The Religions of India Part 24

6-7; ii. 4. 3. 4 ff.; li. 5.2.34; 5. 1. 12; 5. 1. 1 ff.; RV.

viii. 104. 14. The reader must distinguish, in the name of Brahm[=a], the G.o.d from the priest, and this from _brahm[=a]_, prayer. The first step is _brahma_--force, power, prayer; then this is, as a masculine Brahm[=a], the one who prays, that is, prayer, the Brahman priest, as, in the Rig Veda, x. 141. 3. Brihaspati is the 'Brahm[=a] of G.o.ds.' The next (Brahmanic) step is deified _brahma_, the personal Brahm[=a] as G.o.d, called also Father-G.o.d (Praj[=a]pati) or simply The Father (_pit[=a]_).]

[Footnote 33: _cat. Br_. iii. 1. 2. 13 ff.; l. 1. 2. 18; iii. 6. 1. 8 ff.; ii. 5. 2. 1; iv. 2. 1. 11; iii. 4.4. 3 ff.; 2. 3. 6-12, 13-14; iv. 5. 5. 12; 1.3. 13 ff.; iii. 2.

4. 5-6; 3. 2. 8; 7. 1. 17; iv. 2. 5. 17; 4. 1. 15; i. 7. 4.

6-7; ii. 4. 3. 4 ff.; li. 5.2.34; 5. 1. 12; 5. 1. 1 ff.; RV.

viii. 104. 14. The reader must distinguish, in the name of Brahm[=a], the G.o.d from the priest, and this from _brahm[=a]_, prayer. The first step is _brahma_--force, power, prayer; then this is, as a masculine Brahm[=a], the one who prays, that is, prayer, the Brahman priest, as, in the Rig Veda, x. 141. 3. Brihaspati is the 'Brahm[=a] of G.o.ds.' The next (Brahmanic) step is deified _brahma_, the personal Brahm[=a] as G.o.d, called also Father-G.o.d (Praj[=a]pati) or simply The Father (_pit[=a]_).]

[Footnote 34: Compare _M[=a]it. S_ iii. 10. 2; _[=A]it.

Br_. ii. 8; _cat. Br_. i. 2. 3. 5; vi. 2. 1. 39; 3. 1. 24; ii. 5. 2. 16, a ram and ewe 'made of barley.' On human sacrifices, compare Muller, ASL. p. 419; Weber. ZDMG. xviii.

262 (see the Bibliography); _Streifen_, i.54.]

[Footnote 35: Weber has translated some of these legends.

_Ind. Streifen_, i. 9 ff.]

[Footnote 36: _T[=a]itt. Br_. iii. 2. 9. 7; _cat. Br_. i. 2.

5. 5; ii. 1. 2. 13 ff.; vii. 5. 1. 6.]

[Footnote 37: Compare _M[=a]it. S_. i. 9. 8; _cat. Br_. i.

6. 1. 1 ff. The seasons desert the G.o.ds, and the demons thrive. In _cat. Br._ i. 5. 4. 6-11, the Asuras and Indra contend with numbers.]

[Footnote 38: Muller, ASL. p. 529.]

[Footnote 39: _M[=a]it. S_. iv. 2. 12; _cat. Br_. i. 7. 4.

1; ii. 1. 2. 9; vi. 1. 3. 8; _[=A]it. Br_. iii. 33. Compare Muir, OST. iv. p. 45. At a later period there are frequently found indecent tales of the G.o.ds, and the Br[=a]hmanas themselves are vulgar enough, but they exhibit no special lubricity on the part of the priests.]

[Footnote 40: _Idam aham ya ev[=a] smi so asmi, cat. Br_. i.

1. 1. 6; 9. 3. 23.]

[Footnote 41: RV. viii. 51. 2; Zimmer, _loc. cit_. p. 328.]

[Footnote 42: Compare Weber, _Episch. in Vedisch. Ritual_, p. 777 (and above). The man who is slaughtered must be neither a priest nor a slave, but a warrior or a man of the third caste (Weber, _loc. cit_. above).]

[Footnote 43: _Le Mercier_, 1637, ap. Parkman, _loc. cit_.

p. 80. The current notion that the American Indian burns his victims at the stake merely for pleasure is not incorrect.

He frequently did so, as he does so to-day, but in the seventeenth century this act often is part of a religious ceremony. He probably would have burned his captive, anyway, but he gladly utilized his pleasure as a means of propitiating his G.o.ds. In India it was just the other way.]

[Footnote 44: Subst.i.tutes of metal or of earthen victims are also mentioned.]

[Footnote 45: That the Vedic rite of killing the sacrificial beast (by beating and smothering) was very cruel may be seen in the description, _[=A]it. Br_. ii. 6.]

[Footnote 46: _cat. Br._ i. 5. 2. 4.]

[Footnote 47: _Sams[=a]ra_ is transmigration; _karma_, 'act,' implies that the change of abode is conditioned by the acts of a former life. Each may exclude the other; but in common parlance each implies the other.]

[Footnote 48: Weber, _Indischt Streifen_, i. p. 72.]

[Footnote 49: _cat. Br_. i. 7. 3. 19: iii. 4. 1. 17.]

[Footnote 50: _caf. Br_. iii. 5. 4. 10; 6. 2. 24; 5. 3. 17 (compare 6. 4. 23-24; 3. 4. 11; 2. 1. 12); iii. 1. 2. 4; 3.

14; i. 7. 2. 9; vi. 1. 2. 14. The change of name is interesting. There is a remark in another part of the same work to the effect that when a man prospers in life they give his name also to his son, grandson, _and to his father and grandfather_ (vi. 1. 2. 13). On the other hand, it was the custom of the Indian kings in later ages to a.s.sume the names of their prosperous grandfathers (JRAS. iv. 85).]

[Footnote 51: Were it not for the first clause it would be more natural to render the original 'The G.o.ds are truth alone, and men are untruth.']

[Footnote 52: In _cat. Br_. ii. 4. 2. 5-6 it is said that the Father-G.o.d gives certain rules of eating to G.o.ds, Manes, men, and beasts: "Neither G.o.ds, Manes, nor beasts transgress the Father's law, only some men do."]

[Footnote 53: _cat. Br_. ii. 5. 2. 20. Varuna seizes on her paramour, when she confesses. _T[.a]itt. Br_. i. 6. 5. 2.

The guilt confessed becomes less "because it thereby becomes truth" (right).]

[Footnote 54: See _cat. Br._. ii. 4. 2. 6; 4. 1. 14; 1. 3.

9; 3. 1. 28: "Who knows man's morrow? Then let one not procrastinate." "Today is self, this alone is certain, uncertain is the morrow."]

[Footnote 55: Some little rules are interesting. The Pythagorean abstinence from _m[=a][s.][=a]s_, beans, for instance, is enjoined; though this rule is opposed by Barku V[=a]rshna, _cat. Br_. i. 1. 1. 10, on the ground that no offering to the G.o.ds is made of beans; "hence he said 'cook beans for me.'"]

[Footnote 56: Animals may represent G.o.ds. "The bull is a form of Indra," and so if the bull can be made to roar (_cat. Br._ ii. 5. 3. 18), then one may know that Indra is come to the sacrifice. "Man is born into (whatever) world is made (by his acts in a previous existence)," is a short formula (_cat. Br._. vi. 2. 2. 27), which represents the _karma_ doctrine in its essential principle, though the 'world' is here not this world, but the next. Compare Weber, ZDMG. ix. 237 ff.; Muir, OST. v. 314 ff.]

[Footnote 57: Though youth may be restored to him by the Acvins, _cat. Br._. iv. i. 5. 1 ff. Here the Hors.e.m.e.n are identified with Heaven and Earth (16).]

[Footnote 58: _Cal. Br_. ii. 3. 3. 7. Apropos of the Brahmanic sun it may be mentioned that, according to _Ait.

Br._ iii. 44, the sun never really sets. "People think that he sets, but in truth he only turns round after reaching the end of the day, and makes night below, day above; and when they think he rises in the morning, he having come to the end of the night, turns round, and makes day below, night above. He never really sets. Whoever knows this of him, that he never sets, obtains union and likeness of form with the sun, and the same abode as the sun's." Compare Muir, OST. v.

521. This may be the real reason why the Rig Veda speaks of a dark and light sun.]

[Footnote 59: _cat. Br._. i. 4. 3. 11-22 ('The sinner shall suffer and go quickly to yonder world'); xi. 6. 1 (compare Weber, _loc. cit._ p. 20 ff.; ZDMG. ix. 237), the Bhrigu story, of which a more modern form is found in the Upanishad period. For the course of the sun, the fires on either side of the way, the departure to heaven 'with the whole body,'

compare _cat. Br._ i. 9. 3. 2-15; iv. 5. 1. 1; vi. 6. 2. 4; xi. 2. 7. 33; Weber, _loc. cit._: Muir, _loc. cit._ v. p.

314. Not to have all one's bones in the next world is a disgrace, as Muir says, and for that reason they are collected at burial. Compare the custom as described by the French missionaries here. The American Indian has to have all his bones for future use, and the burying of the skeleton is an annual religious ceremony.]

[Footnote 60: Compare RV. iv. 28. 4: 'Thou Indra madest lowest the heathen.' Weber has shown, _loc. cit._, that the general notion of the Br[=a]hmanas is that all are born again in the next world, where they are rewarded or punished according as they are good or bad; whereas in the Rig Veda the good rejoice in heaven, and the bad are annihilated.

This general view is to be modified, however, by such side-theories as those just mentioned, that the good (or wise) may be reborn on earth, or be united with G.o.ds, or become sunlight or stars (the latter are 'watery' to the Hindu, and this may explain the statement that the soul is 'in the midst of waters').]

[Footnote 61: There is in this age no notion of the repeated creations found in later literature. On the contrary, it is expressly said in the Rig Veda, vi. 48. 22, that heaven and earth are created but once: "Only once was heaven created, only once was earth created," Zimmer, AIL. 408.]

[Footnote 62: When the principle of life is explained it is in terms of sun or fire. Thus Praj[=a]pati, Lord of beings, or Father-G.o.d, is first an epithet of Savitar, RV. iv. 53.

2; and the golden germ must be fire.]

[Footnote 63: Schoolcraft, _Historical and Statistical Information_, i. 32. As examples of the many pa.s.sages where 'water is the beginning' may be cited _cat. Br._ vi. 7. 1.

17; xi. 1. 6. 1. The sun, born as Aditi's eighth son, is the bird, 'egg-born,' RV. x. 72. 8.]

[Footnote 64: Among the new curators of Atharvan origin are, for instance, the sun under the name of Rohita, Desire (Love), etc., etc.]

[Footnote 65: Ill.u.s.trations of these contradictions may be found in plenty _apud_ Muir iv. p. 20 ff.]

[Footnote 66: Nirukta, vii. 4; Muir, _loc. cit._ p. 131 and v. 17.]

[Footnote 67: _Neu-und Vollmonds Opfer_, 1880. The _D[=i]ksh[=a]_, or initiation, has been described by Lindner; the _R[=a]jas[=u]ya_ and _Vaj.a.peya_, by Weber.]

[Footnote 68: The water-sickness already imputed to this G.o.d in the Rig Veda. This tale and that of Bhrigu (referred to above) show an ancient trait in the position of Varuna, as chief G.o.d.]

[Footnote 69: This is the germ of the pilgrimage doctrine (see below).]

[Footnote 70: Perhaps (M. ix. 301) interpolated; or the first allusion to the Four Ages.]