Hindu Gods And Heroes Part 3

I have previously spoken of the solitary pa.s.sage in the Chhandogya Upanishad in which K?ish?a's name is mentioned, as receiving the teachings of Ghora A?girasa, and it will now be fitting to see how far these teachings are reflected in the Bhagavad-gita. Ghora compares the functions of life to the ceremonies of the _diksha_ (see above, p.68): and this is at bottom the same idea as the doctrine of _karma-yoga_ preached again and again in the Bhagavad-gita. "Whatever be thy work, thine eating, thy sacrifice, thy gift, thy mortification, make of it an offering to me," says K?ish?a (IX. 27); all life should be regarded as a sacrifice freely offered. Then Ghora continues: "In the hour of death one should take refuge in these three thoughts: 'Thou art the Indestructible, Thou art the Unfailing, Thou art instinct with Spirit.' On this there are these two verses of the ?ig-veda:

Thus upward from the primal seed From out the darkness all around We, looking on the higher light, Yea, looking on the higher heaven, Have come to Surya, G.o.d midst G.o.ds, To him that is the highest light, the highest light."

In the Bhagavad-gita (IV. 1 ff.) K?ish?a announces that he preached his doctrine to Vivasvan the Sun-G.o.d, who pa.s.sed it on to his son the patriarch Manu; elsewhere in the Mahabharata (XII. cccv. 19) the Satvata teaching is said to have been announced by the Sun. Ghora in his list of moral virtues enumerates "mortification, charity, uprightness, harmlessness, truthfulness"; exactly the same attributes, with a few more, are said in the Bhagavad-gita to characterise the man who is born to the G.o.ds' estate (XVI. 1-3). Ghora's exhortation to think of the nature of the Supreme in the hour of death is balanced by K?ish?a's words: "He who at his last hour, when he casts off the body, goes hence remembering me, goes a.s.suredly into my being" (VIII. 5; cf.

10). These parallels are indeed not very close; but collectively they are significant, and when we bear in mind that the author of the Bhagavad-gita is eager to a.s.sociate his doctrine with those of the Upanishads, and thus to make it a new and catholic Upanishad for all cla.s.ses, we are led to conclude that its fundamental ideas, sanctification of works (_karma-yoga_), wors.h.i.+p of a Supreme G.o.d of Grace (_bhakti_) by all cla.s.ses, and rejection of animal sacrifices (_ahi?sa_) arose among the orthodox Kshatriyas, who found means to persuade their Brahmanic preceptors to bring it into connection with their Upanishads and embellish it with appropriate texts from those sources. Very likely K?ish?a Vasudeva, if not the first inventor of these doctrines, was their most vigorous propagator.

Now what are the teachings of the Naraya?iya? It appears to contain two accounts. In the first we have the story of king Vasu Uparichara, who is said to have wors.h.i.+pped the Supreme G.o.d Hari (Vish?u) in devotion without any animal-sacrifices, in accordance with doctrines ascribed to the Ara?yakas, i.e. the later sections of the Brahma?as, including the older Upanishads. This fully agrees with the standpoint of the Bhagavad-gita. The second account gives the story of a visit paid by the divine saint Narada to a mysterious "White Island,"

Sveta-dvipa, inhabited by holy wors.h.i.+ppers of G.o.d who are, strangely enough, described as having heads shaped like umbrellas and feet like lotus-leaves and as making a sound like that of thunder-clouds[23]; they are radiant like the moon, have no physical senses, eat nothing, and concentrate their whole soul on rapturous adoration of the spirit of G.o.d, which s.h.i.+nes there in dazzling brightness to the eye of perfect faith. Naraya?a there reveals himself to Narada, and sets forth to him the doctrine of Vasudeva. According to this, Naraya?a has four forms, called _murtis_ or _vyuhas_. The first of these is Vasudeva, who is the highest soul and creator and inwardly controls all individual souls. From him arose Sa?karsha?a, who corresponds to the individual soul; from Sa?karsha?a issued Pradyumna, to whom corresponds the organ of mind, and from Pradyumna came forth Aniruddha, representing the element of self-consciousness. Observe in pa.s.sing that these are all names of heroes of legend: Sa?karsha?a is Vasudeva's brother Bala-rama, Pradyumna was the son and Aniruddha the grandson of Vasudeva. Naraya?a then goes on to speak of the creation of all things from himself and their dissolution into himself, and of his incarnations in the form of the Boar who lifted up on his tusk the earth when submerged under the ocean, Narasi?ha the Man-lion who destroyed the tyrant Hira?ya-kasipu, the Dwarf who overthrew Bali, Rama Bhargava who destroyed the Kshatriyas, Rama Dasarathi, of whom we shall have something to say later. K?ish?a Vasudeva the slayer of Ka?sa of Mathura, the Tortoise, the Fish, and Kalki. Then follow some further details, among them a statement that this doctrine was revealed to Arjuna at the beginning of the Great War--a clear reference to the Bhagavad-gita--that at the beginning of every age it was promulgated by Naraya?a, that it requires activity in pious works, that at the commencement of the present age it pa.s.sed from him to Brahma, from him to Vivasvan the Sun-G.o.d, from him to the patriarch Manu, etc., that it does not allow the sacrifice of animals, and that for salvation the co-operative grace of Naraya?a is necessary. Most of this doctrine is already in the Bhagavad-gita; what is not found in the latter is the account of the mysterious White Island, the theory of _vyuhas_ or emanations, which represents Vasudeva as issuing from Naraya?a and so forth, and the details of Naraya?a's incarnations. It is therefore a distinct textbook of the Satvata or Pancharatra church, not much later than the Bhagavad-gita. According to it, the Supreme Being is Naraya?a, the Almighty G.o.d who reveals himself as highest teacher and saintly sage, whose legendary performance of a five-days'

sacrifice (above, p. 76) has gained for his doctrine the t.i.tle of Pancharatra. Next in order of divinity is K?ish?a Vasudeva, whose tribal name of Satvata has furnished the other name of this church; then follow in due order Sa?karsha?a, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, all of his family; and with Vasudeva is closely a.s.sociated the epic hero Arjuna, a prototype for this mortal pair being discovered in the legendary Nara and Naraya?a.

[Footnote 23: It is obvious that this island lies in a lat.i.tude somewhere between that of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, and that the professors who have endeavoured to locate it on the map of Asia have wasted their time.]

Comparing then the Bhagavad-gita with the Naraya?iya, we see that in all essentials they agree, but in two points they differ. Both preach a doctrine of activity in pious works, _prav?itti_, in conscious opposition to the inactivity of the Aupanishadas and Sa?khyas; but the Naraya?iya does not dwell much on this topic, and limits activity to strictly religious duties, while the Bhagavad-gita develops the idea so as to include everything, thus sketching out a bold system for the sanctification of all sides of life, which enables it to open the door of salvation directly to all cla.s.ses of mankind. Secondly, the Bhagavad-gita says nothing about the theory of emanations or _vyuhas_ in connection with Vasudeva; probably its author knew the legends of Sa?karsha?a, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, but he apparently did not know or at least did not accept the view that these persons were related as successive emanations from Vasudeva. We must therefore look round for sidelights which may clear up the obscurities in the history of this church.

Our first sidelight glimmers in the famous grammar of Pa?ini, who probably lived in the fifth century B.C., or perhaps early in the fourth century. Pa?ini informs us (IV. iii. 98) that from the names of Vasudeva and Arjuna the derivative nouns _Vasudevaka_ and _Arjunaka_ are formed to denote persons who wors.h.i.+p respectively Vasudeva and Arjuna. Plainly then in the fifth century K?ish?a Vasudeva and Arjuna were wors.h.i.+pped by some, probably in the same connection as is shown in the Mahabharata. Perhaps Vasudeva had not yet been raised to the rank of the Almighty; it is more likely that he was still a deified hero and teacher, and Arjuna his n.o.blest disciple. But both of them were receiving divine honours; they had been men, and were now G.o.ds, with bands of adorers.

Our next evidence is an inscription found not long ago on the base of a stone column at Besnagar near Bhilsa, in the south of Gwalior State,[24] and must have been engraved soon after 200 B.C. It reads as follows: "This Garu?a-column of Vasudeva the G.o.d of G.o.ds was erected here by Heliodorus, a wors.h.i.+pper of the Lord [_bhagavata_], the son of Diya [Greek _Dion_] and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as amba.s.sador of the Greeks from the Great King A?talikita [Greek _Antialcidas_] to King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra the Saviour, who was flouris.h.i.+ng in the fourteenth year of his reign"; and below this are two lines in some kind of verse, which announce that "three immortal steps ... when practised lead to heaven--self-control, charity, and diligence." Here, then, in the centre of a thriving kingdom probably forming part of the Su?ga empire, Vasudeva is wors.h.i.+pped not as a minor hero or teacher, but as the G.o.d of G.o.ds, _deva-deva_; and he is wors.h.i.+pped by the Greek Heliodorus, visiting the place as an amba.s.sador from Antialcidas, a h.e.l.lenic king of the lineage of Eucratides, who was reigning in the North-West of India. Doubtless the act of Heliodorus was a diplomatic courtesy, in order to please King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra. But observe the nature of his act. He caused to be erected a Garu?a-column, that is, a pillar engraved with the figure of Garu?a, the sacred bird of Vish?u; and he added a verse about "three immortal steps" (_trini amutapadani_), as leading to heaven, which sounds suspiciously like an attempt to moralise the old mythical feature of the three Steps of Vish?u. Plainly Vasudeva had now risen in this part of the country from being the teacher of a church of Vish?u-Naraya?a to the rank of its chief G.o.d, with which he had become fully identified.

[Footnote 24: See Rapson, _Ancient India_, p. 156 ff., _Cambridge Hist. India_, i, pp. 521, 558, 625, H. Ray Chaudhuri, _Materials for the Study of the Early History of the Vaishnava Sect_, p. 59, and Ramaprasad Chanda, _Archaeology and Vaishnava Tradition_ in _Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India_, No. 5, p. 151 ff., etc.]

Another inscription, a few years later in date, has been found in Besnagar. It is a mere fragment, but it supplements the other; for it states that a certain _bhagavata_, or "wors.h.i.+pper of the Lord," named Gotama-puta (Gautama-putra in Sanskrit) erected a Garu?a-column for the Lord's temple in the twelfth year from the coronation of King Bhagavata. This king is perhaps the same as the person of that name who appears in some genealogical lists as the last but one of the Su?ga Kings.[25]

[Footnote 25: See R. Chanda, _ut supra_, p. 152 f.]

Next in date is an inscription on a stone slab found at Ghasundi, about four miles north-east of Nagari, in Udaipur State. It was engraved about 150 B.C., and records that a certain _bhagavata_, or "wors.h.i.+pper of the Lord," named Gajayana, son of Parasari, caused to be erected in the Naraya?a-va?a, or park of Naraya?a, a stone chapel for the wors.h.i.+p of the Lords Sa?karsha?a and Vasudeva.[26] Here their wors.h.i.+p is a.s.sociated with that of Naraya?a.

[Footnote 26: It is noteworthy that Sa?karsha?a is here mentioned first, as is also the case in the Nanaghat inscription of about 100 B.C., which mentions them as descendants of the Moon in a list of various deities. This order may possibly be due to the fact that in ancient legend Sa?karsha?a, or Bala-bhadra, is the elder brother of K?ish?a Vasudeva, and it does not ent.i.tle us to draw the inference that he ever received equal honour with Vasudeva. Special devotees of Sa?karsha?a are mentioned in the Kau?iliya, the famous treatise on polity ascribed to Cha?akya, the minister of Chandra-gupta Maurya, who came to the throne about 320 B.C. (Engl. transl. 1st edn., p. 485). I suspect that in its present form the Kau?iliya is considerably later than 320 B.C.; but in any case the existence of special votaries of Sa?karsha?a is no proof that he ever ranked as equal to Vasudeva, just as the presence of special wors.h.i.+ppers of Arjuna is no proof that Arjuna was ever considered a peer of Vasudeva. On the Ghasundi inscription see R. Chanda, _ut supra_, p. 163 ff., etc.; for the Nanaghat inscription, _ibidem_ and _Memoirs of the Arch. Survey of India_, No. 1, with H. Raychaudhuri's _Materials, etc._, p. 68 ff.]

Pa.s.sing over an inscription at Mathura which records the building of a part of a sanctuary to the Lord Vasudeva about 15 B.C. by the great Satrap So?asa,[27] we note that the grammarian Patanjali, who wrote his commentary the Mahabhashya upon Pa?ini's grammar about 150 B.C., has something to say about K?ish?a Vasudeva, whom he recognises as a divine being (on IV. iii. 98). He quotes some verses referring to him.

The first (on II. ii. 23) is to the following effect: "May the might of K?ish?a accompanied by Sa?karsha?a increase!" Another (on VI. iii.

6) speaks of "Janardana with himself as fourth," that is to say, K?ish?a with three companions: the three may be Sa?karsha?a, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, or they may not. Another verse (on II. ii.

34) speaks of musical instruments being played at meetings in the temples of Rama and Kesava. Rama is Bala-rama or Bala-bhadra, who is the same as Sa?karsha?a, and Kesava is a t.i.tle of K?ish?a, which was applied also to Vish?u or Naraya?a according to the Bodhayana-dharma-sutra, which may be a.s.signed to the second century B.C. The Ovavai, or Aupapatika-sutra, a Jain scripture which may perhaps belong to the same period, mentions (-- 76) _Ka?ha-parivvaya_, wandering friars who wors.h.i.+pped K?ish?a. Thus literature as well as inscriptions shows that K?ish?a Vasudeva and his brother Sa?karsha?a were in many places wors.h.i.+pped as saints of a church of Vish?u-Naraya?a about 150 B.C., and that in some parts Vasudeva was recognised as the Almighty himself about 200 B.C.

[Footnote 27: R. Chanda, _ut supra_, p. 169 f.]

In another pa.s.sage (on III. i, 26) Patanjali describes dramatic and mimetic performances representing the killing of Ka?sa by Vasudeva.

Altogether his references show that the legend and wors.h.i.+p of Vasudeva bulked largely in the popular mind at this time in India north of the Vindhya mountains. Vasudeva was adored as the great teacher and hero-king, in whom the G.o.ds Vish?u and Naraya?a were incarnated; and he was a.s.sociated with two great cycles of legend, the one that related his birth at Mathura, his victory over the tyrant Ka?sa, his establishment of the colony at Dvaraka, and his adventures until his death and translation to heaven, and the other telling of his share in the Great War as ally of the five Pa??ava brethren. Both cycles represented him as supported by princely heroes. The Mathura-Dvaraka legend gave him his brother Bala-bhadra or Sa?karsha?a, his son Pradyumna, and his grandson Aniruddha, whom theologians about the beginning of the Christian era fitted into their philosophical schemes by representing them as successive emanations from him; and the Mahabharata furnished him with the Pa??avas, whose heroic tale soon created for them a wors.h.i.+p everywhere. As we have seen, there were adorers of Arjuna already in the fifth century B.C.; and in the first century B.C. there seems to be evidence for a wors.h.i.+p of all the five together with Vasudeva, for an inscription has been found at Mora which apparently mentions a son of the great Satrap Rajuvula, probably the well-known Satrap So?asa, and an image of the "Lord V?ish?i," probably Vasudeva, and of the "Five Warriors."[28] Already the poets of the Mahabharata have taken the first step towards the deification of the Pa??avas by finding divine fathers for each of them, making Yudhish?hira the son of Dharma or Yama, the G.o.d of the nether world, Arjuna son of Indra, Bhima son of Vayu the Wind-G.o.d, and Nakula and Sahadeva offspring of the Asvins. Hundreds of caverns throughout India are declared by popular legend to have been their dwellings during their wanderings; and a n.o.ble monument to their memory has been raised by one of the great Pallava kings of Conjevaram who in the seventh century A.D. carved out of the solid rock on the seash.o.r.e at Mamallapuram the fine chapels that bear their names.

Doubtless all these heroes from both cycles were once wors.h.i.+pped in the usual manner, with offerings of food, incense, lights, flowers, etc., and singing of hymns on their exploits--chiefly in connection with Vasudeva; but all this wors.h.i.+p is now utterly forgotten, except where echoes of it linger in popular legend.

[Footnote 28: R. Chandra, _ut supra_, p. 165 f.]

Our survey of the religion of Vasudeva has brought us down to a date which cannot indeed be exactly fixed, but which may be placed approximately in the second century of our era. This religion, as we have seen, arose and grew great in the fertile soil of the spiritual needs and experiences of India. It began by moulding a personal G.o.d out of ancient figures of myth and legend, and it surrounded him with a hierarchy of G.o.dly heroes. Though its doctrines were often philosophically incongruous and incoherent, its foundation was a true religious feeling; it gave scope to the mystic raptures of the ascetic and the simple righteousness of the laic; and it claimed for its heroes, Vasudeva and his kindred and his friends the Pa??ava brethren, a grave and dignified hero-wors.h.i.+p. In short, it is a serious Indian religion with an epic setting.

And now suddenly and most unexpectedly an utterly new spirit begins to breathe in it. To the old teachings and legends are added new ones of a wholly different cast. The old epic spirit of grave and manly chivalry and G.o.dly wisdom is overshadowed by a new pa.s.sion--adoration of tender babyhood and wanton childhood, amorous ecstasies, a hectic fire of erotic romance.

Of this new spirit there is no trace in the epic, except in one or two late interpolations. But the Hari-va?sa, which was added as an appendix to the Mahabharata not very long before the fourth century A.D., is already instinct with it. It adds to the epic story of K?ish?a a fluent verse account of his miraculous preservation from Ka?sa at his birth, his childhood among the herdsmen and herdswomen of Vraja (the Doab near Mathura) with its marvellous freaks and wonderful exploits, his amorous sports with the herdswomen, in fact all the sensuous emotionalism on which the later church of K?ish?a has ever since battened. About the same time appeared the Vish?u-pura?a, which includes most of the same matter as the Hari-va?sa; and some centuries later, probably about the tenth century, there was written a still more remarkable book, the Bhagavata-pura?a, of which a great part is taken up with the romance of K?ish?a's babyhood and childhood, and especially his amorous sports. In the Bhagavata the later wors.h.i.+p of K?ish?a found its cla.s.sic expression. In the Hari-va?sa and Vish?u-pura?a religious emotion is still held under a certain restraint; but in the Bhagavata it has broken loose and runs riot. It is a romance of ecstatic love for K?ish?a, who is no longer, as in the Vish?u-pura?a, the incarnation of a portion of the Supreme Vish?u, but very G.o.d become man, wholly and utterly divine in his humanity. It dwells in a rapture of tenderness upon the G.o.d-babe, and upon the wanton play of the lovely child who is delightful in his naughtiness and marvellous in his occasional displays of superhuman power; it figures him as an ideal of boyish beauty, decked with jewels and crested with peac.o.c.k's feathers, wandering through the flowering forests of Vraja, dancing and playing on his flute melodies that fill the souls of all that hear them with an irresistible pa.s.sion of love and delight; it revels in tales of how the precocious boy made wanton sport with the herdswomen of Vraja, and how the magic of his fluting drew them to the dance in which they were united to him in a rapture of love. The book thrills with amorous, sensuous ecstasy; the thought of K?ish?a stirs the wors.h.i.+pper to a pa.s.sion of love in which tears gush forth in the midst of laughter, the speech halts, and often the senses fail and leave him in long trances. Erotic emotionalism can go no further.

Where did this new spirit come from? Some have laboured to prove that it had its source in Christianity; others have argued that it was Christianity that was the debtor to India in this respect. Both theories are in the main impossible. This cult of the child K?ish?a arose in India, and, with the possible exception of a few obscure tales, it never spread outside the circle of Indian religion. But how and where did it arise? That is a question hard to answer; there is no direct evidence, and we can only balance probabilities. Now what are the probabilities?

The wors.h.i.+p of K?ish?a as a babe, a boy, and a young man among the herdsfolk of Vraja seems to have no relation with the older form of the religion as set forth in the epic textbooks. It is a new element, imported from without. The most natural conclusion then is that it came from the people who are described in it, some tribe that pastured their herds in the woodlands near Mathura. Perhaps these herdsfolk were Abhiras, ancestors of the modern Ahir tribes. If so, it would be natural that their cult should attract attention; for sometimes Abhiras counted for something in society, and we even find a short-lived dynasty of Abhira kings reigning in Nasik in the third century A.D.[29] Be this as it may, it seems very likely that some pastoral tribe had a cult of a divine child blue or black of hue, and perhaps actually called by them K?ish?a or Ka?ha, "Black-man" (observe that henceforth K?ish?a is regularly represented with a blue skin), a cult in which gross rustic fantasy had free play; that it came in some circles to be linked on to the epic cycle of K?ish?a Vasudeva; and that some Bhagavatas, seeing in it latent possibilities, gave it polished literary expression and thereby established it as a part of the Vasudeva legend. It quickly seized upon the popular imagination and spread like wild-fire over India. For it satisfied many needs. The tenderness of the father and still more of the mother for the little babe, their delight in the sports of childhood, the amorist's pleasure in erotic adventure, and, not by any means least, the joy in the romantic scenery of the haunted woodlands--all these instincts found full play in it, and were sanctified by religion.

[Footnote 29: Rapson, _Catal. of the Coins of the Andhra Dynasty, etc._, pp. xliv, lxii, lxix, cx.x.xiii-cx.x.xvi, clxii; _Indian Antiq._, xlvii, p. 85, etc.]

II. RAMA

Rama is the hero of the Ramaya?a, the great epic ascribed to Valmiki, a poet who in course of time has pa.s.sed from the realm of history into that of myth, like many other Hindus. The poem, as it has come down to us, contains seven books, which relate the following tale. Dasa-ratha, King of Ayodhya (now Ajodhya, near Faizabad), of the dynasty which claimed descent from the Sun-G.o.d, had no son, and therefore held the great _Asva-medha_, or horse-sacrifice, as a result of which he obtained four sons, Rama by his queen Kausalya, Bharata by Kaikeyi, and Lakshma?a and Satrughna by Sumitra. Rama, the eldest, was also pre-eminent for strength, bravery, and n.o.ble qualities of soul.

Visiting in his early youth the court of Janaka, king of Videha, Rama was able to shoot an arrow from Janaka's bow, which no other man could bend, and as a reward he received as wife the princess Sita, whom Janaka had found in a furrow of his fields and brought up as his own daughter. So far the first book, or Bala-ka??a. The second book, or Ayodhya-ka??a, relates how Queen Kaikeyi induced Dasa-ratha, sorely against his will, to banish Rama to the forests in order that her son Bharata might succeed to the throne; and the Ara?ya-ka??a then describes how Rama, accompanied by his wife Sita and his faithful brother Lakshma?a, dwelt in the forest for a time, until the demon King Rava?a of La?ka, by means of a trick, carried off Sita to his city. The Kishkindha-ka??a tells of Rama's pursuit of Rava?a and his coming to Kishkindha, the city of Sugriva, the king of the apes, who joined him as an ally in his expedition; and the Sundara-ka??a describes the march of their armies to La?ka, which is identified with Ceylon, and their crossing over the straits. Then comes the Yuddha-ka??a, which narrates the war with Rava?a, his death in battle, the restoration of Sita, the return of Rama and Sita to Ayodhya, and the crowning of Rama in place of Dasa-ratha, who had died of grief during his exile. Finally comes the Uttara-ka??a, which relates that Rama, hearing some of the people of Ayodhya spitefully casting aspersions on the virtue of Sita during her imprisonment in the palace of Rava?a, gave way to foolish jealousy and banished her to the hermitage of Valmiki, where she gave birth to twin sons, Kusa and Lava; when these boys had grown up, Valmiki taught them the Ramaya?a and sent them to sing it at the court of Rama, who on hearing it sent for Sita, who came to him accompanied by Valmiki, who a.s.sured him of her purity; and then Sita swore to it on oath, calling upon her mother the Earth-G.o.ddess to bear witness; and the Earth-G.o.ddess received her back into her bosom, leaving Rama bereaved, until after many days he was translated to heaven.

Such is the tale of Rama as told in the Valmiki-ramaya?a--a clean, wholesome story of chivalry, love, and adventure. But clearly the Valmiki-ramaya?a is not the work of a single hand. We can trace in it at least two strata. Books II.-VI. contain the older stratum; the rest is the addition of a later poet or series of poets, who have also inserted some padding into the earlier books. This older stratum, the nucleus of the epic, gives us a picture of heroic society in India at a very early date, probably not very long after the age of the Upanishads; perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say it was composed some time before the fourth century B.C. In it Rama is simply a hero, miraculous in strength and goodness, but nevertheless wholly human; but in the later stratum--Books I. and VII. and the occasional insertions in the other books--conditions are changed, and Rama appears as a G.o.d on earth, a partial incarnation of Vish?u, exactly as in the Bhagavad-gita and other later parts of the Mahabharata the hero K?ish?a has become an incarnation of Vish?u also. The parallel may even be traced further. K?ish?a stands to Arjuna in very much the same relation as Rama to his brother Lakshma?a--a greater and a lesser hero, growing into an incarnate G.o.d and his chief follower. This is thoroughly in harmony with Hindu ideas, which regularly conceive the teacher as accompanied by his disciple and abhor the notion of a voice crying in the wilderness; indeed we may almost venture to suspect that this symmetry in the epics is not altogether uninfluenced by this ideal. This, however, is a detail: the main point to observe is that Rama was originally a local hero of the Solar dynasty, a legendary king of Ayodhya, and as the Pura?as give him a full pedigree, there is no good reason to doubt that he really existed "once upon a time." But the story with which he is a.s.sociated in the Ramaya?a is puzzling. Is it a pure romance? Or is it a glorified version of some real adventures? Or can it be an old tale, perhaps dating from the early dawn of human history, readapted and fitted on to the person of an historical Rama? The first of these hypotheses seems unlikely, though by no means impossible. The second suggestion has found much favour.

Many have believed that the story of the expedition of Rama and his army of apes to La?ka represents a movement of the Aryan invaders from the North towards the South; and this is supported to some extent by Indian tradition, which has located most of the places mentioned in the Ramaya?a, and in particular has identified La?ka with Ceylon. In support of this one may point to the Iliad of Homer, which has a somewhat similar theme, the rape and recovery of Helen by the armies of the Achaeans, the basis of which is the historical fact of an expedition against Troy and the destruction of that city. But there are serious difficulties in the way of accepting this a.n.a.logy, the most serious of all being the indubitable fact that there is not a t.i.ttle of evidence to show that such an expedition was ever made by the Aryans. True, there were waves of emigration from Aryan centres southward in early times; but those that travelled as far as Ceylon went by sea, either from the coasts of Bengal or Orissa or Bombay.

Besides, the expedition of Rama is obviously fabulous, for his army was composed not of Aryans but of apes. All things considered, there seems to be most plausibility in the third hypothesis[30]. Certainly Rama was a local hero of Ayodhya, and probably he was once a real king; so it is likely enough that an old saga (or sagas) attached itself early to his memory. And as his fame spread abroad, princ.i.p.ally on the wings of Valmiki's poem, the honours of semi-divinity began to be paid to him in many places beyond his native land, and about the beginning of our era he was recognised as an incarnation of Vish?u sent to establish a reign of righteousness in the world. In Southern India this cult of Rama, like that of K?ish?a, has for the most part remained subordinate to the wors.h.i.+p of Vish?u, though the Vaish?ava church there has from early times recognised the divinity of both of them as embodiments of the Almighty. But its great home is the North, where millions wors.h.i.+p Rama with pa.s.sionate and all-absorbing love.

[Footnote 30: I regret that I cannot accept the ingenious hypothesis lately put forward by Rai Saheb Dineshchandra Sen in his _Bengali Ramayanas_. The story of the Dasaratha-jataka seems to me to be a garbled and bowdlerised snippet cut off from a possibly pre-Valmikian version of the old Rama-saga; the rest of the theory appears to be quite mistaken.]

III. SOME LATER PREACHERS

With all its attractions and success, the new K?ish?aism did not everywhere overgrow the older stock upon which it had been engrafted.

There were many places in which the early wors.h.i.+p of Vish?u and Vasudeva remained almost unchanged. The new legends of K?ish?a's childhood might indeed be accepted in these centres of conservatism, but they made little difference in the spirit and form of the wors.h.i.+p, which continued to follow the ancient order. In some of them the Bhagavad-gita, Naraya?iya, and other epic doctrinals still remained the standard texts, which theologians connected with the ancient Upanishads and the Brahma-sutra summarising the latter; in other centres there arose, beginning perhaps about the seventh century A.D., a series of Sa?hitas, or manuals of doctrine and practice for the Pancharatra[31] sect, which, though in essentials agreeing with the Naraya?iya, taught a different theory of cosmogony and introduced the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ddess Sri or Lakshmi, the consort of Vish?u, as the agency or energy through which the Supreme Being becomes active in finite existence; and in yet other places other texts were followed, such as those of the Vaikhanasa school. This wors.h.i.+p of Vish?u-Vasudeva on the ancient lines was peculiarly vigorous among the representatives of Aryan culture in the South, who had introduced the cults of Vish?u and Siva with the rest of the Aryan pantheon into the midst of Dravidian animism. Hinduism, transplanted into the Dravidian area, has there remained more conservative than anywhere else, and has clung firmly to its ancient traditions. There is nothing of Dravidian origin in the South Indian wors.h.i.+p of Vish?u and Siva; they are entirely Aryan importations. But they have become thoroughly a.s.similated in their southern home, and each of them has produced a huge ma.s.s of fine devotional literature in the vernaculars. In the Tamil country the church of Vish?u boasts of the Nal-ayira-prabandham, a collection of Tamil psalms numbering about 4,000 stanzas composed by twelve poets called Alvars, which were collected about 1000 A.D.; and the wors.h.i.+p of 'Siva is equally well expressed in the Tiru-mu?ai, compiled about the twelfth century, of which one section, the Devaram, was put together about the same time as the Nal-ayira-prabandham. Both the Tiru-mu?ai and the Nal-ayira-prabandham breathe the same spirit of ecstatic devotion as the Bhagavata-pura?a; they are the utterances of wandering votaries who travelled from temple to temple and poured forth the pa.s.sionate raptures of their souls in lyrical praise of their deities. Through these three main channels the stream of devotion spread far and wide through the land. Like most currents of what we call "revivalism," it usually had an erotic side; and the larger temples frequently have attached to them female staffs of attendant votaries and _corps de ballet_ of very easy virtue. But this aspect was far more marked in neo-K?ish?aism, which often tends to intense pruriency, than in the other two cults. The Alvars pay little regard to the legends of K?ish?a, and concentrate their energies upon the wors.h.i.+p of Vish?u as he is represented in the great temples of Srirangam, Conjevaram, Tirupati, and similar sanctuaries.

[Footnote 31: On this name see above, p. 86.]

About the beginning of the ninth century the peaceful course of Vaish?ava religion was rudely disturbed by the preaching of Sa?kara Acharya. Sa?kara, one of the greatest intellects that India has ever produced, was a Brahman of Malabar, and was born about the year 788.

Taking his stand upon the Upanishads, Brahma-sutra, and Bhagavad-gita, upon which he wrote commentaries, he interpreted them as teaching the doctrine of Advaita, thorough monistic idealism, teaching that the universal Soul, Brahma, is absolutely identical with the individual Soul, the _atma_ or Self, that all being is only one, that salvation consists in the identification of these two, and is attained by knowledge, the intuition of their ident.i.ty, and that the phenomenal universe or manifold of experience is simply an illusion (_maya_) conjured up in Brahma by his congenital nature, but really alien to him--in fact, a kind of disease in Brahma. This was not new: it had been taught by some ancient schools of Aupanishadas, and was very like the doctrine of some of the Buddhist idealists; but the vigour and skill with which Sa?kara propagated his doctrines threatened ruin to orthodox Vaish?ava theologians, and roused them to counter-campaigns.

Among the Vaish?ava Brahmans of the South who won laurels in this field was Yamunacharya, who lived about 1050, and was the grandson of Natha Muni, who collected the hymns of the Alvars in the Nal-ayira-prabandham and founded the great school of Vaish?ava theology at Srirangam. In opposition to Sa?kara's monism, Yamunacharya propounded the doctrine of his school, the so-called Visish?advaita, which was preached with still greater skill and success by his famous successor Ramanuja, who died in 1137. Ramanuja's greatest works are his commentaries on the Brahma-sutra and Bhagavad-gita. In them he expounds with great ability the principles of his school, namely, that G.o.d, sentient beings or souls, and insentient matter form three essentially distinct cla.s.ses of being; that G.o.d, who is the same as Brahma, Vish?u, Naraya?a, or K?ish?a, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and possessed of all good qualities; that matter forms the body of souls, and souls form the body of G.o.d; that the soul attains salvation as a result of devout and loving meditation upon G.o.d, wors.h.i.+p of him, and study of the scriptures; and that salvation consists in eternal union of the soul with G.o.d, but not in ident.i.ty with him, as Sa?kara taught.

The scriptures on which Ramanuja took his stand were mainly the Upanishads, Brahma-sutra, and Bhagavad-gita; but he also acknowledged as authoritative the Pancharatra Sa?hitas, in spite of their divergences in details of doctrine, and it is from them that his church has derived the wors.h.i.+p of Sri or Lakshmi as consort of Vish?u, which is a very marked feature of their community and has gained for them the t.i.tle of Sri-vaish?avas. But Ramanuja was much more than a scholar and a writer of books; he was also a man of action, a "practical mystic." Like Sa?kara, he organised a body of _sannyasis_ or ascetic votaries, into which, however, he admitted only Brahmans, whereas Sa?kara opened some of the sections of his devotees to non-Brahmans; but on the other hand he was far more liberal than Sa?kara in the choice of his congregations, for he endeavoured to bring men of the lowest castes, Sudras and even Pariahs, within the influence of his church, though he kept up the social barrier between them and the higher castes, and he firmly upheld the principle of the Bhagavad-gita that it is by the performance of religious and social duties of caste, and not by knowledge alone, that salvation is most surely to be won. He established schools and monasteries, reorganised the wors.h.i.+p of the temples, usually in accordance with the Pancharatra rules, and thus placed his church in a position of such strength in Southern India that its only serious rival is the church of Siva.

Nimbarka, who probably flourished about the first half of the twelfth century, preached for the cult of K?ish?a a doctrine combining monism with dualism, which is followed by a small sect in Northern India.

Ananda-tirtha or Madhva, in the first three quarters of the thirteenth century, propounded for the same church a theory of thorough dualism, which has found many admirers, chiefly in the Dekkan. Vallabhacharya, born in 1479, founded a school of K?ish?a-wors.h.i.+ppers which claims a "pure monism" without the aid of the theory of _maya_, or illusion, which is a characteristic of Sa?kara's monism. This community has become very influential, chiefly in Bombay Presidency; but in recent times it has been under a cloud owing to the scandals arising from a tendency to practise immoral orgies and from the claims of its priesthood, as representing the G.o.d, to enjoy the persons and property of their congregations.

Besides these and other schools which were founded on a basis of Sanskrit scholastic philosophy, there have been many popular religious movements, which from the first appealed directly to the heart of the people in their own tongues.

The first place in which we see this current in movement is the Maratha country. Here, about 1290, Jnanesvara or Jnanadeva, popularly known as Jnan.o.ba, composed his Jnanesvari, a paraphrase of the Bhagavad-gita in about 10,000 Marathi verses, as well as a number of hymns to K?ish?a and a poem on the wors.h.i.+p of Siva. To the same period belonged Namadeva, who was born at Pandharpur, according to some in 1270 and according to others about a century later. Then came Ekanatha, who is said to have died in 1608, and composed some hymns and Marathi verse-translations from the Bhagavata. The greatest of all was Tukaram, who was born about 1608.[32] In the verses of these poets the wors.h.i.+p of K?ish?a is raised to a level of high spirituality. Ramananda, who apparently lived between 1400 and 1470 and was somehow connected with the school of Ramanuja, preached salvation through Rama to all castes and cla.s.ses of Northern India, with immense and enduring success. To his spiritual lineage belongs Tulsi Das (1532-1623), whose Rama-charita-manasa, a poem in Eastern Hindi on the story of Valmiki's Ramayana, has become the Bible of the North. The same influences are visible in the poems of Kabir, a Moslem by birth, who combined Hindu and Muhammadan doctrines into an eclectic monotheism, and is wors.h.i.+pped as an incarnation of G.o.d by his sect. He died in 1518. A kindred spirit was Nanak, the founder of the Sikh church (1469-1538).[33]

[Footnote 32: The student may refer to Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's _Vai??avas and Saivas_ (in Buhler's _Grundriss_, p. 74 ff.,) J. N.

Farquhar's _Outline of the Relig. Liter. of India_, p. 234 f., 298 ff., and my _Heart of India_, p. 60 ff., for some details on these poets.]

[Footnote 33: See Farquhar, _ut supra_, p. 323 ff.; _Heart of India_, p. 49 f., etc.]

By the side of these upward movements there have been many which have remained on the older level of the Bhagavata. The most important is that of Visvambhara Misra, who is better known by his t.i.tles of Chaitanya and Gauranga (1485-1533); he carried on a "revival" of volcanic intensity in Bengal and Orissa, and the church founded by him is still powerful, and wors.h.i.+ps him as an incarnation of K?ish?a.

IV. BRAHMA AND THE TRIMURTI

_Brahma_, the Creator, a masculine noun, must be carefully distinguished from the neuter _Brahma_, the abstract First Being. The latter comes first in the scale of existence, while the former appears at some distance further on as the creator of the material world (see above, p. 60 f.). In modern days Brahma has been completely eclipsed by Vish?u and Siva and even by some minor deities, and has now only four temples dedicated to his exclusive wors.h.i.+p.[34] But there was a time when he was a great G.o.d. In the older parts of the Mahabharata and Ramaya?a he figures as one of the greater deities, perhaps the greatest. But in the later portions of the epic he has shrunk into comparative insignificance as compared to Vish?u and Siva, and especially to Vish?u. This change faithfully reflects historical facts. During the last four or five centuries of the millennium which ended with the Christian era the orthodox Vedic religion of the Brahmans had steadily lost ground, and the sects wors.h.i.+pping Vish?u and Siva had correspondingly grown in power and finally had come to be recognised as themselves orthodox. Brahma, as his name implies, is the ideal Brahman sage, and typifies Vedic orthodoxy. He is represented as everlastingly chanting the four Vedas from his four mouths (for he has four heads), and he bears the water-pot and rosary of eleocarpus berries, the symbols of the Brahman ascetic. But Vedic orthodoxy had to make way for more fascinating cults, and the Vedic Brahman typified in the G.o.d Brahma sank into comparative unimportance beside the sectarian ascetics. Still the old G.o.d, though shorn of much of his glory, was by no means driven from the field. The new churches looked with reverence upon his Vedas, and often claimed them as divine authority for their doctrines; and though each of them a.s.serted that its particular G.o.d, Siva or Vish?u, was the Supreme Being, and ultimately the only being, both of them allowed Brahma to retain his old office of creator, it being of course understood that he held it as a subordinate of the Supreme, Siva or Vish?u as the case might be.

Meanwhile, at any rate between the third and the sixth centuries, there existed a small fraternity who regarded Brahma as the Supreme, and therefore as identical with the abstract Brahma; but although they have left a record of their doctrines in the Marka??eya-pura?a and the Padma-pura?a, they have had little influence on Indian religion in general.

[Footnote 34: Those are at Pushkar in Rajputana, Dudahi in Bundelkhand, Khed Brahma in Idar State, and Kodakkal in Malabar.]