The History of Antiquity Volume Iv Part 28

Thus does the Epos describe the forms of Vishnu and civa. The Brahmans had allowed the pure world-soul to drop out, in order to return again to living deities; nature, which was nothing but deception as opposed to Brahman, they had again a.s.sumed in the being of the new G.o.ds; the two new supreme deities absorbed Brahman, each into himself; each was also Brahman; each had given forth from himself all living and lifeless beings, the whole of nature; each governs and rules the life of nature, and is the cause of growth and decay. These were attempts made in combination with the national faith to personify once more the Pantheism of the Brahmanic system, without excluding the life of nature, to represent the divine power to the religious consciousness in an active, direct, living, impressive, helpful way. This process and change of the Brahmanic system took place about the same time that the Buddhists began to pay divine honour to the founder of their doctrine, and exalt him to the highest deity, or perhaps a little earlier. As compared with Buddhism the new conception of the Brahmanic idea of G.o.d had the disadvantage that there were two supreme deities which contended side by side with Brahman for the first place. The wors.h.i.+ppers of the one and the other equally inserted into the Epos their great deity and his praises. The exaltation of Vishnu and of civa, the repression of the idea of Brahman, cannot have begun later than the beginning of the fourth century B.C., since, as the Greeks have already told us, it was towards the end of the fourth century, about the year 300 B.C., that civa and Vishnu were wors.h.i.+pped by the Indians as their chief deities, the first by the inhabitants of the mountains, the second by the dwellers in the plains. At the same time it is clear, from the accounts of the Greeks, that the incarnations of Vishnu, a.s.sumed in order to benefit the world, in Paracurama, Rama, and Krishna had already obtained recognition at the time mentioned, and received expression in the Epos and the wors.h.i.+p. In any other case it would have been impossible for the Greeks to have regarded Vishnu as their own Heracles. From certain quotations in Panini, who lived about the middle or the last third of the fourth century,[743] it follows that Krishna and Vishnu were identified about this time, and Vishnu was described by the name Vasudeva, the family name of Krishna.[744]

Buddhism appears to have had a two-fold influence on the ethical demands of the Brahmans; on the one hand, it challenged and therefore intensified them; on the other, it softened and diminished their force.

According to the book of the law the Dvija satisfied the highest requirements of religion, when, after founding his house and seeing the children of his children, he renounced the world, retired into the forest, and there, occupied only with divine things, with salvation for the future, sought his return to Brahman by penances and meditation. It was the duty of the king when he became old and weak and was no longer in a position to protect his subjects and inflict punishment, as he ought, to seek death in battle, or if no war was being waged at the time, to put an end to his life by starvation. In a few cases the book allows suicide as a punishment for grievous offences. In the Epos we find an advance in this direction. Traits are introduced into it which represent voluntary death as the greatest act of merit, as the summit and perfection of asceticism. While yet in full vigour and equal to their duties, Yudhishthira and his brothers abandon their throne and kingdom, in order to seek and find death on a pilgrimage to the holy mountain, and by such penances and such an end to be rid of the earthly grossness still clinging to them. When Rama, even after his father Dacaratha is dead, refuses to ascend the throne, because he must keep the promise made to his dead father that he would live fourteen years in exile, the younger brother Bharata, conscientiously respecting the right of the elder, will not a.s.sume the government; for these fourteen years he lives in the garment of a penitent with a penitent's knot of hair, and five days after Rama's return from banishment, he "goes into the fire." The anchorite carabhanga, who by severe penances has obtained the highest reward, erects a pyre for himself, kindles it with his own hands, and burns himself in the presence of Rama in order to pa.s.s into the heaven of Brahman, for which in other revisions of the poem is subst.i.tuted the heaven of Vishnu. The Greeks have already told us that the sages among the Indians regarded disease and weakness as disgraceful; if one of them fell ill he burned himself on a pyre (p.

422). The companions of Alexander of Macedon tell us that Cala.n.u.s, one of the Brahmans of Takshacila, whom Alexander had induced to join him (p. 398), fell sick in Persia and became weak. Alexander in vain attempted to move him from his resolution to burn himself. Too feeble to walk, Cala.n.u.s was carried to the pyre, crowned after the Indian manner, and singing hymns in the Indian language. When the funeral pyre was kindled, he lay down without shrinking in the midst of the flames.[745]

According to the statement of Megasthenes the Indian sages put an end to their lives not by fire only but also by throwing themselves from a precipice or into water.[746] By this kind of sacrifice can only be meant suicide or pilgrimage to the sacred places in the Himalayas, near the pools, to which a peculiar power of purification was ascribed.

Pilgrimages to the sacred waters are mentioned even in Manu's laws.

Bathing in the Ganges, in the lakes of the Himalayas, which lay near the holy mountain, in the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges, was supposed to have the power of was.h.i.+ng away many sins, and thus relieving men from the torturing penances imposed by the Brahmans. "If," we are told in the book of the law, "thou art not at variance with Vivasvati's son Yama, who dwells in thy heart (_i.e._ with thy conscience), go not to the Ganges nor the Kurus." In the lands formerly governed by the Kurus, lay the places of sacrifice of the ancient kings; there, at this or that place, the great ris.h.i.+s of the ancient time were said to have sacrificed; on the lakes Ravanahrada and Manasa, in the high Himalayas, under Kailasa, the old sutras of the Buddhists showed us the settlements of penitent Brahmans. We cannot doubt that the pilgrimage of the Buddhists to the places where Buddha lived, preached, and died, increased the pilgrimages of the Brahmans, and that, to match the blessing which the Buddhists attached to their journeys, they estimated and commended more highly than before the expiating and redeeming power of their holy shrines. In the Mahabharata a considerable number of shrines of pilgrimage are mentioned together with their legends; the visitation of these seems to be quite common; the especial effects of the various places are stated;[747] in fact, the pilgrimages to the sacred pools and places of purification must have been so common and so zealously undertaken among the Brahmans that about the middle of the third century _B.C._ the Buddhists denote their Brahmanic opponents by the names Tirthyas and Tirthikas, _i.e._ men who live at the pools of purification or hold them in especial estimation.[748] Not merely to bathe in the waters at the sacred places, which take away sins, but to end life there, could not but have a most efficacious and meritorious influence on the future of the soul in the next world, and the regenerations. Hence sinners would seek death in the sacred waters as the best and most perfect expiation; and even those who did not think themselves under the burden of special offences could find in a voluntary death in the sacred flood the highest expiation for the impurity entailed upon them, according to the Brahmanic system, by their life in the body. Thus even then, as now, many died by a voluntary death at these places. The strict consequences of the Brahmanic system pointed to suicide. Did not the ethical aim of the Brahmans consist in the elevation of the _Ego_ by meditation, in the annihilation of the body by asceticism? It was a step farther to end and escape the torments of long penances at a single bound. The more prominence the Buddhists gave to the fact that their doctrine ensured liberation from regenerations, the keener must be the attention paid by the Brahmans to this object. According to their view of the world, and the basis of their system--that the body was the adulteration of Brahman in men, the hindrance in the way of his return to Brahman--the end of the bodily life, which they had constantly sought to subdue, at a consecrated place, by a holy act in the midst of purification in the sacred bath, could not but bring salvation; the man who offered his body and himself for sacrifice was at once purified for his return into the world-soul.

If the Buddhists avoided regenerations by taming desire, and annihilating the soul, the Brahmans could now prevent them by the sacrifice of the body at a holy place. That all Brahmans were not of this opinion we may conclude from the a.s.sertion of Megasthenes that death by suicide was not a dogma of the Indian sages; those who put themselves to death were looked on as rash and perverse. There was, therefore, an opposite view. Nor was it the Buddhists only, who, in accordance with the whole conception of their faith, represented this opposition; even among the Brahmanic castes, as we shall see, there was a variety of opinions.

The companions of Alexander tell us that among some Indians widows voluntarily burnt themselves with the corpses of their husbands, and those who did not do this were in no esteem.[749] Among the Indians, says Nicolaus of Damascus, the favourite wife was burnt with the dead husband. The wives contended for this mark of honour with the greatest eagerness, and each was supported by her friends.[750] The captain of the Indians who with Eudemus attacked the army of Eumenes (p. 442)--the Greeks call him Ceteus--fell in the battle, which took place between Eumenes and Antigonus in Paraetacene in the year 316 B.C. The two wives of Ceteus had accompanied him to the field and now contended for the honour of being burnt with him, since the law of the Indians, as Diodorus observes, allowed one wife only to be so burnt. The younger of the two maintained that the elder was pregnant; the elder declared that precedence in years carried precedence in honour. When the pregnancy of the elder had been established, the captains of the army decided that the younger was to ascend the pyre. "Then the elder took the diadem from her head, tore her hair and cried aloud, as though she had met with a great misfortune, while the younger, rejoicing in her victory, went to the funeral pile, crowned and adorned as if for marriage, accompanied by her women, who sang a hymn. When she approached the pyre, she divided her ornaments among her relations, servants, and friends, as memorials of herself: a number of rings set with precious stones of various colours, gold stars with brilliant stones from her head-dress, and a great quant.i.ty of necklaces, large and small. When she had bidden farewell to her relations and servants, her brother conducted her to the pyre; she bowed herself before the corpse of her husband, and when the flames blazed up she uttered no sound of lamentation. In such a heroic manner did she end her life, and moved all who saw her death to sympathy or admiration."[751] Western accounts from the first century B.C. and later times represent the burning of widows as an established custom.[752]

We are acquainted with the hymns of the Rigveda in which the widow, when she has led her husband to the place of burial, is exhorted to "elevate herself to the world of life," for her marriage is at an end; we know the rule in the law that a widow should not marry again after the death of her husband; if she did so, she would fall into disrepute in this world, and in the next be excluded from the abode of her husband. She must live alone, avoid all sensual pleasure, starve herself, and do acts of piety, then after her death she would ascend to heaven. Neither the sutras of the Buddhists nor the Brahmanas mention the burning of widows.

On the other hand, in the Mahabharata the two wives of Pandu, Kunti and Madri, contend after his death precisely as the two wives of Ceteus, which is to ascend the pyre. Kunti founds her claims on the fact that she had been the wife of Pandu before Madri, and his first queen; Madri a.s.serts that Pandu had loved her more than Kunti, that she had been his favourite wife. The Brahmans decide that Madri is to go. In the Ramayana the burial of king Dacaratha is described in great detail, but none of his wives, neither Kaucalya, nor Kaikeyi, nor Sumitra is burnt with him.

In other pa.s.sages also the Epos speaks of widowed queens with all honour. If, then, the Epos of the Indians, even in the form in which we have it, wavers about the custom of the cremation of widows, and on the other hand the Greeks a.s.sert and prove the existence of the custom in the last thirty years of the fourth century B.C., we may a.s.sume that the sacrifice of widows came into practice in the course of the fourth century B.C. in connection with the increase in the requirements of self-annihilation, of which we have just read. It was, no doubt, the consequence derived from the unconditional dependence of the wife on the husband, required by the Indians, and the command to bear any fortune joyfully together with the husband, of that extreme wifely love and devotion, of which we have found touching examples in the Epos. From the idea of self-annihilation, which was the summit of all good actions, the Brahmans might arrive at the demand that women also ought in certain cases to practise such annihilation; that a widow must sacrifice herself on the pyre of her husband as an offering for his sins. This is never stated as a law, but at a subsequent time the demand of the Brahmans obtained general observance and recognition, supported as it was by the doctrine that only the widow, who burnt herself with the corpse of her husband, found an entrance into the better world. According to the rules, which have come down to us from a later time, the widow of the Dvija, when she had bathed and anointed herself, coloured herself with sandal wood, and put on her ornaments, more especially her jewels, with b.u.t.ter, kuca-gra.s.s, and sesame in her hands, offered a prayer to all the G.o.ds, with the reflection that her life was nothing, that her lord was her all. Then she walks round the pyre, gives her jewels to the Brahmans, comforts her relatives, and bids farewell to her friends.

Afterwards she says: "That I may enjoy the happiness of heaven with my husband and purify my ancestors and his I ascend the pyre in expiation of the sins of my husband, even though he has murdered a Brahman, torn asunder the bonds of grat.i.tude, or slain a friend. On you I call, ye eight protectors of the world (p. 160), as witnesses of this action, ye sun and moon, air, fire, earth, aether, and water. Be witnesses, my own soul and conscience, and thou, Yama, Day and Night, and Ushas, be ye witnesses, be witnesses! I follow the corpse of my husband to the burning pyre." Then the widow ascends the pile of wood, which must be kindled by her son or her nearest relation, embraces the corpse of her husband, with the words, I pray, adoration, and commits herself to the flames, crying Satya, Satya, Satya.[753]

In opposition to Buddhism, the chief point was not only to keep the hearts of the people true to the Brahmanic arrangement of life by the adoption and exaltation of the deities to which their religious feeling was directed; at the same time a counterpoise must be provided to the speculation and scepticism of the Buddhists; they must be met by an orthodox system of philosophy. The question was, whether the existence of the individual soul beside nature, on which the Sankhya doctrine no less than Buddha laid such stress, was incompatible with the idea of Brahman; whether death without regeneration, the highest good and supreme object of the Buddhists, could not be shown to be attainable by the fulfilment of the duties prescribed by the Brahmans, by Brahmanic speculation and meditation. These were the questions which a new system, the Yoga, sought to solve. The author of this is said by the Indians to be Yajnavalkya, whose life is placed in the fourth century B.C. The oldest form in which the principles of this new system are known to us does not go back beyond the year 300 B.C.[754] He attempts to fix the idea of the world-soul or Brahman more clearly than had been done in earlier theories. This soul is now regarded as present everywhere in the world, but also as existing for itself. In opposition to the Sankhya and the Buddhists the separate existences and souls of men could be now explained as something more than parts of Brahman; their individual existence must be conceded, and proof given that they were still parts of Brahman. This system therefore teaches us: whatever gives to each thing its leading characteristic or quality, that is the world-soul in it. But though this living world-soul is divided into all creatures and exists in all, it must nevertheless be one and therefore indivisible. In opposition to heterodox systems Brahmanic speculation was no longer bold enough to deny entirely the existence of matter, and to explain it as appearance or deception; on the contrary, it now borrows from the Sankya doctrine the dogma of the eternity of matter. Matter is no less eternal than the world-soul. It is true that it changes, but it is not destroyed; the destruction of matter is only a change, in which a new birth follows on apparent decay. It is allowed that the souls of men which proceed out of Brahman, "as sparks out of a piece of hot iron,"

exist independently; when one is worn out they perpetually provide themselves with a new body, a new garment, for the souls and the elements, _i.e._ nature, are real;[755] but since these souls proceed from the divinity they can go back to the world-soul.

In this we find an unmistakable attempt to harmonise the old Brahmanic system with the axioms of the Buddhist theory, the Buddhist principles of the permanent existence of the soul with the theory of the world-soul. The essential question was a practical one; how this new theory of the Brahmans would bring about the liberation from regeneration, which Buddha realised in the last instance by the extinction of the ground of existence in the soul, of desire. Like the Buddhists it a.s.sumed the eternal change, the restless revolution of birth and decay; it naturally maintained the old Brahmanic position that the soul is followed by its actions into another world; that by these the new births were fixed; what means did it provide for an escape from this revolution? Like the Buddhists it taught that only the knowledge of the true connection of things can lead to liberation. But the spirit furnished with immature instruments is as incapable of knowledge as an unclean mirror is incapable of reflecting forms. By subduing the senses, removing pa.s.sions, avoiding love or hate, by purifying the mind, the instruments of knowledge must be sharpened. As the soul is infected with matter, the requirements of nature must be satisfied with moderation; as man is in the world, he must fulfil the duties which fall to every man in the order of the world. He must act, but in such a manner as if he were not acting; he must be indifferent to the results of the action, and acquire freedom from doubleness, _i.e._ from the prosperous or unfortunate result. Filled with darkness and pa.s.sion man is driven round like a wheel. Truth, which consists in "casting aside the net of folly,"

liberates men, and the net is cast aside by distinguis.h.i.+ng between the cognitive faculty and nature or change.[756] As the aether, though isolated in various jars, is still one, so is the spirit at the same time one and many, just as the sun is reflected in various ma.s.ses of water.[757] The being who dwells like a lamp in the heart has beams innumerable; from this one darts upward, piercing the sun's disk, to the world of Brahman. With eyes closed in repose, with veiled face avoiding every charm of the senses, holding in check his appet.i.tes, on a scale neither too high nor too low, let him who has brought to perfection the instruments of knowledge, and purified his spirit, who will find truth, hold his breath twice or thrice. Then let him think on the lord who is the lamp in his heart, and with all his heart keep his mind fixed on this. Meditation is brought about by the realisation of true being. The symbol of the perfection of meditation is the power to create and disappear, to leave one's own body and enter another. He whose spirit at the dissolution of his body is firmly fixed in the truth in regard to the lord, whose conviction remains unshaken, attains to the remembrance of his births, and he who leaves the body in complete meditation (_yoga_) becomes an inhabitant of Brahman's world; there is no return for him; he is never born again.[758]

Thus in the place of the annihilation of the body and consciousness required by the old system, in the place of the extinction of the _Ego_ by the annihilation of its basis taught by the Buddhists, the new speculation of the Brahmans puts the mystical union of the _Ego_ with the Supreme by meditation, by elevation and concentration of the spirit, when the path has been prepared for such union by retirement from the world, by the removal of the pa.s.sions, and conquest over the appet.i.tes.

The fruits of this act of union with the G.o.d-head are in the first instance the same supernatural powers which the Buddhists ascribed to the Arhat, the man "advanced in the path" (p. 472), and finally the freedom from regeneration, the highest object of all.

More important than the speculation which founded this new way to liberation were the practical consequences, the ethical rules which resulted from this theory of the Brahmans. It was now possible to identify Vishnu or civa with Brahman. If a certain att.i.tude of the soul, an inward deed, an act of the spirit, meditation, was the highest aim, the first place could no longer be ascribed to sacrifice, penance, and asceticism. The order of the world ascribed to the creator, the rights and duties of the castes, could not be altered in any way; the castes were still special emanations and forms of the Supreme. Even sacrifice is still to be offered, expiations and penances are to be observed. But their effects must not be over-estimated. The exclusive value ascribed to them, so the new theory maintains, is exaggerated, as is the reward which men promise themselves from such works.[759] In reality, the wise man ought only to perform them in order not to deceive the people. He must do the works by which the ancient sages attained perfection, and fulfil all ceremonies for the edification of men. The people would become corrupt if they performed no pious works, the castes would be mixed, creatures thrown into confusion.[760] Thus in reality the new system maintains works simply because the position of the Brahmans, the order of the castes, cannot be tampered with or overthrown. But at the same time asceticism is essentially softened, and an approach made to the milder Buddhist form of it. It is a proof of incomplete knowledge to starve oneself, pa.s.s into fire, or plunge into water.[761] No doubt the Dvija in his later years ought to go into the forest accompanied by his wife, or when he has left her in the charge of his sons, and there practise the prescribed exercises.[762] But the anchorite's life is not the cause of virtue, and those who seek salvation by gifts, sacrifice, and penances do indeed attain to the heaven of the fathers, but they return to this world.[763] If the Yoga, by ascribing this position to penance, approaches the doctrine of Buddha, the same is done in a still higher degree in the rules of its ethics. Here the new Brahmanic teaching is wholly in harmony with the Buddhists; it requires gentleness and kindness to all creatures, truthfulness, control of the appet.i.tes; it forbids theft and hatred: that is the sum of virtue. Nevertheless, the greatest concession made to Buddhism lies in the removal of the boundary which had been set up in regard to religion between the Dvija and the cudra. It is true that neither all the castes nor all men are permitted in the Yoga, as they are in Buddhism, to find salvation and liberation. But the cudras are no longer excluded as. .h.i.therto from the Veda and the wors.h.i.+p; they too may learn the Veda,[764] and in the Bhagavad-gita it is openly stated that even the cudra may attain the highest point.[765]

The principles of the new doctrine appeared so important to the circles of the Brahmans, to which they owed their origin and observance, that they attempted to obtain recognition for them among princes and people by a new book of the law. This book originated in Mithala (Tirhat), and like the Yoga bears the name of Yajnavalkya. Setting aside the wors.h.i.+p of the deities of the planets--star-wors.h.i.+p came into vogue after the sixth century B.C.--and the rules for asceticism, ethics, and the way of salvation, the new book is distinguished from the old by its compressed compendious form, and by the clearer composition of the separate rules.

Its regulations for trade and conduct are more detailed than in the book of Manu. If the latter mentions written stipulations, the new speaks of the preparation of doc.u.ments on metal plates. The modes of the divine judgments are increased,[766] and gambling-houses are permitted. All the rules for purity, expiations, and penance given in the older book are repeated with the restrictions given above, that they have beneficial results, but do not exclude regenerations, and that penance must not be carried to the point of self-annihilation. The duties of the monarchy are given accurately according to the old law; the arrangement of the castes and the ancient law of marriage are retained, with the advantages, privileges, and exemptions of the Brahmans. Some new subordinate and mixed castes are added. The opposition to the Buddhists is vigorously expressed, and mention is made of men with shorn heads and yellow garments.[767] The kings are required to erect buildings in the cities and put Brahmans in them to form societies for the study of the Veda; these the king is to support with the exhortation that they must fulfil their duties.[768] Hence it appears that the Brahmans considered it advisable to erect Brahmanic monasteries in opposition to the viharas of the Buddhists, and to support them at the cost of the state.

FOOTNOTES:

[718] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 4, 495 ff.

[719] "Mahabharata cantiparvan," in Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 263 ff.

[720] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 271 ff.

[721] W. von Humboldt, "Bhagavad-gita," s. 41, 57.

[722] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 153.

[723] Bhagavad-gita, 4, 7, 8.

[724] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 151 ff.

[725] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 156.

[726] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 172 ff.

[727] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 495 ff.

[728] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 165 ff.

[729] "Ramayana," ed. Schlegel, 1, 27.

[730] On the variations in the different recensions of the Ramayana in this narrative; see Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 444 ff.

[731] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 178 ff.

[732] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 243 ff.

[733] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 182.

[734] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 259.

[735] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 229.

[736] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 216.

[737] La.s.sen's view inclines also to the supposition that Krishna's deification belongs to the time after Buddha, "Ind. Alterth." 2^2, 822.

[738] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 184 ff.

[739] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 188 ff.

[740] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 205.

[741] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 203.

[742] Muir, _loc. cit._ 4, 191.

[743] La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 474.

[744] Rajendralala Mitra, "Antiq. of Orissa," p. 152. M. Muller, "Hist, of Anc. Sanskrit Lit." p. 46. The name of the Sinha princes, who ruled in Guzerat between 200 B.C. and 25 A.D. (La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 929); Rudrasinha, Rudrathaman, Icvaradatta, prove that the wors.h.i.+p of civa was in vogue in this region at the time mentioned. The coins of the Turushas exhibit civa and his bull, while others bear Buddha's name; La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 842, 843. The coins of the older Guptas exhibit Vishnu's bird Garuda, the G.o.ddess Lakshmi, Vishnu's female side, who is churned out of the sea of milk, Rama, and Sita, and civa's bull; La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 1111.

[745] Arrian, "Anab." 7, 3. Onesicr. fragm. 33, ed. Muller. Plut.

"Alex." c. 69.

[746] Cf. _infra_, p. 518. Curt. 8, 9. Plin. "Hist. Nat." 6, 19.

[747] La.s.sen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 467.

[748] Burnouf, "Introd." p. 158. La.s.sen, _loc, cit._ 2^2, 467.

[749] Aristobulus in Strabo, p. 714. _Supra_, p. 435.

[750] Nicol. Dam. Fragm. 143, ed. Muller.