nevertheless held together by 
 an unseen chain in the historical march that led them 
 nearer and nearer to the truth. 
 
 Eeally, to be told, as we were lately by Professor 
 
AGNI AS INVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTEK. 191 
 
 Romanes in his Origin of Human Faculty, p. ?40, 
 that ' the idea that language was the result ot 
 natural growth could not be appreciated in its full 
 significance, before the advent of the general theory of 
 evolution/ that ' till the middle of the present century 
 the possibility of language having been the result of a 
 natural growth, Avas not sufficiently recognised,' and 
 that it was ' the same year that witnessed the publica- 
 tion of the Origin of Species (1859) which gave to 
 science the first issue of Steinthal's Zeitschrift fur 
 Vdlkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft,' is enough 
 to take away one's breath ^. It is nearly as bad as 
 when Mr. M. Conway tells us that not a single society 
 for the protection of animals existed before the publi- 
 cation of Darwin's book. The Origin of Species ap- 
 peared in 1859 ; the Society for Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals was founded in 1824. The idea of evolution 
 w^as more fully recognised and more clearly defined by 
 the students of language than it has ever been by the 
 students of nature, and they certainly did not wait for 
 the advent in 1859, before explaining what was meant 
 by genealogical, what by morphological classification ; 
 what was meant by dialects (varieties), by families of 
 speech (genera) ; what was meant by the constant elimi- 
 nation of useless words, which is but another and a 
 more correct name for natural selection. If Professor 
 Romanes says, Even Professor Max Muller insists that 
 ' no student of the science of language can be anything 
 but an evolutionist, for, wherever he looks, he sees 
 nothing but evolution going on all around him,' wdiat 
 
 ^ Wilhohn von Humboldt died in 1835. His great work on the 
 Kmoi-Hprache, ^\ii\i the introduction, Uher die VerschiedenJieit dcsviensch- 
 lichen Sprachbaues, appeared in ISotj 40. 
 
192 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 is the meaning of that even? Even before Professor 
 Romanes joined the ranks of evolutionists, I had in 
 the warmest terms greeted the discoveries of Darwin, 
 as a biologist, because they lent such strong support 
 to the theories put forward long ago by comparative 
 philologists, and they enabled them to see many things 
 far more clearly by their analogies with his theories. 
 Unfortunately, Darwin had been misinformed as to 
 the results obtained by the Science of Language, 
 having consulted some personal friends whom he 
 trusted, and who were not quite competent to give 
 the necessary information. It was in the interest of 
 the true theory of evolution, in support of true against 
 false Darwinism, that I published my criticism of 
 Darwin's Views on Language, not as an opponent of 
 the theory of evolution. That theory has no stronger 
 fortress than the Science of Language, of Thought, 
 and of Religion. For it is here that evolution stands 
 before us as a simple fact, and not, as is so often the 
 case in nature, as a mere hope and desire. We have 
 here no missing links, but one perfect and unbroken 
 chain. 
 
 The Hig-hest Concept of Deity. 
 
 And now we have another and a much more impor- 
 tant step to make. Many philosophers, many historians, 
 many students of the evolution of the human mind 
 would readily grant that the human mind, unassisted 
 by any but the great natural miracles by which it 
 finds itself surrounded from the first moments of its 
 conscious life, might have reached the concept of gods, 
 such as we find it in the ancient religions of the world, 
 in what have often been called natural religions as 
 distinct from supernatural religions. But they would 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 193 
 
 demur, if asked to admit that the highest concept of 
 God, such as we find it among Jews, Christians, and 
 possibly among Mohammedans, was within the reach 
 of unassisted human reason. We need not inquire 
 why they should have so strong a Avish that it should 
 be so, and why others should wish with the same 
 intensity that it should not be so. If it can be shown 
 that the highest and purest concept of deity has been 
 the result of a natural and perfectly intelligible 
 evolution, all we have to do is to study the facts which 
 history has preserved to us, and then to draw our own 
 conclusions. Let those who hold that the highest 
 concept of deity is unattainable without a special 
 revelation, put down those attributes of deity which 
 they believe are outside the ken of natural religion. 
 Let us then put by the side of them the divine 
 attributes which are the property of natural religion, 
 and if there remain any that cannot be matched, let us 
 then freely admit that these were unattainable by 
 man as placed in this world, though it is a world of 
 unceasino- miracle and of never-endinoj revelation. 
 
 There is one powerful prejudice against which all 
 believers in evolution have to guard. When we see 
 the last result of an evolution we are loth to identify 
 it with its simple and often apparently very mean 
 beginnings. When we see the mouth of the Thames, 
 which can be as wild and as terrific as the ocean 
 itself, we can hardly believe that it began with the 
 few trickling rills on the south-eastern slope of the 
 Cotswolds. When we look up to the towering branches 
 of an ancient oak tree, we cannot realise how it should 
 have sprung from one of those small decaying acorns 
 that lie scattered round its roots. And when we 
 
 ^2) O 
 
194 . LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 admire the beauty of a full-grown man, we almost 
 shrink from the idea that not many years ago that 
 noblest work of nature was nothing but a plastic cell, 
 undistinguishable, to our eyes at least, from any 
 other cell that might in time develop into a dog or 
 an ape. 
 
 It is the same with our w^ords. Their original mean- 
 ing is often so commonplace and so material that 
 nothing but downright facts can force us to believe that, 
 for instance, such abstract terms as to ijerceive and 
 to conceive are derived from cap'io, to lay hands on a 
 thing. But because aspiTation and inspiration come 
 from the same source as respiration and perspira- 
 tion, they lose nothing of that sublime meaning wdth 
 which in the course of time they have been invested. 
 If, therefore, w^e should find that the highest and 
 purest concept of divinity had slowly been elabo- 
 rated out of the primitive material concept of fire, 
 that would in no w^ay lower the divine concept. On 
 the contrary, it w^ould only serve to impress upon 
 our minds the same lesson W'hich nature teaches us 
 again and again, namely, that the highest achieve- 
 ments are olten connected by a continuous growth 
 wath the meanest beginnings, and that w^e are not 
 to call common or unclean wdiat has been cleansed by 
 the spirit. 
 
 Ag'ni, as Creator, Ruler, Judg-e. 
 
 With these warnings as a preface, let us now 
 watch the latest phases in the growth of Agni. We 
 saw^ him in the Veda as one of many single gods, 
 afterwards as identified wdth other gods whose natuie 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTEK. 195 
 
 and functions he shared. We shall now see him, still 
 with the name of Ao-ni, thouoh with little of his 
 original physical character left, as the Supreme God. 
 
 From an Indian point of view, the idea of a creator 
 of the world is by no means the highest idea of deity. 
 Some Indian philosophers regard the character of a 
 creator, whether explained as a maker, or architect, 
 or operator of any kind, as even incompatible with 
 their subliraest idea of God. But in the Veda, Agni 
 is still distinctly conceived as the creator. In I. 96, 4, 
 it is he who is called ^anita rodasyo/i, the pro- 
 genitor of heaven and earth; and in VII. 5, 7 it is 
 said that he produced all things, bhuvana r/anayan. 
 Sometimes this act of creation is represented as a 
 spreading out of heaven and earth, as in III. 6, 5, lava 
 kratva rodasi a tatantha ; or as a stretching out of 
 heaven and earth like the stretching out of skins, 
 VI. 8; 3; vi /t'armara iva dhishane avartayat, ' he un- 
 folded heaven and earth, like two skins.' At other 
 times it is sail that Agni supported earth and heaven, 
 I. 67, 5, and that he kept heaven and earth asunder, 
 VI. 8,3 ^ 
 
 Being the maker, the creator, the progenitor of the 
 w^orld, he is likewise the supreme lord (samraf/), the 
 king of men (raVya kr/sh^inam manushi>iam, I. 59, 5). 
 Not only does his greatness exceed that of heaven, 
 I. 59, 5, but his wisdom also is infinite. He knows 
 all worlds, III. 55, 10, and his laws cannot be broken 
 (II. 8, 3 ; VI. 7, 5). 
 
 Nor are his moral character and his kindness towards 
 
 ^ Cf. Isaiah xlii. 5, ' Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the 
 heavens, and stretched them out ; he that spread forth the earth and 
 that which cometh out of it.' xl. 22, ' He that stretcheth out the 
 heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.' 
 
 2 
 
196 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 sinful man forgotten. For in IV. 12, 4 he is invoked 
 
 in tlie following terms : 
 
 Yat kit hi te punish atra yavish//;a 
 aAittibhi/i /.akraiia kat kit aga/i, 
 k?/dhi sii asma'ii adite/i anagan 
 VI enaj^si sisratha/i vishvak agne. 
 
 ' If we have committed any sin against thee through human 
 weakness, through thoughtlessness, make us sinless before Aditi, 
 Agni, loosen our misdeeds from us on every side.' 
 
 And those who w^orship him and obey his commands 
 do not prosper here on earth only, but it is believed 
 that he can also impart to them immortality ; I. 31, 7: 
 
 Tvam tam agne amr/tatve 
 uttame martam dadhasi. 
 
 'Thou placest that mortal in the highest immortality.* 
 
 Now, I ask, can we ourselves form a much more 
 sublime conception of the deity than what we see 
 the conception of Agni to have become in the 
 Veda? Of Agni, the fire, there is little, nay, there 
 is nothing left in that supreme god whose laws must 
 be obeyed, and who can at the same time forgive 
 those who have broken his laws, nay, who can pro- 
 mise to those who worship him, eternal life. 
 
 It is quite true that by the side of these sublime 
 conceptions, we find also the most homely and childish 
 ideas entertained of Agni by some of the Vedic poets. 
 But that is not noAV the question. There is an ebb 
 and flow in all religions. At present we want to 
 know the hiohest mark which the tide of Vedic 
 relioion has ever reached, in order to understand what 
 the human mind, left face to face with the natural 
 revelation of this world, can achieve. Trusting to the 
 fragments that have been preserved to us in the Veda, 
 to the remains of the most childish as well as the 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HTS MATEKIAL CHARACTER. 197 
 
 most exalted thoughts, we may say that natural 
 religion, or the natural faculties of man under the 
 dominion of the natural impressions of the world 
 around us, can lead, nay, has led man step by step to 
 the highest conception of deity, a conception that can 
 hardly be surpassed by any of those well-known defi- 
 nitions of deity which so-called supernatural religions 
 have hitherto claimed as their exclusive property. 
 
 What I have just stated are either facts or no facts, 
 but if they are facts, they should be accepted and 
 inwardly digested in the same spirit in which St. Paul 
 accepted and inwardly digested the facts that met his 
 eyes when standing before the very altars of the 
 heathen world. 'Whom ye ignorantly worship,' he 
 said, ' Him declare I unto you,' — not a new god, not a 
 god different in origin from their own, but the same 
 god who had been ignorantly worshipped in the child- 
 hood of the world, who is ignorantly worshipped even 
 now, but for whom the human heart and the human 
 mind have always sought, in the bounds of their 
 habitation, if haply they might feel after him and 
 find him, though he is not far from every one of us. 
 
 The Dark Side of Vedic Religion. 
 
 Let us now look at the dark side of Indian reho-ion. 
 There could be no greater mistake than to attempt to 
 hide it, for that dark side also has many lessons to 
 teach us. 
 
 In the later Sanskrit literature, and in the epic poetry 
 already, there is a decided falling off in the high con- 
 ception of Agni, as the supreme deity, such as we saw it 
 in the Veda. Or, at all events, there is a most puzzling 
 mixture of different conceptions of Agni. In some 
 
198 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 places hie is described as a man. or, if you like, as a 
 god with dark yellow eyes (pingaksha), a red neck 
 (lohitagriva), and seven tongues, that is, flames. He 
 appears in full armour with bow and disc (A'akra), 
 driving along on a chariot drawn by seven red horses. 
 He is one of the eight Vasus, generally the first among 
 them. These Vasus are the bright gods, Agni, fire; 
 Soma, moon; Ahas, day: Anil a, wind; Pratyusha, 
 dawn; Prabhas a, light; Dharafearth"?); andDhruva 
 (sky?). His father is Brahma, his mother Sknd'M. 
 Other fathers and mothers of his are also mentioned, 
 according to the different ways in which fire takes its 
 origin. Sometimes Anila, wind, is called his father; 
 sometimes Apas, the waters, the clouds, his mothers. 
 He is sometimes called his own father, because he was 
 produced from himself and by himself (tanunapat, 
 svayoni, etc.). According to an old tradition Agni 
 is represented as the brother of Dyaus, the sky, and 
 the uncle of Indi-a, who, though perhaps mightier and 
 more popular than Agni, is nevertheless a younger 
 god. Indra is not a Vasu, but a Vasava, a descendant 
 of Vasu, probably of Dyaus. He is more the god of 
 the Brahmans, while Indra is more the god of the 
 Kshatriyas. 
 
 Agni has even his love-affairs, like any of the Greek 
 gods. In the Rig-veda already, I. 66, 8, he is called 
 gkrsih kaninam pati/i ^aninam, the lover of girls, the 
 husband of wives. His wife Svaha often complains 
 about his fancies for other ladies. He fell in love, 
 for instance, with Mahishmati \ the daughter of king 
 Nila, and, as a consequence, the fire on the altars of 
 the palace would never burn except when blown by 
 
 ' Mahabharata II. 30, 1130. 
 
AGNI AS DIVFSTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 199 
 
 the sweet breath of the young princess. The king 
 is much incensed, but as Agni refuses altogether to 
 burn in the palace, except on condition of receiving 
 the princess as his wife, the king has to yield, and 
 Agni becomes his son-in-law and his protector. 
 
 The same story happens a second time, when Agni 
 refuses to burn at the sacrifice of king Duryodhana, 
 unless he gives him his daughter Sudar.^ana. Here 
 also the king has to yield, and Agni, in the form ot 
 a Brahmana, marries the young princess. 
 
 But in spite of this mythological and dramatic 
 colouring which Agni has received, more particularly 
 in the Pura72as and in the ordinary superstitions of 
 the day, the memory of his divine and supreme 
 character has never entirely perished. Agni is known 
 in the Mahabharata ^ also as cmn'present and omni- 
 scient, as the witness of all our acts, whether good 
 or evil. He is conceived, not only as vi&ible, but 
 likewise as invisible, and dwelliug within all things 
 that have life. He is not only the lord of all things, 
 of the world, of gods and men, but the creation of the 
 world is ascribed to him, and it is said of him that he 
 who created the world will, when the time comes (prapte 
 kale), destroy it also (Mahabharata I. 232, 8417): 
 
 Snshfva lokans trin iman havyavaha, 
 kale prapte pa/iasi puna/i samiddha/i, 
 t\a,m sarvasya bhuvanasya prasutis 
 tvam evagne bhavasi puna/i pratishi'/?^,. 
 ' O Havyavaha, thou, having created these three worlds, ripenest 
 them (lit/cookest them) again when thou hast been kindled at the 
 right time. Thou art the origin of the whole world, and thou alone 
 art again its refuge.' 
 
 The purifying power of Agni is frequently put 
 forward, and though he is said to hate all crimes, yet 
 
 ^ Holtzmann, Agni nach den Vorsiellungen des Mahabharata, 1878, p. 5. 
 
200 LECTURE YIII. 
 
 his favour can be gained even by the sinner by prayer 
 and truthfulness. There is a prayer in the Mahabha- 
 rata (II. 30, 11 52) -addressed by Sahadeva to Agni, 
 where we can see the most curious mixture of his 
 mythological and divine characters, and gain a valu- 
 able insight into the chaotic state of religious ideas 
 in the later ages of Hinduism. 
 
 ' O thou whose path is black, this undertaking is 
 for thy sake, adoration be to thee ! Thou art the 
 mouth of the gods, thou art the sacrifice, O purifier ! 
 Thou art called the purifier (pavaka) because thou 
 purifiest, thou art the carrier (havyavahana) because 
 thou earnest the saciificial ofiferings. The Vedas were 
 produced for thy sake, and therefore thou art G^ata- 
 vedas \ O Vibhavasu, thou art /litrabhanu (with 
 brilliant light), Suresa, the lord of gods, Anala (fire), 
 the doorkeeper of heaven, the eater of off'erings, the 
 flaming, the crested. Thou art Vaisvanara (belonging 
 to all men), with dark yellow eyes, the monkey, pos- 
 sessed of great splendour, the father of Kumara (god 
 of war), the holy, the son of Eudra (Rudragarbha), 
 the maker of gold. May Agni give me splendour, 
 Vayu breath, the Earth strength, and the Waters hap- 
 piness! O thou son of the waters, powerful (rata- 
 vedas, lord of gods, mouth of the gods, Agni, do 
 thou purify me by thy truth ! O thou, who art 
 always well worshipped at the sacrifices by Rishis, 
 Brahma77as, gods or demons, do thou purify me by 
 thy truth ! thou, with smoke as thy banner, crested, 
 destroyer of sin, born of wind, always abiding Avithin 
 living things, do thou purify me by thy truth ! ' 
 
 ^ An impossible etymology, resting on a misunderstanding of 
 Agni's Vedic name Gatavedas, i.e. knowing all that exists, like 
 visva-vedas, knowing all things. 
 
AQNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHARACTER. 201 
 
 Such ideas as we here find mixed up together, may 
 seem to us quite incompatible. 
 
 Anthropoitiorphism . 
 
 But we must not forget that the anthropomorphic 
 tendencies in man are well-nigh irresistible. The old 
 commandment, ' Thou shalt not make to th^^self any 
 graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in 
 heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water 
 under the earth,' has been broken by nearly all reli- 
 gions, if not by making likenesses, at least by con- 
 ceiving the Deity in the likeness of man. In the 
 ancient Vedic religion there is no sign as yet of 
 graven images, and though many human qualities are 
 attributed to the gods, they never assumed that 
 plastic human character which they have in Greece. 
 Still, the anthropomorphic tendency was there, par- 
 ticularly in later times. 
 
 The Sage Narada. 
 
 There is a curious legend, preserved by Al-Biruni 
 (I. 116), of an Indian sage, called Narada, a son of 
 Brahman. He had but one desire, that of seeino- 
 God, and used to walk about, holding a stick. If he 
 threw it down it became a serpent, and he was able 
 to work other miracles with it. One day, being en- 
 grossed in meditation on the object of his hopes, he 
 saw a fire from afar. He went towards it, and then 
 a voice spoke to him out of the fire : ' What you de- 
 mand and wish is impossible. You cannot see me 
 save thus.' When Narada looked in that direction, 
 he saw a fiery appearance in something like a human 
 shape. Henceforward it has been the custom to erect 
 idols of certain shapes ! 
 
S02 LECTURE VTII. 
 
 There Is a deep meaning in this story, a conscious- 
 ness of our human weakness to conceive God except 
 in the likeness of man. However, the story may be 
 late, and the writer may possibly have been ac- 
 quainted with the story of Moses. 
 
 Influence of Children on Relig'ion. 
 
 No doubt, the childish legends about the gods may 
 originally have grown up among the uneducated 
 classes ; they may have been intended for children 
 only who could not be fed on stronger food. But 
 what we have learnt in our childhood is surrounded 
 by a halo which often lasts for life, and what is old 
 and has been handed down from mother to child, re- 
 tains a sacredness of its own, often beyond the reach 
 of reflection or argument. We must never forget that 
 all religions, particularly in their earliest stages, re- 
 present the thoughts of the highest and the lowest 
 layers of society, and that many a story told at first 
 in good faith by an old grandmother, may in time 
 become a sacred narrative. 
 
 If all the stories that are told by the common people 
 in Roman Catholic countries about St. Peter, as the 
 doorkeeper of heaven, and his very free-and-easy con- 
 versations wnth God, the Father ; if all the miracles of 
 the childhood of Christ, contained in the spurious 
 Gospels : if all the circumstances attending the sup- 
 posed apparitions of the Virgin in ancient, in me- 
 diaeval, and even in modern times, had been reduced 
 to writing, we should then have something corre- 
 sponding to the silly stories about Agni and other 
 gods which we find in India in the epic poems and in 
 the Purfuias. However, as the level of civilisation 
 
AGNI AS DIVESTED OF HIS MATERIAL CHAEACTER. 203 
 
 and good taste is higher in Europe than it is in India, 
 it is certainly true that in Europe the corruption of 
 religion has never gone so far as in India. There are 
 some portions of the Lible which, I believe, most 
 Christians would not be sorry to miss. But that is 
 nothing in comparison to the absurd and even revolting 
 stories occurring in Sanskrit books which are called 
 sacred. In that respect it is quite true that there is 
 no comparison between our own sacred book, the New 
 Testament, and the Sacred Books of the East. Never- 
 theless, the study of these Sacred Books of the East 
 is full of lessons, and full of warnings. If we see 
 Agni, the god of fire and light, conceived as the 
 highest god, as the soul of the world (fitman), he being 
 in the universe and the universe in him ^, and then 
 read of the same Agni as in love with a young prin- 
 cess, we can learn by an extreme case, how religion, 
 being the common propert}^ of the 3'oung and the old, 
 .of the wise and the foolish, is exposed to dangers 
 from which nothing but perfect freedom of thought 
 and perfect freedom of speech, granted to all its fol- 
 lowers, can save it. But we can also learn another 
 lesson^ namely, that every religion, being the property 
 of the young and the old, the wise and the foolish, 
 must always be a kind of compromise, and that, while 
 protesting against real corruptions and degradations, 
 we must learn to bear with thosa whose language 
 differs from our own, and trust that in spite of the 
 tares that have sprung up during the night, some 
 grains of wheat will ripen towards the harvest in 
 every honest heart. 
 
 * Holtzmann, 1. c, p. 9. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 USEFULNESS OF THE VEDIC RELIGION FOR A COM- 
 PARATIVE STUDY OF OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 
 Agni, Fire, in other Religfions. 
 
 IT would hardly be possible anywhere but in India 
 to discover so complete a collection of fragments 
 with which to reconstruct what I call the biography 
 of the god of fire. Of the early period to Avhich the 
 formation of the name of Agni must be assigned, and 
 of the successive phases of its application to the 
 various manifestations of the beneficial and baneful 
 power of fire, we have no records anywhere but in 
 the Veda. But it must not be supposed that it w as 
 in India only that the god of fire and other gods 
 sprang from the simplest observations of the pheno- 
 mena of nature, and that other nations, more particu- 
 larly the Semitic, began at once wdth abstract names 
 of deity. No language can have abstract names 
 w^ithout something to abstract them from. The great 
 advantage wdiich the Veda offers to us consists in its 
 enabling us to watch the very process of abstraction 
 more fully and more minutely than it can be w^atched 
 anywhere else. 
 
 In the hymns of the Rig-veda there is as yet no 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE YEDIC RELIGION. ^05 
 
 definite system of belief. There is no doubt a uni- 
 formity of thought, but there is at the same time the 
 greatest variety of individual expression. We saw 
 how in some of the hymns Agni was really no more 
 as yet than the name of fire, whether burning on the 
 hearth, or destroying forests, or descending from the 
 sky in the shape of lightning. But we also saw how 
 in other hymns there remained nothing but the name 
 of Agni, while what was meant by it was the omni- 
 potent creator and the omniscient ruler of the world. 
 I think I may say therefore that nowhere in the whole 
 world does ancient literature enable us to study this 
 development of religious thought so fully and so un- 
 interruptedly as in ancient India. 
 
 No Religious Literatxire in Greece and Italy. 
 
 In Greece and in Italy there are some, but not many 
 indications left, that might have opened the eyes of 
 classical scholars as to the real theogony of the Olym- 
 pian gods. But the continuous stratification of re- 
 ligious thought, which is so instructive, and in its 
 teachings so irresistible in the Veda, was broken up 
 in Italy and .Greece, and little is left to us beyond the 
 detritus forming part of a tertiary surface. 
 
 If we turn our e^'es to other countries which claim 
 to be in possession of a very ancient literature, and 
 try to study there also what may be called the 
 geology of theology, we seldom find the documents 
 we really care for, documents exhibiting the actual 
 gi^owth, not the final upshot of religious thought. 
 
 Religion in Egypt. 
 
 In Egypt, for instance, tliere is plenty of religious 
 literature, and plenty of local variety, but every 
 
206 LECTURE IX. 
 
 cluster of mythology and religion, whether in Upper 
 or in Lower Egypt, whether under the earliest or 
 under the latest d^^nasties, seems already finished, 
 systematised, and complete. 
 
 Brug-sch on Egyptian Religion. 
 
 I may quote the words of one of the best Egyptian 
 scholars, Professor Brugsch, who in the introduction 
 to his last work, Tlie Religion of the Old Egyptians 
 (1888), writes: 
 
 'The opinion which has lately been very unre- 
 servedly pronounced, that the Egyptians possessed 
 a kind of village-religion, which assumed different 
 forms in different parts of the country, and was at 
 last reduced to some kind of uniformity by the 
 sophistical wisdom of the priests, is refuted by the 
 texts of the pyramids, in which we perceive both the 
 unity of a general fundamental system and the differ- 
 ences, in details only, of local cults. No one would 
 deny that the mythology of the Egyptians, like that 
 of the Greeks and Romans and other civilised nations 
 of antiquity, arose from simple conceptions closely 
 connected at first with the sky and the general nature 
 of the country; but as far as monuments of mytholo- 
 gical meaning can carry us back in the valley of the 
 Nile, nowhere do they display the faintest traces of 
 those first beo^innino^s, least of all in the later let>-ends 
 and stories of the gods. Everywhere Ave are met by a 
 well-estabhshed system, and local traditions seem only 
 like variegated illustrations of one and the same 
 fundamental conception Avithin a system.^ 
 
 No religion has been represented to us under such 
 different forms as the religion of Egypt. From the 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE VEDIC RELIGION. 207 
 
 days of Herodotus and Manetho to our own days every 
 kind of theory has been proposed as to its origin, its 
 nature, and its purpose. Those Avho know least of the 
 language and literature of that mysterious country 
 have always been most emphatic in their opinions on 
 Egyptian religion. We have been told with equal 
 assurance that the gods of the Egyptians were deified 
 men or deified animals, that their religion w^as fetish- 
 ism and totemism, and that nowhere could sacrificial 
 worship be traced back so clearly to a primitive wor- 
 ship of ancestors as in the original home of mummies 
 and pyramids. That elements of all these beliefs may 
 be discovered in Egypt need not surprise us, con- 
 sidering that they are found in nearly all rehgions, 
 even in those that have not been spread over so large 
 an area and preserved through so many ages as that 
 of Egypt. 
 
 But scholarship surely has its rights, and however 
 much we may admire the achievements of the inner con- 
 sciousness, surely men who have devoted their Kves to 
 the study of Egyptian philology; and to whom hiero- 
 glyphic, hieratic, and demotic texts are as familiar as 
 Greek and Latin, have a right to be listened to, par- 
 ticularly if they are entirely free from predilections in 
 favour of any philosophical system. 
 
 Le Page Renouf on the Gods of Eg^rpt. 
 
 I have quoted the opinion of Professor Brugsch as 
 to the real character of the ancient religion of Egypt. 
 I cannot resist quoting likewise the opinion of Mr. Le 
 Page Renouf, an eminent student of hieroglyphics, 
 wedded to no system of philosophy, nor suspected of 
 any religious bias. And I do so the more readily, 
 
208 LECTURE IX. 
 
 because I am afraid that his words, being contained 
 in the Preface to the Book of the Dead, Facsimile 
 of the Pa2:)yrus of Ani, 1890, have reached but few 
 except students of hieroglyphics. 
 
 ' The beginnings of the Egyptian religion,' he writes 
 (p. 7), ' are anterior, probably by many centuries, to 
 the earliest documents, and we can only speak with 
 certainty of it from a time when the nation had 
 already attained a very high degree of civilisation. A 
 period when the religion was confined to fetishism or 
 to the worship of ancestors is historically unknown. 
 Although many of the gods are mere names to us, we 
 have very accurate knowledge of all the important 
 ones, and those which are not yet understood are 
 certainly of the same nature. 
 
 ' No competent scholar has the lea^t doubt that the 
 Earth and Sky, the Sun, Moon^ and Stars (and certain 
 constellations in particular), Light and Darkness, and 
 the very hours of the day and of the night, were con- 
 sidered as gods^; and that the gods most frequently 
 mentioned, Seb, Nu, Nut, Ra, Tmu, Horus, are personi- 
 fications of physical phenomena. And no greater 
 names than these can be found.' 
 
 And again : ' The mythology of Egypt had its origin 
 exactly like the mythologies of other nations known 
 to us. All proper names were originally appellatives, 
 and every name is derived from one only of the attri- 
 butes or characteristics of an object. And as every 
 object has several attributes, or may be considered 
 from various points of view, it is susceptible of various 
 names. Hence arise in some languages the many 
 synonyms (often poetical or metaphorical) for such 
 objects as island, river, horse, serpent, camel, sword, 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE VEDIC RELIGION. 209 
 
 gold. It is evident that in countries where the 
 powers of nature are the objects of worship, the same 
 power is liable to be called by very ditierent names. 
 This is especially likely to be the case when the popu- 
 lation is distributed over a large extent of country, 
 with local worships under the superintendence of 
 priesthoods independent of each other. The myths 
 arising either from the name of the god, or from the 
 phenomena which he personified, would necessarily 
 vary according to locality. And this diversity would 
 continue even when, at a later period of intercourse 
 between the different parts of the country, many of 
 the local worships and mythologies had come into 
 general acceptance. No attempt was then made at 
 harmonising contradictions, and all attempts which 
 have more recently been made to exhibit a consistent 
 system, whether of Greek, Indian, or Egyptian mytho- 
 logy, spring from a radical misconception of the 
 nature of a myth. When we know who the gods 
 really are, the myths about them are perfectly intel- 
 ligible.' 
 
 Unless these statements, emanating from real 
 scholars, can be proved to be erroneous, it seems 
 that we have a right to say that, as in India so in 
 Egypt, the concept of something divine arose first 
 from a contemplation of the wonderful activities ot 
 nature, and that when other objects were deified, this 
 meant that they were, more or less consciously, placed 
 within the boundaries of the same concept^. If the 
 Egyptians could not mummify without having their 
 rtium, or some similar substance answering the same 
 purpose, neither could they deify, unless they were 
 
 * Hibhert Lectures, p. 265. 
 (2) P 
 
210 LECTURE IX. 
 
 beforehand in possession of a dens, or something 
 divine. 
 
 Religion in Babylon and Assyria. 
 
 We should have expected most valuable light on 
 the oiigin and the growth of religious conceptions 
 from Babylon and Nineveh. But, in spite of the 
 Avonderful discoveries that have been made among 
 the recently disinterred ruins of palaces with their 
 archives, and temples with their libraries, all is for 
 the present chaotic and shifting. The very bef-.t 
 scholars confess that they cannot tell Avhat may be 
 Accadian or Sumerian, and what may be Babylonian 
 or Assyrian, in the religious phraseology of the in- 
 scriptions, while the very names and gender of the 
 gods vary from ytar to year. Much, no doubt, will 
 in time be brought to light by the indefatigable dis- 
 coverers and decipherers of Mesopotamian antiquities ; 
 but the student of religion who should venture to sup- 
 port his theories by facts taken from cuneiform sources, 
 w^ould find that these supports have to be renewed 
 or changed from year to year^ I say this from per- 
 sonal experience, and without any disparagement ; — on 
 the contrary, I think we ought to recognise in it the 
 best proof of the rapid progress of cuneiform studies. 
 
 ^ A A'^ry excellent resume of what was known of the ancient Baby- 
 lonian religion in 1887 may be seen in Prof. Sayce's Hibbert Lectures. 
 These lectures are particularly useful because they are honest in 
 acknowledging the present state of knowledge, with its inevitable 
 uncertainties. On p. 6 we read : * Unfortunately, in the present 
 state of our knowledge, it is sometimes impossible to tell to which 
 of these two classes of texts a document belongs, and yet upon the 
 right determination of the question may depend also the right de- 
 termination of the development of Babylonian religion.' On p. 105 
 we are told that it is doubtful whether the principal deity of Baby- 
 lon, Bel Merodach, was Accadian or Semitic, whether Marudak 
 (Me'rodach) was an Accadian or a Semitic name (p. 106). 
 
usefulnp:ss of the vedic religion. 211 
 
 Where to study the Historical Growth of Religious Ideas. 
 
 It Avonld be easy to collect from Egyptian and 
 Babylonian sources some striking parallels to the 
 development of Agni, which we have traced in the 
 Veda, but we must leave this for a later lecture. 
 Among uncivilised nations also the worship of fire 
 in its various phases, from the lowest to the highest, 
 can be and has been studied by some of our best 
 anthropologists. But here, even more than in Egypt 
 and Babylon and other countries which possess lite- 
 rary documents of various dates, the opportunities of 
 studying the problem which occupies us at present 
 are totally wanting. We find there also nothing but 
 results. We see the last surface of religious belief, 
 but we have no means of piercing one inch beneath 
 that surface. Fortified by our experience, derived 
 chiefly from the Veda, Ave may guess at the ante- 
 cedents of the actual beliefs of uncivilised races. We 
 may apply the general principle of ' like results, like 
 causes.' But we shall have to do this with the 
 greatest caution, for the human mind, which is, after 
 all, the only soil of religious ideas, is least amenable 
 to generalisation, and in the growth of religion, 
 though the determining influence of the masses must 
 not be forgotten, the power of the individual is im- 
 mense, and often withdraws itself from all calcu- 
 lation. 
 
 The Old Testament. 
 
 We should naturally have expected the most useful 
 information as to the natural growth of the concept 
 of deity in the various books of the Old Testament. 
 They profess to give us an account of the earliest 
 
 P 2 
 
212 LECTURE IX. 
 
 intercourse between man and God, from the days when 
 we are told that Adam and Eve heard the voice of the 
 Lord God \A^lking in the garden in the cool of the day 
 (Gen. iii. 8), to the time when Moses was told that 
 no man can see God and live (Ex. xxxiii. SO). 
 
 But you know how difficult, nay, how impossible 
 it is^ in the present state of Biblical criticism, to use 
 the single books of the Old Testament for historical 
 purposes. I need hardly remind you that by the 
 students of the Science of Eeligion the Old Testa- 
 ment can only be looked upon as a strictly historical 
 book by the side of other historical books. It can 
 claim no privilege before the tribunal of history, nay, 
 to claim such a privilege would be to really deprive 
 it of the high position which it justly holds among 
 the most valuable monuments of the distant past. 
 But, at present, the authorship of the single books 
 which form the Old Testament, and more particularly 
 the dates at which they were reduced to writing, 
 form the subject of keen controversy, not among 
 critics hostile to religion, whether Jewish or Chiistian, 
 but among theologians who treat these questions in 
 the most independent, but, at the same time, the most 
 candid and judicial spirit. By this treatment many 
 difficulties^ which in former times disturbed the minds 
 of thoughtful theologians, have been removed^ and 
 the Old Testament has resumed its rightful place 
 among the most valuable monuments of antiquity. 
 It is now often invoked to confirm the evidence of 
 cuneiform and hieroglyphic inscriptions, instead of 
 having to invoke the testimony of these inscriptions 
 in its own support. But all this was possible on 
 one condition only, namely, that the Old Testament 
 
USEFULNESS OP THE VEDTC RELIGION. 213 
 
 should be treated simply as an historical book, willing 
 to submit to all the tests of historical criticism to 
 which other historical books have submitted. 
 
 But what the student of the history, that is, of the 
 continuous growth of religion, looks for in vain in the 
 books of the Old Testament are the successive staoes 
 in the development of religious concepts. He does not 
 know which books he may consider as more ancient 
 or more modern than other books. He asks in vain 
 how much of the religious ideas reflected in certain of 
 these books may be due to ancient tradition, how 
 much to the mind of the latest Avriter. In the third 
 chapter of Exodus God is revealed to Moses on Mount 
 Horeb, not only as the supreme, but as the only God. 
 But we are now told by competent scholars that 
 Exodus could not have been written down till prob- 
 ably a thousand years later than Moses. How then 
 can we rely on it as an accurate picture of the 
 thoughts of Moses and his contemporaries ? It has 
 been said with great truth ^ that ' it is almost im- 
 possible to believe that a people who had been eman- 
 cipated from superstition at the time of the Exodus, 
 say 1491, and bad again and again proved the evils 
 of idolatry and been driven to repentance, and who 
 had been all along taught to conceive God as the one 
 universal spirit existing only in truth and righteous- 
 ness, and justice, and mercy, should be found at the 
 time of Josiah, in 621, nearly nine hundred years 
 later, steeped in every superstition, and permitting 
 among themselves the perpetration of all the crimes, 
 known to the false and barbarous forms of worship.' 
 Still, if the writings of the Old Testament were con- 
 
 '■ A. 0. Butler, What Moses saiv and heard, p. 83. 
 
214 LECTURE IX. 
 
 sidered as contemporaneous \Yith the events whicli they 
 relate, this retrogressive movement in the religion of 
 the Jews would have to be accepted. 
 
 Most of these difficulties, however, are removed, or, 
 at all events, considerably lessened, if we accept the 
 results of modern Hebrew scholarship, and remember 
 that though the Old Testament may contain very 
 ancient traditions, they probably were not reduced to 
 writing till the middle of the fifth century B. c, and 
 may have been modified by and mixed up with ideas 
 belonging to the age of Ezra. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss questions of Hebrew 
 scholarship, and yet it is of extreme importance for 
 us to know whether we may, or, in fact, whether we 
 must take into account the books of the Old Testa- 
 ment in studying the growth of religious ideas. 
 What w^ould the student of religion give, if he could 
 really feel sure that he was reading in the books of 
 Moses the thoughts of humanity 1500 B.C. All our 
 ideas of the historical growth of religious ideas, among 
 Semitic nations at least would have to be modified, 
 whereas at present, unless we can fix the date of 
 each individual book of the Old Testament, our only 
 safe course is to leave this most important collection 
 of sacred documents aside, the very collection from 
 which formerly all our ideas of the ancient history of 
 religion used to be formed. 
 
 It sometimes happens, however, that researches 
 carried on for quite difierent purposes, suddenly cross 
 the path of other inquiries, and help in settling ques- 
 tions with which they were originally unconnected. 
 The same has happened in our case. 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE YEDIC RELIGION. 215 
 
 Zuventiou of Alphabetic Writing". 
 
 Thanks to the genius of De Rouge, and the sub- 
 sequent labours of Lenormant and Brugsch, there can 
 be no doubt — at leasfc, I cannot see how there could 
 be — that what we call the Plienician letters, and what 
 the Greeks also very honestly called the Phenician 
 letters, were derived from hieratic hieroglyphics. 
 I cannot at present explain the whole process by 
 which out of a large number of hieroglyphic signs 
 about twenty-two were selected to serve as alphabetic 
 letters, as consonants and vowels. Nor has it been 
 possible to fix the exact date at which this process 
 took place, though such evidence as there is points, 
 according to De Eouge, to about 1000 b. c. But it is 
 a matter of history that we have no evidence of 
 alphabetic V\^riting, even for the purpose of inscrip- 
 tions, much less for the puipose of the composition 
 of books, till about the time of king Mesha, whose 
 famous inscription dates from the ninth century B. c.^ 
 
 Between the use of writing^ for monumental or even 
 for commercial and epistolary purposes, and the use 
 of writing for literary purposes, however, there is 
 everywhere a gulf of centuries. In fact we may say, 
 so far as our knowledge extends at present, that 
 there is no historical evidence of any hook in alpha- 
 betic writing before the seventh century b. c. 
 
 * I do not take account here of the ancient inscriptions discovered 
 by Euting, Glaser, and others in Arabia. Their dates are as yet 
 too much a matter of controversy. Dr. Glaser refers the Minaean 
 alphabet to 2(iu0 to 8000 b.c. Professor D. H. Miiller places it from 
 6(H) B.C. to 600 A. D. On the other hand Dr. Miiller takes the Libyan 
 alphabet to be more primitive than the Sabaeo-Minaean, while Dr. 
 Glaser makes it post-Christian, 150 to 47o a.d. Under these circum- 
 stances it is surely wise to wait. See AUgemeim Zeitung, Nos. 36, 3?. 
 1890. 
 
216 LECTURE IX. 
 
 To suppose therefore that Moses could have written 
 a book in Hebrew, and with a Semitic alphabet, 
 would be to antedate the writing of books by nearly 
 a thousand years, and the employment of alphabetic 
 writing in general by more than 500 years. 
 
 If Moses wrote at all, if he actually held a book 
 and read it in the audience of the people (Exod. 
 xxiv. 7), he could only, learned as he was in all the 
 learning of the Egyptians, have written in hiero- 
 glyphics, but certainly not in the Phenician alphabet. 
 The very tables of the law could not have been traced , 
 with any but hieroglyphic or hieratic letters, for the 
 simple reason that our Phenician alphabet, so far as 
 we know at present, did not exist before 1000 B.C., 
 if so early. Of course, the arguments which are 
 used in support of this conclusion may be contro- 
 verted. One single inscription, in Phenician or 
 Semitic letters, found in Egypt or Arabia might by 
 its date upset our conclusions as to the date of the 
 invention of alphabetic writing. But what will hardly 
 ever be upset is our conviction that books in alpha- 
 betic letters were a far more recent invention^ and 
 existed nowhere before the seventh century B. c. 
 
 The Sixtli Century B. C. 
 
 It has been truly said that a more interesting 
 history of the world might be written if, instead ot 
 being divided according to the domination of par- 
 ticular dynasties or the supremacy of particular races, 
 it were cut off into departments, indicated by the in- 
 fluence of particular discoveries upon the destinies 
 of mankind ^ You would have the epochs marked 
 
 * See speech by Lord Salisbury, in Times, Nov. 4, 1889. 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE VEDIC RELIGION. 
 
 217 
 
 Old E(/tjptian WiUln^ 
 
 Fhmiciait 
 Jljihalcl 
 
 Greek Alphcilet 
 
 Latin 
 Alpliald 
 
 Iliemjli/pliic 
 
 Hieratic 
 
 J. occ a c 
 
 Old 
 
 Modern 
 
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 A 
 
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 ^ 
 
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 From Brugsch. 
 
218 LECTURE IX. 
 
 by the discovery of gunpowder, of the printing press, 
 of the steam engine, of electricity in modern times ; 
 and you ^YOuld have in ancient times the epochs 
 marked by the discovery of tire, of bronze, of iron, 
 and of alphabetic writing for literary purposes. 
 
 But if the introduction of written books marks an 
 epoch in the history of civilisation, we ought to be 
 able to discover clear traces of it in the principal 
 countries of the world. Now you know the wonder- 
 ful intellectual activity of the sixth century b. c. in 
 every part of the civilised world. Between 600 and 
 500 B. c. w^e have in Asia the foundation of the Persian 
 Empire, with Cyrus and Darius Hydaspes, the restorer 
 of the Zoroastrian faith. We have in Asia Minor the 
 rise of the Ionian republics, and the sudden burst of 
 Greek philosophy, Greek poetry, nay even Greek 
 history. Not only Tliales (solar eclipse, 585), Anaxi- 
 mander (612-546) and Anaximenes, but Pythagoras 
 (t 510), Xenophanes, Herakleitos, and Parmenides all 
 belonged to that great century. Greek lyric poetry 
 burst forth in the sonojs of TheoQ-nis, Simonides, and 
 Anakreon ; ancient laws began to be collected by 
 Solon and others, and towards the close of the 
 century we hear of Pisistratus (f 528) collecting 
 manuscripts of the Homeric songs, as they had been 
 recited at the great Panathenaic festivals. The Loofo- 
 graphi of that time w^ere actual ivr'ders of chronicles, 
 and tlie immediate precursors of real historians^ such 
 as Herodotus. 
 
 Though it is a mere guess it seems to me extremely 
 likely tliat this literary development of the sixth 
 century B. c. was really due to the introduction of 
 alphabetic writing for literary purposes from Egypt 
 
USEFULNESS OP THE VEDIC KELIUION. 219 
 
 and Phenicia to Asia Minor and Fiirr)pe. I doubt 
 whether we can trace the writing down of any of the 
 sacred books of the East to an earlier date than that 
 century, though they, no doubt, existed for centui-ies 
 before that time, preserved by oral traiiition. 
 
 The Zoroastrian texts may have been collected at 
 the time of Darius. The Veda was probably not 
 reduced to writing till much later, and the same 
 applies to the Buddhist canon. In China writing, 
 according to their fashion, may have been known 
 long before, but the collection of the canonical books 
 of Confucius and Laotze belongs again to the sixth 
 century. 
 
 The Old Testament as an Historical Book. 
 
 If then we turn to the books of the Old Testament, 
 we find that they were finally collected by Ezra, 458 
 B, C, who lived about seventy-five years after Darius, 
 the collector of the Zoroastrian code. We must re- 
 member that Ezra had been brought up in Babylon 
 during the reign of Artaxerxes. To suppose that por- 
 tions of the Old Testament existed in the form of books 
 at the time of Moses would run counter to all history. 
 The Jews, we must remember, were far from being a 
 more literary people than their neighbours and to sup- 
 pose that they alone should have possessed a book- 
 literature at a time when all their neighbours had to 
 be satisfied with oral tradition, or with hieroglyphic 
 inscriptions, hieratic papyri^ and cuneiform cylinders, 
 is more than at present any historian can admit \ 
 
 But thouo'h in usino; the books of the Old Testament 
 we must always be on our guard against intellectual 
 
 » See Appendix XIII. 
 
220 LECTURE IX. 
 
 anachronisms, due to the inevitable colouring which 
 the mind of the collector and final redactor may have 
 thrown on the character of a book, the traditions, as 
 finally collected by Ezra, and before him by the High 
 Priest, Hilkiah. hardly allow us to doubt that a belief 
 in one Supreme God, even if at first it was only a 
 henotheistic, and not yet a monotheistic belief, took 
 possession of the leading spirits of the Jewish race at 
 a very early time. All tradition assigns that belief in 
 One God, the Most High, to Abraham. According to 
 the Old Testament, Abraham, though he did not deny 
 the existence of the gods worshipped by the neigh- 
 bouring tribes, yet looked upon them as diflferent from, 
 and as decidedly inferior to, his own God. His mono- 
 theism was, no doubt, narrow. His God was the friend 
 of Abraham, as Abraham was the friend of God. Yet 
 the concept of God formed by Abraham was a con- 
 cept that could grow and that did grow. Neither 
 Moses, nor the Prophets, nor Christ himself, nor 
 even Mohammed, had to introduce a new God. Their 
 God was always called the God of Abraham, even 
 when freed from all that Avas still local and narrow 
 and superstitious in the faith of that patriarch. 
 
 Monotheistic Instinct of the Semitic Race. 
 
 It is well known that some excellent Semitic 
 scholars, and more particularly Penan, find the ex- 
 planation of this early monotheistic belief of the 
 Father of the Faithful in what they call the mono- 
 theistic instinct of the whole Semitic race. That 
 theory, however, even if it explained anything, is 
 flatly contradicted by all the facts that have come 
 to light in the early history of the Semitic nations. 
 
USEFULNESS OF THE YEDIC RELIGION. 221 
 
 If there was any religious instinct in them, it was 
 a polytheistic instinct, as we see in the monuments 
 of Babylon and Nineveh, in the traditions of Arabia, 
 and even in the constant backslidings of the Jews. 
 
 Abraham. 
 
 Many years ago, in one of my earliest essays on 
 Semitic Monotheism (1860), I tried to show, in oppo- 
 sition to Renan's view, that the Jewish belief in One 
 Supreme God must be traced back, like all great 
 ideas, to one person, namely to Abraham, and that, 
 in his case, it could not be ascribed to a natioaal 
 instinct, which rather would have led him in the very 
 opposite direction, but on the contrary, to his personal 
 opposition to the national instinct, or to "what I 
 ventured to call, in the truest sense of the \vord, a 
 special revelation. For that expression I have been 
 taken to task again and again during the last thirty 
 years, though I thought I had made it very clear in 
 all my writings what I meant by a special revelation, 
 not a theophany, but 'a profound insight, an in- 
 spired vision of truth, so deep and so living as to 
 make it a reality hke that of the outward world ^,' 
 nay, more than that of the outward world. Such a 
 revelation can, by its very nature, be granted to one 
 man only, can be preached by one man only, with 
 the full faith in its reality, and this man, as far as 
 the religion of Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans 
 is concerned, w^as Abraham. 
 
 But although Abraham may have attained at a very 
 early time to his sublime conception of the One God, 
 
 ^ These are the words in which my defence was undei-taken by 
 J. F. Clarke in his Ten Great BcJigioxs, p. 403. 
 
222 LECTURE IX. 
 
 the Most High God, freed from the purely physical 
 characteristics which adhere to the gods of other 
 nations, we can see very clearly that in this sublime 
 conception he stood almo. t alone and that the gods 
 of the Jews, and of the Semitic nations in general, 
 had once been gods of nature, quite as much as the 
 gods of India. 
 
 If we saw tlie account of the appearance of Jehovah 
 on mount Sinai in the sacred books of any other 
 religion, we should have little doubt that the God, as 
 there described, was originally a god of fire and 
 thunder. 'In the morning,' we rear], 'there were thun- 
 ders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount. 
 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because 
 the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke 
 thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the 
 Avhole mount quaked greatly.' 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 What is told of Elijah and of his vision on mount 
 Horeb is like an epitome of the whole growth of 
 the Jewish religion in general. We read that 'the 
 Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent 
 the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before 
 the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind. 
 
 And after the wind an eaithquake : but the Lord 
 was not in the earthquake. 
 
 ' And after the earthquake a fij'e ; but the Lord was 
 not in the fire. 
 
 ' And after the fire a still, small voice.' 
 
 What we should have expected in any other sacred 
 book, at the end of this description of a storm, would 
 have been the loud, strong voice of the thunder. 
 
USEFUr>NESS OF THE VEDIC RELIGION. 223 
 
 following after the storm, and the earthquake, and 
 the lire of lightning. But the still small voice shows 
 that Elijah saw more than the mere physical features 
 of the storm, and that the voice which he heard was 
 meant for a higher voice that speaks not only in the 
 storm, the earthquake, and the fire, but in the heart 
 of man. 
 
 The God of Fire in the Old Testament. 
 
 The highest authorities on the religious antiquities 
 of the Semitic peoples, and of the Jewish people in 
 particular, have expressed their conviction that the 
 physical characteristics of their principal God point 
 to an original god of fire, taking fire in the same 
 wide sense in which it was taken in India, not only 
 as the fire on earth, but as the fire of heaven, the 
 fire manifested in storm and lightning, nay, the fire 
 as the life of nature and of man. In this w^ay only, 
 they think, can we account for the poetical phraseo- 
 logy still found in man}^ places of the Old Testament. 
 For instance. Psalm xviii. 8 : 
 
 ' There went up a smoke out of liis nostrils, 
 And fire out of his mouth devoured ; 
 Coals were kindled by it. 
 
 He bowed the heavens also, and came down. 
 And thick darkness was under his feet.' 
 
 Or again. Psalm xxix. 3 : 
 
 ' The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, 
 The glory of God thundereth, 
 Even the Lord, upon many waters.' 
 
 But though we can clearly perceive in these and 
 similar passages that there were physical ingredients 
 in the character of the supreme God of the Jews, 
 nowhere but in the hynms of the Veda can we watch 
 
224 LECTURE IX. 
 
 the gradual elimination of these physical ingredients, 
 and the historical unfolding of the true idea of God 
 out of these primitive germs. I know full well that 
 to some any attempt to trace back the name and 
 concept of Jehovah to the same hidden sources from 
 which other nations derived their first intimation of 
 deity, may seem almost sacrilegious. They forget the 
 difference between the human concept of the deity and 
 the deity itself, which is beyond the reach of all human 
 concepts. But the historian reads deeper lessons in 
 the growth of these human concepts, as they spring 
 up everywhere in the minds of men who have been 
 seekers after truth — seeking the Lord, if haply they 
 might feel after him and find him ; — and when he can 
 show the slow, but healthy growth of the noblest and 
 sublimest thoughts out of small and apparently in- 
 significant beginnings, he rejoices as the labourer 
 rejoices over his golden harvest : nay^ he often wonders 
 what is more truly wonderful, the butterfly that soars 
 up to heaven on its silvery wings, or the grub that 
 hides within its mean chrysalis such marvellous possi- 
 bilities. 
 
T 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 
 Pire widely Worshipped. 
 
 HOUGH we cannot hope to find in other religions 
 any documents in which to study, as we can in 
 the Veda, the successive stages through which the 
 worship of fire passed from its simplest beginnings, as 
 the fire on the hearth, to its highest stage, as the 
 creator and ruler of the world, we may at all events 
 try to collect some fragments of the worship of Fire, 
 preserved in other religions, whether united genea- 
 logically with the Vedic religion or independent in 
 their origin. 
 
 Next to the worship of the sun. there is probably 
 no religious worship so widely diffused as that of 
 Fire. 'Since there has been fire, it has been wor- 
 shipped,' is a saying of Bashshar Ibu Burd, quoted 
 by Al-Biruni (vol. ii. p. 131). But we must distin- 
 guish. Fire has been worshipped for very different 
 reasons, and the very name of worship comprehends 
 many heterogeneous kinds of- reverence, esteem, grati- 
 tude, and even prudential considerations, which were 
 called forth by the benefits and services rendered by 
 fire to the difterent races of man. Nevertheless, I 
 
 (2) Q 
 
226 LECTURE X. 
 
 believe Ave shall find that there is nothing, or very 
 little, in the religious, philosophical, and m^^^thological 
 conceptions of fire, whether entertained by civilised 
 or uncivilised, by ancient or modern races, that does 
 not find some analogy, and, to a great extent, some 
 explanation, in the rich religious, philosophical, and 
 mythological phraseology of India. 
 
 Fire in the A vesta. 
 
 The nearest relations of the ancient Aryas of India 
 were no doubt the Aryas of Media and Persia, of 
 whose religion we obtain some interesting, though 
 fragmentary, information from the Zend-avesta. The 
 idea, once so prevalent, that their religion consisted 
 entirely of Fire-worship has long been surrendered 
 by scholars, though it crops up again and again in 
 popular writings. From the first acquaintance with 
 the original texts of their sacred writings, it became 
 clear that Fire occupied only a subordinate place in 
 their religious system. 
 
 If we call the religion of Zoroaster fire-worship, we 
 must apply the same name to the religion of India, 
 nay even to the religion of the Jews. Almost every 
 religion which recognises burnt offerings, exhibits at 
 the same time a more or less prominent reverence for 
 the sacrificial fire itself. To outsiders in particular, 
 and to casual observers, the fires burning on the 
 altars of temples or on the hearth of every house 
 seem to be the principal manifestation of religious 
 worship and of religious faith. Thus it happened 
 that, like the religion of Persia, that of India also 
 was often represented as fire-worship. Al-Biruni, for 
 instance (vol. i. p. l!i8; vol. ii. p. 139), declares that 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 227 
 
 the Rig-veda treats of the sacrifices to the fire, as it 
 it treated of nothing else. He is, however, more 
 correct when he states (vol. ii. p. 131) 'that the Hindus 
 highly venerate the fire, and offer flowers to it,' 
 though we ought to remember that there are many 
 things besides flowers which were sacrificed in and 
 to the fire. 
 
 Ormazd, not Fire. 
 
 In the Zend-avesta Agni, as a separate god of fire, 
 occupies in fact a far less prominent place than in 
 the Veda. The real object of veneration Avith 
 Zoroaster and his followers was Ahura-mazda, whom 
 we call Ormazd. Ahura-mazda was a deity whoso 
 deepest roots we shall discover in the concepts of 
 heaven, light, and wisdom. He was not Fire, though 
 he is often represented as the father of Fire. This 
 shows his close relationship with the Vedic Dyaus, 
 the sky, who was likewise conceived as the father of 
 Agni. 
 
 Atar, Fire. 
 
 The name of fire in Zend, however, is not Agni, 
 but Atar. a word which in Sanskrit is supposed to 
 exist in the name Athar-van, one of the early sages 
 who kept the fire, the supposed ancestor of the family 
 of the Atharvans, to whom, as we saw, the Atharva- 
 veda was attributed. It is sometimes used also as 
 a name of Agni himself. The word atar has no 
 etymology, so far as we know \ whether in Sanskrit 
 or in Zend. 
 
 * Darmesteter, Oi-mazd et Ahriman, p. 55, note. That athar in 
 athar-van is tlie same word as atar may be conceded. In Zend 
 ftthravan has long, a than run sliort a. Tlic Vedic athar i also, 
 and atharyu, may be connected with athar, and possibly the 
 
228 LECTURE X. 
 
 It seemed strange to students of the Parsi religion 
 that A tar, fire, should be the son of Ahura-mazda, 
 and that his mother, the wife of Ahura-mazda, should 
 be water. From what we now know, however, from 
 the Rig-veda, this becomes perfectly intelligible. 
 Fire is the son of the sky, whether in his character 
 of the sun or of lightning, and he is the son of the 
 waters, whether as rising from the clouds in the 
 morning, or as issuing from the clouds as lightning 
 in a thunderstorm \ 
 
 Atar's right with Adl Dahaka. 
 
 This A tar or fire in the Avesta represents in some 
 respects both Agni and Indra, for the battle against 
 A^i Dahaka, the fiendish snake, is w^aged in the 
 Avesta by Atar alone, who frightens the fiend away 
 and recovers the light (/ivareno). Trita, who in the 
 Veda takes sometimes the place of the conqueror of 
 the fiend, is called Aptya, the descendant of the 
 waters, which shows his close connection with Agni, 
 as A pa m napat, the offspring of the waters or the 
 clouds, that is, the lightning. In the Avesta this 
 Trita appears as Thraetaona Athwya, who kills 
 A2;i Dahaka in the four-cornered Varena, originally 
 a name of the sky, corresponding to Greek ovpavos, 
 and Sanskrit Varur^a. 
 
 This battle between Agni or Trita and Ahi in the 
 Veda, between Atar or Thraetaona and A^i Dahaka 
 
 Greek ddpayivr), a tree of which tinder was made. 'AOiqp also in the 
 sense of the point of a weapon might be related, but not so ' AOrjvri, 
 which comes from a very different source. 
 
 ^ Apam napat is distinguished in the Avesta from Atar, but is 
 often mentioned in close connection with him ; see Vispered, 
 VII. 0. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEITED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 229 
 
 in the Avesta, which was originally a purely mytho- 
 logical reprc^jentation of the battle between light and 
 darkness, whether in a thunderstorm or in the diurnal 
 struggle between day and night, became after a time 
 a mere leo-end. And it w^as one of Burnouf s most 
 brilliant discoveries that in what was formerly ac- 
 cepted as genuine Persian history, namely the over- 
 throw of king Jemshid by the usurper Zohak, and 
 the overthrow of Zohak by Feridun, he recognised 
 once more our old Vedic friends, Trita, A hi, and 
 Yam a, brought down from the sky to the earth, and 
 changed from divine and mythological powers into 
 human and historical characters ^ 
 
 Plurality of Atar. 
 
 When by the side of the one Atar we find also 
 many atars (*S'. B. E. xxiii. 8) mentioned in the Avesta, 
 we have only to remember that in the Veda also 
 there were many agnis or fires, in Avhich the presence 
 of Ao-ni w^as discovered and acknowledoed. This sub- 
 division of Fire was carried on even further in the 
 Avesta than in the Veda. In the Veda w^e can dis- 
 tinguish three fires, sometimes called Agni nirma- 
 thya, fire obtained by rubbing, Agni aushasya, fire 
 rising with the dawn, solar fire, and Agni vaidyuta, 
 the fire of lightning. In the Avesta (Yasna XVII) 
 we meet with five fires: — (1) the fire that was before 
 Ahura-mazda, (2) the fire that dwells in animal bodies, 
 (3) the fire in trees and plants, (4) the fire in the 
 clouds, (5) the domestic fii'e, (6) the Nairya-sangha 
 
 On the changes of Thraetaona into Feridun, of Yima Khshaeta 
 into Jemshid, and of A^i Dahaka into Zohak, see Selected Essays, i. 
 p. 479. 
 
230 LECTUEE X. 
 
 fire, also called the Behram fire, which is to be kept 
 
 burning in temples ^ 
 
 Besides the three principal fires in the Veda, the 
 
 fire obtained by rubbing, the fire of lightning, and 
 
 the fire in the sun, two more are often mentioned, 
 
 the (/a^Aara, that which resides in the stomach and. 
 
 'cooks or digests food, and another that is supposed 
 
 to reside in plants. This identity of the tire on the 
 
 hearth with the fire in the human body was expressed 
 
 with great definiteness by a Shawnee prophet. ' Know,' 
 
 he said, ' that the life in your body and the fire on 
 
 your hearth are one and the same thing, and that 
 
 both proceed from one source ^Z When, however, Agni 
 
 is invoked as residing in all things, and also as a 
 
 witness abiding in our own body, this is not meant 
 
 for the (/a^/iaragni, but involves a higher conception 
 
 of Agni as an omnipresent power. Thus we read, 
 
 Bam. VI. 101, 30:— 
 
 Tvam ague sarvabhutanam sarinintar SLgokarsth, Tvam sakshi 
 nama dehasthas trahi mam devasattama. 
 
 ' Thou, Agni, art invisible inside the body of all creatures, thou 
 art called the witness in the body, save me, best of gods.' 
 
 The Agni residing in the plants, may be the warmth 
 that ripens them (Rv. X. 88, 10, sa/^ oshadhiA pa/.'ati 
 visvarupa/^,) ; but more frequently he is conceived as 
 dwelling within trees and plants, because he can 
 be called forth from them by friction. He is called, 
 VI. 3, 3, ysiuegkh, born in the wood ; II. 1, 14, 
 garbhaA virudham, the child of the plants ; and he 
 is often represented as hidden in certain trees which 
 were used for producing fire. 
 
 1 S. B. E. xxxi. p. 2o8. 
 
 ^ Narrative 0/ John Tanner, p. 161 ; Brinton, Myths of the New World, 
 p. 144. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 231 
 
 The three sacrificial fires are the Garhapatya, Da- 
 kshi»a, and Ahavaiiiya, to which the Avasathya and 
 Sabhya are sometimes added so as to make five. 
 
 Atar, Son of Ormazd. 
 
 But Atar had also a divine personality of his own. 
 His constant name is the son of Ahiira-mazda. He 
 is called a warrior, driving on a blazing chariot 
 (aS'. B. E. xxiii. p. 153), a benefactor, a source of glory 
 and a source of healing (I.e., p. 15). In the Atas Nyagis 
 (1. c, p. 359) we read not only of sacrifices and in- 
 vocations ofi'ered unto Atar, but he himself is called 
 worthy of sacrifice and invocation. He is implored to 
 burn for ever in the house, until the time of the good 
 and powerful restoration of the world. It is said to 
 be well with a man who worships Atar with sacrifices, 
 holding in his hand the sacred wood, the baresma, 
 and the meat. For Atar can bestow not only fulness 
 of life and welfare, but also knowledge, sagacity, 
 quickness of tongue, a good memory, an under- 
 standing that goes on growing and that is not 
 acquired through learning. In a prayer addressed 
 to him the poet says: 'Give me, O Atar, son of 
 Ahura-mazda, however unworthy I am, now and for 
 ever, a seat in the bright, all-happy, blissful abode 
 of the holy ones. May I obtain the good reward, 
 a good renown, a long cheerfulness of soul.' And 
 Atar is supposed to bestow the following blessing on 
 his worshippers : ' May herds of oxen grow for thee, 
 and increase of sons ; may thy mind and thy soul be 
 master of its vow, and mayest thou live on. in. the 
 joy of the soul all the nights of thy life ' (xxiii. p. 360 ; 
 and xxxi. p. 313). 
 
232 LECTURE X. 
 
 DiiFerence between Atar and Agrni. 
 
 Remember all this is addressed to Atar, originally 
 simply a name of fire. It is much the same as what 
 we saw addressed to Agni in the Veda. But there 
 are differences also between the Vedic Agni and the 
 Avestic Atar. We saw that Agni in the Veda was 
 made a sarvabhaksha, a devourer of all things, that 
 he resented the affront, but that in the end everything 
 was supposed to be purified by fire. Thus the Vedic 
 Indians burnt their dead in the fire, and afterwards 
 buried the ashes. To the Zoroastrians both these acts 
 would have seemed sacrilegious, for such was their 
 belief in the holiness of fire and of the earth, that 
 they would have considered both polluted by any 
 contact with unclean things ^. The very breath of 
 man or of woman, which, as we saw, Agni was so 
 fond of, was believed by the Zoroastrians to con- 
 taminate the fire ^, and hence the Paitidana^,a kind 
 of veil worn by the priest, and reaching from the nose 
 to the chin, the modern Penom*. 
 
 1 s. B. E. iv. p. 80. 
 
 - It should be remembered, however, that Manu also (IV. 53) for- 
 bids blowing the fire with one's mouth He likewise disapproves 
 of throwing impure substances into the fire, warming one's feet at 
 it, or stepping over it. Some authorities, however, say that the 
 Srauta fire may be kindled by blowing, because it is particularly 
 ordained so in the Va.f/asaneyaka, but that the domestic fire is not 
 to be thus treated. See Apastamba Sutras, translated by Biihler, 
 S. B. E ii. p. 56 ; I. 15, 20 ; Vasish^'ia XII. 27-2J. 
 
 3 1. c, p. 164. 
 
 * A curious coincidence shows itself in the ceremonial of the 
 Slaves, as described by Saxo Grammaticus Tlie priest has to clean 
 the sacellum with a broom, and while doing this must never allow 
 his breath to escape. When he can retain his breath no longer, 
 he has to go out and then to return to his work in the temple, so 
 that the deity may not be contaminated by human breath. See 
 Lippert, Die Beligionen der EurojKiischen Culluriulker. p. S)3. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 233 
 Is the Avestic Religfion dualistic? 
 
 It is generally supposed that the religion of the 
 Avesta differs from that of the Veda by being 
 dualistic^. In one sense this is perfectly true. The 
 Zoroastrians recognise an evil spirit, Angra Mainyu, 
 by the side of the good spirit, Ahura-mazda. In some 
 respects these two spirits are equals. The good spirit 
 did not create the evil spirit, nor can he altogether 
 prevent the mischief that is wrought by the evil 
 spirit. The Zoroastrian religion, having a decidedly 
 moral character, recognises in this struggle between 
 good and evil the eternal law of reward and punish- 
 ment, good always begetting good and evil evil. In 
 the same manner as the good spiiit opposes the evil 
 spirit, every man is expected to fight against evil in 
 every shape. Zoroaster himself was supposed to 
 have been appointed by Ahura-mazda to defend the 
 good people, it may be the agricultural population, 
 against the attacks of their enemies, the woi shippers 
 of the Daevas. The oldest pra^^ers in the Avesta are 
 supposed to have been addressed by Zoroaster to 
 Ahura-mazda, imploring his help, and mourning over 
 the sufferings of his people. 
 
 All this is perfectly true, but if we once know from 
 the Veda what the fight between good and evil, 
 between light and. darkness meant in the beginning, 
 we shall understand why after all, in the dualism 
 of the Avesta, the good spirit is always supreme, as 
 Indra is supreme over Yrltrsi, Agni over Ahi, Atar 
 over A^i Dahaka. The fact that Indra or Agni or 
 Atar has an enemy, that light is sometimes over- 
 
 * See West, S. B. E., vol. v. p. Ixix ; Mills, S. B. E., vol. xxxi. Introd. 
 
234 LECTURE X. 
 
 whelmed by darkness, does not annihilate the belief in 
 the supremacy of one of these two contending powers. 
 The gods are alwaj^s conceived as different in kind 
 from their opponents. The gods are Avorshipped, the 
 demons are feared. If therefore we call the ancient 
 religion of Zoroaster dualistic, the same name might 
 be applied to the Vedic religion, so far as it recog- 
 nises Yrltva. and other powers of darkness as dangerous 
 opponents of the bright beings. Indeed, I doubt 
 whether there is any religion which is dualistic in the 
 sense of recognising two divine antagonistic powers 
 as perfect equals. Even so-called Satanic races who 
 offer sacrifices to evil spirits only, and seem to neglect 
 the good spirits, do so because they can trust the 
 latter, but are afraid of the former. Wherever there 
 is a belief in a devil, the devil may be very powerful, 
 but he can never become supreme. He is by its very 
 nature a negative, not a positive concept. No doubt, 
 the powers of evil in the Avesta are different from the 
 powers of darkness in the Veda. They have assumed 
 a decidedly moral character. But they are the same 
 in origin, and it is owing to this that they never have, 
 never could have attained to perfect equality with the 
 Good and Wise Spirit, Ahura-mazda. 
 
 The most important lesson which we may learn 
 from the Avesta, particularly when we do not lose 
 sight of its antecedents in the Veda, is that we may 
 see how physical religion leads on almost uncon- 
 sciously to moral religion. It is the distinction 
 between night and day, between darkness and light, 
 that foreshadows and predetermines the distinction 
 between what is lovely and unlovely, between what 
 is evil and good, between what belongs to the powers 
 
FIRE AS COXCEIVED IN OTHF.R RKLIGIOXS. 235 
 
 of darkness and the powers of light. Nature,, as the 
 voice of the God of Nature, awakens in the heart ot 
 man the fii-st conception of that eternal Dualism 
 which is manifested in night and da}-, in darkness 
 and light, and in the works of darkness and in the 
 Avorks of light. And as night is the negation of day, 
 not da}^ of night, as darkness is the negation of light, 
 not light of darkness, a deep conviction was left in 
 the mind of man, that evil also is the negation of 
 good, not good of evil. The light of the sun might 
 be absent for a time,, but it was hidden only, it 
 could never be destroyed, and as every morning 
 proclaimed the victory of light, the ancient worshippers 
 of nature and of the gods of nature never doubted that 
 the final victory must belong to the powers of light, 
 that Vr/tra must succumb, that Ahriman must be 
 vanquished, and that light and truth and righteousness 
 must prevail in the end. 
 
 Pire in Eg-ypt. 
 
 But it is not only the religion of Persia which 
 receives its true explanation from India, it is not 
 only the Zoroastrian Atar whose true historical ante- 
 cedents are preserved to us in the hymns addressed 
 to the Vedic Agni. In this case there is really a 
 genealogical relationship between the two religions 
 and between the two deities. But even where there 
 can be no thought of such a genealogical relation.ship. 
 we shall often find in the most distant countries the 
 most striking similarities with the conceptions of fire 
 as elaborated by the Vedic Indians. 
 
 In some cases mythological ideas which seemed 
 utterly irrational become at once intelligible by a 
 
236 LECTURE X. 
 
 mere coraparison with Vedic ideas. We saw how 
 many different characters were ascribed to Agni in 
 the hymns of the Veda. In one hymn he was clearly 
 the fire on the hearth, the protector of the family ; 
 in another the lightning, the destroyer of the demons 
 of darkness ; in another again the sun, the light of 
 the world, the giver of life and strength. Being all 
 this, and representing such different powers, he soon 
 was conceived as something different from each and 
 all of these manifestations, something behind and 
 above them all^ and thus was raised at last to that 
 divine supremacy which, as we saw, marks the highest 
 stage which religious speculation has reached at any 
 time. If we have clearly understood this process, and 
 then turn our eyes to Eg^^pt, we shall find it repeated 
 there in almost every detail. 
 
 Modern Character of tlie Egyptian Relig-ion. 
 
 Only while in Egypt we can no longer discover the 
 motives that led to this syncretism, these motives are 
 fully disclosed to us in the hymns of the Veda. It is 
 strange, but it is recognised as a fact by the best 
 scholars, that in Egypt, wdiere the actual monuments 
 are apparently so much older than in India, we seldom, 
 if ever, can discover the deepest roots and feeders of 
 religion. Professor Chantepie de la Saussaye, in his 
 able retume of the recent researches of Egyptologists, 
 remarks (§ 51) : ' Our knowledge of the first dynasties 
 has been greatly enlarged by Maspero's discoveries 
 during the last years, but we have not come any 
 nearer to the original sources of Egyptian civilisation. 
 Our knowledge does not reach beyond Menes, who 
 governed a fully organised kingdom. The religion 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 237 
 
 also of the oldest periods was quite complete, at least 
 we find there almost all the elements of religious 
 thought, but we cannot discover their beginnings. 
 Everything, even architecture and plastic art, is 
 already so fully developed that we must look for a 
 more ancient antiquity, and that is entirely with- 
 drawn from our sight." 
 
 Under these circumstances a comparative study of 
 religions can alone throw light on those periods in' 
 the development of the Egyptian religion which lie 
 confessedly beyond the earliest monuments. Though 
 we cannot admit a common historical ground from 
 which the religions of Egypt and India branched off, 
 we can admit a common human foundation in which 
 they had their deepest roots. Even if the Veda did 
 not allow us an insight into the workings of the 
 Indian mind which produced, for instance, that strange 
 syncretism of a terrestrial, celestial, and atmospheric 
 Agni, the mere fact that the same puzzle presented 
 itself to the Indians and to the Egyptians would load 
 us to look for a common cause, simph^ in their com- 
 mon human nature, and thus facilitate the solution 
 of the riddle. But if in India we still find the key 
 left, as it were, in the lock, we have a perfect right 
 to try whether the same key will not turn the bolts 
 in the Egyptian lock. If it does, we have done all 
 that we can do. If we have not perfect certainty, we 
 have at all events high probability that the problem 
 can be, and has been successfully solved in Egypt as 
 well as in India. I quote once more from M. Chantepie 
 de la Saussaye : ' We first draw attention,' he writes 
 (§ 49), ' to the general identification of the gods with 
 one another. We perceive at once how impossible it 
 
238 LECTURE X. 
 
 is to distinguish from each other the attributes of the 
 individual gods or the spheres of their activity. From 
 this arises the assertion made by many Egyptologists 
 that fundamentally the Egyptian gods all meant the 
 same thing ; the gods represented the sun, the god- 
 desses the mothers or something else. This is most 
 certainly not the case. But at a very early date the 
 gods were ahnost all represented as being gods ol 
 light. Hence the combined names of Amon-Ea, Ea- 
 Osiris, and many more. This is the reason why it is 
 so difficult to fathom the nature of the gods from the 
 texts. Originally Ptah was probably not a sun-god. 
 Still he is most distinctly called the sun-disc. The 
 fact that Set appears in the boat of the sun, does not 
 determine his original natui-e.' All this, as we saw 
 before, would be applicable to the Vedic religion as 
 well as to the religion of Egypt. Let us now con- 
 sider some individual gods in Egypt that show some 
 similarity with Agni. 
 
 Ba. 
 
 When we read the account given, for instance, of 
 Ea, we almost imagine that we are reading an account 
 of Agni, in his character as sun-god. Nearly all the 
 gods are identified with Ea. He is the sun-god, the 
 creator and ruler of the world. He daily conquers his 
 enemies, particularly the dark cloud-serpent Apep 
 (Sk. Ahi). His nearest relatives are Shu and Tefnut, 
 the children of the sun (Asvinau, divo napatau). Ea 
 is identified with Tmu, the setting sun (Yama), and 
 with Harmachis, the daily sun travelling from East 
 to West (Vish/iu). 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 239 
 
 Osiris. 
 
 In Osiris, again, most Egyptian scholars have now 
 discovered a solar deity. He is the oldest child of 
 Seb, goddess of the earth (Pr/thivi), and Nut, goddess 
 of heaven (Dyaus). He is married to his sister Isis 
 (Yama and Yami ^), killed by his brother Set, but 
 avenged by his son Horus. Osiris becomes lord of 
 the lower world and judge of the dead (Yama) ; and 
 his worshippers look forward after death to admission 
 into his kingdom. As Agni is Yama and Yama Agni, 
 so Ra is called the soul of Osiris, Osiris the soul of 
 Ea(l. c, §47). 
 
 Ptah. 
 
 Another Egyptian deity, Ptah (the opener?), is 
 often identified with Osiris. Both are represented in 
 the form of mummies, and like Osiris, Ptah also is 
 invoked in the end as the creator of heaven, of earth, 
 and of man. Ptah represents, in fact, another phase 
 of the sun, the sun that has set and become invisible, 
 but that returns again at the end of the night, or at 
 the end of winter ^. 
 
 And while Ptah thus receives light from Agni, 
 both being the light by night as distinguished from 
 the sun, the light by day, Ptah also reHects light on 
 Agni. at least in one of his special developments. 
 
 AVe saw how Agni. the sacrificial fire, was not only 
 used by the priest as a means of conveying offering to 
 the gods, but was very soon, by a very natural transition 
 
 1 On a curious coincidence between the twins Yama and Yami, 
 and the twins Yame and Yama in Peru, sec Brinton, MijOis of the 
 New World, p. 155. 
 
 ^ Brugsch, Religion der alien Acgypter, p. 237. 
 
240 LECTURE X. 
 
 of thought, conceived as himself a priest. In a very 
 similar manner, the fire which was used by the smith 
 for melting metal and fashioning it into tools and 
 weapons, was likewise conceived as himself a smith 
 and an artificer. We see this change very clearly 
 in the Greek Hephaestos, in the Eoman Vulcan, and 
 in the Egyptian Ptah. For Ptah is not only the 
 nocturnal sun, Ptah is the former and artificer, the 
 worker of metals from gold to iron ^. he is the lord 
 of artists, and to him is naturally ascribed the forging 
 of the vault of heaven and of the sun. By another 
 (1. c, p. 512) step he advances to the dignity of a 
 maker of the world, father of the beginnings, creator 
 of the egg, and father of the gods. Nay, like Agni, he 
 is said to have generated himself (p. 514). 
 
 Tvashtri in tlie Veda. 
 
 A similar concatenation of ideas seems to have led 
 to the conception of a Vedic deity, otherwise difficult 
 to explain, namely Tvashi^r<^. Tvash^ri means the 
 artificer, the maker and shaper, but it is clear that 
 originally this name belonged to Agni. In some of 
 the Vedic hymns Tysmhtri is still used as a synonym 
 of Agni (I. 95, 2 ; 5) ; in others he is identified with 
 Savit?^i visvarupa the sun of many forms (III. 55, 19 ; 
 X. 10, 5). His character in the Veda is by no means 
 coherent and intelligible, but if we admit Agni, the 
 solar fire, as his foundation, we can account for his 
 more special character as the fire applied to every 
 kind of workmanship, as the forger of the thunderbolt, 
 the maker of the sky, and lastly, as the creator of the 
 
 i Brugsch, 1. c, p. 508. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 241 
 
 whole world (Viig. Samh. XXIX. 9), and the giver of 
 life (Rv. X. 18, 6). In the end, his original character 
 as Agni was so entirely forgotten that in one passage 
 Tvash^7'^ is actually represented as having fashioned 
 Agni also (Rv. X. 46, 9). 
 
 But though the Egyptian Ptah explains some 
 characteristic features in the Vedic Tvash^r^, there 
 is much that still remains mysterious in the legends 
 told about this Indian Hephaestos, particularly the 
 marriage of his daughter (8ai'a»yu), and the murder 
 of his three-headed son, Visvarupa (X. 10, 5 ; X. 8, 9). 
 
 Fire in Greece, Hephaestos. 
 
 If now we turn our eyes from Egypt to Greece and 
 Rome, w^e find hardly anything for which we are not 
 fully prepared. Anything like pyrolatry or worship 
 of fire, as a mere element, is foreign to the character 
 of the Greeks. All their gods had become thoroughly 
 personal and almost human long before w^e knoAV 
 anything about them. Hence, though we can discover 
 an elementary background in Hephaestos, his per- 
 sonal character preponderates so decidedly that it has 
 almost obliterated every trace of his origin. According 
 to Homer (II. i. 577; Od. viii. 312), Hep! aestos was 
 the son of Zeus and Hera, just as Agni was the 
 son of Dyaus and of the waters. These waters repre- 
 sented not only the clouds, but the whole bright 
 atmosphere, where fire, as light or lightning, was sup- 
 posed to dwell. Here ("Hp?;) corresponds to a Sanskrit 
 form *Svara, a feminine of Svar, sky, from which 
 also "HAto9, he sun. Here, though recognised as the 
 principal wife of Zeus, represented but one out of the 
 many phenomena of nature with which Zeus, the 
 
 (2) R 
 
242 LECTURE X. 
 
 highest god of heaven, was supposed to have produced 
 offspring. We have oniy to remember that in the 
 Veda D^aus was often assigned to Agni as his father, 
 and the waters and the dawn as his mothers \ in order 
 to understand the Homeric conception that Hephaestos 
 was the child of Zeus and Here. The idea that 
 Hephaestos had no father, but that Here, out of spite, 
 brought him forth by herself, as Zeus had given 
 birth by himself to Athene, is but one of the many 
 half- poetical, half- philosophical, and often purely 
 imaginative expansions of m3'thology which abound 
 in Greece more than anywhere else. The statue of 
 Here, mentioned by Herodotus (vi. 82), Avhich repre- 
 sented her as emitting fire from her breast, is the 
 truest image of her as the bright atmosphere sending 
 forth lightning from the clouds. As Agni is often 
 called the child of the waters, without any mention 
 of a father, Hephaestos may possibly, in that sense 
 also, have been called the offspring of Here. Even the 
 lameness of Hephaestos may find its explanation in 
 the fact that Agni in the Veda is called footless 
 (apad), and that his movement is unsteady and 
 A^acillating. The violent catastrophe when Zeus hurls 
 Hephaestos from the sky, is again a mythological 
 rendering of Zeus hurling his thunderbolt upon the 
 earth, while the myth that it took Hephaestos a whole 
 day to fall from the sky to the earth, and that he 
 touched the island of Lemnos with the setting sun, 
 may contain a recollection of the identity of Agni, as 
 
 ^ It is true that Dyava-pnthivj'au, Heaven and Earth, are often 
 mentioned as the parents of Agni, but this would not justify us in 
 taking Here, with Welcker {GMterlehre^ i. p. 363), as originally a god- 
 dess of the earth. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 243 
 
 lightning, with Agni, as the setting sun. Even the 
 hiding of Hephaestos during nine years may be a faint 
 echo of the many stories told in the Veda of Agni 
 \vishinir to absent himself and hidinir in the waters 
 (cf. II. xviii. 398). In the mind of Homer, how^ever, the 
 elementary antecedents of Hephaestos exist no longer. 
 With him he is the crafty smith or carpenter or artist, 
 and it is difficult to say w^hether Charis or Aphrodite 
 was assigned to him as his wife, because originally 
 she represented the Dawn, or whether this myth was 
 merely intended to indicate the grace and charm of 
 the art of Hephaestos. 
 
 The name of "HcpatrrTos^ is difficult to explain. I 
 thought ^ it might be traced back to the Vedic 
 yavish/^/^a, a constant epithet of Agni, meaning the 
 youngest, or the always young. Thus we read, 
 Kv. n. 4, 5 : 
 
 grufirurv^n yah muhur a yuva bhut. 
 
 *Agni, when he had gi'own old, became always young again.' 
 
 Rv. I 144,4: 
 
 diva mi njlktam palita/i yuvd aj/ani. 
 *By night, as by day, having become grey, he was born young.' 
 
 But there are phonetic difficulties, as I pointed out, 
 which make this derivation doubtful ^. 
 
 * Kuhn's Zeitschrift, xviii. 
 
 2 The question is whether Hephaistos is the original form, or 
 'EcploTos, 'Eniaros, i.e. 'Eipianos (Welcker, Griech. Gbtterlehre,^ i. p. 
 665). 'EcpidTios might have been meant for enl or irpoj rats eariats. 
 But in that case we should have to admit two names, as "Hif>aiaTos 
 could not bo a corruption of 'E(/)tVTtos. It should be remembered 
 also that an earthenware image of Hepbaestos, which in Athens 
 stood near every hearth, was called tTrtaraT?;?. Aristoph. Aves, i'6<i. 
 
 B 2 
 
244 LECTURE X. 
 
 rire in Italy, Vulcanus. 
 
 Tbe deity which in Italy corresponds to the Greek 
 Hephaestos and the Vedic Agni is Vidcarius. His 
 name is very clear. It is connected with Sk. ulka, a 
 firebrand, a meteor. This word occurs in the Rig- 
 veda IV. 4, 2 : 
 
 asar/;dita/j vi srigsi vishvak ulkafe. 
 'Unfettered scatter about thy sparks.* 
 
 The fuller form of ulka would be *vaT'ka^ instead 
 of which we find var/.:as, light, lustre, vigour. 
 Rv. m. ^2, 2: 
 
 Agne yat te divi varA-aTi pr/thivyam 
 yat oshadhishu apsu a j^aj/atra, 
 yena antariksham uru atatantha 
 tveslia/i sa/i bhanu/i ar?iava/i n?-i7i-akslia^. 
 
 *0 Agni, the lustre which is thine in heaven, in earth, in plants, 
 and in the waters, O worshipful, wherewith thou hast stretched out 
 the sky wide, that light is brilliant, waving, all- seeing.' 
 
 Vulcan was therefore a god of fire, but in Italy he 
 became pre-eminently the representative of subter- 
 raneous or volcanic fire, and then, possibly by Greek 
 influence, the clever craftsman. 
 
 PhilosopMcal Aspects of Fire in Greece. 
 
 But while in the Greek and Roman religious 
 mythology the representatives of fire occupy a rather 
 subordinate place as compared with the position 
 assigned to fire in India and Persia, in Egypt and 
 Babylon, we find that in Greece the concept of fire led 
 from very early times to philosophical speculation. It 
 is a mistake to draw a very sharp line of demarcation 
 in ancient times between rehgion and philosophy. 
 The religious sentiments of the Greeks, or, at least, 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 245 
 
 of the more thonghtful among the Greeks, were 
 far more profoundly swayed by the teachings of 
 Thales, Pythagoras, and Herakleitos than by the 
 Homeric po.ms. It is too often forgotten that 
 Herakleitos considered himself a far higher authority 
 on religion than Homer, whose theology he stigmatised 
 as flippant infidelity ^, Avhile Pythagoras declared that 
 he saw (and, no doubt, he wished to see) the soul of 
 Homer in Hades hanging on a tree and surrounded by 
 serpents, as a punisliment for the unseemly things 
 which he had said of the gods. 
 
 There certainly is more of what we mean by re- 
 lio-ion in Herakleitos than. in. Homer, and I believe 
 that our right appreciation of early Greek philoso- 
 phers has been much impeded by our forgetting that 
 those early philosophers were religious even more 
 than philosophical teachers. Even Aristotle (Metaph. 
 i. 3), to whom most of us owe our first acquaintance 
 with the ancient sages of Greece, treats them far too 
 much as mere philosophers, and discusses their doc- 
 trines, as Hegel did in later times, far too much from 
 his own philosophical point of view ^. 
 
 The Pire of Herakleitos. 
 With Herakleitos fire, the irvp a^tCoiov, or alwviov, 
 the ever-living or immortal fire, was not merely an 
 apxri in the Aristotelian sense of the word, or what 
 we call one of the four elements. It was the primor- 
 dial being, the origin of all things, a higher concep- 
 tion than that of the gods of the populace whom 
 Herakleitos tolerated, though he did not believe in 
 
 * Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 424. 
 ^ Gladisch, Die Vorsokratische Philosophie, in Jahrb.fiir Klass. Philologief 
 1879, p. 721. 
 
246 LECTURE X. 
 
 them. ' Neither one of the gods, he declares ^, nor of 
 men has made this world, the same for all, but it 
 always was and will be ever-living fire catching forms 
 and consuming them.' When Herakleitos used the 
 word fire, we should now probably use motion, warmth, 
 or life. In one place he actually used Kepavi 6s, light- 
 ning, instead of Trrp, when he declares that lightning 
 rules everything, ra b€ -avra olaKLi^t K^parvos. From 
 another of his sayings it seems clear that he recognises 
 his fire in the sun also, though he speaks of it as never 
 setting. ' For how,' he says, ' could anybody hide 
 himself from that which never sets V 
 
 Zoroaster. 
 
 There Is no doubt a distant similarity between the 
 eternal fire of Herakleitos and the fire as conceived by 
 the followers of Zoroaster. But the dissimilarities are 
 far greater than the similarities, and the idea ad- 
 vanced by certain historians of Greek philosophy, 
 particularly by Gladisch ^, that Herakleitos bon-owed 
 his opinions from the Persians, is uncalled for, and 
 unsupported by any historical evidence. What was 
 possible in Persia was possible in Greece, and the 
 idea that fire was the beojinning of all things, is no 
 more opposed to Greek ideas than the teaching of 
 Thales or that of Anaximenes that water or air were 
 the beginnings of all things. 
 
 Fire and Water in the Brahmanas. 
 
 We find the same ideas in the Vedic Brahma?? as 
 also, but we should not therefore say that Herakleitos 
 
 ^ Zeller, Lie Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 537. 
 ^ Herakleitos unci Zoroaster, 1869. 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 247 
 
 borrowed his ideas from India. In the Brahmanas 
 we read that in the beginning there was water, or 
 there was hre, or there was Brahman, or there was 
 being and not-being. Thus the Taittiriya-Sar/ihita 
 VII. 1, 5, 1 says: Apo va idam agre salilam asit, 
 tasmin pra(7apatir vayur bhutva^Zarat. 'In the be- 
 ginning this (worki) was water, the sea, and Pra^a- 
 pati, the Lord of creation, moved on it, having become 
 wind.' How like this is to the language of Genesis, 
 ' And the Spirit of God moved on the face of the 
 waters ' — and yet, who would say that the writer of 
 Genesis borrowed from the Taittinya-Sa?7ihita, or 
 vice versa ? 
 
 In other cosmogonic accounts which we find scat- 
 tered about in the Brahmanas, the old cosmogony has 
 generally been modified into some kind of emanation 
 ^ from, or creation by Brahman or Pra(/apati, the Lord 
 of creatures. But when we leave out this first link, 
 Brahman or Prar/apati, we find a large number of 
 cosmogonic theories, probably much older than the 
 Brahma?<as, and older than the first conception of 
 such abstract deities as Brahman or Prar/apati. In 
 some passages it seemed as if it had not been quite 
 forgotten that the place which was assigned to 
 Brahman and Pra,(/apati was originally held by Agni. 
 We read, for instance, in the >S'atapatha-Brahma7ia 
 VL 1,1,5: 
 
 Sa ya^ sa puruslia/i Prar/apatir abhavad, ayani eva sa yo^^yam 
 Agnis Aiyate. 
 
 ' He who became Pragapati is the same as Agni, kindled on the 
 hearth.' 
 
 But, as a rule, Brahman or Pra,7a;^ati comes first, 
 and afterwards fire and water and all the rest. In the 
 
248 LECTURE X. 
 
 Taittiriya-Samhita, for instance, VII. 1, 1, 4, the suc- 
 cessive stages in the development of the world, be- 
 ginning with Pra/yapati, are represented (1) by Agni, 
 the Brahma'Jia (the priest), and the goat ; (2) by Indra, 
 the R%anya (the warrior), and the sheep ; (3) by the 
 Visvedevas, the Vaisya, and the cow ; (4) by the 
 ' /S'udra and the horse. 
 
 In the hymns also similar cosmogonic guesses are 
 uttered from time to time, though we must remember 
 that ideas about the beginning of all things are gene- 
 rally late, and that hymns containing cosmogonic 
 theories cannot be counted amonof the earliest relics 
 of Vedic poetry. Thus we read, Rv. X. 190: 
 
 Rit&ui kSL satyam fclbhiddhat tapaso ^ dhyagayata, 
 tato ratry aj/ayata tata/^ samudro urnavAh. 
 Samudrad ar??avad adhi samvatsaro af/ayata, 
 ahoratrani vidadhad visvasya mishato vasi'. 
 Surya/tandi-amasau dhiita yathapurvam akalpayat, 
 divam Aa prithivini Mntariksham atho svii/i. 
 
 ' The right and true was born from kindled heat, then the night 
 was born and the surging sea. From the surging sea the annual 
 sun was born, he who orders day and night, the lord of all that sees. 
 The creator made sun and moon in turn, the sky and the earth and 
 the air, and then the heaven.' 
 
 In another place the jR/bhus discuss among them- 
 selves whether water is best or fire, Rv. I. 161^ 9, 
 apa/i hhuyishthsih iti ^ka/^ abravit, a.g-nih bhuyish^Aa^ 
 iti anya/6 abiavit, which probably refers to the question 
 as to what was the beginning of all things, whether 
 water or fire. In one hymn, X. 121, 7, it is decidedly 
 implied that the waters gave birth to fire or Agni 
 (apaA ha yat hi'ihsitih visvam ayan garbham dadha- 
 nah (/anayanti>^ agnim). One of the earliest commen- 
 tators in the Taittiriya ara?7yaka I. 23, 9, explains 
 what he thought the true meaning of this verse, by 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 249 
 
 « adbhyo va idam samabhut,' ' this world arose indeed 
 from water.' 
 
 When we see with how much freedom these various 
 cosmogonic theories or guesses are started, we begin 
 to feel how little necessity there is for supposing that 
 Herakleitos borrowed from India or Persia, simply 
 because he looked upon fire as the moving principle 
 of the world. 
 
 We saw that' Herakleitos, like the Vedic poets, 
 recognised the same power as dwelling in the fire, in 
 the lightning, and, as it would seem, in the sun also. 
 And this is again so natural a conception, that we 
 can perfectly well understand how it arose indepen- 
 dently both in India and in Greece. If we look 
 further, we find a very similar conception of the iden- 
 tity of fire, sun, and lightning, even among Semitic 
 nations, but who would say that therefore the Semitic 
 nations borrowed from the Vedic poets, or the Vedic 
 poets from Semitic sources ? 
 
 Pire as worshipped in Babylon. 
 
 It is generally admitted, I believe, that the chief 
 deity worshipped at Babylon was a solar deity ^. He 
 was called Bllu, the lord, and many of the Babylo- 
 nian gods might claim that name. This Bdu appears 
 in the Old Testament as BaaL in the plural Baalim, 
 and in Greek as Br/Ao?. Now the Bilu or Baal of 
 Babylon wasMerodach, the lord of Babylon, originally 
 a representative of the sun. But we are told ^ that he 
 represented not only the sun, but that he absorbed 
 also the god of fire. ' Among most primitive people,' 
 Professor Sayce remarks, ' fire is endowed with divine 
 
 1 Sayce, Hihbeji Lectures, p. 100. ^ Sayoe, 1. c, p. 179. • 
 
250 LECTURE X. 
 
 attributes. It moves and devours like a living thing ; 
 it purifies and burns all that is foul ; and it is through 
 the fire upon the altar— the representative of the fire 
 upon the hearth - that the savour of the burnt sacri- 
 fice ascends to the gods in heaven. Fire is itself a 
 messenger from above. It comes to us from the sky 
 in the lightning flash, and we feel it in the rays ot 
 the noontide sun. The Fire-god tended therefore to 
 become on the one side the messenger and interme- 
 diary between gods and men, and on the other side, 
 the Sun-god himself.' 
 
 You see in this description of the Fire-god in 
 Babylon the exact counterpart of Agni in the Veda. 
 But there is in this case also this great difference, that 
 while we see in Babylon the last results only, we can 
 watch in India the whole course of development from 
 the first perception of a burning log to the highest 
 concept of a Sapi-eme Being. We should never say 
 that in the Veda fire had been endowed with divine 
 attributes, because that would presuppose the very 
 thing which we want to explain. What we learn 
 from the Veda is the very evolution of these divine 
 attributes arising from the ever- varying concepts of 
 fire and of similar, both natural and supernatural, phe- 
 nomena. When we once have arrived at a Fire-^od, 
 and a Lightning-god, and a Sun-god, our task is really 
 done. Our first chapter ends with the Fire -god, the 
 Lightning-god, and the Sun-god. It begins with fire, 
 lio'htnino-, and sun. 
 
 o o 
 
 The True Antiquity of the Veda. 
 
 This is what imparts to the Veda its unique cha- 
 racter among the historical monuments of the old 
 
FIRE AS CONCEIVED IN OTHER RELIGIONS. 251 
 
 world. Tradition assigns to the Sacred Eooks ot 
 China an enormous antiquity, and the students ot 
 Babylonian and Egyptian antiquities claim without 
 hesitation for the earliest written relics of these two 
 countries a date far be} ond that which we assign to 
 the Veda. But though more modern, if we measure 
 antiquity by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, 
 the Veda is far more ancient than anything in China, 
 Babylon, or Egypt, when we measure antiquity by 
 the evolution of ideas. If we found the Veda to have 
 been the composition of the inhabitants of an unknown 
 island, and to be not older than the last century, its 
 value for our studies, the analysis of religious ideas, 
 would be but little impaired. India was a kind of 
 unknown island in the ancient history of the world, 
 its ancient literature was thoroughly autochthonous, 
 its earliest religion untouched by any foreign influ- 
 ence. All attempts at discovering Semitic or Egyptian 
 influences in the ancient, that is, in the Vedic literature 
 of India, have totally- failed, and at the present mo- 
 ment to attempt to derive the ideas of the Veda from 
 Babylon or Egypt would be as hopeless as former 
 attempts to derive Sanskrit from Hebrew or from the 
 language of the pyramids. The trunklines of ancient 
 language, thought, and religion are suthciently well 
 known by this time to enable us to declare certain 
 crossings as impossible, and there is no scholar now 
 living who would venture to say that the ancient 
 lines of Indian religion could have been crossed by 
 trains of thought which started from China, from 
 Babylon, or from Egypt. 
 
LECTURE XL 
 
 THE MYTHOLOOICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 
 Tales about Agni. 
 
 AFTER having examined the religious and philo- 
 - sophical aspects which the concept of Fii-e as- 
 sumed in India and elsewhere, we have now to consider 
 what are called its purely mythological aspects. The 
 line of demarcation between religion, philosophy, and 
 mythology seems often very arbitrary, for the same 
 statements about such a being as Agni may convey 
 to one mind a religious, to another a philosophical 
 lesson, while to the people at large they may be no 
 more than a simple tale, a legend, or a myth. We 
 may, of course, distinguish between a tale, a legend, 
 and a myth, and many more or less artificial defini- 
 tions have been given of each of these terms. 
 
 Li a general way, however, these names are given 
 to ancient traditions which have neither a religions 
 nor a philosophical purpose, but simply relate more 
 or less imaginary events. The number of such myths 
 is very considerable, and they often vary, as you 
 know, from the sublime to the ridiculous. There are 
 but few actual tales to be found in the hymns of the 
 Rig-veda but we can discover here and there some 
 of the elements out of which later tales were formed. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 253 
 
 If \\G rememlier that Agni represented the light of 
 the sun, we can easily understand why he should 
 have been called tlie son of Dyaus, the sky (X. 45, 8) ; 
 or of heaven and earth (III. 25, 1), or of the Dawn 
 (VII. 78, 3), or of the clouds (X. 2, 7) ; while, if he 
 was the flash of lightning, it might truly be said of 
 him that Indra generated him from two clouds as 
 from two flints (II. 12, 3). And when Agni was ob- 
 tained by the friction of two fire- sticks, these were 
 naturally called his parents. One of these fire- 
 sticks, the lower one, was called his mother; the 
 other, his father. It might now be said that Agni 
 was the child of these two pieces of wood, the two 
 ara?us, and thus we can understand why he was 
 called dvimata, having two mothers (Rv. I. 31, ^), 
 or 'the son of the trees' [sunuh vanaspatinam, 
 VIII. 23, 25). Put when we are told that Agni, 
 as soon as born, devoured his father and mother 
 (Rv. X. 79, 4), we have really an incipient myth. 
 Agni lent himself less to mythological treatment, 
 because his name remained always intelligible. It 
 is always the ancient names which are no longer 
 understood that produce the richest mythological 
 
 glOAVth. 
 
 Eiiliemeristic explanations of Llytliology. 
 
 Still, such a statement, as that a child eats his 
 ow^n father and mother, is startling enough to take its 
 place among mythological stories. If such a story, 
 instead of being told of Agni, were told of Angiras, 
 another, but no longer an understood name of fire, we 
 should have had at once one of those m^ths Avhieh 
 have formed such stumbling-blocks for Mr. Her belt 
 
254 LECTUEE XI. 
 
 Spencer and other students of ethnology. These 
 philosophers wish to account for everything in the 
 development of the human race rationalistically. They 
 want to discover a reason for these unspeakable 
 atrocities of which the gods and heroes, even of such 
 progressive races as the Indians the Greeks,. Eomans, 
 ■and Teutons, are believed to have been guilty. Their 
 way out of the difficulty is certainly very ingenious 
 and very simple ; but is it supported by any evi- 
 dence ? First of all, they tell us that they see no 
 reason why such names as Fire, or Sun, or Daw^n 
 should not be accepted as names of real individuals 
 who lived a long time ago. They show that among 
 the Karens certain people were called Evening, Moon- 
 rising, &c. ; that a Tasmanian lady was called Sun- 
 shine ; and that among Australians names like Hail, 
 Thunder, and Wind are by no means uncommon i. 
 They prove, from modern Post-Office Directories, that 
 even now some people are called Fire, Dawn, and Sun. 
 As to the atrocities ascribed to these individuals, they 
 recognise in them what they call survivals {Uher- 
 Ueibsel) of an earlier savage and half-brutal state, 
 wdien the ancestors of the Hindus, Greeks, Romans, 
 and Teutons Avere really capable of eating their 
 parents, like Agni, or Mr. Fire, or of eating their 
 children, like Kronos, or Mr. Time. I am not ex- 
 aggerating, I am only abbreviating, and therefore, 
 
 ' H. Spencer, Sociologij,ip^. 391-2. 'The initial step in the genesis 
 of such a myth would be the existence of human beings named 
 Storm and Sunshine. From the confusion inevitably arising in 
 tradition between them and the natural agents having the same 
 names, would result the personalising of these natural agents, and 
 the ascribing to them human origins and human adventures : the 
 legend, once having thus germinated, being, in successive genera- 
 tions, elaborated and moulded into fitness with the phenomena.' 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGXL 255 
 
 perhaps, representing the theories of Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer and other Euhemerists in a too naked, and 
 therefore in a less persuasive and attractive form. 
 
 Of course, when we are carried off' into prehistoric 
 times, it is very difficult for us to prove a negative. 
 We cannot prove that there never lived a Mr. Sun 
 and a Miss Dawn, that this Mr. Sun never embraced 
 Miss Dawn, and that she never fainted away or died 
 in his embraces. There may have been a Mr. Fire, 
 and he may have eaten his father and mother, and, as 
 the Egyptians say, he may actually have died of 
 indigestion. 
 
 But, on the other hand, scholars and historians have 
 a perfect right to say that it will be time to consider 
 these theories when all other theories have failed, and 
 that in the meantime the historical footprints of lan- 
 guage ought not to be neglected, but should be inter- 
 preted as all other vestiges of creation have been 
 interpreted. If we hear of Ushas expiring in the em- 
 braces of Surya, we cannot forget that Ushas meant 
 the dawn, and Surya the sun, and that, as a matter of 
 fact, the dawn does expire every morning in the fiery 
 embraces of the sun. If we read of Agni devouring 
 his two parents, we cannot forget that Agni means 
 lire, that his two parents are the two Ara/as or fire- 
 sticks, and that, as a matter of fact, the fire, when 
 produced by rubbing, and nursed into flames, is apt 
 to consume the fire-sticks that have given him life. 
 I cannot even make that small concession, which I 
 am told I ought to make, namely, that the fact of the 
 Greeks accepting such atrocities as possible, proves 
 that once, in prehistoric times, they committed them 
 themselves. The ancient iryas may formerly have 
 
256 LECTURE XI. 
 
 eaten their parents, if Mr. Herbert Spencer can prove 
 it ; but the fact that they believed Agni to have been 
 guilty of this breach of filial piety does not prove 
 it, to my mind, any more than the unnatural treat- 
 ment of his divine children by Kronos could persuade 
 me that the earliest Greeks were in the habit of 
 swallowing their children, and, what would even 
 then, on the theory of survivals, remain inexplicable, 
 that they were able to bring them up again, apparently 
 intact. 
 
 I quite feel the power of the objections so often 
 raised by anthropologists against the historical and 
 linguistic explanations of these terrible myths. It 
 has been said again and again, and apparently with 
 a great deal of justice, that it would seem passing 
 strange that the ancient Ar3^as should have spent 
 their time in relating these strange, sometimes absurd 
 and impossible, sometimes sublime and significant 
 stories, if there had been no foundation whatever for 
 them in fact. But, after all, we must take man as 
 we find him. Thus, it would have seemed at first 
 sight very unlikely that betting and gambling, which 
 have lately been held up as the vices of modern 
 society, should have belonged to the earliest amuse- 
 ments of man in the most distant parts of the world. 
 Yet there can be no doubt that it was so. You 
 remember hov/ so ancient a philosopher as Herakleitos 
 explains the government of the world by Zeus throw- 
 ino' dice ^ ; and it is curious that Herakleitos himself 
 is reported to have been fond of that game. At all 
 events, the game was known. Still stranger it is that, 
 in the hymns of the Eig-veda, we should meet with a 
 
 1 Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 536. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 257 
 
 hymn, which I read to you in one of my former 
 lectures, containing the despairing utterances of a 
 gambler (X. 34), who accuses the dice of having 
 ruined the happiness of his home by their irresistible 
 attraction. Many critics would appeal to such a 
 hymn as showing how advanced and how modern 
 a state of society is presupposed in the Veda. But 
 to the true critic it only conveys the lesson that our 
 ideas of what primitive life was like, must submit to 
 be corrected by facts. The epic poetry of India may 
 almost be said to be built up on the passion for gam- 
 bling, and we know how strongly addicted uncivilised 
 races are, even now, to this ingrained vice of poov 
 humanity. 
 
 Ancient Riddles. 
 
 If we study the tastes of the people as we find them 
 represented to us in the Veda, there is one peculiar 
 feature w^hich may help to explain the liking for 
 w^onderful mythological stories, such as we find 
 among the Aryas in India and in other parts of the 
 world. This is their fondness for riddles. I have 
 never dwelt on this before, because it might seem 
 that riddles also were the amusement of our modern 
 drawing-rooms rather than of the primitive huts of 
 the Aryan conquerors of the world. But, as one out 
 of many elements contributing to the rank growth of 
 mythology, and as a very important element, I think 
 it ought to be more carefully considered than it has 
 been hitherto. 
 
 After the Aryas in India had once arrived at the 
 conception that fire was apt to consume the fire- 
 sticks, or that Agni had eaten his father and mother, 
 (2) 3 
 
258 LECTURE XI. 
 
 they seem to have amused themselves by asking such 
 questions as, Who eats his own parents ? The answ ers 
 given would then enter upon many details, more or 
 less far-fetched, and the question would continue to 
 be asked between old and young people, just as we 
 ask our children to guess such riddles as; 
 
 * A flock of white sheep 
 
 On a red hill, 
 Here they go, there they go, 
 ISow they stand stilly* 
 
 Or again : 
 
 * Old Mother Twitchett had but one eye. 
 And a long tail which she let fly ; 
 And every time she went over a gap, 
 She left a bit of her tail in a trap,' 
 
 This may be matched by the Mexican riddle : 
 
 ' What goes through a valley and drags its entrails 
 behind?' (A needle.) 
 
 Fire lent itself particularly well to the formation of 
 riddles. Thus we find anions the Zulus the foUowinor 
 riddle, published by Bishop Callaway at the end of 
 his Zulu Nursery Tales ^ : 
 
 ' Guess ye a man whom men do not like to laugh, 
 for it is know^n that his laughter is a very great evil, 
 and is followed by lamentation, and an end of re- 
 joicing. Men weep, and trees, and grass ; and every- 
 thing is heard weeping in the tribe where he laughs ; 
 and they say the man has laughed who does not 
 usually laugh.' 
 
 This is a very elaborate riddle, and the solution is 
 even more elaborate. What is meant is fire, and the 
 
 ' See M. Di Martino, Enigmes Pojmlaires SiciUennes, 1878, p. 9. 
 ^ Nursery Tales of the Zulns, by the Kev. Canon Callaway. Natal, 
 1868, p. 366. Ty\oY, Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 81. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOrMENT OF AGNL 259 
 
 laughing of fire is intended for its crackling, cackling 
 sound, not without a certain admixture of a mis- 
 chievous grin. 
 
 This is how the Zulu solves his riddle: Tire is 
 called a man that what is said may not be at once 
 evident, it being concealed by the word '-man." A 
 riddle is good when it is not discernible at once. It 
 is not liked that the fire, even indoors w^here it is 
 kindled, should cause its sparks (its laughter) to start 
 out and fall on the flour clothes. The owner [of them] 
 cries because it burns, and when he sees a hole in it, 
 he cries again. Or if food is cooked, if the fire is 
 large, the pot may be burned by the fire, and the pot 
 burn the food. So the man, that is the fire, laughs, 
 and the people cry. Again, if a spark is cast into the 
 thatch of a hut, it is seen by the fire. All the men 
 will come together when the flame of the fire appears, 
 and burns the house with the things which arc in it, 
 and there is a great crying. The goats are burnt, and 
 the calves, and the children. (Remark, the children 
 come last.) The cows cry for their calves ; men cry 
 for their goats ; the wife and husband cry for their 
 children. The children cry for their father wdio has 
 been burnt whilst fetching precious things from the 
 burning house, and the house fell in on him. The 
 husband cries for the wife who was burnt when fetch- 
 ing her child from the burning house. The trees cry, 
 crying for their beauty which is destroyed by the 
 fire, the trees being shrivelled and withered. And 
 the cattle cry, crying for the grass, because they have 
 no longer anything to eat, but are dying of famine. 
 This is the laughing of fire.' 
 
 This taste for riddles was very widely spread, and 
 
 S 2 
 
SCO LECTURE XI. 
 
 most of them are so simple that wc should hardly 
 call them riddles. You remember Samson's riddle — 
 'Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the 
 strong came forth sweetness.' No one could possibly 
 guess such a riddle, least of all the Philistines, unless 
 they had indeed ploughed with Samson's heifer. 
 
 The riddle of the Sphinx has more of the character 
 of an old riddle, being descriptive rather than in any 
 w^ay deceptive. ' What has a voice and walks on four 
 leffs in the mornins:, on two at noon, and on three in 
 the evening?' 
 
 To the same class belongs the well-known Greek 
 riddle about Day and Night : 
 
 EVi KaaiyvT]Tai hrra!, wv fj /uia tikth 
 
 T^i^ kripav, avrf) be tckovct' vtto rijaSe rmvovTai. 
 
 * There are two sisters of whom the one bears the other ; and she 
 who bears the other is borne by her.' 
 
 That the taste for these riddles was old in India we 
 see from such hymns as I. 164 in the Kig-veda, which 
 consists entirely of riddles, some of them so obscure 
 that even Dr. Haug \ who wrote a learned essay on 
 that hymn, could not solve them all. 
 
 Brahmodya. 
 
 This askingf and answerino^ of riddles formed in 
 fact an essential part of the amusements connected 
 with the performance of the early sacrifices. It is 
 called Brahmodya, which may have meant either 
 simply the discourse or conversation of the Brahmans, 
 the priests, or a discourse on Brahman, the supreme 
 beino'. 
 
 o 
 
 ^ VfUsche Eathselfragen vnd L'dUiMspriiche, in Silzungsberichte der K6n, 
 bayr. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 11. Heft 3, 1^75. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGTCAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNT. 2G1 
 
 We find descriptions of these priestly discussions 
 in tlie Va(/asaneyi-sa77ihita XXIII. 9-12; 45-62, 
 and elsewliere. I shall translate some portions in 
 order to give you an idea of the simple intellectual 
 food that satisfied the taste of these ancient sacres ^ 
 
 The Brahman i-riest begins by asking the Hot/'i 
 priest : 
 
 ' Who, you think, walks alone, and who is born 
 again *? What is the medicine for cold ? What is the 
 great vessel' 
 
 The Hotrl priest answers : ' The sun walks alone ; 
 the moon is born again. Agni, fire, is the medicine 
 for cold ; the earth is the great vessel.' 
 
 Here the riddles were easy to answer. But the 
 next are more diflScult. 
 
 The Hotrl priest asks the Brahman priest : 
 
 • What was the first thouoht? What was the larp-e 
 bird? Who was Pilippila, and who was Pisangila?' 
 
 You see, these questions are perplexing. The 
 Erahman priest, however, answers them as follows : 
 
 'The sky,' he says, 'Dyaus, was the first thought.' 
 
 Now there may be some very profound truth in 
 this. It is conceivable that these Indian sa^'es thouo-ht 
 that the first human concept, as distinct from mere 
 percepts, must have been the sky ; that the sky ex- 
 cited the first wonderment, the first reflection, the 
 fii'st thought, and the first name. But, as if this were 
 too profound an interpretation, the commentator adds 
 that by Dyaus or sky may here be meant the rain, 
 and that it was rain, as an essential condition of life 
 itself, that constituted the first thought among men. 
 
 1 Cf Maitrayani-sawhita III. 12, 19 ; Taitt.-sawihita VII. 4, 18, 1 ; 
 Ka^/iaka V. 4. 
 
262 LECTURE XI. 
 
 As to the large bird, the priest answers that it was 
 the horse. This may be so, but it seems more likely 
 that in this place the large bird was meant originally 
 as a name for the sun. 
 
 The next questions are more difficult still. 
 
 Pilippila is a word which occurs nowhere else, one 
 of the, no doubt, very numerous class of words which 
 existed in the spoken languages of India, but have 
 found no place in their literature. The Brahman 
 priest explains Pilippila as meaning the earth, but 
 the name which he uses for earth is again quite un- 
 known elsewhere in that sense. For avi, which is 
 here supposed to mean earth, means otherwise sheep, 
 and is the same word as Lat. ovis, Gr. ots, our eive. 
 It seems to me not unlikely that avis was meant 
 originally for a name of the morning or the dawn, 
 which would then form a better pair with the next 
 answer. What is Pisangila^? This is answered, and 
 probably rightly, by declaring that it was meant for 
 the nio'ht. Pis an or a in Sanskrit means dark red, and 
 Pisangila would therefore be an appropriate name for 
 the gloaming ^. 
 
 Other riddles follow, but I shall only add one more, 
 because it shows that philosophical subjects also were 
 comprehended in these riddles. Thus in verse 51 the 
 Udgat?'i priest asks the Brahman priest : 
 
 'Into what did man (or the soul) enter? What 
 things are placed in man? On that, Brahman, we 
 challenge thee, what canst thou tell us here?' 
 
 * The Satapatha Erahmana XIII. 2, 6, 16 explains pilippila by 
 sri. liappiness. 
 
 '^ In XXIII. 56, pisangila is explained by agra, and agfa again by 
 Mii^'ii, or night. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 263 
 
 The Brahman priest answers : * Man has entered 
 into the five, these five are placed in man. Thus I 
 answer thee here, thou art not above me in 
 wisdom.' 
 
 ' The five ' are meant for the five senses, the out- 
 ward senses being those into which man has entered, 
 the inward senses those which are placed inside him. 
 Simple as this conception is, you see that it involves 
 a recognition of man, or the essential element in man, 
 as independent of the five senses. Man had been 
 conceived as something diflferent from the seeing, 
 hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling animal, and 
 that is a view which forms the firm foundation of all 
 future idealistic philosophy. 
 
 I feel convinced that this ancient and widely-spread 
 taste for riddles has been a powerful element in the 
 production of mythology, and that many strange 
 features in the phenomena of nature were dwelt on 
 and elaborated in order to amuse and puzzle people. 
 After all, what subjects were there for conversation 
 and intellectual amusement in those early days ? 
 Bucolic subjects are soon exhausted, and even the 
 weather, that never-failing topic, could not afford 
 much more variety to conversation than it does now^ 
 Subjects for sensational novels would not abound in 
 the simple idyllic life of the Aryan peasants, and even 
 Avars could hardly have been more than raids and 
 plunderings. What w^onder then that what w^e now 
 call mythology\ as unconnected with religion and 
 philosophy, should have been so welcome an amuse- 
 ment, and that the very eccentricities of the ancient 
 mythologies and the oddities of their early riddles 
 should have served to impress them on the minds of 
 
264 LECTURE XT. 
 
 successive generations, and thus have secured their 
 perpetuity. 
 
 The Disappearance of Ag'nl. 
 
 Let us now consider another peculiar feature of 
 Aofni or fire. Whether fire came from the sun, or from 
 lightning, or from the friction of fire- sticks, there was 
 always the same fatality about it. It came and it 
 disappeared again. The fire in the sun disappeared 
 at sunset, and no one knew what became of it in 
 the water. Some people imagined they heard the sea 
 hissing when the sun entered into it. Such is human 
 imagination. The fire in the lightning disappeared 
 even more suddenly. It came and went, as we say, 
 like lightning. lastly, even the fire produced by 
 friction was difficult to catch, and unless constantly 
 watched and kept alive by dry leaves, sticks of wood, 
 or by fat and oil poured on it, it was very apt to 
 disappear. 
 
 This disappearance of fire was a most serious matter, 
 particularly when the art of rubbing it out of wood 
 was not yet generally known, or practised in certain 
 priestly families only. To be without fire meant not 
 only to be unable to perform sacrifices, though that 
 was serious enough in the eyes of the Erahmans ; in 
 the northern regions of India it meant dying of cold 
 and starvation. No wonder therefore that the dis- 
 appearance of fire occupied the minds of the early 
 myth-makers, or riddle-makers, or story-tellers, and 
 that all possible reasons were invented to account for 
 the flight of Agni. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 2G5 
 Dialogue between Ag-ni and Varuna. 
 
 How old these stories must be, we may gather from 
 the fact that in the hymns which are generally free as 
 yet from very elaborate legends, we find already a 
 dialogue between Agni and another god, Varuna, who 
 tries to persuade Agni to leave his hiding-place, and 
 to return to men and gods. I shall give you a trans- 
 lation of the hymn, though it belongs to that class 
 which most Vedic students would look upon as com- 
 paratively recent. (Rv. X. 51.) 
 
 VaruTia spea ks : 
 
 *That covering was great and stout, covered by 
 which thou hast entered the waters. O Agni, all- 
 knowing one, there is one god who often perceived 
 all thy bodies.' 
 
 Agni replies : 
 
 ' Who saw me ? What god was it who often espied 
 my bodies'? Where then, O Mitra and Varu7ia, dwelt 
 all the brands of Agni which ascend to the gods ?' 
 
 Varu/<a: 
 
 'We often longed for thee, all-knowing Agni, after 
 thou hadst entered the waters and the herbs. It was 
 Yama, O brilliant one, that discovered thee, sparkling 
 forth from ten coverings.' 
 
 Agni: 
 
 ' I went away from the sacrifice, Varu7ia, fearing 
 ler,t the gods should employ me there. Often have 
 my bodies been hidden there. I, Agni, did not like 
 that work.' 
 
 Varuvia : 
 
 ' Come hither, the god-loving man desires to sacri- 
 fice ; thou dwellest in darkness long enough. Make 
 
266 LECTURE XI. 
 
 the ways to the gods easy, and carry the offering 
 wiliiDgly/ 
 
 Agni : 
 
 ' The brothers of Agni have formerly accomplished 
 that work, as a driver his journey. Tlierelbre, O 
 j[&vu7ia,, I went far away from fear, I trembled like 
 a deer before the bowstring of the hunter.' 
 
 Varu/m : 
 
 'We give thee a life that is without decay, so 
 that thou shouldest not suffer, when employed, O 
 all-knowing Agni ; then wilt thou wilhngly carry the 
 share of the oblation to the gods, O noble one.' 
 
 Agni: 
 
 'Give then to me alone the first and the last 
 offerings, and the vigorous portions of the oblation, 
 the best of the waters, and the soul of the herbs, and 
 let the life of Ao-ni be lono-.' 
 
 o o 
 
 V^aru77a : 
 
 ' Let the first and the last offerinjjs belonor to thee 
 alone and the vigorous portions of the oblation. May 
 this whole sacrifice be thine, and may the four regions 
 bcw before thee.' 
 
 I look upon this hymn, as I said before, as a later 
 production. The concludiug verses, more particularly, 
 are such as we might expect in the Brahma^ms rather 
 than in the hymns. What I translated by ' the first 
 and the last offerings,' are really technical sacrificial 
 terms (pray%a and anuya(/a), and probably put in, 
 in order to explain why in certain sacrifices the first 
 and last ofierings are always dedicated to Agni. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNL 267 
 I.ater Accounts of tlie Hiding- of A^l. 
 
 The kernel of this and other stories about the 
 hiding of Agni was always the same: — Agni was 
 apt to go out, and had to be called back by 
 some means or other. Everything else was added 
 according to the fancies of individual story-tellers. 
 Thus we read in the Taittiriya-sa77ihiti II. 6,6, 1^: 
 'Agni had three elder brothers, who fainted while 
 carrying oblations to the gods. Agni feared lest he 
 should incur the same fate, and accordingly he dis- 
 appeared and entered into the waters. The gods 
 sought to discover him. A fish pointed him out. 
 Agni cursed the fish_, saying, " Since thou hast pointed 
 me out, may men slay thee, whenever they like." 
 Men, in consequence, slay a fish at their pleasure, 
 because it was cursed. The gods found Agni, and 
 said to him, •' Come to us and bring us our oblations." 
 He replied, " Let me ask a favour. Let whatever 
 part of the oblation, after it is taken and before it 
 is poured out, falls outside of the sacred enclosure, 
 be the share of my brothers." ' 
 
 You see hov/ the myth goes on growing and 
 growing. Agni has now three brothers, older than 
 himself; possibly the three fires from the sun, from 
 the lightning, and from the fire-sticks. Or possibly, 
 as having gone out in former sacrifices, they may 
 have been called his elder brothers. We can easily 
 understand why what had been spilt at the sacrifice 
 was supposed to have been ottered to these three 
 elder brothers ; for, whatever had once been brought 
 to the sacrifice, had to be assigned to some god or 
 
 1 Muir, 0. S. Texts, vol. iv. p. 203. 
 
2G8 T-EOTURE XT. 
 
 other. Hence recipients had to be found even for 
 what had been spilt, and the three invalided brothers 
 of Agni seemed the proper recipients for these wasted 
 ofFeriDgs^. 
 
 All this is mere refinement due to priestly influence. 
 *W^hat is new in this account is that, instead of being 
 discovered by Yama, or, as we find it stated else- 
 where,, by Indra, X. 32, 6, Agni is here betrayed by a 
 fish, and again, in other places, by a frog. These 
 animals may possibly have been meant for the first 
 rays of the dawn, betraying the returning sun, but 
 considering how rouch the further development of a 
 myth was in the hands of any silly grandmother, and 
 even of her grandchikU-en, we are hardly justified in 
 our expectation that there must be some reason and 
 some meaning in every particle of these stories. 
 
 The story of the disappearance of Agni has evidently 
 been a very popular one, and we find it referred to 
 again and again in the epic poetry, and even in the 
 latest Pura?ias, though with ever so many modifi- 
 cations. It is through these modifications that the 
 myth of the disappearance of Agni becomes so in- 
 structive to us. The original idea, as we saw, was 
 simple enough. It was no more than the recording of 
 the painful fact that fire was apt to go out. Every- 
 thing else was simply an attempt to answer the very 
 natural questions, Why does fire go out? Whither 
 does it go, and how has it been recovered ? 
 
 ^ That there was a superstitious feeling about the fragments of 
 anything that had once formed part of a sacrifice we see again and 
 again. Thus Ynnishthsi ^XI. 22-25) quotes Manu that ' both what 
 remains (in the vessels) and the fragments (of the meal) are the 
 portions of those members of a family who died before receiving the 
 sacraments.' They are not to be swept up before the sun has set. 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOrMKNT OF AGNI. 260 
 
 We have already seen one answer, why Agni hid 
 himself. It was because he was tired of having 
 always to do duty at the sacrifices. Another reason 
 is given in the Mahabharata III. 221. Here we read 
 that Agni, having been used for burning corpses, felt 
 contaminated and took refuge in the ocean. Atharvan 
 was sent by the gods to persuade him to return, but 
 he declined, saying that he felt too weak to carry the 
 oblations to the gods, and that Atharvan might do it 
 in his place. Agni then found another hiding-place, 
 but was betrayed again by the fishes, whom he in 
 consequence cursed and condemned to be eaten by 
 other creatures ^. When Atharvan urged him once 
 more to return, he hid himself beneath the earth, and 
 allowed his body to be dissolved. His liver, we are 
 told, became iron, his bile emerald, his phlegm crystal, 
 his bones the Devadaiu tree, and so on. While in that 
 state, he was roused by the efforts of Bh?^igu, Angiras, 
 and others. He blazed forth again, but frightened at 
 the sight of Atharvan, he went once more to hide in 
 the ocean. Atharvan, however, succeeded at last in 
 recovering Agni and persuading him to resume his 
 sacrificial duties. 
 
 Another explanation of Agni's disappearance is that 
 Bhrfgu, a saint, cursed him for having spoken the 
 truth. The fact is that this saint had deprived the 
 giant Puloman of his bride, Puloma. Puloman, on 
 entering the house of the saint to recover his bride, 
 asks Agni, the fire burning on the hearth, whether 
 she is not the giant's legitimate bride. Agni, who 
 cannot tell an untruth, speaks the truth, Puloman 
 
 ' At Rome fishes were sacrificed to the god of fire at the Vol- 
 canalia. Varro, i. L. vi. 20 ; Plin. Epiat. iii. r>, 8. 
 
270 LECTURE XI. 
 
 carries off his bride, and the saint curses Agni to 
 become a sarvabhaksha, an indiscriminate eater, 
 a devourer of unclean as well as clean things ; though 
 he adds that his flames shall always purify everything. 
 Upon this, Agni fled and hid himself in a /Sami-tree. 
 'The whole world then seemed in danger of perishing 
 during the absence of A;,ni, but Brihaspati leads the 
 suppliant gods to the >Sami-tree in which Agni was 
 hidden, and at last persuades him to return, even 
 though he must remain a sarvabhaksha, or a pro- 
 miscuous feeder ^. 
 
 There are several other legends about Agni and his 
 vanishings, and it is easy to see that there is a certain 
 purpose in all of them. For instance, the idea that 
 fire consumed all things, whether clean or unclean, 
 would naturally stagger the mind of the Hindus, who 
 were so particular, at all events in later times, as to 
 what might or might not be eaten. Hence the story 
 of the curse of the saint pronounced against Agni, and 
 his condemnation to consume everything, whether 
 clean or unclean. 
 
 Agni's hiding in a /Sami-tree is likewise intelligible. 
 It was from that tree that one of the fire-sticks had 
 to be taken, and as fire came out of it by mere rub- 
 bing, it was but a natural conclusion that Agni had 
 been hiding in the tree. 
 
 Why Agni was supposed to have been hiding in the 
 water is likewise intelligible. First of all he seemed 
 to rise and to set in the clouds, so far as he was 
 embodied in the sun. Secondly, in the shape of 
 lio'htnins:, he burst forth from the clouds and seemed 
 
 ' A similar story of Agni becoming leprous is told by Al-Biruni 
 (vol. ii. p. 140) from the Vishnu-dharma. 
 
TPIE MYTIIOLOaiCAL DEVELOPMENT OF AGNI. 271 
 
 to be the cause of rain. Thirdly, it could not escape 
 attention that the one element which was capable of 
 overcoming lire was water, so that it might well ])Q 
 said in that sense also that Agni had been hidden or 
 extinguished by water. 
 
 We see a similar idea expressed in a legend wdiich 
 tells us that Agni was once sent out to find Indra, 
 who had been lost. When he returned from his voyage 
 of discovery, he told the gods he had explored the 
 whole world without finding Indra ; only the waters 
 he could not explore, because he would perish there, 
 for fire, he says, is born from water, and the power ot 
 fire ceases where it had its orioin. 
 
 Again, there is some sense in the story that Agni, 
 when hidden in the earth, w^as changed into iron and 
 other metals. It shows that the igneous origin of the 
 metals had been guessed, and that traces of the action 
 of volcanic fire had probably been discovered. 
 
 Lastly, as fire w^as conceived as heat, and heat an 
 life, the idea that Agni was hidden in all living beings, 
 and that even the growth and ripening of plants were 
 dependent on his presence, was not unnaturaL 
 
 The Meaning- or Hyponoia of Mytholog-y. 
 
 What I wished to put clearly before you in this 
 collection of mythologic sayings about Agni is this, 
 that there are grains of reason in all that heap of 
 unreason wdiich we call mythology. The constituent 
 elements of mythology, when we can still discover 
 them, are always perfectly natural. Their super- 
 natural appearance is the result of growth and decay, 
 of fancy and fun, of misunderstanding, sometimes, 
 though rarely, of a wilful perversion. This is what 
 
272 LECTURE XI. 
 
 Comparative Mythology teaches us. . It depends on 
 us to draw from it those practical lessons which com- 
 parative studies will always convey, if only they are 
 carried out in a truly philosophical and comprehensive 
 spirit. 
 
 Iiessons of Comparative Mythology. 
 
 There are two prejudices at all events which a 
 comparative study of the religions of the world, and 
 of the inevitable corruptions of those religions, may^ 
 help to eradicate. The one is that the ancient dwellers 
 on earth were so different from us that they can teach 
 us nothing, that they cannot be judged by the same 
 standards as we ourselves, and that even if they say 
 the same thing, they do not mean the same thing. 
 
 The second prejudice, prevalent more particularly 
 among a certain class of scholars, is that if poets and 
 prophets, belonging to different countries, say the 
 same thing, they must have borrowed it, one from the 
 other. 
 
 With regard to this second prejudice, where is there 
 any excuse for it? We can see how most of the 
 thoughts in the Veda have grown up naturally and 
 intelligibly. I tried to show this in the case of Agni, 
 or fire, and its gradual development into a god of fire, 
 and, at last, into a supreme god. If then we find the 
 same development or the same final result elsewhei'e 
 also, as, for instance, in Babylon, why should we say 
 that Babylon has borrowed from India, or India from 
 Babylon? Surely what was possible in one country was 
 possible in another also ; what was intelligible in India 
 is intelligible in Babylon also. When there is a real 
 historical intercourse between two nations in antiquity, 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF A ONI. ^73 
 
 that intercourse cannot easily be mistaken. For 
 instance, the very name of Alphabet proves better 
 than anything else that the Phenicians were at one 
 time the schoolmasters of the Greeks. But when, as 
 in the case of the Veda, there is no trace, so far as we 
 know at present, of any foreign influence, whether 
 Semitic or Egyptian, why should we look to Babylon, 
 Nineveh, Egypt, or China for the antecedents of what 
 shows to us its perfect natural development on Indian 
 soil? On our maps the North of India may seem 
 very near to Babylon, yet it is a far cry from Loch 
 Awe, and the roads from India to Babylon are even 
 now by no means easy or pleasant. I know there are 
 coincidences, sometimes very startling coincidences, 
 between the religion of the Vedas and those of other 
 races. There are startling coincidences, as you have 
 often heard of late, between Buddhism and Christianity. 
 But to the scholar these coincidences are nothing as 
 compared with the enormous dissimilarities between 
 these religions. There are some stray coincidences 
 even between Sanskrit and Hebrew, between English 
 and Chinese, but what weight have these in the midst 
 of a totally diff'erent body of words and grammar? 
 This is a point that has strangely been neglected, 
 though in the eyes of the scholar it is strong enough 
 to make him unwilling to enter at all on such useless 
 controversies. 
 
 If I have tried to show you how the human mind, 
 unassisted by anything but the miraculous revelation 
 of nature, arrived in India from the concept of fire 
 at the highest concept of deity, my object was to 
 show by one instance that could not be gainsayed, 
 that such a process was not only possible, but was 
 i2) T 
 
274 LECTURE XI. 
 
 real. That is the only answer which the scholar can 
 give to those who hold, for some reason which they 
 have never explained, that it is impossible for unas- 
 sisted human reason to arrive at the idea of God. 
 But I hope that no one could have so far misunder- 
 stood me as to suppose that I wished to maintain that 
 all other Aryan nations had borrowed their concept of 
 deity from the hymns of the Veda, or from the concept 
 of Agni. All I wished to prove was that what was 
 real in the Veda was possible elsewhere also. There is 
 a parallelism between the religions, as there is between 
 the languages of the Aryan race, but the distant source 
 from which these streams spring is not to be looked 
 for in India. Yet there was such a source, and that 
 source had a truly historical character. 
 
 When, on the contrary, we find similarities between 
 any of the Aryan and any of the Semitic religions, 
 there is no common historical source foe these parallel 
 streams. Their only common source, so far as we 
 know at present, is our common inward nature, and 
 that common outward nature by which we are sur- 
 rounded. In all the lessons which the human mind 
 learnt in that common school-room of the world, we 
 share in the same truth, and we are exposed to the 
 same errors, whether we are Aryan or Semitic or 
 Egyptian in language and thought. Or, to put it in 
 clearer language, in all the fundamentals of religion 
 we are neither better nor worse than our neighbours, 
 neither more wise nor more unwise than all the mem- 
 bers of that great family who have been taught to 
 know themselves as children of one and the same 
 Father in Heaven. 
 
 This is the lesson which nothing can teach so 
 
THE MYTHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMFNT OF AOXr. 275 
 
 powerfully as a comparative study of the religions 
 of the world. It teaches by facts, not by theories. 
 I must often be satisfied with placing before you the 
 dry facts : but I have no doubt that these facts will 
 speak like texts, even without a sermon. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 
 Difference between Religion and Mythology. 
 
 IWxiS anxious to explain to you in my last lecture 
 how the same source which supplied the ancient 
 world with religious concepts, produced also a number 
 of ideas which cannot claim to be called religious in 
 any sense, least of all in that which v:e ourselves 
 connect with the name of religion. 
 
 We saw how in the Veda the concept of Fire had 
 been raised higher and higher, till at last it became 
 synonymous with the Supreme Deity of the Vedic poets. 
 But in the amorous vagaries of Agni, as related in 
 the later poetry of India, or in Greece in the mon- 
 strous birth of Hephaestos, likewise a representative, 
 or, as we sometimes say, likewise a god of fire, in his 
 disgraceful ejection from the sky, in his marriage with 
 Aphrodite, to say nothing of the painful denouement 
 of that ill-judged union, there is very little of religion, 
 very little of ' the perception of the infinite under 
 such manifestations as are able to influence the moral 
 conduct of man.' 
 
 These mythological stories are, no doubt, chips and 
 splinters from the same block out of which many a 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 277 
 
 divine image has been chiselled by the human mind, 
 but their character, their origin and purpose are totally 
 different. This distinction, however, has not only been 
 neglected, it seems ofien to have been wilfully ne- 
 glected. Whenever it was necessary to criticise any 
 of the non- Christian religions in a hostile spirit, 
 these stories, the stories of Venus and Vulcan and 
 Mars, have constantly been quoted as showing the 
 deg-raded character of ancient oods and heroes, and of 
 pagan religion in general. 
 
 This is most unfair. Neither does this mythological 
 detritus, not to say rubbish, represent the essential 
 elements of the religion of Greeks and Romans, nor 
 did the ancients themselves believe that it did. We 
 must remember that the ancient nations had really 
 no word or concept as yet for religion in the compre- 
 hensive sense which we attach to it. It would hardly 
 be possible to ask the question in any of the ancient 
 lano'uasfes, or even in classical Greek, whether a belief 
 in Hephaestos and Aphrodite constituted an article of 
 religious faith. 
 
 It is true that the ancients, as we call them rather 
 promiscuously, had but one name for their gods, 
 whether they meant Jupiter, the Deus Optiinus 
 Maximus, or Jupiter, the faithless husband of Juno. 
 But when we speak of the ancients in general, we 
 must not forget that we are speaking, not only of 
 Homer and Hesiod, but likewise of men like Hera- 
 kleitos, Aeschylos, and Plato. These ancient thinkers 
 knew as well as we do that nothing unworthy of the 
 gods could ever have been true of them, still less of 
 the supreme God ; and if they tolerated mythology 
 and legends, those who thought at all about these 
 
278 LECTURE XII. 
 
 matters looked upon them as belonging to quite a 
 different sphere of human interests. 
 
 If we once understand how mythology and legends 
 arose, how they represent an inevitable stage in the 
 growth of ancient language and thought, we shall 
 ^understand not only their outward connection with 
 religious ideas, but likewise their very essential 
 difference. 
 
 Secular Ideas become Religious. 
 
 While on the one hand it is perfectly true that the 
 sources of religion and mythology are conterminous, 
 nay, that certain concepts which in their origin might 
 be called religious wither away into mere mythology 
 and romance, we shall see that it likewise happens, 
 and by no means unirequently, that ideas, at first 
 entirely unconnected with religion, are attracted into 
 the sphere of religion, and assume a religious character 
 in the course of time. This is an important subject, 
 but beset with many difficulties. 
 
 Of course, the deification of an animal, such as an 
 Egyptian Apis, or the apotheosis of a human being, 
 such as Romulus or the Emperor Augustus, presup- 
 poses the previous existence in the human mind of 
 the concept of divinity, a concept which, as we saw, 
 required many generations for its elaboration. Again, 
 the attribution of a divine sanction bestowed either 
 on customs or laws, presupposes a belief in something 
 superhuman or divine. But, after a time, all this is 
 forgotten, and these later corruptions of religiuus 
 thought are mixed up with the more primitive 
 elements of religion in a hopeless confusion. 
 
 Let us consider to-day a few instances of secular 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 279 
 
 customs being afterwards invested with a religious 
 authority. 
 
 lilglitlnff and Keeping" of Fire. 
 
 When we remember how difficult it must have been 
 in early times to light a fire at a moment's notice and 
 what fearful consequer.ces might follow if a whole 
 community was left during the winter without a fire 
 burning on the hearth w^e require no far-fetched ex- 
 planations for a number of time-hallowed customs 
 connected with the lighting, and still more with the 
 guarding of the fire. It was not necessary that every 
 tribe which kept a sacred fire should have a belief in 
 fire as a god, as w^as the case with the Vcdic poets. 
 Quite apart from any deeper religious convictions, 
 mere common sense w^ould have led men in a primi- 
 tive state of society to value any new discovery for 
 striking fire and to adopt measures for preserving it, 
 whether for piivate or for public use. If the Romans 
 appointed vestal virgins to keep a fire ahvays burning, 
 the Damaras ^ in Africa did exactly the same. 
 
 It is the custom, or it was till very lately, among 
 German peasants, for a man when he married and left 
 his father's house, to take a burning piece of wood 
 from the paternal home and to light with it the fire 
 on his ow^n hearth. Exactly the same is told us of 
 many uncivilised races. Among the Damaras, for 
 instance, when a tribe migrated from one place to 
 another, they took some burning logs from the old to 
 the new home. 
 
 Nowhere, however, do w^e find this custom more 
 fully described than in India. In the Vedic hymns 
 
 * R6ville, Religions des Pevples non-civ ili.'ies, i. p. 144. 
 
280 LECTURE XII. 
 
 fii-e is the g7'iha-pati, the lord of the house. A 
 house was a fire, and ' so many fires ' are mentioned 
 even now in the census of half-nomadic tribes in 
 Russia, nay even in Italy (fuochi), as meaning ' so 
 jnany families, or houses.' In ancient India, as de- 
 scribed to us in the GWhya-sutras.. the most impor- 
 tant act when a man married and founded his own 
 household, was the kindling of the fii'e in his own 
 house, with fire brought from the home of his bride, 
 or with fire newly rubbed. In the fourth night after 
 the wedding the husband has to establish the fire 
 within his house. He assigns his seat to the south of 
 it to the Brahman, places a pot of water to the north, 
 cooks a mess, of sacrificial food, sacrifices the two 
 a^ya portions, and then makes five oblations to Agni, 
 Vayu, Surya, A'andra, and Gandharva. Here Agni, 
 Fire, holds the first place among the domestic gods. 
 After him follow Wind, Sun, and Moon, and lastly 
 the Gandharva, whoever he may be ^. 
 
 This domestic fire, when once lit, remained the 
 friend and protector of the family in every sense of 
 the word, and we see the most touching superstitions 
 arising from this in India, and in every part of the 
 world. Many years ago, in my article on ' Funeral 
 Ceremonies' (1855)2, I translated a passage from 
 Asvalay ana's G7'^hya-sutras (IV. 1), in which it is 
 said that if a disease befall one who has set up sacred 
 fires, he should leave his village (with his fires) and 
 go in an eastern, northern, or north-eastern direction. 
 And why ? Because there is a saying, ' Fires love 
 the village.' It is understood therefore that the 
 
 ^ Paraskara, Gn'hya-sutras I. 11 ; and Sankhayana I. 18. 
 
 ^ Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, ix. pp. 1 seq. 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 281 
 
 fires, longing to return to the village, will bless him 
 and make him whole ^ Here we see how a mere 
 proverb, 'The fires love the village,' may lead w^ithout 
 any effort to a metamorphosis of the fire into a friend, 
 a friend with all the feelings of other friends, willing 
 even to render a service and to restore a man to 
 health, if thereby they may themselves be enabled to 
 return to their beloved hearth. 
 
 Besides the fire in each house, the custom of keeping 
 a public fire also is alluded to at an early date. 
 
 According to the Dharma-sutras of Apastamba, II. 
 10, 25, a king has to build a palace, a hall, and a 
 house of assembly, and in every one of them a fire is 
 to be kept, a kind of ignis foci inihlici sempiterwas, 
 and daily oblations to be offered in it, just the same 
 as in every private house. 
 
 There are many sayings among civilised and un- 
 civilised nations, implying a respect for fire and a 
 recognition of its value for domestic purposes. The 
 Ojibways^, for instance, have a saying that one ought 
 not to take liberties wnth fire, but Ave are never told 
 that the Ojibways worshipped the fire as a god. 
 
 There is a very wdde-spread feeling against spitting, 
 or throwing anything unclean into the fire or into the 
 w^ater. We saw it mentioned by Herodotus and by 
 Manu. It is a godless thing, they say in Bohemia, to 
 spit into the fire. The Mongolians, as Schmidt tells 
 us, consider it sinful to extinguish fire by water, to 
 spit into the fire, or to defile it in any other way '■\ 
 
 Such rules, though evidently intended at first for a 
 
 ^ See also Oldenberg, S. B. E., xxix, p. 236. 
 
 2 Reville, 1. c, i. p. 221. 
 
 ^ Castren, Finnische Myihologie, p. 57. 
 
282 LECTURE XII. 
 
 very definite and practical object, were soon invested 
 with a kind of sacred authority. If the Bohemian says 
 it is a godless thing to spit into the fire, he soon adds a 
 reason : Because it is God's fire. This is, of course, a 
 very modern idea ; it may be called a Christian idea, 
 based on a belief that all good and perfect gifts come 
 from God— but it is nevertheless a very natural after- 
 thought. 
 
 Heligious Sanction for Customs. 
 
 What therefore we must try to find out r\ all these 
 observances is, whether at first there was not an in- 
 telligible object in them, whether they did not serve 
 some useful purpose, and whether the religious sanction 
 did not come much later in the day. When there once 
 existed a belief in divine beings, any custom or law, 
 and particularly those which it was difficult to enforce 
 by mere human authority, were naturally placed by 
 the ancient lawgivers under the protection of the 
 gods. Professor von Ihering, one of the highest 
 German authorities on the history of law, has traced 
 many of these sacred commandments back to their 
 true origin, namely their Ziceck, their practical object. 
 
 It is quite clear, for instance, that in early times it 
 was necessary to guard the purity of rivers by some 
 kind of religious protection. No sanitary police could 
 have protected them in their long meandering courses. 
 Pausanias (iii. 25, 4) tells a story of a spring on the 
 promontory of Tainaron in Laconia (Cape Matapan) 
 which possessed some miraculous qualities, but lost 
 them because a woman had dared to wash dirty 
 linen in it. 
 
 In a primitive household, where the central fire 
 was, as it were, the property of all, a similar restric- 
 
EELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 283 
 
 tion against defilement was equally necessary. And 
 "when with the change of domestic arrangements the 
 original object of such restrictions ceased to be under- 
 stood, they became what we find them to be in many 
 countries, mere unmeaning customs, and, for that very 
 reason, often invested with a sacred authority. When 
 the real purpose (ZivecJc) was forgotten, a new pur- 
 pose had to be invented. 
 
 Baptism by Water and Pire. 
 
 For instance, people wonder why the inhabitants 
 of Mexico, as well as of Peru \ should have been 
 acquainted with baptism by water and fire. Origin- 
 ally, however, these seem to have been very simple 
 and useful acts of purification, which in later time 
 only grew into sacramental acts. The nurse had to 
 bathe the child immediately after birth, and to in- 
 voke the so called goddess of water to cleanse the 
 child from everything unclean, and to pi'otect it 
 against all evil. That is to say, every new-born 
 child had to be washed. Afterwards there followed 
 a more brilliant baptism. Friends and relations were 
 invited to a feast, the child was carried about in the 
 house, as if to present it to the domestic deities, and 
 while the nurse placed it in water she recited the fol- 
 lowing words : ' My child, the gods, the lords of 
 heaven, have sent thee into this miserable world ; 
 take this water which will give you life.' Then she 
 sprinkled water on the mouth, the head, and the 
 chest of the child, bathed the whole body, rubbed 
 every limb, and said : ' Where art thou, ill luck ? In 
 which limb dost thou hide 1 Move away from this 
 
 * Miiller, Urrtligionen, p. 052. 
 
^84 LECTURE XII. 
 
 child ! ' Prayers were then offered to the gods of the 
 water, the earth, and the sky. The child had to be 
 dressed, to be put in a cradle, and to be placed under 
 the protection of the god of cradles and the god of 
 sleep. At the same time a name was given to the 
 infant. 
 
 All this is full of elements which remind us of 
 similar practices among the Komans, the Aiivplddro- 
 mias of the Greeks, and the name-giving ceremonies 
 described in the Vedic Gi^^hya-sutras. 
 
 Next followed the baptism of fire. This also was 
 originally nothing but an act of purification. Like 
 water, fire also was conceived by many nations as 
 purifying. ' Fire," as Plutarch sa}^s in his Quaestiones 
 Bomanae, cap. i, ' purifies, water hallows ^.' Its very 
 name in Sanskrit, pavaka, means purifier. In India 
 we were met by two trains of thought. Either fire 
 was conceived as purifying everything, or it was 
 represented as shrinking from contact with all that 
 is impure. In Mexico the former idea prevailed. It 
 had probably been observed that fire consumed 
 deleterious substances, and that the fumes of fire 
 served as a preservative against miasma and illness. 
 Hence in the baptism of fire in Mexico the child was 
 carried four times through a fire, and was then sup- 
 posed to have been purified. 
 
 Purification by Pire. 
 
 Whether there is some truth in this belief in the 
 purifying powers of fire, we must leave to medical 
 men to determine. AnyhOw it is a belief or a super- 
 
 ^ To TTvp KaOaipei Kai to vdojp dyi^i^ei. See also Vasish<7«a XII. 
 15, 16. 
 
RELIGION-, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 285 
 
 stition which has lasted for many centuries. When 
 cholera rages in India, we still receive our letters well 
 smoked. Menander tells us that Zemarchus, the am- 
 bassador of Justinian, was led by the Turks round a 
 fire, so that he might be purified \ According to 
 Piano Carpini, a foreign ambassador was actually led 
 through two fires by the Mongolians. Castren traces 
 all these customs back to a religious reverence for the 
 fire. It seems, however, much more plausible that the 
 custom had a purely utilitarian foundation, that it 
 was in fact the forerunner of our modern quarantine, 
 which many medical authorities now look upon as 
 equally superstitious. 
 
 Nor was the purificatory or disinfecting power of 
 fire restricted to human beings. Cattle were often 
 submitted to the same process of lustration. The 
 object was originally purely practical, though super- 
 stitious ideas began soon to cluster around it. 
 
 Iiustration of Animals. 
 
 The Romans had their annual lustrations. On the 
 twenty-first of April, after a sacrifice had been offered, 
 hay and straw were piled up in rows, and when they 
 had been lighted, the fiocks were driven through the 
 burning fire. The shepherds often jumped through 
 the flames, following their flocks ^. 
 
 This purely disinfecting character is still more 
 clearly visible in the so-called Need -fire of the 
 Teutonic nations. 
 
 ^ Corpus 8a-ip(o7ion Hisior. Byzant., pars i. p. 381, ed. Bonn. Castren, 
 1. c, p. 57. 
 
 2 Hartung, Religion der Rbrner, i. 4*3, 199 ; ii. 152. 
 
286 LECTURE XII. 
 
 ITeed-fire. 
 
 Joh. Reiskius, in a book published in 1696, tells 
 us that whenever pestilence broke out among small 
 or large cattle the peasants determined to have a Xot- 
 fetter. All other fires in the village had then to be put 
 out, and by the usual method of rubbing pieces of 
 wood, covered with pitch, a new tire was lighted. 
 When it had grown large enough, horses and cattle 
 were twice or thrice driven through it ^ Afterwards 
 the fire was extinguished, but each householder carried 
 home a burning log to light his own fire, or dipped it 
 afterwards in the ^Aash-tub, and then let it lie in the 
 manger. 
 
 This ceremony of the Need-fire might in fact have 
 been witnessed in Scotland as late as the last cen- 
 tury 2. A Miss Austin relates that in the year 1767, 
 in the isle of Mull, in consequence of a disease among 
 the black cattle, the people agreed to perform an in- 
 cantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. 
 They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and 
 nine spindles of oak-wood. They extinguished every 
 fire in every house within sight of the hill. The 
 wheel was then turned from east to west over the 
 nine spindles, long enough to produce fire by friction. 
 If the fire were not produced by noon, the incantation 
 lost its eflTect. If they failed for several days running, 
 they attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one 
 householder, who would not let his fires be put out 
 for what he considered so wrong a purpose. How- 
 
 1 On running through and jumping over the fire, see Grimm, 
 
 Deutsche Mtjthologie, pp. 592-3 ; Ovid, Fasti, iv. 727 seq. ; Miiller, 
 Amerikanische Urreligionen, p. 56. 
 
 ^ Grimm, Deutsche Mythologies p. 574. 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 287 
 
 ever, by bribing his servants, they contrived to have 
 them extinguished, and on that morning raised the 
 fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces 
 and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They 
 then lighted their own hearths from the pile, and 
 ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incan- 
 tation were repeated by an old man from Morven, 
 who came over as master of the ceremonies, and who 
 continued speaking all the time the fire was being 
 raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochrog. 
 Asked to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating 
 it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared 
 not say those words again. The whole country be- 
 lieved him accursed ^. 
 
 Tinegin in Ireland. 
 
 In Ireland also, according to Martin 2, the same 
 heathenish custom might have been witnessed within 
 the memory of men. The inhabitants made use of a 
 fire called tinegin,i.e. a forced fire, or fire of necessity. 
 This word is formed from the Irish teine, fire, and 
 eigin, violence. It is either a simple translation of 
 the English need -fire, or it expresses the same idea 
 which is conveyed by the Vedic name for fire, sahasaA 
 sunuh, son of strength or efi*ort. This Tinegin was used 
 as an antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle, 
 and it was performed thus : 'ALL the fires in the parish 
 were extinguished, and then eighty-one (9 x 9) married 
 men, being thought the necessary number for effect- 
 ing this design, took two great planks of wood, and 
 
 1 See Appendix XIV. 
 
 2 Descrqjdon of the Western Islands, p. 113 ; quoted by Borlase, 
 Antiqiulits of Coi-nvcall, p. 130. 
 
288 LECTURE XII. 
 
 nine of them were employed by turns, who by their 
 repeated efforts rubbed one of the planks against the 
 other until the heat thereof produced fire ; and from 
 this forced fire each family is supplied with new fire, 
 which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water is 
 quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the 
 people infected with the plague, or upon the cattle 
 that have the murrain. And this they all say they 
 find successful by experience. It was practised on 
 the mainland, opposite to the south of Skie, within 
 these thirty years.' 
 
 Now suppose some Portuguese priests had visited 
 Scotland and Ireland, as they visited the West Coast 
 of Africa, and had described the religion of the natives 
 from what they saw with their own eyes, as they 
 described the fetish worship of the negroes. They 
 might have described them, first of all, as fire-worship- 
 pers ; secondly, as fetish-worshippers, for the fire, we 
 are told, is a fetish when it is invoked for help ; 
 thirdly, as performing animal sacrifices, for they sacri- 
 ficed a heifer and feasted on it ; fourthly, as sorcerers, 
 for they repeated unintelligible incantations ; and 
 lastl}^ as animists, for they believed that there was 
 some kind of spirit in the fire. That these people 
 were Christians, and that their religion was some- 
 thing quite different from these popular amusements, 
 they could never have guessed. Yet it is on the 
 strength of some stray observations made on the West 
 Coast of Africa that we are asked to believe that the 
 religion of the negroes is pure Fetishism, nay, that 
 Fetishism was the primitive religion of all mankind. 
 
 It mio-ht be said that such heathenish customs 
 existed in Scotland and Ireland only, and if, as care- 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 289 
 
 ful travellers ought to do, our Portuguese missionaries 
 had explored England also, they would have found 
 there no traces of fetishism and sorcery. But no, 
 in England also they might have witnessed similar 
 heathenish ceremonies, for we are told by fair autho- 
 rities that not long ago two ladies in Northampton- 
 shire saw a fire in the field and a crowd round it. 
 Tfiey said, 'What is the matter?' — 'Killing a calf.' 
 ' What for ?' — ' To stop the murrain.' The ladies went 
 away as quickly as possible. On speaking to the 
 clergyman he made inquiries. The people did not 
 like to talk of the affair, but it appeared that when 
 there is a disease among the cows, or the calves are 
 born sickly, they sacrifice;, that is, they kill and burn 
 one for good luck. 
 
 We have still later testimony of the permanence of 
 similar superstitious customs. They seem to have 
 survived to the present day. At a meeting of the 
 Society of Antiquarians of Scotland held at the Royal 
 Institution, Edinbui-gh, and reported in the Scotsman^ 
 Tuesday, March 11, 1890, the Rev. Alexander Stewart, 
 Nether Lochaber, gave an account of some examples 
 which had recently come to his knowledge of the 
 survival of certain superstitions relating to fire in the 
 Highlands of Scotland and in Wigtownshire. The 
 first case happened in March last, and was accidentally 
 witnessed by Dr. Stewart's informant. Having gone 
 to a small hamlet in a remote glen to leave a message 
 for the shepherd, he was surprised to find there was 
 no one in the houses, but seeing a slight smoke in a 
 hollow^ at some distance, he concluded that he would 
 find the women there washing. On reaching the l)ank 
 above the hollow he was astonished to see five women 
 (2) U 
 
290 LECTURE XII. 
 
 engaged in the ceremony of passing a sick child 
 through the fire. Two of the women standing oppo- 
 site each other held a blazing hoop vertically between 
 them, and two others standing on either side of the 
 hoop were engaged in passing the child backwards 
 and forwards through the opening of the hoop. The 
 fifth woman, who was the mother of the child, stood 
 at a little distance, earnestly looking on. After the 
 child had been several times passed and repassed 
 through the fiery circle, it was returned to its mother, 
 and the burning hoop was thrown into a pool of water 
 close by. The child, which was about eighteen months 
 old, was a weakling and was supposed to have come 
 under the baleful influence of an evil eye. When 
 taken home a bunch of bog-myrtle was suspended 
 over its bed. The somewhat analogous superstition of 
 putting a patient in the centre of a cart-wheel when 
 the red-hot fire was put on it at the door of the smithy 
 was practised in Wigtownshire half a century ago. 
 
 Purpose of Customs often Porg-otten. 
 
 Now, I ask, is all this to be called religion? If 
 Christians can perform these vagaries, why should not 
 the negroes of Africa indulge in superstitious prac- 
 tices without therefore deserving to have their religion 
 represented as nothing but fetish - worship ? The 
 negroes of Africa, and, in fact, most uncivilised races, 
 are most unwilling to speak about what we mean by 
 religion; they often have not even a name for it. 
 They are proud, on the contrary, of their popular 
 amusements, feastings, dances, and more or less solemn 
 gatherings, and welcome strangers who come to see 
 them. Some of these gatherings may in time have 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. )i\)i 
 
 assumed a religious character. But the wide preva- 
 lence of many of the customs which we described, 
 such as the ceremonial observed in the lighting and 
 keeping of the fire, the purification of children, and 
 the lustration of cattle, shows that in many of them 
 there was originally a definite and practical object. 
 Sometimes we can still discover it, but in other cases 
 the real object has completely disappeared. We cannot 
 tell, for instance, why, when the new fire was lighted, 
 it should have been thought necessary to extinguish 
 the fires in every house. Yet we find exactly the 
 same custom which we met with in Germany in the 
 island of Lemnos also, the very island on wdiich 
 Hephaestos was believed to have been precipitated 
 by Zeus. Here all fires had to be extinguished during 
 nine days, till a ship arrived from Delos, bringing the 
 new sacred fire from the hearth of Apollo. This fii'e 
 was afterwards distributed among all the families, and 
 a new life was supposed to begin ^. 
 
 When, after the battle of Plataeae, the Greeks sent 
 to Delphi to ask what sacrifices they ought to ofier, 
 they were told by the Pythian god to erect an altar 
 to Zeus Eleutherios, but not to sacrifice till all the 
 fires in the country had been extinguished, because 
 they had been contaminated by the barbarians, and 
 till new fire had been fetched from the common hearth 
 at Delphi 2. 
 
 During the Middle Ages a similar custom prevailed 
 in Germany. At Marburg and in Lower Saxony the 
 lire was lighted once every year by rubbing two 
 
 ' Philostrat. Heroic, p. 740 ; Welcker, Trilogie, p. 247 ; Grimm, 1. c, 
 pp. 577, ^bO. 
 
 - Plutarch, Arisiides, c. 20 ; L. v. Schroeder, in Kuhn's Zeitschrift, 
 xxix. p. 198. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 LECTURE XII. 
 
 pieces of wood. This was the new fire which was to 
 take the place of the old fires. These were supposed 
 to have been contaminated by contact with impurities 
 during the vear ^. 
 
 Nor is it necessary that there should always have 
 been a very deep motive for these customs. We can 
 hardly imagine, for instance, a very stringent reason 
 why the guardianship of the public fire should have 
 been committed to Vestal virgins. It was so not only 
 in Rome. In Ireland also the fire of Saint Brigida at 
 Kildar was not allowed to be approached by men. 
 The Damaras, an African tribe, entrusted their fire, 
 as w^e saw, to young maidens. In Mexico, in Peru, 
 in Yucatan, the sacred fire was likewise guarded by 
 a company of virgins ^. All we can say in this and 
 similar cases is that in a primitive state of society 
 the watching over the fire on the hearth would 
 naturally fall to the unmarried daughters of a family 
 who stayed at home, while other duties called their 
 brothers into the field. The mere continuation of 
 such an arrangement would in time impart to it 
 something of a time-honoured and venerable character, 
 and the less the original purpose of such ancient 
 customs was understood, the more likely it was that 
 a kind of religious sanction should be claimed for 
 them. 
 
 Essential Difference toetween Relig-ion, Mytliolog'y, and 
 Ceremonial. 
 
 What I am anxious to place in the clearest light is 
 that a great deal of what we class as religious, whetlier 
 
 ^ See M. Kovalevsky, Tableau des origines et de Vevolution de la famille, 
 189fi, p. 80. He also quotes Geiger, Osiiranische Kultur. 
 
 2 Miiller, 1. c, pp. 368, 387-8 ; Brinton, Myths of the Neio World, 
 p. 147. 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 213 
 
 among ancient or modern peoples, had really in tlie 
 beginning very little or nothing to do with what we 
 ourselves mean by religion. Mythology affects ancient 
 religion, — in one sense it may be said to affect all 
 religion. But mythology by itself is never religion, 
 as little as rust is iron. Ceremonial again affects 
 religion; "it may be, that in the world w^e live in, 
 ceremonial has become inseparable from religion. 
 But ceremonial by itself is never religion, as little as 
 shade is light. 
 
 I w^anted to show you how out of the same materials 
 both religious and non-religious concepts may be 
 formed. It was for that purpose that I chose Fire 
 and tried to exhibit its threefold development, either 
 as truly theogonic, or as mj thological, or as ceremonial 
 and sacrificial. 
 
 Theog-onic Development of Agrni. 
 
 In India we are able to prove by documentary 
 evidence that the concept of Fire, embodying the 
 concepts of warmth, light, and life, was raised 
 gradually to that of a divine and supreme being,- the 
 maker and ruler of the world. And if in the Veda 
 we have the facts of that development clearly before 
 us, it seems to me that we have a right to say that in 
 other religions also where Fire occupies the same 
 supreme position, it may have passed through the 
 same stages through which Agni passed in the Veda. 
 
 Mythological Development of Agni. 
 
 By the side of this theogonic process, however, we 
 can likewise watch in the Veda the beojinnin<i: at least 
 of a mythological development which becomes wider 
 
S94 LECTURE XIT. 
 
 and richer in the epic and paurardc literature of India. 
 This side is most prominent in Greece and Rome, 
 where the legends told of Hephaestos retain but few 
 grains of Agni, as the creator and ruler of the world. 
 
 Ceremonial Development of Ag-nl. 
 
 Lastly, the ceremonial development of Fire is 
 exhibited to us in what has sometimes been ca,lled 
 fire-worship, but is in most cases merely a recognition 
 of the usefulness of fire for domestic, sacrificial, and 
 even medicinal purposes. 
 
 Definition of Religion Re-examined. 
 
 These three sides, though they have much in 
 common, should nevertheless be kept carefully distinct 
 in the study of religion. I know it may be said in 
 fact, it has been said, that the definition of religion 
 which I laid down in my former course of lectures is 
 too narrow and too arbitrary. In one sense, every 
 definition may be said to be arbitrary, for it is meant 
 to fix the limits which the definer, according to his 
 own arbitrium., wishes to assign to a certain concept 
 or name. Both in including and excluding the 
 definer may differ from other definers, and those who 
 differ from him will naturally call his definition 
 arbitrary, and either too narrow or too wide. 
 
 I thought it right, for instance, to modify my first 
 definition of religion as ' the perception of the Infinite,' 
 by restricting that perception to such manifestations 
 as are able to influence the moral conduct of man. 
 My first definition was not wrong, but it was too 
 wide. It cannot be denied that in the beginning the 
 perception of the Infinite had often very little to do 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. S95 
 
 with moral ideas, and I am quite aware that many 
 religions enjoin even what is either not moral at all, 
 or even immoral. But if there are perceptions of the 
 Infinite unconnected as yet with moral ideas, we have 
 no right to call them religious till they assume a 
 moral character, that is, till they begin to react on our 
 moral nature. They may be called philosophical, 
 metaphysical, even mathematical, but they form no 
 part of what we call religion. The objection that 
 some religions actually sanction what is immoral, is 
 purely forensic. 
 
 If some religions sanction what is immoral, or what 
 seems to us immoral, this would only serve to prove 
 all the more strongly the influence of religion on the 
 moral conduct of man. We are told ^, for instance, 
 that ' the pre-historic Hebrews killed their first-born 
 in sacrifice to their god. Abraham came very near 
 doing the same thing. Jephtha killed his daughter, 
 and David killed the murderers of the son of Saul, 
 and kept them hanging in the air all summer long, 
 to remind his God that Ishbosheth was avenged. If 
 you catch a Yezidee in the act of stealing, he will tell 
 you that theft is a part of his religion. If you catch 
 a Thug in the act of assassination, he will tell you 
 that murder is to him a religious rite. If you reprove 
 the Todas of the Nilofheris Hills for liviuix in 
 polyandry, they will tell you that this is the very 
 ground- work of their rehgion. If you reprove the 
 Mormons for living in polygamy, they will remind 
 you that this is the Biblical chart of their faith.' 
 
 Now suppose that all this were true, would it not 
 prove the very opposite of what it is meant to prove ? 
 
 » The Op.n Court, No. 112, p. 1SS3. 
 
296 LECTURE XII. 
 
 If reliofion can induce human beinors to commit acts 
 which they themselves, or which we at least, consider 
 doubtful, or objectionable, or altogether criminal, 
 surely it shows that religion, even in this extreme 
 case, exercises an influence on the moral character ot 
 man such as probably nothing else could exercise. 
 
 From the moment, therefore, that the perception 
 of something supernatural begins to exercise an 
 influence on the moral actions of man. be it for good 
 or for evil, from that moment, I maintain, and from that 
 moment only, have we a right to call it religious. 
 
 We must be careful to keep within the limits of a 
 definition which we have once accepted. The defini- 
 tion which I gave of religion, that it consists in a 
 perception of the Infinite, under such manifestations 
 as are able to influence the moral conduct of man, is 
 not too narrow. It is wide enough, at all events, to 
 tax the powers of any single student of the history of 
 religion. 
 
 The Meaning- of the Infinite. 
 
 When I said that religion is the perception of the 
 Infinite, I took great pains to explain that this per- 
 ception is to be taken as the true source of religion, 
 as that without v»diich religion would be impossible, 
 or at least inconceivable. But as little as the source 
 is the whole river, is the source of religion the full 
 stream of religion. When Locke said, Nihil ett in 
 intellectu quod non ante filer it in sensu, he did not 
 mean that sensus was the whole of intellectus. He 
 only meant that nothing could be in the intellect that 
 had not come from sensuous perception. I meant the 
 same when I said, Nihil est in fide quod, non antefuerit 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. S97 
 
 in sensu. I meant that nothing could be in our faith 
 or in our religion that had not come from the percep- 
 tion of the infinite, but I did not mean that this 
 perception of the infinite was the whole of religion. 
 As our sensuous percepts grow into concepts and into 
 all that belongs to conceptual thought, our perceptions 
 of the infinite also are the Jiving germs only which 
 produce in time that marvellous harvest which we 
 call the religions of the world. And if I limited the 
 area of these perceptions of the infinite to that 
 narrower fileld which is distinguished by its moral 
 colouring, that field is still of an enormous extent, 
 and will require better and stronger labourers to reap 
 than it has hitherto found. 
 
 As to the name wdiich I chose for what forms the 
 real object of all religious perceptions, namely, the 
 Infinite, I know quite well that it may be criticised. 
 But has any one been able to suggest a better name? 
 I wanted a name as wide as possible. I might have 
 chosen Unknowable as equally wide. But to speak 
 of a perception of the unknowable seemed to me a 
 contradiction in terms. To know has many mean- 
 ings, and in one of its meanings we may say, no 
 doubt, that the Infinite is the Unknowable. We 
 cannot know the Infinite as we know the Finite, but 
 we can know it in the only way in which we can 
 expect to know it, namely, behind the Finite. In 
 perceiving anything limited, we also perceive what 
 limits it, but to call this Unlimited or Infinite the 
 Unknowable is to do violence to the verb to know. 
 
 I am quite aware that what other philosophers 
 have called the Absolute was probably meant by them 
 for what I call the Infinite. I likewise admit that 
 
298 LECTURE XII. 
 
 what theologians mean by the Divine is in reality the 
 same. Even the Transcendent might have answered 
 the same purpose. But all those terms had a history. 
 The Absolute reminds us of Hegelian ideas, the Divine 
 is seldom free from a certain mythological colouring, 
 and the Transcendent has its own peculiar meaning 
 in the school of Kant. Infinite, therefore, seemed less 
 objectionable than any of those terms, and submitted 
 more readily to a new definition. It had likewise the 
 advantage of having the term finite for its opposite. 
 If some critics have proclaimed their inability to 
 perceive any diff'erence between infinite and indefinite, 
 I can quite sympathise with them, for I see none 
 whatever. The only distinction which usage would 
 seem to sanction is that indefinite is generally applied 
 to knowledge, infinite to the object of knowledge. 
 We might then say that our knowledge of the infinite 
 must always be indefinite, a proposition to which few 
 critics would demur. 
 
 I did not wish, however, to monopolise the word 
 religion in the sense which I assigned to it in my 
 lectures. I simply w^ished to delimit the subject of 
 these lectures, and to state once for all what segment 
 of human thought would fall within our field of 
 observation. If others define religion in a difi"erent 
 sense, we shall know what to expect from them. All 
 that I object to is an undefined use of that word. If 
 Cicero ^, for instance, defines religion in one place as 
 cultus pius deoruvi, he may be quite right from the 
 Roman or from his own point of view, and we should 
 be forewarned as to what to expect from him, if he 
 
 * Cic , De Nat. Deorum., i. 42 : * Superstitio in qua est timor inania 
 Deorum, religio quae Deorum cultu pio continetur.' 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 299 
 
 were to lecture on religion. Or, if Dr. Robertson 
 Smith, in a recent course of excellent lectures on the 
 ancient Semitic religions, assures us that with the 
 Semites religion consisted piimarily of institutions, 
 such as sacritices, ablutions, fastings, and all the rest, 
 and not of what was believed about gods or God, we 
 shall know in what sense he uses religion. In 
 modern times also there are many people who hold 
 that religion consists chiefly in ceremonial acts, such 
 as going to church, kneeling, making the sign of 
 the cross, and other ritual observances. 
 
 But though I quite admit the right of Cicero or 
 anybody else to define religion in his own sense, and 
 to treat of religion as mere cult, or as mere mythology, 
 I hold as strongly as ever that neither cult nor 
 mythology is possible without a previous elaboration 
 of the concepts and names of the gods. Cult is one 
 of the msmy manifestations of religion, but by no 
 means the only one, nor a necessary one. The same 
 applies to myths and legends. They are the parasites, 
 not the marrow of religion. Besides, there are myths 
 and legends altogether unconnected with religion, and 
 there are solemn acts which have nothing to do with 
 the gods. We saw how some ceremonies and myths 
 connected with Agni, Fire, were religious in their 
 origin, and ceased to be sO; while others, purely 
 secular in their origin, assumed in time a religious 
 character. It is often difficult to draw a shr.rp line 
 between what is no longer and what is not yet 
 religious, but our definition of religion will generally 
 help us in trying to discover whether there are any 
 elements in a ceremonial act or in a mythological 
 tradition which draw their origin, however distantly, 
 
300 LECTURE XII. 
 
 from an original perception of the Infinite, and 
 influence, directly or indirectly, the moral conduct of 
 man. 
 
 The Relig^ious Element. 
 
 Let me give you, in conclusion, one more illus- 
 tration of the difficulties we have to contend with in 
 trying to determine whether certain acts and certain 
 sayings may be called religious or not. 
 
 We are told by an excellent Arabic scholar, Earon 
 von Kremer, a member of the Imperial Academy at 
 Vienna, that at Vienna, which is as advanced and 
 refined a capital as any in Europe, you may still see 
 people, when walking in the streets, picking up any 
 bits of bread lying on the pavement and placing them 
 carefully where poor people, or, at least, birds or dogs, 
 may get at them. 
 
 Is that a religious act ? It may be or it may not. 
 It may be a mere inculcation of the old proverb, 
 WavSte not, want not. But as soon as the bread is 
 called the gift of God, the reluctance to tread it under 
 foot may become religious. 
 
 Manzoni, the Arabian traveller \ tells us that the 
 Kabili, the agricultural Arab, takes the greatest care 
 not to scatter a crumb of bread. When he sees a 
 piece of bread lying in the street, he lifts it^ kisses it 
 thrice, praises God, and puts it where no one can step 
 on it, and where it may be eaten, if only by a dog. 
 
 Here we see religious elements entering in. Yet 
 though the Kabili shows his reverence for bread, 
 though he calls it 'aish, that is, lifc^ as we call it the 
 
 ^ R. Manzoni, El- Yemen, Tre Anni nelV Arabia felice, Roma, 1884, 
 p. 82. 
 
RELIGION, MYTH, AND CUSTOM. 301 
 
 staff of life, no one would say that bread had become 
 a divine being in Arabia, still less, as some of oui 
 friends would say, that it had become a fetish, or a 
 totem. 
 
 If, therefore, we find that similar reverence is 
 shown to fire or water, we have not therefore to 
 admit at once that they have thereby been raised to 
 the rank of divine beings. If bread was called life, 
 so was fire. The founder of a new sect among the 
 Ojibways addressed his disciples in the following 
 words : ' Henceforth the fire must never go out in thy 
 hut. In summer and winter, by day and by night, in 
 storm and in calm weather, remember that the life in 
 thy body and the fire on thy hearth are the same 
 thing, and date from the same time ^.' 
 
 Here fire and life are identified, but the fire within 
 the body is no more than what we should call the 
 warmth of the body, and to say that this warmth is 
 the vsame as the fire on the hearth implies as yet no 
 kind of divine worship for either the one or the other. 
 
 The same respect which is paid to bread, is also 
 paid to other kinds of food. Thus Mohammed forbad 
 to use even the stone of a date for killing a louse ; 
 and in another place he is reported to have said: 
 ' Honour the palm, for she is your aunt^.' 
 
 In the case of bread therefore, and also in the case 
 of corn and dates and other kinds of food, we can 
 well understand that they should have been treated 
 with reverence as the gift of Allah, or of any other 
 god, provided alwa3^s that an acquaintance with such 
 divine beings existed beforehand. 
 
 Without such previous knowledge, nothing, whether 
 
 ^ Miiller, 1. c, p. 55. '^ Krenicr, 1. c, p. 4. 
 
302 LECTURE XII. 
 
 a ceremony or a myth, can be called religious. It 
 seems to me, therefore, that we are perfectly justified 
 in treating that previous knowledge by itself, and to 
 reserve to it exclusively the name of religion. There 
 was religion before sacrifice ; there was rehgion before 
 myth. There was neither sacrifice nor myth before 
 religion, in the true sense of that word. Nothing is 
 more interesting than to find out how sacrifice and 
 myth sprang from the same field as religion. But 
 they did not spring from that field until it had been 
 touched by those rays of light which transform the 
 finite into the infinite, and which called into life the 
 unnumbered seeds that lay hidden in the ground, the 
 seeds of tares as well as of wheat, both growing 
 together until the harvest. 
 
LECTURE XIll. 
 
 OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 
 The Development of Fire. 
 
 WE have seen thus far how the human mind by- 
 its natural, though at the same time most won- 
 derful powers, can reach, and did reach, the highest 
 conception of the godhead, though starting from the 
 commonest impressions of the senses. I took my 
 first illustration from fire, but all the other phenomena 
 of nature would teach the same lesson, namely, that 
 the human mind is capable of discovering the Super- 
 natural in the Natural. Nothing seems to us more 
 natural than that the various manifestations of fire 
 should have been marked and named by the earliest 
 inhabitants of the world. Yet if we restricted the 
 meaning of natural to whatever animals, or beings 
 endowed with sense only, are capable of performing, 
 we shoU'ld have to call even the simple naming of 
 tire, achieved by man and by man alone, not a natural, 
 but a supernatural, or, at all events, a hujer-animal 
 act. Formerly, it would hardly have been necessary 
 to insist on this distinction. But at present, when 
 philosophy seems chiefly to consist in ignoring the 
 
304 LECTUKE XIII. 
 
 frontier-lines that separate the animal kingdom from 
 our own, it is necessary to show that there are certain 
 limits to the mental faculties of mere animals. Some 
 animals are scared by fire and run away from it, 
 ' others are attracted by it, but they will never name 
 and conceive it. When we see our fire burninof, and 
 hear it crackling in the grate, nothing seems to us 
 more homely, more natural. Every child feels 
 attracted by the fire, enjoys its genial warmth, and 
 wonders what kind of thing it is. But try to think, 
 once more, what the first appearance of fire must have 
 been when it came down from the sky as lightning, 
 killing a man and setting his hut ablaze, — surely there 
 was a miracle, if ever there was a miracle; a theophany, 
 if ever there was a theophany. There was nothing to 
 compare it to in the whole experience of man, and 
 if it was called a wild beast \ or a bird of prey, or a 
 poisonous serpent, these were all but poor similes, 
 which could hardly satisfy an observing and inquiring 
 mind. 
 
 And when after a time the beneficial aspects also of 
 fire had been discovered, when certain families had 
 found out how to elicit fire from flints, or how to 
 produce it by friction, the mystery remained as great 
 as ever. It was a w^eird power, a strange apparition, 
 a something totally inexplicable at first to the human 
 understanding. Thus there remained in the fire from 
 the first, even after it had been named, somethino- 
 unknown, something different from all the ordinary 
 and finite perceptions, something not natural, some- 
 
 ^ Herodotus, iii. 16, says that the Egyptians took fire to be a live 
 beast, devouring everything, and dying with what it had eaten. 
 See also Satap. Brahmana II. 3, 3, 1. 
 
OTHEK GODS OF NATURE. 305 
 
 thing unnatural, or. as it was also called, something 
 supernatural. 
 
 If we once see this clearly and understand how 
 the supernatural element was there from the begin- 
 ning, though not yet disentangled from its natural 
 surroundings we shall be better able to understand 
 how tbe same supernatural element was never com- 
 pletely lost sight of by the poets of the Veda, and 
 how in the end Agni, tire, after being stripped of all 
 that w{ s purely phenomenal, natural, and physical, 
 stands before us, endowed with all those qualities 
 which we reserve for the Supreme Being. He was 
 adored as the creator and ruler of the world, as 
 omnipotent, omniscient, just, kind, and compassionate. 
 In that state all his physical antecedents were for- 
 gotten. It was no longer the fire crackling on the 
 hearth that was believed in as the creator of the 
 world. It was the unknown agent, recognised from 
 the first in that motion which we call fire, who had 
 been raised to a divine dignity, though the old name 
 of Agni remained, as if to remind the people of their 
 first acquaintance with him whom they called from 
 the first, ' the friend of man, the immortal among 
 mortals.' 
 
 The Agents behind other Phenomena of Nature. 
 
 This one road which we have hitherto explored, 
 that led our ancestors from nature to nature's God, 
 is, no doubt, an important road, but we must remember 
 that it is but one out of many. Whether we examine 
 the religions of civilised or of uncivilised races, we shall 
 always find that they started not only from fire, but 
 from many of the other of the great phenomena of 
 .2) X 
 
306 LECTUllE XIII. 
 
 nature, such as the storm- wind, the sun, the moon, 
 the stars, the sky, the sea, the earth, the rivers, and 
 the mountains, in their gropings after what lies 
 beyond, after the invisible agent, the lather, the 
 author, after the God revealed to the senses in the 
 countless miracles of nature. If the storm- wind was 
 from the first called the crusher or shouter, people 
 soon asked, who is it that shouts and crushes ? If the 
 sun was called the shining and warming, the question 
 could not long be suppressed, who it was that shines 
 and warms. The sky, as participating in the work 
 of the sun and the moon and the stars, of the storm, 
 the lio-htninof and the rain, was also asked who he 
 was, or who was behind and above the sky, who was 
 the real agent of all the acts performed on the stage 
 of heaven. The very earth, though so near and pal- 
 pable and familiar, became nevertheless mysterious 
 when it was asked, what life there was in her, and 
 when it was felt how much she did in her quiet and 
 much suffering way, for all who dwelt in her fields 
 and forests. 
 
 The Theogonic Process. 
 
 If we like, we may call this primitive wonderment 
 at AA^hat seems to us at present so very natural, and 
 the religious and mythological phraseology that sprang 
 from that wonderment, by such names as Animism 
 (Beseelung), Personification, and Anthropomorphisni. 
 These names are all right, and they may be useful 
 for the purpose of classification. Only we must re- 
 member that the historical student of religion cannot 
 rest satisfied with mere names, with mere classifica- 
 tion, but that his chief object is to account for facts, 
 
OTHER aODS OF NATURE. 307 
 
 thus named and classified, and tlius to learn to under- 
 stand something, however little it may be, of the 
 inevitable growth and development of religious and 
 mythological concepts. 
 
 If we have once clearly understood the inseparable 
 connection between thought and language, and if, 
 more particularly, we have mastered the fact that the 
 roots of our words and the roots of our concepts were 
 expressions of acts, our task becomes much easier. 
 But I know but too well how great a mental effort 
 is required in order to apprehend that fact and all its 
 far-reaching consequences. Important as these con- 
 sequences are for a right understanding of all that we 
 call thought, nowhere are they more surprising than 
 in the study of what is called mythological and re- 
 ligious thought. All other keys that have been 
 tried to unlock those ancient chests have lifted one 
 bolt or another. The key handed to us by Noir^ has 
 turned and lifted them all, and the ancient chests now 
 stand open and their treasures may be examined. 
 When human beings were once in possession of the 
 name and concept of anlraa, or soul, of 'persona, 
 person, of manhood, and godhead, we can well under- 
 stand that they should have predicated soul of the 
 sun, personality of the moon, manhood of the storm, 
 and godhead of the sky. But the real question is, 
 how were these name-concepts of anima, persona, 
 homo, and deus elaborated, and what organic con- 
 nection was there between them and such concepts 
 as the sun, the moon, and the sky ? To imagine that 
 mythokgy and religion could have arisen by ancient 
 poets calling sun, moon, and sky animated, or per- 
 sonal, or manlike, or divine, would be, to use a 
 
c08 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 homely metaphor, to put the cart before the horse. 
 There is such a phrase in the later periods of the 
 growth of the human mind. We ourselves are still 
 living in it, our poetry draws most of its inspiration 
 from it. We hear our poets express their ' faith that 
 every flower enjoys the air it breathes.' They speak 
 of ' the morn, in ru&set mantle clad, walking o'er the 
 dew of yon high eastern hill,' We have read of 'a 
 brotherhood of venerable trees,' and of the 'sable 
 goddess, Night/ and we know perfectly well what is 
 meant by all this, because we are in possession of a 
 large dictionary of language and thought. 
 
 But if we want really to understand this phraseo- 
 logy, we have first to find our way into more distant 
 prehistoric periods, into the dark subterranean caves 
 where those weapons were forged with which man 
 from the earliest days fought his battles and made 
 his conquests. 
 
 Students of these prehistoric periods of thought 
 and language are often blamed for taking unnecessary 
 trouble, for trying to explain things which, we are 
 told, require no explanation at all, for spreading 
 darkness where all before seemed light. It is asked, 
 what is there to puzzle us, when we see that the 
 ancients spoke of the sun as a living thing, nay, as a 
 person, as a man as a god ? Is it not simply a case 
 of Animism, of Personification, of Anthropomorphism, 
 and of Deification 1 Words,, words, words ! We first call 
 what has to be explained by a name, and in this 
 case by a very imperfect name. And then, after we 
 have named this process, we turn round and say, 
 O, it is all very simple, it is nothing but Animism, 
 Personification, and Anthropomorphism ! We imagine 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 309 
 
 that our work is done, while it really is only be- 
 ginning. 
 
 Even Mr. Herbert Spencer has risen in revolt 
 against such perfunctory theories. The very clogs are 
 able to sniff out the difference between what has life 
 and what has not, between the animate and the in- 
 animate ; was man less sagacious than the dogs ? 
 
 I thought it right in one case at least, in that of fire, 
 to give a full description of the slow process by which 
 that natural appearance was named. Having once 
 been called ' he who moves,' Agni, or having been con- 
 ceived as the agent of an}^ other of his moi'e striking 
 acts, his further growth became easy to understand. 
 We saw how almost by necessity he came after that 
 to grow into a breathing and living agent (Animism), 
 for fire breathes, lives, and dies ; came to grow into 
 a man-like being (Anthropomorphism); for fire, though 
 not a man, is a man-like agent ; came to grow into 
 an individual person (Personification), for one fii-e 
 differs from another ; and came at last to grow into 
 a Deva or a god (Deification). We looked for all the 
 links in that chain of thought, and though we did not 
 find them all, yet we found enough to allow us an 
 insight into the true nature of that psychological 
 process which led gradually and naturally from the 
 mere percept of fire as an agent to the concept of 
 an unseen power, revealed to us in the various mani- 
 festations of fii'e and light. 
 
 Wordsworthi. 
 
 We shall now try to catch a glance of the same 
 instructive process in other realms of nature, in order 
 to see from how many points that irresistible impulse 
 
310 LECTURE xin. 
 
 toward religion, towards true and natural religion, 
 proceeded, which in the end made man feel that, 
 however wide the horizon of his knowledge, there was 
 alwa3's a Beyond, and that in spite of every effort 
 of thought and language, there always remained 
 something that could not be named and could not 
 be comprehended except as an agent, invisible, j^et 
 omnipresent. This psychological process began with 
 the senses— for how else could it begin? — but it did 
 not end with them, but called forth : 
 
 • That sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things.' 
 
 I doubt whetlier we could give a better definition of 
 Physical Eeligion than what Wordsworth has given 
 us in these few lines. 
 
 The Storm-wind. 
 
 Next to fire, the most important phenomenon in 
 nature which led to the conception of a divine being 
 was the wind, more particularly the storm-wind. In 
 the most distant parts of the world, and among 
 people unrelated in language and thought, the storm- 
 wind appears not only as one among many gods, but 
 often as the supreme and only god. The agent, or, as 
 we say, the agency or the force of the wind, was so 
 palpable, and often so overpowering, that we find 
 traces of this god in almost every pantheon. 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 311 
 
 The Storm-wind in America. 
 
 Let us begin with America ^ Here we find that 
 with the Choctaws the general word for deity is Bush- 
 toll, which means the storm-wind. In the Creek 
 lano'uaofe also ithtalL means the storm-wind, and 
 huttolah the windy season. The Quiches call the 
 mysterious creative power Ihivakan. This word has 
 no meaning in their language, but it finds its ex- 
 planation in the ancient tongue of Haity, from which 
 the Quiches must have borrowed it. Dr. Brinton, in 
 his Essays of an Americanist, 1890, p. 121, doubts 
 the derivation of Huracan from Haytian, and derives 
 it from Maya. In the dialects of the Maya group 
 rahan is said by him to express greatness, and hun 
 one or first. In Cakchiquel hurakan means a giant. 
 The Spaniards and other European nations made us 
 familiar with the word as the nan\^ of the terrible 
 tornado of the Garibean Sea ^. It lives on in French 
 as ouragan, in German as Ovkan, in English as hur- 
 ricane. Neglectful of its biography, German etymo- 
 logists derived Orkan from Onus, English etymologists 
 discovered in hurricane something of the hurry of the 
 storm, or. like Webster, something of its fury ; but 
 Oviedo, in his description of Hispaniola^, leaves no 
 doubt that the name was borrowed from the ancient 
 language of Haity, and had been carried there by the 
 Quiches from the Antilles. 
 
 * Brinton, Myths of the Neic Worldy p. 51. 
 
 2 In the Didionnaire Gcdibi i,Paris, 1743) diable is translated by 
 iroucan, jeroucatt. hyorokan and Coto's Vocahulario (MS.) gives hurakan 
 as the equivalent of diublo in Cakchiquel. See Brinton, Essmjs of an 
 Americanist, p. 123. 
 
 ^ Historia deW Indie, lib. vi. cap. 3. 
 
312 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 This Hurakan has been identified by some Ame- 
 rican scholars with Cuculcan, Gucumatz, and Yotan, 
 all names of the god of the storm-wind in Central 
 America. 
 
 The chief divinity of several tribes in ancient 
 Mexico Avas called Mixcohiudl, and this is to this 
 day the name of the tropical whirlwind. The natives 
 of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under 
 the name of Tuyra. 
 
 It is curious that Mr. Brinton, from whose interest- 
 ing work on The Myths of the New World these facts 
 are quoted, is convinced that man never did and 
 never could draw the idea of God from nature. He 
 thinks that the deeper and far truer reason for the 
 divinity ascribed to the wind is to be found in the 
 identity of wind with breath, of breath with life, ol 
 life with soul, and of soul with God. Mr. Brinton 
 may be quite right that the transition of meaning 
 from wind to breath and life and soul has acted as 
 a powerful ingredient in ' the evolution of ancient 
 deities.' But even then, the starting-point of that 
 evolution would have been in nature, namely, in the 
 real wind, which by a perfectly intelligible process 
 became sublimised into breath, spirit, life, soul, and 
 God. It may be granted to Mr. Brinton (1. c , p. 75) 
 that the motions of the air are often associated in 
 thought and language with the operations of the soul 
 and the idea of God. We are told that in Peru the 
 commonest and simplest adoration of the collective 
 deities consists in kissing the air— a very significant 
 mode of prayer. But surely the various manifesta- 
 tions of the wind, so well described by Mr. Brinton 
 himself, are quite sufficient by themselves to evoke 
 
OTHER G013S OF NATURE. 313 
 
 in the human mind and in human ]ano:uaoje the con- 
 cept and name of a powerful, superhuman Mgent. 
 He describes very eloquently, ' the power of the winds 
 on the weather, bringing as they do the lightning and 
 the storm, the zephyr that cools the brow, and the 
 tornado that levels the forest. They summon the 
 rain to fertilize the seed and refresh the shrivelled 
 leaves. They aid the hunter to stalk the game, and 
 usher in the varying seasons. In a hundred ways 
 they intimately concern his comfort and his life, and 
 it will not seem strange, he adds himself, that they 
 almost occupied the place of all other gods in the 
 mind of the child of nature.' 
 
 The Aztec prayer addressed to the Tlalocs, the gods 
 of the showers, began with the following invoca- 
 tion : ' Ye who dwell at the four corners of the 
 earth, — at the north, at the south, at the east, and at 
 the west.' 
 
 The Eskimo also pra3^ed to Slllam Innua, the 
 o^ner of the winds, as their highest god, and the 
 abode of the Dead was called by them fSilknn Ai- 
 pane, the house of the winds. 
 
 As the rain-bringers and life-givers the winds were 
 naturally called the fathers of the human race, and 
 Mr. Brinton has recognised in the four brothers, who 
 appear in so many traditions of America as the 
 ancestors and leaders of ancient tribes, cominor from 
 the four corners of the earth, the later representatives 
 of the four winds, the North, the South, the East, 
 and the West winds. 
 
 What he says of these traditions applies in so many 
 words to the traditions of Aryan races. ' Sometimes,' 
 he writes, ' the myth defines clearly these fabled 
 
314 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 characters as the spirits of the winds ; sometimes it 
 clothes them in uncouth, grotesque metaphors ; some- 
 times again it so weaves them into actual history 
 that we are at a loss where to di'aw the line that 
 divides fiction from truth ' (p. 77). 
 
 In the mythology of Yukatan the four gods Bacab 
 were supposed to stand one at each corner of the 
 world, supporting, like gigantic caryatides, the over- 
 hanging firmament. When at the general deluge the 
 other gods and men were swallowed by the waters, 
 they alone escaped to people the earth anew. These 
 four, known by the names of Kan, Muluc, Ix, and 
 Cauac, represented respectively the East, North, West, 
 and South. The East was distinguished by yellow, 
 the South by red, the West by black, the North 
 by white, and these colours appear again in different 
 paits of the world with the same meaning, as repre- 
 senting the four quarters of the world. According to 
 the Quiches, these four beings were first created by 
 Hurakan, the Heart of Heaven. If we translate the 
 Heart of Heaven into the Sanskrit Dyaus, the sub- 
 jective or active Heaven, or Heaven as an agent, we 
 see how near he, as the father of the Maruts or storm- 
 winds, comes to Hurakan, the father of the four 
 winds. The description of these winds also is some- 
 times almost identical with that given of the Maruts 
 by the Vedic poets. It is said that they measured 
 and saw all that exists at the four corners and the 
 four angles of the sky and the earth ; that they did 
 not bring forth and produce when the season of har- 
 vest was near, until he blew into their eyes a cloud, 
 until their faces were obscured, as when one breathes 
 on a mirror. Then he gave them four wives whose 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 315 
 
 names were Falling Water, Beautiful Water, Water of 
 Serpents, and Water of Birds. 
 
 In Aztec legends these four beings are said to have 
 emerged from a cave called Facavitampw, and this is 
 said to mean, either ' the house of existence,' or ' the 
 lodo-iiio- of the Dawn.' There in the distant East the 
 
 mi • 
 
 Aztecs placed Tula, the birthplace of their race. This 
 again reminds us of Vedic mythology, and the de- 
 scription of the four beings that came from the cave 
 of the Dawn leaves little doubt as to their similarity 
 with the Vedic storm-gods, the Maruts. ' Their voices,' 
 we are told, ' could shake the earth, and their hands 
 heap up mountains. Like the thunder-god, they 
 stood on the hills and hurled their sling-stone to 
 the four corners of the earth. When one was over- 
 powered, he fled upward to the heaven or was turned 
 into stone. It was by their aid and counsel that the 
 savages who possessed the land renounced their bar- 
 barous habits and commenced to till the soil ' (1. c, 
 p. 83). 
 
 Truly indeed might Mr. Brinton say that ' the 
 winds producing the thunder and the changes that 
 take place in the ever-shifting panorama of the sky, 
 the rain-bringers, the lords of the seasons,— and not 
 this only, but the primary type of the soul', the life, 
 the breath of man and the world, — are second to 
 nothing in their role in mythology.' The road from 
 the naming of the different winds to the naming of 
 the Storm-wind, as the father of the winds, or, again, 
 to the naming of the Sky, as the father of the winds 
 as well as of the other heavenly powers, is as clearly 
 traced in America as anywhere else. The surround- 
 iD";8 of nature have, no doubt, a considerable influence 
 
316 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 on the formation of storm-mytbs. We find them most 
 fully developed in mountainous countries, and the 
 more the very existence of man Avas felt to depend on 
 the beneficial or hurtful influences of the winds and 
 thunderstorms, the more readily did the human mind 
 arrive at the conception of a supreme beneficent or 
 malignant power behind the storm- wind, controlling 
 the fates of man. 
 
 This will explain the fact, to which I alluded in my 
 first course of Gifi'ord Lectures (p. 453), that in many 
 of the American languages the same word is used for 
 storm and god^ In Africa also Dr. Nachtigall was 
 struck by the same fact, and be instances the Baghirmi 
 as having- but one name for storm and God. We 
 shall see that in India also the old name of the storm- 
 gods. Ma rut, was used in the language of the Bud- 
 dhists as a general name of gods (Maru). 
 
 The Storm-wind in Babylon. 
 
 Let US now turn our eyes from America to Babylon. 
 The primitive inhabitants of Babylon beheld in the 
 winds powers of good and eviP. The good wind 
 cooled the heat of summer and brought moisture to 
 the parched earth. The evil wind was the tempest, 
 the freezing blast of winter, and the burning sirocco 
 of the desert. Their number is sometimes given as 
 four, sometimes as seven, the seven sons or mes- 
 sengers of Anu. In the battle against the dragon 
 of chaos, they were the allies of Merodach, as the 
 Maruts were the allies of Indra. Matu occurs fre- 
 
 ' Bancroft, History of the Native Races of North America, vol. iii. 
 p 117. 
 
 2 Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 199. 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 317 
 
 quently as the name of the destructive storm-wind, 
 wiiose favour had to be conciliated. He is called the 
 lord of the mountain, and his wife the lady of the 
 mountain (cf. Sk. Parvati). But we also hear of 
 many Matus, the children of the sea. 
 
 The Storm-wind in India. 
 
 We now return to India, where the storms meet us 
 under the name of the Maruts. In their purely 
 physical aspect the storms or Maruts are represented 
 in the Veda as powerful and destructive, but at the 
 same time as beneficent also, as clearing the air, as 
 bringing rain, as fertilising the soil, and reinvigorat- 
 ing the body. I shall quote a few passages from the 
 Rig-veda. 
 
 They are said to shake heaven and earth like the 
 hem of a garment. They cause a long and broad un- 
 ceasing rain to fall (I. 37, 11), so that the cows have 
 to walk knee-deep. Mountains shake, men tremble 
 (I. 38, 10), the kings of the forest, the trees, are rent 
 asunder (I. 39, 5). The Maruts bring winds and light- 
 ning (I. 64, 5), and they pour down rain (1. 64, 6). But 
 after the storm is over, they are praised for bringing 
 back the light and, like the dawn (II. 34, 12), driving 
 away the hideous darkness (I. 86, 10). They are also 
 celebrated for restoring fertility to the soil, and for 
 making the autumn plentiful through their invigor- 
 ating rain (I. 171, 6; 11. 34, 4). Thus they bring, not 
 only food to men, but water, medicine, and health 
 (V. 53, 14 ; VI. 74, 3), being in this respect like their 
 father Rudra. who is often implored to bring medicine 
 and to bestow health (VII. 46 ; 11. 33, 13). 
 
 In most of the hymns of the Veda, however, the 
 
318 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Maruts, as the representatives of the storm, the 
 thunderstorm and all its concomitant features, have 
 assumed a very definite dramatic character. They 
 appear brilliant on their chariots (I. 37, 1), with 
 spears, daggers, rings, axes, and with whips which 
 they crack in the air (I. 37, 2 ; 3). They shoot arrows 
 (I. 64, 10), and lling stones (I. 172, 2). They have 
 golden headbands round their heads (V. 54, 11). 
 Often they are represented as musicians, as singers, 
 pipers (I. 85, 10), and dancers (VIII. 20, 22), some- 
 times as birds (I. 87, 2), and as wild boars with iron 
 tusks (I. 88, 5). They are called the manly sods of 
 Rudra (I. 64, X^), and they are likewise called the 
 youthful Rudras themselves w^ho never grow old (I. 
 64, 3). In some places their mother is called Pr/sni 
 (I. 85, 2), their father or lord Dyaus (X. 11, 2 ; VIII. 
 20, 17), or Svar, sky (V. 54, 10). They are the con- 
 stant companions of Indra in his fight against his 
 enemies, such as Vr^'tra, Ahi, and other demons. 
 They are even represented as themselves the con- 
 querors of V^'itra (VIII. 7, 23), and as the protectors 
 of Indra (VII. 7, 24). But occasionally they seem 
 slighted by Indra, who claims all glory for himself 
 (I. 165). Dyaus also is invoked as their companion, 
 as when we read, V. 58, 6, ' Let Dyaus roar down, the 
 bull of the Dawn.' (See also V. 59, 8.) As Agni 
 represents both light and lightning, it is but natural 
 that he too should appear in their company (V. fO, 
 7). Rodasi, who is often mentioned as the friend 
 or wife of all of them, seems to be intended for the 
 lightning (V. 61, 12). At times they become so com- 
 pletely personified that the poets, forgetful of their 
 physical origin, actually compare them to the wind, 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 319 
 
 and call them blazing with wind (vata-tvish, V. 57, 4). 
 It is more difficult to discuss in what sense Vishjm is 
 .sometimes mentioned as their friend and helper (V. 
 87, 4), while Soma, when joined with them, can only 
 be meant as the rain of the thunderstorm (VIII, ^0, 3). 
 
 Though the Maruts are almost always invoked as 
 a company, sometimes of twenty-one, sometimes of a 
 hundred and eighty, being all alike in strength, yet 
 in one place the poet speaks also of one son of Kudra, 
 and calls him Maruta, belonging to the Maruts (VI. 
 66, 11). 
 
 After a time these Maruts, like Agni and other gods 
 of nature, assume a strongly marked moral character, 
 and in the end they take their place among the highest 
 gods. Thus one poet (I. 38, 6) addresses them in the 
 following words : ' Let not one sin after another, diffi- 
 cult to be conquered, ovei'come us ; may it depart 
 together with greed.' 'Whatever fiend attacks us, 
 deprive him of power and strength ' (I. 39, 8). ' The 
 mortal whom ye, O Maruts, protected, he surpasses 
 all people in strength through your protection. He 
 carries off booty; he acquires honourable wisdom, 
 and prospers' (I. 64, 13). The Maruts themselves 
 are called, not only heroes, but wase poets also (V. 
 5.2, 13). They impart not only strength to their wor- 
 shippers, but even immortality (V. 55, 4). Some of 
 the qualities which seem to us peculiar to the highest 
 deities only, such as the punishing of sin, and 
 likewise the forgiving of sin, w^iere there is hearty 
 repentance, are in the end ascribed to the Maruts 
 also. Their peculiar physical nature disappears more 
 and more, and they are implored almost in the same 
 words as Varuna and the Adityas (X. 77, 8). Thus 
 
320 ' LECTURE XITI. 
 
 one poet says : ' May your bright thunderbolt be 
 far from us, O Maruts, whatever sin we may have 
 committed against you, men as we are, O worshipful, 
 let us not fall under its power, let your best favour 
 rest on us ' (VII. 57, 4). 
 
 The Mar us of the Buddhists. 
 
 In Pali, Maru is used in the o-eneral sense of deva, 
 though deva-hood is no longer a very exalted position 
 in the eyes of the Buddhists. 
 
 Rudra, the rather of the Maruts. 
 
 But though we can watch this gradual transition 
 from the Maruts as the storms, to the Maruts as 
 sub-natural agents, as dramatic heroes, and lastly as 
 supreme gods, the fact of their being a company or a 
 host could not but lead to the supposition of a lord or 
 father of the Maruts, generally called Eudra. We 
 saw the same in America, where the four winds were 
 represented by Hurakan, the most powerful wind. 
 And as in the Veda Dyaus, the bright sky, is some- 
 times conceived as the father of the winds, we find in 
 America also that the lord of the winds, the prince of 
 the powers of the air, whose voice is the thunder, and 
 whose weapon the lightning, is Mlchaho, the Great 
 Light, the Spirit of Light, of the Dawn, or the East, 
 literally, as Brinton has shown \ the Great White One. 
 
 The Storm-wind in Germany. 
 
 Another country where the god of the storm-wind 
 was raised in the end to the rank of a supreme deity 
 
 ' Brinton, Myths of the Neic World, p. 166. 
 
OTHEK GODS OF NATURE. 321 
 
 was Germany, or whatever may have been the last 
 home of the united German family. It has been 
 shown that the Teutonic tribes possessed originally a 
 deity corresponding very nearly in name and character 
 to the Vedic Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin 
 Ju-piter. This was Tiu, a name preserved in Anglo- 
 Saxon, tiives-dceg, our Tuesday, the dies Jovis. The 
 same name occurs in the Edda as Ttjr, in Old High- 
 German as Zio. But in the same way as in the Veda 
 the ancient god Dyaus was driven back, and at last 
 superseded by Indra, the god of the thunderstorm, 
 we find that in Germany also the common Aryan 
 god of the sky had to make room for Odin or WodaUy 
 originally a representative of storm and thunder. 
 The gods of storm and thunder were generally 
 represented as fighting gods, as brave warriors, and, 
 in the end, as conquerors ; and with warlike nations, 
 like the Germans, such gods would naturally become 
 very popular, more popular even than the god of light, 
 who was supposed to live enthroned in silent majesty 
 above the dome of heaven, the one-eyed seer, the 
 husband of the earth, the All-father, as he was called 
 in Germany also. 
 
 Odin, Wuotan. 
 
 According to a view which was very prevalent in 
 former days, and which even now counts some very 
 distinguished scholars amongst its adherents, Odin 
 was originally a man, the founder of the ancient 
 Northern and Teutonic religion, who was afterwards 
 worshipped as the supreme god, the fountain-head of 
 wisdom, the founder of culture, the inventor of writing 
 and poetry, the progenitor of kings, the lord of battle 
 (2 Y 
 
322 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 and victory, so that his name and that of Alfodr^ 
 All-father, were blended together^. 
 
 Those who take this view derive Odins name not 
 unnaturally from an old word, akin to the Latin vdtes^, 
 a prophetic singer or bard, and compare with it the 
 O, N. dor, inspiration. Eut they have never shown 
 Jiow vdtes in Latin conld become Odinn in Old Norse, 
 and W'uotan in Old High-German ^. 
 
 Grimm, in his Betitsche Mythologie, did not look 
 upon this view of Odin as any longer requiring even 
 a refutation. He treated the name of Wuotaii and 
 Odin as from the beginning a name of a superhuman 
 being. He derived the O. H. G. Wuotan, the Lom- 
 bardian Wodan or Guodan, the Old Saxon Wuodan 
 and Wodan (Westphalian Guodan and Giidan), the 
 A. S. Woden, Frisian Weda, the Old Norse OSinn, 
 from the O. H. G. verb tcatan, tvttot, 0. N. va^a, 6d, 
 meaning to move along quickly, then to be furious, a 
 transition of meaning which is likewise found in Lat. 
 xeld and veltemens^ iMo and impetus. This root 
 
 ^ Cleasby and Vigfusson, Icelandic Dictionani, s.v. 
 
 '^ Corpus Poeticum. BoreaJe, Vigfusson and Po%vell, vol. i, p. civ. The 
 etymology of Latin vdtes is as yet unknown. The root vat in api-vat 
 is very obscure. It occurs four times only in the Veda, and seems 
 to me to mean no more than to go near, to obtain, in the causative 
 to invite or to welcome. How from vdtes we could possibly arrive at 
 Odinn and Wuotan has never been explained. Wilhelm, Le verbis de- 
 iiominaiitis, p. 14. See note to Rv. I. 165, 13. 
 
 ^ Verner's Law is extremely useful to account for exceptions to 
 Grimm's Law, and in the true sense of the old saying, exctptio prohat 
 regulam. But Verner's Law must not be used as a mere excuse. If 
 we could prove that the accent in vdtes was originally on the last 
 syllable, we might accept Low German d, though hardly the High 
 German t. But to invert this reasoning, and to postulate the accent 
 on the final syllable of vdtes, because we wish that it should cor- 
 respond to Odinn and Wnotayi, is a very dangerous proceeding. It is 
 equally dangerous to speak of a root vat in the sense of to know. It 
 is not used in that meaning either in the Veda or in the Avesta. 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 323 
 
 watan, however, cannot be connected with Latin 
 vddere, unless we take the Latin d as the representa- 
 tive of an original media aspirata. From this vxdan 
 Grimm derives the substantive ivuot, wrath, fury, dv\x6s, 
 and the 0. N. 6ffi\ mind, poetry, song ; A. S. U'od, voice, 
 song. 
 
 As the supreme god of the Teutonic nations, 
 Wuotan's character is summed up by Grimm in the 
 following words ^ : ' He is the all-pervading creative 
 and formative power, who bestows shape and beauty 
 on man and all things, from whom proceeds the gift 
 of song and the management of war and victory, on 
 whom at the same time depends the fertility of the 
 soil, nay wishing, and all the highest gifts and 
 blessings.' 
 
 In the popular legends, however, what may be 
 called his etymological character is still far more 
 clearly perceptible. Wuotan is there the furious god, 
 the god of war and victory, armed with his spear 
 (Gungnir), and followed by two wolves {Geri and 
 Field), two ravens (Huginn and Muninn). He also 
 sends the storm, rides on the gale, has his waggon or 
 wain, and his horse. In the Old Norse legends he is 
 an old man with a broad hat and a wide mantle, 
 heMu-maor, a hooded man, and as such he appears 
 in the German Hakolbereitd, the leader of the wild 
 host, whose memory lives on even now in John 
 Hachlebirnie's house, though he is no doubt quite 
 unconnected with Hcdieherg, i.e. Mount Hecla^. 
 
 This root, in High German watan, would presuppose 
 
 ^ Translation of Grimm's German Mytlwlogy, by Stallybrass, vol. i. 
 p. 13-2. 
 
 2 W^hy Mercury was identified with Wuotan, see M. M., Seleded Essays, 
 i. 406 ; ii. 210 ; Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 157-148. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 a low German d, and a classical dh. As li in 
 Sanskrit is a neutral exponent of gh, dh, bh. we should 
 have to postulate an original vadh, for vah (part. 
 voc?/ia, for vah-ta). In vehemens also we see traces 
 of the same transition of meaning as in ivuot, fury. 
 
 Grohmann proposed to identif}^ Wuotan w^ith the 
 Vedic Vat a, wdnd, and at first sight that etymology 
 is very tempting. But vat a is known to have the 
 accent on the first syllable, and ought therefore to 
 show th in Low, d in High German. 
 
 Still, Grohmann was right in making Wtiotan the 
 god of wind and weather, only that his etymon seems 
 to me to lie not so much in the wind, as in the 
 weather. Weathei^ before it took its general mean- 
 ing meant stormy weather. This is still very clear 
 in the German, Wetter-leuchten {iL-eier-leich, of. rik- 
 van), Donner-icetter, Wind und Wetter, Umcetter, 
 WetterscJdag, &c., and even in the English weather- 
 heaten. It is the O. H. G. ivetav, A. S. iveder, O. N. veor. 
 The th in Modern English tveather is dialectic. The 
 same word exists in the Veda, namely, as vadh as and 
 vadhar (Delbrlick, in K. Z. xvi. 265); but it there 
 means the actual thunderbolt of Indra and of his 
 enemies, and also weapon in general. From the same 
 root we have vadha striker and weapon ; vadhatra, 
 weapon; vadhasna, Indra's thunderbolt. In Greek this 
 root has been preserved in w^eo), in h-o(ri-y6<^v, earth- 
 striker, &c. (see Curtius, s. v.). From this root, and 
 from no otlier, is derived Wuotan, literally the striker 
 w^ith the thunderbolt, the weather-god, the storm-god \ 
 
 1 There is another word in Old Norse, 6fr ; and as Freyja is called 
 6ds meij (Od's maid , this can only be another name for odinn (Volusp. 
 87, Corp. Poet. Bar., vol. ii. p. 624 ; Hyndla's Lay, ibid., vol. ii. p. 517). 
 
OTHEE GODS OF NATURE. 3^5 
 
 If then the name of Wuotan meant originally the 
 weather-ffod, the wielder of the thunderbolt, we must 
 begin with that concept, and slowly trace the transi- 
 tion from the furious huntsman to Odin, the All- 
 father, the solemn and majestic deity, just as we saw^ 
 HiLvakan, the lord of the winds, assume the supremacy 
 over all other gods among certain American tribes, 
 and as in India we could watch the Maruts bec<J»ming 
 changed into purely moral divinities, presided over by 
 Rudra or Dyaus, as sovereign gods. 
 
 The Mixed Character of Ancient G-ods. 
 
 Besides the lesson which we have thus learnt from 
 a comparative study of Ameiican, Babylonian, Indian, 
 and Teutonic mythologies, as to the possible develop- 
 ment of the highest concept of divinity out of the 
 simplest phenomena of nature, there is another lesson 
 which was impressed upon us when studying the 
 histor}^ of Agni, and which is even more strongly 
 inculcated by the history of the ^torm-gods. The 
 ancient gods were not restricted to one character. 
 Agni, for instance, was, no doubt, the fire on the 
 hearth, but any poet might speak of him as born in 
 the sky, as lightning, as rising, as the sun in the 
 morning, and setting in the evening, as generated by 
 
 * Odhin, welchcr mit dem Blitzdorn die Sonnenjungfrau verzaubert, 
 ist nicht bloss typisch der in Wolkenmantel und Nebelkappe ver- 
 hiillt auftrotende Gewittergeist, der als solcher audi den Beinamen 
 DrepsvurjJi; d. h. lethalHer jaciens, "der mit dem Blitzspeer Todtende" 
 fiihrt, und so auch geradezu zum Todesgott wird, sondern speciell 
 auch noch in analogem Sinn der dominus larvariim et spedronwi, als 
 welchen ihn der nordische Beiname Draugadrottin vor allem kenn- 
 zeichnet, welcher ihn so recht eigentlich in der Gewitternaclit an 
 der Spitze alles Spukes anftreten liisst/ Schwartz, Indogermanischer 
 Volksglaube, 18&5, p. 163. 
 
 ^ G-iffbrd Lectures, vol. i. p. 453. 
 
326 / LECTURE XIII. 
 
 the fire-sticks, nay, as identical with the warmth and 
 life of the vegetable and animal world. In like 
 manner, the father of the Maruts is not only a 
 meteoric deity, sending his arrows from the clouds, 
 he is also a celestial deity, he is, in fact, one side of 
 that power of light and life w^hich is recognised in the 
 sky, and called Dyaus. and recognised in the sun, and 
 called S var. We distinguish between the sky, and the 
 sun, and the morning, and the thunderstorm, and so, 
 no doubt, did the ancient poets of the Veda. But 
 the}^ also recognised a common element, or, if you 
 like, a common agent behind all these phenomena of 
 nature, and they had no difficulty in ascribing the 
 same deeds to Agni, Dyaus, Svar or Surya, the Maruts, 
 and the Kudras. Thus it happens that in later phases 
 of mythology one god who has assumed a definite 
 personality may nevertheless display some solar or 
 celestial or meteoric characteristics w^hich cling to 
 him from an earlier stage of his existence. Apollo, as 
 we know him in Homer, is not the sun, but he has 
 retained some solar qualities. Athene is not the dawn, 
 but she has not lost all matutinal features. Zeus 
 certainly is not simply the sky, and yet his character 
 would be unintelligible unless we could trace him 
 back to the Vedic Dyaus, the sky. 
 
 The Theogonic Development. 
 
 I hope it will not be supposed that, because in this 
 course of lectures I have given such prominence to 
 the fire and the storm-wind as powerful stimulants 
 in the religious life of mankind, my conviction has 
 been changed that it was the sky and the sun who 
 
OTHER GODS OF NATURE. 327 
 
 gave from the first the most powerful impulse to the 
 growth of m^'thological and religious ideas. My only 
 reason for passing these two theogonic processes over 
 at present was that they have been most fully analysed 
 before by myself and by others, and that I thought I 
 might without presumption refer my hearers here to 
 what I have written on this subject in my Lectures 
 on the Science of Language, and in my Hibbert 
 Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion with 
 special reference to India. What has been called 
 the Religion of Dyaus and the Solar Myth may be 
 reckoned among the best secured gains of modern 
 scholarship. Mco/xr/o-crat th ^akXov rj fjnixiireTat. The 
 only new light which has been thrown on these 
 theogonic processes is that we understand now how 
 what were considered hitherto as mere facts are in 
 reality the necessary results of our mental constitution. 
 We know now that, like the fire and the storm-wind, 
 the sky and the sun also could only be named by 
 names expressive of agency. Whether we call this 
 a necessity of language or thought, it is, as we saw, 
 a necessity from which we cannot escape. At first 
 these celestial, solar, igneous or meteoric agents, 
 having become the objects of early thought, were 
 described according to their manifold manifestations, 
 particularly such as influenced the life and the acts of 
 man. After a time, however, these various manifes- 
 tations were recognised as external only, and the agent, 
 being: more and more divested of these external veils, 
 was slowly recognised as something else, something by 
 itself, something beyond the finite knowledge of man, 
 and in the end as something sub-natural, supernatural, 
 and infinite. This led naturally to the two phases of 
 
328 LECTURE XIII. 
 
 Henotheism and Polytheism, and by a still more power- 
 ful abstraction, to Monotheism, that is, the recoonition 
 of one agent, one author, one father, one God, hidden 
 behind the magic veil of nature, but revealed by an 
 irresistible necessity which postulates something in- 
 finite and divine in the agents of the objective world, 
 because it has discovered something infinite and 
 divine in the subjective w^orld, in the agent within, 
 or in the self. 
 
 We may thus discover in all the errors of mythology, 
 and in what w^e call the false or pagan religions of the 
 world, a progress towards truth, a yearning after some- 
 thing more than finite, a growing recognition of the 
 Infinite, throwing off" some of its veils before our eyes, 
 and from century to century revealing itself to us more 
 and more in its own purity and holiness. -And thus 
 the two concepts, that of evolution and that of reve- 
 lation, which seem at first so different, become one in 
 the end. If there is a purpose running through the 
 ages, if nature is not blind, if there are agents, recog- 
 nised at last as the agents of one Will, behind the 
 whole phenomenal world, then the evolution of man s 
 belief in that Supreme Will is itself the truest revelation 
 of that Supreme Will, and must remain the adamantine 
 foundation on which all religion rests, whether we 
 call it natural or supernatural. 
 
LECTURE XIV. 
 
 WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 
 Value of Historical Studies. 
 
 I HAVE finished my survey of Physical Religion, 
 and I feel that I ought not to shrink in my last 
 lecture to-day from answering a question that has 
 often been asked, namely, What does it all lead to? 
 
 You know that Lord GifFord's idea of founding lec- 
 tureships on Natural Religion in the four Universities 
 of Scotland has been criticised from different quarters, 
 and that the lecturers also, who have endeavoured to 
 the best of their powers to carry out the noble plan 
 of the founder, have not escaped the strictures of 
 unfriendly critics. 
 
 What can it all lead to? What can be the use of 
 lectures on the origin and the history of the ancient 
 or so-called natural relig-ions of mankind? has been 
 the outcry of many writers, both in religious and 
 anti-religious papers and proposals have not been 
 wanting as to how this munificent benefaction might 
 be employed for other and more useful purposes. 
 
 Our schools and universities have long been told 
 that much of what they are teaching is useless in 
 
330 LECTLJKE XIV. 
 
 the battle of life. Greek and Latin are called dead 
 languages. Ancient history is condemned as a medley of 
 legendary traditions and of one-sided partisan views, 
 while our newspapers are said to contain more wisdom 
 than the whole of Thucydides ; nay, as has lately been 
 calculated, more words also — which is quite possible. 
 As to philosophy, it is looked upon as obsolete, nay, 
 even as mischievous, and the athletics of the cricket- 
 field are praised as far more efficacious in forming 
 manly and practical characters than the intellectual 
 gymnastics of Logic and Metaphysics. 
 
 While every ettbrt is being made to sweep away 
 all ancient lumber and classical rubbish, we can 
 hardly be surprised that an attempt to introduce 
 into our universities a new study, the study^ of dead 
 religions, should have met with anyttiing but a friendly 
 w^elcome on the part of educational reformers. 
 
 So far as these attacks are directed au'ainst all 
 scientific studies which cannot at once show what 
 they lead to, or produce useful and marketable results, 
 no defence seems to me necessary. We surely^ know 
 by this time how often in the history of the world the 
 labours of the patient student, jeered at by his con- 
 temporaries as mere waste of time and money and 
 brains, have in the end given to the world some of its 
 most valued possessions. Faraday died a poor man, 
 but the world has grown richer and brighter by his 
 labours. Copernicus, while he was quietly observing, 
 measuring, and calculating, — looked upon as a strange 
 and even as a dangerous man by his fellow-canons at 
 Frauenburg — never asked what all his work would 
 lead to. Like every true student, he was simply in 
 love with truth. And yet there, has scarcely ever been 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD T0 1 331 
 
 a greater revolution achieved in the world of thought, 
 or a more important advance made in our knowledge 
 of the universe, nay, in our knowledge of ourselves, 
 than by that solitary philosopher in the North of 
 Germany, when he proved that we and our globe did 
 not form, as was fondly supposed, the centre of the 
 universe, but had to take the place assigned to us by 
 the side of other planets, all moving at a greater or 
 smaller distance around one central sun. 
 
 The only question which deserves to be considered 
 is, whether a study of Natural Religion is ever likely 
 to produce a similar revolution in our world of 
 thought, is ever likely to lead to a similar advance 
 in our knowledge of the universe, nay, in our know- 
 ledge of ourselves, is ever likely to teach us that our 
 own religion also, however perfect, is but one out of 
 many religions, all moving, at a greater or smaller 
 distance, around one central truth. 
 
 We are asked, What can a study of the old and 
 dead religions of the world teach us who are in pos- 
 session of a new and living religion 1 What can we 
 learn from Natural Eeligion, who pride ouiselves on 
 the possession of a Supernatural Religion? 
 
 Iiessous of Natural Relig-ion. 
 
 What can a study of Natural Religion teach US'? 
 Why, it teaches us that religion is natural, is real, 
 is inevitable, is universal. Is that nothiug? Is it 
 nothing to know that there is a solid rock on which 
 all religion, call it natural or supernatural, is founded? 
 Is it nothing to learn from the annals of history that 
 'God has not left Himself without witness, in that 
 He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and 
 
332 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 fruitful seasons, filling our hearts, and the hearts of 
 the whole human race, with food and gladness?' 
 
 If you examine the attacks that have been made 
 on religion, which have proved the more dangerous — - 
 those on Natural or those on Supernatural Religion "? 
 
 Christianity, to which alone, at least among our- 
 selves, the name of a Supernatural Religion would be 
 conceded, has been surrounded during the nineteen 
 centuries of its existence with many ecclesiastical 
 outworks. Some of these outworks ought probably 
 never to have been erected. But when they were 
 attacked and had to be surrendered, Christianity 
 itself has remained unaffected, nay, it has been 
 strengthened rather than weakened by their sur- 
 render. The Reformation swept away a good many 
 of these ecclesiastical fences and intrenchments, and 
 the spirit of the Reformation, dargerous as it was 
 supposed to be at the time to the most vital interests 
 of Christianity, has never been at rest again, and 
 will never be at rest. Under the name of Biblical 
 Criticism the same reforming spirit is at work in our 
 own da3^s, and whatever may be thought of it in other 
 countries, in the country of Knox, in the ancient home 
 of free thought and free speech, that reforming spirit 
 will never be stifled, however dangerous it may seem 
 at times even in the eyes of old and honest reformers. 
 There can be no doubt that free inquiry has swept 
 away, and will sweep away, many things which have 
 been highly valued, nay, which were considered essen- 
 tial by many honest and pious minds. And yet who 
 will say that true Christianity, Christianity which is 
 known by its fruits, is less vigorous now than it has 
 ever been before ? There have been dissensions in the 
 
WHAT DOES IT L'<:AD TO ? 333 
 
 Christian Church from the time of the Apostles to our 
 own times. We have passed through them ourselves, 
 we are passing through them even now. But in spite 
 of all the hard and harsh and unchristian language 
 that has been used in these controversies, who would 
 doubt now, after their lives and their deepest con- 
 victions have been laid open before the world, that 
 KiDgsley was as deeply religious a man as Newman, 
 that Stanley served his Church as faithfully as Pusey, 
 and that Dr. Martineau, the Unitarian, deserves the 
 name of a Christian as much as Dr. Liddon ? 
 
 But now let us look at the attacks which have of 
 late been directed against Natural Religion — against 
 a belief in anything beyond what is supplied by the 
 senses, against a conception of anything infinite or 
 divine, against a trust in any government of the world, 
 against the admission of any distinction between good 
 and evil, against the very possibility of an eternal 
 life — what would remain, I do not say of Christianity, 
 or even of Judaism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or 
 Brahmanism, but of anything worth the name of 
 religion, if these attacks could not be repelled '^ 
 
 And yet we are asked, What can a study of Natural 
 Religion teach us '? 
 
 And when we have shown that Natural Religion is 
 the only impregnable safeguard against atheism, we 
 are told that unaided reason cannot lead to a belief in 
 God. This is an orthodoxy which may become the 
 most dangerous of all heresies. Cardinal Newman 
 was not a man who trusted in reason rather than in 
 authority. And yet what does he say of Natural 
 Relio-ion'? 'I have no intention at all,' he writes in 
 his Ajyologia, p. 243, ' of denying, that trutli is the real 
 
334 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 object of our reason, and that, if it does not attain to 
 truth, either the premiss or the process is at fault; 
 but I am not speaking here of right reason, but of 
 reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. 
 I know that even unaided reason, when correctly 
 exercised, leads to a belief in God. in the immortality 
 of the soul, and in future retribution ; but I am 
 considering the faculty of reason actually and his- 
 torically; and in this point of view, I do not think 
 I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards 
 a simple unbelief in matters of religion.' 
 
 I give the Cardinal's words with all his restrictions. 
 I am not concerned with the question whether his- 
 torically the tendency of reason has been everywhere 
 towards unbelief, except in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 I only lay stress on his admission^ an admission in 
 which he felt himself supported by the highest autho- 
 rities of the early Church, that ' unaided reason, when 
 correctly exercised, can lead to a belief in God, in the 
 immortality of the soul, and in future retribution.' 
 
 In my present course of Lectures I have had to 
 confine myself to one branch of Natural Religion 
 only, to what I call Physical, as distirguished from 
 Anthropological and Psychological Religion. Leaving 
 cut of consideration, therefore, the two great problems, 
 that of the immortality of the soul, and that of man's 
 true relation to God, which form the subject of An- 
 thropological and Psychological Religion, I may now 
 sum up in a few words what a study of Physical 
 Religion can teach us, and^ I may hope, has taught us. 
 
WHAT LOES IT LEAD TO? 335 
 
 The Agfents in Nature. 
 
 A study of the ancient religions of tlie world, and 
 more particularly of the earliest religion of India, 
 teaches us, firbt of all, that many things in nature 
 which we are now inclined to treat as quite natural, 
 as a matter of course, appeared to the minds of the 
 earliest observers in a much truer light, as by no 
 means natural, as by no means a matter of course, 
 but on the contrary, as terrific, as astounding, as truly 
 miraculous, as supernatural. It was in these very phe- 
 nomena of nature, the sky, the sun, the lire, and the 
 'orm-Avind, which to us seem so natural, so ordinary, 
 so hackneyed, that man perceived for the first time 
 something that startled him out of his animal torpor, 
 that made him ask. What is if? What does it all mean? 
 Whence does it all come? — that forced him, whether he 
 liked it or not, to look behind the drama of nature for 
 actors or agents, different from merely human agents, 
 agents whom in his language and thought he called 
 superhuman, and, in the end, divine. 
 
 We must not imagine that these early observers and 
 namers of nature did not distinguish between these 
 phenomena, as mere phenomena, and the agents pos- 
 tulated by their very language. The names given to 
 these phenomena, were in reality the names of noou- 
 mena, of unseen powers. Zeus, and Jupiter, and 
 Dyaush pita in Sanskrit were not meant for the dead 
 sky; they were names at all events in the beginning, 
 of an agent within or behind or beyond the sky. They 
 were masculine names, not neuters. They represent, 
 as I tried to show, the first attempt at grasping that 
 Infinite which underlies all cur finite perceptions, 
 
336 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 and at naming the Supernatural, as manifested in the 
 Natural. They are the first steps which led in the 
 end to a faith in God, as revealed in Nature. 
 
 What I chiefly wished to establish by means of the 
 evidence so unexpectedly supplied to us in the hymns 
 of the Rig-veda was the simplicity and almost ne- 
 cessity of Physical Religion, or of the discovery of 
 God in nature. Given man, such as he is, not, of 
 course, as a tabula rasa, but as endowed with reason 
 and language, and armed with the so-called categories 
 of the understanding ; and given nature, such as it is, 
 not as a chaos, but as a text that can be construed, 
 what we call Physical Religion, a naming of and 
 believing in Agents behind the great drama of nature, 
 was inevitable, and, being inevitable, was, for the time 
 being, true. 
 
 One Ag'ent in Nature. 
 
 But it was true as a first step only in an unbroken 
 chain of intellectual evolution, for it was soon recoof- 
 nised that these various agents were really doing one 
 and the same work, whether their presence was per- 
 ceived in the sk}^, or in the sun, or in the fire, or in the 
 storm-wind. Hence the various names of these agents, 
 the D e vas or the Bright ones, as they were called, were 
 recognised after a time by the more thoughtful poets, as 
 names of one all-powerful Agent, no longer a mere 
 Deva by the side of other Devas, but the Lord, the 
 Lord of all created things, hence called Pra,9'a.pati, 
 the universal Will, hence called Brahma, and, in 
 the end, the eternal Self of the objective world, as 
 recognised by the Self of the subjective world, the 
 At man of the Vedanta philosophy. 
 
WHAT DOTS IT LEAD TO ? 337 
 
 We also examined the different epithets that were 
 assigned to the Devas, and to Him who was recognised 
 in the end as above all Devas, and we found that they 
 closely corresponded to the attributes of God in our 
 own religion. If there are any other divine attributes, 
 supposed to be beyond the reach of natural religion, 
 all we can say is that they should be pointed out, so 
 that we may determine, once for all, whether they 
 can or whether they cannot be matched even in so 
 primitive a religion as that of the Veda. 
 
 If then so much of our religious knowledge, and 
 more particularly our concept of God as the all- 
 powerful Agent in nature, which was believed to bo 
 beyond the reach of the unassisted human intellect, 
 or supernatural in its origin, has been proved to 
 be perfectly natural, nay inevitable, have we lost 
 anything ? 
 
 Craving for the Supernatural. 
 
 I see nothing that has been lost, and I see much 
 that has been gained. Like the Copernican dis- 
 covery, this discovery also will teach us both humility 
 and gratitude, humility on learning that other people 
 also were not left in utter darkness as to what lies 
 beyond this finite world, gratitude for that we have 
 been spared many of the struggles through which 
 other people had to pass in their search after God. 
 
 Unfortunately, it is siill with many of us, as it was 
 with the Jews of old. They were always hankering 
 for something exclusive and exceptional, for some- 
 thing supernatural and miraculous. They alone, they 
 thought, were the chosen people of God. They would 
 not believe, unless they saw signs and wonders, 
 
 (2) Z 
 
338 LECTUEE XIV. 
 
 designed for their special benefit, while they remained 
 blind to the true signs and wonders that appealed to 
 them on every side. 
 
 And yet the founders of the three greatest religions 
 of the world, however much they may differ on other 
 points, are unanimous on one point, namely in their 
 condemnation of this hankering after the miraculous, 
 and after the supernatural, falsely so called. 
 
 Miracles condemned by Mohammed. 
 
 Orthodox Mohammedans delight in relatinof the 
 miracles wrought by Mohammed. But what does 
 Mohammed say himself in the Koran ? He expresses 
 the strongest contempt of miracles, in the usual sense 
 of that word, and he appeals to the true miracles, the 
 great works of Allah in nature. And what are these 
 great works of Allah, these true miracles of natlire ? 
 ' The rising and setting of the sun,' he says, ' the rain 
 that fructifies the earth, and the plants that grow, we 
 know not how.' You see, the very phenomena of nature 
 in which the Vedic poets discovered the presence of 
 divine agents are what Mohammed calls the great 
 works of Allah. After that, Mohammed continues : 
 '/ cannot show you signs and miracles, except what 
 you see every day and every night. Signs are with 
 God \' Here you see the true religious view of the 
 world, which perceives the Supernatural in all things 
 natural, and does not bargain for special miracles 
 before it wi«l believe. 
 
 * See Lane Poole, The Speeches of Mohamr-ied, p. 64: 'Nothing hin- 
 dered our sending thee with signs but that the people of yore 
 called them lies.' 'Verily in the alternations of the night and the 
 day, and in all that God created in the he.'.vens and the earth, are 
 signs to a God-fearing folk,' p. SS. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 339 
 
 Miracles condemned by Buddha. 
 
 No religion, as handed down to us, is so full of 
 miracles as Buddhism. The Brahmans also, the pre- 
 decessors of the Buddhists, were staunch believers 
 in every kind of miracle. When Buddhism became 
 a rival faith in India the Brahmans twitted the 
 Buddhists with not being able to perform such miracles 
 as they performed, and still profess to perform. But 
 what did Buddha say to his disciples, when they asked 
 his permission to perform such miracles, as making 
 seeds to sprout, healing diseases, sitting in the air, or 
 ascending to the clouds'? At one time he does not 
 seem to question the possibility of acquiring super- 
 natural powers (iddhi), but he says that the only way 
 to them lies through the eightfold noble path, as it were, 
 through much prayer and fasting. At other times he 
 forbids his disciples to do anything of the kind, but 
 he allows them instead to perform one miracle, Avhich 
 may be called the greatest moral miracle. ' Hide your 
 good deeds,' he says, 'and confess before the world 
 the sins you have committed.' That was in Buddha's 
 eyes the only miracle which his disciples might safely 
 be allowed to perform ; everything else he left to the 
 Brahmans, who might perform signs and wonders to 
 please and to deceive the multitude. 
 
 Miracles condemned by Christ. 
 
 And what did the founder of Christianity say, when 
 asked to perform miracles, in the sense ascribed to 
 that word by the multitude 1 'An evil and adulterous 
 generation,' he said, 'seeketh after a sign.' And again, 
 'Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe.' 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Such utterances from the founders of the three 
 great religions should at all events make us pause 
 and reflect what the true meaning of a miracle was in 
 the beginning. It was not the supernatural forced 
 and foisted into the natural; it was the natural 
 perceived as the supernatural ; it was the reading of 
 a new and deeper meaning both in the workings of 
 nature and in the acts of inspired men ; it was the 
 recognition of the Divine, reflected in the light of 
 common day. 
 
 A French philosopher and poet, Amiel, has truly 
 said : ' A miracle depends for its existence far more 
 on the subject who sees, than on the object that is 
 seen. A miracle is a perception of the soul, the vision 
 of the divine behind nature. There is no miracle for 
 the indifTerent. Religious souls only are capable of 
 recoo-nisino^ the finder of God in certain events.' 
 
 And even Cardinal Newman admits that we might 
 be satisfied with the popular view of a miracle, ' as an 
 event which impresses upon the mind the immediate 
 presence of the Moral Governor of the world ' (Apo- 
 logia, p. 305). Is it not clear then that in the eyes of 
 those who believe in the omnipresence of the Moral 
 Governor of the world, miracles, in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, have become impossible, and that to them 
 either every event is miraculous or no event can 
 claim that name. Before the great miracle of the 
 manifestation of God in nature, all other miracles 
 vanish. There is but one eternal miracle, the reve- 
 lation of the Infinite in the finite. 
 
WHAT DOES TT LEAD TO? 341 
 
 Tlie Supernatural as Natural. 
 
 But while on one side a study of Natural Religion 
 teaches us that much of what we are inclined to class 
 as natural, to accept as a matter of course, nay to pass 
 by as unmeaning, is in re lity full of meaning, is full 
 of God, is, in fact, truly miraculous it also opens our 
 eyes to another fact, namely that many things which 
 we are inclined to class as supernatural, are in reality 
 perfectly natural, perfectly intelligible, nay inevitable, 
 in the growth of every religion. 
 
 Thus it has been the chief object of my lectures to 
 show that the concept of God aiises by necessity in 
 the human mind, and is not as so many theologians 
 will have it, the result of one special disclosure, 
 granted to Jews and Christians only. It seems to 
 me impossible to resist this conviction, when a com- 
 parative study of the great religions of the world 
 shows us that the highest attributes which we claim 
 for the Deity are likewise ascribed to it by the Sacred 
 Books of other religions. 
 
 This is either a fact or no fact, and. if it is a fact, 
 no conscientious scholar would in our days try to 
 explain it away by saying that the poets of the A^eda, 
 for instance, had l3orrowed their concept of God and 
 His essential attributes from the Jews. 
 
 I have never been able to understand the object of 
 these futile endeavours. Do we lose anything, if we 
 find that what we hold to be the most valuable truth 
 is shared in and supported by millions of human 
 beings ? Ancient philosophers were most anxious to 
 support their OAvn belief in God by the unanimous 
 testimony of mankind. They made the greatest 
 
342 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 efforts to prove that there was no race so degraded 
 and barbarous as to be without a belief in something 
 Divine. Some modern theologians, on the contrary, 
 seem to grudge to all religions but their own the 
 credit of having a pure and true, nay any concept of 
 God at all, quite forgetful of the fact that a truth 
 does not cease to be a truth because it is accepted 
 universally. I know no heresy more dangerous to 
 true religion than this denial that a true concept of 
 God is within the reach of every human being, is, in 
 fact, the common inheritance of mankind, however 
 fearfully it may have been misused and profaned by 
 Christian and non-Christian nations. 
 
 Common elements of an Relig-ions. The Ten 
 Commandments. 
 
 And this universal consensus is not restricted to 
 the concept of God only. Many of the moral com- 
 mandments, which we are accustomed to consider as 
 communicated to mankind by a special revelation, 
 such as the Ten Commandments, for instance, occur, 
 sometimes in almost the same words, in the Sacred 
 Books of other religions also. Instead of being 
 surprised, or, what is still worse, being disappointed 
 by that discovery, would it not be perfectly awful if 
 it were otherwise ? Or can anybody really persuade 
 himself that what we -call the heathen-world had to 
 wait and borrow from the Jews such commandments 
 as ' Thou shalt not steal,' ' Thou shalt not kill,' ' Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness ' ? 
 
 When people are told that the Buddhists have their 
 Ten Commandments, the Dasasila, they are startled 
 at once by the number ten. But we shall see that 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 343 
 
 this number ten is a mere accident. The next step 
 is to suppose that these Ten Commandments must 
 have been borrowed from the Jews by some unknown 
 subterraneous channel, or, as some will have it. that 
 they constitute a fragment of that primeval revelation 
 which, we are assured, was given once and once only 
 to the human race, but preserved in its entirety and 
 purity by the Jews alone. All these are utterly 
 futile defences, thrown up to guard against purely 
 imaginary dangers. 
 
 We have ouly to look at the so-called Ten Com- 
 mandments of the Buddhists to see that they could 
 not possibly have been borrowed from the Bible. 
 They are divided into three classes ; five for the 
 Itiity at large, three more for what we should call 
 religious people, and two more for the priests. Every 
 man who calls himself a follower of Buddha must 
 vow — 
 
 1. Not to destroy life. 
 
 2. Not to steal. 
 
 3. To abstain from all unchastity. 
 
 4. Not to lie, deceive, or bear false witness. 
 
 5. To abstain from intoxicating drinks. 
 
 A layman of higher aspirations must promise in 
 addition — 
 
 6. Not to eat food at unseasonable times, that is, 
 after the mid- day meal. 
 
 7. Not to dance, not to sing light songs ; in fact, 
 to avoid worldly dissipation. 
 
 8. Not to wear any kind of ornament, not to use 
 any scents or perfumes ; in short, to avoid whatever 
 tends to vanity. 
 
 The priest, or as it would be more correct to render 
 
344 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Bhikshu, the friar or mendicant, has to obey two more 
 commandments, viz. — 
 
 P. To sleep on a hard and low couch. 
 
 10. To live in voluntary poverty. 
 
 You see at once how impossible it would be to 
 suppose that the Buddhists had borrowed these ten 
 commandments from the Ten Commandments of the 
 Old Testament. The most essential commandments, 
 no doubt, are there : ' Thou shalt do no murder,' 
 ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' ' Thou shalt not 
 steal,' ' Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
 neighbour,' and possibly, ' Thou shalt not covet.' But 
 does any student of the history of civilised or un- 
 civilised nations really suppose that these command- 
 ments required what is called a special revelation, and 
 that they were not engraved on the tablets of the 
 human heart, before they had been engraved on the 
 tablets of stone on Mount Horeb 1 
 
 And how could we account for the absence of the 
 other commandments, some of them the most charac- 
 teristic of the Decalogue ? The fifth commandment, 
 ' Honour thy father and mother,' is one that is often 
 inculcated by Buddha in his numerous sermons, yet 
 it finds no place in the Da6a.sila of the Buddhists; 
 while another religion, that of Confucius in China, 
 may be said to be mainly founded on that command- 
 ment, on what he calls filial piety, the honour paid by 
 children to their fathers and mothers. 
 
 In the Vedic literature we find nothing correspond- 
 ing to the ten commandments. Nevertheless, all 
 the essential commandments were known to the 
 ancient Hindus quite as much as to the Jews and the 
 Buddhists. Five of them are often comprehended 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO ? 345 
 
 under the name of ' the summary of Manu's laws for 
 the four castes.' These are (Manu X. 63)— 
 
 1. Abstention from injuiing. 
 
 2. Veracity. 
 
 3. Abstention from unlawfully appropriating. 
 
 4. Purity. 
 
 5. Control of the organs of sense. 
 
 Here the first commandment corresponds to the 
 sixth in the Decalogue, and to the general command- 
 ment of ahimsa, not injuring, among the Buddhists. 
 The second corresponds to the ninth of the Decalogue, 
 the third to the eighth, the fifth to the seventh, while 
 the fourth, which enjoins purity, cannot be matched 
 in the Decalogue. But besides these five command- 
 ments, there are four or five others which, in the Vedic 
 literature, appear in the shape of the great sacred acts 
 incumbent upon every member of society. These so- 
 called Mahaya^>7as, as described in the Brahma^ias 
 {Ssit. Br. XI. 5, 6), consist of — 
 
 1. Daily oflfering of Bali to the seven classes of 
 beings (Bhuta-yar/zTa). 
 
 2. Daily gift of food to men (Manushya-ya^;7a). 
 
 3. Daily oflfering to the Manes, accompanied by the 
 exclamation Svadha, which may consist even of a 
 vessel with water only (Pit7'it-ya/7y7a). 
 
 4. Daily oblation to the gods, accompanied by the 
 exclamation Svaha, wdiich may consist of a piece of 
 wood only (Deva-yar/;7a). 
 
 5. Daily recitation for the i?/shis (Brahma-ya//;:a). 
 Here we see that the worship of the gods, though 
 
 not enjoined in the form of a command, is clearly 
 implied, because the neglect of the five daily sacrifices 
 entails sin. The daily oflferings to the Manes ai'e in 
 
346 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 reality a continuation of the honour due to father and 
 mother during life, while the daily giving of food to 
 men and even to other beings implies, to a certain 
 extent, the absence of covetousness which is enjoined 
 in the last commandment of the Decaloo-ue. 
 
 There is, therefore, in the commandments of the 
 Brahmans both more and less than in the Ten Com- 
 mandments. As the Erahmans had not arrived at 
 the exclusive worship of one national God, and had 
 never excelled in making images, the first command- 
 ment not to worship other gods, and not to make 
 graven images is naturally absent in India. The 
 danger of using the name of God in vain, seems 
 likewise to have been unknown in Vedic' times. 
 The duty to honour father and mother is almost 
 taken for granted, and when it is mentioned, it is 
 generally joined with the command to honour the 
 teachers also. On the other hand, the duty of kind- 
 ness towards all men, and even towards animals, and 
 lastly the duty of honouring the dead, are passed over 
 in the Decaloiiue ^ 
 
 If Comparative Theology has taught us anything, 
 it has taught that there is a common fund of truth 
 in all religions, derived from a revelation that was 
 neither confined to one nation, nor miraculous in the 
 usual sense of that word, and that even minute coin- 
 cidences between the doctrines, nay, between the 
 external accessories of various religions, need not be 
 accounted for at once by disguised borrowings, but 
 can be explained by other and more natural causes. 
 
 Very often we find that what at first sight seems 
 
 ' See on all this Professor Leist in his excellent work. Jus Gentiunif 
 pp 247-384. 
 
WHA.T DOES IT LEAD TO? 347 
 
 identical in two religions, is in reality not identical, 
 when we succeed in tracing it back to its original 
 source. Many of the similarities between the lives 
 of Christ and Buddha, for instance, of which we have 
 heard so much of late, belong to that class. They 
 are at first sight puzzling, nay startling, but they 
 generally become quite natural, if subjected to the 
 examination of a scholarlike criticism. 
 
 Similarities between Christianity and Buddhism. 
 
 I shall try to give you one specimen at least of 
 what I mean by scholarlike criticism, for it is really 
 high time that an end should be put to the uncritical 
 mixing up of Buddhism and Christianity, which, if 
 true, would upset nearly all we know of the real his- 
 tory of the ancient religions of the world. As Buddhism 
 is about five centuries older than Christianity, it is 
 Christianity only that could have been the borrow^er, 
 if borrowing had taken place at all ; and I ask, by 
 what historical channel could Buddhism have reached 
 Palestine in the first century before our era? Bud- 
 dhism is an historical religion, and so is Christianity. 
 No one, I suppose, would write about Christianity 
 w^ho has not read the New Testament. Why then 
 should so many people write about Buddhism, without 
 reading the Sacred Canon of the Buddhists, or, at least, 
 those large portions of it which have been translated 
 into English and published in my series of the ' Sacred 
 Books of the East ' ? Why should they instead read 
 fanciful novels, or worse than imaginary accounts of 
 Mahatmas and Theosophists which, if they contain a 
 few orrains of Buddhism, contain tons of rubbish 
 and trash? It is a shame to see so beautiful a re- 
 
348 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 ligion as Euddhism certainly is in many of its parts, 
 misrepresented, caricatured, nay, degraded by many 
 of those who call themselves Neo-buddhists or Theo- 
 sophists.and who by their own ignorance try to impose 
 on the ignorance and credulity of the public. 
 
 Let us take one instance. Mr. Oswald Felix writes, 
 ' that according to the Lalita-Vistara, which is one of 
 the Sacred Eooks of Euddhism, or, more correctly of 
 Northern Buddhism or Eodhism, Buddha converted 
 his first disciples, half of them formerly followers of 
 his precursor, Rudraka, while sitting under a fig-tree. 
 The first disciples of Christ were seceders from the 
 followers of John the Baptist, the precursor of the 
 world-renouncing Messiah. " I have seen you under 
 the fig-tree/' says Jesus, when his converts introduce 
 Nathanael. Nathanael then at once recants his doubts. 
 Sitting under the sacred fig-tree is one of the m^ stic 
 tokens of Buddhist Messiahship.' 
 
 So far Mr. Oswald Felix, who is I must say, one 
 of the more conscientious and fair-minded students of 
 Buddhism. But let us now examine the case more 
 closel}^ That the founders of the Christian and 
 Buddhist religions should both have had precursors, 
 can hardly be called a very startling coincidence, 
 particularly when we consider how different was the 
 relation of John the Baptist to Chiist from that of 
 Rudraka to Buddha. But that the Buddhist and 
 the Christian Messiah should both have converted 
 their disciples under a fig-tree, does sound strange, 
 and, being without any apparent motive, would seem 
 to require some explanation. If there was borrowing 
 on this point between the two religions, it could only 
 have been on the Christian side, for Buddha died 
 
WHAT DOSS IT LEAD TO ? 349 
 
 477 B.C., and the Buddhist Canon was settled, as we 
 saw, in the third century B.C. under king Asoka. 
 
 But let us look more carefully into this matter. 
 That Buddha should be represented as sitting under 
 a fig-tree is most natural in India. He was for a time 
 a hermit. Hermits in India lived under the shelter 
 of trees, and no tree in India gave better shelter than 
 what we call the Indian fig-tree. Different Buddhas 
 were supposed to have been sitting under diflferent 
 trees, and were distinguished afterwards by the trees 
 which they had chosen as their own. 
 
 There would seem to be no similar explanation for 
 Christ sitting and teaching under a fig-tree, and hence 
 the conclusion that this account must have been bor- 
 rowed from the Buddhist scriptures seems not alto- 
 gether unreasonable. The fig-tree in Palestine has 
 little in common with the fig-tree in India, nor do 
 we ever hear of Jewish Rabbis sitting under trees 
 while teaching. 
 
 But are we really told that Christ sat under a fig- 
 tree? Certainly not. The words are, 'Jesus answered 
 and said unto him, " Before that Philip called thee, 
 when thou wert under the fig-tree, I saw thee." ' 
 Where is then the coincidence, and where the necessity 
 of admitting that the Christian story was borrowed 
 from the Buddhists 1 People who compare the gospels 
 of Buddha and Christ ought at all events to be ac- 
 quainted with the New Testament. Nathanael hap- 
 pened to be under a fig-tree when he was first ,'een 
 by Christ. That fig-tree was not an Indian fig-tree, 
 nor was it the shelter under which Christ sat when 
 choosing His disciples. 
 
 Much as has been made of this, there seems to me 
 
350 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 nothing left that requires explanation, nothing to 
 support the theory that two religions, so diametrically 
 opposed to each other on the most essential points, 
 could have borrowed such accounts one from the 
 other, whether Buddhism from Christianity, or Chris- 
 tianity from Buddhism. 
 
 I do not mean to say that all similarities between 
 Buddhism and Christianity have been fully accounted 
 for as yet. It would not be honest to say so. All 
 I say is that most of them have been, and that the 
 rest are not such as to justify us in admitting an 
 historical intercourse between India and Palestine 
 before the rise of Christianity ^. 
 
 The real coincidences, not only between Christianity 
 and Buddhism, but between all the religions of the 
 world, teach us a very different lesson. They teach 
 us that all religions spring from the same soil^the 
 human heart, that they all look to the same ideals, 
 and that they are all surrounded by the same dangers 
 and difficulties. Much that is represented to us as 
 supernatural in the annals of the ancient religions of 
 the world becomes perfectly natural from this point 
 of view. 
 
 Divine character ascribed to the rounders of Religions. 
 
 For instance, the founders of most, if not of all reli- 
 gions were after a time believed in as superior beings, 
 as superhuman or divine, in the old-world sense of the 
 w^ord. An ordinary birth, therefore, was not considered 
 sufficient, nor, in many instances, an ordinary death. 
 All this is perfectly natural, it is almost inevitable. 
 
 If I say that it is almost inevitable, this might be 
 ^ See Appendix XV. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 351 
 
 called a mere assertion or a theory, and the Science 
 of Religion, as I have often said in my lectures, deals 
 not in theories, but in facts only. These facts, which 
 speak with a louder voice than any theories, are 
 collected from historical documents, and it is in them 
 that we must learn to study the origin and growth of 
 reliofions, and all the accidents that befall them, when 
 entrusted to the keeping of weak mortals, call them 
 laymen or priests. 
 
 Buddha's Birth. 
 
 Let us begin with the birth of Euddha. At first 
 it is no more than the biith of a prince, the son of the 
 Eajah of Kapilavastu. He is certainly the first-born 
 child of his mother, and it was in that sense that 
 first-born children were often called the children of 
 virgin mothers. Thus even Moses is called in the 
 Talmud the son of a virgin. When Maha-maya, the 
 wife of king /Suddhodana was near her confinement, 
 we are told ^ that she expressed a wish to go to Deva- 
 daha, the city of her own people. The king, saying, 
 'It is good,' consented, and had the road from Kapila- 
 vastu to Devadaha made plain and decked with arches 
 of plain-trees, and well-filled waterpots, and flags, and 
 banners. Ajid seating the queen in a golden palan- 
 quin, carried by a thousand attendants, he sent her 
 away with a great retinue. When approaching the 
 Lumbini grove, the queen was carried in, and when 
 she came to the monarch Sal-tree of the glade, she 
 wanted to take hold of a branch of it, and the branch 
 bending down approached within reach of her hand. 
 Stretching out her hand, she took hold of the branch, 
 
 ^ See Buddhist Birth- Stones, p. 65. 
 
352 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 and then standing, and holding the branch of the Sal- 
 tree, she was delivered. 
 
 This is as yet a very sober account of Buddha's 
 birth, and even what follows is not more than we 
 should expect from an Oriental narrator. ' Four pure- 
 minded Maha-Erahma angels came there, bringing a 
 golden net, and receiving the future Euddha on that 
 net, they placed him before his mother, saying, '• Be 
 joyful, O lady! a mighty son is born to thee." Of 
 course Buddha is born pure and fair, and shining like 
 a gem placed on fine muslin of Benares. Two showers 
 of water came down from heaven to refresh mother 
 and child ^.' 
 
 But the plot thickens as we go on. We are told 
 (p. 62) that the queen had had a dream in which the 
 four archangels, the guardians of the world, lifted her 
 up in a couch, carried her to the Himalaya mountains, 
 and placed her under the Great /Sala-tree. Then their 
 queens took her to the lake Anotatta, bathed, dressed, 
 and anointed her, and laid her on a couch in the 
 
 ^ It seems a curious coincidence that according to the Koran the 
 mother of Jesus, like the mother of Buddha, was delivered while 
 standing under a tree, and that water should have streamed forth 
 for the benefit of mother and child. See the Qui-an, translated by 
 Palmer, S. B. E., vol. ix. p. 28 : ' And the labour pains came upon her 
 at the trunk of a palm-tree, and she said, ''0 that I had died before 
 this, and been forgotten out of mind ! " and he called to her from 
 beneath her, " Grieve not, for thy Lord has placed a stream beneath 
 thy feet ; and shake towards thee the trunk of the palm-tree, it will 
 drop upon thee fresh dates fit to gather ; so eat, and drink, and 
 cheer thine eye ; and if thou shouldst see any mortal, say, ' Verily, 
 I have vowed to the Merciful One a fast, and I will not speak to- 
 day with a human being.' " ' See also G. Rosch, Die Jesusmythen des 
 Main, in Theologische Siudien unci Kritiken, lb76, pp. 437 seq. He points 
 out that in the Evang. infantiae the child Jesus, on the third day of the 
 Flight into Egypt, caused a palm-tree to bend down its fruit-laden 
 branches into the hands of Mary, and a spring of water to issue 
 from its roots. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD T0 1 353 
 
 golden mansion of the Silver Hill. There she saw 
 the future Buddha, who had become a superb white 
 elephant, ascending the Silver Hill, entering the 
 golden mansion, and after thrice doing obeisance, 
 gently striking her right side and seeming to enter 
 her womb. 
 
 This was at first a dream only, but it was soon 
 changed into a reality. In later acrounts we are 
 told that Buddha really entered his mother s right side 
 as a white elephant, and this incarnation has become 
 one of the favourite scenes in Buddhist sculptures. 
 
 At the time of this wonderful incarnation, we are 
 further told that the worlds shook, and that an im- 
 measurable light appeared in the ten thousand worlds ! 
 The blind received their sight, as if from very longing 
 to behold his glory. The deaf heard the noise. The 
 dumb spake one with another. The crooked became 
 straight. The lame walked ^. 
 
 These miraculous stories connected Avith the birth 
 of Buddha are all the more surprising in Buddhism, 
 because they seem so objectless. They are never used 
 as a proof of Buddha's divine character, for Buddha's 
 was high above all gods, nor are they quoted in sup- 
 port of the truth of the doctrines which he preached 
 later in life. When we think of the exalted character 
 of Buddha's teaching, we wonder what he would have 
 said if he could have seen the fabulous stories of his 
 birth and childhood. 
 
 Birth of Mahavira. 
 
 Still more extraordinary is the birth of Buddha's 
 contemporary, Mahavira, the reputed founder of 
 
 ^ For the rest of this quotation see Appendix XV, p. 302. 
 (2) A a 
 
354 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 (rainisml After his first incarnation, he is actually 
 transferred from one mother, who belonged to the 
 caste of the Brahmans, to another who belonged to 
 the caste of the Kshatriyas, because — and this is very 
 significant — the Kshatriyas were then considered as 
 more noble than the Brahmans. . And when at last 
 he is born, there is a divine lustre originated by many 
 descending and ascending gods and goddesses, and in 
 the universe, resplendent with one light, the conflux 
 of gods occasioned great confusion and noise. In that 
 night in which the venerable ascetic Mahavira was 
 born, many demons in Vai^rama^ia's service, belonging 
 to the animal world, rained down on the palace of 
 king Siddhartha one great shower of silver, gold, 
 diamonds, clothes, ornamei^ts, leaves, flowers, fruits, 
 seeds, garlands, perfumes, sandal, powder, and riches. 
 It is the story of Buddha, only carried to greater 
 extremes. 
 
 Mohammed's Birth. 
 
 We saw before how opposed Mohammed was to all 
 miracles, falsely so called. But in the later accounts 
 of his life we read of many miraculous events which 
 accompanied his birth. We are told^ that a Jew in 
 Jathrib (Medina) called his friends together on the 
 morrow after Mohammed's birth, and said to them : 
 ' This night the star has risen under which Ahmed 
 will be born.' Before his birth a spirit appeared to 
 his mother, Amina, saying : ' Thy child will be the 
 lord of this people. Say at his birth, "' I place him 
 under the protection of the Only One against the 
 
 ^ Gaina-sutras, in S. B. E., vol. xxii. pp. 101, 251. 
 '^ See Krehl, Das Leben den Mohammed, p. 1. 
 
"WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 355 
 
 wickedness of all enviers, and I call him Mohammed." ' 
 While she was with child, she is said to have seen a 
 light which spread its rays from her, so that one could 
 see by its lustre the castles of Busra in Syria. 
 
 Some Mohammedans now go so far as to believe 
 that 'when the prophet was born, the gods and 
 goddesses and saints of heaven descended upon the 
 earth, praised and saluted him, and thanked his 
 mother Amina.' Again, one feels tempted to ask 
 what Mohammed himself would have said to such 
 gods and goddesses descending from heaven, he whose 
 chief doctrine was that there is but one God, and 
 Mohammed His prophet. 
 
 other Propliets. 
 
 But these superstitions are not confined to Buddha 
 and Mahavira, both born in the sixth century B.C., or 
 to Mohammed, who was born in the sixth century A.D. 
 In much more modern times, and in the broad day- 
 light of history, the same stories spring up and are 
 believed. Nanak, for instance, was the founder of 
 the Sikh religion ; he lived in the sixteenth century, 
 and was a contemporary of our reformers. Yet we 
 read of him that when he was born (a.d. 1469, April- 
 May), in a moonlight night at an early hour, while 
 yet about a watch of the night was remaining, un- 
 beaten sounds were produced at the gate of the Lord, 
 thirty-three crores of gods paid homage, the sixty- 
 four Yoginis, the fifty-two heroes, the six ascetics, 
 the eighty-four Siddhas, the nine Nathas, all paid 
 homage, because a great devotee has come to save 
 the world ^ 
 
 ' See Trumpp, Adi-Granfh, pp. ii, vii, IL. 
 A a 2 
 
356 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 /laitanya, the founder of one of the most popular 
 modern systems of religion in India, is a still later 
 and perfectly historical character. He was born in 
 1485. Yet his birth also could not escape the miracu- 
 lous halo which is considered essential to every founder 
 of a new religion or of a new sect. At his birth also, as 
 his followers assure us, 'men from all sides began to 
 send presents. Sa/d, his mother, saw in the heavens 
 beings with spiritual bodies making adoration. There 
 was an eclipse when the child was boi^n, and the men 
 of the world shouted aloud. The women also cried 
 the name of Hari, and made sounds of Hooloos. The 
 saints of heaven danced and played music with joy^.' 
 
 These are facts, — 1 do not mean the miracles them- 
 selves, but the poetical tendency of man which, with- 
 out any thought of fraud, is led on irresistibly to these 
 imaginary representations of the birth of great heroes 
 and prophets^, even of those who were themselves 
 most opposed to the idea of appealing to signs and 
 wonders in support of the truth of their doctrines. 
 
 The Blrtli of Christ. 
 
 Should we hesitate then to assio-n the same orinfin 
 to the accounts of the birth of Christ which were 
 preserved in some of the Apocryphal Gospels, while 
 some of them have actually found their way, we do 
 not know through what channels, into two of our 
 Synoptical Gospels ? 
 
 When we think of the exalted character of Christ's 
 
 ' Asiatic Researches, xvi. p. 111. 
 
 ^ Similar eases are mentioned by E. Carpenter in The Synoptic 
 Gospeh, pp. 252 seq. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 357 
 
 teaching, may we not ask ourselves once more, What 
 would He have said if He had seen the fabulous 
 stories of His birth and childhood, or if He had 
 thought that His divine character would ever be made 
 to depend on the historical truth of the Evangelia 
 Infantlae ? 
 
 Sig-ns chang-ed to Miracles. 
 
 It is due to the same psychological necessities of 
 human nature, under the inspiring influence of reli- 
 gious enthusiasm, that so many of the true signs and 
 wonders performed by the founders of religion have so 
 often been exaggerated, and, in spite of the strongest 
 protests of these founders themselves, degraded into 
 mere jugglery. It is true that all this does not form 
 an essential element of religion, as we now understand 
 religion. Miracles are no longer used as arguments in 
 support of the truth of religious doctrines. Miracles 
 have often been called helps to faith, but they have 
 as often proved stumbling-blocks to faith, and no one 
 would in our days venture to say that the truth as 
 taught by any religion must stand or fall with certain 
 prodigious events which may or may not have hap- 
 pened, wdiich ma}^ or may not have been rightly 
 apprehended by the followers of Buddha, Christ, or 
 Mohammed. 
 
 Dr. Robert Iiee. 
 
 Let me quote here the w^ords of an eminent Scotch 
 divine whose memory is still widely loved and revered, 
 I believe, the late Dr. Robert Lee. His Life, written 
 by Dr. Story, is probably known to most of you. On 
 one occasion, a gentleman undertook a long journey 
 
358 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 to gain his advice on a point that troubled him. He 
 could not bring himself to a belief in the Christian 
 miracles. ' I asked him,' Dr. Lee said, ' if he believed 
 the doctrines which the miracles were designed to 
 recommend and illustrate.' On receiving a reply in 
 the affirmative, the wise spiritual guide added : ' Then 
 for you, belief in the miracles themselves is un- 
 necessary. To lead to such belief was their purpose ; 
 it is sufficient, if that is attained.' 
 
 Far more important, however, than the discovery of 
 a number of outward coincidences between the miracles 
 of various religions, is another lesson w^hich a com- 
 parative study of the religions of the world has taught 
 us, namely, that there is a common fund of truth in 
 the most essential doctrines which they teach. 
 
 The Hig^hest Commandments. 
 
 We saw before how the most important of the 
 Ten Commandments could be traced in Buddhism and 
 other religions of the world, while the idea that they 
 must have been borrowed from the Jews was shown 
 to be utterly untenable. 
 
 But what has been proved with regard to the Ten 
 Commandments of the Old Testament, is equally true 
 with regard to the fundamental commandment of 
 Christianity. 'Love thy neighbour as thyself,' has 
 long been proved to form an integral part of that 
 eternal religion which has never been quite extinct in 
 the human heart, and has found utterance, more or 
 less perfect, by the mouths of many prophets, poets, 
 and philosophers. 
 
 I shall here quote one instance only. We read in the 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO ? 359 
 
 Confucian Analects, XV. S3\ 'Tsze-kung asked, saying, 
 '• Is there one word which may serve as a rule of 
 practice for all one's life 1 " The Master said : " Is not 
 reciprocity such a word? What you do not want 
 done to yourself, do not do to others." ' 
 
 How difficult Confucius considered this rule of 
 life, is shown in the same Analects, V. 11. Here 
 Tsze-kung is introduced as saying, ' What I do not 
 wish men to do to me, I also wish not to do to men.' 
 But the Master replied : ' Tsze, you have not attained 
 to that.' 
 
 The Talmud says that when a man once asked 
 Shamai to teach him the Law in one lesson, Shamai 
 drove him away in anger. He then went to Hillel 
 with the same request. Hillel said, ' Do unto others 
 as you would have others do unto 3-ou. This is the 
 whole Law; the rest, merely commentaries upon it^.' 
 
 But we may go one step further still. The com- 
 mandment, not only to love our neighbour, but to 
 love our enemy, and to return good for evil, the most 
 sublime doctrine of Christianity, so sublime, indeed, 
 that Christians themselves have declared it to be too 
 hiffh for this world, can be shown to belonix to that 
 universal code of faith and morality from which the 
 greatest religions have dra^vn their strength and life. 
 
 Let me lirst quote the words of Christ ^ : ' You 
 have heard that it hath been said. Thou slialt love 
 thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 
 
 ' But I say unto you. Love your enemies, bless them 
 that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
 
 ' Legge, The Life and Teachings of Confucius, p. 111. 
 
 * See Sir John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life, vol, ii. pp. 226. 
 
 » St. Matthew v. 43. 
 
360 LECTURE XTV. 
 
 pray for them which despitefully use you and perse- 
 cute you. 
 
 'That you may be the children of your Father 
 which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on 
 the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and the unjust.' 
 
 Let us now consult a religion which cannot possibly 
 be suspected of having borrowed anything from 
 Christianity. Let us take Taoism, one of the three 
 great religions of China, such as we know it from the 
 writings of Lao-tze, who lived about 600 B.C. His 
 birth also, you may remember, was represented as 
 very miraculous, more miraculous perhaps than that 
 of any other religious teacher. As I explained in my 
 first course of GifTord Lectures, Lao-tze was believed to 
 have been seventy years old when he was born, and 
 to have actually come into the world with a head of 
 grey hair^. Yet all this was probably not meant 
 to convey more than that Lao-tze was a wise child, 
 as wise as a man of seventy. 
 
 In chapter sixty-three of the Tao-te-king, Lao-tze 
 says in so many words: 'Recompense injury with 
 kindness ; ' or, as Julien translates, ' LI venge ses 
 injures par des bienfaits^.' 
 
 How widely spread and how old this doctrine 
 must have been in China, \ve may gather from some 
 curious remarks made by Confucius, the contemporary 
 of Lao-tze, and the founder or reformer of the national 
 religion of China. In the Analects ^ (bk. xiv. c 36), we 
 read ; 
 
 ^ It was believed that Moses addressed his mother soon after his 
 birth. See Thilo, Codex Apocryphvs Novi Testamenti, p. 146 ; Rosch, 
 1. c., p. 439. 
 
 '"* See Balfour, The Divine Classic of Nan-Hua, p. xix. 
 
 2 Legge, 1. c, p. 113. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 361 
 
 ^Some one said, "What do you say concerning 
 the principle that injury should be recompensed with 
 kindness ? " The Master said : '• With what then will 
 you recompense kindness?" Recompense injury with 
 justice, and kindness with kindness.' 
 
 This is evidently the language of a philosopher 
 rather than of a religious teacher. Confucius seems 
 to have perceived that to love our enemies is almost 
 beyond human nature, and he declares himself satisfied 
 therefore with demanding justice to our enemies— and 
 who does not know how difficult it is to fulfil even 
 that commandment "? 
 
 However, the true prophets who thought not so 
 much of what men are as what men ought to be, 
 insisted on love, or, at all events, on pity for our 
 enemies, as the highest virtue. Thus Buddha said: 
 ' Let a man overcome evil by good ; let him over- 
 come the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth. . . 
 For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time ; 
 hatred ceases by love ; tills is an old rule ^.' 
 
 Remark here again the same expression, that the 
 
 commandment to overcome hatred by love is an old 
 
 rule in the eyes of Buddha, as it was in the eyes of 
 
 Confucius What then becomes of the attempts to 
 
 show that the doctrine of love towards our enemies 
 
 must have been borrowed, wherever we find it, from 
 
 the New Testament, as if that doctrine would become 
 
 less true, because other religions also teach it, or 
 
 because it had been revealed, in the truest sense of 
 
 that word, to all who had eyes to see and hearts to 
 
 love. It is truth that makes revelation, not revelation 
 
 that makes truth. 
 
 1 Dhammapada XVII. 223, in S. B. E.y vol. x. p. 58 ; Jdtaka Tales^ 
 by Morris, p. 7. 
 
362 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 So far from trying by more or less specious argu- 
 ments to claim this doctrine as the exclusive property 
 of Christianity, we should rather welcome it, wherever 
 we meet it. 
 
 The Hitopadesa, a Sanskrit collection of fables, is, in 
 the form in which we possess it, certainly far more 
 modern than the New Testament. But if we read 
 there ; 
 
 * Bar thy door not to the stranger, be he friend or be he foe, 
 For the tree will shade the woodman, while his axe does lay 
 it low,' 
 
 is there any reason why we should say that it must 
 have been borrowed from Christian sources ? The 
 same idea meets us again and again with var3^ing 
 metaphors taken from nature, such as it was in India, 
 and nowhere else. The sandal-wood tree was a tree 
 peculiar to India, and thus the Indian poet tells us 
 to love our enemies as the sandal tree sheds perfume 
 on the axe that fells it. 
 
 Hafiz, one of the greatest poets of Persia, might, no 
 doubt, have taken his thoughts from the New Testa- 
 ment. But, as Sir William Jones remarks, there is 
 not the shadow of reason for supposing that the poet 
 of Shiraz had borrowed his doctrine from the Chris- 
 tians \ This is a translation of some of his verses : 
 
 'Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe, 
 And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe : 
 Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride, 
 Imblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side : 
 Mark, where yon tree rewards the stony shower 
 With fruit nectareous, or the balmy flower ; 
 All nature calls aloud. Shall man do less 
 Than heal the smiter and the railer bless ?* 
 
 ^ TJte Works of Sir William Jones, IS 07, vol. iii. p. 243. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 363 
 
 I have no time left to quote other instances, all 
 showing that this, the highest truth of Christianity, 
 had been reached independently by what we call the 
 pagan religions of the world. When I call it the 
 highest truth of Christianity, I am but quoting the 
 lauffuaofe of well-known theolosfians who declare that 
 this is the most sublime piece of morality ever given 
 to man, and that this one precept is a sufficient proof 
 of the holiness of the Gospel and of the truth of the 
 Christian relio'ion. 
 
 So, no doubt, it is. But what shall we say then of 
 the pagan religions which teach exactly the same 
 doctrine ? 
 
 Shall we say they borrowed it from Christianity ? 
 
 That would be doing violence to history. 
 
 Shall we say that, though they use the same words, 
 they did not mean the same thing? 
 
 That w^ould be doing violence to our sense of truth. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Why not accept the facts such as they are? At first, 
 I quite admit, some of the facts which I have quoted 
 in my lectures are startling and disturbing. But, 
 like most facts which startle us from a distance, they 
 lose their terror when w^e look them in the face, nay, they 
 often prove a very Godsend to those who are honestly 
 grappling with the difficulties of w^hich religion is 
 full. An3diow, they are facts that must be met, that 
 cannot be ignored. And why should they be ignored ? 
 To those wdio see no difficulties in their own religion, 
 the study of other religions will create no new diffi- 
 culties. It will only help them to appreciate more 
 fully what they already possess. For with all that I 
 
364 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 have said in order to show that other religions also 
 contain all that is necessary for salvation, it would be 
 simply dishonest on my part were I to hide my 
 conviction that the religion taught by Christ, and 
 free as yet from all ecclesiastical fences and intrench- 
 ments, is the best, the purest, the truest religion the 
 world has ever seen. When I look at the world as it 
 is, I often say that we seem to be living two thousand 
 yeai-s before, not after Christ. 
 
 To others again, whose very faith is founded on 
 honest doubt, the study of other religions will prove 
 of immense service. If, in my present course of 
 lectures, I have proved no more than that the concept 
 of God; in its progress from the imperfect to the more 
 and more perfect, constitutes the inalienable birth- 
 right of man ; that, without any special revelation, it 
 was revealed to every human being, endowed with 
 sense, with reason, and language, by the manifestation 
 of God in Nature ; and that the admission of, and the 
 belief in a real Agent in all the works of nature is 
 found under various and sometimes strange disguises 
 in all the religions of the world; if, I say, I have 
 succeeded in proving this by facts, b}^ facts taken 
 from the Sacred Eooks of all nations, then my labour 
 has not been in vain. We can now repeat the words 
 which have been settled for us centuries ago, and 
 which we have learnt by heart in our childhood — ' I 
 believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth,' 
 with a new feeling, with the conviction that they 
 express, not only the faith of the apostles, or of 
 oecumenical councils^ but that they contain the Con- 
 fession of Faith of the whole world, expressed in 
 different ways, conveyed in thousands of languages, 
 
WHAT do: S IT LEAD TO ? 365 
 
 but always embodying the same fundamental truth. 
 I call it fundamental, because it is founded in the 
 very nature of our mind, our reason, and our language, 
 on a simple and ineradicable conviction that where 
 there are acts there must be agents, and in the end, 
 one Prime Agent, whom man may know, not indeed 
 in his own inscrutable essence, yet in his acts, as 
 revealed in nature. 
 
 You may have wondered wdiy in these lectures on 
 Physical Religion I should have so often appealed to 
 the Veda, the sacred book of the Brahmans. It was 
 because nowhere else can we w^atch the natural evolu- 
 tion of the concept of God, as the Prime Agent of the 
 w^orld, better than in these ancient hymns. I have 
 quoted many passages from them, showing how the 
 simple observers of nature in India discovered the 
 presence of supernatural agents in the fire, the storm- 
 wind, the sky, the daw^n. and the sun; how they 
 called them by many names, but most frequently by 
 that of deva, and how this name deva, meaning 
 originally bright, after being applied to the brightness 
 of the dawn, the sun, the sky, and the fire, became 
 in the end to mean divine, is, in fact, the same word 
 which we still use, as Deus, God. 
 
 Let me finish by one more quotation from the same 
 Veda, showing how these early observers of nature in 
 India were not satisfied with a belief in many Devas, 
 in many bright and beneficent agents, but were led on 
 irresistibly to a belief in one Prime Agent, in one 
 God. It is a precious line, and I shall quote it first in 
 the original Sanskrit, as it may have been recited, 
 three thousand years ago, in the silent groves watered 
 by the waves of the sacred river Sarasvati : — 
 
366 LECTURE XIV. 
 
 Ya^ deveshu adhi devah eka/i asit. 
 *He who above the gods, was the one God*,* 
 
 Unless the whole chronology of Sanskrit literature 
 is wrong, that line was composed in the north of 
 India at least 1000 B.C. It w^as not the result of what 
 historians mean by a special or supernatural revela- 
 tion. It was the natural outcome of man's thouo-hts 
 such as they had been fashioned in response to the 
 impressions of nature. There w^as nothing artificial 
 in it : it was simply what man could not help saying, 
 being what he was, and seeing what he saw. If, as 
 some philosophers tell us, man was wrong in this 
 belief in God, then all we can say is that the whole 
 world is a fraud, but a fraud beyond the ingenuity 
 of any human detective. 
 
 I say once more, in conclusion, what I have often 
 said in the course of these lectures, — the Science of 
 Religion has to deal w-ith facts, not with theories. 
 The line from the Veda with which I close these 
 lectures is a fact. It proves as a fact what I wished 
 to establish, that the human mind, such as it is, and 
 unassisted by any miracles except the eternal miracles 
 of nature, did arrive at the concept of God in its 
 highest and purest form, did arrive at some of the 
 fundamental doctrines of our own religion. Whatever 
 ' the impregnable rock of scripture truth ' may be, 
 here we have 'the impregnable rock of eternal and 
 universal truth.' ' There is a God above all the gods,' 
 whatever their names, whatever their concepts may 
 have been in the progress of the ages and in the 
 growth of the human mind. Whoever will ponder on 
 
 1 Rig-veda X. 121, 8. 
 
WHAT DOES IT LEAD TO? 367 
 
 that fact in all its bearings^ will discover in time that 
 a comparative study of the religions of the world has 
 lessons to teach us which the study of no single 
 religion by itself can possibly teach, and that Lord 
 Giffords idea of founding Chairs of Natural Religion 
 in the Universities of Scotland showed greater wisdom 
 and a truer appreciation of the signs of the times than 
 some of his critics have given him credit for. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 P. 23. 
 
 AEE PARTHIANS, PERSIANS, AND BACTEIANS 
 MENTIONED IN THE VEDA? 
 
 The Partbians. 
 
 We hear of a Vedic poet (VI. 27, 8) praising tlie liberality 
 of the Parthavas. But what proof is there that these were 
 the ancestors of the Paithians, and what evidence that the 
 Parthians had reached the frontiers of India at that early . 
 time ] Pnthu is a familiar name of royal personages hi 
 Indian literature, and so is Partha. Prithu and PWthi 
 occur as names of Vedic Rishis. Why then may not the 
 Parthavas be simply the people of PWthu 1 See Taitt. Br. 
 I. 7, 7, 4 ; AS'atap. Br. V. 3, 5, 4. 
 
 The Persians. 
 
 The Persians have been suspected behind the name of 
 Parsu and Parasavya. We lead in Rv. VIII. 6. 46 : 
 
 5atara ahdm Tirindiie sahasram Parsau a dade radhawsi 
 Yadvanam. 
 
 Tlie poet, after praising the greatness of Indra, records a 
 gift which he has received for his services, and says : 
 
 'I have taken a hundred with Tiiindiia, a thousand with 
 the Pari'u, presents of the Yadvas.' 
 
 Whether Tirindira and Par^u were the same person seems 
 doubtful, thjugh the Indian tradition has evidently taken 
 (2) Bb 
 
370 APPENDIX I. 
 
 them in that sense \ But what evidence is here for taking 
 Tirindira Parsu for Tirindira, the Persian ? A similarity ot 
 sound exists, no doubt, tetween Tirindira and either Tira- 
 bazo>! (Ludwig) or Tiridates (Wel:er), but Parsu never occurs 
 elsewhere in tlie sense of a Persian, and in the old names 
 for Persia we never meet with a final u ^. It seems difhcult 
 on such evidence to bring Persians near the Pan^ab about 
 1000 B.cJ 
 
 Another name, Balhika, which occurs in the Atharva- 
 veda, V. 22, 9, has been pointed out as possibly showing an 
 acquaintance of the author of that verse with the Bactrians. 
 This name occurs frequently in later Sanskrit works as 
 BRlhika. Now the original name of Bactria is Bdkhtri in 
 the cuneiform inscriptions, Bdkhdhi in the Avesta, Baktra in 
 Herodotus. It is said that the change to Bdhr and Ball, 
 the latter occurring in Moses of Chorene, could not have 
 taken place till about the beginning of the Christian era. 
 This would bring the date of this verse in the Atharva-veda 
 down to a very late date, provided always that Balhika is 
 meant for the people of Bactria, provided also that the 
 phonetic change can really be fixed chronologically, as Pro- 
 fessor Noldeke maintains. Balkh is the form used by Arabic 
 writers for Bactria. 
 
 1 In the Sankhayana Srauta Sutra XVI. 11, 20 we read— 
 Vatsa/?, Ka>?vas Tirindire 
 Para.savye sanim sasana. 
 
 ^ Ludwig quotes Parsua from the obelisk of Sahuaneser (855 B.C.). 
 
 3 In Ev. X. &6, 28, parsu/i ha nama manavi', Parsu is used as a 
 propel- name. In I. 105, 8, X. 33, 2, parsava/i may mean the ribs. 
 A curious compound occurs in VII. b3, 1, p/<thu-parsava/;, but this 
 has nothing to do Avith either Parthians or Persians, but seems to 
 mean either with broad ribs or with broad weapons. Parsu, mean- 
 ing a rib, then a bent knife, a sickle, probably originally of bone, 
 exists in a fuller form as parasu, the Greek 77€Af«i j. If this word, 
 as has been supposed by Dr. Hommel, is the same as the Sumerian 
 halag, the Babylon-Assyrian pilakkn, which seems doubtful, we 
 should have to admit that the Sumerians borrowed the word and 
 the weapon from India. For balag, as far as we know, has no ety- 
 mology in Sumerian, while parasu has a history in Sanskrit. 
 
SKYLAX AND THE PAKTYES. 371 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 p. 26. 
 SKYLAX AND THE PAKTYES, THE PASHTU OR AFGHANS, 
 
 There were several writers of the name of Skylax, which, 
 considering its meaning, is rather strange. The Periplus or 
 Circumnavigation of Europe, Asia, and Libya, ascribed to 
 Skylax, is a modern work ', and does not contain anything 
 about India. Amidst all the confusion, however, that has 
 gathered round the name of Skylax, two facts stand out, one 
 recorded by Herodotus, the other by Aristotle. Aiistotle" 
 knew of a Skylax, and that he had stated that among the 
 Indians the kings are taller than the rest of the people. 
 And Herodotus'' tells us that when Darius Hystaspes (521- 
 486) wished to know where the river Indus fell into the sea, 
 he sent a naval expedition, and also Skylax, a man of 
 Karyanda. 'The ships,' he continues, 'started from Kaspa- 
 tyros and the land of Paktyika down the river toward the 
 east and the rising of the sun to the sea ; then sailing on 
 the sea westward, they arrived in the thirtieth month at the 
 place where the king of Egypt despatched the Phenicians, 
 whom I before mentioned, to i-ail round Libya. After these 
 persons had sailed round, Darius subdued the Indians, and 
 frequented this sea.* 
 
 There are some facts in this statement of Herodotus which 
 deserve more attention than they have hitherto received. 
 First of all, there is no reason to doubt what he says about 
 Skylax, and though Heiodtus does not refer to an actual 
 
 * Geograph. Grceci Minores (Didot), vol. i. p. 15. 
 
 ' Polit. vii. \'6, 1, wanfp ku 'luSois iprjal 2/cvAaf duai tov? ^aaiXtas 
 ToaovToi' diaiptpovTas tojv dpxo^xtucuv. ... It is curious that in the 
 Peripkis it is said of the Ethiopians, kuI fiaaiKivu avrSiv ovtos, us av 
 ^ /i.€yicrTos. 
 
 ^ Herod, iv. 44. 
 
 Bb3 
 
372 APPENDIX II. 
 
 book written by him — be seldom refers to books — we know 
 at all events that Herodotus knew the name of 'IvSot or In- 
 dians, the name of Kaspa*yros, ai.d the name of Paktyika. 
 These are facts and names full of meaning. The name of 
 '11/501 was mentioned first by Hekataeos, a century before 
 Herodotus. The name Pak'yika, however, is new, and 
 ^eems to be the old name of the Afghans. The Afghans 
 call themselves even now Pashtun in the West, Pachtitn in 
 the East, and this, by a regular Prakritic assimilation, would, 
 as Trumpp ^ remarks, have become Pathdn in Indian dialects. 
 Whether the Pakthas mentioned in the Rig-veda (VII. 
 18, 7) are the same race must remain doubtful ^ The per- 
 sistence of some of these ancient national and local names, 
 however, is quite marvellous, and shows a continuity of tra- 
 dition even in places where we should least expect it. The 
 old seats of the Paktyes seem to have extended westward 
 into Arachosia ^ and there they would really have been part 
 of th'e Persian Empire^ Herodotus also tells us that Paktyes 
 served in the Persian army. 
 
 Still more curious, however, is the name of the town Kas- 
 fatyros, if known to Skylax. Everybody seems agreed that 
 Herodotus wrote Kaspatijros by mistake for Kaspcqyyros, 
 which is the name, used by Hekataeos, for what he calls 
 VavbapiK^ TToXis, '2kv6mv ciktt], i. e. a town of the Gandari, the 
 limit of the Scythians. In pyros of Kmpa-iyros, the 
 Sanskrit word pur a, town, has been discovered. 
 
 Lassen (P. p. 515) and others after him have attempted 
 to identify these Paktyes (Pakhtu) with Pallava, a name of 
 the ancient Persians, and to trace that name back to Pers. 
 pahlu, side, Sk. par^-u. But Quatremere seems to me to 
 
 * Trumpp, Grammar of the Pasto (1873), p. XV. 
 
 * See Zimmer, Indisches Leben, p. 430. 
 2 Trumpp, 1. c, p. xiii. 
 
 * Lassen, F. p. 509. 
 
BUDDHIST PILGRIMS. 373 
 
 have proved that Pahlava was really the old name of the 
 Paithiaiis. The name of Parthia occurs in the inscriptions 
 of Darius and in Herodotus as the name of the province of 
 Chorasan, so far as it belongs to Persia. Ardawan, the last 
 king of Parthia, is called the Pahlavi, by Tabari, and 
 Olshausen considered the Pehlevi language and alphabet as 
 Parthian. Eh and Ih, hr and hi, in Persian often r.piesent 
 an original rth and rt, e. g. jW//, Wi^%e=2)eritu ; jouJiluin = 
 Sk. prat ha ma, first, and Noldeke, as we saw, tried to prove 
 that this phonetic change took place in the fiist century A. D. 
 In that case no Sanskrit text in which Pahlava occurs — it 
 does not occur in the Rig-veda — could be earlier than that 
 date. Pahlava occurs in the Girnar inscription of Rudra- 
 daman, which, as Buhler and Fleet have shown, is dated 
 21-22 A.D.1 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 P. 31. 
 
 BUDDHIST PILGEIMS ACQUAINTED WITH THE VEDA. 
 
 Hiouen-thsang's Life and Travels weie first made known 
 through Stanislas Julien, in his great work. Voyages dps Pele- 
 rins Bouddliistes, The first volume (1853) contained Hisloire 
 de la vie de Hiouen-thang et de ses voyages dans VInde de- 
 puis Van 629 jusquen 645, par Hoei-li et Yen-thsong. The 
 second and third volumes (1857, 1858) contained Hiouen- 
 thsanjj's Mtmoires sur les Contnes occulentales. The same 
 work was afterwards translated into English by the Eev. 
 Samuel Beal, under the title of Si-yu-ki, Buddhist Eecoids of 
 the Western World. See ]\I. IvL, Buddhist Pilgrims (1857), 
 in Selected Fssays, vol. ii. p. 234. 
 
 > See Biihler's Translation of Manu, in S. B. E., vol. xxv. p. cxiv. 
 
374 APPENDIX III. 
 
 When ppeaklng of the study of the Vedas, Hiouen-thsang 
 says :— 
 
 •The Brahmans study the four Veda A^astras. The first 
 is called Shau {longevity) \ it relates to the preservation of 
 life and the regulation of the natural condition. The second 
 is called Sse (sacrifice); it relates to the (rules of) sacrifice 
 and prayer. The third is called Ping (pface or reyulatimi) ; 
 it relates to decorum, casting of lots, military affairs, and 
 army regulations. The fourth is called Shu (secret mys- 
 teries) ; it relates to various branches of science, iucantations, 
 medicine \ 
 
 ' The teachers (of these works) must themselves have 
 closely studied the deep and secret principles they contain, 
 and penetrated to their remotest meaning. They then ex- 
 plain their general sense, and guide their pupils in under- 
 standing the words which are difficult. They urge them ou 
 and sk Ifully conduct them, Tliey add lustre to their poor 
 knowledge, and stimulate the desj^onding. If they find that 
 their pupils are satisfied with their acquirements, and so wish 
 to escape to attend to their worldly duties, then they use 
 means to keep them in their power. When they have 
 finished their education, and have attained thirty years ot 
 age, then their character is formed and their knowledge rljje. 
 AVhen they have secured an occupation, they first of all 
 thank their master for his attention. There are some, 
 deeply versed in antiquity, who devote themselves to elegant 
 studies, and live apart from the world, and retain the sim- 
 plicity of their character. These rise above mundane pre- 
 sents, and are as insensible to renown as to contempt of the 
 
 ' This account is full of mistakes, owing, no doubt, to the fact 
 that Hiouen-thsang devoted his time in India chiefly to the study 
 of Buddhist literature. It is very doubtful whether the four Vedas 
 here mentioned were intended for the Ayur-veda, the Ya^ur- 
 veda, the Sama-veda, and the Atharva-veda, as Stanislas 
 Julien suggested. 
 
BUDDHIST PILGRIMS. 375 
 
 world. Their name having spread afar, the rulers appreciate 
 them highly, hut are unahle to draw them to the court. The 
 chief of the touniry honours tliem on account of their (mental) 
 gifts, and the people exalt their fame and render them uni- 
 versal homage. This is the reason of their devoting them- 
 selves to their studies with ardour and resolution, without 
 any sense of fatigue. They search for wisdom, relying on 
 their own resources. Although they are poi^sessed of large 
 wealth, yet they will wander here and there to seek their 
 suhf-istence. There are others who, whiht attaching value to 
 letters, will yet without shame consume their fortunes in 
 wandering about for pleasure, neglecting their duties. They 
 squander their substance in costly food and clothing. Having 
 no virtuous principle, and no desire to study, they are 
 brought to disgiace, and their inlamy is widely circulated.' 
 (Beal, i. pp. 79 seq.) 
 
 ' To the north of the great mountain 3 or 4 li, is a solitary 
 hill. Formerly the BMn Vyasa (Kwang-po) lived here in 
 solitude. By excavating the side of the mountain he formed 
 a house. Some portions of the foundations are still visible. 
 His disciples still hand down his teaching, and the celebrity 
 of his bequeathed doctrine still remains.' (Beal, ii, p, 148.) 
 
 A very important pa&sage, showing that Hiouen-thsang 
 came in contact with Brahmans who knew the Veda, occurs 
 in Julien's translation, vol. i. p. 168. He there gives a short 
 account of Sanskrit grammar, and in repeating the paradigm 
 of bhavami, I am, he remarks that in the four Vedas, 
 instead of the regular form po-po-me, bhavamas, we are, 
 there occurs the form p'o-po-mo-sse. This can only be 
 meant, not for bhavamas, as Julien supposes, but for bha- 
 vamasi, which is really the ancient Vedic form for the 
 1st pers. plur, 
 
 I-tsing, another Buddhist pilgrim, who visited India in 
 the seventh century, likewise refers to the Vedas, and states 
 that they weie handed down by oral tradition. ' The Brah- 
 
376 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 mans/ he writes, * revere the scriptures, namely the four 
 Vedas, containing about 100,000 verses. These Vedas are 
 handed down from mouth to mouth, not wiitten on paper. 
 There are in every generation some intelligent Brahmans 
 who can recite these 100.000 verses.' 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 P. 51. 
 
 SANSKRIT MSS. BOUGHT BY GUIZOT. 
 
 'Paris, 10 Eue BrLiAXTLT, 
 
 * I*'- Mars, 18(39. 
 
 * J'ai ^te heureux, Monsieur, de concourir a votre nomi- 
 nation comme associe ttranger de ITnstitut. Prt'ciseinent 
 I'ete dernier, j'avais lu vos Lectures a la lioyal Institu- 
 tion, sur la science et la formation du langage, et j'avais 
 ete extremement frappe de lelevation, de la prof( ndeur 
 et de Tabondance des idees que vous y avez expose es. Je 
 ne suis pas un juge competent de vos travaux sur les Vedas, 
 mais je me felicite d'avoir un peu contribue a vous en fournir 
 les matf'riaux, et je vous remercie d'en avoir garde le sou- 
 venir. Mon seul regret est de ne vous avoir pas acquis 
 vous-meme a la France. C'est une fortune que j'envie un 
 peu a FAngleterre, tout en lui en faisant mon compliment. 
 
 *Recevez, Monsieur et savant confrere, I'assurance de ma 
 consideration la plus distinguee. 
 
 * GUIZOT.' 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 P. 64. 
 DATE OF THE PEATI.5AKHYA. 
 
 I have tried to settle the date of the Rig-veda-pra- 
 tisakhya in the Introduction to my edition and translation 
 of this work (1869). Nothing that has been discovered since 
 has necessitated any change. If we accept the date of about 
 
MINUTIAE OP THE PRATISAKHYA. 377 
 
 400 B. C, assigned hypothetically to Pimini, we are safe in 
 placing our Prat i.sakhya before P^7^ini, because he quotes it. 
 (Introduction, p. 11 ; History of Ancient Sanskrit Liter a'lure, 
 p. 140.) /Sauiiaka is the editor rather than the author of our 
 Prc'disakhya. The authority for his doctrines, and the author 
 of the Pada-text is /Sakalya. Yiiska, the author of the Ni- 
 lukta, who is admitted by all scholars to 'be anterior to 
 Pamiii, quotes our *S'akalya as padakara, the maker of the 
 text in which the words (pada) are divided. He is fully 
 acquainted with the work done by the padakara, he de- 
 claies that the Samhita-text is based on the Pada-text, and 
 he adds (I. 17) that the Parshada books of all schools, i. e. 
 the Pratisakhyas, are based on that Pada-text. The Par- 
 shada literature or the Pratisakhyas are therefore presup- 
 posed by Ya&ka, and though Yaska may have been not much 
 older than or even a contemporary only of the author of the 
 Parshadas, they must both have preceded the work of Pimini. 
 We may therefore assign the period from about 400 to 500 
 B. c. to the production of the Pratisakhyas and other Par- 
 shada works. 
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 P. 65. 
 
 l^riNUTTAE OF THE PRATI.'AKHTA. 
 
 The observations of the Pratisakhya are most minute. 
 For instance, in Sutra 465, certain words are enumerated 
 which, if they stand at the beginning of a line, must always 
 lengthen their final vowel. One of them is arA:a, which 
 must become ar^a. This apjjlies to the whole of the Pig- 
 veda. But the author of the Pr^tii^akhya adds, 'there is an 
 excej)tion in the case of Bharadv/^a, that is, in the hymns of 
 Bharadva^a in the sixth ^NhmcZala. And so it is. In the 
 sixth Mawo^ala (VI. 68, 9) all our MSS. have ar/ca unchanged 
 before devaya. 
 
378 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 The author of the Pratisakhya must therefore have 
 known the names of the Vedic jjoets, as they are given in 
 the Anukramaiiis. He quotes (313, 895, 909) the hymns 
 of Agastya, Rv. I. 166-191; those of the Atiis (170); 
 of Kutsa(509); of Gotama (167) ; of ParuA/rAepa (169) ; of 
 Medhatithi (309); of Lu^a (106); of Yimada (509, 993); of 
 Vamadeva (486). 
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 P. 6G, 
 
 NUMBER OF VEESKS IN THE EIG-VEDA. 
 
 The total number of verses is given as 10,402 in the 
 /i'^anda/i-sankhya, an appendix to one of the Anukramams, 
 viz. the AViandonukramani. This number seemed formerly 
 not to agree with the total of the different classes of verses 
 given in the same place. But, with seme corrections of the 
 text and with the help of better MSS., the two are now 
 found to agree. There are — 
 
 I. Gayatri-verses 
 
 
 
 
 . 2,451 
 
 2. Ushwih-verses 
 
 
 
 
 341 
 
 3. Anush/fubh-verses 
 
 
 , , 
 
 
 855 
 
 4. Bnhati-verses 
 
 
 
 
 181 
 
 5. Pankti-verses 
 
 
 
 
 312 
 
 6. Trishfubh-verses . 
 
 
 
 
 4,253 
 
 7. Gagati-verses 
 
 
 
 
 , 1,348 
 
 8. At igagati- verses . 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 9. Sakvari-verses 
 
 
 
 
 19 
 
 10. Atisakvari-verses . 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 II. Ash^i-verses . 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 12. Atyashd- verses . 
 
 
 
 
 84 
 
 13. Dhnti- verses 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 14. Atidhnti- verse . 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 15. Ekapada- verses . 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 16. Dvipada- verses . 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 17. Pragatha Barhata- verses , 
 
 
 
 388 
 
 J 8. Pragatha Kakubha- verses 
 
 
 
 110 
 
 19. Mahabarhata- verses , 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 10,402 
 
NUMBER OF VERSES. 379 
 
 According to the Anuvakaiiukrama^ii, vv. 32-35, the 
 number of Aimvakas in the ten MancZalas and the number of 
 hymns is as follows : — 
 
 (Iawr?ala 
 
 A 
 
 nuvrikas 
 
 Suktas 
 
 I 
 
 
 24 
 
 191 
 
 II 
 
 
 4 
 
 43 
 
 III 
 
 
 5 
 
 62 
 
 IV 
 
 
 5 
 
 58 
 
 V 
 
 
 6 
 
 87 
 
 VI 
 
 
 6 
 
 75 
 
 VII 
 
 
 6 
 
 104 
 
 nil 
 
 
 10 
 
 92 + 11 
 
 IX 
 
 
 7 
 
 114 
 
 X 
 
 
 12 
 85 
 
 191 
 
 
 1017 + 11 = 1028 
 
 According to v. 36 the Bhashkala recension contained 
 eight additional hymns, that is, 1017 + 8=1025. It is 
 curious that the Aitareya-brahma?za (VI. 24) speaks of eight 
 Valakhilya hymns. This, however, does not prove that there 
 were not more than these eight which were required for 
 certain sacrifices, still less, that these eight were the same as 
 the eight additional hymns of the Bashkalas. 
 
 /S'aunaka knows the division into Man(7alas, Anuvakas, 
 hymns and veises, but he does not in his genuine works 
 seem to have been acquainted with the division of the Eig- 
 veda into eight Ash^akas and sixty- four Adhyayas, each 
 Adhyaya being subdivided into Vargas. In the Pratisakhya 
 (S. 848-860) the term adhyaya occurs, but it tliere means 
 the daily lesson of the pupil, consisting of sixty prasnjis or 
 questions, each question containing on an average three 
 verses. The verses 38 to 45 in the Anuvakanukramawi are 
 therefore probably not /Saunaka's, and they had been suspected 
 for different reasons by Meyer, in his Kigvidhana, p. xxvii. 
 They give the following list of Vargas : — 
 
380 
 
 
 APPENDIX VIT 
 
 
 Vargas 
 
 Containing 
 
 Total of 
 
 
 verses. 
 
 verses. 
 
 1 (1) 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 (2) 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 97 (93) 
 
 3 
 
 291 (279) 
 
 174 (176) 
 
 4 
 
 696 (704) 
 
 1207 (122S) 
 
 5 
 
 6035 (6140) 
 
 346 (357) 
 
 6 
 
 2076 (2142) 
 
 119 (129) 
 
 7 
 
 833 (908) 
 
 59 (55) 
 
 8 
 
 472 (440) 
 
 1 (1) 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 2006 (2042) 
 
 10,417 (10,622) 
 
 Immediately afterwards (v. 43) the total number of verses 
 is given as 10,580, and one pada (Rv. X. 20, 1); the number 
 of half- verses as 21,232, and one pada (therefore 10,614 
 verses, and one pada); the number of words as 153,826 ; the 
 number of >?:aii;As as 110,704; the number of syllables as 
 432,000. 
 
 The /iTara^iavyuha gives a list of Vargas and verses differ- 
 ing from that of the Anuvakanukramani. The numbers have 
 been added in brackets. See on all this Dr. Macdonell's 
 careful edition of the Sarvanukramani, in the Anecdota 
 Oxoniensia. 
 
 The Rig-veda-pratis-akhya presupposes the Pada-text, and 
 teaches the changts which the ])adari or words undergo when 
 joined together in the Samhita-text. But its author knows 
 the far more artificial Krama-text also, which presupposes 
 both the Pada and Samhita-texts (Suira 590 seq.). This 
 Kramapa/Aa must have been practised considerably in the 
 Parishads^, and have given rise to many different opinions, 
 which are discussed in the Krama-hetu-pa'ala. Thus 
 Babhravya, a teacher of the Krama, declaies (S. 676) that 
 the doctrine of the Krama is good as taught at first, not as 
 taught differently by different teachers. But others attacked 
 it as useless and as not based on >S'ruti or sacred authority, 
 and the author of the Pratisakhya has therefore to defend it 
 
SANSKRIT WORDS IN SUMERIAN. 381 
 
 against various attacks, and to show that it can chiim the 
 highest authority. On these various modifications of the 
 text of the hymns, the three Prak^-ftis and the eight VikWtis, 
 there is a treatise by Madhusudana, Ash^avikr/ti-vivriti, 
 edited by Satyavrata Samasrami, in the Ufcha, vol. i. The 
 original is ascribed to Vyac^i. 
 
 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 P. 72. 
 
 BRAHMAA^AS OF THE SAMA-VEDA. 
 
 According to Satyavrata Samasrami (Usha, vol. i) the I'eal 
 Brahma?ia of the Sama-veda is the Thidya or Prauc/Aa- 
 brahmawa. It belongs to the /Sakha of the Kautliumas, and 
 consists of forty adhyayas. The first thirty adhyayas describe 
 the ^Yauta ceremonies. What is sometimes called the 
 Sha6?vi'msa-brahma■>^a, adhyayas 26-30, is part of the same 
 Brahmana. Then follow what are called ' Mantras and the 
 Upauishad/ forming together 2 + 8 adhyaj'as, so as to bring 
 the total number of the adhyayas in the Brahmana of the 
 ^/iandogas to the required number of foity. Adhyayas 31-32 
 give the Mantras of the Grihya ceremonies, as described in 
 the Gobhila-Grihya-sutras ; adhyayas 33-40 contain the 
 Upanishad. 
 
 The other Saraa-veda-brahmawas are treated by Satyavrata 
 as Anu-brahma?^as, viz. the Sama-vidhana, the Arsheya, 
 the Devatadhyaya, the Samhitopanishad, and the Yamsa- 
 brahmawa. See Academy, June 7, 1890. 
 
 APPENDIX IX. 
 
 P. 88. 
 
 SANSKRIT WORDS IN SUMERIAN. 
 
 Two other words might here be mentioned which, as 
 Professor Hommel maintains, are shared in common by 
 Sumeiian and Sanskrit namely, Sumerian urud, copper. 
 
38.2 APPENDIX X. 
 
 Lat. raudus, Old Slav, ruda, metal, 0. N. raudi^ red iron 
 ore, Pehlevi rod, Persian roi, Sk. loha, copper; and Su- 
 meriaii balag, Babyl. -Assyrian pilakku, axe, Sk. para«u, 
 Gr. TreXfKvi. Both words could have their origin in an 
 Aryan language only, and would j)rove that the borrowing 
 must have been on the Sumerian side. Parasu is the same 
 word as parsu, and meant originally a rib-bone. As such 
 bones were used for knives, j^arsu came to mean a bent 
 knife, and then any kind of weapon \ The word had 
 therefore a history of its own among the Aryas, before it 
 could have been adopted by the Sumerians. As to loha, its 
 etymology is more doubtful. It has been traced back to an 
 original *raudho and compared with e-pv6-p6i. If the 
 similarity to Sumerian urud is more than accidental, the 
 borrowing again must have been on the Sumerian side. The 
 Bask word for copper is urraida^, 
 
 APPENDIX X. 
 P. 94. 
 
 TECHNICAL TEEMS BOEEOWED BY THE BUDDHISTS. 
 
 Other technical terms which the Buddhists borrowed from 
 the Brahmaiis, and the gradual growth of which we can watch 
 in the Brahma^ias and Upanishads, are Araha, the Sk. 
 Arhat (the worshipful), Samawa, ascetic, the Sk. Sr-dmc\n&, 
 (the performer of penance), and even Buddha (prati- 
 buddha sarvavid^, the awakened and omniscient, — all 
 titles of honour given to the Buddha himself^. Other terms 
 of the same kind which presuppose the existence of the 
 Brahmanic literature in which they were first created, 
 
 * Biographies of Words, p. 178. 
 
 * See Schmidt, Die Urheimath der Indogermanen, p. 9 ; Sclirader, 
 Prehistoric Antiquities, p. 191. 
 
 ^ Brahmopanishad, Bihl. Ind., No. 271, p. 251. 
 
 * Schroder, pp. 190, 255. 
 
TECHNICAL TERMS BORROWED BY THE BUDDHISTS. 383 
 
 matured, and defined, nre Atta, life, self, the Sk. atma, 
 breath, life, soul, jjerson ; Nibbana, annihilation of human 
 passion, Sk. nirvjina. It has long been known that this 
 word occurs in the ^'ahabharata, as, for instance, XIV. 
 543, Vihaya sarvasankalpan buddhya sariramanatan, ^airnir 
 nirvanam apnoti nirindhana ivanala/i, ' Leaving behind in 
 thought all bodily and mental desires, he slowly obtains 
 NirvaTza, like a fire without wood.' But it was thought 
 possible that the technical term Nirvana might here and 
 elsewhere have been borrowed from the Buddhi&ts. That 
 this was not the case we see, first of all, from passages in the 
 Upanishads, where the oiigin of the metaphor is quite clear, 
 as when a lamp gone out is called nirva^ia. Secondly, the 
 word actually occurs in the Maitreyopanishad, probably the 
 simplest text of the Maitraya^ia-brahmana-upanishad, and 
 there it means the absorption in the highest being, beyond 
 which there is neither being nor not-being (S. B. E., vol. xv. 
 p. xlvi. 1. 19). As this Upanishad is an old one, it follows 
 that the term Nirvana, like nirvrzti, was borrowed by the 
 Bauddhas from the Brahma^ias. Nirutti, grammar, is the 
 Sk. nirukti, etymology, the Vedanga, the Nirukta. In the 
 sense of etymology it occurs ifMnd. Up. VIII. 3, 3. Pabba- 
 ^ita, a Buddhist monk; the Sk. pravra^ita, gone away from 
 home. 
 
 Another class of words, occurring in the Northern Buddhist 
 texts, shows still more clearly the posteriority of Buddhism to 
 Brahmanism. It was Childers who pointed out first that 
 when the Northern Buddhists tried to render certain Buddhist 
 terms in their own Sanskrit, they had so completely forgotten 
 the true original Sanskrit form, that they invented a new and 
 mistaken Sanskrit rendering. Thus the Pali uposatho, the 
 Buddhist fast-day, is clearly the Sanskrit upavasatha, the 
 day preceding certain sacrifices. Childers says that upa- 
 vasatha does not belong to classical Sanskrit. AV^e know 
 
384 APPENDIX XI. 
 
 now that it occurs frequently in the Brahmanas (5atap. Br. I. 
 1, 1, 7). But Northern Buddhitts, not knowing the etymology 
 of the word (though they constantly use upavasa, fasting\ 
 and having forgotten its true form upavasatha, rendered 
 the Pali uposatha by uposhadha, a woid without any 
 authority or etymology. Other words belonging to this class 
 are iddhipado, patimok kho, upadiseso, pa;!isam1bhida, 
 phasu, opajDatiko; see Childers, s.v. opapatiko. 
 
 That marut, the name of the storm-gods in the Veda, 
 should in Pali have become maru, a general name of devas 
 or gods, is likewise an indication both of the continuity 
 between Buddhism and Brahmauism, and of the distance 
 which divides the two. 
 
 APPENDIX XL 
 
 P. 97. 
 
 PISCHEL AND GELDXER's 'VEDISCHE STUDIEN.' 
 
 From what extraordinary quarters the arguments in support 
 of a more modern date of the Vedic hymns are sometimes 
 fetched, has been shown lately in a book, otherwise full of 
 learning, the Vedischfi Studlenhy Fischel and Geldner (1889). 
 I agree with these two scholars on many points, and with 
 regard to the right system of interpretation which they think 
 ought to be applied to the hymns of the Rig-veda, there is 
 nothing which they will not find fully confirmed by what I 
 have written on the subject during the last forty years. But 
 with regard to the general character of the civilization 
 reflected in these hymns, I differ from them considerab]y. 
 That the Aryan settlers in India, as represented to us in 
 the Vedic hymns, were neither mere savages, mere sons of 
 nature, as they are called, nor even mere hunters or nomads, 
 I tried to show in my first essay on Aryan Civilization^, 
 
 ^ Selected Essays, vol. i. pp. 299 seq. 
 
PISCHEL AND GELDNERS ' VEDISCHE STUDIEN.' 385 
 
 published in 1856. Nor do I think that anybody has 
 questioned the fact that they lived in villages or hamlets. 
 Whether we should tianslate the word pur by town seemed 
 doubtful, because in the Veda pur is always spoken of as 
 a stronghold rather than as an inhabited camp. How easily, 
 however, a camp may grow into a town, we see from the many 
 names of towns ending in castra. But in the absence of any 
 allusions to streets and market-places inside the pur, it 
 certainly seemed safer not to translate that word by town in 
 Vedic poetry. Besides, even at present, nine-tenths of the 
 population of India live in villages, and yet we should not 
 hesitate to call them civilized. 
 
 That the Vedic poets knew the sea I have been myself the 
 first to maintain, and, I hope, to prove. That they knew 
 salt is more difficult to e&tablish, but that, as Pischel and 
 Geldner maintain, they knew the art of writing, has never 
 been proved, and would run counter to all we know of the 
 historical progress of alphabetic writing in India and in Asia 
 in general. There is not one atom of evidence in support of 
 Buch an assertion ;— at all events, neither Professor Pischel 
 nor Professor Geldner has brought forward a single fact in 
 BujDport of their opinion. 
 
 It is perfectly true, as they allege, that some of the Vedic 
 poets are very gieedy. But is gold-hunger peculiar to an 
 advanced civilization only? Gold had been named before 
 the Aryan family broke up\ and so long as we know 
 anything of ancient people, we find them searching for gold, 
 ornamenting themselves with gold, and defending their meum 
 
 igainst all intruders. 
 
 Profess-ors Pi>chel and Geldner seem still to be under the 
 
 influence of Rousseau's ideas as to the simplicity and purity 
 
 and innocence of primitive man. Because the Vedic poets 
 
 barter with their gods, because they curse the rich who will 
 
 * Biographies of Words, p. 160. 
 
 (2) Cc 
 
386 APPENDIX XI. 
 
 not give them their proper reward, because they hate their 
 rivals, they are represented as modern. 
 
 It used to be said that because the people of the Veda 
 recoghi^ed the sanctity of marriage, and because they had 
 elaboiated names for several degrees of relationship, therefore 
 they could not be considered as rejjiesenting a very primitive 
 stage of civilization. Now we are told on the contrary that 
 because we find in the Veda traces of a freer and unlawful 
 intercourse between men and women, because we hear of 
 female slaves, and of Aspasias, therefore the Vedic Indians 
 must have reached the very summit of civilization, and could 
 no longer be looked upon as representing a very early stage 
 in the history of our own, the Aryan, race. 
 
 I think we have every right to say that the recognition of 
 marriage as a solemn and sacred and binding act marks 
 everywhere an epoch in the progress of humanity ; but that 
 epoch lies far beyond the beginning of what we call history, 
 in the ordinary sense of that word. What has somewhat 
 euphemistically been called by Sir John Lubbock Communal 
 Marriage, is a mere postulate of the anthropologist, and 
 unknown to the student of historical records, except under 
 very diiferent names. To say that bigamy, trigamy, and 
 polygamy are peculiar to an advanced civilization is a libel 
 on history. It certainly does not help the scholar to fix the 
 chronology of the Vedic age. We find in the Veda a full litt 
 of all the vices to which poor humanity is liable, murder, 
 plunder, theft, gambling, drinking, running into debt, fraud, 
 and perjury ; but to say that these vices are of modern date 
 is, I iim afraid, a view too charitable to the past, and not 
 quite fair to the present* 
 
EGYPTIAN ZOOLATM. 887 
 
 APPENDIX XII. 
 
 p. 128. 
 EGYPTIAN ZOOLATRY, 
 
 Mr. Le Pa^e Renouf, in his interesting Preface to the Book 
 of the Dead, p. 8, goes so far as to maintain that Egyptian 
 zoolatry is entirely symbolical. ' The animal forms/ he 
 writes, ' in which the gods are often represented are sym- 
 bolical throughout. The origin of the symbol is not always 
 apparent, but it is so in certain cases. Thoth (Teku-ia), 
 the Moon, appears most frequently as an ibis, or as a man 
 with the head of an ibis. This is because the moon was the 
 measurer (techu-ta) in the oldest Egyptian, as in the oldest 
 Indo-European sj^stem. It is mere folly to say that the 
 Egyptians believed the moon to be an ibis. Thoth, as the 
 Moon, was just as often symbolised by a cynocephalus. 
 
 'It is not less disgraceful to assert that the Egyptians 
 believed the human soul to be a bird with a human head. 
 The kings who put their names on lions and sphinxes, and 
 gloried in being called bulls, jackals, and crocodiles, did not 
 expect peoj)le to consider them as quadrupeds. 
 
 ^Seb, the Earth, had a goose for its symbol, but this was 
 the result of homonymy. Sebu, the Whistler or Piper, is 
 the name given to a species of goose. And if we knew the 
 original meanings of all the divine names, the symbolism 
 would be intelligible enough.' 
 
 It is possible that the ancient Egy|)tian system of writing 
 may likewise have influenced the popular mind. It is well 
 known that if there was a hieroglyphic sign for a bird, 
 called Sebu, the same sign would be used to express the 
 sound of sebu, though its meaning might be quite different. 
 
 Co 2 
 
388 APPENDIX XIII. 
 
 APPENDIX XIIL 
 
 P. 219. 
 WRITING MENTIONED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 It is true, no doubt, that in several books of the Old 
 Testament, writing, writers, and written books are spoken of, 
 as well known in very ancient times. But a. scribe who was 
 himself familiar with writing, might easily forget himself, 
 and transfer his ideas about writing to eailier ages. Thus 
 Mr. Butler, when discussing the question whether written 
 books existed before the time of Hilkiah, forgets himself so 
 far as to say (p. 74), 'that there were laws or traditions of 
 law in the courts, and memories of oral decisions, and that 
 some of the laws may have been printed, we cannot doubt.' 
 Scholars cannot help speaking of Vedic literature, though 
 they know quite well that literae, written letters, had nothing 
 to do with it. In the same Avay we can M'ell understand that 
 the Jews spoke of Moses as writing the laws, though he only 
 composed them. We read of scribes and chroniclers for the 
 first time at the courts of David and Solomon, but there 
 is nothing to prove that these scribes were acquainted with 
 alphabetic writing. It has been supposed that, like his 
 masons and carpenters, these scribes might have been sent by 
 king Hiram from Phenicia, but it has never been proved 
 that alphabetic writing for literary purposes was known, 
 even in Phenicia, at that early time. David's letter to Joab 
 about Uriah (2 Sam. xi. 15) seems the first authentic specimen 
 of epistolary writing, but even here mere o-rifxara \vypd, as in 
 the case of Proetos and Bellerophon^ would have answered 
 every purpose. We never hear of Elijah writing anything. 
 
 * Od. vi. 168. 
 
NEED-FIllE, 889 
 
 APPENDIX XIV. . 
 
 P. 287. 
 
 NEED-FIEE. 
 
 Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, s.v. ncid-Jire, gives 
 a very similar account of what took j)lace, it would seem, as 
 late as 1788 : 
 
 'In those days [1788], when the stock of any considerahle 
 farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one 
 of the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a need-Jire. 
 It was done by friction, thus : Upon any small island, 
 where the sti-eam of a river or burn lan on each side, a 
 circular booth was erected, of stone and turf (barhis), as it 
 could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of 
 birch, or other hard wood, was set ; and, in short, a roof 
 closed on it. A straight pole was set up in the centre of this 
 building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of 
 the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth 
 or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across horizontally, 
 having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in 
 a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other end 
 in a similar hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was 
 called the auger, having four short arms or levers fixed in its 
 centre, to work it by ; the building having been thus finished, 
 as many men as could be collected in the vicinity (being divested 
 of all kinds of metal in their clothes. &c.) would set to work 
 with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning it 
 round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving 
 wedges of wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright 
 pole, so as to press it the more on the end of the auger : by 
 this constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger 
 would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, 
 and thus the need-fire would be accomplished. The fire in 
 
390 APPENDIX XV. 
 
 the farmer's house, &c.5was immediately quenched with water, 
 a fire kindled from this need-fire, both in the farmhouse and 
 offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new 
 and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain. So 
 much for superbtition.' 
 
 APPENDIX XV. 
 
 P. 350. 
 
 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM. 
 
 Dr. Seydel, in his ' Das Evangeliiim von Jesu in seinen 
 Verhaltnissen zu Buddha-sage und Buddha-lehre ' (1882), 
 tells us that Abubekr recognised Mohammed as sent by God, 
 because he sat under a tree, and because no one could sit 
 under that tree after Jesus. This, he maintains, proves that 
 Jesus also sat under a tree, ard that this was a sign of his 
 Messiahship. But the tree thus mentioned in a Mohammedan 
 legend is not a fig-tree, but, as we are told distinctly, a 
 Sizyphus tree. Nor is it said that Mohammed was recognised 
 as sent by God because he sat under a tree under which no one 
 could sit after Jesus had sat under it. The words are simply : 
 * The prophet sat under the shadow of a tree, where he and 
 Abubekr had before been sitting together. Abubekr then 
 went to a hermit, and asked him for the true religion. The 
 hermit asked: "Who is the man under the shadow of the 
 tree?" He answered: "Mohammed, the son of Abd Allah." 
 The hermit said : " By Allah, this is a prophet ; no one but 
 Mohammed, the messenger of God, sits after Jesus under 
 that tree.'" Nothing is said that the hermit recognised 
 Mohammed because he sat under a tree. Sitting under a tree 
 never was a sign of prophethood with the Mohammedans. It 
 
' CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM. 391 
 
 simply means lie recognised him while sitting in the shadow 
 of a tree, as the prophet who should come after Jesus. 
 
 When I say that some of the similarities between 
 Christianity and Buddhism have not yet been accounted for, 
 I do not mean such outward similarities as that a star stood 
 over the palace in which Buddha was born, or that his 
 conception was sujiposed to be m raoulous, or that his advent 
 was expected, or that he was tempted by Mara, before he 
 began the preaching of his doctrine. 
 
 With regard to the star, we know that no auspicious event 
 could happen in India without an auspicious star. At the 
 birth of lornier Buddhas also certain constellations were 
 inevitable ^ 
 
 As to the advent of a Buddha being expected or foretold, 
 it seems doubtful whether this was an historical fact in India. 
 The hope for the coming of a deliverer or a Messiah was an 
 historical fact among the Jews, but it cannot be proved to 
 have existed in India before the rise of historical Buddhism. 
 We find it, indeed, as part of the Buddhist system in the 
 canonical books of the F)Ufldhists, but an independent trace of 
 it, before the birth of Buddha, has not yet been discovered. 
 
 Nor can we be surprised that Buddha should be represented 
 as having been tempted by an evil spirit, called Mara, for 
 such temptations form again an inevitable element in the 
 lives of saints and founders of religions. 
 
 Far more perplexing are such coincidences as that, for 
 instance, at tlie birth of Buddha the wise people should have 
 been in doubt whether he would found a great kingdom on 
 earth or become the preacher of a new doctrine, just as the 
 Jews were in doubt whether the Messiah would found a 
 great earthly kingdom, or the true kingdom of God. For 
 here we seem to deal with historical facts. Buddha was of 
 princely birth, and his adopting the humble life of a preacher 
 ' See Buddhist Birth- Stories, p. 17. 
 
392 APPENDIX XV. 
 
 and teacher was always considered by the Brahmans as an 
 unpardonable breach of caste ^ 
 
 Again, the visit of the old sage Asita, his desire to see the 
 royal babe, his clear prophecy of his coming greatness, and 
 his lament that he himself was born out of time (akshana) to 
 profit by his teaching — all these together are startling. 
 
 I must confess that I was startled also when I read for 
 the first time that at the incarnation of Buddha, 'a great 
 light ajopeared, the blind received their sight, the deaf heard 
 a noise, the dumb spake one with another, the crooked 
 became straight, the lame walked,' &c. But, on more careful 
 <?on&ideration, I soon found that this phrase, as it occurs in 
 Buddliism and Christianity, had its independent antecedents 
 in the tradition both of Judaea and of India. 
 
 Of course, Oriental fancy, if once roused, is not satisfied 
 with such simple miracles. The author of the Nidana-katha * 
 goes on : ' All prisouers were freed from their bonds and 
 chaihs. In each hell the fire was extinguished. The hungry 
 ghosts received food and drink. The wild animals ceased 
 to be afraid. The illne^-s of all who were sick was allayed. 
 All men began to speak kindly. Horses neighed, and 
 elephants trumpeted gently. All musical instruments gave 
 forth each its note, though none played upon them. Brace- 
 lets and other ornaments jingled of themselves. All the 
 heavens became clear. A cool soft breeze wafted j^leasantly 
 for all. Pvain fell out of due season. Water, welling up 
 from the very earth, overflowed. The birds forsook their 
 flight on high. The rivers stayed their waters' flow. The 
 waters of the mighty ocean became fresh. Everywhere the 
 earth was covered with lotu&es of every colour. All flowers 
 blossomed on land and in water. The trunks, and branches, 
 and twigs of trees were covered with bloom appropriate to 
 
 ^ Hist07-y of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 79, note. 
 ^ Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth- Stories, p. 64. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM. 393 
 
 each. On earth tree-lotuses sprang up by sevens together, 
 breaking even through the rocks; and hanging- lotuses 
 descended from the skies. The ten thousand world-systems 
 revolved, and rushed as close togetiier as a bunch of gathered 
 flowers ; and became, as it were, a woven wreath of worlds, 
 as sweet-smelling and resj)lendent as a mass of garlands, 
 or as a sacred altar decked with flowers.' 
 
 Such is the rush of Eastern fancy, if the sluices are once 
 opened. The fundamental idea, however, is simple enough. 
 When a new teacher arises and a new life begins, men hope 
 that all evils will be cured, all injuries will be redressed. 
 The first evils that suggest themselves are naturally blind- 
 ness, deafness, and lameness. It wa^ hoped, therefore, that 
 these and many other evils would cease, when Buddha 
 appeared and a new order of things began. 
 
 But here is the difference between Buddhism and 
 Christianity. There is no trace of Messianic prophecies in 
 India. The expectation of a Buddha has never been traced 
 in pre-Buddhistic writings. All we can say is that the 
 idiomatic phrase of ' the blind will see, and the lame will 
 walk,' existed in the ancient language of India, and was 
 adopted by the Buddhists like many others. 
 
 Thus we read, Rv. II. 15, 7: 
 
 Prati srona/t stliat \i anak a^ash^a 
 somasya ta made Indra/t Aakara. 
 
 'The lame stood, the blind saw, Indra did this in tlie joy of 
 Soma.* 
 
 This may really refer to paravr% or the sun, as in 11. 13, 
 
 12, but in IV. 30, 19 the same expression occurs without 
 
 reference to any special hero. In VIII. 79, 2 the same 
 
 miracle is ascribed to Soma himself: 
 
 Abhi urnoti jAt nagnam bhishakti vi'.svam yat turam 
 prd im andha/t khyat nih srona/t bhut. 
 
 * Soma covers what is naked, he heals all that is weak, the blind 
 saw, the lame came forth.' 
 
394 APPENDIX XV. 
 
 See also in X, 25, 11. In I. 112, 8 the Asvins are said 
 to have helped the blind and lame Paravn^ to see and to 
 walk. 
 
 If the ancient Vedic gods could do this, it was but natural 
 that the same miracle in almost the same words should be 
 ascribed to Buddha. 
 
 It was very different with the Jews. The Jews had for 
 centuries expected a Messiah, a deliverer from all the evils 
 which they endured in their cajDtivity and politcal servitude. 
 Thus Isaiah prophe&ied (xxix. 18): ' x\nd in that day shall 
 the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind 
 shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.' And again 
 (xxxv. 5) : ' Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and 
 the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame 
 man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing : for in 
 the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the 
 desert,' &c. 
 
 When therefore John wishes to co/nvince himself, whether 
 the Christ has really appeared, he is informed that ' the blind 
 receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
 and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have 
 the gospel preached to them ' (Matt. xi. 5 ; Luke vii. 22). 
 And the peo])le at large also, when they were beyond 
 measure astonished at the works done by Jesus, exclaimed : 
 ' He hath done all things well : he maketh both the deaf 
 to hear, and the dumb to speak' (Mark .vii. 37). 
 
 We thus see that though the coincidence is startling at first 
 sight, there is nothing in it that would require the admission 
 of an historical borrowing either on the Christian or on the 
 Buddhist side. 
 
 One more coincidence deserves to be pointed out. 
 Kumarila, when attacking Buddha's doctrine, says : ' And 
 this very transgression of Buddha and his followers is repre- 
 ser.ted as if it did him honour. For he is praised because he 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM. 395 
 
 said: **Let all the sins that have been committed in this 
 world fall on me, that the world may be delivered \" ' 
 
 I have not found this saying of Buddha anywhere in the 
 Buddhist Canon itself, but its genuineness can hardly be 
 doubted considering by whom it is mentioned. 
 
 * History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature^ p. 80. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABRAHAM and Nimrod, 1S3. 
 
 — his belief in one God, 220, 
 
 221. 
 
 Absolute, the, 297, 298. 
 Adhvara, sacrifice, 108. 
 
 — unhurt, 171. 
 
 Adhvaryuji, oi- labouring priests, 
 69, 70, 
 
 — the officiating priests, 108. 
 Afghans, their nauies, 372. 
 Alrica, same word for storm and 
 
 god in, 316. 
 AG, Sk, ruot, 122. 
 Agents in nature, 132. 
 
 — all objects named as, 132. 
 
 — behind other phenomena of 
 
 nature, 305. 
 Ager, field, 126 n. 
 Agni, Vedic hymns addressed to, 
 
 61. 
 
 — birth of, loi. 
 
 — Fire, one of the Devas, 1 20. 
 
 — etymological meaning of, 122, 
 
 126. 
 
 — name? of, 123. 
 
 — the mover, 126. 
 
 — as a human or animal agent, 
 
 127. 
 
 — the tongues of, 127. 
 
 — agent of lire, 130. 
 
 — a god. 134, 135. 
 
 — the Supreme God, 143. 
 
 — biography of, 143, I44. 
 
 — facts against theories, 144. 
 
 — Weber on, 145. 
 
 — with Indra tlie chief Deva of the 
 
 Veda, 145. 
 
 Agni in his physical character, 145. 
 
 — whence he came, 146. 
 
 — as the sun, 146. 
 
 — the sun or the fire on the hearth, 
 
 148. 
 
 — as lightning, 151. 
 
 — as Deva, bright; Amartya, un- 
 
 dying, 156, 188, 189. 
 
 — the immortal among mortals, 
 
 156. 
 
 — the friend, helper, father, 157. 
 
 — helper in battle, 158. 
 
 — destroying forests, 163, 
 
 — the horses of, 165. 
 
 — as sacrificial fire, 165. 
 
 — the flesh-eater, 166. 
 
 — the messenger between gods and 
 
 men, 168. 
 
 — as priest, 168. 
 
 — his good qualities, 169. 
 
 — livmns to, 170 et seq. 
 
 — Angiras, name of, 172. 
 
 — later development of, 177. 
 
 — identical with other gods, 178. 
 
 — supremacy of, 187. 
 
 — the quick, 188. 
 
 — as creator, ruler, judge, 194. 
 
 — sublime concepti* n of, 196, 
 
 — later and poorer conception of, 
 
 197, 202, 203. 
 
 — one of the e'ght Vasus, 198. 
 
 — his love-aflfairs, 198. 
 
 — jn the \' ahahharata, 199. 
 
 — purifying character of, 199. 
 
 — fire, in other religions, 204. 
 
 — in our bodies, 250. 
 
 — in plants, 230. 
 
398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Agni and Atar, 232, 
 
 — the parents of, 242 n. 
 
 — and Hephaestos, 241 etseq., 276. 
 
 — tales about, 253, 253. 
 
 — disappearance of, 264, 268, 270. 
 
 — and Varu7ta, dialogue between, 
 
 265. 
 ' — later accounts of the hiding of, 
 267. 
 
 — in search of Indra, 271, 
 
 — three brothers of, 267. 
 
 — contamination of, 269. 
 
 — cursed by Bh?*/gu, 269. 
 
 — theogonic development of, 293. 
 
 — m3'thological development of, 293. 
 
 — ceremonial development of, 294. 
 
 — the Supreme Being, 305. 
 Agnihotra, or fire-sacrifice, III-II2. 
 Agnishomau, 186. 
 
 Ago, agmen, 126 n. 
 ay OS, 107 n. 
 ayoj, to drive, 126 n. 
 Agricultural Aryas, 161, 
 
 — called krish^is, 161, 
 
 — their wealth, 162. 
 A-hava, a jug, 107. 
 Akbar, the emperor, 35. 
 
 — and the Vedas, 35, 38. 
 Al-Eir(\ni, 1000 A.D., 32, 33, 34. 
 
 — in India, 33. 
 
 — his knowledge of Sk., 33. 
 
 — and of the Veda, 33, 38. 
 Alexander's exped'tion to India, 27. 
 All-father, the, 321. 
 
 All-gods, Vi.sve Deva<, 187. 
 Alphabet, the word, 273. 
 Alphabetic writing, invention of,2 15. 
 
 — first used for books, 215-216. 
 
 — and the sixth century B.C., 218, 
 
 219. 
 America, sun and fire in, 149. 
 
 — storm-wind in, 311. 
 American languages, same word for 
 
 storm and god in, 316. 
 AN, Sk. root, to breathe, 12 J. 
 AnaLi, to breathe, 122. 
 Ancestors, worship of, 3, 6. 
 Ancient life, discoveries of, 16. 
 
 — gcds, mixed character of, 325. 
 
 Ancients, who are the, 277. 
 Angiras, name of Agni, 172. 
 Anima, how was the concept o'abo- 
 
 rated, 307. 
 Animal gods of Egypt, 128. 
 
 — deification of an, 278. 
 Animism, Personification and An- 
 thropomorphism, 128, 129. 
 
 — Herbert Spencer against, 128. 
 
 — traced to language, 130, 306, 
 
 308. 
 Anquetil Duperron's translation of 
 
 the Upanishads, 36. 
 Anthropological religion, 3. 
 Anthropomorphism, 201, 306, 308. 
 Anukrauiawis, the, 65. 
 
 — superseded by Katyayana's index, 
 
 66. 
 Anuvakas, or chapters of the Rig- 
 
 veda, 61. 
 Apollo, II. 
 
 Aia^yakas or foi-est books, 80. 
 Aristotle and language, 133. 
 
 — his mention of Skylax, 371. 
 apovpa = Zend ui'vara, 1 61 , 
 Aryan inunigration into India, 86. 
 
 — religions, parallelism between, 
 
 — and Semitic religions, no common 
 
 source for, 274. 
 Aryans of the Vedic hymns, 384. 
 Aryas, their life, 161, 162. 
 Asiatic Society of Bengal, 46. 
 Asita, the old sage, 391. 
 Asoka, date of, 91. 
 Aspiration, inspiration, respiration, 
 
 and per'ipiration, 194. 
 Atar, fire, 227. 
 
 — no etymology, 227, 227 ». 
 
 — son of water, 228. 
 
 — his fight with Azi Dahaka, 228. 
 
 — plurality of, 229. 
 
 — son of Ormazd, 231. 
 
 — and Agni, difference between, 
 
 232. 
 Atharva-veda, translated fur Akbar, 
 
 35. 
 
 — account of, 8 1 -8 J. 
 Atman, or self, 4. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Atta, life, 383. 
 
 Avestic religion, is itdualistic? 233, 
 
 234- 
 Aztec prayer, 313. 
 
 — legends, the four beings of, 315. 
 
 BAAL, or Biln, a solar deitj'^, 2^9. 
 
 — a counterpart of Agni, 250. 
 Babylon and Assyria, reli<;ion in, 
 
 210. 
 
 — principal deity of, 21OW. 
 Bactria and Balliika, 370. 
 Balhika and Bactria, 370. 
 Baptism by fire and water, 283, 
 Bal■th^lfmy, Abbe, 46. 
 
 Bel Merodach, the principal Baby- 
 lonian deity, 210 n. 
 Bha_(/, to worship, 107 », 
 BHAR, to bear, 123. 
 Bhjigiii^, the, 154. 
 — and ^\eyv€S, 154. 
 Bhura»yii, name for Agni, 133. 
 Biblical criticism, 332. 
 Bidpai, fables of, 33. 
 Birth of Buddha, 351. 
 
 — of Mahavlra, 353. 
 
 — of Mohammed, 354. 
 
 — of Nanak, 355. 
 
 — of /laitanya, 356. 
 
 — of Christ," 3 56. 
 
 Bohemian saving about fire, 281. 
 Books of Moses, their thoughts, 
 213-214. 
 
 — alphabets first need for, 215-216. 
 Brahman, 247. 
 
 Brahniayta of the Vedas, 59. 
 
 — pi'ose, 69, 70, 71. 
 
 — period, 81, 96. 
 
 Brahmanas of the Yagiiir-veda, 70,7!' 
 
 — of the Sama-veda, 72, 381. 
 
 — of the Ivig-veda, 73. 
 
 — the authors of, had lost the true 
 
 meaning of tlie Veda, 74. 
 
 — of the Biahmans, 74. 
 
 — meaning of, 75. 
 
 — laru'e number quoted, 75. 
 
 — schools, 75. 
 
 — glimpses of life in the, 79, 80. 
 
 — oosmogonic theories in the, 247. 
 
 Brahmans and Buddhists, difference 
 between, 92. ■ 
 
 — believers in miracles, 339. 
 Brahniodya or priestly discussions, 
 
 260. 
 Bread, treated with reverence, 300. 
 Breath of the pfiests, among the 
 
 Slaves, 232 n. 
 Bright Ya.^ur-veda, 'JI. 
 Bright ones, 135. 
 Brinton on sun and fire in America, 
 
 J 49. 
 
 — his Myths of the New World, 
 
 312. 
 Brugf'ch on Egyptian religion, 206. 
 
 — on letters, 215. 
 Buddha, date of, 86. 
 
 — birth of, 351. 
 
 — incarnation of, 353. 
 
 — wonders at the birth of, 392. 
 
 — bearing the sins of the world, 394. 
 Buddhism in China, 30. 
 
 — rise of, 92-96. 
 
 — a reaction against Vedic religion, 
 
 92, 94, 96. 
 Buddhist pilgrims, 30, 31. 
 
 — canon, 219. 
 
 — pilgrims and the Veda, 373. 
 Buddhists, technical terms borrowed 
 
 by the, 382. 
 Buns en and India, 49. 
 Burnoiif, Engine, and his Vedic 
 
 studies, 51, 53. 
 
 — his Buddhistic work, 51. 
 
 — his discovery about Jemshid and 
 
 Zohak, 229, 229 n. 
 
 CALF-KILLING to cure murrain, 
 
 289. 
 Castes, the four, 32 n. 
 Castren, on sun and fire among the 
 
 Fins, 151. 
 Category of causality, 8. 
 Cate^orits of the understanding, 
 
 133- 
 — of language, 133. 
 Childhood of the world, shown in 
 
 the Veda, 102-104. 
 
400 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Children, influence of, on religion, 
 
 202. 
 China, contact with, 28. 
 
 — three religion^^ of, 29. 
 
 — Biiddhism in, 30. 
 
 — writin-^ in, 219. 
 
 Christ, birth of, in the Koran, 352 w. 
 
 — apocryphal account of, 356. 
 
 — purity of tlie religion of, 364. 
 Christianity, true, 332. 
 
 — and Buddhism, similarities be- 
 
 tween, 347-350, 390. 
 
 Clamor concomitans, 125. 
 
 Coincidences and dissimilarities be- 
 tween Buddhism and Christian- 
 ity, 273. 
 
 Colebrooke, H. T., and the Vedas, 
 48. 
 
 Commentary of the Veda, 53, 54, 
 
 Comparative mythology, lessons of, 
 272. 
 
 Conceive and perceive, from capio, 
 194. 
 
 Con^-ept of deity, the highest, 192. 
 
 — the result of evolution, 193-11^7. 
 Constructive chronology. 96. 
 Conway, Moncure, on protection of 
 
 animals, 191, 
 Cosmogonic theories in the Brah- 
 
 nia?ias, 247. 
 Cotton not mentioned in the Veda, 
 
 88. 
 Creator, idea of, in India, 195. 
 Creeks, belief in the sacred fire, 
 
 15271. 
 Cult, a manifestation of religion, 
 
 299. 
 Cuneiform inscriptions, 17. 
 Customs, purpose of, often forgotten, 
 
 290, 
 
 DAHANA, the burner, 122. 
 
 Daiuionion of 80k rates, 4. 
 
 Dax-a, prince, his translation of the 
 Upanishadw, 35. 
 
 Dark Ya^ur-veda, 71. 
 
 Daraa-pHrwamasa, new and full- 
 moon sacrifice, 1 1 2. 
 
 Darwin's Views on Language, 192. 
 Dasasila, ten commandments of the 
 
 Buddhists, 342, 343. 
 DaA-atayl, name for the Rig-veda 
 
 hymns, 63, 64 w. 
 Dataras vasuam and SoTTJpes kawv, 
 
 109. 
 David's letter to Joab, 380. 
 Dayananda Sarasvati, the modern 
 
 reformer, 95. 
 De Brosses, and Comte, on fetisbes, 
 
 115. 
 Deification, 118, 308, 30'). 
 
 — found everywhere, 118. 
 
 — specially shown in the Veda, riS, 
 
 121. 
 Deity, general name of, 188. 
 
 — Deva, 189. 
 
 — highest concept of, 192. 
 De Rouge on letters, 215. 
 Deva, deus, bright, 120. 
 
 — then God, 120. 
 
 — meaning of, 134, 136. 
 
 — evolution of the word, 138. 
 
 — becomes the highest concept of 
 
 deity, 139. 
 Deva-hood, how conceived, 135. 
 
 — not yet Godhood, 136. 
 
 Devas were recognised early, 99, 
 loS. 
 
 — or bright ones, 336. 
 Devil, never supreme, 234. 
 Diable as iroucan, 311 n. 
 Dialogue between Agni and Vai'uwa, 
 
 265. 
 Didivi, found once in the Veda, 173. 
 Dies from div, 134. 
 Dlnkard, the, 32 n, 
 DIV, 8k. root, 134. 
 
 — dies, 134. 
 
 Divine, the idea of, evolved in 
 ntiany ways, 139. 
 
 — the, or Infinite, 298. 
 
 — character ascril^ed to the 
 
 founders of religion. 350. 
 Drift of an argument, 126 n. 
 Dual deities, 186. 
 Dyaus, 11. 
 
 — religion of, 327. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 EAELY scepticism, 182, 183. 
 
 R<fo, the, 4. 
 
 Egypt, aniina,! gods of, 12S. 
 
 — religion in, 206. 
 
 — Le Page llenouf on the gods of, 
 
 207. 
 
 — physical phenomena wursliiiiped 
 
 in, 208. 
 
 — the concept of the divine rose 
 
 from natural objects in, 209. 
 Egyptian religion, modern character 
 of the, 236. 
 
 — gods all meant the same thing, 
 
 238. 
 
 — zoolatry, 387. » 
 Elijah, 222. 
 
 Epochs marked by discoveries. 216, 
 218. 
 
 Eskimo prayer to the winds, 313. 
 
 Ether and Agni, 126. 
 
 Euliemeristic explanations of my- 
 thology, 253. 
 
 European missionaries in India, 38. 
 
 — scholars acquainted with the 
 
 Vedas, 46. 
 Evolution of the word Deva, 138. 
 
 — of concepts, 190. 
 
 — doctrine of, upheld by the students 
 
 of language, 191. 
 
 — one powerful prejudice against, 
 
 193- 
 Exchange of gods, 184. 
 Ezour-veda, 39. 
 
 — and Voltaire, 40. 
 
 Ezra, collected books of the Old 
 Testament, 219, 220. 
 
 FATHER CCEURDOUX, 46. 
 
 Eetish, name <>f, 1 17 n. 
 
 Fetishes, De Biosses and Conite on, 
 
 115. 
 Fig-tree, sitting under the, 348, 349. 
 Filial piety in China, 344. 
 Finland, henotheism in, 182. 
 Fins, sun and fire among the, 150. 
 Fire, lighting and keeping of the, 1 11. 
 
 — early conceptions of, 121, 124. 
 
 — names of, 122. 
 
 — named as active, 123. I 
 
 (2) D 
 
 Fir •, as a Deva, 134. 
 
 — from flint, 153. 
 
 — from wood, 153. 
 
 — mythological ideas connected 
 
 with, 154. 
 
 — and wood, one word for, 154?*. 
 
 — on tlie hearth, 100. 
 
 — sacredness of, 167, 167 n. 
 
 — flesh thrown on the, 167. 
 
 — worship of, 211. 
 
 — widely worshipped, 225. 
 
 — in the A vesta, 226. 
 
 — Atar, 227. 
 
 — must not be blown, 232, 232 n. 
 
 — in Egypt, 235. 
 
 — in Greece, Hephaestos, 241. 
 
 — in Italy, Vulcanus, 244. 
 
 — philosophical aspects of, in 
 
 Greece, 244. 
 
 — of Herakleito?, 245. 
 
 — and Zoroaster, 246. 
 
 — and water in the iirtllimawas, 246. 
 
 — as worshi])ped in Babylon, 249. 
 
 — from the paternal hearth, 279. 
 
 — lighting and keeping of, 279. 
 
 — Mongolian feeling for, 281. 
 
 — kindling of, in India, in a new 
 
 home, 2S0. 
 
 — Ojibway feeling for, 281. 
 
 — baptism of, 284. 
 
 — in Mexico, 283, 284. 
 
 — purification by, 284. 
 
 — and sick child, 290. 
 
 — in the Isle of Lemnos, 391. 
 
 — of St. Brigida, 292. 
 
 — guarded by maidens, 292. 
 
 — and water, reverence shown to, 
 
 301. 
 
 — development of, 303. 
 
 — in Euypt, 304 n. 
 Fireless races, 158. 
 
 Fires in the Veda, three, 229. 
 
 — in the Avesta, five, 229. 
 
 — in the body, 230. 
 
 — saciincial, three, 231. 
 
 — Move the village,' 280, 281. 
 
 — lighted in Marburg from sticks, 
 
 291. 
 
 — extinguished after Plataeae, 291. 
 
402 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Fish, sacrifice of, 269 w. 
 Forest life, 80. 
 
 Founders of religion, divine cha- 
 racter ascribed to the, 350. 
 Freyja, 324 w. 
 Fundo, 108 n. 
 Futili?, futile, 107 n. 
 Futis, a water- jug, 107 «. 
 
 GAMBLER, poem of the, 77. 
 Garcilasso's story of the Inca, 183, 
 
 184. 
 (ratavedas, name for Agni, 123, 
 
 200 w. 
 Germany, interest in the Vedas, 48. 
 Giuta, Gothic, to pour out, 108 n. 
 Goat, words for, 126 n. 
 God, the Father, 2. 
 
 — the negroes have a name for, 
 
 116. 
 
 — and the plural gods, 117. 
 
 — as a predicate, 115, 117, 119. 
 
 — different meanings assigned to 
 
 the word, 116. 
 
 — and gods, among the Greeks, 
 
 116. 
 
 — whence comes the idea, 1 39. 
 
 — an innate idea, 1 39. 
 
 — a hallucination, 140. 
 
 — from the idea of light, 140. 
 
 — natural evolution of the idea, 140. 
 
 — natural revelation of, 140. 
 
 — of fire in the Old Testament, 
 
 223. 
 
 — concept of, a necessity to the 
 
 human mind, 341. 
 Gods, Greek and Roniai, 136. 
 
 — considered by the Chribtians as 
 
 evil spirits, 136. 
 Gold, IvHown to the united Aryans, 
 
 385.. 
 
 Graven images, 201, 202. 
 
 Greece and Italy, no religious litera- 
 ture in, 205. 
 
 Greek accounts of India, a6. 
 
 — and Roman gods, 136. 
 their anthropomorphic cha- 
 racter, 136. 
 
 Greek and Roman gods, family ties 
 
 among, 136. 
 Greek riddle, 260. 
 Greeks, concept of God and gods 
 
 among, 116. 
 Grigri, or juju, 117. 
 Grohmann on Wuotan, 324. 
 Gruppe on the idea of God, 140. 
 Guizot, Sk. MSS. bought by, 376. 
 
 HAFIZ quoted, 362. 
 Hakleburg, Mount Hecla, 323. 
 Hapta He«du, 26. 
 Havis, sacrifice, 107. 
 Heathenish customs in Scotland and 
 
 Ireland, 288. 
 Hekataeos and Herodotus knew ot 
 
 India, 27. 
 Helios, II. 
 Henotheism, 180, 181. 
 
 — used in various senses, 181 ». 
 
 — in Finland, 182. 
 
 — as a phase, 328. 
 Henotheistic character of the Vedic 
 
 gods, 179. 
 Hephaestos, 241. 
 
 — birth of, 242. 
 
 — and Agni, 241-242. 
 
 — etymology of, 243, 243 n. 
 Hera, 241. 
 
 Heraclitus on the finite and infinite, 
 
 Heiakleitos, religion of, 245. 
 
 — fire of, 245, 249. 
 
 — and gambling, 256. 
 Herder and the Veda, 48. 
 Herodotus' mention of Skylax, 37 1. 
 Hieroglyphics, known to Moses, 
 
 216. 
 Highest Commandments, 358. 
 Hiouen-thsang, 373. 
 
 — on the Veda, 374, 374%, 375. 
 Historical method, 7. 
 
 — continuity, 7. 
 
 — growth of religious ideas, 211. 
 
 — studies, value of, 329. 
 Hitopadesa quoted, 363. 
 Holy Ghost, the, 4. 
 Holy, hale, whole, 108. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Homa, and ^huti, libation, 107. 
 HotH, priest, 107. 
 Hotris, reciting priests, 70, 72, 73. 
 HU, to pour out, to sacrifice, 107, 
 
 107 71. 
 Hrman mind ascended from nature 
 
 to nature's gods, and to the God 
 
 of nature, 144. 
 Huvakan, heart of heaven, 314. 
 — lord of the winds, 325. 
 Hurricane, 311. 
 
 'IEP02, holy, 108. 
 
 Immoral influence of some religions, 
 
 295- 
 Inca, story of the, 183, 184. 
 Independent speculation, 79, 
 India, Egypt, Babylon, and Per.-ia, 
 
 early contact between, 23. 
 
 — never mentioned in Egyptiaii 
 
 or Babylonian inscriptions, 24, 
 
 — Semiramis in, 25. 
 
 — Greek accounts of, 26. 
 
 — the word, 27. 
 
 — known to Hekataeos. and He- 
 
 rodotus, 27. 
 
 — Alexanders expedition to, 27. 
 
 — Megasthenes' account of, 28. 
 
 — European missionaries in, 38. 
 
 — Xavier in, 39. 
 
 — Aryan immigration into, 86. 
 
 — art of writing in, S9. 
 
 — aboi'igines of, 1 60. 
 black skinned, 160. 
 
 Tndinn division of tlie heavens, 
 thought to be Babylonian, 25. 
 
 — antiquity, peculiar character of, 
 
 55- 
 
 — mind, workings of the. 56. 
 'IvSot, 372. 
 
 Indra, Vedic hvmns addressed to, 
 61. 
 
 — his strength, 187. 
 Indragni, 186. 
 Infinite, the, 2. 
 
 — seen in the finite, 143. 
 ^ meaning of, ^96. 
 
 Dd 
 
 Infinite, as a name, 297. 
 
 — first attempt to grasp, 335, 
 Inscriptions in Arabia, 215?/. 
 Irregular perfect of Veda and ol8a, 
 
 agree? with Locke s view, 57. 
 
 I-tsing on the Vedas, 375. 
 
 JEHOVAH, name and concept of, 
 
 224. 
 Jewish idolatry, 213. 
 
 — belief in one God, 220. 
 John Hacklebirnie's house, 323. 
 Jones, Sir William, and Sanskrit, 46. 
 
 — and the Vedas, 480. 
 Juju, or grigri, 117. 
 
 KAFU, koph, ape, 24. 
 Jvaitanya, birth of, 356. 
 Kalpa-sCltras, 90. 
 Kapi, Sk., ape, 25. 
 Karma, or sacrifice, 106, IIO. 
 Kaspatyros, 372. 
 
 — tor Kaspapyro?!, 372. 
 /vTiturmasya, 112. 
 Katyavana's index of the Rig-veda, 
 
 66. 
 X'Z/andas, or Mantra period, 68, 69. 
 ivorjin, account of the birth of 
 
 Christ in the, 352 n. 
 Kiama-text of the Rig-veda, 380. 
 Kratu, Sk., counsel, German Raih, 
 
 172. 
 
 LANGUAGE, categories of, 133. 
 
 — Aristotle and, 133, 
 
 Lee, Dr. Robert, on faith in miracles, 
 
 358- 
 Lenormant on letters, 215. 
 Locke's view of human knowledge, 
 
 57- 
 
 Logographi, the, of the sixth cen- 
 tury, 218. 
 
 Logos, language, 133. 
 
 * Love your enemies,' 359-363. 
 
 Lucina, II. 
 
 Ludwig and Bergaigne's view of the 
 Vedic hymns, 104. 
 
 2 
 
404 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Luclwig's list of sacrificial terms in 
 
 the Veda, 105 n. 
 Lustration of animals, 285. 
 
 MAHATMAS, 347. 
 Mahaviia, birth of, 353. 
 Mah;iysr/)7a«!, or conimandments, 
 
 345, 346. 
 Ma?ir7ala, Delbrtick, Gra«smann, &c., 
 
 on the seventh, 62 n. 
 Ma?ir7alas, the ten, 59, 60. 
 
 — the six family, 60 
 
 — method in the ci)llection of the, 
 
 60. 
 
 — names of the poets or deities 
 
 of the, 62. 
 Manu, Laws of, translated by Sir 
 W. Jones, 47. 
 
 — by Biihler, 47. 
 
 — age of, 48. 
 
 Manu's laws for the four cartes, 345. 
 Manuscripts of the Veda, 42, ^^. 
 Marco della Touiba and the Veda, 
 
 43- 
 
 Marriage in the Veda, 386. 
 
 Marus of the Buddhists, 320. 
 
 Marut, Pali marii, 384. 
 
 Maruts, the, 317-320, 
 
 ^- Rudra, father of the, 320. 
 
 Matarisvan, 152. 
 
 ' — etymology of, 152??. 
 
 Max Mailer's edition of the Rig- 
 
 veda, 53, 54. 
 Mega^tlienes in India, 28. 
 Mene, il. 
 
 Mercury and Wuotan, 32371. 
 Me^ha, king, his inscription, 215. 
 Messiah, the Jewish, 394. 
 Metrical language, early, 108. 
 Mexican riddle, 258. 
 Mexico, storm- wind in, 312. 
 Michabo, the Great Light, 320. 
 Miracles not needed in early days, 
 
 142. 
 
 — condemned by Mohammed, 338, 
 
 338 n. 
 
 — condemned by Buddha, 339. 
 
 — believed in by the Braimians, 
 
 339- 
 
 Miracles, condemned by Christ, 339. 
 
 — Aniiel on, 340. 
 
 — Newman on, 340. 
 
 — stumbling-blocks to foith, 357. 
 
 — Dr. R. Lee on faith in, 358. 
 JNIitra, the deity, 27. 
 Modern superstitions, 13. 
 Mohammed's birth, 354. 
 Mongolian feeling for tire, 281. 
 Monotheism or Monism in the Veda, 
 
 44. 
 
 — how it arises, 328. 
 Monotlie^'stic instinct of the Semitic 
 
 race, 220. 
 Moon, new and full, II2. 
 Moral elements, 100. 
 Morning and evening meal or 
 
 sacrifice, no. 
 Moses, time of, writ ng unknown, 
 
 216. 
 
 — hieroglyphics known to, 216. 
 
 — no books existed at his time, 219. 
 
 — and his mother, 360 n. 
 Mount Sinai, 222. 
 
 Miiller, J. G., on sun and fire in 
 America, 149. 
 
 Mythology, euhemeristic explana- 
 tions of, 253. 
 
 — not religion, 257. 
 
 — meaning or hyponoia of, 271. 
 Myths and legends, the parasites of 
 
 religion, 299, 
 
 NAMING and conceiving, 124. 
 Nanak, birth of, 355. 
 Narada, the Sage, 201. 
 Natural religion, three division-^ 
 of, I. 
 
 — phenomena as viewed by nomad 
 
 and agricultural people, 12. 
 
 — and supernatural, 119. 
 
 — I'evelation of God, 140. 
 
 — religion can lead to the highest 
 
 idea of deity, 197. 
 
 use of the study of, 330. 
 
 lessons of, 331. 
 
 attacks on, 333. 
 
 Nature, order of, early perceived, 
 99. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Nature, a terror and marvel, 119. 
 
 — agents in, 132, 335. 
 
 — one agent in, 336. 
 Nature's gods not God, 142. 
 Need-fire, the, 285, 2S6, 3^9. 
 Negro tribes have a name forlJod,! 16. 
 New Testament free from foolish 
 
 stories, 203. 
 Nirv;iy<a, nibbana, 383. 
 Nooumena, 335. 
 Northern Buddhist texts, mistaken 
 
 Sk. of the, 383. 
 Nursery-psychology, 1 30. 
 
 ODTN, or Wodan, or Wu< tan, 321. 
 OJda, same as Veda, 56, 57. 
 Ojibways, feeling f-r fire, 2S1. 
 Old Testament, 211. 
 
 an historical book, 212, 219. 
 
 authorship of books, 2 1 2. 
 
 religious ideas of, 2 1 3. 
 
 : when written down, 214. 
 
 books collected by Ezra, 219. 
 
 writing mentioned in the, 3S8. 
 
 One God, belief in, among the Jews, 
 220. 
 
 — Abraham the originator of that 
 
 belief, 220. 
 Ormazd, not fire, 227. 
 Orthodox and heterodox, 1 41. 
 Osiris, the god, 339. 
 Ouragan, 311. 
 
 PADA-TEXT of the Rig-veda, 380. 
 Pahlava, date of word, 373. 
 Pakthas of the llig-veda, 372, 
 Paktyes the, 373. 
 Paktyika, 373. 
 
 — or Afghans, 372. 
 
 Pawini, the grannnarian, 64, 76. 
 
 Paoliuo da 8. Bartolom. o and the 
 first ISk. grammar, 46. 
 
 Parallelism between Aryan reli- 
 gions, 274. 
 
 Paramatman and Highest Self, 95. 
 
 Parisliads, or schools of the Biuh- 
 mans, 66. 
 
 Par«u and ParaNavya, 369, 370 ». 
 
 — and Tirindira, 369. 
 
 D 
 
 Parthavas, are they Parthians ? 369 
 Parthians, the, 369. 
 
 — their old name, 373. 
 Pa^ihiputia, council of, 92. 
 Pavaka. illuminating, 123. 
 PferuCalmette and the Veda, 40, 41, 
 
 42, 43. 
 Persia, the bridge between India 
 and Greece, 26, 27. 
 
 — later contact with, 33. 
 Persians, 369. 
 Persona, 307. 
 Personification, 306, 308. 
 
 Peru, gods of fire and water in, 150. 
 
 — worship in, 312. 
 Phenician letters, 215. 
 Phenicians, the, 23, 24. 
 ^\6yves and BhHgu, 154. 
 Physical origin of all religions, 10, 
 
 II. 
 
 — deities, Tiele on, 131. 
 
 — idienomena worshipped in Egypt, 
 
 208. 
 
 — rel'gion, 1,4, 7. 
 
 its origin, 8. 
 
 varieties of, 9. 
 
 best studied in India, 9. 
 
 outside India, 14. 
 
 definition of, 115. 
 
 simplicity and necessity of, 
 
 336. 
 
 leads to moral religion, 234. 
 
 Pdippila, 263. 
 
 i'ischel and Geldner's 'Ved'sche 
 
 Studien,' 384. 
 Poem on trades and professions, 76. 
 
 — of the gambler, 76. 
 Poetry and mythology, 308. 
 Polytheism, 328. 
 
 Pons, Father, and the Veda, 45. 
 Pra^/apati, Lord of Creation, 247, 
 
 Prati.vakhyas, 63, 6^n, 64. 
 
 — date of the Rig-veda, 64, 376. 
 
 — minutiae of the, 65, 377. 
 Prayer bett-r than i^acrifice, 109. 
 Premature generalisation, 145. 
 Priests, various kinds of Vedic, 69, 70. 
 Primitive, meaning of, 14, 98, 99. 
 
 cl3 
 
403 
 
 NDEX. 
 
 Primitive, Veda not entirely, 15. 
 
 — sacrifice, no. 
 
 — man, 129. 
 
 roots express the act-i of, 1 30. 
 
 Pritlui, Partha, and P/ithi, 369. 
 Prometheus, in the Veda, 153. 
 Psychological religion, 3, 5, 6. 
 Ptah, the god, 239. 
 
 — the artificer, 240. 
 Pur, the Vedic, 385. 
 Pythagoras and the vit-ion of the 
 
 soul of Homer, 245. 
 
 RA, the god, 238. 
 
 Kain, the first tliought among men, 
 
 261. 
 Reformation, the, 332. 
 Religion, three divisions of natural, 
 
 I. 
 
 — physical, I, 3, 5. 7- * 
 
 — anthrojiological, 3, 5. 
 
 — psychological, 3, 5, 6. 
 
 — the three phases often contem- 
 
 poraneous, 5. 
 
 — ancient Vedic, 6. 
 
 — definition of physical, 115. 
 
 — influence of children on, 202. 
 
 — every, akindof compiouuse, 203. 
 
 — in Egypt, 206. 
 
 — Erngsch on, 206. 
 
 — in Babylon and Assyria, 210. 
 
 — Sayce's lectures on, 2107;. 
 
 — none really dualistic, 234 
 
 — and mythology, diffeiiiu.e be- 
 
 tween, 276. 
 
 — mythology and ceremonial, essen- 
 
 tial ditference between, 292. 
 
 — definition of, re-examined, 39^, 
 
 298. 
 
 — influence of, on the moral 
 
 character, 295, 296. 
 
 — author's definition of, 296. 
 -- Cicero on, 2 98, 299. 
 
 — with the Semites, 299. 
 
 — cult a manifestation of, 299. 
 
 — myths and legends the parasites 
 
 of, 299. 
 
 — a knowledge of divine beings, 
 
 301, 302. 
 
 Religion, science of,founded on facts, 
 
 not theories, 366. 
 Religions, common elements of all. 
 
 342. 
 
 — truth in all, 346, 
 
 — nature of the study of various, 
 
 363, 364- 
 Religious literature, none in Greece 
 and Italy, 205. 
 
 — sanction for customs, 282. 
 
 — element, the, 300. 
 
 Renouf, Le Page, on the gods of 
 
 Egypt, 207. 
 Revelation in nature, 141, 142. 
 Riddle of the five senses, 262. 
 Riddles, ancient, 257 et seq. 
 
 — produced mythology, 263. 
 i?ig, or rik, verse, 59. 
 Rig-veda, M. M.'s edition of the, 53, 
 
 54- 
 
 — the only true Veda, 58. 
 
 — represents the earliest phase of 
 
 Aryan thought, 58. 
 
 — Samhita of the, 59. 
 
 — how collected, 62, 63. 
 
 — number of hymns, 63, 63 n. 
 
 — early existence in its present 
 
 form provtd, 65. 
 
 — /Saunaka's exegesis anil indices ot 
 
 the, 64, 65. 
 
 — Katyayana's index, 66. 
 
 — number of verses in, 66, 378. 
 
 — collection of the hymns an 
 
 historical event, 68, 73. 
 
 — Brahma?ias of the, 70. 
 
 — nothing to do with s-acrifice, 
 
 72- 
 
 — difference between it and other 
 
 Vedas, 72, 73. 
 
 — age of, 96, 
 
 — -S'aunaka on the divisions of the, 
 
 379- 
 
 — various texts of the, 3W0. 
 iZita, or order, 99. 
 Roberto de' Nobili, 39. 
 Roman Catholic stories, 202. 
 Romanes, on human faculty, 191. 
 Roots, expressing actions, 124, 125. 
 
 130, 301- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Rosen's studies in the Veda, 50. 
 Rosetta stone, 16. 
 Riisniiui on words, 138. 
 itoth's Essays on the V'lda, 53. 
 Kudra, father of the Maruts, 320. 
 Rudraka and John the Baptist, 348. 
 Ruskin on the ancient gcds, 137. 
 
 SACHAU, Dr., 33. 
 
 Sacrifice and prayer, wldch comes 
 first, 105, 1 06. 
 
 — not an early idea, 106. 108. 
 
 — fragments left of a, 26S n. 
 Haciifices, early, 100, 
 
 — become coinplicated, 1 13. 
 
 — must be unblemished, 171. 
 Sacrificial terms, loS. 
 
 St. Brigida, fire of, 292. 
 Saiiia-veda, 67. 
 
 — Brahmawas of the, 70. 381. 
 Saiiian, a, 68 w. 
 
 Sauihita of the Vedas, 59. 
 
 — of the Ya^ur-veda, 70, 71. 
 
 text of the Rig-veda, 3S0. 
 
 Samouscroiitam, or Sanskrit, 41. 
 Samson's riddle, 260. 
 Sandrocottus, date of, 91. 
 Sanskrit grammar, the first, 46. 
 
 — and Sir W. Jones, 46. 
 
 — translations from the, 47 re. 
 
 — words in Sumerian, 381. 
 
 — of the Northern Buddhist texts, 
 
 383. 
 Sapta SindhavaA, 26. 
 Satin, Arabic covering, 87. 
 .Saunaka, author of the Prati- 
 
 .sakhya of the <Sakala scliool, 
 
 64. 
 
 — his indices of the Rig-veda, 65. 
 
 — on the divisions of the Rig-veda, 
 
 379- 
 Savana, libation, ill. 
 Savanas, the three, ii3n. 
 Saya«a's commentary, 53. 
 
 — difficulty of publishing, 53, 54. 
 Sayce, Professor, and the word 
 
 sindhu, 87. 
 
 — on religion in Babylon and 
 
 Assyria, 210 «. 
 
 Schopenhauer and the Upanishads, 
 
 36. 
 Schroeder, Professor von, on the 
 
 Velic g"ds, 1 79. 
 Scotland, superstition in, 289. 
 Seasons, and the year, invocation of, 
 
 99. 
 
 — the three, 112. 
 Seb, the earth, 387. 
 
 Secular ideas become religious, 278. 
 
 Self, the, 4. 
 
 Semiramis in India, 25. 
 
 Semitic nations, sacrifice ami ng, 1 10. 
 
 — race, their monotheistic instinct, 
 
 220, 
 
 — really polytheistic, 221. 
 
 — their gods, gods of nature, 222. 
 Sick child, and fire in Scotland, 290. 
 Signs and sounds, 125, 
 
 — changed to miracles, 357. 
 Sindhu, cotton, mentionetl 3000 B.C., 
 
 — identical with aivdwV; 87. 
 
 — aivbwu. 87. 
 
 — and Hebrew satin, 87. 
 Sixth century B.C., 216, 218. 
 
 — and alphabetic writing, 21S, 219. 
 Sky, first concept of man, 261. 
 
 — as mean'ng rain, 261, 
 Skylax visited India, 26. 
 
 — and the Paktyes, the Pashtu or 
 
 Afghans, 371. 
 
 — mentioned by Aristotle and Hero- 
 
 dotus, 370. 
 
 Smarta, smr/ti, memory, 90. 
 
 Solar and meteoric theories, recon- 
 ciliation of, 186. 
 
 — niyth, the, 327. 
 
 Sol en; n, the meaning of, 113. 
 
 — from soUus, annus, 1 1 3. 
 
 Soma, known to the Zoroastiians 
 and Vedic peojde, loi. 
 
 — giver of life, 1S8. 
 Soul, spirit, 131. 
 
 Special revelation to Al»raliam, 221. 
 Spencer, Herbert, against animism, 
 128. 
 
 — his agents and agencies, 132. 
 
 — a Euhemerist, 254 n, 255. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sphinx, riddle of the, 260. 
 A^rauta, *ruti, revelation, 90. 
 Star, auspicious, 391. 
 Storm and god, same word for, 316. 
 
 wind, 310-313, 315. 
 
 in America, 31 1. 
 
 in Mexico, 512. 
 
 in Babylon, 316. 
 
 in India, 317. 
 
 ■ in Germany, 320. 
 
 Stabrobates, 25, 25 71. 
 Sumerian, Sk. words in, 381. 
 Sun and moon, invocation of, 99. 
 
 — and fire in America, 149. 
 
 — Brinton on, 149. 
 
 — J. G. Milliter on, 149. 
 
 — and fire among the Fins, 1 50. 
 
 — Castren on, 151. 
 Supernatural, the, 119. 
 
 — element, 305. 
 
 — craving for the, 337. 
 
 — as natural, 341. 
 Stitra, the word, 94. 
 
 — applied to Buddha's sermons, 94. 
 
 — period, 96. 
 Siltras, 81, 88, 89. 
 
 — why composed, 89, 90. 
 
 — style, 80, 90. 
 
 TABLES oftlie law, 216. 
 Tanftnapat, Vedic name for Agni, 
 
 123. 
 Taoism, 360. 
 Ten Commandments, 342. 
 
 — of the Buddhists, 342, 343. 
 Theogonic jjrocess, 306. 
 
 — development, 326. 
 Thoth, the n)oon, 387. 
 Thought and language, 307. 
 Three phases ot reliyi n often con- 
 temporaneous, 5. 
 
 Tiele, Prof., Le M^'the de Krono^, 
 
 1S7. 
 Tiele's theory of the gods as facteurs, 
 
 131. 
 
 — his forces or sources de vie, 132. 
 Tiiiegin in Ireland, 287. 
 Tiralazos, 370. 
 
 Tiiidates, 370. 
 
 Tirindira and Parsu^ 369. 
 
 Tiu, the god, 32 1. 
 
 Translations of Sk. books into Peh- 
 
 levi and Arabic, 33. 
 Trift from treiben, 126 n. 
 Trishavana, the threefold libation, 
 
 III. 
 Truth in all religions, 346. 
 ' — makes revelation,' 361. 
 Tuesday, 321. 
 Tvashfr/, the Vedic god, 240. 
 
 — the artificer, 240. 
 Tyr, the god, 321. 
 
 UDGATi2/S, singing priests, 70. 
 Understanding, categories of the, 
 
 133- 
 Unknowable, the, 297. 
 Upanishad, the word, 93. 
 
 — used by Southern BuiUlhists, 93. 
 
 — in Pali, 93 n. 
 Upanishads-, and prince Dara, 35. 
 
 — Anquetil Duperron's tianslation 
 
 of ihe, 36. 
 
 — Schopenhauer, 36. 
 
 — the, and Arawyakas, 80. 
 
 — names and number of, 80 n, 
 
 — after Buddha, 86. 
 
 VAHNI, fire, from same root as ve- 
 
 hemens, 122. 
 Vaisvanara, useful to all, name for 
 
 Agni, 123. 
 Varuwa, lord of all, 1 88. 
 Va-^ukra and the Veda, 34. 
 Vasus, the eight, 198. 
 Vates, 322 n. 
 Veda, not purely primitive, 15. 
 
 — discovery of the, 1 7. 
 
 — its importance, 18-20. 
 
 — uni(jue character of the, 18. 
 
 — its age, 19-22. 
 
 — oldest monument of Aryan 
 
 H] eech, 19. 
 
 — how it became known, 32. 
 
 — no foreign nations mentioned in 
 
 the, 23. 
 
 — not mentioned by foreign nations, 
 
 23- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 Veda, mentioned first by the Chinese, 
 28, 38. 
 
 — first committed to writing, 34. 
 
 — liow it became known in tlie 
 
 West, 38. 
 
 — anil Pere Calmette, 40. 
 
 — known by heart, 41, 42. 
 
 — MSS. of the, 42. 
 
 — best key to the religion of India, 
 
 45- 
 
 — Father Pons and the, 45. 
 
 — MSS. of, brought to Europe, 50. 
 
 — Rosen's studies in the, 50. 
 
 — Eugene Burnouf s studies in the, 
 
 51. 
 
 — Guizot buys MSS. of the, 52. 
 
 — Roth's Essays on the, 53. 
 
 — author's (:dition of the Rig-, 53- 
 
 — never published in India, 53. 
 
 — commentary of the, 53, 54. 
 
 — )ueaning of, 56. 
 
 — same as otda, 56, 57. 
 
 — there are four, 58. 
 
 — Brahmanic view of the, 58. 
 
 — consists of Sa^uhita and Brfili- 
 
 ma»a, 59. 
 
 — the Sama-, 67. 
 
 — the Yaf/ur-, 68. 
 
 — the true, 74. 
 
 — the Atharva-, 81, 82. 
 
 — dates of the, 82. 
 
 — accurate knowledge of, necessary 
 
 for studying physical i*eligion, 
 84. 
 
 — from vid, to see, 84, 
 
 — a masculine, 84. 
 
 — how to fix the date of, 85, 366. 
 
 — character of the, 97. 
 
 — 7?/ta or order in, 99. 
 
 — moral elements, lOO. 
 
 — Soma of the, 10 1. 
 
 — childish thoughts in, loi, 
 
 — exalted thoughts in tlie, 102. 
 
 — sacrificial hymns are late, 105. 
 
 — Ludwig's list of sacrificial teiuiv , 
 
 105 n. 
 
 — sacrifices very prominent in, 110 
 
 113- 
 
 — true aatiquity of the. 250. 
 
 Veda, value of, 365. 
 
 — belief in one God, 366, 
 
 — Hiouen-thsang on the, 374, 374 n, 
 
 375- 
 
 — I-tsing on the, 375. 
 Vedilngas, tlie six, 63 n. 
 Vedas first known, 33, 34. 
 
 — and the emperor Akbar, 35. 
 
 — and Marco dellaTo;nba, 43. 
 
 — gra'ns of gold in the, 44. 
 
 — monothei>m or monism in, 44, 
 
 — and Herder, 48. 
 
 — anil Sir W. Jones, 48. 
 
 — and H. T. Colebrooke, 48. 
 
 — inteiest aroused in Germany, 4S. 
 Vedic age, true literary periods of 
 
 the, 91. 
 
 — Aryas, their poetry, 155. 
 
 — gods, always human, 128. 
 though later often monstrous, 
 
 129. 
 
 Schroeder on the, 179. 
 
 their henotheistic character, 
 
 — hymns, a,ge of, 91, go, 1 14. 
 simplicity of, 98. 
 
 sacrificial character of some, 
 
 104, 105. 
 
 — LudvvigandBergaigne s view, 104. 
 
 secondary and tertiary, 114. 
 
 processofdeificationiiithe,ii8. 
 
 modern date of the, 384. 
 
 literature, age of, 95, 96. 
 
 — period, and the original relgion 
 
 of India, 10, II. 
 life during the, 76. 
 
 — re'igion. 6. 
 
 Buddhism a reaction again-t 
 
 92. 
 (lark side of, 197. 
 
 — texts. 219. 
 Verner's law, 322 n. 
 
 Voltaire and the Ezour-veda, 40. 
 
 WEATHER, original nieamng of, 
 
 324- 
 Weber on Agni, 145. 
 Weber's idea of the Sama-veda, 68 n. 
 Wood and tire, one word for, 7 54 ». 
 
410 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Words, E-osmini on, 13S. 
 
 Wordsworth, 309. 
 
 Writing, art of, in India, 89. 
 
 — not known to the Vetiic poets, 
 
 385. 
 
 — mentioned in the Old Ttstauient, 
 
 388. 
 Wuotan, 322, 323. 
 
 — and Mercury, 323/1. 
 
 — Grohmann on, 324. 
 
 — from vadhas, 324. 
 
 XAVJER in India. 39. 
 YA(j, to sacrifice, 107. 
 
 ' Ya</ur-vefla, 68. 
 
 — Brahmawas of the, 70. 
 
 — the bright and dark, 71. 
 
 — Sa/rthita, the so-called, 71. 
 Ya^^us line, 68 n. 
 
 Yama and Yami, the twin*, 239 ». 
 Yukatan, gods of, 314. 
 
 ZEUS, II. 
 
 — not simply the skv, 326. 
 Zio, the god, 321. 
 Zoioaster, religion of, 226, 
 
 — and fire, 246. 
 Zoroastrian texts, 219. 
 Zulu riddle, 258, 259. 
 
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