A History of Sanskrit Literature Part 2

Thus the tenth book represents a definitely later stratum of composition in the Rigveda. Individual hymns in the earlier books have also been proved by various recognised criteria to be of later origin than others, and some advance has been made towards a.s.signing them to three or even five literary epochs. Research has, however, not yet arrived at any certain results as to the age of whole groups in the earlier books. For it must be borne in mind that posteriority of collection and incorporation does not necessarily prove a later date of composition.

Some hundreds of years must have been needed for all the hymns found in the Rigveda to come into being. There was also, doubtless, after the separation of the Indians from the Iranians, an intermediate period, though it was probably of no great length. In this transitional age must have been composed the more ancient poems which are lost, and in which the style of the earliest preserved hymns, already composed with much skill, was developed. The poets of the older part of the Rigveda themselves mention predecessors, in whose wise they sing, whose songs they desire to renew, and speak of ancestral hymns produced in days of yore. As far as linguistic evidence is concerned, it affords little help in discriminating periods within the Rigveda except with regard to the tenth book. For throughout the hymns, in spite of the number of authors, essentially the same language prevails. It is quite possible to distinguish differences of thought, style, and poetical ability, but hardly any differences of dialect. Nevertheless, patient and minute linguistic research, combined with the indications derived from arrangement, metre, and subject-matter, is beginning to yield evidence which may lead to the recognition of chronological strata in the older books of the Rigveda.

Though the aid of MSS. for this early period entirely fails, we yet happily possess for the Rigveda an abundant ma.s.s of various readings over 2000 years old. These are contained in the other Vedas, which are largely composed of hymns, stanzas, and lines borrowed from the Rigveda. The other Vedas are, in fact, for the criticism of the Rigveda, what ma.n.u.scripts are for other literary monuments. We are thus enabled to collate with the text of the Rigveda directly handed down, various readings considerably older than even the testimony of Yaska and of the Praticakhyas.

The comparison of the various readings supplied by the later Vedas leads to the conclusion that the text of the Rigveda existed, with comparatively few exceptions, in its present form, and not in a possibly different recension, at the time when the text of the Sama-veda, the oldest form of the Yajur-veda, and the Atharva-veda was const.i.tuted. The number of cases is infinitesimal in which the Rigveda shows a corruption from which the others are free. Thus it appears that the kernel of Vedic tradition, as represented by the Rigveda, has come down to us, with a high degree of fixity and remarkable care for verbal integrity, from a period which can hardly be less remote than 1000 B.C.

It is only natural that a sacred collection of poetry, historical in its origin, and the heritage of oral tradition before the other Vedas were composed and the details of the later ritual practice were fixed, should have continued to be preserved more accurately than texts formed mainly by borrowing from it hymns which were arbitrarily cut up into groups of verses or into single verses, solely in order to meet new liturgical needs. For those who removed verses of the Rigveda from their context and mixed them up with their own new creations would not feel bound to guard such verses from change as strictly as those who did nothing but continue to hand down, without any break, the ancient text in its connected form. The control of tradition would be wanting where quite a new tradition was being formed.

The criticism of the text of the Rigveda itself is concerned with two periods. The first is that in which it existed alone before the other Vedas came into being; the second is that in which it appears in the phonetically modified form called the Samhita text, due to the labours of grammatical editors. Being handed down in the older period exclusively by oral tradition, it was not preserved in quite authentic form down to the time of its final redaction. It did not entirely escape the fate suffered by all works which, coming down from remote antiquity, survive into an age of changed linguistic conditions. Though there are undeniable corruptions in detail belonging to the older period, the text maintained a remarkably high level of authenticity till such modifications as it had undergone reached their conclusion in the Samhita text. This text differs in hundreds of places from that of the composers of the hymns; but its actual words are nearly always the same as those used by the ancient seers. Thus there would be no uncertainty as to whether the right word, for instance, was sumnam or dyumnam. The difference lies almost entirely in the phonetic changes which the words have undergone according to the rules of Sandhi prevailing in the cla.s.sical language. Thus what was formerly p.r.o.nounced as tuam hi agne now appears as tvam hy agne. The modernisation of the text thereby produced is, however, only partial, and is often inconsistently applied. The euphonic combinations introduced in the Samhita text have interfered with the metre. Hence by reading according to the latter the older text can be restored. At the same time the Samhita text has preserved the smallest minutiae of detail most liable to corruption, and the slightest difference in the matter of accent and alternative forms, which might have been removed with the greatest ease. Such points furnish an additional proof that the extreme care with which the verbal integrity of the text was guarded goes back to the earlier period itself. Excepting single mistakes of tradition in the first, and those due to grammatical theories in the second period, the old text of the Rigveda thus shows itself to have been preserved from a very remote antiquity with marvellous accuracy even in the smallest details.

From the explanatory discussions of the Brahmanas in connection with the Rigveda, it results that the text of the latter must have been essentially fixed in their time, and that too in quite a special manner, more, for instance, than the prose formulas of the Yajurveda. For the catapatha Brahmana, while speaking of the possibility of varying some of these formulas, rejects the notion of changing the text of a certain Rigvedic verse, proposed by some teachers, as something not to be thought of. The Brahmanas further often mention the fact that such and such a hymn or liturgical group contains a particular number of verses. All such numerical statements appear to agree with the extant text of the Rigveda. On the other hand, transpositions and omissions of Rigvedic verses are to be found in the Brahmanas. These, however, are only connected with the ritual form of those verses, and in no way show that the text from which they were taken was different from ours.

The Sutras also contain altered forms of Rigvedic verses, but these are, as in the case of the Brahmanas, to be explained not from an older recension of the text, but from the necessity of adapting them to new ritual technicalities. On the other hand, they contain many statements which confirm our present text. Thus all that the Sutra of cankhayana says about the position occupied by verses in a hymn, or the total number of verses contained in groups of hymns, appears invariably to agree with our text.

We have yet to answer the question as to when the Samhita text, which finally fixed the canonical form of the Rigveda, was const.i.tuted. Now the Brahmanas contain a number of direct statements as to the number of syllables in a word or a group of words, which are at variance with the Samhita text owing to the vowel contractions made in the latter. Moreover, the old part of the Brahmana literature shows hardly any traces of speculations about phonetic questions connected with the Vedic text. The conclusion may therefore be drawn that the Samhita text did not come into existence till after the completion of the Brahmanas. With regard to the Aranyakas and Upanishads, which form supplements to the Brahmanas, the case is different. These works not only mention technical grammatical terms for certain groups of letters, but contain detailed doctrines about the phonetic treatment of the Vedic text. Here, too, occur for the first time the names of certain theological grammarians, headed by cakalya and Mandukeya, who are also recognised as authorities in the Praticakhyas. The Aranyakas and Upanishads accordingly form a transition, with reference to the treatment of grammatical questions, between the age of the Brahmanas and that of Yaska and the Praticakhyas. The Samhita text must have been created in this intermediate period, say about 600 B.C.

This work being completed, extraordinary precautions soon began to be taken to guard the canonical text thus fixed against the possibility of any change or loss. The result has been its preservation with a faithfulness unique in literary history. The first step taken in this direction was the const.i.tution of the Pada, or "word" text, which being an a.n.a.lysis of the Samhita, gives each separate word in its independent form, and thus to a considerable extent restores the Samhita text to an older stage. That the Pada text was not quite contemporaneous in origin with the other is shown by its containing some undoubted misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Its composition can, however, only be separated by a short interval from that of the Samhita, for it appears to have been known to the writer of the Aitareya Aranyaka, while its author, cakalya, is older than both Yaska, who quotes him, and caunaka, composer of the Rigveda Praticakhya, which is based on the Pada text.

The importance of the latter as a criterion of the authenticity of verses in the Rigveda is indicated by the following fact. There are six verses in the Rigveda [1] not a.n.a.lysed in the Pada text, but only given there over again in the Samhita form. This shows that cakalya did not acknowledge them as truly Rigvedic, a view justified by internal evidence. This group of six, which is doubtless exhaustive, stands midway between old additions which cakalya recognised as canonical, and the new appendages called Khilas, which never gained admission into the Pada text in any form.

A further measure for preserving the sacred text from alteration with still greater certainty was soon taken in the form of the Krama-patha, or "step-text." This is old, for it, like the Pada-patha, is already known to the author of the Aitareya Aranyaka. Here every word of the Pada text occurs twice, being connected both with that which precedes and that which follows. Thus the first four words, if represented by a, b, c, d, would be read as ab, bc, cd. The Jata-patha, or "woven-text,"

in its turn based on the Krama-patha, states each of its combinations three times, the second time in reversed order (ab, ba, ab; bc, cb, bc). The climax of complication is reached in the Ghana-patha, in which the order is ab, ba, abc, cba, abc; bc, cb, bcd, &c.

The Praticakhyas may also be regarded as safeguards of the text, having been composed for the purpose of exhibiting exactly all the changes necessary for turning the Pada into the Samhita text.

Finally, the cla.s.s of supplementary works called Anukramanis, or "Indices" aimed at preserving the Rigveda intact by registering its contents from various points of view, besides furnis.h.i.+ng calculations of the number of hymns, verses, words, and even syllables, contained in the sacred book.

The text of the Rigveda has come down to us in a single recension only; but is there any evidence that other recensions of it existed in former times?

The Charana-vyuha, or "Exposition of Schools," a supplementary work of the Sutra period, mentions as the five cakhas or "branches"

of the Rigveda, the cakalas, the Vashkalas, the Acvalayanas, the cankhayanas, and the Mandukeyas. The third and fourth of these schools, however, do not represent different recensions of the text, the sole distinction between them and the cakalas having been that the Acvalayanas recognised as canonical the group of the eleven Valakhilya or supplementary hymns, and the cankhayanas admitted the same group, diminished only by a few verses. Hence the tradition of the Puranas, or later legendary works, mentions only the three schools of cakalas, Vashkalas, and Mandukas. If the latter ever possessed a recension of an independent character, all traces of it were lost at an early period in ancient India, for no information of any kind about it has been preserved. Thus only the two schools of the cakalas and the Vashkalas come into consideration. The subsidiary Vedic writings contain sufficient evidence to show that the text of the Vashkalas differed from that of the cakalas only in admitting eight additional hymns, and in a.s.signing another position to a group of the first book. But in these respects it compares unfavourably with the extant text. Thus it is evident that the cakalas not only possessed the best tradition of the text of the Rigveda, but handed down the only recension, in the true sense, which, as far as we can tell, ever existed.

The text of the Rigveda, like that of the other Samhitas, as well as of two of the Brahmanas (the catapatha and the Taittiriya, together with its Aranyaka), has come down to us in an accented form. The peculiarly sacred character of the text rendered the accent very important for correct and efficacious recitation. a.n.a.logously the accent was marked by the Greeks in learned and model editions only. The nature of the Vedic accent was musical, depending on the pitch of the voice, like that of the ancient Greeks. This remained the character of the Sanskrit accent till later than the time of Panini. But just as the old Greek musical accent, after the beginning of our era, was transformed into a stress accent, so by the seventh century A.D. (and probably long before) the Sanskrit accent had undergone a similar change. While, however, in modern Greek the stress accent has remained, owing to the high pitch of the old acute, on the same syllable as bore the musical accent in the ancient language, the modern p.r.o.nunciation of Sanskrit has no connection with the Vedic accent, but is dependent on the quant.i.ty of the last two or three syllables, much the same as in Latin. Thus the penultimate, if long, is accented, e.g. Kalidasa, or the antepenultimate, if long and followed by a short syllable, e.g. brahmana or Himalaya ("abode of snow"). This change of accent in Sanskrit was brought about by the influence of Prakrit, in which, as there is evidence to show, the stress accent is very old, going back several centuries before the beginning of our era.

There are three accents in the Rigveda as well as the other sacred texts. The most important of these is the rising accent, called ud-atta ("raised"), which corresponds to the Greek acute. Comparative philology shows that in Sanskrit it rests on the same syllable as bore it in the proto-Aryan language. In Greek it is generally on the same syllable as in Sanskrit, except when interfered with by the specifically Greek law restricting the accent to one of the last three syllables. Thus the Greek hepta corresponds to the Vedic sapta, "seven." The low-pitch accent, which precedes the acute, is called the anudatta ("not raised"). The third is the falling accent, which usually follows the acute, and is called svarita ("sounded").

Of the four different systems of marking the accent in Vedic texts, that of the Rigveda is most commonly employed. Here the acute is not marked at all, while the low-pitch anudatta is indicated by a horizontal stroke below the syllable bearing it, and the svarita by a vertical stroke above. Thus yajnasya ("of sacrifice") would mean that the second syllable has the acute and the third the svarita (yajnasya). The reason why the acute is not marked is because it is regarded as the middle tone between the other two. [2]

The hymns of the Rigveda consist of stanzas ranging in number from three to fifty-eight, but usually not exceeding ten or twelve. These stanzas (often loosely called verses) are composed in some fifteen different metres, only seven of which, however, are at all frequent. Three of them are by far the commonest, claiming together about four-fifths of the total number of stanzas in the Rigveda.

There is an essential difference between Greek and Vedic prosody. Whereas the metrical unit of the former system is the foot, in the latter it is the line (or verse), feet not being distinguished. Curiously enough, however, the Vedic metrical unit is also called pada, or "foot," but for a very different reason; for the word has here really the figurative sense of "quarter"

(from the foot of a quadruped), Because the most usual kind of stanza has four lines. The ordinary padas consist of eight, eleven, or twelve syllables. A stanza or rich is generally formed of three or four lines of the same kind. Four or five of the rarer types of stanza are, however, made up of a combination of different lines.

It is to be noted that the Vedic metres have a certain elasticity to which we are unaccustomed in Greek prosody, and which recalls the irregularities of the Latin Saturnian verse. Only the rhythm of the last four or five syllables is determined, the first part of the line not being subject to rule. Regarded in their historical connection, the Vedic metres, which are the foundation of the entire prosody of the later literature, occupy a position midway between the system of the Indo-Iranian period and that of cla.s.sical Sanskrit. For the evidence of the Avesta, with its eight and eleven syllable lines, which ignore quant.i.ty, but are combined into stanzas otherwise the same as those of the Rigveda, indicates that the metrical practice of the period when Persians and Indians were still one people, depended on no other principle than the counting of syllables. In the Sanskrit period, on the other hand, the quant.i.ty of every syllable in the line was determined in all metres, with the sole exception of the loose measure (called cloka) employed in epic poetry. The metrical regulation of the line, starting from its end, thus finally extended to the whole. The fixed rhythm at the end of the Vedic line is called vritta, literally "turn" (from vrit, Lat. vert-ere), which corresponds etymologically to the Latin versus.

The eight-syllable line usually ends in two iambics, the first four syllables, though not exactly determined, having a tendency to be iambic also. This verse is therefore the almost exact equivalent of the Greek iambic dimeter.

Three of these lines combine to form the gayatri metre, in which nearly one-fourth (2450) of the total number of stanzas in the Rigveda is composed. An example of it is the first stanza of the Rigveda, which runs as follows:--

Agnim ile purohitam Yajnasya devam ritvijam Hotaram ratnadhatamam.

It may be closely rendered thus in lines imitating the rhythm of the original:--

I praise Agni, domestic priest, G.o.d, minister of sacrifice, Herald, most prodigal of wealth.

Four of these eight-syllable lines combine to form the a.n.u.shtubh stanza, in which the first two and the last two are more closely connected. In the Rigveda the number of stanzas in this measure amounts to only about one-third of those in the gayatri. This relation is gradually reversed, till we reach the post-Vedic period, when the gayatri is found to have disappeared, and the a.n.u.shtubh (now generally called cloka) to have become the predominant measure of Sanskrit poetry. A development in the character of this metre may be observed within the Rigveda itself. All its verses in the oldest hymns are the same, being iambic in rhythm. In later hymns, however, a tendency to differentiate the first and third from the second and fourth lines, by making the former non-iambic, begins to show itself. Finally, in the latest hymns of the tenth book the prevalence of the iambic rhythm disappears in the odd lines. Here every possible combination of quant.i.ty in the last four syllables is found, but the commonest variation, nearly equalling the iambic in frequency, is [short][long][long][shortlong]. The latter is the regular ending of the first and third line in the post-Vedic cloka.

The twelve-syllable line ends thus: [long][short][long][short][short].

Four of these together form the jagati stanza. The trishtubh stanza consists of four lines of eleven syllables, which are practically catalectic jagatis, as they end [long][short][long][shortlong]. These two verses being so closely allied and having the same cadence, are often found mixed in the same stanza. The trishtubh is by far the commonest metre, about two-fifths of the Rigveda being composed in it.

Speaking generally, a hymn of the Rigveda consists entirely of stanzas in the same metre. The regular and typical deviation from this rule is to conclude a hymn with a single stanza in a metre different from that of the rest, this being a natural method of distinctly marking its close.

A certain number of hymns of the Rigveda consist not merely of a succession of single stanzas, but of equal groups of stanzas. The group consists either of three stanzas in the same simple metre, generally gayatri, or of the combination of two stanzas in different mixed metres. The latter strophic type goes by the name of Pragatha, and is found chiefly in the eighth book of the Rigveda.

CHAPTER IV

POETRY OF THE RIGVEDA

Before we turn to describe the world of thought revealed in the hymns of the Rigveda, the question may naturally be asked, to what extent is it possible to understand the true meaning of a book occupying so isolated a position in the remotest age of Indian literature? The answer to this question depends on the recognition of the right method of interpretation applicable to that ancient body of poetry. When the Rigveda first became known, European scholars, as yet only acquainted with the language and literature of cla.s.sical Sanskrit, found that the Vedic hymns were composed in an ancient dialect and embodied a world of ideas far removed from that with which they had made themselves familiar. The interpretation of these hymns was therefore at the outset barred by almost insurmountable difficulties. Fortunately, however, a voluminous commentary on the Rigveda, which explains or paraphrases every word of its hymns, was found to exist. This was the work of the great Vedic scholar Sayana, who lived in the latter half of the fourteenth century A.D. at Vijayanagara ("City of Victory"), the ruins of which lie near Bellary in Southern India. As his commentary constantly referred to ancient authorities, it was thought to have preserved the true meaning of the Rigveda in a traditional interpretation going back to the most ancient times. Nothing further seemed to be necessary than to ascertain the explanation of the original text which prevailed in India five centuries ago, and is laid down in Sayana's work. This view is represented by the translation of the Rigveda begun in 1850 by H. H. Wilson, the first professor of Sanskrit at Oxford.

Another line was taken by the late Professor Roth, the founder of Vedic philology. This great scholar propounded the view that the aim of Vedic interpretation was not to ascertain the meaning which Sayana, or even Yaska, who lived eighteen centuries earlier, attributed to the Vedic hymns, but the meaning which the ancient poets themselves intended. Such an end could not be attained by simply following the lead of the commentators. For the latter, though valuable guides towards the understanding of the later theological and ritual literature, with the notions and practice of which they were familiar, showed no continuity of tradition from the time of the poets; for the tradition supplied by them was solely that which was handed down among interpreters, and only began when the meaning of the hymns was no longer fully comprehended. There could, in fact, be no other tradition; interpretation only arising when the hymns had become obscure. The commentators, therefore, simply preserved attempts at the solution of difficulties, while showing a distinct tendency towards misinterpreting the language as well as the religious, mythological, and cosmical ideas of a vanished age by the scholastic notions prevalent in their own.

It is clear from what Yaska says that some important discrepancies in opinion prevailed among the older expositors and the different schools of interpretation which flourished before his time. He gives the names of no fewer than seventeen predecessors, whose explanations of the Veda are often conflicting. Thus one of them interprets the word Nasatyau, an epithet of the Vedic Dioskouroi, as "true, not false;"

another takes it to mean "leaders of truth," while Yaska himself thinks it might mean "nose-born"! The gap between the poets and the early interpreters was indeed so great that one of Yaska's predecessors, named Kautsa, actually had the audacity to a.s.sert that the science of Vedic exposition was useless, as the Vedic hymns and formulas were obscure, unmeaning, or mutually contradictory. Such criticisms Yaska meets by replying that it was not the fault of the rafter if the blind man did not see it. Yaska himself interprets only a very small portion of the hymns of the Rigveda. In what he does attempt to explain, he largely depends on etymological considerations for the sense he a.s.signs. He often gives two or more alternative or optional senses to the same word. The fact that he offers a choice of meanings shows that he had no earlier authority for his guide, and that his renderings are simply conjectural; for no one can suppose that the authors of the hymns had more than one meaning in their minds.

It is, however, highly probable that Yaska, with all the appliances at his command, was able to ascertain the sense of many words which scholars who, like Sayana, lived nearly two thousand years later, had no means of discovering. Nevertheless Sayana is sometimes found to depart from Yaska. Thus we arrive at the dilemma that either the old interpreter is wrong or the later one does not follow the tradition. There are also many instances in which Sayana, independently of Yaska, gives a variety of inconsistent explanations of a word, both in interpreting a single pa.s.sage or in commenting on different pa.s.sages. Thus carada, "autumnal," he explains in one place as "fortified for a year," in another as "new or fortified for a year,"

and in a third as "belonging to a demon called carad." One of the defects of Sayana is, in fact, that he limits his view in most cases to the single verse he has before him. A detailed examination of his explanations, as well as those of Yaska, has shown that there is in the Rigveda a large number of the most difficult words, about the proper sense of which neither scholar had any certain information from either tradition or etymology. We are therefore justified in saying about them that there is in the hymns no unusual or difficult word or obscure text in regard to which the authority of the commentators should be received as final, unless it is supported by probability, by the context, or by parallel pa.s.sages. Thus no translation of the Rigveda based exclusively on Sayana's commentary can possibly be satisfactory. It would, in fact, be as unreasonable to take him for our sole guide as to make our understanding of the Hebrew books of the Old Testament dependent on the Talmud and the Rabbis. It must, indeed, be admitted that from a large proportion of Sayana's interpretations most material help can be derived, and that he has been of the greatest service in facilitating and accelerating the comprehension of the Veda. But there is little information of value to be derived from him, that, with our knowledge of later Sanskrit, with the other remains of ancient Indian literature, and with our various philological appliances, we might not sooner or later have found out for ourselves.

Roth, then, rejected the commentators as our chief guides in interpreting the Rigveda, which, as the earliest literary monument of the Indian, and indeed of the Aryan race, stands quite by itself, high up on an isolated peak of remote antiquity. As regards its more peculiar and difficult portions, it must therefore be interpreted mainly through itself; or, to apply in another sense the words of an Indian commentator, it must s.h.i.+ne by its own light and be self-demonstrating. Roth further expressed the view that a qualified European is better able to arrive at the true meaning of the Rigveda than a Brahman interpreter. The judgment of the former is unfettered by theological bias; he possesses the historical faculty, and he has also a far wider intellectual horizon, equipped as he is with all the resources of scientific scholars.h.i.+p. Roth therefore set himself to compare carefully all pa.s.sages parallel in form and matter, with due regard to considerations of context, grammar, and etymology, while consulting, though, perhaps, with insufficient attention, the traditional interpretations. He thus subjected the Rigveda to a historical treatment within the range of Sanskrit itself. He further called in the a.s.sistance rendered from without by the comparative method, utilising the help afforded not only by the Avesta, which is so closely allied to the Rigveda in language and matter, but also by the results of comparative philology, resources unknown to the traditional scholar.

By thus ascertaining the meaning of single words, the foundations of the scientific interpretation of the Vedas were laid in the great Sanskrit Dictionary, in seven volumes, published by Roth in collaboration with Bohtlingk between 1852 and 1875. Roth's method is now accepted by every scientific student of the Veda. Native tradition is, however, being more fully exploited than was done by Roth himself, for it is now more clearly recognised that no aid to be derived from extant Indian scholars.h.i.+p ought to be neglected. Under the guidance of such principles the progress already made in solving many important problems presented by Vedic literature has been surprising, when we consider the shortness of the time and the fewness of the labourers, of whom only two or three have been natives of this country. As a general result, the historical sense has succeeded in grasping the spirit of Indian antiquity, long obscured by native misinterpretation. Much, of course, still remains to be done by future generations of scholars, especially in detailed and minute investigation. This could not be otherwise when we remember that Vedic research is only the product of the last fifty years, and that, notwithstanding the labours of very numerous Hebrew scholars during several centuries, there are, in the Psalms and the Prophetic Books of the Old Testament, still many pa.s.sages which remain obscure and disputed. There can be no doubt that many problems at present insoluble will in the end be solved by that modern scholars.h.i.+p which has already deciphered the cuneiform writings of Persia as well as the rock inscriptions of India, and has discovered the languages which lay hidden under these mysterious characters.

Having thus arrived at the threshold of the world of Vedic thought, we may now enter through the portals opened by the golden key of scholars.h.i.+p. By far the greater part of the poetry of the Rigveda consists of religious lyrics, only the tenth book containing some secular poems. Its hymns are mainly addressed to the various G.o.ds of the Vedic pantheon, praising their mighty deeds, their greatness, and their beneficence, or beseeching them for wealth in cattle, numerous offspring, prosperity, long life, and victory. The Rigveda is not a collection of primitive popular poetry, as it was apt to be described at an earlier period of Sanskrit studies. It is rather a body of skilfully composed hymns, produced by a sacerdotal cla.s.s and meant to accompany the Soma oblation and the fire sacrifice of melted b.u.t.ter, which were offered according to a ritual by no means so simple as was at one time supposed, though undoubtedly much simpler than the elaborate system of the Brahmana period. Its poetry is consequently marred by frequent references to the sacrifice, especially when the two great ritual deities, Agni and Soma, are the objects of praise. At the same time it is on the whole much more natural than might under these conditions be expected. For the G.o.ds who are invoked are nearly all personifications of the phenomena of Nature, and thus give occasion for the employment of much beautiful and even n.o.ble imagery. The diction of the hymns is, generally speaking, simple and unaffected. Compound words are sparingly used, and are limited to two members, in marked contrast with the frequency and length of compounds in cla.s.sical Sanskrit. The thought, too, is usually artless and direct, except in the hymns to the ritual deities, where it becomes involved in conceit and mystical obscurity. The very limited nature of the theme, in these cases, must have forced the minds of the priestly singers to strive after variety by giving utterance to the same idea in enigmatical phraseology.

Here, then, we already find the beginnings of that fondness for subtlety and difficult modes of expression which is so prevalent in the later literature, and which is betrayed even in the earlier period by the saying in one of the Brahmanas that the G.o.ds love the recondite. In some hymns, too, there appears that tendency to play with words which was carried to inordinate lengths in late Sanskrit poems and romances. The hymns of the Rigveda, of course, vary much in literary merit, as is naturally to be expected in the productions of many poets extending over some centuries. Many display a high order of poetical excellence, while others consist of commonplace and mechanical verse. The degree of skill in composition is on the average remarkably high, especially when we consider that here we have by far the oldest poetry of the Aryan race. The art which these early seers feel is needed to produce a hymn acceptable to the G.o.ds is often alluded to, generally in the closing stanza. The poet usually compares his work to a car wrought and put together by a deft craftsman. One Ris.h.i.+ also likens his prayers to fair and well-woven garments; another speaks of having adorned his song of praise like a bride for her lover. Poets laud the G.o.ds according to knowledge and ability (vi. 21, 6), and give utterance to the emotions of their hearts (x. 39, 15). Various individual G.o.ds are, it is true, in a general way said to have granted seers the gift of song, but of the later doctrine of revelation the Rigvedic poets know nothing.

The remark which has often been made that monotony prevails in the Vedic hymns contains truth. But the impression is produced by the hymns to the same deity being commonly grouped together in each book. A similar effect would probably arise from reading in succession twenty or thirty lyrics on Spring, even in an anthology of the best modern poetry. When we consider that nearly five hundred hymns of the Rigveda are addressed to two deities alone, it is surprising that so many variations of the same theme should be possible.