Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume I Part 27

[Footnote 118: He appears to have been defeated in these regions by the Chinese general Pan-Chao about 90 A.D. but to have been more successful about fifteen years later.]

[Footnote 119: Or Hephthalites. The original name seems to have been something like Haptal.]

[Footnote 120: Strabo XV. 4. 73.]

[Footnote 121: _Hist. Nat_. VI. 23. (26).]

[Footnote 122: For authorities see Vincent Smith, _Early History of India_, 1908, p. 401.]

[Footnote 123: The inscriptions of Asoka mention four kingdoms, Pandya, Keralaputra, Cola and Satiyaputra.]

[Footnote 124: Hinduism is often used as a name for the mediaeval and modern religion of India, and Brahmanism for the older pre-Buddhist religion. But one word is needed as a general designation for Indian religion and Hinduism seems the better of the two for this purpose.]

[Footnote 125: Excluding Burma the last Census gives over 300,000. These are partly inhabitants of frontier districts, which are Indian only in the political sense, and partly foreigners residing in India.]

[Footnote 126: Only tradition preserves the memory of an older and freer system, when warriors like Visvamitra were able by their religious austerities to become Brahmans. See Muir's _Sanskrit texts_, vol. I. pp.

296-479 on the early contests between Warriors and Brahmans. We hear of Kings like Janaka of Videha and Ajatasatru of Kasi who were admitted to be more learned than Brahmans but also of Kings like Vena and Nahusha who withstood the priesthood "and perished through want of submissiveness." The legend of Parasurama, an incarnation of Vishnu as a Brahman who destroyed the Kshatriya race, must surely have some historical foundation, though no other evidence is forthcoming of the events which it relates.]

[Footnote 127: In southern India and in a.s.sam the superiors of monasteries sometimes exercise a quasi-episcopal authority.]

[Footnote 128: Sat. Brahm. v. 3. 3. 12 and v. 4. 2. 3.]

[Footnote 129: The Marka??eya Pura?a discusses the question how K?ish?a could become a man.]

[Footnote 130: See for instance _The Holy Lives of the Azhvars_ by Alkondavilli Govindacarya. Mysore, 1902, pp. 215-216. "The Dravida Vedas have thus as high a sanction and authority as the Girvana (i.e.

Sanskrit) Vedas."]

[Footnote 131: I am inclined to believe that the Lingayat doctrine really is that Lingayats dying in the true faith do not transmigrate any more.]

[Footnote 132: E.g. Brih.-ar. III. 2. 13 and IV. 4. 2-6.]

[Footnote 133: This is the accepted translation of _dukkha_ but perhaps it is too strong, and _uneasiness_, though inconvenient for literary reasons, gives the meaning better.]

[Footnote 134: The old Scandinavian literature with its G.o.ds who must die is equally full of this sense of impermanence, but the Viking temperament bade a man fight and face his fate.]

[Footnote 135: But see Rabindrannath Tagore: Sadhana, especially the Chapter on Realization.]

[Footnote 136: Cf. Sh.e.l.ley's lines in h.e.l.las:-

"Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away."]

[Footnote 137: Nevertheless _deva_ is sometimes used in the Upanishads as a designation of the supreme spirit.]

[Footnote 138: E.g. Brih.-ar. Up. IV. 3. 33 and the parallel pa.s.sages in the Taittiriya and other Upanishads.]

[Footnote 139: The princ.i.p.al one is the date of Asoka, deducible from an inscription in which he names contemporary Seleucid monarchs.]

[Footnote 140: _E.g._ a learned Brahman is often described in the Sutta Pitaka as "a repeater (of the sacred words) knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who had mastered the three Vedas, with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, the exegesis and the legends as a fifth."]

[Footnote 141: There had been time for misunderstandings to arise. Thus the S^{.}atapatha Brahmana sees in the well-known verse "who is the G.o.d to whom we shall offer our sacrifices" an address to a deity named Ka (Sanskrit for _who_) and it would seem that an old word, _uloka_, has been separated in several pa.s.sages into two words, _u_ (a meaningless particle) and _loka_.]

[Footnote 142: Recent scholars are disposed to fix the appearance of Zoroaster between the middle of the seventh century and the earlier half of the sixth century B.C. But this date offers many difficulties. It makes it hard to explain the resemblances between the Gathas and the Rig Veda and how is it that respectable cla.s.sical authorities of the fourth century B.C. quoted by Pliny attribute a high antiquity to Zoroaster?]

[Footnote 143: This applies chiefly to the three Samhitas or collections of hymns and prayers. On the other hand there was no feeling against the composition of new Upanishads or the interpolation and amplification of the Epics.]

[Footnote 144: The Hotri recites prayers while other priests perform the act of sacrifice. But there are several poems in the Rig Veda for which even Indian ingenuity has not been able to find a liturgical use.]

[Footnote 145: Thus the Pali Pitakas speak of the Tevijja or threefold knowledge of the Brahmans.]

[Footnote 146: Or it may be that the ancestors of the Persians were also in the Panjab and retired westwards.]

[Footnote 147: R.V. v. 3. 1.]

[Footnote 148: See the Ga?esatharvasirsha Upan. and Gopinatha Rao.

_Hindu Iconography_, vol. I. pp. 35-67.]

[Footnote 149: See R.V. III. 34. 9. i. 130. 8; iv. 26. 2. vi. 18. 3; iv.

16. 13.]

[Footnote 150: In one singular hymn (R.V. x. 119) Indra describes his sensations after drinking freely, and in the Satapatha Brahmana (V. 5.

4. 9 and XII. 7. 1. 11) he seems to be represented as suffering from his excesses and having to be cured by a special ceremony.]

[Footnote 151: In some pa.s.sages of the Upanishads he is identified with the atman _(e.g._ Kaus.h.i.+taki Up. III. 8), but then all persons, whether divine or human, are really the atman if they only knew it.]

[Footnote 152: A.V. IV. 16. 2.]

[Footnote 153: The Indian alphabets are admittedly Semitic in origin.]

[Footnote 154: See Mahabhar. I. xvii-xviii and other accounts in the Ramaya?a and Pura?as.]

[Footnote 155: It has also been conjectured that Sk. Asura=Ashur, the G.o.d of a.s.syria, and that Sumeru or Sineru (Meru)=Sumer or s.h.i.+nar, see _J.R.A.S._ 1916, pp. 364-5.]

[Footnote 156: ?ig V. I. 164. 46.]

[Footnote 157: For instance chap. III. of the Chandogya Upanishad, which compares the solar system to a beehive in which the bees are Vedic hymns, is little less than stupendous, though singular and hard for European thought to follow.]

[Footnote 158: I presume that the strong opinion expressed in Caland and Henri's _Agnishloma_ p. 484 that the sacrifice is merely a _do ut des_ operation refers only to the earliest Vedic period and not to the time of the Brahma?as.]

[Footnote 159: Thus both the Vedas and the Tantras devote considerable s.p.a.ce to rites which have for object the formation of a new body for the sacrificer. Compare for instance the Aitareya Brahma?a (I. 18-21: II.

35-38: III. 2 and VI. 27-31) with Avalon's account of Nyasa, in his introduction to the Mahanirva?a Tantra pages cvii-cxi.]

[Footnote 160: There is considerable doubt as to what was the plant originally known as Soma. That described in the Vedas and Brahmanas is said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong smell, fiery taste and intoxicating properties. The plants used as Haom (Hum) by the modern Parsis of Yezd and Kerman are said to be members of the family Asclepiadaceae (perhaps of the genus Sarcostemma) with fleshy stalks and milky juice, and the Soma tested by Dr Haug at Poona was probably made from another species of the same or an allied genus. He found it extremely nasty, though it had some intoxicating effect. (See his _Aitareya Brdh-mana_ n. p. 489.)]

[Footnote 161: An ordinary sacrifice was offered for a private person who had to be initiated and the priests were merely officiants acting on his behalf. In a Sattra the priests were regarded as the sacrificers and were initiated. It had some a.n.a.logy to Buddhist and Christian monastic foundations for reading sutras and saying ma.s.ses.]

[Footnote 162: The political importance of the Asvamedha lay in the fact that the victim had to be let loose to roam freely for a year, so that only a king whose territories were sufficiently extensive to allow of its being followed and guarded during its wanderings could hope to sacrifice it at the end.]

[Footnote 163: R.V. x. 136 and x. 190.]