India: What can it teach us? Part 22

Distinct from the wors.h.i.+p offered to these primitive ancestors, is the reverence which from an early time was felt to be due by children to their departed father, soon also to their grandfather, and great-grandfather. The ceremonies in which these more personal feelings found expression were of a more domestic character, and allowed therefore of greater local variety.

It would be quite impossible to give here even an abstract only of the minute regulations which have been preserved to us in the Brahma_n_as, the _S_rauta, G_ri_hya, and Samaya_k_arika Sutras, the Law-books, and a ma.s.s of later manuals on the performance of endless rites, all intended to honor the Departed. Such are the minute prescriptions as to times and seasons, as to altars and offerings, as to the number and shape of the sacrificial vessels, as to the proper postures of the sacrificers, and the different arrangements of the vessels, that it is extremely difficult to catch hold of what we really care for, namely, the thoughts and intentions of those who first devised all these intricacies. Much has been written on this cla.s.s of sacrifices by European scholars also, beginning with Colebrooke's excellent essays on "The Religious Ceremonies of the Hindus," first published in the "Asiatic Researches," vol. v. Calcutta, 1798. But when we ask the simple question, What was the thought from whence all this outward ceremonial sprang, and what was the natural craving of the human heart which it seemed to satisfy, we hardly get an intelligible answer anywhere. It is true that _S_raddhas continue to be performed all over India to the present day, but we know how widely the modern ceremonial has diverged from the rules laid down in the old _S_astras, and it is quite clear from the descriptions given to us by recent travellers that no one can understand the purport even of these survivals of the old ceremonial, unless he understands Sanskrit and can read the old Sutras. We are indeed told in full detail how the cakes were made which the Spirits wore supposed to eat, how many stalks of gra.s.s were to be used on which they had to be offered, how long each stalk ought to be, and in what direction it should be held. All the things which teach us nothing are explained to us in abundance, but the few things which the true scholar really cares for are pa.s.sed over, as if they had no interest to us at all, and have to be discovered under heaps of rubbish.

In order to gain a little light, I think we ought to distinguish between--

1. The daily ancestral sacrifice, the Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, as one of the five Great Sacrifices (Mahaya_gn_as);

2. The monthly ancestral sacrifice, the Pi_nd_a-pit_ri_-ya_gn_a, as part of the New and Full-moon sacrifice;

3. The funeral ceremonies on the death of a householder;

4. The Agapes, or feasts of love and charity, commonly called _S_raddhas, at which food and other charitable gifts were bestowed on deserving persons in memory of the deceased ancestors. The name of _S_raddha belongs properly to this last cla.s.s only, but it has been transferred to the second and third cla.s.s of sacrifices also, because _S_raddha formed an important part in them.

The daily Pit_ri_ya_gn_a or Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is one of the five sacrifices, sometimes called the Great Sacrifices,[293] which every married man ought to perform day by day. They are mentioned in the G_ri_hya-sutras (a_s_v. III. 1), as Devaya_gn_a, for the Devas, Bhutaya_gn_a, for animals, etc., Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, for the Fathers, Brahmaya_gn_a, for Brahman, _i.e._ study of the Veda, and Ma.n.u.shyaya_gn_a, for men, _i.e._ hospitality, etc.

Manu (III. 70) tells us the same, namely, that a married man has five great religious duties to perform:

1. The Brahma-sacrifice, _i.e._ the studying and teaching of the Veda (sometimes called Ahuta).

2. The Pit_ri_-sacrifice, _i.e._ the offering of cakes and water to the Manes (sometimes called Pra_s_ita).

3. The Deva-sacrifice, _i.e._ the offering of oblations to the G.o.ds (sometimes called Huta).

4. The Bhuta-sacrifice, _i.e._ the giving of food to living creatures (sometimes called Prahuta).

5. The Ma.n.u.shya-sacrifice, _i.e._ the receiving of guests with hospitality (sometimes called Brahmya huta).[294]

The performance of this daily Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, seems to have been extremely simple. The householder had to put his sacred cord on the right shoulder, to say "Svadha to the Fathers," and to throw the remains of certain offerings toward the south.[295]

The human impulse to this sacrifice, if sacrifice it can be called, is clear enough. The five "great sacrifices" comprehended in early times the whole duty of man from day to day. They were connected with his daily meal.[296] When this meal was preparing, and before he could touch it himself, he was to offer something to the G.o.ds, a Vai_s_vadeva offering,[297] in which the chief deities were Agni, fire, Soma the Vi_s_ve Devas, Dhanvantari, the kind of aesculapius, Kuhu and Anumati (phases of the moon), Pra_g_apati, lord of creatures, Dyava-p_ri_thivi, Heaven and Earth, and Svish_t_ak_ri_t, the fire on the hearth.[298]

After having thus satisfied the G.o.ds in the four quarters, the householder had to throw some oblations into the open air, which were intended for animals, and in some cases for invisible beings, ghosts and such like. Then he was to remember the Departed, the Pit_ri_s, with some offerings; but even after having done this he was not yet to begin his own repast, unless he had also given something to strangers (at.i.this).

When all this had been fulfilled, and when, besides, the householder, as we should say, had said his daily prayers, or repeated what he had learned of the Veda, then and then only was he in harmony with the world that surrounded him, the five Great Sacrifices had been performed by him, and he was free from all the sins arising from a thoughtless and selfish life.

This Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, as one of the five daily sacrifices, is described in the Brahma_n_as, the G_ri_hya and Samaya_k_arika Sutras, and, of course, in the legal Sa_m_hitas. Rajendralal Mitra[299] informs us that "orthodox Brahmans to this day profess to observe all these five ceremonies, but that in reality only the offerings to the G.o.ds and manes are strictly observed, while the reading is completed by the repet.i.tion of the Gayatri only, and charity and feeding of animals are casual and uncertain."

Quite different from this simple daily ancestral offering is the Pit_ri_ya_gn_a or Pi_nd_a-pit_ri_ya_gn_a, which forms part of many of the statutable sacrifices, and, first of all, of the New and Full-moon sacrifice. Here again the human motive is intelligible enough. It was the contemplation of the regular course of nature, the discovery of order in the coming and going of the heavenly bodies, the growing confidence in some ruling power of the world which lifted man's thoughts from his daily work to higher regions, and filled his heart with a desire to approach these higher powers with praise, thanksgiving, and offerings. And it was at such moments as the waning of the moon that his thoughts would most naturally turn to those whose life had waned, whose bright faces were no longer visible on earth, his fathers or ancestors. Therefore at the very beginning of the New-moon sacrifice, we are told in the Brahma_n_as[300] and in the _S_rauta-sutras, that a Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, a sacrifice to the Fathers, has to be performed. A _K_aru or pie had to be prepared in the Daks.h.i.+_n_agni, the southern fire, and the offerings, consisting of water and round cakes (pi_nd_as), were specially dedicated to father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, while the wife of the sacrificer, if she wished for a son, was allowed to eat one of the cakes.[301]

Similar ancestral offerings took place during other sacrifices too, of which the New and Full-moon sacrifices form the general type.

It may be quite true that these two kinds of ancestral sacrifices have the same object and share the same name, but their character is different; and if, as has often been the case, they are mixed up together, we lose the most important lessons which a study of the ancient ceremonial should teach us. I cannot describe the difference between these two Pit_ri_ya_gn_as more decisively than by pointing out that the former was performed by the father of a family, or, if we may say so, by a layman, the latter by a regular priest, or a cla.s.s of priests, selected by the sacrificer to act in his behalf. As the Hindus themselves would put it, the former is a g_ri_hya, a domestic, the latter a _s_rauta, a priestly ceremony.[302]

We now come to a third cla.s.s of ceremonies which are likewise domestic and personal, but which differ from the two preceding ceremonies by their occasional character, I mean the funeral, as distinct from the ancestral ceremonies. In one respect these funeral ceremonies may represent an earlier phase of wors.h.i.+p than the daily and monthly ancestral sacrifices. They lead up to them, and, as it were, prepare the departed for their future dignity as Pit_ri_s or Ancestors. On the other hand, the conception of Ancestors in general must have existed before any departed person could have been raised to that rank, and I therefore preferred to describe the ancestral sacrifices first.

Nor need I enter here very fully into the character of the special funeral ceremonies of India. I described them in a special paper, "On Sepulture and Sacrificial Customs in the Veda," nearly thirty years ago.[303] Their spirit is the same as that of the funeral ceremonies of Greeks, Romans, Slavonic, and Teutonic nations, and the coincidences between them all are often most surprising.

In Vedic times the people in India both burned and buried their dead, and they did this with a certain solemnity, and, after a time, according to fixed rules. Their ideas about the status of the departed, after their body had been burned and their ashes buried, varied considerably, but in the main they seem to have believed in a life to come, not very different from our life on earth, and in the power of the departed to confer blessings on their descendants. It soon therefore became the interest of the survivors to secure the favor of their departed friends by observances and offerings which, at first, were the spontaneous manifestation of human feelings, but which soon became traditional, technical, in fact, ritual.

On the day on which the corpse had been burned, the relatives (samanodakas) bathed and poured out a handful of water to the deceased, p.r.o.nouncing his name and that of his family.[304] At sunset they returned home, and, as was but natural, they were told to cook nothing during the first night, and to observe certain rules during the next day up to ten days, according to the character of the deceased. These were days of mourning, or, as they were afterward called, days of impurity, when the mourners withdrew from contact with the world, and shrank by a natural impulse from the ordinary occupations and pleasures of life.[305]

Then followed the collecting of the ashes on the 11th, 13th, or 15th day of the dark half of the moon. On returning from thence they bathed, and then offered what was called a _S_raddha to the departed.

This word _S_raddha, which meets us here for the first time, is full of interesting lessons, if only properly understood. First of all it should be noted that it is absent, not only from the hymns, but, so far as we know at present, even from the ancient Brahma_n_as. It seems therefore a word of a more modern origin. There is a pa.s.sage in apastamba's Dharma-sutras which betrays, on the part of the author, a consciousness of the more modern origin of the _S_raddhas:[306]

"Formerly men and G.o.ds lived together in this world. Then the G.o.ds in reward of their sacrifices went to heaven, but men were left behind. Those men who perform sacrifices in the same manner as the G.o.ds did, dwelt (after death) with the G.o.ds and Brahman in heaven. Now (seeing men left behind) Manu revealed this ceremony which is designated by the word _S_raddha."

_S_raddha has a.s.sumed many[307] meanings, and Manu,[308] for instance, uses it almost synonymously with pit_ri_ya_gn_a. But its original meaning seems to have been "that which is given with _s_raddha or faith," _i.e._ charity bestowed on deserving persons, and, more particularly, on Brahma_n_as. The gift was called _s_raddha, but the act itself also was called by the same name. The word is best explained by Naraya_n_a in his commentary on the G_ri_hya-sutras of a_s_valayana (IV. 7), "_S_raddha is that which is given in faith to Brahmans for the sake of the Fathers."[309]

Such charitable gifts flowed most naturally and abundantly at the time of a man's death, or whenever his memory was revived by happy or unhappy events in a family, and hence _S_raddha has become the general name for ever so many sacred acts commemorative of the departed. We hear of _S_raddhas not only at funerals, but at joyous events also, when presents were bestowed in the name of the family, and therefore in the name of the ancestors also, on all who had a right to that distinction.

It is a mistake therefore to look upon _S_raddhas simply as offerings of water or cakes to the Fathers. An offering to the Fathers was, no doubt, a symbolic part of each _S_raddha, but its more important character was charity bestowed in memory of the Fathers.

This, in time, gave rise to much abuse, like the alms bestowed on the Church during the Middle Ages. But in the beginning the motive was excellent. It was simply a wish to benefit others, arising from the conviction, felt more strongly in the presence of death than at any other time, that as we can carry nothing out of this world, we ought to do as much good as possible in the world with our worldly goods. At _S_raddhas the Brahma_n_as were said to represent the sacrificial fire into which the gifts should be thrown.[310] If we translate here Brahma_n_as by priests, we can easily understand why there should have been in later times so strong a feeling against _S_raddhas. But priest is a very bad rendering of Brahma_n_a. The Brahma_n_as were, socially and intellectually, a cla.s.s of men of high breeding. They were a recognized and, no doubt, a most essential element in the ancient society of India. As they lived for others, and were excluded from most of the lucrative pursuits of life, it was a social, and it soon became a religious duty, that they should be supported by the community at large. Great care was taken that the recipients of such bounty as was bestowed at _S_raddhas should be strangers, neither friends nor enemies, and in no way related to the family. Thus apastamba says:[311] "The food eaten (at a _S_raddha) by persons related to the giver is a gift offered to goblins. It reaches neither the Manes nor the G.o.ds." A man who tried to curry favor by bestowing _S_raddhika gifts, was called by an opprobrious name, a _S_raddha-mitra.[312]

Without denying therefore that in later times the system of _S_raddhas may have degenerated, I think we can perceive that it sprang from a pure source, and, what for our present purpose is even more important, from an intelligible source.

Let us now return to the pa.s.sage in the G_ri_hya-sutras of a_s_valayana, where we met for the first time with the name of _S_raddha.[313] It was the _S_raddha to be given for the sake of the Departed, after his ashes had been collected in an urn and buried. This _S_raddha is called ekoddish_t_a,[314] or, as we should say, personal. It was meant for one person only, not for the three ancestors, nor for all the ancestors. Its object was in fact to raise the departed to the rank of a Pit_ri_, and this had to be achieved by _S_raddha offerings continued during a whole year. This at least is the general, and, most likely, the original rule.

apastamba says that the _S_raddha for a deceased relative should be performed every day during the year, and that after that a monthly _S_raddha only should be performed or none at all, that is, no more personal _S_raddha,[315] because the departed shares henceforth in the regular Parva_n_a-_s_raddhas.[316] _S_ankhayana says the same,[317] namely that the personal _S_raddha lasts for a year, and that then "the Fourth"

is dropped, _i.e._ the great-grandfather was dropped, the grandfather became the great-grandfather, the father the grandfather, while the lately Departed occupied the father's place among the three princ.i.p.al Pit_ris_.[318] This was called the Sapi_nd_ikara_n_a, _i.e._ the elevating of the departed to the rank of an ancestor.

There are here, as elsewhere, many exceptions. Gobhila allows six months instead of a year, or even a Tripaksha,[319] _i.e._ three half-months; and lastly, any auspicious event (v_ri_ddhi) may become the occasion of the Sapi_nd_ikara_n_a.[320]

The full number of _S_raddhas necessary for the Sapi_nd_ana is sometimes given as sixteen, viz., the first, then one in each of the twelve months, then two semestral ones, and lastly the Sapi_nd_ana.

But here too much variety is allowed, though, if the Sapi_nd_ana takes place before the end of the year, the number of sixteen _S_raddhas has still to be made up.[321]

When the _S_raddha is offered on account of an auspicious event, such as a birth or a marriage, the fathers invoked are not the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, who are sometimes called a_s_rumukha, with tearful faces, but the ancestors before them, and they are called nandimukha, or joyful.[322]

Colebrooke,[323] to whom we owe an excellent description of what a _S_raddha is in modern times, took evidently the same view. "The first set of funeral ceremonies," he writes, "is adapted to effect, by means of oblations, the re-embodying of the soul of the deceased, after burning his corpse. The apparent scope of the second set is to raise his shade from this world, where it would else, according to the notions of the Hindus, continue to roam among demons and evil spirits, up to heaven, and then deify him, as it were, among the manes of departed ancestors. For this end, a _S_raddha should regularly be offered to the deceased on the day after the mourning expires; twelve other _S_raddhas _singly_ to the deceased in twelve successive months; similar obsequies at the end of the third fortnight, and also in the sixth month, and in the twelfth; and the oblation called Sapi_nd_ana on the first anniversary of his decease.[324] At this Sapi_nd_ana _S_raddha, which is the last of the ekoddish_t_a _s_raddhas, four funeral cakes are offered to the deceased and his three ancestors, that consecrated to the deceased being divided into three portions and mixed with the other three cakes. The portion retained is often offered to the deceased, and the act of union and fellows.h.i.+p becomes complete."[325]

When this system of _S_raddhas had once been started, it seems to have spread very rapidly. We soon hear of the monthly _S_raddha, not only in memory of one person lately deceased, but as part of the Pit_ri_ya_gn_a, and as obligatory, not only on householders (agnimat), but on other persons also, and, not only on the three upper castes, but even, without hymns, on _S_udras,[326] and as to be performed, not only on the day of New-Moon, but on other days also,[327] whenever there was an opportunity. Gobhila seems to look upon the Pi_nd_apit_ri_ya_gn_a, as itself a _S_raddha,[328] and the commentator holds that, even if there are no pi_nd_as or cakes, the Brahmans ought still to be fed. This _S_raddha, however, is distinguished from the other, the true _S_raddha, called Anvaharya, which follows it,[329]

and which is properly known by the name of Parva_n_a _S_raddha.

The same difficulties which confront us when we try to form a clear conception of the character of the various ancestral ceremonies, were felt by the Brahmans themselves, as may be seen from the long discussions in the commentary on the _S_raddha-kalpa[330] and from the abusive language used by _K_andrakanta Tarkalankara against Raghunandana. The question with them a.s.sumes the form of what is pradhana (primary) and what is anga (secondary) in these sacrifices, and the final result arrived at is that sometimes the offering of cakes is pradhana, as in the Pi_nd_apit_ri_ya_gn_a, sometimes the feeding of Brahmans only, as in the Nitya-_s_raddha, sometimes both, as in the Sapi_nd_ikara_n_a.

We may safely say, therefore, that not a day pa.s.sed in the life of the ancient people of India on which they were not reminded of their ancestors, both near and distant, and showed their respect for them, partly by symbolic offerings to the Manes, partly by charitable gifts to deserving persons, chiefly Brahmans. These offertories varied from the simplest, such as milk and fruits, to the costliest, such as gold and jewels. The feasts given to those who were invited to officiate or a.s.sist at a _S_raddha seem in some cases to have been very sumptuous,[331] and what is very important, the eating of meat, which in later times was strictly forbidden in many sects, must, when the Sutras were written, have been fully recognized at these feasts, even to the killing and eating of a cow.[332]

This shows that these _S_raddhas, though, possibly of later date than the Pit_ri_ya_gn_as, belong nevertheless to a very early phase of Indian life. And though much may have been changed in the outward form of these ancient ancestral sacrifices, their original solemn character has remained unchanged. Even at present, when the wors.h.i.+p of the ancient Devas is ridiculed by many who still take part in it, the wors.h.i.+p of the ancestors and the offering of _S_raddhas have maintained much of their old sacred character. They have sometimes been compared to the "communion" in the Christian Church, and it is certainly true that many natives speak of their funeral and ancestral ceremonies with a hushed voice and with real reverence. They alone seem still to impart to their life on earth a deeper significance and a higher prospect. I could go even a step further and express my belief, that the absence of such services for the dead and of ancestral commemorations is a real loss in our own religion. Almost every religion recognizes them as tokens of a loving memory offered to a father, to a mother, or even to a child, and though in many countries they may have proved a source of superst.i.tion, there runs through them all a deep well of living human faith that ought never to be allowed to perish. The early Christian Church had to sanction the ancient prayers for the Souls of the Departed, and in more southern countries the services on All Saints' and on All Souls' Day continue to satisfy a craving of the human heart which must be satisfied in every religion.[333] We, in the North, shrink from these open manifestations of grief, but our hearts know often a deeper bitterness; nay, there would seem to be a higher truth than we at first imagine in the belief of the ancients that the souls of our beloved ones leave us no rest, unless they are appeased by daily prayers, or, better still, by daily acts of goodness in remembrance of them.[334]

But there is still another Beyond that found expression in the ancient religion of India. Besides the Devas or G.o.ds, and besides the Pit_ri_s or Fathers, there was a third world, without which the ancient religion of India could not have become what we see it in the Veda. That third Beyond was what the poets of the Veda call the _R i_ t a, and which I believe meant originally no more than "the straight line." It is applied to the straight line of the sun in its daily course, to the straight line followed by day and night, to the straight line that regulates the seasons, to the straight line which, in spite of many momentary deviations, was discovered to run through the whole realm of nature. We call that _Ri_ta, that straight, direct, or right line, when we apply it in a more general sense, _the Law of Nature_; and when we apply it to the moral world, we try to express the same idea again by speaking of the _Moral Law_, the law on which our life is founded, the eternal Law of Right and Reason, or, it may be, "that which makes for righteousness" both within us and without.[335]

And thus, as a thoughtful look on nature led to the first perception of bright G.o.ds, and in the end of a G.o.d of light, as love of our parents was transfigured into piety and a belief in immortality, a recognition of the straight lines in the world without, and in the world within, was raised into the highest faith, a faith in a law that underlies everything, a law in which we may trust, whatever befall, a law which speaks within us with the divine voice of conscience, and tells us "this is _ri_ta," "this is right," "this is true," whatever the statutes of our ancestors, or even the voices of our bright G.o.ds, may say to the contrary.[336]

These three Beyonds are the three revelations of antiquity; and it is due almost entirely to the discovery of the Veda that we, in this nineteenth century of ours, have been allowed to watch again these early phases of thought and religion, which had pa.s.sed away long before the beginnings of other literatures.[337] In the Veda an ancient city has been laid bare before our eyes which, in the history of all other religions, is filled up with rubbish, and built over by new architects. Some of the earliest and most instructive scenes of our distant childhood have risen once more above the horizon of our memory which, until thirty or forty years ago, seemed to have vanished forever.

Only a few words more to indicate at least how this religious growth in India contained at the same time the germs of Indian philosophy.