the wonder that was india

76
U- I INTRODUCTION: INDIA AND HER ANCIENT CULTURE TIIE LAND OT INDIA TrB -.ie.rt civilization of India grew up in a sbarply demarcated sub-continent boundedon the north by the world's largest mountain range-the chain of the Himilayas, which, with its extensions to east and lvest, divides India from the rest of Asia and the world, The barrier, however, was at no time an insuperableone, and at all periods both settlers and traders have found their way over the high and desolate passes into India, while Indians have carried their commerce andculturebeyond her frontiersby tlresame route. India's isolation has never been complete, and the effect of the mountain wall.in developing her urrique civilization has often been over- rated. The importance of the mountains to India is not so much in the isolation which they give her, as in the fact that they are the source of her two great rivers. The clouds drifting northwards and west- wards in the rainy season discharge the last of their moistureon tl)e high peaks.whence,fed by ever-rnelting srrow, innumerable streams flow southwards, to meet in the great river systems of the Indus and the Gangd. On their way they pass through small and fertile plateaux, such as the valleys of Kashmir and Nepdl, to debouch on the great plain. Of the tlvo river systems, that of the Indus, now mainly in Paki- stdn, had the earliest civilization, and gave its name to India. * More than two thousandyears before Christ the fertile plain of dre Panjib ( " Five Rivers " ), watered by the five great tributaries of the Indus- the Jhelam, Chenib, Rivi, Bedsand Satlaj-had a high culture, which spread as far as the sea and along the westem seaboardat least as far as Gujardt. fihe lower Indus, in the region of Pakistin Isrorvn . The Indians knew tlis river as Sindhx, and the Persians, who found difhculty in pronouncing an initial .r, called it Hindu. l-rom Persia the lvord passed to Grcece, wircre the whole of India becanre known bv the name ofthe western river. 'fhe ancicnt Indians knew tlreir sutrcontil,ent as Jdtt2,udaipa (the contjnent of thejanbx tree) or Dhdrutatarpa (the I-and of the sons of Bharata, a legendary etnpcror) (p. a9of). Tlre latter nanre has been in part revived bv the present lndia;r qovernment, With the Muslirn invasion the Persian iame returned in theTo nn Hindustdi, and those ofits inhabitants wllo follow€d the old religion became known as Hindus. Thc form Hindutthdn, popular in modern India, is an Indo-Iranian hybrid with no linguisticjustification. I

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Page 1: The Wonder That Was India

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I

I N T R O D U C T I O N : I N D I A A N D H E R A N C I E N TCULTURE

T I I E L A N D O T I N D I A

TrB -.ie.rt civilization of India grew up in a sbarply demarcatedsub-continent bounded on the north by the world's largest mountainrange-the chain of the Himilayas, which, with its extensions toeast and lvest, divides India from the rest of Asia and the world,The barrier, however, was at no time an insuperable one, and at allperiods both settlers and traders have found their way over the highand desolate passes into India, while Indians have carried theircommerce and culture beyond her frontiers by tlre same route. India'sisolation has never been complete, and the effect of the mountainwall.in developing her urrique civilization has often been over-rated.

The importance of the mountains to India is not so much in theisolation which they give her, as in the fact that they are the sourceof her two great rivers. The clouds drifting northwards and west-wards in the rainy season discharge the last of their moisture on tl)ehigh peaks. whence, fed by ever-rnelting srrow, innumerable streamsflow southwards, to meet in the great river systems of the Indus andthe Gangd. On their way they pass through small and fertileplateaux, such as the valleys of Kashmir and Nepdl, to debouch onthe great plain.

Of the tlvo river systems, that of the Indus, now mainly in Paki-stdn, had the earliest civilization, and gave its name to India. * Morethan two thousand years before Christ the fertile plain of dre Panjib( " Five Rivers " ), watered by the five great tributaries of the Indus-the Jhelam, Chenib, Rivi, Beds and Satlaj-had a high culture, whichspread as far as the sea and along the westem seaboard at least asfar as Gujardt. fihe lower Indus, in the region of Pakistin Isrorvn

. The Indians knew tlis river as Sindhx, and the Persians, who found difhculty inpronouncing an initial .r, called it Hindu. l-rom Persia the lvord passed to Grcece, wircrethe whole of India becanre known bv the name ofthe western river.

'fhe ancicnt Indians

knew tlreir sutrcontil,ent as Jdtt2,udaipa (the contjnent of thejanbx tree) or Dhdrutatarpa(the I-and of the sons of Bharata, a legendary etnpcror) (p. a9of). Tlre latter nanrehas been in part revived bv the present lndia;r qovernment, With the Muslirn invasionthe Persian iame returned in theTo nn Hindustdi, and those ofits inhabitants wllo follow€dthe old religion became known as Hindus. Thc form Hindutthdn, popular in modernIndia, is an Indo-Iranian hybrid with no linguisticjustification.

I

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.* I, T I IE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA

as Sind, no*. passes through barren desert, though this rvas once awell watered and fertile land.

The basin of tl'e Indus is divided from that of the GangE by theThar, or dcsert of Rirjastlrin, and by lo.,v hilis. The rvatershed, totlre north-rvest of Deliri, lras bccrr the sccne of many bitter battlessince at least looo s.c. The wcstern half of the Gangi plain, frornthe region around Delhi to Patn;i, and including the Doa6, or theland between the Gangi and its great tributary river Yanrunl(formcrly spclt Jurnna, Jamna)r has alrvays bccn the hcart of India.I{ere, in tlre rcgion once known as .4r1'di'arta, the Jand of the Aryans,herclassical culture rvas formed. Though generations ofunscientificfarming, rlcforestation, and othcr factors have norv much reduced itsfcrtility, this'ivas oncc among the most 1>rodmtive lands in the world,and it lias supported a very large population ever since it lvas broughtunder the piough. At its mouth in Bengal the Gangi f<..,rrns a largedelta, which even in historical tinres has gained apprcciably on thesea; here the Gangii joins the Brahmaputra, rvhich florvs fromTibet byway of the Valley of Assam, the eastemnrost outpost of I{indu culture.

South of the great plain is a highland zone, rising to the chain ofthe Vindhl'a rnountains. These are by no means as imprcssive asthe Hirn:ilayas, but have tended to form a barrier betu'een the North,formerly called Hindustin, and tlre Peninsula, often known as theDeccan (nreaning sinrply "South"), a term used sometimes for thewhole peninsula, but rnore often for its northern and central portions.Most of the Deccan is a dry and lrilly plateau, bordered on eitherside by long ranges of hills, the \['estern and Eastern Ghits. Ofthese two ranges the western is the higher, and thercfore most ofthe rivers of the Deccan, such as the Mahenadi, the Godivari, theKistni or KyE4rI, and the Kiviri, flow eastwards to the sea. TwoIarge rivers only, the Narmadi and the TApti, flow westwards. Neartheir mouths the Deccan rivers pass tJrrough plains which are smallerthan that of the Gangn but almost as populous. The south-easternpart of the Peninsula forms a larger plain, the Tamil countrn theculture of which lr'as once independent, and is not yet completely uni-fied with that of the North. The Dravidian peoples of Southern Indiastill speak languages in no way akin to those of the North, and areofa different ethnic character (p. e+f), though there has been muchintermixture between Northern and Southern t1pes. GeographicallyCeylon is a continuation of India, the plain of the North resemblhgthat of South India, and the mountains in the centre of the islandthe Western Ghits.

From Kashmir in the North to Cape Comorin in the South thcsub<ontinent is about 2,ooo miles long, and therefore its climate

INTRODUCTTON: TNDIA AND HER ANCTENT CULTURE 3

varies considerably. The Himilayan region has cold winters, withoccasional frost and snow. In the northern plains the winter is cool,with wide variation of day and night temperature, whereas the hotseason is almost intolerable. The temperature of the Deccan variesless with the season, though in the higher parts of the plateau nightsare cool in winter. The Tamil Plain is continuously hot, but itstemperature never rises to that of the northern plains in summer.

The most important feature of the Indian climate is the monsoon,or " the Rains ". Except along the west coast and in parts of Ceylonlittle rain falls from October to May, when cultivation can onlybe carried on by carefully husbanding the rvater of rivers and streams,and raising a winter crop by irrigation. By the end of April growthhas practically ceased. The ternperature of the plains rises as highas I loo F. (4,3' C. ) or over, and an intensely hot wind blows- Treesshed tbeir leaves, grass is almost completely parched, wild animalsoften die in large numbers for want of water.. Work is reducedto a minimum, ahd the world seems asleep.

Then clouds appear, high in the sky; in a few days they growmore numerous and darker, rolling up in banks from the sea. Atlast, in June, the rains come in great downpouring torents, withmuch thunder and lightning.' The temperature quickly drops, andwithin a few days the world is green and smiling again. Beasts,birds and insects reappear, the trees put on new leaves, and the earthis covered u'ith fresh grass. The torrential rains, which fall atintervals for a couple of months and then gradually dib away, maketravel and all outdoor activity difficult, and often bring epidemics in theirwake; but, despite these hardships, to the Indian mind the coming ofthe monsoon corresponds to the coming of spring in Europe. Forthis reason thunder and lightning, in Europe generally looked on asinauspicious, have no terrors for the Indian, but are welcome signsofthe goodness ofheaven (p. aSZ).

It has often been said that the scale ofnatural phenomena in India,and her total dependence on the monsoon, have helped to form thecharacter ofher peoples. Even today major disasters, such as flood,famine and plague, are hard to check, and in older times their controlwas almost impossible. Many other ancient civilizations, such asthose of the Greeks, Romans and Chinese, had to contend with hardwinters, which encouragecl sturdiness and resource. India, on theother hand, was blessed by a bounteous Nature, who demanded litdeof man in return for sustenance, but in her terrible anger could notbe appeased by *y human effort. Hence, it has been suggested,the Indian character has tended to fatalism and guietism, acceptingfortune and nrisfortune alike without complaint.

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TI IE WONDI ]R T I IAT WAS INDIA

How far this judgement is a fair one is very dubious. Thoughan element of quietism certainly existed in the ancient Indian attitudcto life, as it does in India today, it was never approved by moralists.The great achievements of ancient India and Ceylon-their immenseirrigation works and splendid temples, and the long campaigns oftheir armies-do not suggest a devital;zed people. If the climatehad any effect on the Indian character it was, we believe, to develop alove of ease and comfort, an addictibn to the simple pleasures andluxuries so freely given by Nature-a tendencv to u'hich the impulseto selfdenial and asceticism on the one hand, and occasional strenuouseffort on the other, were natural reactions.

T H E D I S C O V N , R Y O F A N C I E N T I N D ! A

The ancient civilization of India differs from those of Egypt,Mesopotamia and Greece, in that its traditions have been preservedwithout a break down to the present day. Until the advent of theanchreologist, the peasant ofEgypt or Iraq had no knowledge of theculture of his forefathers, and it is doubtful whether his Greekcounterpart had any but the vaguest ideas about the glory of Peri-clean Athens. In each case tlrere had been an almostcomplete breakwith the past. On the other hand, the earliest Europeans to visitIndia found a culture fully conscious of its own antiquity-a culturewhich indeed exaggerated that antiquitl, and claimed not to havefundarnentally changed for many thousands of years. To this daylegends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowychieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and theorthodox brihmap in his daily worship repeats hymns composed evenearlier. India and China have, in fact, tlre oldest continuous culturaltraditions in the world.

Until the last half of the r8th century Europeans made no realattempt to study India's ancient past, and her early history wasknown only from brief passages in the ll'orks of Greek and Latinauthors. A few devoted missionaries in the Peninsula gained a deepunderstanding of conternporary Indian life, and a brilliant mastery ofthe vernaculars, but they made no real attempt to understand thehistorical background of the culture ofthe people among whom theyworked.- They accepted that culture at its face value, as very ancientand unchanging, arrd their only studies of India's past were in thenature of speculations linking the Indians with the descendants ofNoah and the vanished empires of the Bible.

Meanwhile a few Jesuits succeeded in mastering Sanskrit, thcclassical language of India. One of them, Father Hanxleden, whoworked in Kerala from 1699 to llss, compiled the first Sanskrit

I N T R O D U C T I O N I I N D I A A N D I i E R . \ N C I E N T C U L T U R E

grarnmar in a Europern tor)gue, wlrit:h remained in manuscript, but*as used by his successors. Another, I 'ather Coeurdoux, in l?6?,u as probably the first student to recognize the kinslrip of Sanslirit andtlre languages of Europe, and suggested that the brahnrans of InCianere descended fronr one of the sons of Japlret, wlrose brotlrersrnigrated to the West. Yet the Jesuits, for all their studies, gainedno real understanding of India's past: the foundations of Indologyu ere laid independently, in another part of India, and by other hands.

In thc I 'ear l?sj one of t lre most bri l l iart rrcn of t lre l8tlrcentury, Sir William Jones ( t746-94), calne to Calcutta as ajudge of the Supreme Court, under the governor-generalship ofWarren l{astings, who himself had deep syrnpatlr_y rvith both Nfuslirnand Hindu culturc. Jones rvas a l inguistic genius, who had alreadylearnt all the more irnportant languages of Europe as well as Hebrew,Arabic, Persian and Turkish, and had even obtairred a smattering ofChinese with the aid of the very inadequate material which wasavailable at the time. Before conring to India lte had recoguized therelationship of European languages to Persian, and had rejected theorthodox view of the I 8th century, that all these tongues were derivedfrorn Hebrew, whiclr had been garbled at the Tower of Babel. In placeof this dognra Jones suggested that Persian and the European languageswere derived from a common ancestor which was not Hebrew.

Of the little band of Englishmen who administered Bengal for theHonourable East India Company only one, Charles Wilhins (174.9-I896), had managed to Iearn Sanskrit. With the aid of Wilkinsand friendly Bengali pandits Jones began to learn the language. Onthe first day of r784 the Asiatic Society of Bengal was founded, onJones' initiative, and with Jones himself as president. In the journalof this society, Asiatic Researches,the first real steps in revealing India'spast were taKen. In November 1784 the first direct translation ofa Sanskrit u'ork into English, Wilkins's Bhagaoad, Gild', was conr-pleted. This Wilkins follorved in l?87 with a translation of theHitopade{a. In 1?89 Jones transiated Kalidasa's Sakuntald, whicb,went into five English editions in less than twenty years; this hefollowed by translations of the Gita Gouinda (tZsz), and the law-book of Manu (pubiished postirumously in t?94, under the titleInstitutes of Hindoo In ). Several less important translationsappeared in successive issues ofr4slatic Researches.

Jones and Wilkins u'ere truly the fathers of Indology. They werefollor,r'ed in Calcutta by Henry Colebrooke (tZes-rsSZ) and HoraceHayman Wilson (tzss-tsoo). To the works of these pioneersmust be added that of the Frenchman Anquetil-Duperron, a Persianscholar who, in l?86, published a translatiorr of tour Upanigads from

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6 THE WoNDER THAT wAs TNDIA

a lTth{entury Persian version-the translation of the whole manu-script, containing 5O Upanigads, appearing in 180I.

Interest in Sanskrit literature began to grow in Europe as a resultof these trans-lations. In 1795 the government of the French Republicfounded the fcole des Langues Orie-ntales Vivantes, and in Paris Alex-ander }lamilton (r762-ts94), one of the earliest menrbers of theAsiatic Society of Bengal, held prisoner on parole in France at the endof the Peace of Amiens in 18o3, became the first person to teach San-skrit in Europe. It'n'as from Hamilton thatFriedriclrSchlegel, the firstGerman Sanskritist, learnt the language. The first university chairof Sanskrit was founded at the Collbge de France in 1814., and heldby L6onard de Ch6zy, while from l8l8 onwards the larger Germanuniversities set up professorships. Sanskrit u,as first taught inEngland in l8o5 at the training college of the East India Companyat Hertford. The earliest English chair was the Boden Professor-ship at Oxford, first filled in 1892, when it was conferred upon H. H.Wilson, who had been an important member of the Asiatic Society ofBengal. Chairs were afterwards founded at London, Canrbridge andEdinburgh, and at several other universities of Europe and America.

In 18t6, Franz Bopp (tZst-tsoz;, a Bavarian, on the basis ofthe hints of Sir Wiiliam Jones, succeeded in very tentatively recon-structing the common ancestor ofSanskrit and the classical languagesof Europe, and comparative philology became an independentscience. In 182I, the French Soci6t6 Asiatique was founded inParis, followed two years later by the Royal Asiatic Society inL,ondon. From these beginnings the work of the editing and studyof ancient Indiah literature went on apace throughout the lgthcentury. Probably the greatest achievement of Indological scholar-ship in lgth-century Europg was the enormous Sanskrit-Germandictionary generally known as the St. Petersburg Lexicon, producedby the German scholars Otto Bdhtlingk and Rudolf Roth, and pub.lished in parts by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences fromt852 to t875. England's greatest contributions to Sanskrit studieswere the splendid edition of the f;g Yeda, and the great series ofauthoritative arurotated translations, Sacred Bools of the East, Boththese u'orks were edited by the great German Sanskritist FriedrichMax.Miil ler (tszs-rsoo), who spent most of his working l ife asProfessor of Comparative Philology at Oxford.

Meanwhile the study of aricient Indian culture was proceeding inanother direction. The first work of the Asiatic Society of Bengalhad been almost entirely literary and linguistic, and most of the tgth:century Indologists were primarily scholars in the classical tradition,working on written records. Early in the lgth century, however,

INTRODUCTION: INDIA AND HER ANCIENT CULTURE

the Bengal Society began to turn some of its attention to the materialremains of India's past, as the East India Company's surveyorgbrought back to Calcutta many reports oftemples, caves and shrines,together with early coins and copies of inscriptions in long-deadscripts. By working backtvards from the current scripts the olderones were gradually deciphered, until in l8g7 a gifted amateur,James Prinsep, an official of the Calcutta Mint and Secretary of theAsiatic Society of Bengal, interpreted for the first time the earliestBrihmi script and was able to read the edicts of the great emperorA6oka. Among Prinsep's colleagues in the work of decipherment.tilas a young oflicer of the Royal Engineers, Alexander Cururinghamthe father of Indian archeology. From his arrival in India in1891 Cunningham devoted every minute he could spare fromhis nrilitary duties to the study of the material remains ofancient India, until, in 1862, the Indian government established thepost of Archaological Surveyor, to which he was appointed. Untilhis retirement in 1885 he devoted himself to the unravell ing ofIndia's past with complete single-heartedness. Though he madeno startling discoveries, and though his technique was, by modernarchaological standards, crude and primitive, there is no doubtthat, after Sir William Jones, Indology owes more to GeneralSir Alexander Cunningham than to any other worker in the field.Cunningham was assisted by several other pioneers, and thoughat the end of the rgth century the activities of the ArchreologicalSurvey almost ceased, orving to niggardly government grants, byt90o many ancient buildings had been surveyed, and many inscriptionsread and translated.

It was only in the 2oth century that archeological excavation on alarge scale began in India. Thanks to the personal interest of theViceroy, Lord Curzon, in tgol the Archaological Survey was r€-formed and enlarged, and a young archeologist, John (later SirJohn) Ilarshall, appointed as Director General. F<.rr a countryof the size of India the Archeological Department was stiillamentably srirall and poor, but Marshall rvas able to employ anumber ofexpert assistants, and ltad funds for excavation on a scalemore extensive than anything previously attempted. For the firsttime traces of the ancient cities of India began to come to light-archeology, as distinct from the surveying and conservation ofancient monuments-had begun in real earnest. The greatest triumphof the Archaeological Survey of India under Sir Jolrn Marshall'sdirectorship was undoubtedly the discovery of the Indus civilization.The first relics of India's oldest cities were noticed by Cunningham,who found strange unidentified seals in the neighbourhood of

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THE WONDER THAT WAS TNDIA

Harappi in the Panjib, l\ 79sz an Indian officer of the Arclreo-logical Survey, R. D. Banerji, found fiirther seals at MohenjoDaro in Sind, and recognized that they were the remains of a pre-Aryan civilization of great antiquity. Under Sir John Marshall'sdirection the sites were systelnatically excavated from t924 until hisretirement in t991. Digging was interrupted by financial retrench-ment, and by the Second \&'orld \['ar; but further important dis-coveries were madc at Harappi during the brief directorship of SirR. E. Mortirner Whceler just after the wary thougir the sites arestill by no Dleans fully cleared.

Much has yet to be done. Many mounds as yet unexcavatedmay throw floods of light on the dark places of India's past: unptrh-lished manuscripts of great importance may yet lie. mouldering inout-of-the-way libraries. India, Pakistln and Ceylon are poorcountries, desperately in need of funds with which to raise the stand-ard of living of their peoples; but rvith the resources available thearcheological departmcnts of all three countries are working to theirfullest capacity to reveal the past.

Even in tlre last century, much valuable work was done by nativesof India, especially by such Sanskritists and epigraphists as Drs.Bhau Diji, BhagavinlAl Indriji, Rijendralal Mitra, and the great SirR. G. Bhandarkar. Now the chief initiative in Indology comes fromthe Indians thernselves. Indian scholars have already completed thefirst critical edition of the gigantic ll[al:ibl,iirata, and have started workon the enonnous Poona Sanskrit Dictionary, u'hicir, when complete,u'ill probably be the greatest workof lexicography tlie rvorld has bverseen. Since 1947 the Archeological Department has been entirelyunder Indian direction, and today the

'Western Indologist cannot hope

to be more than the helper and friendly critic of the Asian. In times likethese, however, when Asia is reacting against a century and a half ofEuropean domination, arid a nerv culture, which will contain elementso[ East and

'West in firm synthesis, is in the process of birdr, the

European student still has a useful role to play in Indology.

T H E G L O R Y O F A N C I E N T I N D I A

At most periods of her history India, thciugh a cultural unit, hasbeen torn by internecine war. In statecraft her rulers were cunningand unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from timeto time,

"nd kill"d millions of her people. Inequality of birth was

given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generallyhard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of theancient world r,r'ere the relations of man and man, and of man and the

INTRODUCTION: INDIA .TND HEN ANCIENT CULTUNE

state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilization were slavesso lew in number, and in no other ancient lalvbook are their rights sowell protected as in the Arthaidstra (p. tl+l). No other ancientlawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair plaS' in battle as didManu (p. 127). In all her history of warfare Hindu India has fewtales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants. The ghastly sadism of the kings of Assyria, whoflayed their captives alive, is completely without parallel in ancientIndia. There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, incomparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To usthe most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.

Some lgth-century missionaries, armed with passages from Hinduand Buddhist scriptures, often taken out of their context, and withtales of famine, disease, and the evils of the Hindu caste and familvsystem, have helped to propagate the widespread fallacy that. Indiais a land of lethargic gloom. The traveller landing at Bombay hasonly to watch the rush-hour crowds, and to compare them mentallywith those of London, to realize that the Indian character is neitherlethargic nor unhappy. This conclusion is borne out by a generalacquaintance with the remains of India's past. Our second generalimpression ofancient India is that her people enjoyed life, passionatelydelighting both in the things of the senses and the things of the spirit.

The European student who concentrates on religious texts of acertain type may well gain the impression that ancient India was aland of "life-negating" t ascetics, imposing their gloomy and sterileideas upon the rusting millions rvho were their lay followers. Thefallacy of this impression is quite evident from the secular literature,sculpture and painting of the time. The average Indian, though hemight pay lipservice to the ascetic and respeci his ideals, did notfind life a vale of tears from which to escape at all costs; rather hewas willing to accept the world.as he found it, and to extract whathappiness he could from it. Da4{in's description of the joys of asimple meal sen'ed in a comparatively poor home (p. 446ff) is prob.ably more typical of ancient Indian everyday life than are the Upani-sads. India was a cheerful land, whose people, each finding a nichein a complex and slowly eyolving social system, reached a higherlevel of kindliness and gentleness in their mutual relationships than anyother nation of antiquity. For this, as well as for her great achieve-ments in religion, literature, art and mathematics, one Europeanstudent at least would record his admiration of India's ancient culture.

. This tcrm, as applied to Indian religion, thought and culture, ir that of thc grearDr. Afbcrt S(h*eitzer (lndian Thoughl and its Dtu[ofwrl, passim).

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I I

PREHISTORY: THE HARAPPA CULTURE ANDTHE ARYANS

P R I M I T I V E M A N I } I I N D I A

L, * t prehistoric Europe, Northern India experienced ice ages, and itwas after the second of these, in the Second Interglacial Period, morethan loo,ooo years before Christ, that man first left surviving traces inIndia. These are the palreolithic pebble tools of the Soan Culture,so called from the little river in the Panjnb where they have beenfound in large numbers. In type they resemble tools widely distri-buted all over the Old World, from England to Africa and China.In India no human remains have been found in association with thetools, but elsewhere such industries have been shown to be the workof primitive anthropoid types, such as the Pithccanthrofw of Javaand China.

In the South there existed another prehistoric stone industry, whichis not conclusively dated, but which may have been the approximatecontemporary of that of the Soan Valley. The men of tfris culturemade core tools, especially fine hand axes, formed by striking offflakes from a large pebble, and they evidently had much bettercommand over their material than the Soan men. This MadrasIndustry, as it is called by the archeologists, has affinities with similarcore tool industries in Africa, \ilestern Europe, and.southern England,where it has been found in association with a more advanced type ofman-a true Homo sapiens,

The Garrgi Valley is one of the newest parts of the earth's surface,and geologists believe that much of it was still a shallow sea at thetime of these two stone-age industries; but there may have beencontact between them by way of Rijasthdn, for the tools of oneculture have been found sporadically in the region ofthe other. Themen who used these paleoliths must have lived in India for manymillennia. Who they were and what became of them we do notknow. Their blood may still flow in the inhabitants of modern India,but if the pebble industry of Soan was the work of proto-humananthropoids they must have vanished long ago, like the Neanderthalmen in Europe and the Pithecanthropi of the Far East. Homosa[icns continued in India, his skill and technical equipment imper-ceptibly improving down the ages. He learnt to fashion microlithr,

l o

pnlrtgrony: rnD Herepri cuLTuRE AilD THE Inyexc Ittiny and delicate stone scrapers an. other implements, which havebeen found il .qy plts oi India, from the fV.-W. fiontier to if,eextreme south. Similar microiithic industries occur in rn*y p"ii,of the Near East and Africa, but their.h.onoiogi.ut ."t.tionJip'*it-ithe microlithic industry of India i. not.i."i.-- In parts of the Deccanmicroliths are often found together with polishedston";;"r;;;l;would seem that in the-remoter parts of the peninsula trr"i. ur"w",only fully replaced by that of iron tools around the b";i,_id;f ;;Christian age.t

. pareorithic. '- J1""1:,il"";:^r1,',1 ,".n*"r, and rivedin very small communities, which were usu"ll"y ,ro-udi". il ;;;course of time he leamt

.to kindle fire, to protect his body fromthe w-eather_with skin, bark o_r leaves, *d to ti-. tf," *ila a.j *i,i"i,

ll*1.1::11li1_camRfire. In rndia, as alt over th" *;.rd:p;;;j;lrveq tnus tor many thousands of years.

_rThur, very recently in the peispective of geological time, great

changes .took place in man's l'ay- of living." Cer"tainly "";

;;;hearl.ier than IO,OOO a.c., and p".hrp, as Tate as 6000 8.c., m:uldeveloped what Professor Gordon Childe calls ,.*

"ggr"rri.,r" "iiitude to his environrnent,,. I{e leamt how to grow lo"od crops, totame domestic animals, to make pots, and to weave garments. Beforediscovering the use of metal, heiaught himself to rn'ake wcll_polisheJstone implements far in advance 6f tho.e of the pd_.iir[i.-"r"iS_uch implements have.been found all ovei na;",1,L ^;;,ly;"-ih;North-West and in the Deccan, and uzually on o. r"o, the suriace. Inmuch of the country neolithic iulture .u"uiu"d long, and *-y of tt uwilder hill tribes oi the present day have orty ,"""iity

"-"rgJa-i.o^this stage.

., D_"n:"loq.u.d agriculture and. permanent villages probably began inthe 7th millennium a.c., in t ire Irl iaate Easr.o I 'India tl". irt i"ri

remains of settled cultures are of little agricult"*f "iifrg;

i"Bal[chistin and lower Sind, perhaps d"ti.,g i$m tl. end of ,fi" +if,millennium.

Classical writers show that when, in sg6 B.c.,Alexander of Mace-don crossed the Indus, the climate of N.-W inaia was much ",

it Lfjj,yf t"rCl,

p".h1pr. a little moister. The river ndf"y, .rnururerrle and well wooded,.though the coastal strip to the weit of theIadus, now called the Makren,"and much of Baluc'histan, ,n.."

"t.""Jdry and desolate. But in eooo r.c. the crimate *"1r".n", i#;;;i.The whole Indus regicn was welt forested, providing f""l-i;;;;,,

Page 7: The Wonder That Was India

| i l \ w ( ) N l ) f , t i t l t A T w ^ s l N D l a

2 , - , vU T L E S

x A R A C H t

+ t r T e s o F v r l l l c € c U L T U F E tL A N O O V € R t s O O r € E T_ " _ l B o v E

5 E A L E v E L

n m L ^ N O O V E R o O O O F E f r| u A B O V E s E A L T V E L

o L o T H ^ L

o R A X c P U n

Fig. i.-Sonre Prelristoric Sites of N.-W. India

O S l f l s O F T H E X R A P P AC U L l U R E

PREHI5TORY: THE HARAPPA CULTURE AND THE ^NYIXS IJ

bricks and food for the wild elephant and rhinoceros, and Baluchistin,

,r.rru ut-ott a waterless desert, was rich in rivers' This region

rru,r,orted many villages of agriculturists, who had settled in. the

,,pii"a vaileys of Bal[chistan-and in the then fertile plain of the

\lakran and the lower Indus'lI'1,.r" people belonged to several cultures, primarily distinguished

l,y diflerent iypes of painted pottery. Each culture had distinctive

i'"u,ur", of its;wn, bui all werl of tl're same generic pattern as those of

it" tliaat" furt. Though thcir settlernents \{'ere small, rarely more

th"n "

f"," acres in extentJSeir material standards were comParatively

f,isl,. The villagers rlwelt in comfortable houses of mud brick with

ioi., .ou.t"s of*stone, and made good pottery, which they-painted

with pleasant patterns. They knew the use of metal, for a few cop

per implements have been discovered in the sites'

Fig. ii.-Terracotta Figurines of Goddesses' a-'-!t-ultl ' c' 2bCo-9ffiO a'c'

i."2r,"u, ..'gsoo-rod," ;;. " :. lffafa

c' eooo n'c' d' Kaussmbr'

The village cultures had varying customs' for the secluded valleys

of the Brihii l{ills and the clmf,arative simplicity. of the lives of

inhabitants did not encourage very close contact' 'I'hus the nortnern

;iii;n;t made predomi;;iiy '"i pottttv' and the southern buff;

,i" "?""r" "i;Jii;ii.;1,u.1,

in tl'" Makian' burnt their dead' while

;ilJ" ;'i;h ;.;ef 'a;i;;;,-i;';h"

Brihui Hills, practised rractionalil"ri"f,-"t if" inh,tmation Lf the bones after partial disintegration by

burning or exPosure.Iheir religion was of' the tJ?e practisd by other early-1qlit"l:ut"l

communities in the Metliterranean regron and the Middle East'

;;;;G round fertility';i,;; and the wJrship of a Mother Goddesr'

Figurines of the Godderr-i.""" been found in manv sites' and in those

of the Zhob Culture, to the north of Quetta' ptrattic emb'lems have

also been found. I" .;;;;i;;;t;i#"t the worship of the Mother

Page 8: The Wonder That Was India

It THE WONDER THAT WA! TNDTA

Crildc.ss was associated with that of the bull, and these werc Doexception. Bull figurines have been discovered, and the bull formsa favourite motif for the decoration of the pottery of Kulli and RiniGhundii, one of the most important of the Zhob sites.

The people of the Kulli culture excelled in making small boxes ofsoft stone, delicately engraved with linear patterns. Such boxeshave been occasionally found in early Mesopotamian sites, and we mayassume that they were exported by the Kulli people, perhaps filleiwith unguent or perfume of some kind. At Susa and eliewherehave been found- a few pieces ofpainted pottery which are evidentlyimitated from the wares of the Kulli people, who obviously tradeiwith the Middle East. Otherwise there is little evidence of contact.No certainly identifiable Mesopotamian remains have been found inBahchisten, and there is no trace of objects from the Kulli Culturealong the overland route. It seems that the Kulli people madecontact with the earliest Mesopotamian civilizations by sea.

T H E H A R A P P I C I T Y C U L T U B E

ln the early part of the srd millennium, civilization, in the senseof an organized system of government over a comparatively largearea, developed nearly simultaneously in the river valleys- of t[qNile, Euphrates, and Indus. We know a great deal about thicivilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, for they have left us writtenmaterial which has been satisfactorily deciphered. The Inducpeople, on the other hand, did not engrave long inscriptions on stoncor place papyrus scrolls in the tombs of their diad; all that we knowof their writing is derived from the brief inscriptions of their seals,and there is no Indian counterpart of the Rosetta Stone. Severjbrilliant efforts have been made to read the Indus seals, but none sofar has succeeded. Hence our knowledge of the Indus civilization irinadequate in many respects, and it must be classed as prehistoric, forit has no history in the strict sense of the term.

The civilization of the Indus is known to the archaologist as theHarappi Culture, from the modern name of the site of onJof its twogreat cities, on the left bank of the Rivi, in the panjib. MohenjoDaro, the second city, is on the right bank of the Indus, some e5omiles from its mouth, Recently, excavations have been carried outon the- site of Kilibangan, in the valley of the old River Sarasvati,now almost dried up, near the border of India and West pakisten.These have revealed a third city, almost as large as the two earlierknown, and designed on the same plan. As well as these cities a fewsmaller towns are known, and a large number of village sites, from

}RETITSTORY: TgB NAN,TTPI CULTURE AND TIIE iBYANt I '

ttiil,ar ()n the upper Satlaj to Lothal in Gujarit. The area covered by

,', ll.rrappi Culture therefore extended for some 95o miles from

,, ,rrlr r. jJuth, arrd the pattern of its civil izationwas so uniform that

, ,, rr tlrc bricks were usually of the same size and shape from one

,,,,1 of it to the other. Outside this area the village cultures of

l l r lrrt lr istin seem to have continued'much as before.'l lris great civilization owed little to the Middle East, and there is

r,,r rcas8l to believe that it was formed by recent immigrants-; the

r ri.s w€r€ built by people who had probably been in the Indus

\'.rlk'y for several-""ntuii"t. The HirappE people-were already

l,'.li.rirs when they planned their cities, which hardly. afteled lo1

rlxrrrt a thousandyears. We cannot fix a precise date lbr the

l, ginning of this civilization, but certain indications synchronize it

',,i,frtfy ii,tt ,tt" village cultures of Bahchistdn' The site of Rini

t;t,,,'dii produced a st-ratification which showed, in the third phase

,,r tt,"-r,ili.!"'s histor], a type of Pottery with bold deslgn-s in b.lack

,,,, "

r"a ba&ground. -

Froni evidence discovered by Sir R' Mortimer

\\'Sceler in iS+O it seems that the city of Harappi was built on a

.i," "..tpi.a

Uy people using similar pottery' There is no evidence

,,f the date olt tire ioundatiZn of the othei great city of .Mohenjofl"ro, for its lowest strata are now below the level of the Indus'

*i,nre f"d has slorvly risen with the centuries;-though diggings

l,"re reached so feet-beiow the surface, fooding has prevented.the

cxcavation of the earliest levels of the city. Important lresl'l ltg.nt

,,', it" origins of the Ilarappi culture has-recently !:"1'I:-:,1{rl',' excava"tions at Kot Diji, opposite Mohenjo Daro a te-w r-ntt'es

n,,* ttu left bank or the inar,s. Here, below the level of the

llaraona Culture,-tuue Ut"" found remains of an earlier culture'

;,,hffiil';i-;;"i, of cruder workmanship. This.Kot Diji

.Jilt5";#. t. rtl* been the PrototyPe of the developed city

, ivilization which grew out of it'

ihus the l{^rupla Culture, ai least in the. Panjnb' was later in its

r,"iit"Lit ;il-fi;,uill"gu'"ultures' but it was certainly in part

.ontelnDorarv *r,n ,n"','for traces of mutual contact have been

;il;;'"*f,' J"-"'"r irr" .,rittug" cultures survived the great. civiliza-

tion to the east of them' iiot the faint irrdications which are all

rlre evidence we have, ii *".ra seem that the Indus cities began in

iit. nttift"if, perhaps iowu'a' the middle' of the srd millennium s'c';

it is almost certain that they continued well into the 2nd millerurium'

When these "iti",

*t'"'first excavated no.fortifications and few

weaDonlt were found, *a "o

U'laing.could be certainly identified

.'"T;;;;';; ;;Y.;:

-ir'u t'vp'tt'esis was then put forward

rhat the cities were orii"t"rt1. corimercial republics, without sharp

Page 9: The Wonder That Was India

16 THE woNDER THAT wAs rNDrA

extremes of wealth and poverty, and rvith only a weak repressiveorganization; but the excavations at Harappi in 1946 and furtherdiscoveries at Mohenjo Daro have shown that this idyllic picture isincorrect. Each city had a well-fortified citadel, wiiich ie"tns tohave been used for both religious and governmental purposes. Theregular planning of the streets, and the strict uniforrnity throughoutthe area of the Harappi culture in such features as

-weighti and

measures, the size of bricks, and even the layout of the greit cities,suggest rather a single centralized state tiran a nunrber of freeconrmunities.

Probably t-he most striking feature of the culture was its intenseconservatism. At Mohenjo Daro nine strata of buildings have beenreveale<!. As the level of the earth rose from the periodic floodingof the Indus new houses would be built almost exactly on the siteiof the old, with only minor variaticns in ground plan; for nearly rmillenniunr at least, t}e street plan of the cities remaineC the same,The script of the Indus people v/as totaily r.rncha,rged thrr.'ur:irout theirhistory. There is no doubt tirat they had contact witii \{e-"opo.tarnia, but they showed no inclination to adopt the technical adr-ancesof the more progressive culture. We must a.ssume that there wascontinuity of government throughout the life of the civil.ization.Tl:is unparalleled continuity suggests, in the words of ProfessorPiggott, "the unchanging traditions of the temple" rather than"the secular instability of the court".i It seems in fact that thecivilization of Harappi, lilte those of Egypt and Nfesopotanria, wastheocratic in character,

The two cities were built on a similer plan. To the rvest of eachwas a "citadel", an oblong artificial platform some gG-5o feet highand about 40ox2oo yards in area (pl. I) . This was defendedby crenelated walls, and on it were efected the public buildings.Below it was the town proper, in each case at least a square mile inarea. The main streets, some as much as 9o feet wide, were quitestraight (pl. I Ia), and divided the city into large blocks, withinwhich were networks of narrow unplurned lanes. In neither of tLegreat cities has any stone l.ruiiding been found; standardized bumtbrick of good quaiity rras the usual building material for dwellinghouses and public bui ldings al ike. The houses, olten of two crmore stories, though tlrcy varied in size, were all based on muchthe same plan-a square courtyard, round which were a number ofrooms. The entrances \4'cre usually in side alleys, and no windowrfaced on the streets, *'hich r.iust have presented a monotonous visteof dull brick walls. The houses had bathrooms, the design of whichshows thet the liarapp:tr, like the modern Indian, preferred to take

, ; :',:,":;#"" ff;J"T;T: ;"; il ;:'"il, ;:' ,'l r, " 'rns rvere provided with drains, which flowed into sewers under

i lr .rrr st lects, leading to soak-pits. The sewers were covered. ry, lrrut tlreir length by large brick slabs. The unique s-ewerage. ' , , ,r ' f t l re Indus people [rust have been maintained by some, ' , . , r1,,r l organizatiori , and is one of the most impressive of thei i

. l,', r rirnt'ntsl No other ancient civilization until that of the Romans

1,,,1 r, ' t . l l ic ient a system of drains.

Fig. i i i . - ln ter ior of a I Iouse of the Harappi Cul ture

( 81 pcrmision Dcpt. oJ Archaology Gournrunl oJ India, aad Arthur Prcbsliuin, lnndm' )

The average size of the grorurd floor of a house was about 90 feetsquare, but there were many bigger ones: obviously there rverenu-"rous well-to-do families in the Indus cities, which perhaps had amiddle class larger and more important in the social scale than thoseof the contempotu.y civilizations of Sumer and Egypt. R:mains,ofworkmen's dwellings have also begn discovered at both sites-parallelrows of two-roomed cottages, at Mohenjo Daro with a superficialarea of 9ox19 feet each, but at Harappi considerably larger; they

Page 10: The Wonder That Was India

l8 THE woNDER TttAT w^s tNDrA

bear a.ctriking resembrance to the "coolie lines,, of n:odern Indiantea and other estates. $1 lllappa rows of such brildifi;;;il;

found near &e circular brick- goors on *t i.t g.ain *", p'o,_d;;;;thgJ,were probably the dwellings of thu lrorfr"ren whose task was toflrrnq

co:n lor the priests and dignitaries who lived in the citadel.,rrao and tmy as thev were, these cottageg were better dwellingsthan those in wtrich -J"y lnai-

"".1t;ii;:; the present day.

. The most striking of the few large luildings is the gr"ui'b",h inthe citadel area of ilohenjo n".o. 'itrc-ir'fi

oulo.,g'b*h;rg;;;i39 x eg feet in area and 8 feet deep, constructed of beaulful Uri.?ri.orf.made watertight *ith bitumen (pl. IIO). Ii could,be drained bv11.:l"lllg in one corner and wai surrounded ty

" .foiri"i;;;wnrcn opened a number of small rooms. Like the-..tank,, of a Hindu

lemnlq, it probably had a religiou, pu.por", *d the cells rn"u f,"""

:::ilT:_lT_.s ofpriests. The_ special attention paid by the ieopleoJ rne rrarappa culture to.cleanliness is hardly due to thu fu.t O"tt{e1 had notions ofhygiene in advance ortho." ofother civilizations

of their time, but iniicates that, like thelater gindus, they had a::i:-lg

belief in the purificatory e-ffe"t. of water from a ;id;iil;";vrew.The largest building so far excavated is one at Mohenjo Daro witha superficial area of 6,soxze feet, which may have #;;;il:

1^t Yi*p,qe a great gr-anary has been ai.coveiea to the north of thecrtacfelr this was raised on a pratform of some r50x200 feet in areato protect it from floods, and was divided into storage blocks of5o x g,o feet each. It was doubtless used for storing ,frE ""_

*t i.f,,T1.":.ll:::1_Tm tfe p1a_sgts.as land tax, and *";"y

";;;;.;h;;::I:1rlr^::*terpart at-Mohenjc, Daro. The main fo6a ".op,

*.r"In9"tl Darley, peas, and,s.efqmum, the latter still an irnpo.t*t ..ofin.India for its seeds, which'providu uJiui" ol. Th"Ji;;.1";;evidence of the cultivation of iice, but tf," ff"r"ppa people grew andused cotton. It is not certain.that irrigation il i;;;;,?i;h;,rg;this. is possible. The main domestic'animals known to modernI:.1.I1:*:ady been tamed-humped and iiu.ptus c"ttb;;H:llli', c9"", sheep.' pigs, asses, dogs, and the domestic fowl. The€Iephant was well known, -and miy also have be"n t"mej. it;Har,al.ri people may have known Jr tr,u nor.e, since a r"* iior..;,teeth have been found in the lowest.t.utu,n oiti,e Baluchistan-;ti;;llni

Gh,ulgei, ry9labty dating froro ,"""r.i centuries earlier than(:re roundarron ol Harappe. This would indicate that horseridingnomads found their w^., to N._W. India in

";;li ,;b;;, b* #;;:the Aryan invasion; 6ut it i.r

".ry aouUtf"f *fr.U""-L"'8"";;

people possessed domestic ho..". ih..,rr"lr"r, ;;;d; ;il';15;

pREHrsroRyr rnz xln.r.ppi cuLTuBB AND THE iayert l9

rrrust have been very rare animals. The bullock was probably therrsual beast of burden,

On the basis of this thriving agricultural economy the Harappii1'e.rple built their rather unimaginative but comfortable civilization.'l'lreir bourgeoisie had pleasant houses, and even their workmen, whornay have been bondmen or slaves, had the comparative luxury oftwo-roomed brick-built cottages. Evidently a well organized com-rnerce made these things possible. The cities undoubtedly tradedwith the village cultures of Bal0chistin, where outposts of the Harapplculture have been traced, but many of their metals and semi-preciousstones canle from much longer distances. From Saurishgra and theDeccan they obtained conch shell, which they used freely in decoration,and several types of stone. Silver, turquoise and lapis lazuli wereimported from Persia and Afghnnistin. Their copper came eitherfrom Rijasthin or from Persia, while jadeite was probably obtainedfrom Tibet or Central Asia.

Whether by sea or land, the products of the Indus reached Mesopo-tamia, for a number of typical Indus seals and a few other objectsfrom the Indus Valley have been found in Sumer at levels datingbetween about 93oo and eooo r.c., and some authorities believe thatthe land of McluIIa, reached by sea from Sumer, and referred to inSumerian documents, was the Indus Valley. Evidence of Sumerianexports to India is very scant and uncertain, and we must assume thatthey were mainly precious metals and raw materials. The finding ofIndus seals suggests that merchants from India actually resided inMesopotamia; their chief merchandise was probably cotton, whichhas always been one of India's staple exports, and which is known tohave been used in later Babylonia. The recently excavated site atLothal in Gujardt has revealed harbour works, and the Harappipeople may have been more nautically inclined than was formerlysupposed. No doubt from their port of Lothal they were in touchwidr places farther south, and it is possibly thus that certain distinctivefeatures of the Harappan culture penetrated to South India.

It seems that every merchant or mercantile family had a seal,bearing an emblem, often of a religious character, and a name orbrief inscription in the tantalizingly indecipherable script. The stand-ard Harappi seal was a square or oblong plaque, usually made of thesoft stone called steatite, which was delicately engraved and hardenedby heating (pl. V). The Mesopotamian civilizations employedcylinder seals, which were rolled on clay tablets, leaving an impressedband bearing the device and inscription of the seal; one or two suchseals have been found in Mohenjo Daro, but with devices of theHarappi type. Over g,ooo seals have been discovered in the Indus

Page 11: The Wonder That Was India

90 THE woNDER THAT w^s TNDTA

cit ies, and i t would seem that every important ci t izen possessedone. Their primary purpose was probably to mark the ownershipof property, but they doubtless also served as amulets, and wereregularly carried on the persons of their owners. Generally theydepict animals, such as the bull, buffalo, goat, tiger and elephant,or what appear to be scenes from religious legend. Their briefinscriptions, never of more than twenty symbols and usually of notmore than ten, are the only significant examples of the Harappascript to have survived.

This script had some Z7o characters, which were evidently pictographic in origin, but which had an ideographic or syl labic character.It nray have been inspired by the earliest Sumerian script, rvhichprobably artedates it slightl_y, but it bears little resemblance to anyof the scripts of the ancient ll{iddle East, though attempts have beenmade to connect it with one or other of them. The most strikingsimilarities are with the synrbols used until comparatively recenttimes by the natives of Easter Island, in the eastern Pacificr3 but thedistance in space and time between the two cultures is so great thatthere is scarcely any possibility of contact or influence. We donot know what writing media were used, though il has been suggestedthat a small pot found at the lesser site of Chanhu Daro is an inkwell.Certainly the Harappans did not inscribe their documents on claytablets, or some of these would have been found in the rernains oftheir cities.

They were not on the whole an artistic people. No doubt they hada literature, with religious epics similar to those of Sumer and Baby-lon, but these are forever lost to us. The inner walls of their houseswere coated with mud plaster, but if any paintings were made onthese walls all trace of them has vanished. The outer walls, facingthe streets, u'ere apparently of plain brick. Architecture was aus-terely utilitarian, a few examples of simple decorative brickworkbeing tl.e only ornamentation so far discovered. No trace of monu-rnental sculpture has been found anywhere in the remains, and if anyof the larger buildings were temples they contained no large icons,unless these rvere made of wood or other perishable material.

But if the llarappi folk could not produce works of art on a Iargescale they excelled in those of small compass. Their most notableartistic achievement was perhaps in their seal engravings, especiallythose of animals, which they delineated with powerful realism andevident affection. The great urus bull with its many dewlaps, therhinoceros with knobbly armoured hide, the tiger roaring fiercely,and the many other aninrals (pl. V) are the-wc,rk of lraftsmenwho studied their subiects and loved them.

PREHISToRY: THE HARAPPi CULTURE AND THE invexr t t

Equally interesting are some of the human figurines. The red,rndston6 torso of iman (pl. IVa) is particulaily impressive forirs realism. The modelling of the rather heavy abdomen seems tokrok forward to the style of later Indian sculpture, and it has evenlrcen suggested that this figurine is a product of much later times,t*lriclr byiome strange accident found its way into the lower stratum;but this is very unlikely, for the figure has certain features, notably-rhe strange inientationi on the shoulders, which cannot be explainedon this liypothesis. The bust of another male figure, in steatite(pl. III),-ieems to show an attemPt at Portraiture. It has been

rugg"rt"a that the head is that ofa priest, with his eyes halfclosed-inm""iit^tion, but it is possible that he is a man of Mongolian type,.forthe presence of this type in the Indus Valley, at least sporadically,l,as teen proved by the discovery of a single skull at Mohenjo Daro.

Ivlost siriking ofthe figurines is perhaps the bronze-"dancing girl"(pl. Va). Niked but-for a necklace and a series of banglesalmost io'rrering one arm' her hair dressed in a complicated coiffure,standing in a provocative posture, with one arm on her hip and onelanky leg half bent, this young woman has an air of lively Pertn-e-ss'quite unlike anything in the work of other ancient civilizations. Hertirin boyish figure, and those of the uninspiring mother goddesses'indicate, incidintally, that the canons of female beauty among theHarappE people weie very different from those oflater India. It hasbeenilggestid that this ;'dancing girl" is a rePresentative of a classof temple dancers and prostitutes, such as e:6isted in conternporaryMiddl; Eastern civilizations and were.ar imPortant feature of laterHindu culture, but this cannot be proved. It is not certain that thegirl is a dancer, much less a temple dancer."

The HarappE people made brilliantly naturalistic models of ani-mals, specially charming being the tiny monkeys and squirrels usedas pinheads

"nd be"ds- (pl. IVa). {or their children t!1e-y lade

catile with movable heads, model monkeys which would slide downa string, little toy carts' ard whistles shaped like birds, all of terra-cotta. They also made rough terracotta statuettes of women,usually nakid or nearly naked, but witl elaborate head-dresses(fig. ii, c); these a,re probably icons.of the- Mother Goddess, and are

iolu*.tout that they seem to have been kept in nearly every home.They are very crudely fashioned, so we must assulne that the goddesswas not favoured by the upper classes, who commanded the servicesof the best crafts,n-en, but that her effigies were mass produced byhumble potters to meet popular demand.

Though they had not completely given up the use of stone toolsthe Harippi people used impiements of coPPer and bronze; but in

Page 12: The Wonder That Was India

92 THE WONDER THA? WAS INDIA

many respects they were technologically backward in comparison wi&Mesopotamia. The Sumerians vJry e"rly invented k"i";, ;Jrp.;;heads with ri bs in the middle fo. e*t.u ,tre.igth, and u*"h"ua, *ith ioierfor the shafts; but the blades of Harappi"were ffat and easilv beniwhile the axeheads had to be lashed to their handles; ,;iu-i" ;il";;firost levels do we find tools of a better type, which ;;.; o;;;;i,feft by invaders. In one respect the Harapia i"ople *;;;;;hr;ii;in advance of their contemporaries-they f,u'a i*ir.J ;:;;;iiundulating teeth, which allowed the dusi to escape fr""ly from thecut, and much_ simplified the carpenter,s task. From th'is *u ,",assume that thev had particulai skill in carpentry, il"y;;:beautiful beads oisemi-piecious stones and faience, and their potterv-rnougn mostty plain and uninteresting, wat well mod." _d r f#specinrens are delicately painted (fig.'iv).

!ig. lvrpainted pottery of tbe Harapptr CultureThe men wore robes which Ieft one shoulder bare, and the gar_

ments of the upper classes were often richly patterned. Beards rierewom, and men and wom_en alike had long hair. The eraborat" t."a-dresses of the Mother Goddess fgureslrobabry had trr"ii

".""i"i-parts in the festive attire of the ricf,er *-n.n. brr. g"JJ"r..rli;vrear only very short skirts, but on one seal women,"perhaps pri"riesses, are depicted with longer skirts, reaching to ju.t U"fJ* inoknee. The coiffures or the *6men ;;;; ;f;'"fiu"rJr", ,"j fig,"ii,were also popular, as in presentday India. women.loved iewellerv--1

"*"1: ̂1".1:y !1_c]:" in profus ion, I urge n "ckiuc.;; ;; ;;;".'#:rrs tar as we can reconstruct it from our fragmentary knowledfe,the religion of the Harappi people h.l .;;; leatures suggestingthose characteristics of laier tiinaui..n *rri"t .r" not to be found int}e earliest stratum of Indian religious liteiature. The MotherGoddess_, for instance, r:-ap-pe1r: o"nty

"ft " tte tupse of

-r;;;;

thousand years from the fali'of Haraf,pa. w" r,"u.i ,""i'tr,"i-rr,"

PREHTsToRY: rsr ganapPi cuLTuRE AND THE inv,rxl 2s

was evidently the diviniry of the people, and the upper classes seem tohave preferred a god, who also shorvs features found in later Hindu-isrn. As well as the figurines already mentioned, which may representdivinities. there are a few in terracotta of bearded nude men withcoiled hair; their posture, rigidly upright, with the legs slightlyapart, and the arms held parallel to the sides of the body but nottouching it, closely resembles the stance called by the Jainas ,ta]of-sarga, in which meditating teachers were often portrayed in latertiures; the repetition of this figure, in exactly the same posture,would suggest that he was a god. A terracotta mask of a horneddeity has also been found.

The most striking deity of the Harappi culture is the homed godof the seals (pl. V). He is depicted on three specimens, in twoseated on a stool or small dais, and in the third on the ground;in all three his posture is one well known to later Indian holy men,with the legs drawn up close to the body and the two heels touching,a position quite impossible to the average

'Westemer without much

practice. The god's body is nude, except for many bangles and whatappear to be necklaces, and he wears a peculiar headdress, consistingof a pair of horns, which may have been thought of as growing fromhis head, with a plant-like object between tlrem. On the largest ofthe seals he is surrounded by four wild animals, an elephant, atiger, a rhinoceros and a buffalo, and beneath his stool are two deer,as in the representations of the Buddha preaching his first sermon inthe Deer-Park at Vdr54asi. The animals, the plant-like growth fromthe head, and the fact that he is ithyphallic, indicate that he is a fer-tility god. His face has a fierce tigerish aspect, and one authorityhas suggested that it is not meant to be human;a to the right andleft of the head are small protuberances which were believed by SirJohn Marshall to represent a second and third face on either side.Marshall boldly called this god " Proto-Siva", and the name has beengenerally accepted; certainly the horned god has much in commonwith the Siva of later Hinduism, who is, in his most importantaspect, a fertility deity, is known as Palupatir "the Lord of Beasts",and is sometimes depicted with three faces.

Animals played a big part in the religion of the Indus people.Though all the animals shown on the seals may not have been par-ticularly sacred, the bull occurs in contexts which prove that he atleast was so; on many seals he stands before a peculiar object which isevidently not a manger, and has no utilitarian purpose, but is a "cultobject", probably a table on which com was grown for fertilityrites.6 On some seals small lines emerge from the table, which mayrepresent the growing corn, no doubt eaten by the sacred bull as

Page 13: The Wonder That Was India

9 * T H E W O N D E R T H A T W A S I N D I A

part of the ceremony. The bull is usually depicted with a sinslehorn' and has sometimes been referred to as a unicorn, though therJ irIittle doubt that the artist was trying to portray a norrnal b"ull, whosesecond horn was concealed b-y thJfirsi. In-Il induism the bull isspecially associated with the god si 'a, but he does not seem to havebeen connected with the "proto-Si'a,'of l larappi, for he is notamong the animals surrounrJing the god on the iimous se"l. Thehorns of the "Proto-siva" areiot triose of an ox but of a buffalo.The cow, so revered in later llinduism, is nowhere clepicted.

certain trees were sacred, as they are in l{induism iodav. notablvthe.fifal,. which is specially honoured by Buddhists

", ,t" .p*i"',

under which the Buddha found-enligrrtenment. _one'e.y interesting

seal (pl. Ve) depicts a horned goddess in a pipal tree, worshippeiby a figure also u.earing homs, with a human-headecl goat *"t"hinuthe ceremony and a row of seven pigtailed wom-en, probabl!priestesses, in attendance.

one of the few traces of Sumerian contact is to be found in the sealshowing a h9ry grappling with two tigers (pl. V/) _; ;";i;;of a famous Mesopotamian motif in which the herl'Gilgamesh irdepicted as fighting two lions. The rotund face of the her?, and thipeculiar treatment ofhis hair, suggest that he represents the sun, andt ha t, th,e. ni ght-prowling ti gers ari-the powers of d arkness._ -r'halrrc worship !v'as an irnportant element of Harappi relision.Many cone-shaped objects hive been found, wrrich

"r"'ul.,o.t'""i-tairily formalized -representations of the phallus. The lifiga orphall ic emblem in later Hinduism is the symLor of the god sivi whois more commonly worshipped thus than as an icon; itls a fair infer-:l"".lh"j these o.bjects were connected with the ithyphalli. ..p;;;o-Siva" of the seals. It has been suggested that ceitain larse rins-shaped stones are formalized represeiiations of the t"r"tu g"?.*ti?ugrCg-Td were symbols of the Mother Goddess, but thTs is mosrdoubtful.

Until Sir Mortimer Wheeler's rvork at Harappi in 1946 nothingwas known with certainty of the u.ay in which tfrese people di;;;Aof their dead; but from a c"metery then discover"d',

"ont"ini.,g "tleast 57 graves' it appears that buriil was the usual rite. The wEolecemetery has not been excavated and the evidence is not vet fullyassessed, but it is clear that the dead were buried in an Jxtenajpo:!!-re with pottery vessels and personal ornaments.. Yhq rrere the- people rvho built this great civilization? SomeIndian historians have tried to prove that ih"y *"r. tr," Aiy"ni-iiropeople. who -composed the f;g Veda, but this is quite #p;r;ibi".Frorn the skeletal remains so iir examineci it appears that some oitire

pnt:nlsroRy: THe Haneppi cULTURE aND TnE inyrxs gs

ilrr;rPPans u'ere people of the long-headed, narrow-nosed, slender\ l .di tcrra'ean type, found ai l over the ancient Middle East and inl g,r'pt, and forming an important element of the Indian population.rr tlre,present day. A second element was the proto-Auitraloid,r'ith flat nose and thick lips, related to the Australian aborigines.rrrt l to some of the wild hi l l - tr ibes of modern India. A single-skul l,,1 Mongolian type has been found, and one of tlre shoirheadedAlpine tvpe. The bearded steatite head to which we have referredslrows elements of both the latter, types, while the bronze dancinggirl seems certainly Proto-Australoid. Then as now, N.-W. Indiiwas the nreeting-place of many races.

The modern South Indian is usually a blend of Mediterranean andI)roto-Australoid, the two chief ethnic factors in the Harappi culture;rnoreover the Harappd religion seems to show many similarities withthose elements of Hinduism which are specially popular in the Dravidiancor.mtry. In the hills of BalUchistan, where the people of the Neland Zhob Cultures built their little villages, the Brihuis, thoughcthnically now predominantly lranian, speak a Dravidian language.'l'hus

it has been suggested that the Harappi folk were Dravidiais,and Father H, Heras, one of the authorities who have tried to readtheir script, has even claimed that their language was a verJrprimitive form of Tamil.

It rnight be suggested that the Harappi people consisted of eProto-Australoid element, which at one time may have covered thewhole of India, overlaid by a Mediterranean one, which entered Indiaat a very early period, bringing with it the elements of civilization.I.ater, under the pressure of further invasions, this Mediterraneanelement spread throughout the sub<ontinent, and, again mixingwith the indigenous peoples, formed the Dravidians. The chielobjection to this theory is that the megaliths erected by the earlyDravidians in South India have been shown to be not very ancienf;a recent theory even holds that the Dravidians came to India from thewest by sea as late as the second half of the lst millennium s.c.oWe can only say with certainty that some of the inhabitants of theindus cities were of a type widely found further to the west, and thattheir descendants must survive in the present-day population of India.

It does not follow that the rest of India was wholly ignorant ofthe Harappi culture. Certain finds of copper implements in the<listrict of Rinchi (S. Biher) and elsewhere suggest that the peoplerof North India learnt the use of metal from Harappi, for the bladesare without the strengthening midrib; but the dating of these objectsis very uncertain, and they may be much later than the fall of Harappi.

Certain pre-Ayran sites in the western half of northern India also

Page 14: The Wonder That Was India

26 THE WoNDER THAT WAS INDIA

give evidence of Harappin cultural influence on peoples at a lowercultural level. Material from places such as Hastindpura, Kaudinrbiand the very recently excavated Atranji Kheri near Aligarh, togetherwith Deccan sites like Navdato[ and Nevisl, show that by the end oftire cnd millennium n.c. there were many settlements lvhose ir>habitants lived in reasonably comfortable conditions, knowing the useof metal. They were apparently illiterate, but far from barbarous,and as our picture of prehistoric India grows more accurate it be-comes clear that, even outside the region of the l{arappd. culture,many peoples in the sub-continent had attained a considerable degreeof cultural progress. Even as far east as Bengal there was at leastone metal-using settlement in the 2nd millennium-this was at aplace now called Pdndu Rijar Dhibi, where a seal and pottery havebeen found somewhat resembling those of Minoan Crete, though wecannot be sure that this indicates actual contact. This latter siteseems to indicate two strata of the population-a comparatil'ely cul-tured, metal-using element living by the side of another which wasstill using microliths. The picture of prehistoric India beyond theregion of the Harappi culture is rapidly becoming clearer, and in timeit may be possible to trace in broad outline the movements of earlypeoples throughout the subcontinent, and solve many problems atpresent very obscure.- 'Whatever

the case may be, pre-Aryan India made certain advancesin husbandry for which the whole world owes her a debt. Cottonu'as to the best of our knowledge first used by the Harappi people.Rice was not one of their staple crops, nor was it grown in neolithicChina, whose main food crop was millet. Wild rice is known inEastern India, and it is here, in the swampy Gangd. Valley, that itwas probably first cultivated by the neolithic contemporaries of theHarappi people. The water buffalo, known to the Harappi people,was a comparatively late arival in China, and it may have been firstdomesticated in the Gangetic Plain, though some authorities believethat it originated in the Philippine Islands.

Perhaps the most widely appreciated of prehistoric India's gifts tothe world is the domestic fowl. Omithologists are agreed that alldomestic species descend from the wild Indian jungle fowl' TheHarappi people knew the domestic fowl, though its remains are fewrnd it is not depicted on the seals. It was probably first tamed byneolithic Indians in the Ganga Valley, whence it found its way bythe Burma route to China, where it appears in the middle of the endrnillennium. The Egyptians knew it at about the same time, as arare luxury bird,? Clearly India, even at this remote period, wasnot whollv cut offfrom the rest of the world.

pnEnrsrony: THE HARAppI CULTURE AND THE inyaxr 97

T H E E N D O F T H E I N D U S C I T I E S

When Harappi was first built the citadel was defended by a greattureted wall, 4.o feet wide at the base and si feet high. In the courseof the centuries this wall was refaced more strongly than before,though there is no evidence that the city was dangerbusly threatenedby enemies. But towards the end of Harapp6's existence its defenceswere further strengthened, and one gateway was wholly blocked.Danger threatened from the west.

First to suffer were the Ballchistin villages. T-he earliestlevel ofthe site of Rdni Ghundii shows that bandi of horse-riding invadercwere present in the region before JOOO u.c., but they soon disap.peared, to give way to tlre peasant culture which occupied the site inthe 3rd millennium and was contemporary with the Indus cities.Then, in 2ooo B.c. or a little later, the village was bumt, and a new,coarser type ofpottery appears---€vidently invaders had occupied thesite. Soon afterwards came other invaders, using unpainted encrustedpcttery. Similar though less complete evidence appears in otherNorth Balochistdn sites, while in South Bahchistan people of an intnrsive culture founded a settlement at Shahi Tump, not far from Sutka-gen Dor, which was the most westerly outpost of the HarappE Culture.The Shahi Tump people used the shaft-hole axe and round copperseals, and replaced the earlier local culture, known to archaologists arthe Kulli Culture. In the last phase of the life of Mohenjo Daropainted pottery and stone vessels resembling those of Balflchistin

lppear, and this may indicate a large influx of t(ulli ysfugges, wtlsbrought their crafts with them.

After the barbarians had conquered the outlyingvillages the ancientIaws and rigid organization of the Indus ciiies-must-have sufferedgreat strain. At Mohenjo Daro large rooms were divided intosmaller ones, and mansions became tenements; potters' kilns werebuilt within the city boundaries, and one even in the middle of a streetThe street plan was no longer maintained. Hoards of jewellerywere buried. Evidently the city was overpopulated and law andorder were less well kepf, perhaps because tle barbarians werealready.ranging the provinces and the city was full of newcomers,whom the city fathers could not force into'the age-old pattem of itsculture, very frequent flooding much worsened the situation.

When the end came it would seem that most of the citizens ofIrfohenjo Daro had fled; but a group ofhuddled skeletons in one ofthehouses and one skeleton of iwoman lying on the steps of a wellsuggest that a few stragglers were overtaken by the invaders. Inthis level a fine copper axe has been found, with a very strong

Page 15: The Wonder That Was India

'E THE woNDEn Tt t T w^s INDTA

slrafthole and an adze blade opposite that of the axe-a beautiful tool,adapted both for war and peaiC,_and superior to anything the Harappip,eople possessed (fiS.

"). Swordj with stre-ngthe"ning mi,iiifr

also make their appearance. A single pot burial o] a mari of ratherMongolian type may be that of one 6f the invaders.. F"gT Harappi comes evidence of a different kind. Here, near

the older cemeter,y of interments, is another cemetery on "

high",Ievel, containing fractional burials in pots of men with short-heidedArmenoid skulls. A skull of similar tyoe was buried in the citadelitself. At Chanhu Daro, on the lowei Indus, the Harappi peoplewere replaced. by squatters, living in small huts with fr..iIr""r,rnnovatlons- which suggest that they came from a colder climate.lnese people, though unsophisticated in many respects, had superior

Fig. v.-Axes of the Indus Citiesa. Inscribed unsocketed axe-head. b. Shaft_hole axe-adze

tools and weapons. similar settlements were made in Bal[chistdn atabout the same time. Among the scanty remains of these i"u.J"r.there is clean evidence of the presence of the horse. Th" ilJ;;valley fell to barbarian-s who tiiumphed not only through g.;;t*military prowers, but also because they were equipped #ith'b.tt",weapons' and had learnt to make full use of thl iwift and terror-striking beast of the steppes, In other parts of India, horvev"., ih.impact of the invaders vras not imrnediateiy felt, and it appears thai the{T"l.na_"1tt of Lothal, in Gujarit, survived long

"iter its parent

cities had fallen, and its culture seems to have derllop"a g."du"ilt,merging into tl-rat of the later period with no sharp'breal ir,

"oi_tinuity.

._Ih. O"r: of these greatevents can only be fixed very approximately

rrom s}'ncnronlsms with the Middle East. sporadic traces of contaitcan be found between the Indus cities and Sumeria, and there issome reason to believe that this contact continued under the FirstDynasty of Babylon, which produced the great lawgiver Hammurabi.This dynasty was also overwhelmed b| barbariins, the Kassites,who came from the hills of Iran and c6nquered by virtue of theiihorse{rawn chariots. After tbe Kassite invasion no trace of con-tact with the Indus can be found in Mesopotamia, and it is therefore

pRErrrsroRy: t t tp n.rnappi cULTURE AND Tl{E iRYANS ln

lrhclv that the Indus cities vanished at about the sanre time as thedr rrastl' of Hammurabi. Earlier authorities placed the latter event int lr l f i rst centuries of the znd mil lerurium u.c., but new evidence, whicha1,1x.arcd shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, hasr, srrltcd in a revised chronology. The fall of the First BabvlonianI )ynasty is now thought to have taken place about 1600 B.c.

'I'he earliest Indian literary source we possess is the flg Ycda,rrurst of which was composed in the second half of the 9nd millennium.It is evidently the work of an invading people, who have not yet fullysutrjugated the original inhabitants of N.-W. lndia. In his greatrcport on the excavations at Mohenjo Daro, Sir John Marshallrrraintained that some two centuries or more elapsed between the

fall of the Indus cities and the invasion of tlre Aryans; but the more

r(rent excavations at Harappd and elsewhere, the revision of theclrronology of Babylon, and indications in the fr.g Veda itself, have alltended to reduce the gap. Many competent authorities, led bySir R. Mortimer Wheeler, now believe that Hanappi, was over-thrown by the Aryans. It is suggested that the interments in thelater cemetery at Harappi are those of "true Vedic Aryans", and

that the forts or citadels which the Vedic war-god Indra is said tolrave destroyed included Harappi in their number.

There is not enough evidence to say with certainty that thedestroyers of the Indus cities were members of the group of relatedtribes whose priests composed the 4g Ycda, but it is probable thatthe fall of this great civilization was partly due to the widespreadnrigratory movements of charioteering peoples which altered the faceof the whole civilized world in tire gnd nrillennium s.c.

I N D o - E U R o P E A N s A N D i R Y A N S

The invaders of India called themselves iryas, a word generallyanglicized into Aryans. The name was also used by the ancientPersians, and survives in the word lra-2, while Eire, the name of themost westerly land reached by Indo-European peoples in ancienttimes, is also cognate. Here we cannot discuss the many theorieson the origin of these people, but can only give that which seems tous most reasonable, and which, rve believe, would be accepted by amajority of those who specialize in the subject.

About 2ooO D.c. the great steppeland which stretches from Polandto Central Asia was inhabited by semi-nomadic barbarians, whowere tall, comparatively fair, and mostly long-headed. They hadtamed the horse, which they harnessed to light chariots with spokedwheels, of a much faster and better t)pe than the lumbering aso{nwn

Page 16: The Wonder That Was India

to THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA

cars with four solid wheels which were the best means of transportFry

to conremporary Sumer. They-were m;i;ly"p;,;;i;"br,practised a little acriculture. T'ere is"no eviclence ,fi",',f,uj *J..'i,direct contact with"the Sumerians, urf trr"yi"a adopted some Meso-potamian innovations, notably.ihe snart"-hore axi. r. ir,"-"".r,part of the cnd millennium, whether f."rn-p."r..*".-i'p;il;il,desiccation- of pasture lands, or r.or,. uoin causes. these nennlowere on the move.. They migrated in bands

""r,*.ra., :;i;wards and eastwards, *qu"rlng lo.a1 poprlu,lrnr, *j irri"r_*arrli1g. with them to^ form

" ,ili.,g clais.- They Lrougt t-r-iit,them. their patrili'ear family systemjtheir worshi"p .i;il--;:'and their horses and chariotJ. in .nort .iir," l""iirr'*il'.n"r"r*"

settled their original language gradually.adap_tea itself torffi;;.:-ol-S: "onqyered

peoples. *Soime

invided Luropu, to become theancestors of the Gree!t1, Latins, Celts and 'Teutons.---Oifr..i

appeared in Anatolia, and from the mixture of tn"r" *itji ;: .;;;iinhabitants there arose $e grea1"-;l;;;ii* Hittites. H;iil;remained in their ord hom-e, the ancestors of the r"tl" n"r,L"*iSlavonic people. And yet otfr"r, rn"""a-Jo-u,t *".a, to the Caucasurand the Irairian tableland, whence tr,.y ,'"a-u many attacks on theMiddle Eastern ci vili zati ons. p g n"riit"r, *fr. Iriq;"..ii ji, Jfwere led by men of this stock. ln tt,u r+* .".rrrry r.". there appeared

ill:-u. Syria a people called Mitanni, -r,"r" tiig, il ilJl';i;names' and a few of whose gods are famiriar to every student of Indianreligion: Indara, Urwna'(the .V9J1" g.j"Varuna), Mitira, andNalatiya, As well as rhose'of the tvrita.fini oif,". ifrilf, in $;i";;Palestine had names of Indo_Irani; ;;":"'

"'The maraudins tribesmen gruar"lli'mlrged with the older Dopu_lations of the Miadle East, and the ancienicivilizations, invieoraiedby fresh blood and ideas, rose to new heightsof ma,;;;i:;i;?;; b_;the culture of the Indus, weakened by d;;;;;; floods, could neitherwithstand nor absorb the invaders. f''l

"rir*. which was to succeedthat. of HarappE was, as we shall s"", aiomeirically opposed to itrpredecessor' onlv after. many centuries did some erements of theolder civitization, tept

it_,J1$ a"-uit ,h;;;... people and serfa.begin to_influence the conquerors.

The Aryan invasion of tnaia was not a single concerted action, but11.". l"-r_".ins

centuries and involvin g rn*f i.i u"r, p"rh"p;' ;;,. ;iol the same race and language. It seems ""itui.,

tr,.t i"".y..r;;"i;village cultures of the wlstim hills we.e deriroy"a_U"fore the citiesof the Indus vanished. but oth_erwis" th" ;;;;; of Aryan expansionc.ann-ot be plotted, owing to ,-h; p;il "?i".i".i"r

remains. Evi-<ientiy the invaders did not take to rivins in cities, and after the fal

tREHIsroRv: rxa Hlnrrri cuLTUBE AND TtrE invaxs tl

of llarappd and Mohenjo Daro the Panjib and Sind became a land

.t l i tt le i i l lages, wit6 buildings of rvood and reed the remains of

llri,h have io.,g si.,ce perisf,ed. For centuries after the fall of

I l:rrrppa this par-i of Indii is almost an archeological blank, which at

prcsent can oniy be filled by literary squrces.

r r tB i ny , rNs lN tND!^ , THE PRoTo-Hrs roR lc PERIoD

Amongthemanypeoples.lvhoenteredlndiaintheendmillenniumt... ',r'"ri gtorp of ielaied tribes whose priests had perfected 1 very-

etlvanced p"oetic technique, which they used for the compositio.n of

hynrns in iraise of tlreir gods, to be sung at sacrifices' These tribes,

.t,i.f of *i,i.h was that oT the Bharatas,iettled mainly in East Panjab

and in the region betrveen the Satlaj. and the Yamund which later

became knowi as Brahmivarta. The hymns composed by their

priests in their new home were carefully handed down by word of

l'routh, and early in the lst millerurium B'c' were collected and

arranged. They were still not committed to writing, but by now

rhey iere lookei on as so sacred that even minor alterations in their

lexi were not permitted, and the priestly-schools which preserved

them devised tie most remarkable and effective system of checks-

and counter checks to ensure their purity' Even when the art of

writing rvas widely known in India the hyrnns. were rarely written,

but, thanks to the brilliant feats of memory of many generations of

brehma4s, and to'the extrelne sanctity rvhich the.hyrnns were. thought

io po.."rr, they have survived to the present da-y in a form which' from

internal evidence, aPpears not to have been seriously. tampe.red with

fo, n"-ly th."" il.,ou."nd years. This great collection of hymns is

ih" ft y'eda, still in theory the most sacied of the numerous sacred

texts of thc Hindus.-- 1.ir" p"tioa of the Vedas, Brihmanas and .Upanigads -is a sort of

trun.itii., from prehistory to listory' If history, as.distinct from

archeology, is the study of the huntan past from lvrltten sources'

thun In.tll;" history b"git.ts rvith the Aryuls'- 1!" Bg (e(a' ydlheg.;uiboAy of orui relf ious l iterature which Jollowed it in the first

f;"i i ol t l ,J r.t mil lenniim n.c., belong to tlre l iving Hindu tradition.

ilre Vedic hynrns are still recited it weddings and funerals' ^and

in the daily devotions of the !rihma4' Tlrus they are Part ol

t,irtori."t India, and do not belong to her buried preSistoric past'

nut tt,"y tell us l itt le about the-great events of the time' except

ir', ir.i,.iingly vague incidental refirences; even on social conditions

their inforirition is scant; only on religion and thougSt is the his'

torian more fullY informed.

Page 17: The Wonder That Was India

92 THE woNDER THAT wAs INDIA

- Yet from the hymns of the f;g and, Atharua yedas, the sacrificid,instructions of the Brihma4as, an,l the nrysticisrn of ihe UpaniEads,the outlines of a culture emjrge, though often all t"o u"gu.lyiand here and there we see the faint wiaiths of great .ug"i *jtribal leaders, whose importance for their times wai such tliat theirnames were recorded in sacred literature. Around these phan-tonrs later tradition draped glittering mantles of legend, tegena inwhich many Indians still implicitly-believe, and ivhich, ii othercontexts, is exceedingly important. But when the mantles are re_moved orrly vague shadows remain, little more than the names ofchieftains who three thousand years ago waged successful waragainst their enemies. For the period before thJ time of the Buddhawe can only trace the general character of the civilization whichproduced the Vedic literature and give a brief and tentative sketclof its expansion.

THE CULTURE OF THE NG YEDINo real synchronisms are contained in the fig lleda itselll to give

us _anl certain-information on the date of its-composition. $meauthorities in the past ciaimed an exceedingly early date for it, onthe basis of tradition and arnbiguous astronomical ieferences in thehymns themselves-it was even believed by one very respectedlndian scholar that it went back to 6000 s.c.

- The discoverv of the

Indus cities, which have nothing in common with the culture describedin the Veda and are evidently prb-Vedic, proves that the hy...r

:"""gt have been composed before the end of HarappE. The greatd-evelopment in culture, religion and language which is evideit inthe later Vedic literature shows that a long peliod must have elapsedbetween the time of the composition of the last hymns of the pg i/edaand the days.of the Buddha-perhaps as much is 5oo years. It irtherefore probable that most of the Ilg yeda was composed betweenlSoo and looo 8.c., though the composition of some of the mostrecent hymns and the collation of thi rvhole collection mav havetaken place a century or two later.

When the hymns w_e_re written the focus of Aryan culture was thcregion between the Yamund and Satlaj (Sutidrt), south of thsmodern Ambili, and along the upper course of the river Sarasvati.The latter river is now an insignificant stream, losing itself inthe.desert of Rajasthnn, but it then flowed broad and sirong, andprobably joined the Ind.us below the confluence of the Satlaj.- TheVedic poets knew the Himilayas but not the land south- of theYamuni, and they did not mention the Vindhyas. To the east the

P n E H t s r o R Y : T H E H A R A P P i C U L T U R E A N D T H E A R Y A N s 5 3

Aryans had not expanded far beyond the Yamuni, and the Ganga

is mentioned only in one late hY*..At this time the Aryans had not wholly subjugated the indigenour

inhabitants. Though many hymns refer to battles between one

Aryan tribe and an;ther, thereis, underlying this intertribal rivalry,

" sirrr" of solidarity against the D,i'sas and Dasyus.,rvho evidently repre-

sent the survivors-of-the }larappi culture, and kindred peoples of the

Panjab and the North-west. -

The Disas are described as dark and

ill-favoured, bull-lipped, snuLnosed, worshippers of the phallus, and of

hostile speech. T'hey were rich in cattle, and dwelt in fortified places

called ptr, of which the Ar,r an war-god- Indra had destroyed hundreds'

The main work of destroying the Jettlements of the Disas had been

accomplished some time bef6re the composition of the hymn-s, and

the great battles which must then have taken place-were- already

misied over with legend; but the DEsas were still capable of massing

armies of lo,ooo men against the invaders.Otherenemies of thehryans were the Panis, who are described ar

vealthy peogle who refused to patronize the Vedic priests, and who

stole tfre'catile of the Aryans' They were not so strongly hated ar

the Disas, and their setilements seem often to have continued un-

molested. It has been suggested that the Pa4is were semitic traders,

but the eviderrce is so sliq[t-that this conclusion cannot be accepted.

The Aryans were not"uninfluerrced by the earlier inhabitants. In

classical Sanskrit the word diisa regularly means "slave" or "bond-

man", and in the later hymns of thJf;g l/edait was already acquiring-

that meaning, while the feminine foim dnsi is used in the sense of

"slave-girl""ihroughout the book; but, though many of the van-

quished-Disas mu.Ihu.r" been enslaved' some seem to have come to

terms with the conquerors, and one Ddsa chief is mentioned as

following Aty* *ays and patrorrizing the brihma4s'8 One result

of this cJntaci of Aryan and non-Aryan is evident even in the earliest

stratum of the 4[ fcda, the language of which is appreciably

affected by non-In-do-European influences. All Indian languages,

from Vedic to the modern vernaculars, contain a series of sounds,

the retroflex or cerebral consonants, which cannot be traced in any

other Indo-European tongues, not even in old lianian, which ir

aosety akin to Sanskrit. these sounds must have developed quickly,

from "the efforts of non-Aryans to master the language -of their

conquerors. No doubt the invaders often married indigenous

l"o-"n, whose children were bilingual, and after a few generations

the Aryans' original language shoived the effect of the admixture

of aboriginal blooa. N"umIrous words in the [g Ycda all nlt

corurectel with any known Indo-European roots, and were evidently

td'

i

Page 18: The Wonder That Was India

tt

borrowed from the natives. Non-Aryan influence on religion andculture must also have been felt very early, and the gradual dis-appearance of much of the_original Indo-European heritage beneathsuocessive layers of non-Aryan innovation carr be traced throughthe early religious literature of India.

The primitiveness of early Aryan society was much exaggeratedby some lgth{entury Indologists, who thought they found in thehighly formalized and rigidly controlled style of the Sg Yeda the firstoutpourings of the human spirit and an echo of Rousseau's noblesavage. In fact even when the earliest hymns were composedthe ArSrans 'were not savages, but were on the fringes of civiliza-tion. Their military technique was in advance of that of theMiddle East, their priestly schools had raised the tribal sacrifiee toa fine art, and their poetry was elaborate and formalized. On theother hand they had not developed a city civilization. The completeabsence of any words connected with writing in the .Sg Vcda, despiteits size and the many contexts in which such words might be expectedto o@ur, is almost certain proof that the fuyans were illiterate.They were a people of warlike stockbreeders, organized in tribesrather than in kingdoms. Their culture bears a generic likeness tothat of Beoutulf, the earlier Icelandic sagas, and the old Irish proseepics, and was somewhat less advanced than that depicted in the lliad-

The tlibes were ruled by chiefs who bore the title rdjd, a word,related to the Latin re.c. The.rijd was not an absolute monarch,for the government of the tribe was in part the responsibility of thetribal councils, the sabi.a- and, samiti. These two words occur togetherin many contexts and the distinction between them is not whollyclear-possibly some tribes called their goveming body sabha andothers samiti, while yet others had both assemblies, the first an irurercouncil of a few great men of the tribe and the second a larger gather-ing of heads of families.s These two bodies exerted much influenceon the king:urd their approval was necessary to ensure his accession.Some tribes seem to have had no hereditary chief, but weregoverneddirectly by the tribal council, for in one passagelo we read of kingssitting down together in the assembly, which suggests that, as insome later oligarchic clans, the title of raji was taken by all the greatmen of the tribe, who governed it through a folk-moot.

But hereditary kingship was the rule, and the rijd, dwelling in afine hall, had a rudimentary court, attended by courtiers (sabhAsad)and chiefs ofsepts (grAna7i), Already he had a general (scanni)twho was responsible under the king for minor campaigns and cattle-raids against neighbouring tribes. Very important was the chiefpiest (fvohilc), who by his racrifloe! encured the prosperity of the

PREHTSTORY: THE HARJTPPI CULTURE AND'THE iNYAXT S6

tribe in peace and its victory in war. Often the purohita aPPears ara tribal medicine-man, performing magical ceremonies and mutteringspells for victory both before and during battle.

The Aryans looked on the king primarily as a leader in war,responsible for the defence of the tribe. He was in no sense divineat this early period, and had no religious functions, excePt to ordersacrifices for the good of the tribe and to support the priests who per-formed them. The priest-king of some other early cultures had nocounterpart in Vedic India. There was no regular revenue system andthe king rvas maintained by the tribute of his subjects and the bootylvon in battle. If the king had judicial functions, as he certainly lradIater, t]rere is no reference to them; murder was probably punishedby a system of wergeld, as with the AngloSaxons and some otherearly Indo-Europe;rn peoples, but beyond this we have no informa-tion on the administration of justice in the tirne of t\e fig lcda.

Several chieftains are mentioned by name, and around some of themIater tradition has embroidered very unreliable stories, but only onerijd is recorded in the llg Yeda as performing any deed of historicalimportance. This is Sudds, king of the Bharatas, the tribe dwellingon the upper reaches of the Sarasvati River. Three poems of thecollection describe the great "Battle of the Ten Kings" at whichSudas defeated a coalition of ten tribes of the Panjib and the North.West, on the banks of the River Parugni, the modern Rivi. Themost powerful of these ten tribes was that of the P[rus, who dwelton the lower Sarasvati and were thc Bharatas'western neighbours;their king, Purukutsa, was apparently killed in the battle. In thesucceeding age we hear no more of either Bharatas or Plrus, but enew tribe, that ofthe Kurus, controls the old land of the Bharatas andmuch of the northern Gangd-Yamuni. Doib. In the traditionalgenealogy of the Kuru chiefs both Bharata and Piiru occur as names oftheir ancestors, and they are referred to indiscriminately as "sons ofBharata" and "sons of Plru". The two tribes no doubt mergedas a result of the conquest of one by the other, and this process offusion, whereby tribes became peoples and nations, must have beengoing on all through the Vedic period." $7hen the Aryan's entered Inciia there was already a class division intheir tribal strrlcture. Even in the earliest hymns we read of the*gatra, the nobility, and the zli, the ordinary tribesmen, and therecords of several other early Indo-European peoples suggest that rtribal aristocracy was a feature of Indo-European society even beforethe tribes migrated from their original home. As they settledrmong the darker aboriginals the Aryans seem to have laid great€rstress than before on purity of blood, end class divisions hardened" to

THE li lONDER THAT WAS INDIA

Page 19: The Wonder That Was India

56 THE woNDER THAT \,v^s TNDIA

exciude those Ddsas who bad found a place on the fringes of Aryansociety' and those Aryans who had intirmarried with tf,e Dasas andadopted their ways. Both these groups l'ere low in the social scale.At the same time the priests, whose sacrificial lore was becomingT-o.Iu Td more complicated, and who therefore required greate?skill and training, were arrogating higher privileges io them"selves.By the end

-of the $g Vedic-periocl sociity wls diviied into four greatclasses, and this fourfold division was given religious sanction andlooked on as fundamental. This is evident from one of the mostilnportant hymns of the collection, in which the four classes are saidto have emanated from the dismembered primeval man, who wassac-rificed by the gods at the.begiruring of tlre world (p. eaaf).. The four classes, priest (brdhrna7i), warrior (Igitriya),'peasnt(o^aitya) gd..-"r-t {trtdra), were crystallizing througlrout itie perioa9f tfe- lg Veda. They have survived to the pilsent day. theSanskrit word used for thenr, z)arnd. meu$..colour,,, ancl suggeststheir origin in the development of the old tribal clasr striiturethrough contact with people of different complexion and alien culture.The -r91m var4a does not nean, and has never meant, ..ceste,,,by which convenient word it is often loosely translated (p. r+s).- T!r"^ ba.sic unit of Aryan society was thi family. A group'of related families formed a sept or grdna, a term which lat-er regularlyrneant"village", but which inthe fi.g Ycda usually refers to u gioup ofkinsfolk rather than to a settlenrent.

- The fan:ilywas staunchTy pairi.

linear and patriarchal. The wife, though she enjoyed a respectableposition, was definitely subordinate to ller husband. Marriage wasusually monogamous, ald apparently indissoluble, for no refirenceto divorce or the remarriage of widows occurs in the flg yeda.

. T{r9 fryals followed a mixea pastoral and agricultuial economy,in which c-attle- played a predominant part. Thi farmer prayed forincrease ofcattle; the warrior expected cattle as booty; the sairificialpriest was rewarded for his services *.ith cattle. Cattle were in fact asort ofcurrency, and values were reckoned in heads ofcattle, Thereis no evidence that they were held sacred at this time-the cow is ino"-e o: two places given the epithet "not to be killed,,, but this mayonly imply her economic importance. In any case it is guite clearthat both oxen and cows were slaughtered forlood.

The horse was almost as important as the cow, though mainly formilitary reasons. The chestnut horses of the Aryans, h"-"..id tolight chariots, must have terrified the people of tlie Indus Valley, arthe horses of the conquistadores terrified-the Aztecs and Incas.- Afew hymns of the .[g Ycda according to the rubric. describe a divinehorse Dadhikrf, and contain some of tlre finest lines on the horse

PREHTSTONY: TgE H^R PTi CULTURE AND THE ;RYANS 31

in the world's literature, recalling the famous Passage in praise of

tlre war-horse in the Book of Jo!.tr

"Rushing to glory, to the caPture of herds,swooping down as a hungrY falcon,

""g.i tJb" first, he darts amid the ranks of the chariots,

happy as a bridegroom making a garland,spuming the dust and champing at the bit.

"And the victorious steed and faithful,his body obedient [to his driver] in battle,speeding on through the m6l€e,stirs up the dust to fall on his brows.

"And at his deep neigh, like the thunder of heaven,the foemen tremble in fear,for he fights against thousands, and none can resist him,so terrible is his charge."ls

Though there are Passages which refer to riding, the horse -is more

frequently described as the motive power of the chariot. References

to this vlhi"le-a favourite subject for similes and metaphors-are

so numerous that it is possible to reconstruct it in considerable detail.

It was a Iight chariot with two spoked wheels, drawn by two horses

yoked abreast, and carrying two warriors."

Among other domestic aiim^ls the Aryans knew the goat and the

.heep, which provided wool, their chief textile. The elephant is only

meniioned in late hymns, and was rarely if ever domesticated. A

divine bitch, Sarami, plays an important part in a legend which cannot

be fully reconstructed, but the dog did not lnean as much to the people

of the- ffg Yeda as it did to a kindred Aryan pastoral people, the

ancient lianians, who made it a sacred animal.

Though stockbreeding receives more attention from the poets,

agriculture must also hai'e been importart, but it seems to have been

lo--oked on as rather plebeian, and therefore was not much referred to.

Only one word is used for corn_1aua,'which later meant barley; but at

this-period may have implied all species of cultivated grain. There

^.e r"f"renc"s io ploughing and reaping, and others which have been

doubttully interpreted as slrowing that the Aryans knew something of

irr igation.The Arytns were a wild, turbulent people and had few of the taboor

of later India. They were much addicted to inebriating drinks, of

which they had at liast two, soma and stad. Soma was drunk at

sacrifices and its use was sanctified by religion (p. aslf). Suri was

Page 20: The Wonder That Was India

3 8

purely secular, and was evidently very potent; in more than elspassage_it is mentioned with disapproval by the priestly poets.

The Aryans loved music, and played the flute, lute and harp, to theaccompanirnent of cymbals and drums. They used a heptatonic scale,sirni lar to our own major scale, which is thought by some to haveoriginated in Sumeria and to have been spread by tlre Inclo-European peoples. There'are references to singing and dancing,and to dancing-girls, who may have been professionaF

Besides these amusements the Aryans tteliglrted in gambling. Atall times India has loved to gamble. In the remaini of thJ Induscities numerous dice have been found, and the Aryans have left tlreirown record of their gambling propensities in the beautiful .,Garue-

ster's Lament", one of the few predominantly secular poems which bylucky chance have found their way into the frg Yeda 1i. +osfy.

r

Though they had not developed a city civilization, and did notbuild in stone or brick, the Aryans were technically weil equipped.Their bronze-smiths were highly skilled, and produced

-t-ools

and weapons much superior to those of the Harappi Culture.They, and the carpenters and chariot-makers, are frequently referredto in the hymns with much respect. There is no good reason tobelicve that iron was used in India at this period. iyos, one of tlreterms for metal in the [g Yeda, came to mean iron at a later date, andis related to the German word Eiez and the English #oz; but it isalso akin to the Latin aas, meaning bronze, and it certainly means thirmetal or copper in the Ilg Yeda. No trace of iron has been foundin tlre trpper levels of the remains o[ the Indu,s Culture, and at thisperiod iron implements were rare, even in the advanced civi l izat ionsof I \{esopotamia. Iron ore is cornrnon enough, but i ts snrelt ing de-rnands higher skill than the Aryans hed developed. At the tirie ofthe cornposition of the f;g Veda the process of srnelting iron rvashardly krorvn outside Anatolia, u,here the Hittite kings tried to keenit a secret. Only at the very end of the gnd millennLm did the useof iron begin to spread widely over the civilized world, ancl it irvery unlikely that it reached India before this time.13

As might be expected of a people without cities, the Aryans didnot have an advanced economic system. In Mesopotamia the silvershekel, though unstanrped, served as a means of exclrange, but theAryans relied for tlrcir unit of value and means of barter on the un-wieldy cow. The ni;ka, a term later used for a gold coin, is alsomentioned as a sort of currency, but at this time tvas probably a goldornament of some kind. There is no evidence of a regular class o{merchants or moneylenders, though indebtedness is sontetimer re-ferred to.

PRESISTORY: THE HARAPPi CULTUNE AND THE iRYANS J9

The religion of the early Aryans, about which we know much morethan we dJ about their everyday life and customs, will be discussedin a later chapter (p. zs+f1.

T I I E ' A T E R V E D I C A G E

Between the composition of the 4g Yeda and the age of the Buddha,when we begin to trace the history of India with comparative clear-ness, a period _of some four or five hundred yea-rs elapsed. lulingthis time the Aryans pushed eastwards down the Gangi, and theirculture adapted itself to changed conditions. Recently Indianarchaologists have excavated parts of a few sites which belongto thisperiod, such as Hastindpura, Ahicchatri and Kau$imbi, the lowestIevels ofwhich have been reasonably fixed at between 9oo and 600 B.c.tthe time of the later Vedas.la The town of Hastin5pura was almostcompletely destroyed by flood at the end of its existence, and littleremains but sherds of painted grey pottery, a few copper implements,and traces of houses of unbaked brick. KauSimbi has producedsimilar pottery, a little iron, and remains of a well made city wallfaced with bumt brick, but there is some disagreement amongarcheologists as to its dating. The typical pottery has been foundfrom the Sarasvati Valley in the west to Ahicchatri, near the upperGangi, in the east. With these exceptions we have scarcely anydirect knowledge of the period, and our only important sourcesare sacred texts, the later Vedas, Brihma4as and Upaniqads,n'hich will bc treated elsewhere from a religious and literary point ofvierv (p. 2+2ff).

Besides these contemporary documents there are many legendswhich seem to refer to this period contained in other sources, notablythe Epics and Purd4as; but these are so overlaid by the accretions oflater centuries that no attempt at interpreting them historicallyhas so far won general acceptance, and it may never be possible tosift the fact from the fiction. Even the social conditions describedin the narrative portions of the Epics, the stories of which may havebeen composed in a primitive form at this time, do not always refer tothis age, but to the obscure period between the Mauryan and GuPtanEmpires. Attempts of some earliel authorities to create an "EpicAge " in the history of India, as distinct from the age of the later Vedas,are quite unconvincing. There was no Epic Age, and for ourkno*'leoge of this period we may only rely on the literature of theperiod itself. This, like the flg Yeda, is wholly religious, andtells us little more than the older source about the history of the time.

One event, not defiaitely recorded in these contemPorary sourcee,

THE WONDER THAT WAS TNDIA

Page 21: The Wonder That Was India

40 THE \ I 'ONDER TI IAT WAS tNDtA

but so strongly remembered that it must have been very important,was the great battle of Kurukgetra, not far from the ,noa".n Outti.This battle, rnagnified to titanic proportions, formed the basis of thestory o{ tlre grcatest of India's epics, the lvtahabharata. Accordineto the legend the whole of India, from Sind to Assam

".,a fro,,., tlr?

llinrdl-a1'as to Cape Comorin, took part in the rvar, which arosetlrrough a dynastic dispute in the great Kuru tribe (p. +ro). I; i ;bJ no means certain that the war was in fact a civil one, and the storvhas been plausibly interpreted as a muddred recollection

"r trr" .""'-

quest of rhe l{urus bv a tribe of Mongoloid tvpe from the hills. Butcertainly a great war took place, anJsu..""iing generations lookedon it as

3l.ktl-g.rl: end of an epoch. The nim*es of many of theheroes o[ tbe lllahibhdrata may genuinely be trrose of conteirporarychieltains, but we must regreif;ly recoid that the story is Lf f"r',use to the historian even than thi ltiad, or most of the Norse andIrish saga literature. It compares better with the r,riberungentira, itteproduct of an .age very different from that which lt p"urport. todescribe, and the result of the assimilation of many diverse ntartialtraditions. It is as futi le to try to reconstruct the polit ical una.o"i"ihistory of India in the loth c"ntrty s.c. from tl'te'Mahabhdrata as itwould be to wrire the history of Britain immediately after the

"u".u"-tion of the Romans from Malory,s lVlorte d'Arthur._,According to the most popul", larer tradition the MahibhdratrWar took place in sroz u.i., u.hich, in the l ight of all evidence, isq-uite impossible. More reasonable is anotr"rer tradition, ft". irgthe war in the t5th century a.c., but this is also sevcrar centuiies to"oearll 1n the light 9f o.ur archaological knorvledge. probably ittook place around the bcginning of the sth century o.".; ,r.h ,date seems to fit w'ell witl i the sianty arcl,aological iernairis of theperiod, a:rd there is some evidence in ihe Brrlrrnaia l iterature it.self toshow that it cannot lra'e been much earlier. r5 Froin this tinre onwardsthe centre of culture and_ po_litical porver shifted to the c""g.J.Doib and the. Ku-ru cap]t11, Hastinlplra or Asandlvant. Thro-ugh_out most of the later vedic period the Kurus and their neigrrbo-ursthe Paficilas u'ere the greitest and the rnost civirized oi Indianpeoples. The names of several Kuru kings have been passed ao*n iulegend,and two at-any rate, parikgit and"Jananrejaya, are mentioneJln tne ltterature ol the time as nriqhty conquerors.

Farly in this period the AryanJpressed iurther eastrvards, and setup_kingdoms in l(osala, to the east of th" Doab, ancl in l{dii, tlre regionof virinasr.* The former, which grew in importa'ce with tirnejwar

. o until recently knom as Benares or Banarar. The old sanskrit form of thc nrnrehas now been olliiially revive4

pREHrsroRy: THE HARAppi. cULTURE.AND rns inyAxs .tr t

the realm of Rima, the hero of the second of the great Indian epics,the Ramiyana (p. +t+t). For al l his later fame the l i terature of theperiod ignores Rirna and his fatlrer f)aiaratha completely, so wenust conclude that both \r'ere comparatively insiplnificant chieftains,whose exploits were by chance remembered, to be elaborated andmagnified by later generations of bards until, around the beginningof the Christian Era, they received their final form. It is not evencertain that Rama was a king of Kosala at al l , for the earl iest versionof the legend that we possess rnakes him a king of Vari4asi, whichwas for a tinre a kingdom of some importance, but was conqueredby Kosala towards the end of this period.

Another important kingdom was Videha, to the east of the RiverGandak and north of the GangI. One o[ the Brahma4asl6 tellsthat once the fire-god Agni mov'ed eastwards, burning up the earth,until he canre to the River Sadaniri (the modern Gandak), where hestopped. In his wake followed a chieftain lrom the River Sarasvati,Videgha Mathava. Before his arrival no Aryan would cross theSadinirl, becau.sc the purilying fire-god lrad not burnt the land on itseastern bank; but Aeni instr_ucted Videgha to carry him over, an<lthus the land of Videha rvas Aryanized, and took its name from thatof its first colonizer. The legend is important because it is the onlysignificant account of the process ofcolonization in an approxinratelycontemporary sourre. In the progress ofAgni, burning up the earth,we see not oniy the gradual eastward expansion of the Aryan fire cult,but also the clearing of jungle and waste by burning, as bands ofmigrating warrior peasants founded new settlcments.

Though Rirna is ignored in the literature of the period his tradi-tional father-in-law, Janaka king of Videlra, is more than once men-tioned and is clearly a historical figure. IJe was a great patron ofthe hermits and wandering plrilosoplrers who propagated the newrnystical doctrines of the Upanisads, and he hirnsclf took part in theirdiscussions. By the time ol' the Buddha the kingdom of Janaka haddisappeared, and his capital ci ty, N{ithi le, had lost i ts inrportance,The kingdom was replaced by the tribal confederacy of the Vrjjis,headed by the Licchavis, who may have been Mongols from the hills,but were more probably a second wave of Aryan immigrants.

South of Videha, on the right bank of the Gangi, was the regionlmown as Magadha, then of l i t t le account. I t was not whollyAryanized, but"bands of nomadic renegade Aryans called vrdtyai,.who did not fol low the Vedic r i tes, roanred the land with their f locksand herds. Only in the time of the Buddha, under the great kingBimbisEra, did Magadha begin to slrow tlre energy and initiative whichwere to lead to the setting up of the first great Indian empire. To

Page 22: The Wonder That Was India

49 THE WONDEB THAT WAs TNDIA

the east of Magadha, on the borders of the modern Bengal, the smallLingdom of Afiga had arisen, while, beyond Ariga, Bengal and Assamwere still outside the pale of Aryan civilization.

Thus the texts of the period are mainly concerned with the regionfrom the Yamuni eastwards to the borders of Bengal. The area southof the Gangd receives little attention, and it has been reasonablyruggested that the main line of Aryan penetration was not down thlriver, the banks of which were then probably thick swampy jungle,but along the Himilayan foothills. Expansion was not whollyconfined to the north of the Gangi, however. ContemporaryIterature has little to say about the rest of Northern India, but con-ditions at the time of the Buddha were such that it must havebeen colonized some time previously, and this is confirmed bvtradition. On the Yamund the tribe of the Yidavas had settled in theregion of Mathuri, while furtlrer down the river the kingdonr ofVatsa was ruled from its capital of Kau3inrbi, very important in latertimes. By the end of this period the Aryans had advanced down theChambal River, had settled in Milwd, and had reached the Narmadiwhere there was an important city, Mahignratl. Probably partsof the N.-W. Deccan were also under Aryan influence. Accordingto the Epic tradition Saurdshtra was colonized by a branch of theY5davas, led by the great hero K1g4a, and, though the association ofKp94a with the story is probably unhistorical (p. soof), the legendnav be founded on fact.

iVhile the Aryans had by now expanded far into India their oldhome in the Panjib and the North-West rvas practically forgotten.Later Vedic literature mentions it rarely, and then usually with dis-paragement and contempt, as an impure land where the Vedic sacri-fices are not performed. It may have been once more invaded byIndo-Iranian tribes who did not follow the orthodox rites.

The culture of the later Vedic period was materially much inadvance of that of the flg Vcda. The Aryan tribes were by nowconsolidated in little kingdoms, which had not wholly lost theirtribal character, but had permanent capitals and a rudimentaryadministrative system. The old tribal assemblies are still from tirneto time referred to, but their power was waning rapidly, and by theend of this period the king's autocracy was in most cases only limitedby the power of the brihmans, the weight of tradition, and the force ofpublic opinion, which was always of some influence in ancient India.Flere and there the old tribal organizations succeeded in adaptingtlremselves to the changed conditions, and ganas, or tribal republics,survived for many centuries in outlying districts; but politicaldivisions based on kinship were giving place to those based on

PREHTSTORY: TTTB NENEPPi, CULTSRE AT{D TIIE iNYEXT 43

geography, and in many parts of India the tribes were rapidly breakingup. This, and the strong feeling of insecurity which it caused, mayhave been an important factor in the growth of asceticism and of apessimistic outlook on the world, which is evident throughout thirperiod.-

If the popular assemblies lrad lost power, another element in the statewas rising in influence-the ratnins, or "jewel bearers", the relatives,courtiers and palace officials of the king, who were looked on as soimportant that at the king's consecration special sacrifices were Per-formed to ensure their loyalty. The list of ratnins includes the puro'hita, or chief priest of the palace, the general, the chamberlain, thcking's charioteer, and various other influential palace servants. Twoof ihe ratnins, lhe samgrahitr and' bhdgadugha, have been explainedas treasurer and revenue<ollector resPectively' but these interpreta-tions are almost certainly false, and we have no clear evidence of edeveloped revenue system at this time.lT

The period saw a great development of the sacrificial cullwhich took place lari y'assz with rising royal pretensions. Mughof the Brihma4a literature is devoted to instructions for thcmeticulous performance of certain royal sacrifices not mentioned in the

8g Veda; among these were the lengthy rdjasilya, or royal consecra-tion, and the adjapeya, or "drink of strength", a sort of rejuvenationceremony, u'hich not only restored the vital forces of a middle-agelking, but raised him from the status of a simple riji to that of esor1t a1, a complete monarch free of all allegiance and with lesserkings subordinate to him. Most famous and significant of these.u.iifi."r was the alaamedha, or horse-sacrifice, wherein a speciallyconsecrated horse was set free to roatn at will for a year, foilowedby a chosen band of warriors. Chieftains and kings on whose terri'tory the horse wandered rvere forced to do homage or figlrt, and if-itwas not captured by a neighbouring king it was brought back to thecapital and sacrificed at the end of the year. It was the ambition o[

every important king to perform a horse-sacrifice, and the evil effectrof the sacrifice on inter-state relations were felt to the end of the Hindu

Deriod.By now the Aryans had nearly all the equipment of a civilization of

the -ancient

type. Where the {lg Yeda speaks only of gold andcopper or bronze the later Vedic texts also mention tin, lead, silverand iron.* The importance of iron, harder and cheaper than bronze,

. " Black bronze" is referred to in the Tajur Ycda, and a l itt le iron has bcen discovered

at an ear lv l c re l a t l ia r r i in rb i . bu t no i ro r r has bec t t fou t rd i t t t l te re t t ra ins o f Has t inEpuru

at th is leve l . I lecent ly i ro t : l tas becn found in very car ly leve ls a t A t ran j i Khcr i (U .1 . )

andP!nduRi je rD l r ib i (Benga l ) . T l tev iewt ln t i ronwashud lyknownin l rd i run t i t t l l e6th century hls now lirde to comend it.!r

Page 23: The Wonder That Was India

THE WONDER TITAT WAS JNDIA

for clearing forests of hard-tropical timber needs no stressing. Its in-troduction must have greatly ;eler"d;h;-*te or Aryan expansion,The elephant was tam"ed, d;rgh ii;tr. ;"i"in *ur. The Aryans nowcultivated a larse .-:_. _.f :'6;, i;;Iil;; ,j.",lna

.tt,."}.ffiil"";sonreth.ing of iiigation ancl manuring.

Dpeclatrzed trades and crafts had ippeared. In place of the fewcraftsmen in t'e llp, yeda many are norv "ur"i.iJ

t-o,"il;i;;jewellers, goldsmiih"s, n.,"t"l_*o"rke;; ;;i.",_"Kers, ropemakers,weavefs, d1'ers, carpenters and potr..r, Vu.rou, types of domesticservant are mentioned, and a. iud)mentary entertainment industrvexisted, with pr.fessiorral -acrobats, i"rr"n"'_t"f f .;;n"d;;;idancers, wlrile trrere are arso rui"."n""t to-uau""r, and merchants.Thouglr Aryan cultu.re lrad by now-LriJ g."", advances there isstill no mention of coined

",o;"y;; ;;;id, both of which werecertainly used in India before ,1,; ;,n; ;i;f;" v"".y"r."'.c"r""g!rnay have been introduced towards;r* ; o, ,n" urn centurv B.c.^through Persian influence, but it is do"Urfrf *f,.,f*;-;;.i#;;;aoc.ept the negative evidence or tater v"Ji" li,..u,ure to show thatwriting was wholly unknown,. to, ttl, ii*;;;." was intended for. a!111O aydi.elce oi priests, *t o nal a"u.i"f.o

" *ique system ofmemory training, and who-may *.tt huu" i ioked on ;;#;;;objectionabte iniovation-'

- There ir ;il;;;;ln the riterature itserfof faint contacts with ^Mesop",.rri", ;;;ily in the Indian floodlegend (p. so*), which first

"oi;;;;;;lii, ii#*a which bears some

ilTi5,#",:ij;:""jJ"orr;. - Ai*;'; r,".r "r "'*r*;ffi;it;,po,,roi",r;;;;";i;"i:?.i$ii-.Ti;11",;y"Tff,",,Hf_il:

from the west, brousq, "1 1rrrrt"i.;;;:;;, of writing, whicf,was gradually taken ui by the learnea *i"a.pt.d to the phoneticsof Indian speech, to becorne tn irinri ,iiip, ,r Mauryan times(p. ssof)

The most irnportant -4evelopments of this age r,vere reiiqious.and will be considered

"tr.*h;i; 6.?*ryj'.'" Culturalty the pieriodof the later Vedic litera,ture saw Jnaiun l.i,fe and thought take thedirection which it has f,rlloweJ e;.;;i";. "

if,u "r,a

of this slradowyigl:^Illl l-,: kings gro-wing i" po*"i, ii, pri"ri.

"rrog",i'r1s ;; il;_::lv_l

ever greater .privilegei, and its'rcligious outlook rapidlvariugrng, marks the beq^inning of -tlre great f3ri"J.i;;;t ;il;:in which t l le pattern of 1". society,-rel igion, l i terature and artgradually assumert something "f

i;; ;;";;;i;;p".

I I I

} I ISTORY: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVALEMPIRES

S O U N C E S O F H I S T O R Y

A" the courts of ancient Indian kings careful records were kept

of the events of chief ilnPonance to ihe realm, but unfortunatelythese archives are completely lost to us. ln the f2th century,A-'D'e Kashmiri poet, Kalhana, thought fit to write the tristory of. his

native land -in

u"rte, but his ;Rivet of Kings" (Rdjataraigini)',although of great value for the study of the history of Kashmir, has

little ti tell is about India as a whole, and there is no good evidencethat similar chronicles u'ere composed elsewhere. The Ceylon

Chronicle (Mahdaarpsa) is primarily a history of Buddhism in Ceylon,

though it gives reliable information on political history. It is per-

haps"unjusl to rnaintain that India had no sense of history whatever,

but whit interest she had in her own past was mainly concentratedon the fabulous kings of a legendary gola"n age, rather than on the

great enlpires which had risen and fallen in historical times'Thus our knowledge of the political history of ancient India is

often tantalizingly vague and uncertain, and that of the rnedievalperiod, which rie-ma/take as beginning in the Zth century 'r'o', isoften but little more precise. HiJtory must be pieced together frompassing references in texts both religious and secular, from a few

ir"-* and rvorks of fiction pu4porting to describe historical events'from the records of foreign travellers, and from the many panegyr]c1or other references to re-igning monarctts and their ancestors whichhave been found carved on rocks, pillars and temple walls, or incor-porated as preambles to the titledeeds ofland grants; the latter, fortu-nately for-the historian, were usually engraved on copper plates(pl. iLVII16). The early history of India resembles a j igsaw puzzle*ith -uny missing pieces; some Parts of the picture are fairly clear;others miy be reconstructed with the aid of a controlled imagination;but many gaps remain, and may never be filled' Few dates beforethe middie ages can be fixed with certainty, and the history, of HinduIndia, as faris we can reconstruct it, is almostcompletely lacking inthe interesting anecdotes and vivid personalities which enliven thestudy of the past for professional and amateur historians alike. More-ovei there is much disagreement anlong comPetent authorities onmany inrportant topics.

46

Page 24: The Wonder That Was India

V I I

R E L I G I O N : _ C U L T S , D O C T R I N E S A N r )METAPHYSICS

( t ) r r r r R E L r c r o N o F T H E v E D A !Go& oJ thc lg ycda

Ailr.r^:|ij'jffi:1* inlabitants of rndia worshippe<t a rf,,rfr,

t,?_ n::#1 J{il:"#;:iiJjilii r,}:{ if s ac red,r; ; ; ;; ";; : ; ;, :;.th e rel i gi on "r,r'" ii11,1r'i' ,ni''r1' r'"'-#"'l' :lo" :Tt J;l I J' .l';:;texts any

"ffor,, ",'tfuppan

people' but in tsarien t reatures ", ".

j::iT" i;;;;U;; ili;;l: #ff lil;l "t; lia rnuch 1",", 0"r,". ,Tjppan

religion appeared ug"in'in . n.*i,r,,i l,

"'J;'I Tt* *$"? i,;,ffi Fifii ?:.:,:,U::"1',".#;:n;n::g*,;#A:Til'1ff",ii1#:ll;l;l"l:,1ffi;,1.1;#,,#in'j"l;r;';*f"^:t:.oge^or the rerision or the earry A,v.,,.

;il#j[{trd""tt"f;"ffi"{i:Uiif |g..rjffor hynrns for use at the saoific"_ "i;i; ;.r;.three later vedas, the sdma, r"iri'i"i)frrattc

Aryan cuk. 'I'hocutlerent clraracter. rl.re si^o"

'yrlq" ir"',ri?!:.are

of somewlrrr

l:,,?l'*,. being a coilection or."rrui., il.; ;l,T"tl useless to rhe

ror Irturgical purposes.i :ri ** j*ri ',ffr ";i;i: {,{rr ;#r l:#ffjx," r fi Itll: Jl'l." .*i ri.". "f{ {{l,i:?H,::i "_1113f".a,r,..",,,,.1wnrch are of two tt .oe-c."t".i,-i,,.t,u.t j""-,,,,i;'l,lI;Tlj;rrffiit jy*:l1f {.i1l;l;il:i:fl",/.iflff f i$:',::1.pyn'^"r"..*+f,:;;;:I;::):':Tj,::,:cornpited after tle i+* j^iT.]ltantations in verse,

""a *"r "".i"i,,i,pheri of simit"'rtt**f4,"-' It possesses, ho\4'ever, an atmr.r-

a. tower cultural r"u"r ,Lllllympathetic magic, *a .."r,lrlo;;::;

prebeian ""r,d;';i ;:'i.?lj.': i\" ;f"{;{:

deriving r""'r.,'}"'zg*

ng rnany norrAryur

nELIGtON: CULTS, DOCTRTNES AND ]irETAPilYslcli 9s6

elements. The massive BrEhmapas, rv'hich are looked on as appen-dices to the Vedas, and the tnystical iratgakas and Upanipads, whichare in turn appendices to the Braltmanas, complete the literaturegenerally knorvn as Vedic. The nraterial in the Briltma4as looksback in the rnain to the period betrveen c. 8oo and 600 B.c.' and theearliest Upanigads overlap uith the latest Brihmat.ras, though someUpanigads are certairrly of tnuclt more recent date. The religion ofthe people rvho composcd this literature was not tlrat of later India, anclmany scholars refcr to it as llr:ihma4ism or Yedism, to distinguish itfrom Hinduism, to wlriclt it bcars a relation sinrilar to tltat betll'eenthe sacrificial Judaisnr of the temple and the later Judaism of thes]'nagogue.

Much of the d?g ITda is impcrfectly understood; the oldest exe-getical work on it, tlrc Niru*ta (Etymology) of Yaska, perhaps datingfrom 5oo D,c., shorvs that at a very early period the brihmarls hatlforgotten thc trrrc meanii.rg of many obsolete words. But the broadoutlines of the rt'ligion of the flg Yeda are clear enouglr. The chiefobjects of rvor.slrip u'cre tlre devas, a lvord cognate with the Latindeus. The rorrt t'rorn which this word is derived, drz, is connectedwith brighnrcss and radiance, and tlre devas by connotation were " theshining oncs". The early gods of the Aryans, like those of thet}e Grcck.s, r'cre chiefly connected with the sky and were predomi-nantly rnale. A fcrv goddesses occur in the f;g Yeda; for instancePTthui, a vaguc and rarely mentioned personification of the earth,Aditi, a nr,\'stcrious and tenuous figure, the great mother of thegods, U,ras, thc goddess of the dawn, to rvhom a number of lovelyhymns n'crc acldressed, Rabi, the spirit of the night, who has abeautiful lr1'nrn to herself (p. +o+), and .4rap1dnr, the Lady of theForest, a nature goddess of little importance who is praised in onevery late lr1'rnn (p. 4o5 ) ; none of these, however, played a significantpart in the cult.

At a rcrnotc period the ancestors of thc Aryans, Iranians, Greeks,Romans, (iernrans, Slavs and Celts had sintilar, if not identical,beliefs; but by the time the Aryans had entered India theirreligion Irad devcloped far from the old Indo-European faith. Thegreat fatlrer god of the Indo-European peoples, who appears in Greekis Zeus anrl in Latin as Ju-piter, was known to the Aryans as D1az.r,the personificd lieavens, but his star had already set. Father Heavenwas often rnentioned as the parent of other divinities, but few hymnswere con)poscd in lris honour, and he rvas eclipsed by his children.

From tLe point of view of the Aryan warrior the greatest god wasIndra, who fulfiiled the dual function of war-god and weather-god.Though his name rvas different he had maly of the characteristics of

Page 25: The Wonder That Was India

) t r : i . t ( ; l o N : C U L T S , D O C T R I N E S A N D N T E T A P I I Y S I C S 2 s i996 THE WONDER TI IAT WAg TNDIA

the Greek zerrs and the Gcrmanic Thor. As Indra ronans he rodest_the head of t lre Ar1'an host anrl destroyed th" fo.tr".r"; ; i ;1,;Lrasas; as Indra ptuvius lre slew the evil dragon Vytra who held backthe waters, and tlrus lte brought rain to tlreparched land (p. <.oeff).Indra was associated with storm ancl thunrler, and, I ike z"ur' l"arr,oi.his hand bore the thunderbolt (oajra), rn.itir whi.h h" d"rtr.yJ';i;enemies. He was a rowdy amoral deity, fond of feasting -dari"t-ing.. One hyrnn, according to the uslal interpretatioil, shows u!the drunken Indra bragging in tris cups, though ii may weil ,"pr"r"nitne reerrngs or a worshipper who has cirunk liberally of the sacreddrink som<r:

" Like wild windsthe draughts have raised rne up. Ilave I been drinling sorna

"The draughts have borne me up,as swi f t s teeds achar io t . ' l l ave I . . . ?

" Frenzy bas come upon me,as a cow to her dear calf. Have L . . ?

" As a carpenter bends the seat of a chariotI bend this frenzy round my heart. llave I . . . ?

" Not even as a mote in mv evedo the five tribes count *itt, -". Have I " . . ?

" The heavens abovedo not eqtral one hallof me. Have [ . . . I

" In my glory I have passcd l,eyond the skvand t lre great earth. l lavc i , . . i

" I w.ill pick pp tlie eartlr,ard put it here or put .it there. Ilave I . . . l,,r

With Indra in his course across the sky rode the bright host

?! Yo7tt, singing martial songs as thcy aidetl tlre wai-god in

his batt les.- They were the lesscr spir i ts of t l le storm, conceivedon the analogy of the host o-[ Aryarr u.arriors charging into battlebeside their leader. The Aryans e' idently h.d"",Lt id;; ; ;in wlrich Indra was the protagtnist, but none of them ian b"e re-constructed in detail from-the cry,ptic allusions of the hymns. Twoof Indra's traits connect lrim wiih IncloEuropean mythology, fuithey were applied to various gods and heroes tlrroughout

-;cient

Europe--he was a dragon-slayir (p. 4os), and a will rider of thestorm. -l ne lormer feature of his character may have been a veryearly borrowing from Mesopotamia.

Se-vgral gods were associited with the sun. Snrla (the commonword for sun) drove across the sky in a flaming chariot, like the Greek

tlcl ios. Sa|ih, t l ic Stinrtr lator, tvas ;tnotl icr sc, lar god, a beauti f tr l

vcrse i t t \r ' l rssc ir ,-rt t , .1tr is t l rc nrost |oly of al l t |e ycrses of t |e Veda

(p. 163). Pi lan too rvas in solne lncasure a solar god, drivingj" i l -v o. iott t l re sky, brrt his lnain f iurct ion was t l lat of guardian of

rcais, lrerdsrnen and straying catt le. I ' i ;4u, a god connectcd in 1:artrvi th the sacri f ice, also ]rad solar cl taractcrist ics, covering the earth in

t lrree paces, a trait 1rl l ic lr he retaincd in latcr } l induisrn, rvhen his

i ' rporiance grearly incrcased. On the fr irrges of the solar pantheon

rvas 5'r:r1',7, ihe sJn-go'J's <iattgltter, rr'lto seetns llevcr to have been

rvolslr ippc<l, bLrt rrrt ' i ' " ly scrrcd to col lncct her trvo }tusbands, the

Ait ins (" I Iorsr:t t tert" also cal lcd tr 'asof 'a.r), rvi th t lre sun; these are

dcscribetl as driving at 'ross t l t t : sl i l ' 1t ' t t ' " ' t ' t l rrce-u' l iceled chariot,

but i1 t lre lryl lns t |cy arc tx)t <l,rscl_y ass<.rt iatcd rvit l t natural pheno-

mena. They are tr ' ; i t rs-a fact ulr iclr col l l )octs t lrcnr uith the Gt'eek

Dioscuri ut l i t t t i t t gods of pre-Clrr i .st ian l3alt ic nr1'thology. The

A(r ' ins appear clr ief l t ' as lrclpers of t trctr; at lronlt t l rcir n:ar 'y good

tieccls they are said to havc rcscued slr ip$'recked Itari l tcrs, lrrovidedart i f ic ir l lcgs lbr t l te n,airtrcJ, and found husbands for old nraids.

t1," 6, '9:gcl( l , ,4gr: (rvlr i t ' l r ntcans sitrrply "f ire", arrd is rclated to

the I_atin egrrru), tras t lrc object of tnuch prinri t i re nrl 'st icisrn and

spcculat ionl I ic rt 'as t ir ' : god of the pricst, *5o dcalt rvi tS hinr at the

frre-sacri f icc; l tc $as also t lre god of t l te l tott te, for lre drvclt in the

rlomcstic heart lr ; l te rras the interrncdiary bctrvecn gods and mcn, for

|e consurned the sacri f ice and crrr icd i t to thc gods, I Ic drvclt in the

\\,aters of l leave n in thc for-m of l iglrtning, ancl on eart lr in nranv fortns.

l Ie rvas ir idclen in thc f ire-srichs, u' i t l t \vlr iclr t l re sacri f icial f i re was

!. indlcd and uhich u'cre pcrsonif ied as his parents. Agni, in.fact,

uris lr t ' r 'c, t l re;c atrd evcr;r l ' l tcre. \ \ 'as t l lere ol"r ly one Agni, or

ucrc l l r c r t : tn : r t t r ' r \g t t i s? i l . , ' - cou ld Agn i be one anc l many a t - t l re

sar r rc t l r r r r '? (J r i , : ; t i , , r rs l i l i c t l r csc a rc as l ied in the fg y ' 'e r la , and sho lv

t l rc ear l i r ' s t s i r ' , r , s , , f ' t l r t : t c t t t i c t tcy ton 'a rds l t l< - ru is t l l , rvh ich was to

b e a r f r u i t i t t t l r t t ' l , r t r l . , r , l s .,Sozta 'na.s a r l i r i rr i tv , l ' s|1'1 i ;11 cJrrr;rctcr. Sol lre t l 'as original ly a

p la : l t , no t cc l ' te i t r '1 , \ ' i , l t l r t i l i t , l , l l o r l l r r i r i c l r a IX) te i l t d r in l i rvas pro '

iuced, u l r i ch \ \ l , s . l l t t t , l i o t r l l ' . ,1 sa t l i l i t t ' : ; , a t r t l \ \ l r i t l t caus t :d thc u ros t

in! igorating cl l . ' t : t .s, :rs $c l t . tvc .sct ' t l l l 'ott t t l rc Jr,vl t : tr <lLroted above.

ThJZor . ra .s t r ia r ts o f l ' c ts ia l ra t l a .s i r r r i l : r r d r in l i , $h ic l r t l tey ca l led

haonta,t irc sanlc \ , \ord as sott l l i rr i ts Iratr ian forrn; t i re plant identi f ied

wit ir iaozrrt by t |e t t tqciet ' l t l ) i ;sIs is a bit ter |crb, rvlr ic[ l ras no

spccial ly inebr: iat ing <lual i t ies, and rvhich is t l ierefore hot the sotna

oi the Veda. The drink prepared from the plant can scarcely have

been alcoholic, for it rvas made rvith pJreat ceremony in tlle course

of t l le sacri l ice, t l ten t l te ]rtrb u'as pressed bet\\ 'eel l st<'nes, mixed

Page 26: The Wonder That Was India

938 THE woNDEn THAT WAs INDIA

with nrilk, strained and drunk on the sanre day. Sugar and honey,which produce. fermentation, were not usually mixed with it, and thebrief period between its brewing and consumption cannot have beenlong enough for the generation of alcohol in appreciable quantity.The effects of soma, with vivid hallucinations and the sense of ex-panding to enormous dimensions, are rather like those attributed tosuch drugs as hashish, Soma may rvell have been hemp, whichgrows wild in many parts of India, Central Asia and South Russia,and from which modern Indians produce a narcotic drink called 6rlazg.

Like many ancient peoples the Indians corurected the grotvth ofplants with the moon, with which Soma, the king of plants, was lateriderrtified. So important was the god Soma considered by the ancienteditors of the !g l/cda that they extracted all the hymns in his honourand placed them in a separate "book" (maltQala), the ninth of theten which constitute the whole. He was the special god of thebrdhma4s, who referred to him as their " king" or patron deity, Heis sometimes even called the king of the gods, but by the ordinar-yAryan it is doubtful if he was so highly esteemed.

Ilaruna, second only to Indra in importance, was a god of a typerather different from the others. He is known as an Aswa, a term,also applied to certain lesser gods, which in later Hinduism came tomean a class of demons, but which was in Persia adopted by the re.former Zarathu5tra in its local form as part of the title of the greatgod of light, Ahura Mazda, Just as the shadowy Dyaus representsthe high god of the Indo-European peoples before their separation, soVarula may have been the high god of the Indo-Iranians before thetwo peoples divided, one to settle in N.-W. India and the other in thePersian highlands. The name is connected by some authorities withthe shadowy Greek heaven-god Uranus. At the time of the composi-tion of the Veda, VaruTa's prestige was waning before that of Indra,but he retained some inrportance for many centuries.

Varuna was first and foremost a king-not a boisterous tribal war-lord like Indra, but a mighty emperor sitting in a great palace inthe heavers, often with associated gods around liim. Most impor-tant of these was Mitra, a god with some solar characteristics, butmainly connected with vows and compacts. Mitra was representedin the Zoroastrian pantheon, and, under his Greco-Iranian nameMithras, was widely worshipped in the Roman Empire in early Christ-ian times. Around Varur]a sat his scouts or spies (sla!), who flcw allover the world and brought back reports on the conduct of nrort;rls.

Varupa was the guardian of Sta, the cosmic order, a concqrt r,r'lrichwas perhaps the highest flight of $g Vedic thought. 'I-lrc *'orldtakes its regular course, day follows night and season s\u ( cctls scason,

n E L | G I O N : C U L T S , D O C T R I I T E S A N D M E T A P H Y S I C S 9 3 9

because of [tta; man must l ive according to $ta; in later days "non-yta" (anyta) became one of the commonest words for untruth andsin. IJta depended on Varur.la, wlro was sometimes looked on as itsrnaker, and was thus a sort of creator-god.

Of all the Aryan gods Varupa was ethically the highest. He wasalways arvare of the deeds of men, and was omnipresent, in thetheisiic as opposecl to the pantheistic sense. Two men, even in themost secret of places or at the ends of the earth, cannot make plansalone-a third person, Varula, is ahvays there.2 The worshipperapproached Varu4a in a spirit different from that in rvhich he prayedto the other gods, most of rvhorn rvere lively, cheerful fellows, whommen need not fear if they offerecl regular sacrifices. Varuna was sopure and holy that the mere performance of sacrifice would not ensurehis favour, for he abhorred sin, or that u'hich was not conformableto $ta. The idea of sin included many purcly ritual sins and breachesof taboo, but it also certainly included lying, u'hich Varuna and Mitraparticularly loathed, and evil deeds prompted by anger, drink,gambling, and the influence o[wicked rnen. When he sang to Varu4athe cheerful Vedic poet often put on sackcloth and ashes, and pral'edto his deity with fear and trembling, for Varu4a was the severepunisher of sin. Not onll' did Varu4a punish the sins of the individualbut, like the Yahrvch of the Old Testanrent, he visited the sins ofhis ancestors upon him, and his ubiquity ensured that there vr'as noescape for the sinner. He caught and bound evil-doers in his snares,so that they became diseased, especially u'ith dropsy, and when theydied they descended to the "House of Clay", apparently a sort ofgloomy subterranean_Sheol, very different from the happy " Worldof the Fathers", the Aryan heaven.

So hunrble was the u'orshipper in Varu4a's presence, so consciousof r.l'eakness, guilt and shortcoming, that on reading the hymns toVanr4a one is inevitably reminded of the penitential psalms ol theOld 'I-estanrcnt. It has becn sugge.stcd that Varuna orves much of hischaracter to Semitic inilucrrce-t'crtainly not to tlte Jelvs, for thepenitential psalrns \yere con)poscd aftcr the hymns to Varuna, and asfar as we knorv thc early Ilcbrcu's ncver carne in contact with theAryans, but perhaps to the l3abyloniatrs, who oftcn approached theirgods in a similar penitcntial spirit. We quote a typical hymn toVaru4a; it is obviously the praycr of a man affiicted with dropsy.

"Let me not go to the House of Clay, O Varu4alForgive, O gracious Lord, forgivel

When I go tottering, like a blown-up bladder,forgive, O gracious Lord, forgive!

Page 27: The Wonder That Was India

24$ Tl tE wo: intn ' - r i t . r ,T wAS lNi- , l^

" l {o ly One, in rvant of u i r , .kr i t l I l r : r 'e opp,rss{ ' , '11.

Forgive, O grecious Lord, to:- f ivr : lThough in thc rr r idst o i ' r r ; t t . t : , l i r i r i t ] i r " sr i : r ' . i Your worshi i tpcr .

Fo rg i ve , { ) g rac i , ; L r ; I ' r i . i , i - r - ' r ' g i r r l

' . \ \ 'hatCt,Cr s in \1.C rnor. t , r l l l r . r r . ,_, c , . : r r , r ; r i t rcdagainst the pc<-rplc o i i i rc g i" , i , ,

i f , iool ish, u 'e l t : ivc t i t ; ' . : t t t l r i ' / ( ' , . i i r l t ' r I ! ' i ,

O god, do l rot dcsir ' - , i u, ; i l l ' i j :u a i rg,r r ' ! " i

Tuna, lct rJ of thc r i , ' r i ,1. \ , , . ' , r l sol t of Adrm, t i ie f i rs t n lan to d ie,

who bccaure gualr- l ia : r c , i t i l , ' \ ' i l , t ' lc l t>f t l te I iathcls. r t l tere the blessed

dead, th<-,se - iv l ro

l ravc l .cr [ r ) r l i rcd t l re r i tcs of t l rc A11'ans, feest

joyfully forever.Budra (perl ' ,ap.s I lcatr inpl "the l{ou' ler"), l ike Varuna, had a

dangerous s ide 1o l , i s c l ra ruc tc r , bu t , un l i ke Varu4r , rvas qu i te an tora l 'I Ie rcscnrblct i t l r t ( i rcek APollo in t lrat l te rvas an arcl)cr-f iod, u'hosearrows brougli t diseasc. I- ike II .rdra he \\ 'as associated wit l lthe stornr, but he lackt:d Indra's PoPular and genial cl taracter. I Iewas a rL' lr)ote god, drvel l ing in t lre tnountains, and rvas general ly anobject of l 'ear, invokcrl to rvar<i off l r is arrorvs of Plague and disaster.l le ha,, l , horvevcr, a bcneficcnt aspect, for he rvas guardian ofheal inghcrbs, and as such rniglrt gi l 'e health to those rvltom he capriciouslyfavourr:d,

Tlrcre rvere lrlany other gods, stlch as Ttallr, the Vedic Vulcan,.4ryanan, guardiarr of con)pacts and Irtarr iage, and l /d1u, the rvind-

god, wlro, t l rough inrportant, cannot be described hcre. Therewere llso denrigods of I'arious liinds, among them l'ii7'ed4:as, ^vague group of indetenrt inate deit ies, t l te trfaruts, or storm-sPir i ts,

already rnentioned, {16/tzs, gnonres u'llo \\'orked in nretal, Gandharuas,

divine musicians, ori€i ir)al ly a single divinity but later looked on asmany, and the lovclv lpsaruses, comparable to the nynrphs of Greece,rvho nriglrt beconte t l te tnistresses of gods and nlen.

No I lonrcr or I lcsiod attclnpted to construct a definit ive genealogyo{'al1 t}rese'gods; their relat ionships are trsual ly vague, and there is

rrrr t i i l l ' scl lelrte of prececlct:ce among t l tem. Each god ntust havelrad I, is o\tn s1,cc: ial devotccs and pricsts, and t l le IJg I 'edd i .s t l le resultol an irnl;cr lcct s,\ 'ncrct isln of ntart,Y tr ibal bel icfs ar-rd cults. Alreadyin t lrc lrr tcst stratunl of thc Vedic lrvrnns gods are equated or paircd

t , rgc t i i c r , a t rd t l i r : t ' c a re do t rb ts as to u l r i c l r god is rea l l - t ' the grea t t ' \ t .In o t te l r ln rn { t l i i s in rpor ta t t t r l t t cs t io t t i s askcd as a rc f ra i t t l ( ) ( ' \ ' ( ' l v

\ \ ' l ro r r r , then, s l ra l l t vc l to t to t t r rv i t l l o t t r o l , r la t i , , t r r / " ; l . r t . l

the , - i log i r i t t s \ \ ' c t 'e so pr rz -z led by t l r i s tha t they dcc i , l t ' t l t l r . r l t l r t t t ' s . r ,

a y1 i , , ! t ' a l l t c l h ' , r ( Wl ro i ) , 1 ( ) \ \ l ,o r l r i l re l rv t l l : t 1 ' ' s5 ;1 ,1111 r " : ' I

! i l t l ictoN: cul-Ts, DocTRtNEs AND MEI(.APIIYSICS 241

S ar.r i f t t' f l rc , :crrtre of the ,Lryan cult was sacri f ice. f 'he cult of the domes-

tlc lrearth existed in many ancient Indo-European con)lnunities, and.\rnall dr)rr)estic sacrifices, performed by the head of the itouse, mustlrave been as important in the da5's of the fg Yeda as they lvere inlater l{induism, but the earliest texts describing them are the Gfh)'aSiltras (p. 1t3) of a much more reccnt period. The f;g Ycda israther concerned with great sacrifices, paid for by chiefs and rvealthiertribesmcn. They lvere already complex rites involving much pre-paration, the slatrglrter ofnunrerous aninrals, and the participation ofseveral well- traincd priests.

The main purpose of the sacrifice was the gratification of the godsin order to obtain boons from them. The gods descended to thesacred strarv (barhis) on tlle sacrificial field, drank and ate rvith thervorshippers, and duly rervarded them rvith succcss in war, progeny,increase of cattle and long life, on a quid pro gzo basis. Tlre solemnVaruna and t lre grinr anci unpredictable Rrrdra are exceptional in theVedic parrthcon, Jr{ost of the gods u'ere good rratrrred. Guil t-offer-ings and thank-offcrings, of the kind offered by the ancient Hebrews,are alnrost unheard of 'r the Veda,

Neverthulc.ss t lre cc.rrnony must hale ]rad i ts elenrent of awe andwonder.

'l he rvorslrippers, inebriated *'ith soma, saw wondrousvisions of the gods; they experienced stfange sensations ofpower;they could reach up and touch the heavens; they became immortal;they rvere gods themselves. The priests, rdro alone knew the ritualsand formulae whereby the goCs were brought to the sacrifice, werenasters of a great mystery. With these ideas, which are explicitlystated irr tlre iiymns, went others less obvious. Often in the flg kda'rle read o[ a nr.t'sterious entit-y called brahmaz; in many contexts brah-man is tlre magical porver in the sacred utterance (mantra), but some-tirnes it lras a rvider connotation, and implies a sort of supernaturalelectr ici t . l ' , hnorvn to studcnts of prinri t ive rel igion as nrana, Theposscss(,r of br;r lrrrrarr, b\ 'a corr)nron process of sccondary word forma-t ion in Sarrsl ir i t , bccarnc l i rrorrn as brihnano,* the tr ibal priest andmagician. In latcr Vctl ic t i rncs thc connection of brahman withspeech bccarnc rrrorc and r l lorc l)ronounced, and the brihman's magicwas thorrglrt to l ic in t)rc nords lrc uttcred. The words aad syl lablesof thc Vcda rvcrc anal.yscd, arrd, though the texis were still unwritten,the letters of the alphabet $ere recognized and personified as etemaldivinities. The metres used in the Veda were also tlrought of asgds. Later certain slllal-'lcs u'ere believed to be particularly holl',

r In tlris bool< usuallv written in its modern formbrdhru4 to avoid confusion with thctacrod texts of the sme narne.

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9+2 THE woNDER THAT \ i lAs tNDrA

notably 6*t ltne lrapaw), which contains the essence of theVedas and is pregnant with the utmost power and mystery.

__ 4 t*ol{ conception, which is hinted at in many hymni of the f;gYcda, and beconres prominent in the latest stratum, is also widel"vFoI" in primitive religions-the mystical identification of goj,victim and sacrificer. From these ideas the sacrifice obtaineJ ane_ven greater importance in the scheme of things than it had had at thetime of the composition of the earlier parts of the Sg lreda. By theend of the period it was widely believel that the uniierse itself irosefrom a primeval sacrifice.

Though Varu4a may sometimes have been looked on as a sort ofcreator, and there are suggestions of Indra's having fulfilled the samefunction (p. yu), there is no clearly defined creator-god in the mainbody ofthe lS Ycda. By the end of the gg Vedic piriod, horvever,such- a god had developed, whether wholly from the speculations o,the.brihma4s or from non-Aryan influencis. This god was prajd-pati,"the Lord of Beings", often identifiedwith Braimd, the mas-cu-line form of the neuter brahman. Prajepati was thought of as aprimeval man (puruqa), who existed before the foundation of theuniverse. The man u'as sacrificed, presumably to himself bythe g_ods, who-apparently were his children.r From the boay ofthe divine victim the universe was produced. The .,Hymn of thePrimeval Man", in which this first cosmic sacrifice ij described,bristles with obscurities, but its purport is quite clear.

" When the gods made a sacrificewith the Man as t}eir victim,

Spring was the melted butter, Summet the fuel,and Autumn the oblation.

"From that all-embracing sacrificethe clotted butter was collected.

From it het made the animalsof air and wood and village.

"From that all-embracing sacrificewere bom the hymns and chants,

from that the metres were born,from that the sacrificial spells were born.

"Thence were bom horses,and all beings with two rows of teeth.

Thence were bom catde,and thence goats and sheep.

. . . ln- the- _Edda the god Wodan, in order to obtaln magic powcr, is recrrflce<t by

himsclf to himself.f Presumably "the Mm" Prajrpati himself, who sunived his ou,n rrisrrrerrrrrrrrrent.

RELIGIoN: culTs, DocTRlNEs AND METApHysrcs 245"When they divided the Man,

into how many parts did they divide him?\A'hat was his mouth, what were his arms,

what were his thighs and his feet called It'The brihma4 was his mouth,

of his arms was made the warrior,his thighs became the vaidya,

of his feet the 6[dra wus bom.

"The moon arose from his mind,from lris eye \tas bom the surL

fronr lr is rrurrrth Indra and Aeni.frorrr his breath tle ni:rd ias bom.

"l'rom his navcl came the air,frorn lr is hcad there c"r,rc ihe sLv.

fronr lris fcet tlre. earth, the f,>ur qJarters from his ear,tlrus tlrt,y fashioncd tle worltls.

"\\-ith S:rcr ifir.c tlrc grxls srcrificccl to Sacrifice_tlrcsc ryt,rc lhc l i r .st of the sacrcd laws.

?' lrrse rrr igirty lrcirrgs rc.tclrcr l thc sky,rrvhcr.c alc tlrc etr:nral slriritsr tlre gods.,,r

. Il-y tlris tinrc a ncw attitude to the sacrifice had developed, and theri tc Ir ' r t l Irct rr 'e a su'crnal,mystery. By means of i t the priests mvstic-:urv rcl)cared ilre prir)leval sacrifice, and the lvorld wis born inew.Witlrout regular sacrifices all cosmic processes would cease, and chaosrvould come again. Thus the order if nature was on ultimate analv-sis not dependent on the gods at all, but on the Urahm"{,;il; br;,i;rrr:rgic of trre sacrifice miintained and compelled theni.' Th" 6.at-nran \\'as rnore powerful than any earthl.y king or any god; by hisaccurate performance of sacrifice Le mainiainej'At tf,ing-r, *i*r,tlrere.fore the-suprerne social servant; by the slightest ?".i"ii""

"fritual he could turn the sacrifice against h-is nutrons ana a.rt "ylf,.*,and rvas therefore the most dangirous of eriemies.

This is the basic doctrine o{the Brdhm(tf'r, and. it prevailed inmany Aryan communities in North nJi" ir"^ about 9oo B.c. or-wards, and left its mark on Hinduism in the exaltation of the braii-uran, In this period many of th.e o]d gods of the f;g lrriiiitli"i,greatness, and became comparativery unimportant,

-rihile others rose

:i_f^4,1:':t: n.otably Vi94u.and Ruira; the latter'was already some-

u mes cat ted by. the epithet S iae r,, the propi tious,,, originally i depre-catory euphemism.

' It is not crear who are thernighty beings.referred to, They are not the gods them.rr.lvcs, and tl)e last verse may be a" laier ad8ition. -- -- --'

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24+ T I I E W O N D E R T } I A T W A S I N D I A

I'leu, Da:elobrnents of DortrineAr Aryun culturJ pressed ! 'urther dorvn the Gangi i t absorbed new

ideas about thc afterlife. In the {g L?da tlrc Iate of the dead seemsto have been f ir ,al ly decided rvhen t ire,y died-t lre,t ' lent either to the"World of the Fathers" or to the "I louse oi 'CIav", t ' r ' l rere theyremained indefinitely. But i tr one late hvnrno i t is su(gcsted in cryp-tic language that they miglrt pass to tltc rlatcrs or rcntaitt in plants.-I'his may be a reference to metempsyr:hosis in the crude forrnbelieved in by r:rany primitive peoples, according to rihich the soulsof the dead pass to anintals, plants or natural objects beforc beingreborn in a hurran body. abe lJrdhrnana literature, *'hich had lostthe optimism of the fg l/eda, recognized the possibility of death evenin heaven,

ln the Byheddra1yaka Upanisalt the first form of the dor:;trine of

transrnigrat ion is given. The souls of those uho hale l i i 'cd l ives ofsacri f ice, charitv anrl austeri ty, after certain obscure percqrinatiot is,

pass to the World of the Fathers, the paradise of Yarna; tirence, attera period of bliss, thcy go to thc mooni from the rnoon tirey go toempty space, whcnce tlrey pass to the air, and descend to earth in therain. There they "become food,.. . and are offeret l again in t l tealtar fire rvhiclr is man, to be born agein in the fire of l'otir;ur", l'liilethe unrighteous are rcincarnatcd as lvorlns, birds or in.sects.

T hisdoctrine, rvhich seems to rest on a prirnitive belief tltat conceptionoccurred through the eating b_y one of the parcnts of a frult or l'ege-table containirrg the latent soul of the oflspring, is Put fonvard as arare arrd nelv one, and was not univcrsally held at tlre tinre of thcconrposition of the Upani;ad. Even in the da1's of the Budclha, trans-migration rnay not lrave been believbd in b;' everl'one, but it secnts tohave gained ground very rapidly in the ?th and tjth centuriesB.c. Thus the rnagnificentl-y logical Indian doctrines of .rarytsa7a, ortransmigration, and htrmo, tlre result of the deeds of one life aflecting

the next, had hurnble beginnings in a soul theory of qtr i te prinri t ivetype; but even at this early periotl they had an ethicai content, atldhad attained sorne degree of elaboration.

In whatever way the doctrine of transmigration 'rvas developetl itirivolved belief in the repeated passage of the soul fronr life to liie,either for all eternity cr for an inestirnably long time. It lirrked allforms of life into a single systcm. The gods titetnscli'es rnust passaway, and be replaced by other gods. As one Indra died, anotl)crwas born. The souls of the departed, though now ilr bliss, rv<.,trldsooner or Jater pass to new abodes. Anirnals, i t tsects, :r I)( laccordinq to some sects plants, all lived under the sante llrv. \\'itlrrenrarkable ir traginatir e insiglrt son)e sages tatrglrt t l t : t t cvcrt l ;r t tr ,

REt.tctoN: culTs, DocrntNEs AND MET^pnysrcs 2+5

<lust and air rvere f i l lcd rvith minute animalcule, and that these toohad souls uhiclr s 'ere t lrc same, in esscnce, as those of men. Tlreulrole of l i fe thus passcd through innunrerable changes.

It was general ly, though not universal ly, thouglrt that thesech.rnges rvere determined by conduct. As one behaved in the preserrtl i fc so one's status in the scale ofexistence rvould in future be exaltedor abased, and one's lot rvould be happy or rvretched. This doctrinecf karma (l i teral ly "deed" ) soon became fundamental to most Indianthought. It providcd a satisfactory explanation of the mystery ofsrrf i l r ing, which has trcubled rnany thoughtful souls al l over theworld, and it justified the manifest social inequalities of the Aryanconrnrunity.

' I 'o t l re ordinary nran such a doctr ine might not appear distasteful,

and the fact that it <luickly obtained almost universal acceptance sholvsthat i t met in great nlcasure ancient India's spir i tual needs. Indeedin nrany re.spects the idea of sam.sira, ' ryhich offers inf ini te potential i-t ics ofnerv cxpcricncc to the soul, and rvhich holds out hope even tot lrc lrurrrblc.st of I ivirrg t lr ings and r lre rnost evi l of bcings, nl iglrt seemnrore a t t fac t i vc t l ran t l re t ra r l i t io r ra l s ta t i c heavcn and l rc l l o f theWest. IJut to rr:ul,y carr i( .st Ircolr lc t l rc t l rouglrt ol transnrigrat ionwas not lr lcasarrt. I)c:rt l r s ' ;rs alrval 's tcrr ible, and the prospect oflravirrg to t l ic irrrrrrrrrcr;rblc t inres \\ ' ls not a happy one. Life, evenwltcn dcvoit l of t l rc lnajt ,r sorroivs, tvas drab anJ inadequate, whilecol l t inual rebirth sccrned ntonotonousl;r boring. The growth of thedoctrine of transnrigration coincided with the developrnent of pessi-mistic ideas. Rebirth in heaven rvas not enough-a way had to befouncl to escape the cycle of birth arrd death altofether. Ii rvas found,to the satisfaction of the best minds of the times, in mysticalknorvledge, achieved by much meditation and asceticism

,4sceticismIrr a late hy'mn of the Rg ledaa we read of a class of holy men

different from the brihmans, the "si lent ones" (munis), who wearthe wind as a girdle, and u'ho, drunk rvith their orvn silence, rise ontlre u'ind and fly in the paths of the demigods and birds. The muniknorvs all men's thoughts, for he has drunlt of the magic cup of Rudra,which is poison to ordinary morrals. Another clasJof early ascetic,nruch mentioned in the Atharta L'eda,e 1y^t tlte ardl^la. Thij terrn, inits later broad meaning, inrplicd an Aryan rvho hacl fallen from thefaith and no loirger respected the Vedas; but tlre vr;rtya of the Atharxal 'cda u'as a priest of a non-Vedic fert i l i ty cult , rvhich involved r i tualdiurcing and flagellation. He travelled from place to place in a cart,with a r. , 'oman whom he prosti tuted, and a musician who performed

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9'116 THE woNDER THAT w^s rNDr^

for him at his rites. The status and rrature of the vritvas are 6tillnot wholly clear, but it is evident that great efforts were made toconvert them to the Aryan faith and to find roonr for them in theorthodox cult, and they were probably one of the chiefsources ofthenew doctrines and practices.

By the time of the Upanigad.s asceticisrn had become very wide-spread, and it was through the ascetics, rather than the orthodoxsacrificial priests, that the new teachings developed and spread. Someascetics were solitary psychopaths, dwelling in the depths ofthe forests,aud suffering self-inflicted tortures of hunger, thirst, heat, cold andrain. Others dwelt in "penance-grounds " on the outskirts of towns,where, like some of the less reputable holy-men of later times, theywould indulge in fantastic self-torture, sitting near blazing fires inthe hot sun, lying on beds of thorns or spikes, hanging for hourshead downwards from the branches of trees, or holding their armsmotionless above their heads until they atrophied.

Most of the new developments in thought, however, came fromascetics of less rigorous discipline, whose chief practices were themental and spiritual exercises of meditation. Some of these dweltalone on the outskirts of to*'ns and villages, while others lived inhuts, under the leadership of an elder. Others wandered, oftenin large groups, begging alms, proclaiming their doctrines toall who wished to listen, and disputing with their rivals. Some werecompletely naked, while others wore simple garments.

The original motive of Indian asceticism was the acquisition ofmagical power. Thc brihma4s claimed this already, by virtue oftheir birth and training, but there were other types of power,obtainable by other means. By the time of the Upanigads faith inthe cosmic mystery of the sacrifice had perhaps begun to wane, evenamong the brihma4s themselves. Though sacrificial mysticism didnot immediately disappear the rite once more came to be thought ofas a means of obtaining prosperity, long life, and rebirth in heaven,rather than ofsustaining the cosmos. Indeed the wealthy patrons ofsacrifices had probably alwa.vs had the former as their main motive.In the eastern parts of the Gangd Basin Brihm4'.'ism was not sodeeply entrenched as in the west, and older non-Aryan currents ofbelief flowed more strongly. The sacrificial cult did not wholly meetthe needs of these lands, where firmly founded kingdoms were gro\y-ing in power and material civilization was rapidly progressing.

The ascetic, even though his penance was of the most severttype, rose far above the heights achieved by the sacrificial priest.Once he had inured his body to pain and privation immeasurable joysawaited him. The hermit of the lower type had rruch to look for-

RELtcloN: culTs, DocrntNns AND METAPHYSIoS 247

ward to evell on the material plane, in the form of honour and resPectwhich as an ordinary man he could never hope for, and complete free-dorn from lvorldly cares and fears. This sense of freedom, of a greatload lifted from one's shoulders by casting aside one's family and pos-sessions, is evident in many passages ofcalmjoy in the religious liter-ature of India. But therervere greater incentives to asceticism thanthese. As he advanced in his self-training the hermit acquired powersbeyond those of ordinary mortals. He saw past, present and future;he-mounted the heavens, and was graciously received at the courts ofthe gods, while div.nities descended to earth and visited him in hisherriitage. By the magical power acquired through his asceticism he-could work miracles-he could crumble mountains into the sea; ifoffended, he could burn up his enemies with the glance of his eye, orcause the crops of a rvhole people to fail; if respected, his magicalpower could protect a great city, increase its wealth, and defend itirom famine, pestilence and invasion. In fact the magic potencyformerly ascribed to the sacrifice now began to be attributed toasccticiim. Itr tlte succeeding age the idea that the universe was'firunded and rnaintaincd tlrrough sacrifice slipped into the background;in its place it rvas widcl.v bclievcd that the cosmos depended on the-p.nu,,... of the grcat goi Siuu, rueditating for ever in the fastnesses ofihe Ilirn;rla1'as,- ancl-on thc continued austerities of his humanf<.rllorvers.

lf ascctism had its charms even for the less s'piritual' they were stillgreater for the questing souls who took to a life of hardship from trulyieligious motives. .Ai his mystical exercises developed his psychicfacuities, the ascetic obtained insight which no words could exPress.Gradually plurnbing tlie cosmic mystery, his soul entered realms farbcyond il,e contp"tutively tawdry heavens where the great -gods<lwelt in liglrt arid splendour. Going "from darkness to darknessdccper 1'ct;; hc st,lved tlre mystery beyond all mysteries; he under-stood, fully and linall,r ' , the nature of the universe and of himsell,anrl lre rca.lr.,,l a rcalin of trtrtlt and bliss, beyond birth and death,

loy arrd sorro\\ ', good.artd evil. And with this transcendent knowt'i.dg" .tttt" attotircr rc'ali latiort-l)e was completelyr- utterln free.Ile-lrad foutrtl ult irrtatc salvatiotr, t lre final triumph of the soul. Theascetic wlro rcachcd the goal of his quest was a conqueror aboveall con<lucrors. lhere rvas nolle greater than he in the wholeuniverse.

The metaphysical interpretation of the asceticrs mystical knowledgevaried frorn- sect to sect; but the fundamentat experience was thesame, and, as has beeh many times pointed out, was not appre-ciablydifferent frorn that of the Wistem saints and mystics, whether Greek,

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944 THE woNDER THAT IpAg tNDtA

Jewieh, Christian or Muslim. But Indian mysticism is unique in itselabor-ation of techniques for inducing ecstasy, and in the iomplexmetaphysical _systems built upon interpretitions of mystical ex-perience. Where in-_other- religions mysticism is of varyingimportance, in those of India it is fundamental.

The great development of asceticism and mysticism soon becametoo strong for the more earthbound and materialistic Brihmanism toignore. _ Places were found for the hermit and the wandering asceticii 4" Aryq social- structure by the formula of the four si"ges oflife (p. t59f), which first appear in the Dharma Sfltras. Adountsof the discussions and teachings of some of the more orthodox ofthe early mystics were collected and added to the Brihma4as asAranyakas and Upanigads. A little later short treatises of nrvsticalcharacter rilere composed in verse, and also appended to the Brih-ma4as as Upanigads. Later still a method of mystical training, oftenknown asloga ("union") (p. Seltr), was accepted

"s "n o.thodox

element of the Hindu iystem. Indian religion had taken a newdirection.

- It has been suggested that the development ofascetic and mysticaldoctrines, especially in the heterodox systems of Buddhism

"nd Juin-

ism, represents a reaction of the warrior class to the pretensions of thebrihma4s and to the sterility of the sacrificial cult. This, however,is certainly not the whole truth. Buddha and Mahivira, the founderof Jainism, were kgatriyas; they proclaimed the futility of sacrifice,and more than one passage in the Buddhist scriptures may be inter-preted in an anti-brihmanic sense. But many of the teachers of thenew doctrines were themselves brihmaps. The Upanigads, whichrepresent the thought of the more orthodox mystics, in no wayoppgse sacrifice, but maintain its qualified validity; and passageispeaking resp$tfully of brihma4s are quite as frequent in iheBuddhist scriptures as those which disparage them.

There was certainly some opposition to brihmanic pretensions, anddissatisfaction with the sacrificial cult; but behind this, and thegrowth of pessimism, asceticism and mysticism,lay a deep psycho-logical anxiety. The time of which we speak was one of greatsocial change, when old tribal units were breaking up. The feelingof group solidarity which the tribe gave was removed, and men stoodface to face with thi world, rvith no refuge in their kinsmen. Chief-tains were overthrown, their courts dispersed, their lands and tribes-men absorbed in the greater kingdoms. A nerv order was cominginto being. "f Great heroes and mighty kings] have had to give uptheir glory; we have seen the deaths of fdemigods and demons]; theoceane have dried up; mountains have crumbled; the Pole Ster is

nEltc loN: culTs, DoCTRTNES AND METAPIIYSTC! 249

shaken; the Earth founders; the gods perish. I am like a frog in adry well"; so speaks a king in-one of the Upanigads.ro - Despitc-the great growttr. of material: civilization at the time the hearts ofmutty men-*ere failing them for fear of what should come to Passupon earth. It is chiJfly to this deep feeling of insecurity that r1eniust attribute the growth of pessimism and asceticism in the middleccnturies of the first millennium r.c.

,sptculal ion ani G nosisAscr,l i l isrn \l ' ;rs IX)t trrercly a mean.s of e.scape from an unhappy

arr l r r r rs ; r l is l l i r rg rvor ld; i t had a posi t ive aspect , for i t was in par t111.; ' ir.r l lr_y a ttesire fcrr knorvlcdge, for the wisdom which the fourVt., las could not give. Thus the growth of asceticism is not only anr(,lsrrrc of tlre ps1'chologicat uncertainty of the times, but also ofrlrr. ir t lr irst for knowledge. It is not just to India to stigmatize herrurrt it 'rrt uisdoln as mere "l ife-negation".

All t lrrough the first mil lennium l.c. intell igent minds in Indiau crc striving for convincing explanations of the cosmic mystery. Intlrc latcst phase ofthe flg lreda poets began to wonder about creation,rvlrit lr uas not adequately explained by the current mythology. Asrvc lrave seen, creation was thought of by some as the effbct of a

l,rirlcval sacrifice. It was also suggested that it was due to a sort ofsr.xual act;ll elsewhere the world was said to have originated in a" (.iolden Embryo" (Hiranyagarbla),lz the Prototype of the CosmicIigS (p. a9o) of later Hindu mythology. - In, one hymn the poetstites that the world arose from warmth (ta!as, later usuallyrneaning penance or asceticism), and then rather regretfully admitstlrat he is not sure of this hypothesis, and suggests that perhapsevcn the high god Prajnpati does not know the truth.

This wonderful " Hymn of Creation", one of the oldest'survivingrecr>rds of philosophic doubt in the history of the world, marks thedevelopment of a high stage of abstract thinking, and it is the work ofa very great poetr'whose vision of the mysterious chaos beforecreation, and of mighty ineffable forces working in the depths of theprinreval void, is portrayed with impressive economy of language.

"Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.

What covered it? Where was it? In whose keepingtWas there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomedl

"Then there were neither death nor immortality,nor was there then the torch ofnight and day.

The One breathed windlewly and celf-sustaining.There was that One then, and there was no other.

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9,60 THE woNDDR THAT w^s tNDra

"At first there was only darkness wrapped in darknesr.All this was only unillumined water.

That One rvhich came to be, erclosed in nothing,arose at last, born of the power of heat,

" In the beginning desire descended on it-that was the primal seed, bom of the mind.

The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdomknow that which is is kin to that which is not.

"And they have stretched their cord across the void,and know what was above, and u'hat below,r

Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces,Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

"But, after all, who knows, and who can saywhence it all came, and how creation happenedl

The gods themselves are later than creation,so who knows truly whence it has ariseni

" Whence all creation had its origin,he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,

he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,he knows-or maybe even he does not know.,,t3

In the centuries succeeding the composition of the fig lzcda, how.-ever, speculation was mainly concerned with the symbolism of thesacrifice.

"Dawn is the head of the sacrificial horse, the sun its eye, the windits breath, fire its mouth; the year is the trody of the saciificial hor_se,heaven its back, the sky its belly, earth its chest, the four quarters itssides,.. the seasons i ts l imbs, the months and fortnights i ts joints; daysand nights are its feet, the stars its bones, the heaveni its flesh. Its hail:digestedfood is sand, its bowels the rivers, its liver and lungs the mountains,its hair plants and trees, When the sun rises it is the horsi,s fore-quarters,when it sets it is its )rind-quarters. Wben the horse shakes itself it lightens ;when it kicks, it thundersiwhen it makes water, it rains. Sourl is itsvoice."ll

The symbolism of the sacrifice was carried much further than this.E-very word or action of the ritual was identified with some aspectof the cosmos. The intellectual ingenuity spent on this process offinding pratikas or symbols must have been considerable, but it waslargely sterile, Yet the questing spirit of the " Hymn of Creation,,never wholly disappeared, and in the 6th century B.c. it bore fruit in a

. My translation of this obsure verse is very free,

RELIGION: CULTS' DOCTRTNES AND METAPHYSICS 95I

great wave of thought which was to alter the whole religious life of

India.The early Upanigads and the scriptures of Buddhism and Jainism,

all of which look back to the ?th oi 6th centuries s'c' (though the

latter rvere much later in their.final composition), show that there

existed a bewildering variety of speculations and theories on the

origin of the universe] the naiure ofthe soul, and kindred problems'

Sof,e of these rvere accepted by one or other brihma4ic scho-ol and

incorporated into orthodox belief. others were the germinal bases

of heierodox sects, two of *'hich survive to this day, but most of which

have long since vanished, and are only remembered in passing refer-

ences in the scriptures of their oPponents.A*ong the more orthodox t-eachings we fi.1d creation ascribed to

the self<"onsciousness of the primeval Ferson (Puru1a, i'e' Prajdpati),

who felt fear, loneliness, "nd

the need of companionship' The Per-

son divided himself, and produced a wife. This couple, taking the

forms of animals and men, created the whole universe'16 The idea

of creation by a cosmic sexual act was one which played a gr-eat part

in later religious thought. The theme is repeated in various forms in

later Vediciiterature,In sonte of whichtapas-thepower derived tiom

asceticism-is an essential feature in the Process o[ creation-a

,ignincunt shifting of emphasis from the oldei theory that the world

depended on a primeval sacrifice.btlrer mo.e lreterodox teachers put forward naturalistic and athe-

istic cosmogonic theories. Some believed that the world began as

;;i.rtoth&s postulated fire, wind, or ether (dhd{a, p' 49e) asthe

ultinrate basis of the universe. For some the universe was based

neither on a deity nor even on an impersonal entity, but on a principle-fate (niyati), iime (kala), nature (rrabrdoa), ot chance (sarygat-i)'

It *o, srlgesied thai the'world developed not by the-intervention,,f gr4 or flices external to it, but by a Process- of internal evolution or".i1,.ning" (pariyana). Some tiachers, like the Buddha, gYght

tl,"i spefiilatio" o" first carses was a futile v/aste of time' There

rvcre out-and-out Pyrrhonists, denying the possibility of any certain

krrosledge at all, and materialists, who rejected the existence ot the

s,,r,l and'ill other imriraterial entities, while some teachers proclaimed

rlr:rr tlrc $.orld was made of eternal atoms. The intellectual life of

Irr,lil irr the ?th and 6th centuries 8.c. was as Yigorous and pullulating

as tlrc jungle after rains.'l'l,"l,r,,pagators of these doctrines, even of materialism and scepti-

,ir,,r, rie." frearly all ascetics, though the literature of the time

rrr|rrtir.rlls Dlore tlan one king who took a keen interest in the new

i,lr ' ;rs. C'5icf of t l iese philos|pler kings \4'ere Janaka of Videha and

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252 THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA

AjitaSatru ofKiSi (Verdpasi), both ofwhom probably lived in dre ?thcentury B.c. Theforest hermits (oAnaprastha) seem tohavedepartedIess far from Vedic orthodoxy than the wanderers (pariwdjala), whomaintained a bewildering variety of doctrines. It rvas chieffy amongthe former tbat the literature of the Upanigads developed.

The terrn Upanigad means literally "a session", sitting at the feetof a master who imparts esoteric doctrines. There are said to bel08 UpaniEads altogether, but many of these are late sectarian workscf little importance. The earlier Upanisads, like the gre* Blhad-dra4yala and the Chdndogya, are in prose and consist of a series ofshort expositions of some aspect of the new doctrines, often in theform of question and answer. The Upanigads of somewhat latercomposition, like the Kalha and the Soetdluatara, are in verse, andtheir contents are more closely integrated. Though the speculationsof the Upaniqads differ very considerably, their main purport is thesame. One entity, often called Brahman, the term used in the fgYcda to mean the magic of the sacred word (p. z+l), fills all spaceand time. This is the ground beyond and below all forms andphenomena, and from it the whole Universe, including the godsthemselves, has emerged.

The great and saving knowledge which the Upanigads claim toimpart lies not in the mere recognition of the existence of Brahman,but in continual consciousness of it. For Brahman resides in thehuman soul-indeed Brahman rs the human soul, is Atman, the Self.When a man realizes this fact fully he is wholly freed from trans-migration. His soul becomes one with Brahman, and he transcendsjoy and sorrow, life and death. In sleep a man's spirit is set free; itwandels through the universe as a bird or a god, it beconres a kingor a brihman. Beyond dreaming is dreamless sleep, where thesoul's experiences are such that they cannot be expressed; and beyondthis again is Brahman. When he reaches Brahman, man is free,

In their struggle to express the inexpressible the sages of theUpanigads used imagery of every kind. Sometimes the idea of thesoul is rather primitive, and it is described as a tiny manikin inthe heart; sometimes it is said to be the breath, or a mysterious fluidwhich flows in the veins ; but sometimes it is thought of as quite incor-poreal and immeasurable:

"'Fetch me a fruit of the banvan tree.'" 'Hcre is one, sir. '" 'Break i t . '"' I hav.. broken it, sir.'" 'What do you see ?'"'Very tiny seeds, rir.

RELIGTON: CULTS, DOCTRTNES AND MFTAPHYSTCS 255

" 'B reak one . '" ' l have b roken i t , s i r . '" 'Now wha t do you see l '" 'No th i ng , s i r . '"' NIy son,' the father seid, 'what you rlo not perceive is the essence, and

in that essence the nrighty banyan trce cxists. I}eliel'e me, my son, in thatessence is the Sclf of all that is. f-hat is the True, that is the Self. Andyou are that Self, Svetaketu ! "'to

Here the soul is the innrost sel f of the being, in no sense mater ia l ,

though ideas of a sort of soul-stufr a subtle matter of rvhich the soulwas composed, persisted, especially among the Jainas. The termAtman came to mean indiscriminately "soul" and "self", whichlends a certain ambiguity to niar)y passages in the I ' I indu scriptures.

The identi ty of the souls of the individual and the universe isreiterated tltroughout the Upanigadic litcrature, rvith varying empha-sis, and *'ith differing interpretations of the nature of the identityand tlre character of the universal soul. Tat h;am asl, "you ( the indi-vidual) are that (universal essence)", the tvords of the father to theson in the passage u'e have quoted, is thc leading theme of theUpanigads, The one eternal undifferentiated essence, above goodand evi l , is in a condit ion ofconsciousness which is beyond deep sleep(susupti), but is yet arvake and l iving. Though i t f i l ls the lvhole ofspace, by a mysterious veri ty which defies logic but is proved byexpericnce i t drvel ls in the core of the human heart. I t is general lytlrought of as uniform and impersonal, and the word Brahman is ofnctttcr gcnder, Thus al l the mult i far iousness and incoherence oft lrc urr iver.sc is e-xplained away, and reduced to a single enti ty.

" ' l ' u t t l r i s sa l t i r r rva tc r , and corne to me in the moming. '" ' I ' l r t . sor r t l i t l es l rc r r . : rs to l , l . ' I ' he fa ther sa id : 'Fe tch the sa l t . ' f ie

son krrkcd ftrr i t , l rrrt t . ,Lr l t l rrrt l i rrd i t , l rccause i t had dissolved," ' - l ' as te t l rc ua tc r f ro rn thc gop, ' sa id t l rc lh thcr . 'How does i t tas te? '" 'O f sa l t , ' t l r e son n ' | 1 i 1 . , . 1 ." " faste f ronr the nr iddle." 'Of sal t , ' the son repl icd." 'Taste f rom the bot to ln." 'O f s r l t , ' t l r e son re l r l i cd .

I l o r v docs i t t as te? '

I I ow docs i t t as t c i '

"Then the father said: ' \ 'ou don't perccive that the one Reali ty (saf)exists in your own body, nry son, but i t is truly there. Everything whichis has i ts being in that subtle essence. That is I leal i tyl That is the Soul!And you u." t lut, Svetaketut" 'r7

The Universal Essence is sometimes defined in purely negativelerms, "The Self can only be described as 'Not this, not this' . I t

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25* THE woNDER THAT wAg txDra

is incornprehensible, imperishable, . . . unattached, . .. unfettered,.-. . it does not suffer, . . . it does not fail.,,r8 tsut, despite the nega-tions- of this passage, the sage Yijfravalkya, to whom ii is attributZd,could not esc-ape giving the Un_iversal Essence a degree of personality,and in one place almost identified it wittr the HigliGocl.

-

. "T?rat great unborn Sell, comprised of lnowledge, is . . . tJ-re ether inthe heart. In that is the ruler and lord, the king of all things. He growsn-o greater by good deeds, nor smalier by evil dleds, but he is the l6rd ofall things, the king of all things, the protector of all things.,,re

In the verse Upanigads the World Spirit is described rather as egod than as a cosmic essence.

"IIe encircles all things, radiant and bodyless,unharmed, and untouched by evil,

All-seeing, all-wise, all-present, self-existent,he has made all things well for ever and ever."Zo

- In the Uplnipad from which this is taken the World Spirit is re-ferred to as I{a, "the iord".- The Kalha lJpanisarlcalls^the Spirit"the Person" (Puru;a), reminding us'of the divine victim of theprimeval sacrifice from which the world was bom. In one passasethe-.World Spirit is mentioned with fear and dread, recalling th'aiearlier felt for the god Varur.ra;

"All things whatever, the whole *'orld,produced ffrom Brahman] tremble in its breath.

It is a great terror, an upraised a\underbolLThey who know tlis become immortal

"From terror fof Brahman] the Fire bums.From terror fof Brahman] the Sun shines.

From fear of Brahman Indra, and the Wind,and Death as the fifth all run away.,,zl

The Sz,etdioatara IJlanisad which is later than those previouslymentioned, describes tlre world spirit in completely theiit ic terms.It is -no longer an impersonal essence, but a creator god-in fact thegod Rudra, or Siva. Rudra may be reached not onf by meditationand penance, but also by devotion and worship.

"?'he snarcr, who nrlcs alone in his might,- he u'ho govcrr)s thc rvorld in lris pciwcr,is ahvays one and the sanre,

though all else rise antl dccry. . . .

RELIGTON! , CULTS, DOCTRINXS . {ND METAPHYSTGS 255"There is one, Rudra alone, . . .

who mles the world in his mislrt .He stands.behind all beings, tl" ilia" all the worlds,

and protects them, andiolls t'em up at trre e'd of time..,The Lord lives in the faces ofall beings,

in their heads, in their necks.IIe l ives in the inmost heart of al l .

the all_penading, all_present Siia,,,zz

This brinqs us very n€ar to the religious atmo.sphere of tlte Bhapa-ud Gita, tli most e_xolted "r,r

t;;;;i;i"oit'aiu,. retigious pu"i,.,u.hich teaches a fully_fledg.a *"i.ni-u"i i, pu.t of the more recentHinduism rather than of ite old B.ahmuni#,;l'.lr;ili;;ffi:from a religion of sacrifice ,o o". of J.u*ion.

Ethics of the [JpanisadsIn general the Upanipad-s_ proclaim salvation by knorvleclge orrealization rather than by faith oi *".r,"

"rrr"i, !,rri",

"*"r?,"a"]mentaily pragmatic. GoLd ana uuil ..e r..olved in the "ll;;;;;;;Drahman, anJ are rerative t".*, onry.

' -l'.Ji., ,,," 'oint of view of thiseeker after t^rth, that is good *r,iir, r*i.'^r,im to the realization ofBrahman, and evil the rei.erse. Thus an;,f1ipg

";t;h H;;;;the meditative life is u]1i1agely b;,;;';;ong ure most seriousof these obstacres are selfish a"."ir"r.-'h';;;" than one context it issaid t'at t'e uni'erse came into u*itt.n.u ihiough a primevar desire.f tlre \\'orlcl Soul; to attain bliss tfr" fr"._it _"st, so to speak, restorerl)(! srar{} of t lr i 'gs bcrore creation. The normul uutu., i iarl;;;:srr< r i i i t t.,. lrt.rrcr.. 'rnce, and even asceticism, ar"

"rif g".i^i i l"?; :t l r t 'y I t ' , r ,1 t l rc soul r rJr r r .ards.

"' l ' lrtrc ert ' t irr ' , 'c r, l ' . ,,r,1'", c,f trre r,arv. sacrif ice, study and charity arethe first, arrstcr irv is rlrc .sctrrrrrl, ,r,,,1 to d*j. l l irr;; l j lr".y ln ure house ofone,steac'cr . . . is t l ic rlr irrl. . l t,r,. , i tt ,t,"r" n,i" 'u,,t j....fr". the worlds of theblcssed, but the r'a' *lr, is l i .r., l i ,, Itr; i,;;;; ' ; i ,,, ls ir,,nrortolity.,,er

"The *' ise nre' of ord ditr rr.t rvarrt <rrirtrren. .\\ 'rrat shourd we do with:l l l9l:", ' they.said.,,rv'c. *.c lr"r.c l lr"l,,,ra.

"l l .f ,f," rvorld besidesl, An.tlrey conquered their desire for.so.s a.d rvcalth

"rr,l ihe tr".r.nty ruo.tar,.;irvandered about as l)esfars. , ....f f" u.ho krrorr.s 6th" _yrt"ry of Brahrnan.lbecomes calm, rcstraiircJ.,^ satisfirrl, p.r;"r, i '",,, i ' .rnnU"nt, and he see!himself in the l-Great-t Self, sccs "ff-tf i i ,,gr'orif," i"ff.... Evil does noto\.ercome him,lut heiverconres cr.il. . . I F."u Lonr

"vit, free from decav.free from hatred, free from rhirst, 1," b;.;';l;;"; Urat *rn.;ri'

sLvqr,

Occasionally it is suggested, especirl iy in the later Upani;ads, thatalr desires whate'er aiJ itrcompaiiut" ri i th' t i ," sa'ing ri lo*r.ag.. '"

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256 T H E W O N D E R T H A T W A S I N D I A

" \['hen all desires which cling to the heart

JLTS, DOCTRINES AND METAPHYSICS 257

"'lhe threefold descendants of Prajipati, gods, men and demons, wereonce students at the feet of their father. When they had finished their train-ing the gods said: 'Sir, tel l us sornething fgood for our souls] ' . I Ieuttered the syllable DA, and thcn asked them uhether they had understood,

"'We understood', they answercd. 'You told us Dzlnyata (be self-con t ro l led) . ' 'Yes , ' he sa id , ' you unders tood indecd l '

"Then the men asked him, and he uttered the same syllable DA, and thenasked them rvhether they had understood. 'We understood,' they an-swered. 'You told us DAtta (give). ' 'Yes, 'he said, 'you understoodindeed l '

"Then the denrons asked him, . . . and he uttered the same syllable DA,and then asked them rvhether they had understood. 'We understood,'tlrey answered. 'You to\d vs D.4Xadhaam (be merciful).' 'Yes,' he said,'you understood indeed ! '

"And the blessed voice of the thunder ever repeats DA DA DAr-be self-controlled, give, be merciful. So these three should ever be taught-sel[control, charity and mercy."29

Perhaps the highest ethical flight of the Upanigads occurs in theinstructions said to have been given by Yajiiavalkya to his favouriteu'ife before taking up the life of an ascetic. Remembering the doublemeaning of theworda-hnanr"selt" or"soul", thepassage nraybe readin two rvays, but the context shorvs that the Higher Self is intended.This Higher Self, the World Soul, the mystic recognizes in all things,and loves them for their participation with himself in the unity of thespirit. The passage is too long to quote in full, but we paraphraseits most important parts.

"Yijiiavalkya had nvo wives, Maitreyi and Iietyiyani. Maitreyi knewsomething of the World Soul, but Kityiyani orrly knew what every wornanklows. \\'hen he rvished to enter on another phase oflife Yijilavalkya said:'Nlaitreyi, I am leaving home. Let me make a settlement on you andKetyiyani. '

" N{aitreyi asked: 'Nfy lord, if I owned the whole earth and all its wealtlr,slrould I be inrmortal?'

"'No,'YEjfiavalkya replied,'your life would be the life of the wealthy,and there is no prospect of immortality in wealth.'

"Nfaitreyi said: 'Of what use to me arethings which wil l not give meimmortality? Give me rather your knowledge, Iny lord.'

"'La,Jy,; he repliedr'you are truly dear.to me, and now you are evendearcr, So if you like I will teach you.- r,isten carefullyt,

"'A husbani is not dear for love of the husband-a husband is dear forlove of the Self. Similarly wife, sons, wealth, cattle, priests and warriors,r*'orlds, gods, the Vedas, everything-none of them are dear in their ownright, but all are dear for love of the Self.-;"Truly

you can see and hear and perceive and know the Self' Maitreyi.' A traditional onomatoPeic expression of thc sound of thunder'

fall arvavthen the niortal bccomes immortal,

and in this life finds Brahnran.

"\l'hen all the earthly ties of the lreartare sundered,

then the mortal becomes immortal.This is the end of al l instruct ion."g6

A l i le of ascctisn) \ \ 'as not absolutely necessary to salvation-everrkings are said to have real izccl Brahrian rvhi le st i l l rul ing-but thesaving knouledge was at best very hard to obtain, and doubly difli-cult for one lvliose mind was full of material cares and desirei. Allpleasure was therefore suspect.,

"Tlre good is one thing and the pleasant another.Doth, rvith their differcnt ends, control a man.

But it is r.r'ell with hirn who chooses the good,while he who chooses the pleasant misses his mark.":r

Though often rather negative, the ethical attitude of the Upani-gads is neither unmoral nor antinomian. IIe who has not ciasedfrom evil conduct u'ill never obtain Brahman. Here and there arepassages of high ethical value among the reiterated mystical similesand parables of the texts. Thus honesty is highly extolled.

"SatyakEma son of Jabili said to his mother: .Mother, I want to be rstudent. What is my familyl '

_"' I don't know your family, my dear,' she said. 'I had you in my youth,when I tr:rvelled about a lot as a servant-and I just don't knowi Myname is Jabili, and yours is Satyaklma, so say you are Satyakema Jabeta., i

" fle u'ent to Gautama Hiridrumata, and said: 'I want to be your student,sir. I\{ay I come?'

" ' Wtrat is your family, my friend ?' he asked."'I don't know my fanrily, sir,'he answered. 'I asked my mother, and

she said that she had me in her youth, when she used to travel about a lotas a servant. ... She said that as she rvas Jabili and I was Satyakima Iwas to give my name as Satyakima Jibala. '

" 'Nobody bu t a t rue br lhma4 wou ld be so honest ! 'he sa id . . , . .Goand fetch me fuel, my friend, and i will initiate you, for you have not swervedfrom the truth-"'2|

A further fine ethical passage occurs in the form ofa legend irr rlrcBrhaddranyaka Upanigad, We quote this passage p"ril_y h*'.,,r"an al lusion to i t must have puzzled many readers of T. S l . . l ior r.

I A patronymic, which would give the impression that the boy wes rlre torr r>f , rrrrtnamed Jabtla.

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f 5 8 THE WONDER THAT WAS TNDIA RELIGION: CULTS, DOCTRINES AND I \ {ETAPHYSICS 959

,frd wfr-en- you have seen, heard, perceived and lnown rJre Self you willknow all tbings.

"'Where there seems to be a duality of self and not-self one sees, smells,tastes, perceives, hears, touches and knows something othcr. Ilut when allis the Self there is no consciousness of anything otlrcr than Sclf. . . . '.fhusMaitreyi I have instructed you-this is immortalityl'

" When he had said this Yajfravalkya.r,vent away."so

( r r ) l u o o u r s uTlu Buddha

While the doctrines of the Upanigads found a place in the brih-mapic system, there rilere other teachings which could not be harmon-ized with orthodoxn but were fostered and developed by heterodoxsects. Chief among the teachers of such doctrines was the man whoat the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century B.c.established a community of yellow-robed followers, and was known bythem.as the Buddha, the Enlightened orAwaken"d. Eu.o ifjudgei

".nly by his posthumous eflects on the world at large he was certainly

the greatest man to have been born in India.The traditional story of the Buddha, like those of most saints

and heroes of ancient days, has suffered much at the hands ofhigher criticism. The story of his .birth and early life appearso-nly i1 the later books of the Buddhist Scriptures, and many ofthe leferences to him in those parts of the canon which purportto give his teachings verbatim are by no means reliable. Eventhe "Sermon of the Turning of the Wheel of the Law", which issaid to be the first sermon preached after the Buddha's enlight-enment, and which is the basic teaching of all Buddhist sCcts,is of dubious authenticity, and in the form in which we have it isnot among the earliest parts of the canon. Much doubt nowexists as to the real doctrines of the historical Buddha, as distinctfrom those of Buddhism. One eminent authority suggested thatthey differed but little from the teachings of the Upani.sadic sages,stthile another held that he rejected thi doctrine of transmigration,and taught merely the almost self-evident truism that one generationis affected by the deeds of the preceding one.32 We here discuss,however, not the life of the Buddha, lut what his later followersbelie-ved about his life, and not what he taught, but what Buddhismtaught.

Certain facts about the Buddha's life are reasonablv certain. IIewas the son of a chief of the Sakyas, a srnall tribe of thc NcpaleseTerai. He bccame an ascctic, and propoundcd a ncw dtx:trincwhich gained the srrpport of nurnerous disciples. Aftcr nrany year.r

of teaching in the kingdom.s of Kosala and Magadha and in the triballands to the north of the Gangi, he died at the age of eighty atsome time between the years *go and 41s 8.c., probibly nea-reitheformer date than the latter. The story of his life as-told by hisfollowers is far more vivid and colourful-than this dry outline, ;d itis infinitely more important, for it has influenced countless millionsthroughout the rvhole of Asia east of Afghinistin.

One night Mahamayi,r chief queen of Suddhodhana, linq of the Sakvas.dreamt that she was carried away to the divine lake Anivatapta in-theHimilayas, where she was bathed by the heavenly p;uardians of the fourquarters of the universe, A great white elephant holding a lotus flower inhis trunk approached her, and entered her side (pl. XVc). Next daythe dream was interpreted for her by wise me'-she had conceived a wonderlful son, who would be either a Universal Emperor (p. e+f) or a UniversalTeacher. The child was bom in a grove of sdl trees called Lumbini, nearthe capital of the Sakyas, Kapilavast-u, while his mother *u, on th" *uv-loher parents'home for her confinement. At birth he stood upright, tookseven-s.tride-s, and spoke: "This is my last birth-heuceforth,tlire is nomore birth for me."

. . Tl" !.y w_as named SiddhErtha, at a gteat ceremony on the fifth day fromhis birth,. His gotra name was Gautama (in pali, Gotama) by which he iscommonly referred to in Buddhist literature. The soothsayeis prophesiedthat he would become a Universal Emperor, with the exception oiorie, whodeclared that four signs would convince him of the miserybf the worli, andhe would become a Universal Teacher. To prevent tlris prophecy cominetrue King Suddhodhana resolved that he should ne'er L"o* ti,e ,;;;;;?the world. He *,as reared in delightful palaces, from whose parks evervsign of death, disease and misery was removed. He learned all the artsthat a prince should learn, and excelled as a student. He married his cousinYa(rrllrari, r'r'h.rn he won at a great contest at which he performed feats ofst*rrgtlr arrtl. .skill wl:ich put to shame all other contestants, including hisetrviorrs cousirr I)et 'edatta,

.,8:a f": all lris-pnrslr.rity and succcss he was not inwardly happy, and forall the eflirrts t'f lris f:rtlrt.r |e did scc tfie four signs foreLld,'*iri.h we.eto decide his carcer, for thc gods k'cw his dcstiny, a.d it was they whoplaced the.sign-s before hirn.

-One,day, as he was iriving round thJroyal

park rvith his faithful charioteer charura, hc sarv ar og"i'man, in the lasts-tages of infirmity and decrepitude-actually a god, who had taken thisdisguise in order that siddhertha Gautama mighibecome a Buddha: sid-dhartha asked channa who this repulsive being was, and when he learnedthat all men must grow old he was even mo-re troubled in mind. Thi;was the first sigru Tbe second came a little later, in the same wayr.ln the

- r rhroughout t}is section and generally in tbis book we emptoy Sanskrit forms ofnuooJ)rst names and tern)s, tor the sake ofconsisterrcy. The reader who goes on to morese(alreq studJ may meet tl lem in their pi,. l i lbrrrs, as used by the sthavira-vida Buddhists.

Page 37: The Wonder That Was India

960 THE woNDER THAT wAs TNDIAform of a very sich man, covered with boils and shivering with fever. fiethird was even more terrible-a corpse, being carried"to the

"."m"tion-ground, fo]lo-wed by weeping moum.is. But dre fourth sign Urouel,i l,oDeand consolation-a wandering rerigious bcggar, crad in "a

simplS yellJwrobe,peaceful and calm,.with a mieirof inuarll joy. On r""ingi,i.n'S;aJh-irtha realized where his destiny lay, urd sct hls lreart on L.omi,.,j'"wanderer.

Hearing of this King Suddhodhana doubred his prccautiors. sidtlhrrthawas made-a-virtual prisoner, rhough still surrounded with pleasures an,rIuxuries ofall kinds; his heart knew-no peace, and he could never forget thifou-r ligns- one moming the news wis brought to him that yasianarahad given birth to a son, but-it gave him no pleaslure. That nigt t th".u *"rugreat festivities, but when all were sleeping he roused channi who saddledhis favourite horse Kanlhaka, and he rode'offinto the night, su.ro,,-d"d bvrejoicing demigods, wiro cushioned the fall of hi, ho.'r'"i'ii""fr';;;;;;one-should hear his-departure (p. 4SE, utd pl, XXIVc).

When far from the city he stripped- off his jewellery and fine garments,and put on a hermit's robe, provided by an attendant demigod. "Witf, f,i,sword he cut off his flowing hair, and sent it back to hisiather *ith hi;gallenjs by the handofChanna. The horse Kanthaka dropped a""a fro-grief w}en he found that he was to be parted fiom his ,n"'rt"",

""d ;;;

rebom in one of the heavens, 'Thus- siddhirtha performed r,is .. c."ui Coing

Fol,lr" -(Ma_habhini$ramana) and becanie a wanqermg asceuc, ownmgnothing but the robe he wore.

- At first-he begged his food as a wanderer, but be soon gave up this lifefor that of a forest hermit. From a sage nimed Ar;ra Kilima r,. r""-.Jthe technique of meditation, and the iore of Brahman

"r t"rgil-i; th;

upanigads; but he was not convinced that man could obtain liber?tion fromsorrow by nre'tal discipline and knowledge, so he joined ro."",.r"ir-ni=ascetics.who were practising the rnost rigoious self-riortificatio" i" tt

" t op"

of_wearing away their karnra and obtairiing final bliss._ IIis penances became so severe that the five quickly recognized him as

their.leader. For six years he tortured himself until he was"nothinl u"Jwalking-skeleton. One day, rronl out by penance and hunger, f," f?i"t.a,and his followers believed that he was deai.- But after a whiie he recovereiconsciousness, and realized that his fasts and penances had been useless.11" 3q"i". tqp t9 beg food, ard his bocly regained its strength. 1)r; fi";disciples_ left him in disgust at lris backsliding."

O1e lay Siddhertha Gautama, now thirt!_five years old, was seated be_1gu+. u large pipal,tree on the outskirts of tire towi of Gayi, in the realm ofP]l].bl:irl,I]ltg,of

Magadha.^ .Sujata,_ the. daughter of

'a-nearby frrmer,

:J,:ugnr,nrm a targe.bowl of rice boiled in milk. After eatingi ,orn" oi

thrs ne bathed, and that e.rening, again sitting beneath the pipll trcc, hemadc a solemn vow that, though his bones u,asicd arvay and his't,loo<l tlric,lup, he would not leave his seai until the ri<ldlc of sLrfl.;iing was solvctl.- S.o for forty-.ine days he sat beneath the tree. At first irc u.as surr.run,l"dDy hosts ol gods and spir i ts, await ing t lre great rn()nlcnt o(.cnl ightenrncnt;

n E L I G ' O N : C U ' . T S , D O C T R I N E S ] l N D M E T A p H y . s l o s f 6 tbut they soon f lcd, fo i Nl i r l , the spir i t of the * , , r r l , l an, l of scrrsualplcasure, t t re l l rLt id l r is t dci i l , approached. Foi dal ,s ( iarrrama wi thst<_rot ltenrptat ior)s of a l l k inds (p l . XIX). I l l i ra, d isguised as I messengcr,l r r .uglr t r rer 's that the wicked cousin Dcr.at lat . . ; r l taC rer .o l t td, thrJrr , ,Suddhodhana into prison, and sciz_ed YaSoclhard, but Gautar'a ll.asnot rnovei l . NI i ra cal led his demon hosts, ard at tacked hi rn wi th rvhir l rv ind,tenrpest, flcocl and earthrlrrake, but he sat firm, cross-leg6.ed bcne;rth therree. The' t i ,e re l .pter cal led o ' r Gautama to producJ evir jence ol hrsgoodness ard bene'r'ole:rce; he toucheci the ground ,,r.ith his hantl, and tlreEarth i tsel f spcke rv i th a voice of tht . :nder: . , I am hi .s rv i tness, ' .

M,ira thcn tricd p;entler rneans of shaking Gautama's rcsolve. IIe calledhis thrce bearrtiful daughters, Desire, I'leisure and passiorr. rvho clancerland surg before hirn, o'rd tried every lneans of seduciion, Thcir rviles rvereguite ineffectu:rl.

'l-hey ofrercd hirn LT'iversal Emoirc; but he v.,as unmoved.

At last the denlon hosts ga'e up the strugglc and Gautanre, lcft alone,sank dcepcr_end deeper into medi tat ion. Ai the dau,ning of t i re for ty_nin'Jr day l:e !'. 'ew the truth. Ile had found the secret of soriorv, ar,.l u'dr.'r-s tood at last rv i ry t i re wor ld is fu l l of suf fer ing and urrhappiness of a l l l i in ,Js,a-'rd r'hat rnar) r))rr5t do to o'crc.r:re t)rem. I{e was full_v rrrlightcned_*aBu'ldha. l:irr another seven * eeks he renrained under the Tr.e if wir,lo*(bdhi) , medi tat ing.rn the great t ruths he hacl found.

For a t i rne l ie d 'ubted rvhet l rer he shouid procla im his u. isdorn t , : ther'r'orld, as it rvas so recondite arr,l dillicult to exprcss that few rvould untler-stand it; L'ut the god Brairrni hinrselfdescended from heaven amd ocrsuadedhim to teach tlre rvorld. l,ea'ing tire

'f:-ee of Wlsdorn, lre journej.etl to the

Dcer Park near vira-nasi (the rnodern sernrth), rvhere his live lbrrrrerdisc ip ' les lad set t led to cont i r :uc their penances.

'fo tlrese fir'e ascetics the Iiuddha preached his firstsermon, or, in Bu<ldhist

l ,hrascology, "sct in mot iorr t l re \ \ 'hcel of the l_aw,, . . fhe f ivc were so

rrr :1 ' r r -sst 'd rv i th l r is new doctr ine that t l re_v gave up their auster i t ics a: : i ! oncer ' ( ) rc l ' ( ( - -ur( ' i r is r l isc i | lcs. A fcrv days later a band of s ixty young ascet icsh r . i r , r , l r i . f r , l l , ; " < r , , : r r , i he . sc . t t i r en ou t i n a l l d i r ec t i ons - t o p i cach r l r eL l t t ( l ( l l r . t i ) l r . r r l r . r . S , , , r r , l i i s r i i r l e \ \ ' a s r+c l i kno rvn t l r r opg |ou t i he Ca : r c ;I ' l a i r : , a r , L l r l r ( ' g r r ' . r l { \ r ) r i . q . r ' I t l r c t i r nc f a ' . u red h i n r an , ] i r i s f o l l ou .e i r s .He g . : r ! ) r t ; r t l t t r g l l l r , r . r r l r , , i 1 l i r r , r l l , , t , l y r , f r 1 , , 1 f t s ( ca l l cd 6 l r i - r r e r , 6 , ; i nI 'a l i Dl j , ( i / r r i . r , l i tc . ra l l ,v " l ) ( Al{ . r .s " ) , krr i t togct l r r . r i ry a cor; r rnon garb, the.Vel lor .v 115a5 of thc or . l t . r , ; ln1l ; \ ( ( , lut r1( , i l drr r iy . l : r rc, -accgrt l ipg to" i rac. i i t ionla id do*n in detai l by t l rc I l r rc[ i l i . r l ; i r r . , , ] f . \1; r r r r , r : tor ies a ie t . id r . , i h i ,long I ' r - ,xp5 of preaching. IJc r . t . i r r r r r . t I t , r I i . ,1, , l l r ] . rs t i r , and conrcr teci l i isfat l rer , rv i fc a ld son l l lhula, as * .e i ) a: ; l i t . ln- \ .or l r , , r r l rcrr rbcrs of dtc court ,i n c l ud i l r g h i s cous in De 'ad i . r t t a , r r l r , ' e l r r : r r t r . r r r r i r r c t l f ' l l o f j ea l ' u sv . A ithe re, luest of l ; is fostr : r -mot l r t ' :^ and aunt , l i r ;J-( iautanr i , he ai lcrveC u. , t l rmuch misgir i rg t l ,c i r ; -mat ion of a c. l r r rnul t i t_r , . of r . r r 's . De'at iat ta qrew sojer lorrs of h inr t l rat i ;nce hc e 'err r r lc . l to l . i l i tht r lu i rJha, by arr ; i , j i r rg f r , , i .a nrad c l t , r ' i r : r r r t to be let loosc in l i is p; : rh; l r r r t t l t i : l : , . r r t , i , . ; , , . , , r . " , Ib i ,1,"IJu.Jdha s g-etr t lc l ress ald fcar lcssncss, , :a l rn ly hrrwrr i ; . r l r is r 'eei 1pt . f XiVal .H,: averted a uar bet*.een tl,c f-l _v:rs antl rhe tic,1.;;as, I,y walk-ing betw.",.,

Page 38: The Wonder That Was India

THE WONDER THAT WAS TNDIA ITELIGtoN: CULTg, DOCTRINES AND METAPHYSTCS 263

the assembled armies a'd convincing them of the useressness and evil ofbloodshed. He went alone to the camp of a notorious bandit, Arigulimila.and converted him and his followers from their evil wavs.

Though according to legend his life was attended by many wonders, theearliest traditions record ferv miracles accomplished by the uiuaaha himself.once he is said to have pcrformed feats of lcvitation and other miraclesat Srrvasti, as a result of i challange from rival teachcrs, but tr" rte-ry ior-bade the monks to imitate him, a.d there is no record of his healingthe sick by- supematural

.rnears. One touching !J9ry of the Butldha iiinteresting in this co'nexion, since it contrasts strikingly rvith the Gospelstories of the nriracles of Jesus. A woman, stricken v.ith grief at ihedeath of her only so', and hearing that the Buddha was in t"he vicinitv.brought the child's corpse to him in the hope that he would restore it iolife. He asked her first-to go-to-the nearby town and bring a handful ofmustard seed from a family in which no one had died. she went from houseto housc, but ofcourse could find no such family, until at last she urderstoodthe inevitability of death and sorrow, and became a nun.

For eight months of the year the Buddha and his followers would travelfrom place to place, preaching to all and sundry. For the four months of therainy season, roughly corresponding {o the English summer, they wouldstop in one of the_parks given to the Buddhist order by wealthy lay fo-llowers,living in.huts of bamboo and reed-the first forrn of the greit Buddhisimonasteries of Iater times. For over forty years his reputalion grew andthe saigha (literally sogiety, the Buddhiit-order) incieased in"numbersand influence. With the exception of the conspiracy of Devadatta hesuffered no persecution, thougJr a few of his followers were maltreated bytheir.religious opponents._His ministry was a long, calru and peacefulone, in this respect very different frorn that ofJesus.

.. ̂ The end came at the age of eighty. IIe spent the last rainy season of hislife near the city of vai3eli, and after the rains he and his followers ioumevednorthwards torvards the country which had been the home of his vouth. bnthe way he prepared his disciples for his death. He told them that his bodvwas now like a worn-out cart, creaking at everyjoint. He declared that hLhad made no distinction between esoteric and Lxoteric teaching, but hadpreached the full doctrine to them.t When he was gone they wfie to lookfor no new leader-the Doctrine (Dharna) which h1 had pieached wouldlead them. They must rely-on themselvei, be their own lamps, aud lookfor no refuge outside themselves.

At the town of Pava he was entertained by a lay disciple, Cunda the smith,and ate a meal of pork.f Soon after this he waiattaclied by dysentery, bui

, r.,we cannot, of cour_se, rcly on the verbatim acflrrary of the account of the Buddhr'roea.rn, an4 ulls prssxAcJJ may bc an interpolation directed agf,inst early hctcrodox schoolswl l l c l r c la r r i l cd to posscss secrc t tc f ,c l r ings o f t l re Budd l ra . l i i s cqua l lv noss i l , le . h ,ucvr . r -tnat lt,rclcrs.to tl)c tcarlrcrs of t lrc Ul'ali$ads, ulro kcpt t lrcir t irr,-*t-sccrct datrincf t,, iInetr closest dlsctoles.

--f Most-rnodcrir I lurldbists chirn ihat the last nreal was of trrrf l lcs, anrl t lre t ' i l i phrrserilIara-maddava, "6weetncss of I ' igs_", is certarrrly arrrlrrguous.r. tf.,t

"rity .;,, i ,;;;;;;

ta to rs took i t to mean a c l ru ice c r r t o f r r r rk . . l

he insisted on moving on to the nearby town of l{u6inagara (Pali, Kusi-nEri). Here, on the outskirts of the town, he lay down under a sil tree,and that night he died. His last words were: " All composite things decay.Snive diligentlyl" This was his "Final Blowing-out" (Parinirvd4a).llis sorrowing disciples cremated his body, and his ashes were dividedbetween the representatives of various tribal peoples and King Ajitadatruof Magadha.

The Growth of BuddhismAccording to tradition a great gathering of monks met at the

Magadhan capital of Rajagrha soon after the Buddha's death. At thiscouncil Upili, one of the chief disciples, recited the Vinaya Pilaka, orrules of the Order,_as he recalled having heard the Buddha give them.Another disciple, Ananda, who bears iposition in Buddhiim similarto that of St. John in Christianity, recited the Sutta Piyaka, the greatcollection of the Buddha's sermons on matters of doctrine and eihics.Though there may have been a council of some sort, the story as itstands is certainly untrue, for it is quite evident that the scriptures ofBuddhism grerv by a long process of development and accretion,perhaps over several centuries.

A second general council is said to have been held at VaiSeli, onehundred years alter the Buddha's death. Here schism raised itshead, ostensibly over small points of monastic discipline, and theOrder broke into two sections, the orthodox Sthaviravddins (peliTlzeraoAdi) or "Believers in the Teaching of the El<Iers"r'andthe Mahdsafighikas or "Members of the Great Cornmunity". Thetradition of the second council is as dubious as that of the first,but it at least records that schism began very early. The minorpoints oirl ist ipline on rr'hich the Order divided were soon followed bvdoctrir ral t l i l l i :rcnccs of nruch greater intportance.

Nunrcrorrs sruh rl i l l i .rt 'nccs appcarcd at the third great council,held at I)itali l)utra rrrrrler t lrc l)rrtrollrgc of A3oka, r.r 'hich resulted inthe expulsion o[ ntany lrt:rctics arrtl t lrc cstablishntcnt of the Stha-viravEda school as orthodox. At this council i t is said that the lastsection was.added to the Pali scripturcs, tlte Kathiuatthu of the'Tbhidhamma Pilaka, dealing .r.r'ith ps1'chology and nretaphysics. Infact many of the works of this part of the canon are of later com-position, and the details of the account of the council are suspect, butthe record shorvs that by this tiure l'idespr-ead differences had de-veloped within tle Order.

Meanwhile great changes were taking place in the constitution ofBuddhism. Some modern authorities believe that the Buddha hadno intention of founding a new religion, and never looked on his

a

Page 39: The Wonder That Was India

-T--

26+ . I t I E W O N D E R T H A T W A S I N D I A

doctr ine as di.st inct fronr the popular cults of the t irnc, but rarlrer astranscending thcrn---a sort of super-doctr ine, rrhich .w'ould help hisfol lorvers lurt lrcr alorrg t lre road to salvation t]ran l l rhlrnranisrn orUpanisatl ic gnosis. ' I 'his vicrv is, in our opinion, r 'crv qr,re.st ionable.Thougir t l re tradit ions o1' I luddhisnr givc l i t t le cl i , lcnce of directantagoil isrn bctu'ccn lJuddlr ists and bri l l rnrans at t l r is cat-11. pcriodthcre rvas trru,-: l t atrtagor: isni l-retu'een ], lLrddlr ists arrcl ot lrcr lre tcrorlo.xsccts, suc:ir as .Jairras and Ajir i l ias.

' I ' l rc.sc sccts did not lncl 'e!\ ,

rvranglc tn'ct ' docti- i tral points, but carr icd on vig(,rous l , l 'ol :r l l : lndrarnong la.vnretr for t l ieir support, \Ve bcl ieve t lrat cven in t lre <le1'sof the I luddlra lr ir lself the Order con.sciousl l ' tr icd to bui l 'J urr afol lo*ing of h-r ' f . ; l l i , u'ho w'ould pay to t lre luAAIra thcir clr icf i f i rotthcir oniy lrorrr.qe. ' I ' l rc cnormous gif ts rvhich so many rvcalthl,peopie xre siLid to l i rve nrade to the Ordcr are no doubt exaggcratci l ,l iut t l ' rc tracl i t ion is rnore probably part ly true than r ' , l rol l-y falsc, andat least sotrte ol t i rc s'cal l l rv merchants tvlro so l ibcral lv srrrrportedt l rc ncrv tcac l r iags l r , , r r r l ,avc- lo t ,kcd upon t l rc rnsc lvcs as la i 'Bu , l i l r i . s ts .

Wltatever i ts posit ion in the Buddira's i i fet ime, 9oO 1'ears latertsutldhisrn u'as a dist i i rct rel igion. A6olia cla.ssif ied al l the rel igionsof l i is ernpire under f ive heads; t l re (I ludclhist) Saigha, the Bralr-rnans, the Aj i t ' ikas, the Nirgrantlras (or Jainas), and "other scct.s".l le f i rr ther declarcd that, lvhi le he gave his chief patronage to t lreI ludChi.sts, )re l iontiurcd and rcsDccteri t l rern al i , ard cal ied on hissub. jcc ts to do I i kc r r i se .30

lly AJolta's tirnc Irrdia rves covcrccl rvith z'lra7a.r, r'r'lrich s'crc botlrmonasterics and tctnplcs. In bct 'otnirrg a rcl igiort I lur ldlr isrnborrcwed and a<l:rptcd trruclr fr '<,rrt t l rc popul:rr l>cl icf i ; of t l rc t i rrrc. I tssinrple r i tual rvas in no u'a' , ' bascd on sacri l ic ial l l r i l rrnar.r isnr, but orrtlre cult of caiQas, or sacred spots. These rvere often small groves oftrees, or single sacred trccs, on the outskirts of vi l lages, ancl miglrtalso inclucic turnuli, such as those in u'hich the ashes c'f chiefs wereburied.

'fhese caityas lvere the abodes of earth-spirits and geniiwho, to the sirnpler folk, lvere more acccssible and less expensive toworslr ip than the great gods of the Aryans. The Jaina scripturesshorv that unortlrodox hol1'-men often made tireir homes in or ncarthe cait l 'as, no doubt in order to obtain alms from visitors; and theBuddha is said to have respected thcse local shrines, and to haveencoungcd lris lay fc,llorvers to revere thetn.

Soon altcr the l3ircldlra's death many communities of nronks gaverrp t l ic pructicc of constaut travel except in the rainy sea.son, andsett lcd pcrnrarrcni ly on t l le outskirts of torvns and vi l lagc.s, oftcrrnear thc local cait t 'as. \ \ ' i th t inre urany o( thcse I i t t lc rr lonastcl icsgrerv in size at id intJ'ortattce.

R F , L I C I O N : C U L T S , D O C T R I N E S A N n l { E T A P I I Y S I C S

I t rvas t l tc cult 0f t l rc cait l 'a that Budtl i i isr i l nra,- lc i ts orvn. Ac.cord-

irrg to tradit i t)n r/ t-b.r j or t l rnrul i uerc: l .r t t i l t [r ,v t l re recip!ents over the

ai i i iaea aslrcs of t l ic l luddha. Otlrer st, i1,:rs, coirtr irr ing the rcmains

of local ly re\.ered l tronks and ascetics of ot l lcr dcnontinations, rose

up al l o. cr Incl ia in succeedrng centuries. ,A.6,t l ia urrcarthcd the ashes

oi the Buddha fronr their original rest ing pleccs and dividcd them sti l l

further, rcaring st lpas for t i rem al l ovcr India. The sacred grove

or trce c,f tlre <ild popr'rlar cult becanle the Bodlri 'lrct', a pipal planted

near t l)e st ir | ;1 16 colnnlcnlorate the IJtr i ldl le's cl l l igl l tcnlnent ' an

object of grcat rcvercnce. The original I lodir i ' I ' rrrc of Ga-r 'd, under

*' i ic l i th,: I ludrl l ta sat, bccame an object of pi lgr irrrate, and ctrt t ings

of i t \ \ ,cre carr icd as far as ce1' lon. one ferture of ' t i re I-]uddhist cult

rvhich has ttorv vanished is the column, perhaps the surl ' ival of a

phall ic enblern or rnegali t l t . Such coluttt t t , ; existed in tnaly ancient

buddhist monasteries, but thcir place in the cult is not clear.' femples pr()per or sl tr ine-rooms do not alt fear to l tave beelr erected

unti l the teginning of the Christ ian era, rvl tctr the Buddha began to

be worshipped in the forrn of an image.

His sinrpler lbllorvers evidently raised the Bud.ilra almcst t<.r

divinity even in his l i fet irne, and after his deatlr he u'as rvorshipped

in his syrnbols-the stf ipa, recal l ing lr is parinirvina, and the tree,

recal l ing his enl iglrtcnr:rent. l 'he worship consister- l of circumam-

bulat ion in the auspicious clockwise direct ion, and prostrat ions, with

off-erings of florvers. 'fhough tlte more intelligr-'nt monks tnay have

recognized lr is true status, for the ordinary bei ievcr he rvas the

greaiest of the gods. This is not surPrising, for to thi.s day Indians

iecl and shorv the utmost respect for those u' lroln thcy considr:r l roly'

I t is rat lrer a nlatter of surprise t l lat i t rvas only 5oo 1'ears after the

Buddlra's r lcath that a theology devclopetl which gave ful l recognit ion

to th is s ta t t : o f a t l : r i r s .

$t i th t lre .sul) l)()r l of A(oha Btrr lcl l r isnr greatly cxplndccl, spreading

throug l rou t I l r r l ia : r r r , l to ( i ' .1 ' lo t t . ' l ' l l c rc i s .so t r tc do i ib t as to how

far the doctr inc l tacl t l t ' r ' , ' l r ,1rr- ' t l at t l r is t i t t l t , , btt t at ]east a rt ldimentary

canon ex is tc t l , t l ro t rg l r y , t ' t l ra1 ,s l ) ( ) t \ ' ( ' t t ' o t t t t t t i t t t ' t l to l v r i t ing . The

great I l r rdd l r i s t l r t , l \ ' 1 ' l : r t t ' s t l r t ' l . t r t r r l r i r r l ( i rovc a t I iap i iavas tu

where t l rc I l t r r l t lha rvas l to r t t , t l r c ' i ' r cc o f \ \ ' i sdorn a t Ga l 'a rv l te re hc

ga incd er r l ig l r tc r r r t t c r r t , t l r c I ) t ' c r I ' a rk I rcar Varar las i u ' l t c rc ' l re

preached his f irst scrrr lorr, arrd t lre grove near l{u6irragara where

he died-rvere visi tcd by rnany pi lgr irns, including A6oka himself.

Though there is a tracl i t ion of crucl persecution under Pu;yamitra

Suirga tire faith continued to grorv. Of all thc religious remains

of between 2oo n.c. and a.o' 2oo so far discovered in India those

of Buddhisnt outrrunrber those of Br. lhmanisnr, I l i rrduisrn and

I

Page 40: The Wonder That Was India

r66 THE WONDER THAT WAS TNDIARELIGION: CULTS, DOCTRINES,AND METAPHYSICS 967

schisms, was carried by a succession of Indian monks to China andthence to Japan. By the time of the Guptas it predominated, andIlsiian Tsang, in the ?th century, fowrd the Lesser Vehicle almostextinct in most of India, and only flourishing in a few parts of theWest; evidently it had ceased to make a strong emotional appeal inthe India of early Hinduism. Buddhism as a whole was alreadydeclining. In miny places great monasteries were in ruins, 'aniplaces of pilgrimage almost deserted. But the faith was still impor-tant, and had thousands of monks and many prosperous monasteries.Chief of these was Nalandi (p. t001, which, under the patronageof kings of the Pila line, remained a centre of Buddhist piety andlearning until the Muslim invasion. From Ndlandi, the missionarymonk fladmasambhava went forth to convert Tibet to Buddhism inthe 8th century, while pilgrims from as far afield as China andSouth-East Asia visited it to learn the pure doctrine.

At this time the general standards of culture in North India weredeclining. From the end of the Gupta period onwards Indian reli-gion became rnore and more permeated with primitive ideas of sympa-thetic magic and sexual mysticism, and Buddhism was much affectedby these developments. A third vehicle, " the Vehicle of theThunderbolt" (Irajraydna), appeared in Eastern India in the 8thcentury, and grew rapidly in Bengal and Bihir. It was this form ofBuddhism, modified by primitive local cults and practices, which wasfinally established in Tibet in the llthcentury, as a result of missionssent from the great Vajrayina monastery of Vikramadila, in Bihdr.

Anti-Buddhist persecution was not wholly unknown at this time.In the 6th century the Hii4a king Mihirakula destroyed monasteriesand kille<t monki. A fanitical Saivite king of Bengal, Sadifrka, inthe course of an attack on Kinyakubja at the very beginning of the7th century, alrnost destroyed the Tree of Wisdom at Gayi. Thereare othcr less rcliable accounts of persecution, but it is certain thatthis was not the main cause of the disappearance of Buddhism fromIndia. A more important factor r.r'as the revived and reformedHinduism, which began to spread north\.1'ards from the Tamilc-ountry from the 9th century onwards, when the great theologianSairkara travelled the length and breadth of India disputing with theBuddhists. Behind him he left an organized body of Hindu monks tocarry on his work. The new form of devotional Hinduism made avery vigorous appeal to the ordinary man, and the persistent tendencyof Hinduism to assimilate, rather than to attack, was always at work.

As early as the Gupta period Buddhist monks often took part inHindu processions. The Buddhist familn which gave its chiefsupport to the local monastery, would at all times rely on the servicec

Jainism together. The old stlpas were enlarged and beautifiedu'ith carved railings, terraces and gatervays.

-r{Jl classes of t}re

community, kings, princes, merchants and craftsmen, made donationsto the Order, which are recorded in numerous inscriptions. Thoughthe individual monk was bound by his vows to own no propertyexcept bare necessities, and to touch no silver or gold, the monasierieigrew rich on the alms of the faithful. The revenues of whole villageswere alienated to them by pious kings, and even the individual monksbegan to take their vows of poverty lightly, for more than one inscription records donations made to the Order by ordained members of it.

Though there is little evidence of stron! sectarian animus withinthe Order, sects already existed, and the scriptures had been codifiedin more than one recension. It is possible that much of the pilicanon of the SthaviravEdins, in the form in which tve have it, emaratesfrom the great monastery on a hilltop near the modern village ofSanchl, the remains of which are among the finest relics of iarlyBuddhism.

Another very important sect, the Sarcdstioddins, was strong in theregion of lvfathuri and in Kashmir. It was in Kashmir, aciordingt.o a tradition preserved in China, that, under the patronage of Kaniska( tst-end century A.D., p. 6lf), a fourth great council was held, atwhich the Sarvistividin doctrines were codified in a summary, theMahiiaibhdsd. It was chiefly among the Sarvistividins, but ilso inthe old schism of the Mahi.sar'rglrikas, that new ideas developed,which were to form the basis of the division of Buddhism into the"Great" and "Lesser Vehicles" (trtahAfina and l-Iinaydna). Thebrihmans and their lay supporters had by now largely turned fromthe older gods, whom tliey worshipped with animal sacrifices, towardsothers, who were worshipped w'ith reverent devotion. In N.-W. Indiathe rule of Greeks, Sakas and Kupa-4as in turn had thrown open thegates to the West, and ideas from Persia and beyond entered Indiain greater strength than before. In these conditions teachers ofthe- early Christian centuries gave to Buddhism a wholly new out-look. They claimed to have found a new and great vehicle whichwould carry many souls to salvation, while the Sthaviravidins andkindred sects had but a small one. The Great Vehicle soon becamepopular in many parts of India, for it fitted the mood of the times andthe needs of many simple people better than did the Lesser Vehicle,which then began to lose ground. In Ceylon, hotvever, the LesserVehicle resisted all the attacks of the new sects and thence it wasIater taken to Burma, ThaJand and other parts of South-East Asia,where it becanre the national religion.

The Great Vehicle, on the other hand, itself soon divided by various

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TI IE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA

of bralrmans at births, marriages and deaths. I f frrr a t irne Buddhismbccanre to al l intents and purposcs a scl)arate rcl igion, denying theVedas, the ordinary lavman rnigbt not see i t in that l ight. For hirnBuddhisrn \r 'as one of many cults and fait l rs, bv no means nrutual lyexclusive, al l of 'w]t ich led to salvatiott , ancl al l of rvlr icl t 1\ 'cre respect-abie and u'orthy of honour.

' fhLrs, in Irredicval Nort l t in<l ia, t l re

Buddha calne to be lool ied on as the ninth of t l te tert incarttat ionsof the great god Vi;1u. (p. soo), an<l Buddhism gradually lost i tsindividuality, becorning a special and rather unorthodox Hindu sect,which, l ikc nrany others, did not str lvir .e. Hinduisnr, relying for i tsstrength mairrly on independcnt brahma4s and ascetics and ondomestic cerenronies, suffered frorn the lr{uslim invasion but wasnot seriously weakcned by i t . Buddir isnr, by now tnainlv concen-

trated in large rnonasteries and alreadl' ralridly declining in influence,could not stand up to the change, In the first rush of the Jvluslimadvance dorvn the Gangi Ni landi and other great nlonasteries of

Bihir u'ere sacked, librarics were burnt, and tnonks were put to thesword, Most of tlte survivors flcd to the mountains of Nepll andTibct, but some Buddhist ntonasteries st i l l survived in Bihir and EastBengal. An illurninated Buddhist manuscript contains a colophonstatirrg that it rvas prepared jn Bi}ir in the tSth celrtury.3? This isour last record of Indian Buddhisttt, until its revival in recent years.

Thc Itsser l'ehirleAccordirrg to Sin]ralcse tr;rdit i t in t l rc Pal i crnon of t l re Stlra' , ' i ravi-

d in schoo l rvas cont r r r i t t cd to l r i t i r rg in ( ' c . t lon , i ; r t l r c rc ign o l K ingVatlagiurarl i (ec-lz n.<:.), aftcr i t l ra,. l becn f irral l .r ' cstabl ished ata great counci l of Sinhalesc nronks. I f ue are to bel ieve tradit ion i thad already been si l ied and co<ii f ied at the thrce counci ls ofRajagrha,Vaiiali and Pitaliputra, and haC been passed dorvn by rvord oftnouthfor some four centuries by teachers u'ho had not the strict mnemonicsystem of the Vedic schools. As late as the sth century a. l , wri t tenscriptures ivere rare, and the pilgrim Faisien rvas hard put to it tofind a good copy of thc l/ina1a Pilaka. Probably even the codifica-tion of the canon in Ce.ylon did nct l holl_v end the process of accretionand interpolation.

At the same time as the cal)on old comrnentaries in SinhalesePrikrit rvere also committed to rvriting. Tlrese rvere translated intoPeli , ald no doubt considerably altered and expanded, by the greatdoctor Buddhaghosa, wlro r i 'orked in Ce1' lon in the 5th centur_v.The original cotnnrentaries have cornplc' tclv vanished, antl .sotrre l tavedoubted rvhetirer they cvcr cxistcd, but i t is certain t lret Buddl ' .aglrosehad access to man)'earl_v tradit ions not rr 'cordt 'cl t ' lsert ' l ierc.

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Page 42: The Wonder That Was India

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I op . l l l u s r ra t i on o f t he Ja taka s to r y o f t he S i x - t usked E lephan tMrdd ld : The demon hos t s o f Ma ra ( l e f t o f cen t re ) t emp t t he Buddhd , symbo l i zedl ) y t he vacan t t h rone unde r t he Bodh i T ree on t he l e f t[Jor tonr : The story of Vessan:ara, to ld f rom r ight to lef t : ( i ) Vessantara and hisl , r r r i l y i n a hu t i n t he f o res t ; ( i i ) he g i ves away h i s two ch i l d ren ; ( i i i ) he g i ves, rw , r y r ) r s w i f e ; ( i v ) he i s r eun i t ed w i t h h i s f am i l y

l ' l : r t e 1 9Pla te 18

Corne r o f Eas t Ga teway ( f r on t ) , Sanch i

Page 43: The Wonder That Was India

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Bacchana l ian Scene. Curzon Museum'Mathura

Head of Kusana King. Mathura

Plate 2O

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I l t c S L t r l r l l r . r l ' r r : , r r : l r r t r r ; . ( i , r r r r i l r , r r ; r l i c l r < r o l

I t t r l o ( l o n t t t l t u r r r O , r p r t , r l . J , r r r r , r l < 1 . r r l r r .

l ' r : : ; l r i t w i t t . 1 : ; t 2 r r t l r . r : r r t t t r y A [ )

l l r , r l o l l l r r , l i t r t l t l l r . r . ( i , r t r t l l t , r r ; r S r : l r o o l .

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Page 44: The Wonder That Was India

RELT( ; tON: CULTS, DOCTRINES AND METAFI IYSICS

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0 t h -1 1 th cen tu r y A .D .

As it stands today the Pili canon of the Sthaviravidins, including

the scriptures, commentaries and semi<anonical texts, would fill a

fair-sized bookcase. It consists of three sections called "baskets"

Uilaka), from the fact that the long strips_of_prepared palm-leaf on

*ttictr itre texts were written were originally stored in baskets.

These three are known as the l/inaya ("Conduct"), Suttar ("S€r-

nron") nd Abhidhamma (" Metaphysics ") Pipkas.

fhe YinaXa Pilaha contains pronouncemenb attributeil to the

Buddha, laying down numerous rules for the conduct of the Order'

With each rull the circumstances which led the Buddha to propound

i t are given, and thus the Yinay a contains much early tradi tional. m{ter'

ThElargest and most impdrtant of the "Thr-ee Baskets" is the Suf/a

I'ilala,wn-"lch is divided into five "Groups" (Nikaya)z

(r) Digh4 (L""S) NiIEya, a collection of long sermons ascribed to the

nraaira, iitt i..ori't" of the circumstances in which he.preached them.

(z) Majjhina (Medium) Nil'dya, shorter sermons.

isi Saiyutta iConnected) Nitdia, collections of brief Pronouncement!on kindred topics.

(+) Anptiara (Graduated) Nihdya, a collection of over 9,ooo brief

,tui"m"nti, u.t*g"d rather aitificially in eleven sections, according to the

number of topics?eated in each statiment. Thus SectionTwo_contains a

discussion on the two thngs which a man should avoid, sectionThree, one

on the trinity of thought, word and deed, and so on.(s) Khurtaka (Miior) Nikaya, miscetlaneous works in prose and verse,

,,,,,r"'""ry arrcieni, but certainli added to the canon later than the four other

N,l,.iy"r.' Arrtong the contenis of the Khuddaka are the Dhammap-ada

("VJrr.r t,rr Viriue"), the ThaagdthE and the TllignthA ("Hymns.of the

i.l.t.r lrl,,r,k, arrtl Nrrns), which iontain some of lndia's g_reatest religio.us

l.r,(.try, rn(l tlrc JataAa, a collection of over 600 poems, brieflyoutlining folk-

ir!". ar,.l otlrcr storit's, u'hich rvere originally intended to be told in the words

of ;r narrrtor. 'l'lrt rrlt.s arc told in iutt in a prose commentary attributed-

ro l luddhaglrosr, wlr i . l r is invariably publ islreJ with the verses' Many of

tlre tales ar"e s"cular, antl thcy.l,, rt.,i ill convuy a very exalted message' but

tlrev have all been given att odour of sanctity by bcing ascrlbed to tne

It,:idha, who is sai4 Io l,"ve told them as recollections ofhis previous births

s a Bodhisattua, a beirrg destined to become a Buddha' These racy and

uiuia .ari., are ireat as"literature, and will be considered elsewhere in that

aslr*ct (p. 455tff,, They are an hvaluable source of social history'

'I-l-re third Pilaka, Abhidhammd, consists of some drily pedantic

w0rks on Buddhist psychology and metaphysics of little interest ex-

, e pt to the specialisi. 'It

is clitainly latei than the other two Pi.takar.

. Tk plli fom. The sanskir is st ra. As the Stluviravidins regularly Yd_Pll!I'rli flmri ,rr n"t""t and t"*r are generally empio;'ed h thic aslion' exc€Pt wher€ ti€

: . ' \ l r r t l ( , r rD l t bc l t t r knoqT.

Plate 32

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2io THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA

As well 4s the canon and its many conrmentaries there are severalsemi-canonicalworla. Chief of these is the " puestions of Menander"(Mitinda4ailha\, an account of the discussions of the Greco-ilactrian ftng fia the monk Nagasena, w6ich is written with sudriitlr".u and iialectical skill that iI has been suggested, without mucheviden"ce, tltat the author knew something of Plato. Of a differentcharactei are the verse cluonicles which ta1 the history of Buddhismin Cevlon. and Eive valuable information on political and socialhistor'v also. Of-these, the earliest, Dilaoarysa (the "Island !hro-n-icle" ) dates from the 4th century lo., and has no literzry merit' but theMahaaaqsa ("Great Clronicle"), of thefollo*'ing century' containso.rr.n". of teautv and vigour (p. +6gf). [t was continued as the'Anor'orpro

("I,esser Chronlicle")'by a-succession of monks down tothe falf of the ki"gaom of Kandy to the British at the beginning ofthe tsth century ind we rurdersiand tbat a fluther appendir bas tt-cently been addid, bringing it down tP the presort day.

The basic propositions of this geat body--of literatue aFe not lDeta-nhvsical but- psr-chological Sorrow, suffering, dissatilfaction, urd'"tt"tt

" manifold unplelsantnesses which are refened_to by the word

iulrkt o, are inherenl in 1ife as it is ordinarily lirred; they-can-only beeliminated by giving up "thirst"- (ta4h!,;tften Eanslated "crav-ing " ) , which ir;lude; peisonal ambition, desire, longing, and sclfisb-ne'ss of all kinds. According to orthodox teachiug the cause of this"thirst" is t}e innate but

-mistakcn conviction of individuality-

that there is in each tiving being a Permanent core'.4! ego or- soul'While this doctrine was slbsmi-6ed to at a very early period by allBuddhist sects some modern autlorities deny that it was propoundedbv the Buddha, and claim that he merdy taught the abandonment ofsilfhood and individualism on tbe lower plaue of everyday life, butmaintained the existence of an etemal soul Ttris proposition yefind hard to beteve, despite certain apparent inconsisteucies in theFali scriptures. If we can place arry relgnce at $ gpoo *g-]g.*aof the Budaha's life, the knowledge fained under the Tree of Wisdomwas startlingly original, and not iP.Ig lehash of the lore of theUpanisadic tii"s *ittt a comparatively slight shifting of emphas'rs.'whiteuer

i-he Buddha's oriqinal doctine, there cau be no questionabout the fundamental teachiig of Buddhism, the kernel of whicb iscontained in the "sermon of tI'e Turning of the Wheel of the Law "(Dhanmamtr:Iabonattatd Suttd), which the Buddha is said to halverlreached to hii first disciples ai Varalasr'. This contains the "Fourhoble Truths", and the';Noble Eightfold Path", whictr are acceptedas basic catego;ies by all Buddhist Jects. We give it in e somewhatrbridged form.

nt]LtctoN: cul,Ts, DocrRtNEs AND METApHysIcs f-7l"'l lrrrr I hl'e heard, Once the Master was at V5rinasi, at the deer park

rrll",l lsir'.rt;rrra. l-here the Master addressed the fivi *lr"t", -

" "1 lrere are two ends not to be served by a wanderer. What are thosetrv. ? -'1 1," pursuit of desires-and of the pleasure which springs f.o,n a1rir.r,r'hir lr is base, common, leading to rebirth, ignoble ani un-profitabh; ;;drt' 1'rrrsuit of pain and hardship]which is griev"ous, ignobr"'ia *pr"ni"ur..'llrc.l\lit'lle

way.of the Tathigatar aviids boti ihese ends; it'is ";u"h:lcrr.rl, it lrrings clear vision,.it makes for wisdom, and leads to ;";;;; ;;iffi,

frrll rr is,Lrn and Nirvdna. What is this tvtiddle Way? . . . Ii; ;ilN;;ilI illlrtfoltl I'arh-Ilight Views, Right ReJ"", fiLf,, Sfte*r, nigfrt C";d*t,l(rlilrr l.ivclihood, Itight Effort, Right Recoliection ai,a night"Meditation.l l rrr is r lre l \ l idcl le Wav. , . ,

"'And this is the Noble Truth of Sorrow. Birth is sorrolv, age is sorrow,rlisea.se.is sorrow, death is sorrow, contact with the unple"sarit is sorrow,.i:l)rratiol frorn the pleasant is sorrow, every wish unfutilted is so*ow_inrrr(,rt au llrc lrvc conrponents of individuality are sorrow.

"'furtl rlris is dre Noble.Truthof the Ariiing of Sorrow. f It arises from]tlrirst, *lrirlr leads to reb''th, which brings alright and pasiion, a.d se"r.iI'l.rsrrrc n.rv 'cre, now rhere_the thirsi for s?nsual pi.u.u.", til itirr;lur c(,nt irru( '( l l i lc, thc thirst for power.

"'Arr,l rlris is tlr. N.rrrc Truth of the stopping of sorrow. It is the com-I ' l r l r r t , 'y 'J ' i rr11 r, f r l r .r t r l r i rst so that no pr ' .r ior ir . .ains, Ieaving i t . beinc.rn.rx r l ' . r t , .( l trorn ir , l ' , . ing rcleascd fronr- i t , giving no pta"e to i t l

' -- o- 'Arr, l r trrq is t l rc Not,tc 1,T,1l

: l l tS Wa]r which f^.a* to i t ! Stopping('r s 'rr(,w. rt is the N'bre l . ightfota p"tnanig[t Views, night R"iJrr" lI(iglrt S1x.cch, Itight Conduc{ Right Liveliho-od, nighi A"tr rf R[],tl lccol l tr r ion and I l iglrt Meditat ion., ;s8

- ' l ' l rr ,r11'f1 r lrr .re rrc nran-y dif f icrr l t ies in interpretingthe f iner pointst ' f t l ' i r r , l r .r I 5,.r, ,r , ,rr

- i is rrr;r i . trc.ssal lc i l quite clear_sorrorv( te . t r r " r r r l r . r i r r1 l t l r . r l t l r r . I , . r l i r r r , l i t ,7p1 ,q7 , , r ' .u r , " r , i fa r w ider range o ff r r l r t r l J t l , r r r t l r ( . I r '1 , l i , . l r r r .1 , l 11 . i1 [ , l l r i r l r 1 .c t rans la te i t ) i s inh8ren ii t l r ' 1 , ; 1 1 , r t 1 l r l r . ; i r r r r l r r r . t , , , r . r r i r r 1 1 l i r r i 1 1 , 1 1 r . 1 , 1 , , , , t s a t i . s f a C t i o n ; i t c a n

: l : : l l 1 , , , ' r s , ' ; ' ; ' . , 1 l . v . . r , , l , l , n r l i r . l r . r t , r ' . r r i r r 1 1 i a r r , l t l r i s c ; u r u , l t y b L a o *

r ' J ' r ' rh r r t ' ' r r r r r ' r , r r . r , , r r ' . r ' r , r ' t \ r ' r ' r . r r s r . r r ' - i r r , r r r rga t rae "nd

ex t remel : r c l i , r r r n ; l t r r l l r . . r r l r r r 1 , r n l ( , r . r l t l t , l \ \ ( . l l o r , l c r . r . t l l i f c ,

' t l , , " r r . r 1 ' r i r r r J , l , . , l , u t r r r r r . r r . r r , l , . 1 1 . l r , 1 1 . , l i r r v a r i o u s r a t h e r p e d a n t i c

l " t r r r . r , " 1 t ' r l ' i , r t . ' r t , , 1 r r l r r r l r * a s t l r t : ' , , ( i l r a i n o i n e p e n a e n i O r i g i -

: : : : : l ' , . , ( I ' t t t , , ,rr , tnul, l , t , tr) , ;r scri t ,s of tn.elve terms, repeated*in

l r ( l rc l l r . rn ( ,n ( . l , . rss . rA( : t , ( t l r c I , . i l i sc r ip tu res , commentedLn aga inrrrr l n1i1is1 1,1' arx. ir .^t arrd rrr<xlcrn scl iolars, '*ap*ftao, ; ; i f l j i ;rrrrrlt.rst..rl by arrl,botlv. Out of Ignor"nce ;ri:;; i;.;ilil;

. "lle who has thu! attained"_onc of thc titles of thc Buddha.

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272 THE \IToNDER TIIAT w^s INDIA

thence Self-consciousness, thence Name and Form (i.e. corporealexistence), thence the Six Senses,* thence Contact, thence Feeling(or Emotion), thence Craving, thence Attaclrment, thence Becomirrg,thence Rebirth, and thence 1ll the Irranifold ilis that flesh is heirto.

'fhe mechanics of this doctrinc are indced obscure, but it showsthat the craving which, accorcling to tlre Budd)ra's first sermon, is atthe bottom of human misery is ultinlately due to ignorance-a sort ofcosmic ignorance rvhich leads to the delusion of selfhood. Theignoranc- primarily concerns the fundamental nature of the universe,*hictr hasltrree silent characteristics-it is full of sorrow (dultkha)'it is transient (anicca), and it is soulless (anatta),

The universe is sorrowfirl. Buddhists would not claim that thereis no happiness in the rvorld, but that in some form or other sorrowis ineviti6le in every aspect of life. "As the ocean has-only o19flavour, the flavour of silt," the Buddha is purported to have said,

"so has my doctrine only one flavour-the flavour of emancipation

ffrom sorrbw]."ae In ordinary existence sorrow caruIot be longavoided.

The universe is transient. There is no abiding entity anywhere.In this Buddhism has much in common with the teaching of Heracli-tus. Every being or object, however stable and-h,omogeneous-itmuy appeui, is in ieality transient and composite. Man, who thinkshiniseif to be eternal and individualized, is actually a compourld offive'psychosomatic elements-Body, Feelings, Perceptions, States ofMind,-ancl Awareness. Tl.rese five vary fronr minute to minuteand there is no pertnanent substrattrm to them. The old man isevidently not the same person as the baby in arms of seventy yearsago, and similarly he is not the same as the man of a moment ago.Alt every instartt the old man vanishes, and a new man, caused bythe frst, comes into being, though a specious continuity is given bythe chain of cause and effeit which links one with the other. Buddhismknows no being, but only becoming. Everl'thing is resolved intomomentary coiifigurations of events'f The universe is in con-tinuous flux, and iU iaea ofpermanence is part ofthe basic ignoranceout of lvhich sorrow springs.

Thus thcre is no immoital soul. The universe is soulless. Intransnrigration notbing passes over from one life to anotherlnly.anerv life-arise, u, puriof the chain of events wSich includes the old.Even the gocls are soulless and the World Soul of the Upanigads isan illusioi. The Buddhisnr of the Lesser Vehicle is therefore a

i r | . , , r r , { | r , l t s , l x ) ( r l R t N E . S A N D M E T A p H Y S I C S e i sr c1 r1 , 1 , , 1 , r r r r l r , , r r t r , r ; 11 n11 , t r r i t l t ou t God . No Buddh i s t t eache r was' . . t r r r , , , , r 1 ' l r r , , , l . . n y r l r c ex i s t ence o f t he gods ou t r i gh t , U r i r i i " ,i' .,;,'l . ;t; il, ;i ;:;1,15:Jiliil:J,Tffffi::' :: l"rsx*;r r lr rrr"rr r lr . rrrrt : I luddhist by-passed them, for ,rr"y l .rrJ n. io. lr" l rr rr"r l rrr lh'r hirn g."1j ly, andthey would in

"ny c"!e do what theyrrr rr. r l , l r . tr ;1.5.5is1 hirn i f he kept toihe Middle fav.

"--- ' --*J( )rr rlr'rr' r'r't'rrri.sses themachinery of transmigraiion-" doctrines 1,,, l r *,rs r,r l i t .rr over-by Buddhism from the gJreral bel iefs of the

:,,". rr l r .rrr l t , cx' lain. I f nothirrg passes frolm l i fe to l i fe t t" n"*_l-,r11 la.1;11' r ' ;rrrrr. t be thought of as' in any way connected with ther' , ,r ' t : \ \ l r ,r l r .r* r l icd, and whose actions have condit ioned his p.;; ; ,'rrr'' l t'r r'c 'ew being sufrers as a resurt of the actions .iril;i;

"rr' 'r'lris ,lf ection rvas often.raised by the opponents of Buddhism,. tr ' | . \r .rq (( 'unrered by the analogy of"the f l ime of a lamp. whichr,rp.lrr kir*tlt, a flame in ano.the?"';i ;J-,h".;"-.;';A,ihJ:

l l t lrrr sirrri lc was unconvincing, it was pointed out that-the oiJrrrrrr, rlrorrglr not, on ultimate "rr-"lyris,

the'same.person as the youn;"'r. srrli'red illness as a result oftf,e excesses ot hrs youth, and so onel"'rrrrr rrriglrt suffer as a result of the evil done by an earrier beine whorrrr l ' .rrr ,,f the chain of cause and effect leading ,p ,"-f,1, pi".Liir rrrr..r(( '. l 'erms like .. individual,,, ..persor,;,

ind ,o on *""ar,rrrr'ly ( ()frvenient labels for a series 6f *parut" momentarv events..lrr, ' r ' ..r inued indefinitely, just ",

.."t, lr ioti ;;; ' ; ' ; ; i l ; i l ;l.,lx.l frrr a collection of pieces of wood and metal put ag",h"il-;;, . . t t . l i n i l l a n n e r .f l rr ' . rrr l ly stable enti ty in sthaviravida Buddhism was Nint i ina.rr, l ' . r l r , Nibbdna), the state of bl iss reached bt th; i ld:h";; ;I ltntt, <rr perfected beings. Nirvina is iimcutt to unJ.rrt"rr=J

i ,,,

. :': *)ro hasrot experieiced it, and some early Western;;h;h.,

" rr, rr ' , ; .11,o1 i t implied complete annihi lat i-on. A statementr t I r r I rr r r.rl r., the Buddha: " I have not said that the Arhant exiro

"iiu.lrr t l r , ,rrr, l I have not said that he does not exist . . . because . . . t fr i ,' r tr , ' t rr l r l \ ' ing, neither does i t tend to supreme wisdom,,.o would'"r ' r ' ' r r l r ' r t Nir 'dna was berieved to be a state neitrrer of beine nor,,r rr,rr t r i .rr i .rr . The Aristotel ian Law of the Exclud"d Mii lF;;' . \ ' . t . .rrr, r lv appl ied in.Indian thought, and a third rr",r, t"*. ." ia],r ' r",r lr lx.rrrg and not-being, woulf not be considered * irnp.r. i_' , , t1 I l r l r t : whole world was in a state of f lux and Nirvanaivas ar ' r r r , l r . s r r l r i s too d id no t p resent an insuperab l " p " r " iox , io .' , ' , \r . .r w.rs.utside the univerie; i t underlay i i , Uut rr", notp;; i ; f

",, ), e r ',rr('('l)t is not very different from that of the World Soul of

r The sixdr being thought.'f Calle,J dharnu, t}r term here used in a sPccial susc.

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the Upaniqads, and, far from being looked on as a state of annihila'tion, Nirvi4a was sometimes described in brilliantly colourful larrguage-"a glorious city, stainless and undefiled, pure and _white,unaging, deithless, secure and calm and happy".ar Nirv4a has nodefinite location, but it may be realized anywhere and at any time,while still in the flesh. The man rvho finds it never again loses it,and when he dies he passes to this state for ever, inhis Tarinirudyarhis"Final Blowing Out".

The doctrinei which we have described are those of the Sthavira-vEdin sect of the Lesser Vehicle, which is the only surviving sect ofthat branch of Buddhism, and is today dominant in Ceylon, Burma,Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Other sects of theLesser Vehicle havenow quite disappeared, though they survived longer in India itselfthan the Sthaviravidins, Chief among these was the sect of the.Sarudstivddins (They who say " All is " ), tvho had a canon in Sanskrit,and who difered from the Sthaviravddins in their view that the con-stituents of phenomena (dharmas) are not wholly momentary, butexist for ever in a lateni form.

-Another important sect was that

of the Sautrdnlr,tas, who maintained that our knowledge of the outsideworld is only a feasible inference, and lvho rvere well on the way tothe idealism of some schools of the Great Vehicle. A fourth sect' theSammitiyas, even went so far as to reject the doctrine of soullessnessand to postulate a sort ofsoul inthe pudgala or Person, which passesfrom life to life. These early sects of Buddhism probably gave muchencouragement to the evolution of Indian philosophy, as distinctfrom mystical thought.

Though the Buddha is said to have disapproved ofspeculation on theorigin and end of the world, Buddhists of the I-esser Vehicle deviseda cosmological scheme, based largely on prevalent Indian ideas,rvhich accounted for the existence of the rvorld without the inter-vention of a creator.

As in all I;ndian cosmologies the rniverse is cyclic. Over an enor-mous period of time (mahahalpa) it goes through a Process of evolu-tion and decline, only to evolve once more. The cycle is dividedirrto four great periods (asaikfueya), In the first man declines, andat last everything is destroyed except the highest heaven; the goodgo to this heaven, and the sinners to the hells of other universes,which may at that time be passing through different stages. Thesecond period is one ofquiescence. In the third period evolution againbegins. The good karma of the beings in the highest heaven beginsto fail, and the "'World of Form", a lower heaven, evolves. Agreat being dies in the highest heaven and is rebom in the World ofForm as the god Brahmi. As he is the only living thing therein he is

n l r r ( ; t oN : cu lTs , DocTRINES AND METApHys rcs e75

. ,r' li,. llrrr orlrcr beings follow him from the highdst heaverr to theI ,,r, r. Ar l lralrrnd was the first to be bom in the World of Form,r', I r l, ir l , i lrh agrees with his wishes, he imagines tbat he is the,', ., r,,r r, l t lrc r>tlter gods, and of all the world, which actually comes,rrr,r r.risrt.rr(c tlrrough cosmic larv. Meanwhile the earth develops,rr rrr.ll as otlrer earths. The first men are fairy-like beings, but1'r.r, lrr.rl ly tLey degenerate and become earthbound (p. gS). Thet, 'rrr t lr 1re riod is one of continuation, marked only by a regular pattern, ' I r , , r r,li;r rative advance and decline, forming a series of lesser cyclesrlrlrirr tlre greater one. This process is repeated for all etemity,l,rrr 'rrc grcat cycle is uot exactly like the next. There are "Buddha, r, I,,s" arrd "empty cycles", and we are fortunate that we live in alr'r'l,llrl c1'cle, in which four Buddhas (Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni,l,,r(1a1.r, and Sdkyanlurir) have taught and a fifth (Mditreya) is)ct to conle.

I hc l.i'olution of thc Great VehichIt is nowhere claimed in the Pili scrlptures that the Buddha was in

;ur\' \\'ay supernatural His supreme insight was gained by his ownr tL 'r'ts, after many ages of striving in many different births. But hisI'irrlr, cnlightenment and death were cosmic events of the highestr n rl', )r't;rnce, and his greatlxess was such that he was revered even byrlrt: rrriglrty gods BrahmE, and Sakra (an epithet of Indra commonlyrrrr.,l Lry the Buddhists), not to speak of the myriads of lesser,lt.irics inhabiting earth and heal.en He is reported to have saidrlr;rt shoever had faith in him and love for bim vras aszured of a re,Li l tlr irt lteaven,,(z a prospect which, as we know frou A6oka's iuscripr r, ,ns, was much. more intelligible and desirable to tho ordinary nanrlr.rrr the rarefied and indescribable Ninri4a

\\'hcn the Buddha died, according to orthodox theory, the chain, 'f lris cxistence was broken. He finally entered the Nirver.rawhich helr.r,l rcrlized at his enlightenDxent, and ceased to be an individual,,'r to aflect the universe in any way. Just before his death he badr,,l,l lris disciples to rely on the Doctrine for leadership. But soon,rr, r' lris dcatlr, if not before, his followers evolved the "Tbreet, .,, , l ; ", rvhich form the basic profession of faith of Buddhism, and,, 1,,, ir t,r'cry Buddhist, both monastic and lay, repeats to this day: .. Ir' ' | 'r' r't:luge to the Buddha; I go for refuge to the Doctrine

I tt:.tr rtt,t); I go for refuge to the Order (Samgha)!, fhough ther1,,,'r i.,tc rrright explain away the first of the Three Jewels, on therrl,r'i.u.s irrtcrpretation "going for refuge to the Buddha" inrplied that

. " The lhgp of thc Silyu', r dtle of, Cartnr Budalhr.

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tlre Master, as distinct from his teaching, was in some way still Pre-sent and able to help his followers.

The Buddha himself probably taught that he was the last of a long

succession of earlier Buddhas, who had lived before him' Accord-

ine to tradition these former Buddhas were revered even in the

his"torical Buddha's l ifetime. By Mauryan times their cult was

widespread, and was Patronized by Adoka. In the end the orthodox

Sthaviravi4in school counted no less than twenty-five Buddhas, not

to speak of a large number of pratyeka4uddhas,whohad found the truth

for ihemselves "without guidance, but had not taught it to the lorld'

The carvings of the s-tupas of Bhirhut and S5nchi, executed in the

znd and tst ienturies n.C., depict crowds of adoring worshippers

reverencing the symbols of the Buddha. A little later sculptors

began to i".ue images of the Buddha himself, and within a few

seier"tions all Buddhist sects took to worshipping images' l"dlF"i.- t

"p, up with the times, and by the Middle Ages, even in the

shrines of the Lesser Vehicle, the Buddha was worshipped just as a

llindu god, with flowers, incense, waving lamps, and deep devotion'

Amo"ng the doctrines of Zoroastrianism, which has strongly

influencef other religions both East and West, is that of the Saviour(saolyant\, who at-the end of the world will lead the forces of

)ooa"*a''tiuht against those of evil and darkness' Under the

invading rule"rs of "N.-W. India Zoroastrianism and Buddhism came

in cont""ct, and it was probably through this that the idea of the future

Buddha b"""me part;f orth;dox belief. lf there had been Buddhas

before Gautama there would be Buddhas after him. By the time of

the ..Questions of Menander", around the beginningof the christian

era, tft cult of the luture Buddha, Maitreya, was widespread among

all Buddhist sects.According to the olderconceptions the Buddha wrought rnany deeds

of kindness- and mercy in a long series of transmigrationi -:ul a

Bodhrattoa,before achieving his final birth as the Sage of the Sikyas;

but, since Maitreya and othei unnamed Buddhas after him irre.yet to

come, there *uti b" Bodhisattvas existing at present in the universe'

*ho are working continuously for the welfare of all things living..fhe

Jntaka storiis show that Bodhisattvas can be incamated as men,

o, "J"n

as animals; but the more advanced Bodhisattvas, who have

the greatest power for good,.must be divine.beingl in the htil:::;

Tlough neither omniscient nor almigJrty these .celestlalBodhisaitvas might be adored and prayed to witllout any mlsglvmg'

for it was part ;f their mission to answer Praygl' The. Bodhisattva

doctrine, a logical development from tlre older Buddhism' thus

peopled the hea-vens with niighty forces of goodness, and presented

i l l l . rctoN: cul-Ts, DocrRtNEs ,{ND METApHystcs 271

l ! t l r , r r r r s i t l r a nerv m1 ' tho logy . I t was th is wh ich fo rmed the! , . l , r r r . r r l . r ' f t l r c l t fah iy ina , the Great Veh ic le .

I tn t , r r t ! ITh ic le

\, r ,r111i111; to the older doctr ine the Bodhisattva works in w.isdom, , r , I l , , r r . t l r rough many l i ves so tha t he rnay becorne a Buddha, and, r, l rr .rr, \ ' bel ievers are encouraged to fol low his example and win\ rr r .ir.rr as quickly as possible. Yet, since the Bodhisattva is a being,,t inrrrreasurable charity and compassion, surely while one suffering,rr, lrr i t lual remains in the toi ls of transmigration he wil l not leave himrr rrlrout help and enter Nirvila, where he can be of no further servicer,, rlre rvorld. So, quite logically, in the schools of the Great Vehiclerlrr. I lodhisattva was thought of not as a being who lras soon tol,r .r ,rrre a Buddha, but as one who would bide his t ime unti l even the..rrr;rllcst insect had reached the highest goal. The old ideal of the.,\r lrant, the "Worthy" who achieved Nirviqra and would be rebornn() nrorc, began to be looked on as rather selfish. Instead ofstrivingr() l)ccome Arhants men should aim at becoming Bodhisattvas, and1,1' the spiritual merit which they gained assist all living beings ontlr t rvay to perfect ion.

'I'he idea of transference of merit is a special feature of the teaching

,,1 tlre Great Vehicle. According to the l-esser Vehicle a man can,,rrl_v help another on the Way by example and advice. Each beingrrrrrst be a lamp unto himself, and work out his own salvation. Butrlrc bclief in transference of merit spread very widely, even affectingrlrc sects of the Lesser Vehicle. The numerous Buddhist dedi-(.rtor_y inscriptions throughout India often contain some such phraseas: "May it be for the welfare of fthe donor'sJ mother and fatheran<l of all living beings."

I\{oreover, the Bodhisattva was thought of as a spirit not only ofr .rr1p155i6n but also of suffering. In nrore than one source we readtlrc vow or resolve of the Bodhisattva, which is sometimes expressedrrr alrr iost Christ ian terms:

" I take upon myself. . . the dced! ofal l bqings, even ofthose in the hel ls,r r r o t l rc r *o r lds , in the rea lms o f pun ishmcnt . . . .1 take the i r su f fe r ingu l x ) n r n e , . . . I b e a r i t , I d o n o t d r a w b a c k f r o m i t , I d o n o t t r e m b l e a t i t , , . ,I l l r ve no fear o f i t , , . . I do no t lose hear t . . . . I must bear the burden,'l .rll bcings, for I have vowed to save all things living, to bring them safet l ,rouglr the forest of birth, age, disease, death and rebirth, I think not ofnrv ()\r'n ealvation, but strive to bestow on all beings the royalty ofsupremeurr,l'rn. So I take upon myself all the sorrows of all beings. I resolver,' lr'.rr evcry torment in every purgatory of the universe. For it is better

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that I alone suffer than tle multitude of living beings. I give myself inexchange. I redeem the universe from the forest of Purgatory, from thewomb offlesh, from the realm ofdeath. I agree to suffer as a ransom forall beings, forthe sake of all beings. Truly I will not abandon them. For Ihave resolved to gain supreme wisdom for ttre sake of all that lives, to savethe world."ac

The idea of the Sulfering Saviour may have existed in some formin thc Middle East before Christianity, but features like this are notattested in Buddhism until after the beginning of the Christian err.The Suffering Bodhisattva so closely resembles the Christian con-ception of the God who gives his life as a ransom for many that wecannot dismiss the possibility that the doctrine was borrowed byBuddhism from Christianity, which was vigorous in Persia from thegrd ccntury a.p. onwards.

Thc universe of the Great Vehicle contains numerous Bodhisattvas,chief of whom, from the earttrly point of view, is Avaloftih{vara("Thc Lord who Looks Down"), also caJled PadnapE4i ("TheLotu+-Bearer") (pl. )(LIV). His special attribute is compassiorqand his helping hand reaihes even to Atki, the deepest and mostunpleasant of the Buddhist purgatories. Another important Bodhi-sattve is Maf,juki, whose special activity is to stimulate the undenstanding, and who is depicted with a naked sword in one harrd, todestroy error and falsebood, and a book in the other, describing theten fdramitds, or great spifitual perfections, which are the cardinalvirtucs developed by Bodhisatwas.r Yajrafdg.i, a stemer Bodhi-rattva, is the foe of sin and evil, and like the god Indra bears rthunderbolt in his hand. The gentle Maitrela, the future Buddha,is worshipped as a Bodhisattva. Also worthy of mention is. KE#l:gtbha, the guardian of the purgatories, who is thought of not as afierce torturer but rather as tlre govemor of a model prison, doinghis best to make [fe tolerable for his charges, and helping them toeam remission of sentence. Though the Great Vehicle'agrees intheory with the ksser that the world is full of sorow' it is funda-mentelly optimistic" Tbe world contains much good as well asevil, and there is help for all who ask. Every llving thing' from thehumblest worm upwards, is in a sense a Bodhisattva, for most schoolsof the Great Vehicle maintain implicitly or explicitly tlrat ultimatelyall beings will attain Nirvn4a and become Buddha.

The Great Vehicle was not content with creating this pantheon ofe Charig (diina), good conduct (!rlz), forbearance ($dnti), courage (ofrya), medita-

tion (illAna),nsight(trajild)," skill in knowing what means lo take" (to help beings toechievc salvetion) (updlalaufalya), resolution (2ragidltiaa),power (6&), and knowledge( ililla\. ln somc lists onlv the 6rst six are mentioned. Much mysticism surroundedi6c iaei ofttrc Pnjnrprramitrs, especially in the Vejreyina School.

-

nELtcloN: oulTs, DocTBJNES AN.D METApHysrcr 279

noble and beneficient Bodhisattvas. Probably developing from theold hcresy_of the Mahisanghika school (p. eos) the iclealrose thatGautama Buddha had not been a mere man, but the earthly ex-1>r-ession of a mighty spiritual being. This being has three boaies;a Ilody of Essence (Dharmakdya), a Body of Bliis (Sambhogahay),:rnd a Created Body (Nirmdnakaya), arrdof these only thelast-wisseen on earth. The Body of Essence eternally penet;ates and per-nreates the urriverse; it is the ultimate Buddha,-of which the othertrvo bodies are emanations, more or less unreal. The Bodv of Blissexists in the heavens, and will continue until the final res6lution ofall things in the Body of Essence. The Created Body was a merecmanation of the Body of Bliss. fiis reminds us of the Docetichcresy in Christianity, and it is possible that Docetism and thedoctrine of the Three Bodies owe much to a courmon gnostic sourcein the Middle EasL

The Buddla's Body of Bliss is the presiding deity of the mostinrportant Mahdyana heaven, Sukhivati, the ..Happy Larrd,,, wherethe blessed are reborn in the buds oflotuses, which iiie from a lovelvIake before the Buddha's throne. This divine Buddha is usuail!called Amitdbrla (Immeasurable Glory) or Amitdyus (ImmeasurabllAgu). He too shares the,compassionof the Bodhisattva, for, thoughhe enjoys endless and infinite bliss, he maintains arr interest in h-isworld, and _especially in his heaven. At his touch the lotuses opento give birth to the blesscd, who are nourished and grow through thefood of his word, According to some Chinese ant JapanesJsectsrvhoever calls on his name, however sinful he may hive been, isassured of rebirth in his heaven. Amitabha is, in fact, a Father inI leaven. He, the historical Gautama Buddha, and the BodhisattvaAvalokitedvara are closely associated, and play a bigger part inN{ahlyinist thought than do other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, becausethey are chiefly concerned with this region of the universe and this1'uriod of cosmic time, but there are marry other heavenly Buddhas,l,rcsiding over other heavens and other universes. Atl ire emana-r io11s 6f the primal Body of Essence, which is no other than the Bralr-rrr;in, the World Soul orAbsolute of the Upanigads, indifferentguise.I lrc Body of Essence is sometimes referred to in later Buaanists r itirrgs as Adi Buddhd, "the Primeval Buddha,,, and is also described,r s .' t t1_e-Voi-d " ( S A n1 a), " the True " (Ta t to a),,, fr lsdom,, ( Bodli), or'' t I r c Womb of those who Attain the Goal " (Tat hdg at ag arbhir 1. Ubre-"\'cr it is Nirvd4a. The final state, which the Sthaviravidin schooll,,rurd so difiicult to describe in words, was for most sects of the Great\',.lri<:le not really different from the mystical union wittr the absolutellr rlrrrren of the Upanigads. The wheel tumed full circle, and the

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THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA n E , L l G r o N : c u l - T s , D o c T R r N E S A N D M E T A P H Y S I C S 9 8 1

l r tr t i rr terdependent events (dharma). Nigir juna shorved by very,,rrbrle argutnents that on final analysis the cosmic flux was unreal,ir \ \{as t l)e consciousness wlr ich perceived i t and r.r 'hich * 'as i tself part,,f the flux. Therefore Sar.nsara, the inrmeasurably long process oftransmigration, did not real ly exist. I f the world of change wast,nrcal, its contrary, Nirvi.na, was also unreal. lihere was thereforerro dificrence between Sar.nsdra and Nirvina, which were one and thes;rrne in their common nonentity. In fact if all things were equallyrurrreal, they were on ultimate analysis one and the same. TheOne Thing which alone had real existence could have no predicate;it was therefore called by Negnrjuna "Emptiness", or "the Void"

$nnyata).This philosophical nihilism did not lead Nigirjuna and his

tbllowers to scepticism or agnosticism. Though nothing but theVoid was wholly real, the world and all that it contained, from Ami-tibha downwards, had a qualified practical reality; and the greatVoid underlying all the universe was, in fact, the Body of Essenccitself, the Primeval Buddha, Nirvi4a. Final immeas:rrable bliss waslrere and now for all rvho would perceive it-not something remoteand cold, but the very breath of life, nearer and more real than one'sown heart. "The l i fe of the world is the same as Nirvi4a. . ." ,said the MEdhyamikas, "and really there is no difference betweenthenr a t a l l " .a {

The Togacdra ("Way of Union") or Yijftdnavddin School com-pletely rejected the reai ism of the Lesser Vehicle, and maintained atlrorough-going idealism, not even allowing the qualified realism ofthe Madhl'amikas. The r.r'orld was built by the consciousness, andIrad no more reality than a dream. The onl_y reality was " Suchness "(Tathdfi), also called Dharnadhdtu (freely translated "the RawN{aterial of Phenomena"), which was equivalent to Negarjuna'sVoid. The Yogicira school, though perhaps less influential thanthe Mddhyamika, produced many important philosopheis and logi-cians. Chief of these were Asafrga, a monk of Peshf,rvar of the *thrrr 5th centurj, lvhose Sutrdlaikdra is the earliest text of the school,Vasubandhu, the younger brother ofAsariga, and the great logiciansI)igndga and Dharnrakirti. Anrong the most important writings ofYogncira is the Latilduatdra Siltra, a lengthy text of great subtlety,

'thc Yehrcle of the Thundcrbolt

Quite early in the history of the Great Vehicle fenrinine divinitiesfound their way into the pantheon. One such rvas Prajiiipiramiti,tlre Perfection of Insight, the personification of the qualities of theIlodhisattva. Later the Buddlras and Bodhisattvas, who were

mystical monism which early Buddhism so strongly- opposed founditi way into later Buddhism, but with a new terminology.

Moit guaahist sects of both Vehicles bad their own versions ofthe Pilakas, but, with the exception of the Pili Pigakas of theSthaviravidins, these have not survived in entirety, and in theschools of the Great Vehicle their place was largely taken by latertexts, mostly written in the early centuries of the Christian era.These are in Sanskrit, which became the oflicial language of tlreGreat Vehicle in India, though in other parts of Asia it tendedto prefer the local tongue. Many of these texts, are.ostensiblysermons of the Buddha, but of nuch greater length than those of theSutta Pitaka; hence they were knolvn as Yaipulla Sutras ("Ex'panded Sermons").

Among the earliest Mahnyina texts is the Lalitaoistara, eflowery narrative of the life of the Buddha, containing much more ofthe supernatural and the marvellous than the Pali account; this textwas uiilized by Sir Edwin Arnold for The Light of Asia, a lengthypoem on the Buddha's life which enjoyed much popularity at the endof the lust

"entury, and is still readable, though its style has somewhat

dated. Other important scriptures are the SaddharmapuTtdarila( " The I-otus of the Good Law " ),. a long series of dialogues of con-iiderable literary merit; the Yairacchedika ("Diamond Cutter"),containing very subtle metaphysical writing; the Suhhdvatittyfa,descri bing the glories of Amitdbha and his parad is e ; the Kar aP /aoy ilJta,glorifying Avilokitedvara; and the Aplasahasriltapraiiiapdramitd,,aworkdesiribing the spiri tual perfections of the Bodhisattvas ( p' 27 8,n) .Literature on this latter subject was considerable. As well asthese sacred texts the Great Vehicle produced much religious poetryand a great deal of sectarian philosophical literature, some of veryhigh merit.

ahe Sthaviravrdin commentators were perhaps hampered by theBuddha's injunctions against unnecessary speculation, and, thoughthey could on occasion argue very logically, they produced compara-tivily few works of systematic philosophy. The Great Vehicle, onthe other hand, produced many. It had two chicf philosophicalschools, the Mddhyamika and the Togfudra.

The Madhyamr,ta ( "lntermediate") School, so called because it tooka line midway between the uncompromising realism of the Sarvdsti-vidins and the idealism ofthe Yogicira, looked backto one oflndia'sgreatest philosophers, Nigirjuna, who according to tradition wasa contemporary of Kanigka, and whose Mddhyamika Kdrikd formedthe basis text of the school. We have seen that in almost allBuddhist sects the universe was believed to be a flux of momentary

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thought of as male, were, like the gods of Hinduism, endowed withwives who were the active aspect, the "force" or "potency,,(fu*ti) of their husbands. The god was believed to be trariscend6ntand aloo{, while the goddess was active in the world; thus the godmight be best approached through the goddess. The produciiveactivity of the divine was thought of in terms of sexual union, anidea as old as the 4S hfu. With the spread of these ideas sexualsymbolism, and even sexual intercourse as a religious rire, wereincorporated into the teachings of some schools of both Hinduism andBuddhism.

With these ideas was combined a nerv magical mysticism. TheI*sser Vehicle taught that release was obtained by tl_re gradual lossof individuality through self-discipline and meditation: the GreatVehicle added that the grace and help of the heaverlly Buddhas andBodhisattvas assisted the process. The followers of the new teaclr-inge taught that it could be best attained by acquiring magical power,which they called vajra ( " thunderbolt ", or " diamond " ) . Hence thenew school of Buddhism was called Yajrayd.na, "the Vehicle of theThunderbolt ".

Even the Sthaviravidins taught that the monk who reached r highstage of detachment and mental training acquired supernaturalpoun'eis.At all times there were free-lance Buddhist monks, who did notlive regularly in monasteries under orthodox discipline, and whoattempted feats of sorcery and necromancy, such as the Buddha issaid to have condemned. It was perhaps among these free-lancesthat the ideas ofthe new Vehicle developed, to be codified and givendignity under the Pnla kings of Bengal and Bihir. Even in the ?thcentury Hsiian Tsang found certain monasteries permeated withmagical practices.

The chief divinities of the new sect were the "saviouresses',(TAras), the spouses ofthe Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. There werealso a host of lesser divinities, manv called by the names of demons,such as "outcaste women" (m&tungis), "demonesses" (pilAcis),"sorceresses" (1oginis), and "she-ghouls" (lnkinis). The Buddhasand Bodhisattvas with their Tiris were approximated to the lessamiable members of the Hindu pantheon, and were often depictedwith many arms in ferocious poses.

As in the da1's of the BrEhmanan, it was thought that these deitiesshould be conrpelled rather than persuaded. The textbooks out-lining the means (sddharra) of doing this r,r'ere called Tantras, andhence the new cult is often referred to as tantric. By pronouncingthe right formula (nuntra) in the correct manner, or by drawing thicorrect magical symbol (yantra), one might force the gods to bestow

nEl-rcroN: cuL'rs, DoorRlNEs AND MgrAPIlYsrcs 98S

magical power on the worshipper and leacl him to the highest bliss.Arnong the many formule of tantric Buddhism one is speciallvfarrroui-the "Six Syllables" ($a(akyrd), Om mani padme hilm, stillrvritten and repeated thousands of times daily in Tibet. Thisplrrase: "Ah! the jewel is indeed in the lotus!", nray be sexual in itsoriginal significance, mystically repeating the divine coitus of theheavenly Buddha and Prajiidpiramite, and of Avalokite6vara and hisTiri.

Tantric Buddhism did not neglect the techniques ofmental trainingwhich were part of all the chief religions of India, but their directionwas altered. Their primary purpose now was to obtain supernormalpolver. The meditations of the Vajrayina were often positivelypsychopathic The practitioner of the system rnight so hypnotizehimself as to imagine that he was reborn from the womb of a Tiri,to kill his fatJrer the Buddha and take his place. In sexual union witha female devotee he and his partner would become Buddha and Tere,or he himself might become TdrE In the sexual rites of tantricBuddhism all taboos were lifted. Even incest was permitted, forwhat was sin to the ignorant was virtue to the initiate, and so asu'ell as ritual copulation meat and alcohol were indulged in at thetantric covens. These things were, however, done under sffict con-trol, and only by initiates at sacred ceremonies. Like the Bengalitantricist of later times the Vajrayina initiate might in his ordinarylife be a normal man, whose occasional religious debauchery s'ervedas a catharsis to his evil psychological propensities and was of realhelp to hncx ilr leading the good life as he understood it

Thc Buddhist OrdcrMembership of the Buddhist Order was not restricted by caste,

but slaves, soldiers, debtors, and other persons under obligation or intutelage might not enter it without the permission of their superior.Novices might be admitted from the age of eight upwards, but theycould only qualify for full membership of the Order after a longcourse of studS at the minimum age of twenty. The rites ofadurission were simple, involving putting on the three yellow ororange robes of the Order, ceremonially shaving the head, and pro-nouncing the Tlree Jewels (p. ZZSI and the "Ten Precepts". Thelattcr form a sort of Buddhist decalogue:

( t) "I accept the precept to refrain frcm harming living beings.(e) " I accept the precept to refrain from taking what is not given.(3) ". . . from evil behaviour in passion.(*) "... from false speech.

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(5) "... from sar,i, rrcra1e and mal (alcoholic drirks), which cr":sccarelessness.

(o) " . . . f rom eat ing at forb idden t imes ( i .e . af ter midday) .(7) "... from dancing, singing, music and dramatic perforrnances.(8) ". . . from the use ofgarlands, perfumes, unguents and jewellery.(s) " . . . f rom the use ofa h igh or broad bed.

( to) ". . . from receiving gold and silver."

These precepts were not lifelong vows, but earnest resolveg.They were repeated regularly, and if any monk felt that he could nolonger honestly maintain them he might leave the Order quite freely,though public opinion tended to frown on the backslider. The vowswere often taken for a definite duration only, as is still done in Burma,wherc boys on leaving school often slend some months in a monasteryin preparation for adult life. In this the Buddhist Order sharplycontrasts with Cluistian monasticism.

Of the ten vows the first did not originally involve complete vege-tarianism, though it came to do so in many Buddhist communities.A monk might eat meat if the animal providing it was not speciallykilled for his benefit, The third vow, for the monk, meant absolutecelibacy. The fifth was generally taken to mean abstention from allintoxicants. By the sixth, a monk might eat no solid food aftermidday; this, in a warrn climate and for a man not engaged in strenu-ous work, was no very great hardship, especially as the monk mighttake sweetened bwerages at any time. In colder climates, such asthat of Tibet, monks often take an evening meal, which is looked onas medicine. The seventh rule was not taken to include singingand music for liturgical or other religious purposes. The tenth wasinterpreted very liberally in many monasteries. Strictly a monkrnight own only eight "requisites"-three robes, a waist-cloth, analms-bowl, a razor, a needle, and a cloth to strain his drinking-waterin order to save the lives of any animalcula it might contain. Infact he often owned much more than this by the convenient fiction,not unknown in some Christian religious communities, that hisproperty belonged to the Order, from which he had it on loan.

The monk had to beg his food from door to door every morning,taking it back to his monastery for his midday meal. As the monas-teries became wealthy, however, the begging round was often reducedto a mere formality, or dropped altogether.

While the Buddhist monk resembled his Christian counterpart inhis vows ofchastity and poverty, he took no vow ofobedience. Eachnovice or junior monk had his preceptor, and was expected to treathim with great respect, but the monk was essentially a free memberof a community of free n.ren. There was no central authority to

RELIGIoN: CUTTS, DoCTRINEg AND METAPHYSIC! 9E. '

regulate the manl' monasteries and eniorce uniformity; each was alaw unto itself, guided only by the precepts of the Master as it hadreceived them and as it interpreted them. The constitution of themor)astery had elements of dernocracy about it. The chief monkor abbot was not appointed from above or nominated by his prede-cessor, but held olfice by the suffrage of all the mcnks in the monasticparish. The day-today business of the monastery was managed bya committee of elder monks, and significant decisions, such as theadmission or expulsion of members, could only be made by thecommittee and not by the chief. Important business was discussedat meetings of the rvhole monastery in chapter (p. se).

The monks assembled every fortnight on the evenings of the fulland new moons for upavasatha (irr Pili, uposatha), an act ofgeneralconfession. The long list of nronastic rules (I'rdtimolga, in PiliPatinokkha) from the Yinaya Pigaka was read, and each monk con-fessed any breaches of which he had been guilty during the preceding

fortnight, If his fault was serious his case was referred to a com-mittee of elders, which might impose penance or expel him from theOrder. The ceremony concluded with the preaching of sermons, towhich the pious la1'folk of the vicinity listened.

The daily life of the monk was chiefly spent in study and religiousexercises, but he was expected to take his share in the work of themonastery, cleaning his cell, and sweeping the courtyard and tlremonastic buildings, while the elder monks devoted much of theirtime to teaching the novices, Among the most important of themonk's spiritual exercises were the Four Sublime Moods (Brahna-vihdra), in which, sitting quietly cross-legged, he endeavoured tofill his mind with the four cardinal virtues of Buddhism-love, pity,joy, and serenity-and to consider all living beings in the light ofthese virtues. A fiith mood was that of impurity, in which he con-sidered all the vileness and horror of the world and of the life ofthe flesh. For those more advanced in sanctity there were moreexalted meditations, which brought the monk very near to therealization of NirvE4a.

One aspect of the monk's mental discipline which deserves mentionis the seventh element of the "Noble Eightfold Path" (p. 97r)-"Right Recollect ion". He was taught to rrain himself to be con-tinually arvare of what he was doing, observing himself, as it were, allthe time. It was taught that every act must be fully conscious, anddistraction, carelessness and lack ofconsideration were serious faults.\Athen he ate, the monk should be aware of the nature of the act, itspurpose, and the transience of the body which lie fed, and similarly*ith every act throughout tho day. No doubt few but the mort

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advanced monks were able to keep up this state of "Right Recollm'

tion" continuously.At one time Iniia possessed numerous Buddhist nunneries, thoug}

now monastic life in Buddhism is largely confined to men, exceptin

Tibet lfhe nun.s wore yellorv robes-and shaved their heads like the

monks, and their discipline was very similar. Though strict-rules

were laid dorvn for preserving the respectability of the two branches of

the Order, which oiten dwelt in adjoining establishments, accusationsof immorality were sometimes levelled against them by their religiousopponents, it.td these accusations may have had some foundation.

The sexual activity of tantric Buddhism, of course, did not coustirutea breach of tlle vows when performed in accordance with the rites of

the sect

IJuddhist Ethln and MoralitlBud4hism inculcates a high system of ethics. The Noble Eightfold

PatL, whereby a man atdins'Nirvd4a, is not merely- a matter of

belieior knowledge, but also one ofconduct, and the Four Cardinal

Virtues of Buddhiim (p. ees; are more positive in character tJran the

non-violence and abstinence of the Upanigads.The chief of these virtuesr love-(Pali, nelfd, Sanskrit,.maitri),

is somervhat less tinged with emotion than the comparable virtuein Christianitp The term is derived from the word nitra, " afriend", ana inight be translated "friendliness",

t'good will" or

"benevolence".- NeYcrtheless tle Buddhist scriptures contain pas-

sages whiclr describe mettE with t passion which recalls the famous

w6rds of St Paul on the virtue of charity.

" May every living being, weak or shong, large-or small, seen or unseen,n"". o, iu., bom or y-et unForn-m"y every living thing be full ofjoy'

" May none deceive another, or think ill of him in any \vay \rybatever, or in

"ns"r oi ill-will desire evil for anothet

?.|ust as a mother, as long as she lives, cares for her only c}jld, so shoulda man feel all-embracing love to all living bcings.

"He should, feel bouridless love for alllhe world, above below and across,unrestrained, without enmitp Standing, walking, Ettti"g. -or- lylngdown, . . . he should. be firm iri the mindfulness of lovq For this ig vbatmen call the Subliue Mood."ro

In this connexion the follon'lng extract ls lnterestiug, for it recalba well-linown verse of the Sermon on the Mqut

" A man bwies a treasure in a deep pig thinking: 'It will be useful intime of need, or if t}e king is displeased with me, or if I am robbed or fallinto debt. or if food is scarce, or if bad luck befalls me.'

RELIGIoN: culTs, DocTRtNEs AND METAPHYSICS 287"But all this treasure may not profit the owner at all, for he may forget

where he hid it, or goblins may stear it, or his enenfes or even his linsrienrnay take it when he is not on his guard.

"But by charity, goodness, restraint and self+ontrol man and womanalike.can s.tore!p a rvell-hidden treasure-a treasure which cannot be givento others,r arrd which robbers cannot steal. A wise man should do gJod-tbat is the treasure which will uot leave bim."{o

- Though the passages quoted above cannot be clated with precision

{eq gre .certainly prc-CJuistian, and there is no possibility ofLnrlsuan ulnuence.

The vow of tjre Bodhisattva, rvhich we have already quoted(p.-z-lZt1, gives sufficient indication of the ethics of the Greai Vehicle,which teaches an impassioned altruism scarcely to be found elservherein the literature of the non-Christiur rvorlil.

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Though the Buddhist virtue of mettd seems often rather a state ofmind than a spur to benevolent action, the view that faith withoutworks is dead is sometimes expressed, notably in the story of theBuddha and the sick ntonk. As the Master wal going on a iound ofinspection, visiting the monks in their cells, he ibun,l one who lvasaick with dysentery and who had fallen from his bed and lay in irisown ordure. With his orvn hands the Buddha washed the sick manfrom head t9 foot, laid hin comfortably on his bed, and gale a newrule to the Order:

"Brethreq you have no mother or father to care for you. If you donot care for one anothcr who else will do sol Brethren, he who would caref<lr me should care for the sick.".z

Though this precept applies primarily to the Order of monks, itwas no doubt under the influence of

-such teachinEs that A6oka

established free dispensaries, and that Buddhist n:onis have at alltimes studied nredical lore, and treated la;men as weII as their ownfellows,

- The Buddhist scriptures were chiefly written for and addressed tothe monks and, nuni of the order, but a number of passages gavespecial instruction to the layman, and the first five of the ..TenPrecepts" (p. essf) were biniing on the lay community. Accordingto the first ofthese no Buddhistiould follow the profeJsion ofhunteior butcher. The resoh'e not to take life was generally interpreted aspelmilling lar+ful warfare and the sentencinf of criminals lo death,and did not preclude Buddhists from eating meat, if provided by

I The doctrine of the Stlraviravrdin school. In the Great vehicle merit can bc traru-feried (p. 977),

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non-Buddhist butchers. But Buddhism tended to encourage mild-ness and vegetarianism, and somewhat discouraged the militarisnru'hich prevailed at most periods in ancient India (p. lesf). Thesecond precept, not to take what is not given, included absten-tion not only from theft, but also from sharp practice in business.

For the laymen the third precept did not, of course, invoh'eabsolute celibacy, but permitted larvful marriage. It was utuailyinterpreted as forbidding urulatural sexuality and extra-marital rela-tions. Buddhism laid down no hard and fast rules on the questionsofmarriage and divorce, and at the present day in Buddhist countriesmarital laws are largely influenced by local custom. The fourtlrprecept, forbidding false speech, was talten to include lying, perjuryand slander, while the fifth forbade alcoholic drinks. ModernBuddhists often put a rather liberal interpretation on this rule, andthe same may have been done in ancient days, for in one sermon theBuddha is said to have classed only the first four sins as "vices ofaction", and to have included drinking among the six less reprehen-sible "openings for the svvallowing up of lvealth", the others beingroaming the streets at unseasonable hours, frequenting festivals,gambling, keeping bad company and idling.

This sermon, the most important Buddhist text on lay morality, isthe "Address to Sigila",le in which the Buddha gives instruction to ayoung layman on his relations with his fellorv men, and on the dutiesbfparents and children, teachers and pupils, husbands and wives, andfriends. It breathes a spirit of rvarm affection and fellowship, notraised to an exalted spiritual level but ofan everyday practical tyPe.The text is too long to quote, and we can only summarize some ofits instructions.

Husbands should respect their wives, and comply as far as ;nssible witht[reir requests. They should not commit adultery' Tlrey should give theirwives full charge of the home, and supply them with fine clothes aldjewellery as far as their means permit. Wives should be thorough intheir drties, gentle and kitd to the u'hole household, chaste, and careful inhousekeeping, and they should carry out their work rvith skill and en-tlusiasm.

A man should be generous to his friends, speak kindly of them, act intheir interests in every way possible, treat tl)enr as his equals, and keep hisword to them. They in turn should u'atch over his interests and property,take care of him when he is "offhis guard" ( i .e. intoxicated, infatuated, orotherwise liable to commit rash and careless actions), stand by him and

help him in time of trouble, and respect otlter members of his farnily' -Employers shoulC treat their servants and workpeople decently. Th"y

shoutd not be given tasks beyond their strength. They should receiveadequate food and wages, be cared for in time of sickness and infirmity, and

R:LIGIoN] cULTs, DocTRINEs AND METAPHYSICS SIJg

be given regular holidays and bonuses in times of prosperity. Tlreyshould rise early and go to bed late in the service of their master, beccntent with their just wages, work thoroughly, and maintain their master'rrePutation.

Precepts such as these, u'hich are implicit in the teaching of otherreligions, are nou'here else so clearly and unequivocally expressed.Specially noteworthy are the duties of husbands to wives and of mastersto servants, which seem to anticipate twentieth century ideas on therights of women and enrplol'ees.

Among the most inrportant vehicles of Buddhist ethical teachingare the Jitaka stories. These are mostly of secular origin, and manymerely inculcate shrewdness and caution in everyday lile, as doAsop's fables (e.g. that given in full on p. .4,56f). Others teachgenerosity and self-abneg-ation in morbidly exaggerated forms, lorinstance tl're tale of King Sivi (known also in l{induisrn), who ran-somed a pigcon from a famished hawk with flesh cut frorn his ownthigh. Many modern readers may well find the very popularstory of Prince ViSvdntara (Pali, Vessantara) distasteful. Thisprince gave away so much of his royal father's treasure that he wasbanished with his wile and children in a carriage drawn by fourhorses. As he left, he gave away the carriage and horses for theasking, and settled in a hut in the forest with his family. Soon hegave his children to a wandering ascetic who needed them to do hisbegging for him, and finally he disposed of his wife in similar manner.But all ended happily, for those who had asked him for his mostprecious possessions were gods in disguise u'ho had decided to testhis generosity, and he was at last restored to his family and hispatr imony (pl. XIX). But many old Buddhrst stories are of thehighest ethical quality, such as that of the monkey who savedthe lives of his fellows from the king's archers at the risk of hisown by making himself a living bridge over the Gangi, or thatof the noble parrot who laid down his life for his friends in a futileattempt to querrch a forest fire by drops of water scattered from hiswings.

( r r r ) r e r N r s M A N D o r H E R u N o R T H o D o x s E c r s

Jainism

Among the many unorthodox teachers who were contemporarywith the Buddha was Vardhamina, known to his followersas Mahii-vira ("the Great l{ero"). Jainism, the "Religion of the Con-querors" (jinas), which he founded, had a history very different fromthat of Buddhisrn. It succeeded in establishing itself firmly, and in

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ggme ptaces became very influential, but it never spread beyond India.Unlike Buddhism, there were no fundamental changes and developments in Jaina doctrine. But though the history of Jainism is leisinteresring than tlrat of Buddhism, and though it rvas never soimportant, it survived in the land of its birtl, r,r.here it still hassome two nrillion adherents, mostly well-todo merchants.

The legends of Vardhamdna Mahavira are less attractive than thoseof the Buddha and are even more forlnalized ancl unreliable, but as heis referred to in the Iluddhist scriptures as one of the Buddha's chiefopponents his historicity is beyond doubt. He was bom about64o r.c. and was the son ofsiddhirtha, a chiefofthe clan ofJfiitrikas,the associates of the Licchavis of VaiSili; his mother, Tri3ali, was thesister of the Liccbavi chief Celaka, and thus, like the Bu,lilha, he waswholly the product of the oligarchic martial clans which were apowerful political force at the time. Though he rvas educated as aprince, and married and had a daughter, his reil interest lay in the questfor salvation. At the age of thirtn whenlris parents were deaj, heleft his home for a life of asceticism. At first he followed the practicesof an ascetic group called the Nirgranthas (..Free from Iionds,,),which had been founded some 9oo years earlier by a certain parjvi.The term Nirgrantha was later u."d for the members of the orderwhich Mahdvira founded, and Pirjva was remembered as the trventy-third of .the lrvelty-foy1 -great teachers or Tirthaikaras (,,For:d-makers") of the Jaina faith.

- For over twelve years Vardhamlna wandered from place to place,begging his food, meditating, disputing, anci subjecting his body toausterities of all kinds. At firs! he woie a single garment whicir henever changed, but after thirteen months ne taia tnis encumbranceaside, and the rest of his life was spent in complete nudity. For somesix years his hardships were shared by another asietic, GoSalaMaskar-rputra, but ultimately the two quarrelled, and .Gojala leftVardhamina to found the secl of Ajivikas.

In the thirteenth year of his asceticism Vardhamina found. full en-lightenment and Nirv54a; he became a ..Worthy,, (.drhant),a.,CorFque_ror" (Jina), a " Ford-maker". He soon gained a great ieputationand a large band of followers, arrd for thirt! years hle taught in theGangetic kingdoms, patronized by the v"ry king. who alJo patrorFized the Buddha. He survived the death 6f niJ.ti.f rival, bo6ila,rnd probably also that of the Buddha, and died of self-starvation atthe.ag-e_of-seventy-two in the little town of pivi, near the Magadhancapital lajagilr_a. There are conflicting traditions about the

-date of

his dearh, which was probably in +oe slc.For some two centuries the Jainas remained a small community of

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REL!O!ON: CULTS, DOCTRINES AND METApHystcs 291

monks and lay follcwers, less important than the rival sect of theAjivikas. According to a strongly hel<l Jaina tradition CandraguptaI\Iaur1'a joined thcir order as a monk on lris abdicatiorr, and it ieemscertain that there was an accession of strength in N{aurya times. Aserious fanrine at the eltd of Candragupta's reign led to a great exodusof Jaina monks from the Gangd Valley to the Deccan, lvhere theyestablished important centres of their faith.

Out of this migration arose the great schism of Jainism, on a point ofmonastic discipline. Bhadrabihu, the elder of the community,who led the cmigrants, insisted on the retention of the rule ofnudity which Mahivira had established. Sthulabhadra, the leader ofthe monks who remained in the North, allolved his followers toweal u'hite garments, owing to the hardships and confusions of thefamine. Hence arose the two sects of the Jainas, the Digambarat("Space-clad", i.e. naked), and the Suetdmbaras ("White-clad").The schism did not become final until the tst century A.n., and thercwere never any fundamental doctrinal differences; later most monkrof the naked sect took to rvearing robes in public, but dre division hacpersisted down to the present day.

According to tradition an oral sacred literahrre had been passeddown from lhe duys of Mahivira, but Bhadrabdhu was the last perronto know it perfectly. On his deatlr Sth[labhadra called a great councilat Pataliputra, and the canon rvas reconstructed as best possible intwelve Aigas, or sections, which replaced the fourteen "formertexts" (Pnrvas), This canon was accepted only by the Svetimbaras;the Digambaras claimed that the old canon was hopelessly lost, andproceeded to devise new scriptures for-themselves, some of which arostill unpublished. The texts of the Sveta-mbara canon were finallysettled and reduced to writing at a council at Valabhi in Gujardt inthe 5th century ̂ .D. By this time the texts had become very cotruptand one of the Afrgas had been completely lost, while new materialhad been added to the original canon in the form of the twelveUpafigas, or minor sections, and various lesserworks. In the MiddleAges a great body of commentarial literature was written both inPrdkrit and Sanskrit, and there were many able philosopher monks,who interpreted the scriptures of the sect. Some monks tumed theirattention to secular literature and other branches of learning, ap-parently without losing their piety. One of the last great poets inSanskrit, Nayacandra, of the t.4th century (p. +s5t), was a Jainamonk, as rvas Mallinitha, the author of the standard commentary onthe poems of Kilidisa. We otve much to the Jaina monks' love ofliterature. To copy a manuscript, even a secular one, was considereda work of great religious merit, and thus the old Jaina monasterier of

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Western India have presen'ed nrarl-v rare and otherwise unkrowntexts, some of which have still to be published and many of which areof non-Jaina origin.

In the period between the l\{auryas and the Guptas Jainism can betraced from Orissi in the East to lr{athuri in the West, but in latertimes it was chiefly concenrrated in ts'o regions-Gujarat andparts of Rirjasthln, where the Svetimbara sect prevailed, and llrecentral part of the Peninsula, the modern I\fysore, tvhere the Digattbaras were donrinant. The Gangi Vallen the original home ofJainism, was little affected by it.

The Svetlnrbaras found rnuch support among the chiefs of WesternIndia, and gained a position of great prominence during the reignof the Caulukya king Kumirapila, who ruled Gujarit in the tgthcentury. Under the guidance of a great Jaina scholar, Hema-candra, KumErapila is said to have instituted a Jaina reformation;but on his death the sect lost much of its influence, and though it stillflourisherl it never again became so important. Similarly in dreSouth the Digambaras had great influence in the early Middle Ages,thanks to tlie patronage of kings, but this influence graduallydiminished as that of devotional Saivism and Vai;4avism grew.There are traditions, u'hich some have doubted but rvhich we believeto have a basis of fact, that the Jainas were sometimes severely per-secuted. But although Jainism declined it never disappeared.

Though the Jaina scriptures are comparatively late in their f inalfornr, there is little divergence in fundamentals bettveen the trvo greatJaina sects; thus it seems that the basic teachings of both are veryancient indeed, and are essentially those of Mahivira himself. Jain-isnr, like Buddhism, is fundamentally atheistic in that, rvhile not deny-ing the existence of the gods, it refuses them any important part inthe universal scheme. The world, for the Jaina, is not created, main-tained or des-troyed by apersonal deity, but fturctions only accordingto univer.sal law.

The universe is eternal. Its existence is divided into an infinitenumber of cycles, each consisting of a period of improvement (utsar-|i1i), atvJ one of decline (avasarligi). Each period is to all intentsand purposes like the last, containing twenty-four Tirtharikaras,twelve Universal Emperors (Cakraoartins), both classes being in-cluded in tlre total of sixty-three Great l4en (Sala*a-puru;as), wholive at regular intervals in the cycle. At the peak period men are ofenormous size and reach a tremendou.s age. They have no need oflaws or propert_y, for wishing-trees (kal1>a-ofisa) give them all theyneed for the asking. At present the rvorld is rapidly declining. Thelast Tirtharikara of this agc has pa.sscd to final Nin,ina, and gradually

nELtctoN: culTs, DocTRrNEs AND MET^pi lystcs 993

true religion rvill be lost-Mahivira in his omniscience even gave hisfollowers the name and addr. of the last Jaina of this aon. Theprocess of decline will continue for 4.0,OOO years, when men will bedrvarfs in stature, with a life of only twent1' years, and will dwell incaves, having forgotten all culture, even to the use offire. Then theride will turn, and they rvill begin to improve again, only to declineonce more, and so on for all eternity. Unlike the cosmology of theBuddhists and Hindus, that of the Jainas involves no catadysms ofuniversal destruction,

The universe functions through the interaction of living souls(7iuas, literally "lives"), and fir'e categories of non-living entities(ajioa)z "ether" (akala), the means or condition of movement(dharma), the means or condition of rest (adharma),, time (kdla),and matter (pudgala). Souls are not only the property of animal andplant life, but also of entities suclr as stones, rocks, running water,and many other natural objects not looked on as living by other sects.

The soul is naturally bright, all-knowing and blissful. There are aninfinite number of souls in the universe, all fundamentally equal, butdiffering orving to the adherence of matter in a fine atomic form.This subtle matter, quite invisible to the human eye, is karma, theimmaterial entity of other systems interpreted materialistically. Thenaturally bright soul becomes dulled and clouded over by karmicmatter and thus acquires first a spiritual and then a material body.The obfuscation of the soul is compared to the gradual clouding of abright oily surface by motes of dust. Karma adheres to the soul as aresult of activity. Any and every activity induces karma of somekind, but deeds of a cruel and selfish nature induce more, and moredurable, karma than others. The karma already acquired leads tothe acquisition of further karma, and tlrus the cycle of transmigrationcontinues indefi nitely.

On these premisses transmigration can only be escaped by dispellingthe karma already adhering to the soul and by ensuring that no more isacquired. This is a slorv and difficult process and it is believed tlratmany souls will never succeed in accomplishing it, but will continue totransmigrate for all eternity. The annihilation (nirjard) of karmacomes about through penance, and the prevention (saryaara) of the'rtflux (diraoa) and fixation (bandha)f of karma in the soul is en-sured by carefully disciplined conduct, as a result ofwhich it does not

! Like the Buddhists the Jainas gave to these familiar terms very special connotationl,the full discussion of ulrich is bevond tlre rope of this work. Dfuriaiia sort of secondaryspace wlrich pcrmits movemeni, as water permits a fish to swim; adharma is a tertiaryspnce vhrch permtts rest.-

{ We qucite these four Sanskrit terms as, with/ua (couls), ajlru (the five categoriermcnricned earlier), and slvarion (mofua ), they constitute the seven furdamenrrlcategorier( tdrrla ) of Jlinism.

T H E W O N D E R ' I ' I T A T \ \ ' A S I N D I A

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enter in dangerous quantities and is dispersed immediately. Whenthe soul has finally set itself free it rises at once above the highestheaven to the top of the wriverse, where it remains in inactive omni-scient bliss through all eternity. This, for the Jainas, is Nirvipa.

Though Jaina philosophers developed their doctrines, and evolveda theory of epistemology of great subtlety (p. SO+f) and a remarkableview of space and time suggesting the world pictwe of relativityphysics, their fundamental teechings remained essentially unaltered.Mahivira and the twenty-three other flrtlrafrkaras were adored inthe same way as the Buddhe and the Hindu gods, but Jainism nevcrcompromised in its atheism, and- there was no development in thissect comparable to the Great Vehicle in Buddhism. Jainism has sur-vived for over 9,ooo years on the basis of these austere teachings alone.

Full salvation is not possible to the layrnan. In this Jainism differsfrom Buddhism an{ Hinduism, which concede it in exceptionalcases. To attain Nirvd4a a man must abandon all trammels, includ-ing his clothes. Only by a long course of fasting, self-mortification,study and meditation cart he rid himself of karm4 and only by themost rigorous discipline can he prevent fresh karma from clinging tohis soul. Herrce a monastic life i3 essential for salvation, Very early,however, many Jaina monks gave up the rule of nudity, and today fewif any monks, even of the Digambara sect, practise it regularly. Bothsects of Jainas, however, would admit that it is necessary to fullliberation. The universe is now rapidly declining, and no souls nolvreach Nirviqra orhave any hope ofreaching it in the foreseeable future,so in these degenerete days clothes ars wom as a concession tohuman frailty.

The regimen of the Jaina monk was, and still is, strict in the ex-trema At his initiation his hair was not shaved, but pulled out bytrhe roots. He subjected himself to many hardships, such as meditatingin the full sunlight of the Indian summer, or maintaining an uneasypos--ture for long periodr on end, tlough Jainism .lid not permit the morespectacular penances of some Hindu ascetics. The monk's frugalmeals were interrupted by numerous fasts, and many monks starvldthemselves to death, following the example of Mahivira himself.

The life of tl-re monk was govemed by five vows, abjuring killing,etealing, lying, sexual activity and the possession of propertlr. theievows were interpreted quite strictly. Acts of violence and killing,whether intentional or not, were the most potent cause of the influxof karma, and were therefore particularly to be avoided. Meat-eatingwas quite forbidden to monk and layman alike, Even insect life waicarefully protected. Uke thc Buddhist monks, the Jainas strainedtheir drinking-water to save the lives of animalcule. Jaina monks

REI . IGION: CULTS, DOCTRINES AND METApl tyStCr 295

usually eanied feather dustcrs, to brush ants and other insects fromtheir path and save them from beinc tranrpled untierfoot, and they woreveils over their mouths, to prevent the rninute l iving things in theair from bcing inhalcd and kil icd. No lay Jaina cotrld tahe up theprofession of agricr,rltr.rre, since this involvcd not oniy the destructionof piant l i [e, but also of nrany l iving beings in the soil i tself. l i ind-ling a liglrt or fire rvas not perhtitted by the rrronk, .since it destroyedlivcs both in the fuel and in the surrounding air, lvhile putting a fireout $'as aiso forbidden, since it destroyed the iife of the fire itself.Thus, in its insistence on ahimsii, or non-violence, Jainisrn went uruchfurther than any other Indian religion.

It has been suggested that Jainism sur"vived in India, whereasBuddhism perished, because the forrner sect took better care of itslayfolk. In Jainism the layrnan was a definite member of theOrder, encouraged to undertake periodical retreats and to liveas far as possible the life of the monk for specific perlods. LikeBuddhism, Jainisrn encouraged the commercial virtues of honestyand frugality, and at a very early period the Jaina lay communitybecame predominantly mercantile, The splendid Jaina templesat such places as Jr{ount AbA aud Sravana BelgoJi are testimoniesof the great rvealth and piety of medieval Jaina laymen.

Jainisrn had no special social doctrines. The domestic rites of thelayman, such as birtlr, marriage and death, v'ere those of the l{indus.At one time Jainism maintained a cult of stlpas in the same way asBuddhism, but this has not survived, and early in tlre Clrristian erathe Tirtharikaras were adored in temples in the forrn of icons. Bythe Middle Ages this rvorship approximated to that of the llindus,rvith offerings of flowers, incense, lamps and so on. As with Bud-dhism, the chief gods of the Hindus found their way into'Jainatemples in subordinate positions, and though there was no real com-promise u,ith theism the sect easily fitted into the Hindu order, itsmenrbers forming distinct castes.

Jaina religious literature is generally dull and pedantic, andits ethics, though they inculcate such virtues as honesty and mercy,tend to be negative and fundamentally selfish. The virtue o[ non-violence in Jainism often had little of love about it, but merely in-volved vegetarianism and precautions against the accidental killingof small animals. There are, however, passages in the Jaina scriptures rvhich show rvarmth and human svmpathy. Thus, discussingthe doctrine of non-violence, the early Acdrdfiga Sitro writes:

"A wise man should be neither glad nor angry, for he should know andconsider the happiness of all things. . . . Ufe is dear to the many who own

25

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fields and houses, ufio get dyed and coloured clothes and jewels and earrings,and grow attachcd to thenl . . . Only those who are ofcontrolled conduct donot desire these things; therefore, knolving birth and death, you shouldfirmly rvalk the path.

"For nothing is inaccessiblc to death, and all beings are fond of themsclves,they love pleasure and hate pain, they slrun destiuction and cling to life.Thcy long to live. 'l'o all tbings Iife is dear."re

More typical of Jaina moral teachings are the follorving verses,said to have been spoken by Mahivira to Gautama, one of his disciples(not, of course, to be confused with Gautama the Buddha).

" As the dead leaf when its time is upfalls from the tree to the ground,

so is tlre life of man.Gautama, always be watchful!

"As the dewdrop that sways on a blade ofgrasslasts but a moment,

so is the life of man.Gautarna, always be watchful I

"For the soul which suffers for its carelessnessis whirled about in the universe,

tlrough good and evil karma.Gautama, always be watchfull

"When the body grows old and the hair turns white,and al l the vital powers decrease...

despondency and disease befall, and the flesh wastes and oecays.Gautama, always be watctrl'ull

"So cast away all attachments,and be pure as a lotus, or as water in autumn.

Free from every attachment,Gautama, always be watchful!"60

As an example of Digambara teaching we give a ferv verses, re-markable for their conciseness, by the +th century monk Pfrjyapida.

" Bodn house, wealth and wife,sons and friends and enemies-

all are different from the soul.Only the fool thinks them his own."

"From all dirJctiJns'conle the birdrand rest together in the trees;

but in the morning each goes his own way,flying in all directioru."

RELIGION: CULTS, DOCTRTNES AND METAPI IYSICS 297

"Death is not for me. Why then should I fearlDisease is not for me. Why then should I despairl

I am not a child, nor a youth, nor an old man-All these states are only of my body."

"Time and .g'"in'in iry i'oolishne.s I have enjoyedall kinds of body and have discarded thenr.

Norv I am wise IWhy should I long for rubbish ?"

"The soul it on" it ing, matter another-that is the quintessence of truth.

Whatever else may be saidis merely its elaboration."ol

The .t{jtvikasA third unorthodox sect which emerged at the same time as Bud-

dhism and Jainism was that of the Ajivikas, a body of ascetics w'howere under a rigorous discipline similar to that of the Jainas, and whoalso practised complete nudity. The doctrines of the founder of thesect, Go$ila Maskariputra, bear a generic likeness to those of his con-temporary and former friend Mahivira. Like Mahavira, he lookedback to earlier teachers and ascetic groups, rvhose doctrines he refur-bished and developed. According to both Buddhist and Jaina tradi-tion he was of humble birth; he died a year or so before the Buddha,abour .tr87 r.c., after a fierce altercation with Mahivira in the city ofSrivasti. His followers seem to have combined rvith those of otherteachers, such as Pira4a KiSyapa _the antinomian and PakudhaKityiyana the atomist, to form the Ajivika sect. After a period ofprosperity in Mauryan times,_when Adoka and his successor DaSa-iatha presented caves to the Ajivikas, the sect rapidly declined, andonly retained some local importance in a small region of EasternMysore and dre adjacent parts of Madras, where it survived until thel4th century, after which we hear no more of it.

No scripiures of the Ajivikas llave come down to us, and the littlewe know about them has to be reconstructed from the polemicliterature of Buddhism and Jainism. The sect was certainly atheiqtic,and is main feature was srict determinism. The usual doctrine ofkarma taught that though a man's present condition was determinedby his past actions he could influence his destiny, in this life and thefuture, by choosing the right course of conduct. This the Ajivikasdenied. The whole universe was conditioned and determined to thesmallest detail by an impersonal cosmic principle, Niyati, or destiny.It was impossible to influence the course of transmigration in any way.

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298 THE WONDER THAT WAS INDIA f I t I ( , I ( ' I I : CULT8, DOCTRINES AND METAPHYSICS 999

"All that have breath, all that are bom, all that have life, are withoutpower, strength or virtue, but are developed by destiny, chance and nature,and experience joy and sorrow in the six classcs fof existence]. Thereare...8,4OO,OOO great aons (nahAkafpa), through which fool and wisealike must take theircourse and make an end of sorrorv. There is no I'aues-tion ol bringing unripe karma to fruition, nor ofexhausting karma j.eudyripened, by virtuous conduct, by vows, by penance, or by chastity. Thaicannot be done. Sar.nsdra is measured as with a bushel, with its joy andEorrow and its rppointed end. It can neither be lessened nor increaseJ, norir there any-e.\..)ess or deficiency of it. Just as a ball of string rvill, whentlrown, unwino io its f'rll l.ngth, so fool and wise alike will take-tlieir course,and make an enc .,. twi'62

- Though nothl ihat a man could do would in any way influencehis future lot Ajivir.a monks practised severe ascetici-sm, iecause theforce of destiny compelled them to do so, although their religiousopponents accused t!-lem of licentiousness and immorality.

The Dravidian A.livikas developed their cloctrinej in a wayresembling Buddhism of the Great Vehicle. Gorial a became an ine ffablldivinity, like the Buddha in the Mahayina system, while the doctrineof destiny evolved into a Parmenidean view that all change and move-ment were illusory, a.nd that the world rvas in reality eternally andimmovably aB rest This view bears a certain resenblancc toN5girjunat doctrine of "the Void".

Scclticism ond MatcrialismBuddha, Mahivira, Go3ala, and many lesser teachers of their period

ignored--the gods, but they were not thoroughgoing atheisis andmaterialists. All admitted the existence of supernaiural beings ofstrictly limited powers, and all accepted the fundamental doctri-ne oftransmigration, though they interpreted its mechanics individually.Some thinkers, however, rejected all immaterial categories cori-pletely, and their influence may have been wider than appears fromthe religious te1!s of the period. , In the fairly early Xafhi Upani;adthe interlocutor Naciketas (p. :Ss) questions Yama, the god oi'death,in these terms: "There is doubt about the state of a m"n-who is dead-some-say he-is, others, he is not.', .,On this point,,, yama replies,"eve1$e gods formerly lrad their doubts. It is not easy to und"r-stand." At this time unbelief must have been fairly widespread.

Ajita Kedakambalin ("Ajita of the Hair-blanket,,, no doubt cocalled-from-the garb of his order), a contemporary of the Budd.ha,wat the earliest known teacher of iomplete materiuiism.

-Man," he said, " is formed of the four elements. When he dies e:rrth rc-trlls !o the aggregate of earth, water to water, fire to fire, and air to air,while his senses vanish into space. Four men with the bier take up thi

, . , t . , , ' 1 1,, . ' . ip f :r lntrt the dead man] ls.far Es the bumingground,., , . . . t , , ,r i t l ,c colour of a dov& w'ing and his sacri f ices endin

. , ' , , r . ! r , 1 , , , , I s * l topreacha lmsg iv ing ,andthosewhomain ta in thc

. . t rrrrrn.r l , t i . t l catcgoriesf tpJtkvuitt and lyingnonsense' When',, l ' , ' t l r l i ,ol and wise al ike are cut offurdperirh. They do not

1 , 1 , . , , r l t r t t l t . r t l t . " 6 l

tt rr, :rrc lo bclieve the Buddhist scriPtures, Ajitafounded as'rctof

, i ,. 'l l',' tlrrddha condemned them as having no good motive f(r

r, ' r ,, r i, i ' ,rrt, the degree of which is nowhere made c'ean It is

t ' l,' rlr.rt, iik" tlt"" Epicureans, th-ey were not I much l

:, , 'r ,l, f ns a fratemiti of men with common air , cultivatingr , , ,i , r' tlrt: sirnpler pleasirres of life. -Inany case, I element.of

r, ,,,1,.,11",,, is traceable in Indian thought from thL trln€ on'ffardl'

ltr l 1,i,,rrs ancl philosophical literature'-whether Hindu, Buddhist^or

J.,,,,., ,1,'r',rtcs riruch.pu.e to attacking the evil tenets of the Cdrvdkot

,,, , ,,{.,r',,/u.r, as the materialist school-s were called. Throlghout the

I,,,,,, I rr I rit li we treat these unbelievers are referred to with scom and

It .,1,1,,r,Ir:rt ion which sometimes seems to contain an undertone of

t, ,, , l,', tlurugh the pious authors though.t it-really polliUJe that tho

r, ,r, , i.,lisrs ii,ight ihake the foundations of the established ordeL

t, | ",, r r.r lisr andirreligious undercurrents are traceable in some seculrr

|, l,,, r, r I r', such as the Artha(dstra and the Kdmasiltra''l t,,. 1,':ncral attitude of the materialist schools, acc,ording tlth$r

.,!, , , ...,'r i0s, rvas that all religious observance and morality were futilc.

,\ rrr rrr ,l'uuld make the mo-st of life and getwhathappinesshe colld, r r t trl it. The frugal virtues of Buddhism and Jainism were rejected'

"As long as he lives a man should live happilyurd

-drink ghee, though he nrn into debt,

for when the bodY is turned to asheshow can there be any retunr to lile?"lr

,{ rrr.rrr rnrrst not tqm baCk frOm pleasure fof feaf Of Concomitant sor-

r,'\\'. | 1: t'ust accept occasiottai sorrow gladly, for the sake.of the

1, r' r' lri, h he finds in the world, as he accepts- the bones with the fish

l,rl r1,,. lrrrslt rvith the cortl. "'Whoever turns in fear from the joy that

Ir,. s, ,'s bcfore him is a fool no better than an animal"'6!'l lr''ir opponents ascribe only base ideals to the materialists, and

rlr,.rr. is noiefinite evidence that they had any ethical doctrines, b-ut(!nr. \.crse attributed to them shows ihat they were not blind to thc

wrrrn ticg of family and friendship.

" If a man reallY left his bodY,and Passed on to the other wodd,

would he not come back once more,drawn bY hir love for hb kinl""

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Besidcs numerous quotations attributed to materialists in religiousand pldlosophical works one anti-religious philosoprrical text has"sur.vived. This is tlte Tattaopapta-oasiryFa (frelly.,The Lion Destroyingall Refuious Truth") wrilten by aiertiin Jayaridi in the 8th ."n",ui!e.o. The author was an out-and-out pyrrhonist denying the po.siUllity 9f any certain knowledge at all, and he demolishJ with abledialectic, to his own satisfaction at any rate, all the basic presupposi.tions of the chief religious systems of his day.

( r v ) u r N o u r s uDcoelopment and Literature

As well as the aristocratic religion of the brdhmans, the Buddhistand Jaina scriptures mention popular cults, connected with earth-spirits- lyak;a1), snake-spirits (ndgas), and other minor deities,centred round sacred spots or caityas (p. ze+). Very early a gojnanred Visudeva was widely worshipped,-ispecially in *esteir lniia.It was- to this god that the Besnagar coiumn,-to which we havemore than once referred, was erected. The inscription on the columnshows-thatby the end of the gnd century r.c. the cllt ofVisudeva wasreceiving the support of the ruling clai.ses, and even of the Westerninvaders. soon after this va-sudera was identified with the vedic godVig4u, if indeed the identification had not alread"v been made, indfurther s1'ncretisms were taking place. Nira-1,ana, a god of obscureorigin mentioned in the Brahminl lirerature, u'ai alsoldentifiecl withVigpu, whose name was by now closely connected with that of K19pa,one of the heroes of the martial tiarlitions rvhich were Urougl,itogether to form the great epic, the lvlahdbhdrata.

- The character of Vig4u, ancl those of the gods associated with him,developed through the centuries, as further popurar divinities were inone way- or- another identified with him. Among some of the lowerorders dteriomorphic cults prevailed, especially"in parts of Milwi,where .a divinity in the form of a boar was worshipped. By Guptatimes the cult of the divine boar was assimilated to ihat of Vi94u.

' A

pastoral flute-playing deity, popular among herdsmen and'bf un-certain_ ongin, was identified wirh the hero K1-s4a, by now recognizedas an incaination of vigpu. The Brihmaltit'irero parasur5ma wassimilarly accounted for, while later Rima, the hero of the secondgreat Indian epic, was also brought into the Vaig4avite pantheon...Simultaneously a fertility deity, whose cult may hive been kept

alive in non-brihm:lic circles from the days of the-Harappa culturl,rose in prominence. This was Si"",la"riin.J with the Vedic Rudraand usually worshipped in the form of the phallic emblem (lingq.

Rr:t tctoN: cu|.Ts, DocrntNEs AND METAPHYstcs 3ol

\Vith Siva were later associated certain other popular divinit ies, suchas Skantla ard the elephant-headed GaTeSa. At the end of the Guptap:riod goddesses rose to prominence, together with magical cults,rcligious sexuality, and a new form of animal sacrifice, which in-creased in irnportance throughout the early Middle Ages.

The final form of Hinduism was largely the result of influence fromthe Dravidian South. Here, on the basis of indigenous cults fertilizedby Aryan inffuences, theistic schools had arisen, characterized by in-tense ecstatic piety. It was this devotional religion, propagated bymany wandering preachers and hymn-singers in the medieval period,which had the greatest effect on Hinduism as it exists today.

During this period an enonnous body of sacred literature was Pro-duced. The Vedas. Brihmanas and Upanigads, theoretically still themost sacred of all India's religious literature, were studied only bythose who had undergone the ceremony of initiation, and becamemore and more the preserve of the brihmans, who themselves ofteninterpreted them figuratively in the light of the new doctrines. Thereal scriptures of Hinduism, as distinct from Brihrna4ism, were avail-able to all, even to men of low caste and to women. These were theEpics, the Purdpas, the books of Sacred Law, which we have treatedelsewhere ( p. t t s ) , and numerous hymns and religious poems. For theleamed there was a voluminous literature of commentaries, and manytreatises were written on various aspects oftheology and philosophy.

The two great Epics were originally secular, and in their literaryaspect will be treated later (p. ao9ff). Very early, probably well be-fore the Christian era, the Mahabhdrata began to receive religiousinterpolations and to be looked on as a sacred text. The most impor-tant of these interpolations is the famous Bhogaoad Gila, itself a com-pilation of material from various sources, to which we shall often referin the course of this chapter; and much literature on the Sacred Law, aswell as religious legends of many kinds, has found its way intothe Epic which, as it exists at present, forms an encyclopedia ofearly Hinduism. An important appendix to the Mahibhdrata isthe HarivamJa, giving the legend of the god KJ94a in a developed[orm. The second epic, the Rdmiiyarya, was also at first secular, butat a comparatively lare period, possibly after the age of the Guptas,an introductory and a final canto were added, together with otherinterpolations, which raised the text to the status of a eacredscripture.

The Purd4as ("Ancient Stories") are compendia oflegends andreligious instructions. There are eighteen chief Puri4as, of whichperhaps the rnost important are the lldyu, Vignu, Agni, Bhaoigta andBhigavata Pw'E1tas. In their present form they are not very aricient,

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none g:oing back earlier than the Gupta period and all containinginterpolatio's, but most of their legendary material is very olZindeed.

Much later religious poetry is of smail riterary value, and has littlem-ore sanctity than have " Hymns Ancient and N{odern'; in the churchof.England. Certain- poems, however, became very sacred in laterHindnism, notably tbe Gita Gooinda, a collectioi of interlinkedreligious sgngs by the l2th-century Bengali poet Ja5,adeva (p. +sof).Some medieval stotras or hymns

-of p.ulre,'such as those iitributJJ

to the.theologian Sairkara, have consid.rubl" Iit..ury ,""rit, *a ur"Iooked on with great respect.

The Peninsula_produced much vemacurar sacred poetry during ourperiod, some of which is of great value, and is considered toL verviolv.A beautiful collection of moral aphorisms in Tarnil verse ,tttc riritt*uiat("Sacred Couplets"), attributed to Tiruvalluv"., perhaps.1";"; i;;the,!th or 5th centuries A.D., though some authorit ies would put itmuch earlier' Later, from the 7th-t, the loth centuries, were'com-posed the eleven sacred books (Tirunuyai) of the Tamil saivites,anthologies olJrymns by the sixtl-111y..

'N61a4drs, or Teachers.

Chief of these eleven works are theTeaaram,.ont"i'ing ,ung, Uy tL.thr€e poets 4ppur, Nenasarnbandar, and Sundaram[rti,-and ii,e

"lrz-vdtagam of Mrnikka vacagar. The Tamir vaisnavites at about thesame period produced tlte Nalaf iram (" Four Thousand"), a collec-tion of stanzas attributed to thl twelve ilz,ars or saints oi the sect.Similar collections ofdevotional poetry, sti i l looked on locally u, u"riholy, were. composed at the encl oi ou, period in Cu"u;";; ;iTelugu. At a later t ime much devotionar i i t"."tu." was written inlhe Aryan vernaculars, but none survives from the period before thel\{uslim invasions, except perrraps the ll'orks of sorne of the MarithdVaignavite hymn singeri, jijan"3uu., Nimdev and a few ott".r, *t,o,according to tradition, lived at the end of the Isth centurv.

we cannot here catalogue the great mass of religio-philosophicarIiterature of Hinduism, some of whlch will be mentioiecl in the f;Uo;_rng Pag$.

Yi;pu

-To the.Vaisnavite, t lre devotee of Visnu, this god is the sourceof the universe and of all tlrings. Accoiaing to the most famouccosmic myth of Hinduism he sieeps in the piimeval ocean, on thethousand-headed snake Sega. In ilis sleep i lotu, grr_rrvs from hisnavel, and in the lotus is born the demiurge Brahme",r who creates

t Not to be confused w i th the i rnpersona l Brahman (p . 95e) o f the lJpan i$ads ,

l \ l t l U l o l i : C U L T S , D O C T R I N E S A N D M E T A P H Y S I C S 3 O . 9

. . ' r l , l . ()rrce the n'orld is created Vigpu awakes, to reign in the' , I l rr . .rvt,rr, Vaihur.rtha, He is usually depicted as a four-armed, | , i . rrk l ; lue colour, crowned and seated on his throne, bearing

l, rrr, ls Ir is ctnblcrns, the conch, discus, mace and lotus, wearingr lr'.icrvcl called Kaustubharound, his neck, and with a tuft of, l . , i r (Sri t ,atsa) <ln his chest. He r ides the great eagle Garuda,, r. ' l lv slrown with a half-hurnan face, who is perhaps the survivalrr .r ,rr icrrt theriomorphic cult and who was already associated with

' , Li, l r ' \ :r , one of Vi;4u's early forms, when l lel iodorus erected his, i, 11111 at Ilcsnagar. Vig4u's spouse, Iak;mi, is an important god-rl , . , i rr l r( :r own r ight.

\ i,,nu's status as the Universal God, of whom all other gods arer'1 , r ts or errlanaticns, appears as early as the Bhagaaad Gttd,

" Now I rvill tell the chief of my holy powers . . . .though therc is no end to my fullness.I rnr tlre self in the inmost heart of all that are bom . . . .I :rm their beginning, their middle and their end. . . .I anr the beginning, the middle, the end, of all creatiorr,the science of the soul among sciences,of speakers I am the speecb,of letters I am .{,.r

" I am unending time,am the ordainer who faces all wayr,am destroying death,am the source of all that is to be. . . .am the dice-play o[ the gamester,arn the glory of the glorious,anr victory, I am courage,am the goodness of the virtdous, . . .am the force of those who govern,am the statecraft of those who seek to conquer,am the silence of what is secret,arn the knowledge of those who know,

and I am the seed of all that is born. . . .

"There is nothing that can exist without me.fiere is no end to rny holy powers, . . .And whatever is mighty or fortunate or strongsprings from a portion of my glory."67

I lr.rrgh his counteryart Siva has a rather ferocious and dangerousr, l,' to his character, Viglu is generally thought of as wholly bene-, ,,1,','g. The god works continuously for the welfare of the world, and

' t i! rhe first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet. It is also implicit in all thc othcr' , r r r r , i f t l rey a re no t mod i f ied by spmia l marks (p . 398) .

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30+ THE WONDER TTTAT WAS INDTA

with this in view he has from time to time incarnated himself, eitherrvhol ly or part ial ly. The earl iest version of this doctr ine is containedin the Rhagavad Gitd, wherein KSEna reveals himself as t]re everactive godhead incarnate.

t'In essence I arn never born, I never alter.I am the lord of al l bcingsand the full master of nry own nature,yet of my o\\'n power I corne to be.

"Whenevcr the Sacred Law fails, and evil raises its hcad.I take embodied birth.To guard the righteous, to root out sinnerr,and to cstablish the Sacred Law,I am born lrom age to age."58

The Aaatdras ("I)escents") or incarnations ofVisnu are, accordingto the most popular classif icat ion, ten. The divinit ies and hcroescomposing the l ist were adopted by Vaispavism at dif ferent t imes, butal l were incorporated by the I I th century. I t may be that the Vaigna-vite doctr ine of incarnation owes something to the Buddhist andJaina doctrines of former Buddhas and Tirthaikaras, which are cer-tainly attested earl ier. An incarnation might be total or part ial-for " whatever is mighty or fortunate or strong springs from a portionof my glory". In this sense every good or great man was thoughtof as a part ial inc.rnation of Vignu. The ten chief incarnations, how-ever, are of a more special type, for in them the full essence of thegod is believed to have taken flesh to save the rvorld from irnminentdanger of total destruction. They are as follorvs:

( t ) The Fish (Matsya). \&'hen the earth was overwhelmed by euniversal flood Visnu took the form ofa fish, rvho first warned lr{anu(the l l indu Adanr) of the impending danger, and then carr ied him,his family, and the seven great sages (rsrs) in a ship fastened toa horn on his head. He also saved the Vedas from the flood. Thefish legend first appears in the Brihmanas, and the Noah's Ark themesuglje.sts Semitic influence. The Fish incarnation was never widelvworshipped.

(e) The Tortoise (Ki lrma). Many divine treasures were lost int lre { lood, including the ambrosia (amrta),* with which the gods pre-.served their youth, Vignu becanre a great tortoise, and dived tothebottonr of the cosmic ocean. On hi i back the gods placed MountN'landara, and, tuining the divine snake Visuki around the mountain,churned the ocean in the manner in rvhich an Indian dairyman churns

. Thc words amhrosia an<l amrla are prol,ahly connected etrmrolosicdly: but amrtrwar r drink, end should therefore perhapi be translated ,.nectar,..

,,,, ;,,,",,i,;."1;T;;,ffi illf;lT:I*" "n,,lll1',, t t l r t ' att t trrosia and various other treasures, including

, | . | .r l 'srrr i . Tlre story is probably a piece of very early| , ,r t l r . i , l t ' rr t i f icat ion of the tortoise with Vi94u is compara-

, i ,r , , .rrrr l , t l rouglr frequently mentioned in l i terature, this in-' , l ' , r ,1 l r t t l c rca l impor tance.

' | 1., l tr , :11 ( l 'araha), A demon, I{ ira4yikga, cast the earth. | , , r . rrrt , t l te depths of the cosnric ocean. Vi54u took the form. , ' "r rrrr,q;s lv63p, ki l led the demon, and raised the earth on hls

.! 1i \ \ \ ' r l ) . The legend looks back to the Brdhmanas, but' , . , , l , r t loped through a primit ive non-Aryan cult r i f a sacred

, I r , , , rr l t of the Boar incamation was imPortant in somepartsof, r , n ( ; u l ) t a t i m e s .

r I I ' t ' Ntan-Lion (Narasimha\, Another demon, Hira4ya-t . 1 ' , r . l , , r , l r l r te ined a boon f rom Brahrn i ensur ing tha t he cou ld no t' i , i , I r ' i t l re r b1 'day or n igh t by god, n tan or beas t . Thus sa fe-

r , 1, I l r ' ' Jrcrsccuted gods and nten, including his own pious sonl 1l. , , l . r \ \ 'hen Prahlada cal led on Vi;1u for help the god burstt, ' r , .r l ,r l l . rr of the denron's palace at sunset, when i t was neither

,rr r , , ,r , lay, in a form half man and half l ion, and slew Hiratya-| . i ' ,1 N.rrasir.nha was worshipped as their special divinity ( iplafu-

l,r ;r srnall sect, and was often depicted in sculpture'' ) I l r t ' I)warf (Vamana). A demon named Bali gained control

' ' , ' , , ' s,r ' ld, and commenced a course of asceticism, by which his1 , rn.rtrrral power so increased that he menaced even the gods.\ rrrr .r ; ,1,t 'apgd before him in the form of a dwarf,end asked as a boon.. r, ,rr, l r sl)ace as hecould cover in three str ides. When the boon was

1,r rrrr r l t l rc god became a giant, and in two str ides covered eart l l ,I r r r n ;rrrrl thc middle air. Magnanimously he refrained from takingI r lr i r , l str ide, and left the infernal regions to the demon. The, , ' ' : ,r( l)s of Vig4u are as old as the .Bg Yeda,but other popular' ilr'ilr\ rvcre incorporated into the story.

r, ) I ' ; r raSurdma ( " Rima with the Axe " ). Viglru took human form. r l , ' \ ( ,rr of a br5hma4 Jamadagni. When his father was robbed by, , '. ', Lt.tl liing Kartavirya, ParaSurema killed the latter. Jamadagni,. , , , runr ki i led by the sons of Kirtavirya, after which the enraged| , , , ,r .rrna destrol 'ed al l the males of the l ightr iya class twenty-one, , ,, . rr srx:ccssion. Though Para6urdma is frequently referred to ini r , r . ,rrr, ' , l rc seems rarely to have been special ly worshipped

;1 l i . i rrrr, Prince of Ayodhyi and hero of the Riimdyana. Vignu,,, ' I r I r .r t ( ( I l r i rnself in t l i is form to save the world from the oppressions

I r i ' ' r l r ,nr()n l lavana. To one who is not a Hindu his story is rather a| ' rr ' r ( , f l i tcrature than cf rel igion and i t wi l l L,e told iu a latcrcltrpter

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(p. +r+tr). Rima may have been a chief who lived in the 8th or ?thcentury 0.c., and in the earl iest fcrm of the story he has no divine

attributes. Though he was believed to be an earlier incarnation thanKrsna, his cult developed later than Kygna's, and does not appear to have

become very inrportant until toll'ards the end of our period. Rdma is

usually depicted as of dark hue, often bearing a bow alrd arrorv. He isattended by his faithful queen Siti, the personification of wifelydevotion, an4 often also by his three loyal brothers, Lakgmana,Bharata and Satrughna, and by his friend and helper, the monkey-godHanumant. To his devotees Rdma combines the ideals of the gentle,faithful husband, the leader brave in hardship, and the just andbenevolent king. It i.s perhaps significant that his cult only becamereally popular after the Muslim invasion.

(a) Klqna is undoubtedly the most important of the incarnationsof Viq4u, His legend in its final form is very long and can only beoutlined briefly here.

Kyg4a was born at Mathuri, of the tribe of the Yadavas, His father wasVasudeva, and his mother u'as Devaki, the cousin of the ruling King liar.nsa. I

It was prophesied that Iiar.nsa rvould be killed by Devaki's eighth son, so heset out to destroy all her children. But Krsna and his elder brother Bala-rima were saved, and were brought up as the sons of the cowherd Nandaand his wife YaSodd. Kalnsa, bearing that the boys had escaped his clutches,ordered the slaughter of all the male children in his kingdorn, btrt Nandasmuggled the boys away, first to Vraja and then to Vpdivana, districts notfar from Mathuri which are still very sacred to K1g4a.

In his childhood the incamate god performed many miracles, killingdemons, and sheltering the cowherds from a storm by holding l\{ountGovardhana over their heads with his finger; he also played numerouschildish pranks, such as stealing YaSodi's butter. In his adolescence he hadmany amours u'ith the wives and daughters of the coq'herds (go2is), andacconrpanied their dances on his flute. His favourite was the beautifulRadha.

But his youthful days soon ended. Kar.nsa traced him and rnade furtherattempts on his life. Kygpa then gave up his idyllic pastoral ways, and tumedon his wicked cousin. I{e slew Kar.nsa, and seized the kingdom of Mathurd,but, pressed betrveen Kar.nsa's father-inJaw, Jarisandha king of Magadha,and an unnamed Yavana king of the North-\\'est, he was forced toIeave his kingdom, and rvith his followers founded a new capital atDvirakd in Saurishtra. Here he made Rukmili, daughter of the king ofVidarbha (modern Berar), his chiefqueen, and amassed a total ofover l6,000wives and lSo,ooo sons. His adventures at this stage of his career include

I There is some ambiguity about thc relationship ofKarlsa and Iirsne, oting to thcItct that Indian us"ge malcs no sharp distinction beiu'cen brothers or i isicrs andiousins.Hence Kamsa is oftdn rcfcrred to as i(Jgpa's uncle, v'lren according to strict Iinglish usagethe two were second couins.

r r r . r - rc toN: cu lTs , DocTRtNEs AND METAPHYSICS 3O7

. I ' ,r, ri,'n of rvicked kings and demons all over fndia. Throughout the, r't,,. .llrh,ibhdrata he appears as the constant friend and advisor of

l .ll,,l.rvas, and he preached the great sermon of the Bhagar;ad Gita. , | ,.lirre the battle rvhich is the centre of the epic story.

\ ', r ,,, , irrg the Pi4davas safely installed in the Kuru land, Krsna re-, l r ,r . l )rrral i i , l lere ominous portents beset the city, as the Yddava

, r . ,l,r.r r,.llcd arrrong thenrselves. Klg4a bamed strong drink, in the hoJ>e| , . rrr. ()f l t l re evi l day, but on the occasion of a fest ival he relaxed t lre. 'l lrr. \'iidava chicfs began to brarvl, and the rvhole city was soon in up-

, I I ( )r all his divinity, Krp4a could do nothing to quell the feud, which in-1.,,1 t lrc u'hole people. His son Pradyumna was ki l led before his eyes,t l,r. l.ritlrful brother Balarima wounded to death; nearly all the chiefs of

, \.,,l.rvas were slain. K; g4a dejectedly wandered in a forest near ther r . rlrcrc., as he sat musing on the loss of his friends and family, a hunter

; ., 'l lrirrr through the undergrorvth and nristook him for a deer. An arrowi , r , , ,1 lr is heel, which l ike that of Achi l les was his one vulnerable spot,' I l,, rlicd. The city of Dviraki was then swallowed by the sea.

( )l rlrc many elements which have gone to the making of this story,r rr . f 'Krsna as hero was the earl iest to have been given a place in

, r lnrlox tradition. A Kp;na son of Devaki is mentioned in one of the, , ' l r ' l :pani,sads6e as studying the nerv doctr ines of the soul, and i t

, rrr.; t'crtain that there is some historiial basis for the legend o[r) ,. lr,.r.t>godl but evidently tales of many heroes from many ages and, tr , \ ' I)arts of India have been fused together in the Krgpa myth,,, , l rr , l i rr{ a ferv rvhich seem rather inconsistent with the general char-,, r t .r ' () f the conquering hero, such as that of l t is somewhat igno-| .uri , )us retreat from Mathuri. Other elements in the story, such asr , . r l t 'struct ion of the Yadavas and the death of the god, are quite' ' l rr , l ian in their tragic character. The themes of the drunken brawl

l , r , l rn11 to general slaughter, of the hero slain by an arrow piercing' , 'r rr: r'ulnerable spot, and of the great city engulfed by the sea, are, ll Iinou'n in European epic literature, but do not occur eiservherer rlr.rt of India, and are not hinted at in the Vedas. The concept of

' , ,lling god, so widespread in the ancient Near East, is found, , ,r ir.r'c clse in Indian mythology. Kar.nsa, the wicked cousin, seemsr , , . l ro I lerod, and perhaps also Acrisius, the cruel grandfather ofr', r .,, us. Sonre parts of the legend may_be derived from very ancientr,,r r, s, lranded dou'n and developed by Aryan wariors from the days, t ,rr . l l rcy entered India; others are of indigenous origin; and yet'i r r:; irrc possibly inspired by garbled versions of tales from the

\ \ , . t .l , r , : .r :L in his pastoral and erotic aspect is evidently of dif ferent

,r l rr l i 'orrt I i rgna the hero. The name means " black", and the god is,. , l l r ' , lcJrictcd as of that colour. Perhaps the oldest clear reference

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3O8 THE WoNDER TI IAT w^s TNDIA

to the pastoral Krqna is in the early Tamil anthologies, where"the Black One" (ItIay64) plays his flute and sports witlr milkmaids.He nray have been original ly a fert i l i ty god of the Peninsula, whosecuit was carr ied to the North by nornadic tr ibes of herdsmen. A tr ibewhiclr appeared in Milwi and the Western Deccan early in the Chris-tian era, the Abhiras, is thought to have played a big part in the pro-pagation of the worship of Krgpa Govinda ( " Lord of llerdsma.n ", r

a very conlmon epithet of the god in this aspect).The young Krpr.ra's erotic exploits }iave been the source of much

romantic literature which, superficially, contains but a faint religiouselement. Invariably, however, the love of the god for the cowhen!.;'wives is interpreted as symbolic of the love of God for the humrnsoul, The notes of Krg4a's flute, calling the women to leave the,rhusbands' beds and dance with hirn in the moonlight, represent thrvoice of God, calling man to leave earthllr things and turn to the jo,vsof divine love. So Jerv and Christian alike have interpreted the Sori5of Songs, and so many mystical poets of all religions have depictedtheir spir i tual experience. Despite i ts luxuriant erot icism the legendof the Divine Cowherd has produced greatrel igiouspoetry (p. +sof ),and inspired many pious souls.

The third element of the Krg4a legend is that of the chi ld god.This is definitely the latest part to be assimilated, and i ts origin isquite unknown. Can it be partly inspired by tales brought byChrist ian merchants or Nestorian missionarics to the west coast o[India in the early Middle Ages? Most authorit ies would deny this, butwe do not reject the possibi l i ty out of hand. [n any case, the storyof the child Ky94a, often depicted in later sculpture as a plunrp infantcrawling on all fours, gave the god a rare conrpleteness. As hero hemet the worshipper's need of a divine father and elder brother; as theyoung cowherd, he was a divine lover; and as infant, a son. Thecult of the child Krgna made a special appeal to the warm matemity ofIndian womanhood; and even today the simpler women of India,while worshipping the divine child, so delightfully naughty despitehis mighty power, refer to themselves as "the Mother of God ".

Visudeva, the popular god of Western India in the early centuries8.c., was early identified with Ky94a, and it may be that the name,falsely interpreted as a patronymic, resulted in the tradition thatK194a's father was called Vasudeva ( rvith short a in the first syllable ) .Other deities, originally independent, were associated with Krg4a inone way and another. Chief of these was his elder brother Balara-nra,

. Gwirda is probably a Prikrit word, absorbed by Sanskrit in its original form. T}ecorrect Sanskrit equivalent would thus be Gopadra. On the onhodox assumption rhetthe word is pure Sanskrit its translation would be "Cow-finder",

t f ,L lc loN: cul ,Ts, DOCTRTNE8 AND METApHysrc, 3og. , ,., l lr., l I laliyudha (..Armed with a ?lough,,) and Sarikarqala.! .,,, .r, l ,ca-ring a wg.odgl

.plough-on his shlouljer, was originaily, ' ' | ! ' , l .rrr.al deiry. Traditionally he was a heavy drinker

"ia i,ul

. ' , I l lr( ' characteristics of a Silenus. Templesio him existed at, r,nr(., lrut his importance waned in the tr4icldle Ages, as that oit, ,,r ur( rcascd. l,ess important were the cults of Krlna;s son pra_,,,.,f r,r, .r,{ ' lr is grandson Aniruddha, ancl of his friend'Arjuna, ther ,rr, l.rr.r lrr 'ro, The chief feminine associate of l i lg4a was niaha, ttre

{..,, 'rrt(, rrristress of his youth, who was often worshipped with him, rlrr. l;rtc Middle Ages. Rukmili, his chief qu""rr, also received

. . f I r . t ( ' \ ' ( ' f c n c e .

1't) lluddha, the last historical incarnation of Vi94u. According to, r r lrcologians the god became Buddha in order to delude"the.,, 1., ,1, lcad them to deny the Vedas, and thus ensure their damna_

|,,r l . f .r1'adeva's Gita Go' inda, ho*,ever, which contains one of the' ' r l rr sr l ists of incarnations, states that visnu became Buddha out of

, , ,1,.rrsion for anirnals,60 in order to put an end to bloody sacri f ice.l l ,rr 1,11rlrai ly gives a clue to the true background of the Buddhar \ . , l . rr ir . He was included in the l ist, as otheideit ies were included,'rr r '1r11'1 to assimilate heterodox elements into the vaigr]avite foldlI , ,r ] l ( lyi_t_g recenrly the tenrple of the Buddlra at Gayi was in the' ',, | ' .f I lindus, and the teacher was there worshippei b-v HinJu"

"s, l l rrrr lu god; but in general l tde attention wus paid to the Buctdhar \ , t l . i l i l .

( r o) Kalkin, the incarnation yet to come. At the end of this dark' '1' ' ' . \ ' jsnu rvil l appear in the form of a man mounted or, "

*hit" hoi.",,,rh a l iaming sword in his lrand. He wil l judge the wicked, ."*u.i' l ,r ' [r)od, and restore the age of gold. Thir*is a late adclit ion to'.rr*r.ravite myth, and does not play: a very irnportant part in l i tera-r,ri( ' ()r iconography, though it i i said ihut'm"ny simple Hindus',1',r ' t lrc,K:lkt. very-seriouslj, and long for his airival just as old_'.nr, 'n('d Lnnstlans look lbrward to the sccond conring of Christ.I lrrirt ian parallels have been found, especially with tl" f;orr".un oir ,, l look of Revelation,or but the main inspiration of the Kalkin mayr.,\( '( 'orne from Buddhism, r.r,hich taughf the conring of Maitrevi

li',ltllra long be.fore the Vaiq4avites devi"sed the Kalkinl Z"r;;rtd;r,l, ;1s 1113y also have helped in the formation of the rnyttu

. i r r L r

Alrrr<;st as popular as the numerous forms of Vig4u was Siva, whorr , , l r t r l l rorn t l re f ierce Vedicgod Rudra (p.s+a) ,* i th*hom;; r ; ; ;' l ' | r.r ' i 'rrs of a non-Aryan ferti l i ty deity.' Though developed s"i},"r '. 'r r\ r ltefr made of their cliosen di' inity a wholry moral and patemal

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father in lreaven, Siva's character, unlike that of Vi;nu, is ambivalent.I Ie lurks in horr ible places, such as batt lef ields, burning-grou'rds andcrossroads, which, in India as in [urope, uere looked on as very in-auspicious. He wears a garlanC ofskul ls and is surrounded bv ghosts,evil spirits and demons. IIe is rleath and time (IlIaheAala), whichtlestroy al l things.

But he is also a great ascetic, and the patroh deity of asceticsgeneral ly. On the high slupcs of the l l imalayan l \{ount Kai l isaSiva, the great yogi, si ts on a t iger skin, deep in meditat ion, andthrough his meditat ion t lre uori<l is nraintairred. He is depicted thrrsas wcaring his long nrattccl Lair (yalA) in a topknot, in r.r'hich thecrescent rnoon is fixed. and frorn rvhicll florvs the sacred river Gangi.In the middle of his forehead is a third eye, emblem of his superiorwisdom and insight. His neck is black, scarred by a deadlypoisonwlrich was the last of the otrjects churned from tlre cosmic ocean, andwhich he drank to save tlie other gods from destruction. Snakes, ofw'hich he is the loi'd, encircle his neck and arms. His body is coveredrvith aslres, a favourite ascetic practice. Beside him is his weapon,the trident, while near him are lris beautiful wife Parvati and hisnlount, the bull Nandi.

Though in this aspect Siva is continually rvrapped in meditation, hecan, in his divine power, divide his personaii ty. I{e is not only thegod of nrystical stillness, but als-o the Lord of the Dance (Nalardja)(pl. XXXVIII). 1-l i is aspect of Siva is special ly popular in' the Tanri lcountry, rvhere religious dancing was part of the earliest knorvntradit ion. In lr is heavenly palace on Mount Kai lasa, or in hissouthcrn lronre, the temple of Cidanrbaram or Ti l lai (near the sea-coast about f i i ty nri les south of Pondicherry), nryst ical l-y identi f ledwith KailJsa, Siva dances. I{e has invented no less than l08 dif fei 'entdances, some calm and gentle, others fierce, orgiastic and terrible.Of the latter the most farnous is tb,e tar3daaa, in w'hich the angrygod, surrounded by his drunken attendants (gurJ^), beats out arvildrhythm rvhich destroys the rvorid at the end of the cosmic cycle.

A firrther fornr in wlrich the god is worsiripped is known as the"South-facing" (Daksindrnurti); in this aspect hc is the universaltcacher, dcpicted in an inforrnal pose, u'ith one foot on thegroLrnd arrC t lre other on the throne on which he sits, and with onelrrnd rai.scd in a gesture c[ explanation. This f<rrnr of Siva perhapso\\ 'es sonrct l) ing to Bucldhist inspirat ion.

IJut Siva r las and st i l l is chief ly * 'orshipped in the form of thel i ige (pl. XVIIb), usual ly a sholt cyl irrdrical pi l lar rvi th roundedtop , u i r i c l : i s t l re sun ' i va l o f a cu l t o ldcr then ind i rn c iv i l i za t ion i t se l f .Phall i l :ave beerr found in t l-re I iarappl remains. Early Tamil l i tera-

HIr . rGloN: cuLTs, DocTRrNEs AND t r {ET^pHystcs g l t' ' r, ft r. to t]re settingup of ritual posts, which seem to have been,.rr Irtt ' ')s. The Juliof th" t i, id;;;; l i i imes foltowed by some, rr',.-.\11'1t., p_liples, ou, i.rco.po.atea inio Hinduism

"roi"Jif,". Lrg 'f ' t lre Clrristian*era, though at f irst it was not "";t ir*' ,lir ,\s early as the fg, I/cda, Rud,ra, the mountain goa, was, r,.,J.*ith plants and animals. The horned ithyphall ic sla

"l' ; , ' ,,,, l)aro, surrorrnded by anirnals, may well U" t"trl p.otoffi oi, .,r rlrc parron of reproduction in men, animals *a pf"ni 'r l-tn' ,nr lrc is luiorvn as paiupati ( ' ,Ircrd otBeasts,,)

"na i. on"n,rrt 'r l in South India as afour'armed man, with Jne h*d i";;' ' , l t

.,f blessing, the second- open, as though Lrto*ing . a;;, ;;.,,, ' ,,

' i , . tJi ird, an<l a.small deer springingirom tt" nft.r,. i ' t f,"' ' '"" saivite sects declare that siva has performed a series of. ' r.rSr but these are pure imitations of those of Viq4u *d h;;'I I 'h)'cd.a big part.in. Saivite.thought The god tur, to*"*",

,, ,rcd lrimself from time to time ii theophanie., or i"k"n t"nn_' 'r ' . irrcarnation to destroy demons or test the vrrtue of warriors orNunrerous legends are told of him. some of them quit" u.,"orr,-: r , rrl 'r) ' . - l- lre most farn.us of these legends is that of ir is ...r ir."' 1" ' r r r r i , tLe t lar rg l r ter of I I i rn i la l 'a , the"personi f ied; ; i l " i ; ; . " "

I i . r,,cxls were troubled.by the demon Tiraka, and it was prophesied thatI i<rrrly.be destroyed b1, t'e child of Siva ani the Daughter oi th"N;;;:Ilut Siva was contirrually rvrappcd in rne,itation, an. the rrrosrrcct ofr , , . , iu, ing gffspring.se"nreJ to t l ie other gods to be'faini; , ; ; ;" ; ."?;;-I" irvati , the beauti fur derrghter of lr i rni l iya, was scnt at their behest to

, ' , t,11

li.,"a, but thorrgh slre rnade. nrany att"enrpt.s to win the goa,r"tt"nl| . r,, took rro notice ofircr, and in the c,Lrse ofherefforts ffa_-", ito toro-' 't Ir. had-done his best to help her to win him, was burnt to u.i,". t u tr,u,, .. irorn Siva's third eye. At last pirvati aeciaJ;;'i;il;;"" ;iJl;, r', t'ticism, flfing_ u.ide h"" orn"rfnr, .tu-Ulurn" a hermitess on a,r l ,y nrak, and in this guise Siva noticed her and fel l in love *i ; ; ;" :I , ,

,\\ {rre.married ata great ceremony at which all the gods toot puri, *i' rr I'Jrr-ati ee'e birt'to the_wa.r_god Skanda, who, whEnhe g;J;;;;;. , t r l r ' : tro).cd the delnon TEraka]

lrr f"rrrt l r India a rather similar story is told of the marriage of sivaI \ 1 rrriksi, daughter of a Rir;rdyan k-ing of Madurai, and the event is,

r,, ; rrlorated by one of the most fairous and splendid .f S";thI r . , r r t c rnp les .

, - Iitlations cf yi;r1u and Sioa

, " ,,',

119 Ueginning of the Christian era, if not before, most

"' rr.tt Il indus have been either vaignavites or s"i"it"Jir,i,l 'r".

THE WONDER TI {AT W.{S IND'A

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312 THE WONDER THAT V/As INDIA

say they have looked on either Vig4u or Siva as the high god, or in-deed as the only God, the others being merely secondary expressionsof the divine, holding rather the same positions as the saint.s and angelsin the mind of the Roman Cathol ic. Thus the Vaisnavite docs notdeny the existence of Siva, but bel ieves that he is merely one godamong many, the creation or emanation of Vignu or of his demiurgeBrahnri. In the same rvay the Saivite looks on Vislru as an emanationof Siva. Occasionally thii difference of viewpoint has led to friction andsome degree ofpersecution, but generally the t$'o great divisions ofHinduism bave rubbed along happily together, in the conviction thaton ult imate analysis both are eclual ly r ight.. Hinduism is essential lytolerant, and rvould rather assimilate than r igidly exclude. So thewiser Vaiglavites and Saivites recognized very early that the godswhom they worshipped were different aspects of the same divinebeing. The Divine is a diarnond of innumerable facets; two very largeand bright facets are Vippu and Siva, while the others represeni all thegods that were ever worshippcd. Some facets seem larger, brighter,and better pol ished than others, but in fact the devotee, whatever hissect, worships the wholc diamond, which is in reality perfect. The moredevout Hindus, even when illiterate and ignorant, have always beenfundamentally monotheist. Thus in the Bhagaoad Gitd K19pa bays:

" If any worshipper do reverence with faithto any god whatever,

I make hi.s faith firm,and in that faith he reverences his god

and gains his desires,for it is I who bestow them."r2

With this background of tolerance it is not surprising that attemptswere made to harnronize Vaisnavism and Saivism. As early as Guptatimes tlrere was devised a holy trinity of Hinduism, the Trimurti orTriple Form of Brahml the creator, Visnu the preserver, and Siva thedestroyer. The doctrine of the Trimlrti was popular in some circles,and is proclaimed in a finc h1'6p of KilidAse which inspired e oncewell-known poem of Emerson:

"Praise to you, O Trinity,one bcfcrre creation,

afteru'ards dividedin your three quali t ier l . . .

t 'You. the one causeof death and life and bir&,

in your three formsprocleinr your o,r"n glory. . .

nELtotott: cuLTs, DoqTntNEs AND METAPHystca Sls

" In the cycle ofyour day and nightall things live and all thingr die.

\['hen you wake we live,when you sleep we perish. . . .

" Hard and soft, large and small,lreavy and light, you are all things.

)'ou are both substance and fornr,ineffable in power. . . .

"You are the knower and the known,you are the eater and the food,

you are the priest and the oblation,you are the worshipper and the prayer."6t

l i ;rr ly western students of Hinduism were impressed by the paral lell ,rr \ \ ' r ' ( 'n the Hindu tr ini ty and that of Christ ianity. In fact the paral lel,r nr,t very close, and the Hindu tr ini ty, unl ike the l{oly Trinity oft l ,rrrt ianity, never real ly "caught on". Al l Hindu tr ini tarianisrnr, n, l( .( l to favour one god of the three; thus, from the context i t is, l , . .rr l l rat Kal idasa's hymn to the Trimirt i is real ly addressed tolrr.r lrrrr i , here looked on as the high god. The Trim[rt i was intr, | ,rn art i f ic ial growth, and had l i t t le real inf luence.

,\rr. t l rer signif icant syncretism was the god Harihara (Hari beingr trr lr '<rf Visnu and Hara of Siva), worshipped in the form of an iconrrl , , l r <'ombined characterist ics o[ both gods. The cult of Harihare,1, ' , loped in the middle ages, and had some success in the Deccan,rr lr.r't: llarihara temples were patronized by Vijayanagara kings, andrr lrt.r c the god is still worshipped.

7lr llother Goddtss

Nlother Goddesses were worshipped at al l t imes in India, but1,, trvl t 'n the days of the Harappi. Culture and the Gupta period the, ' r l ts of goddesses attracted l i t t le attention from the leamed and in-l l rr .rrt i ;r l , and only emerged frorn obscurity to a posit ion of real im-l ' , ' r r .ur( c in the Middle Ages, when ferninine divinit ies, theoretical lyr r,11v11 1 tg1l with the gods as their spouses, were once more worshippedl, \ ' I l r( ' rrpper classes.

'llrc goddess was the lakti, the strength or potency of her male

(,, ,r ' ) tr .r l)art. I t was thought that the god was inactive and trans-, , r r , l r ' r r t , wh i le h is female e lement was ac t ive and immanent , and bytlrr ' ( i rrJrt l pcriod the wives of the gods, whose existence had alwayr1,, ' r1 v11'1r*rt lred but who had been shadowy f igures in earl ier the-,,1,'1;y, l.regan to be worshipped in special templec. In the early 6th

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g l + T H E W O N D E R T H A T W A S I N D I A R E L I G I O N : C U L T S , D O C T R I N E S A N D M E T A P H Y S I O ' 3 I 6

I t tsrr Gois

.\r s.: l l as Visnu, Siva and Durgi, many other f lods were rvor-t, 1,;x 'r l . Llnl ike the gods of the Veda, the new gods of Hinriuism

\\, r ( . r)o l<-rnqer closely t ied to natural phenomena, but were thought| l l r()rc anthropornorphical ly.

I ;rahna, the Prajapati of later Vedic t imes, had a history of slow,r, I ine. In the early Buddhist scriptures he and Indra rvere the

l, | ,.iuest of the gods, and in th e Mahibhdrata he was stilt very important;l ' ' rr t l rough depicted in medieval sculpture, son:et imes lvi th four faces,l ' rvaS l i t t le worslr ipped after Gupta t imes. A single temple ofl l r .r l rrnl, by the sacred lake Pugkara near the modern Ajrner, ist l , , ' only one known.

' l he numerous solar deit ies of the Vedas were merged in Hinduism

rrrr, , a single god, usually known as Sir la ("the Sun") (pl. XXVIa)lrr ( iupta ancl medieval t imes there existed numerous ternples of the', ' ; rr , especiai ly in \ l 'estern India, which was open to Zoroastr ian in-l l rr lnr 'c, ard some r;f his rvorslr iPPers seem to have looked on him ast l r ( ' g rca tes t god o f a l l .

" i{e uho is worshipped by the host of gods that they may l ive,and by the blesseti for their weifare,

by ascetics, rvho suppress their senses, itrtent on meilitation, for theirsalvation.

-lnay that shiring one, cause of the world's rise and de,cline, pro-tect you.

"- l- ]re divine seers, u' ise in true knowledge, for al l t l reir efforts havenot known hirn rvlrol ly,

rvhose ravs reach out to nourish the tlrrce rvorlds,n'lroni gods and demigods and rnen hyrnn together as he rises,

rvho f'ul6ls the desires of his u'orshippers-homafe to t l re Sun! "66

Irr comparison with the sun, the Moon (Candra or Soma), nlascu-l , r r r . in gender , had bu t -s l igh t rc l ig ious i tnpor tance, be ing l i t t ler r r , , r t , t l r rn an emblem o f S i l ' a . He had no independent cu l t , bu t 'w l rs.. . , , ,r . l r ipped as one of the nine planets (p. +ss). The cult of t i re

r r. i l r( ts rvas popularized by the growth of astrology in medievalrrur( r, and representations of them are fair ly numerous.

I nlra, the Vedic war-god, lo.st much of his prestige but gained nerv.r | | | r l )utcs, l !{ounted on his elephant Air ivata, he was guardian o[ the, , \ t( r 'n ( luarter of the universe, and ruler of -one of the lower heavens,\rrr;rravatl . Under an alternati i 'e name, Sakra, perhaps original lyn , l r f l i ' r cn t god, he was among the ch ie f d iv in i t ies o [ ear ly Budd l r i snr ,

century an inscript ion of Western India tel ls of a certain N{ay[r i-kEaka,

"nrinister of the king, who estaLl ished, to gain nreri t ,this most arvful tcmple,

a temple filled u'ith dernonesses, . . .sacred to the N{others, u'ho shoLrt

most loudlv in the thick darkness.where t l ,e lotuses arc slrahen

by the fierce 'winds

aroused by nragic spells."ol

Frorn this t inre onwards the N{othcr Goddess increased in impor-tance, unti l the wave of delot ional Vaisnal isnr swept Northern In, l laearly in the Musiim period, and stopped t ire py6g1-s5r of her cult ,which is still strong in Bengal and Assant, and is }urorvn in otherparts of India.

The chief form of tlle Jvlotlrer Goddess rvas that of t]'re rvife of Siva,called in her benevolent aspect Parz'ati ("Daughter of the Moun-t1h"),_ fu[ahddeai ("the Great Goddess"), Sati ("the Virtuous"),Gauri ("the Fair One"), Annali l r4d ("Bestorver of i t fuch Food"),or simply "the lvfother" (Mat,r,Tami| Annai), In her grirn aspeitshe qas known as Durgd ("Inaccessible"), Kal i ("the Black One"),and Cay(i ("the Fierce"). The terrible T."nril u'ar-goddess Kor-lavai, wbo danced among the slain on the battlefield and ate theirflesh, thicugh independent in origin, r,r'as early identified with her.

In her fierce aspect she is often depicted as a horrible hag (pl.XXXVIIb), frequently with many arms bearing different weapons,vith fierce carnivorous tusks, a red tongue lolling from her mouth,and a garland of skulls. Her mount is a lion, and she is sometimesshown' as a sternly beautiful l\'oman, sla-ying a buffalo-headeddemon in the manner of St. George and the dragon. T hemore gentle aspcct of the goddess is- that of a beauti ful youngwornan, often portrayed rvith her lord Siva, An interesting icono-graphical developnrent is that of the Ardhandriioara, a fig.ure half Sivaand half Pirl'ati, represenring the union of the god *n;ith his Sakti.As Siva is worshipped in the liriga or phallic emblem, so Durgi. isworshipped rrr tlre female emblem, or loni. According to legendPirvati, in the incarnation before that in rvhich she became the bricieof Siva, had been born as Sati, the daughter of the sage Daksa, andhad then also become the wife of the great god. V'hen her fatherquarrelled *'ith her divine lord she flung herself into the flanres of hissacrificial fire, and the ashes ofher yoni fell in various spots in India,which becanre the pithas, or sacred shrines of her cult.

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3 r 6 T H E W O N D E R T H A I ' W A S T N D T A

second only to Brahma=. By the Middle Ages he had ferv temples orworshippers.

,. r:runo,the all-seeing god of the Vedas (p. 2s8ff), descended from

nls l leave'ly palace to become a god of the u.aters, but he remainedthe guardian of the western quuit"" of the uni'erse. The cult ofVaruna disappeared early, thougl Tarnil fishermen iong worshippJa_marine- deity called Varunan, in the er'blem of a ..sliark,s ho;;,.1-his. god, however, is clearly an indigenous Tamil divinity *h; h"jacquired an Aryan name.

__To*o, guardian of the southern quarter, the death_god of tbeVedas, was still remembered, -though rarely if

"u"" .p&iully *o.-

shipped. His role had sonrewhat al"tered, for he was io fon[", ti,"chcerful lord of paradise, but the stern juttge of the .l.u,l, *li;; o;tover.the purgatories where trre wickei siffered until thei-Juirtti.TtlO*

of,a divine judge, theoretically unnecessary according to thedoctnne ol karma, may have been irnported from tlie West, where it$'as loown -in many cults. Sornetimes yama, aided by his clerkcitragupta, is described as weigrring the deeds of the souls of the deadin a balance, rather like the Egyptiin Thorh.

The northem quarter *or ili"d by the god Kubera,lord of preciousrnetals,. miner"l*, j:y:k, and wealth geneially. This god, uila"i ti"attematlve name VaiSrava4a-, first appears briefly and iaintly in laterVedic l iterature, and is u.ell knou.n in Buddhism and Jainism. Hedwells in the beautiful jewellcd city of Alaki, near Mtunt Kail isa,and

13m1na1ds hosts gf gn_o1e_s (guiyaka) and fuiries (1ak;a). H" i;

usuallJ'deprcted as a dw,arfish figure with a large pauncii. IIe rvas theobject of a cult, tbough not of in important oie., These four gods, Yama, Indra, Vaiu4a and Kubera, were known asLohaPdlas, or Guardians of the Uni'erse. In late texts four furtherguardians of the intermediate quarters were added_,Soza in thefolh{ast,

Ydyu _(the.wind-goi) in the North_West, )gii i" riri

south-.Last,.and Sirla in the South_\tr/est. Of these Agnf, the fire_god, was-still important at the time of the Epics, but he too lost much.l- his hold on the imagination in later times, while Viyu, tf," *ina-$9u1.*ur.a vague and tenuous deitv, except in the late school ofMadhva (p. sso) .

. Th" y1.-So<) Skanda, also called Kumira (,,Th. prince,,), Ka.r/r._L1f und;.in the South, Subr.ahmanya, ru", p.obubl.y orlginolly a nor*Aryan divinity. He was the sori of siv; and pirvatiand-his sorefunction, according to ortlrodox tradition, was to slay the demon,totun".,

wnlctl,scarcely accounts for his great popularity. From theb-eginning of the Christian era tlre cult oi St ai-,a" was widespread inNorth India, though it declined someu,hat in medieval t imes. In the

RELIGION: CULTS, DOCTRINES AND METAPHYSTCS 3 I7

S.rrt lr i t was even more inrportant, for the name and attr ibutes of the

l ' ' , ,1 rvcre irnposed on the chief deity of the ancient Tamils, Muruga!,l ,v rvlr ich name Skanda is st i l l sometimes known in the Tamil country.l . I rrrtrgn4 in his original form was a rnountain god, worshipped in bac-, i ' . rrral ian dances, at which he was inrpersonated by a medicine-manlr, , l1f i1;g a spear (vela4), wl.rom the dancers identi f ied with the god.| 1.. aroused passion and erotic frenzy in girls and women, and the,l rnt'cs ol Muruga! were evidently orgiastic. The Tamil Muruga!\\.rs anncd u'ith a spear, and joined his fierce mother Iioryavai in her,,rrrrr ibal feasts on the batt lef ield; hence his identi f icat ion with theA r 1 :rn Skanda is not surprising, though l\{uruga!'s original character.. :r [e rt i l i ty god is evident even today. Skanda is usually depicted asr lr ;rn, lson)e young man, often with six faces, mounted on a peacock.

(),tleia or Galtapati, "Chief of the Gatqas" (a class of demigod{rt(.n(l iurt on Sivi), another son of Siva and Pirvati , is bne,,1 thc best krown'Indian divinit ies in the'West. He has an ele-

1,1'.rrr t ' .s lread u' i th one broken tusk and a fat paunch, and he r ides on a rat.\rrnrig t lre latest of the gods of the Hindu pantheon, he is not attestedl ' , l , ' r 'c t l re 5th century . ,r .o., and ire u'as of l i t t le irnportance before the\ l r , l , l l c Ages . Ev ident ly he is the surv iva l o f a p r im i t i ve non-Aryanrl, 1,)1111f god, but in Hinduism he has becorne mild and cultured. He., r lrr : "Lord of Obstacles" (Yighnelaara), and is worshipped at the

l, r ' . rrr) inE of al l undertakings to remove snags and hindrances. l le, . l . r r t i cu la r ly in te res ted in l i te ra ry and educat iona l ac t i v i t ies , and is, , l ' . r tron of grammarians; manuscfipts and printed books often be-, ,r rr i t l r t l re auspicious formula Sri-Ga4eia1,a namall , "Reverence toI ' r , l ()aneSa". The clreerful and benevolent elephant-god was, and' r , l l is, rcvered by nearly every I ' l indu, u'he ther Vaignavite or Saivite.\ . . rrr;r l l rnedieval sect looked on him as their chief god, but his status1, , . , 11r'neral ly been comparatively hunrble, though important.

I l t tumant, the monkey god, the son o[Viyu and the fr iend and' r.rrrt of I l ima, \ .r 'as no doubt a popular deity long before his in-,, ,11'r, ;11'11;n in the pantheon. He is st i i l an important vi l lage god,.. . , ' r ' l r i1 '1;ed in many shrines in the form of a monkey with more orlessl i ,nr.nr lx)( ly. He is a beneficent guardian spir i t , and in his honourr, ' , ,rr l ,r .r , '5 are general ly looked on as sacred.

h,tnt (" |)esire "), known by many other names and epithets, wasrl ' . l rr , l ian love-god. Like his European counterpart he is depicted.! .r l r .rn(lsorne youth, armed with a bow and arrow, but the IndianI r, 's lurs a bow of sugar<ane strung with a row of bees, and his. l | , , \ \ \ arc f lowers. He is attended by a troop ofnymphs (apsarases),, ,"r ' r '1 11 l ;1;1111 carr ies his standard, which bears a sea-monster. Kima,: rr l .r ' rcr l to in the "Hymn of Creation" (p. e.fof; and in certain

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5 1 8 TI IE I I 'ONDER THAT WAS tNDtA

3theq Jc.<t]c passafles. a.s beirrg_ the firstborn of the primeval chaos,but this kttma is certainl-y not fhe Hindu love_god, but ,rg,,.t;, f i"rls.nif ied c.sr' ic desire.. On the strengtlr of these *o.ly ,"i".., i .!"ituas generally beliere.l bv trre thec-,lo=gians of l l induism tt"t ria,r,"had no parents, but enrerged spontaneiusly at the beginning .i i l ;;to act as a catalvst in trre urri 'ersal process. His i iou'eri arrorvsa.tii'ct gods an,l me. alike, a'd h."; .;t;;; u"." lr.*"t"'ii;';their purpose-rvhen riama attempted io rouse tit" p".rio., oi-ir',"gleat god Siva, and u.as burnt to ashes f* t, i. pains (p. sr r;,-io-U"restored

.,9 ]j1". through the cntreaties of his fartourite wife, tire god_des.s Ilati ("pleasure,'). t le is frequently r.f.r."J-to i; i t,;;r";;;fl]j^:i: ,er

i-dcntlJ a popular deity among 1.oung people ,f both ,;;;:;nonorrred.at a great annuel fcsrival (p. eOO). TIrL nuaahist Mara("the Smiter") was sor'cri 'rcs i<tentif ied witl Kuma, Uifr"Jri"*.,rttr ibutes, and rvas a sorl-gf Satan, the personificatio,

"f;t ;;; i l ,

the flesh and the de'i l . [I is tenrptation of th" Buddha i, ou" oi *utnost-fanrous episodes of Buddhisi legend.-All the gods have complementaru [odd.rr.r, t]reir wives, but mostof the-se are pale rcfle_x.ibns of theii jords, bearing th" ,u_" n"_.,with ferninirre terminations (e.g. Indrdni, I3rahiani, etc.\. Th;;were,often wgrlhipped in a group, usually of seven,.

"fri.f i i fr" ""ir,r\arnKeJ'a and uanc5a were sonretimes added, and portrayals of t lesegoddesses (l l.Iat7Aa, Ambikd,..the Litt le Nfoihers;,) u." i"i.tu "orn_mon in mc<lie'al sr.rrl l i lure. As *,t. l l as l)urgi, ."1i,;r;; ' ; '"J;;;

one of the thrce chiel' deities of lli',luisrn, "tl,"r

goA,l*..;"; ;;;;intportant, however.

^,!k:T,, ("Fortune-),.the wife of Vignu, also often callcd j i i wastne godcless ot good luck and. temporal blessing, In sonrc legendsshe is.said to bJcoexistent with Vignu, but accoraing to other.s she

:l,pji:.:| il 1".,.'l_ r]ory, like-Aphrodite, at the ciurni"s;i;i;;pnmeval ctcean (p. Soaf). She is usually portrayed as a w"oman ofmature beauty, seated on a lotus and often rvitt l i totr, ; i ,;;;:attended by tr 'o clephants, rvho sprinkle water on t.r from tt. i,rrunKs. -l lrough never an object of a special cult, Irer icons are nume_rous, and she was much u.orlhipped as a subsidiary deity. Sh;;;,believed to incarnate herself asiire rvife of the incirn.tiJn of vi.:r,uland thus sire *,as worshippecl as Sita, the spouse of Rama,

", f iut_mini, the chief qucen of l{r.,sna, or as Ridhd, t}ie favourite of ni, youtf,.

Surasaatl (pl. XXXIIIb), the rvife of I lrahmi, lrad an uutonoo,ou,role as the patron of art, music and letters. In the ̂ Flg lre./a she was asacred river, but in later vedic literature she was identified u.ith ahypostatic goddess of tcnrporarl, in)portance, Vac (..Speecl,,;y. Sf," *"!depie lcJ as a beautiful fair young *omurr, oit",a *rith'" zl-na-,'or I*dian

nELtc roN: cu lTs , DocrRrNEs AND METAPHYslcg 319

hrte, anrl a book in hcr hand, and attendecl by a swan.* ' fradit ional ly

slrr. rras t irc i tnentor of t i rc Sanskri t language and t l te I)etanfigttr ls, r il)t. Si.rasvati has alrva-r's lrecn u'ors]riPpcd by studel]ts, writers aldurusiclurs, and her cult is stiil tnaurtained.

I)enigods and Sltirits

As rvel l as these greater gods there was an inf inite nunrber ofIr,sscr ' oneS. Ever_v vi l lage had i ts local god or goddess (grdmade-rir / , i ) , often a rude image or fet ish set up under a sacrcd tree. Sornet, l- thcse vi l lage fert i l i ty deit ies, through a process of assimilat ion,;rt tained widespread popLrlari ty. Local goddesses were often vaguelyr,lt'ntified rvith Durgi, but n'ere rarely thoroughly incorporated intotlrc mythological schenre, and they maintaineci an autonomouscxistence on the fringes of the orthodox pantheon. Chief of such

11,xl<lesses rvas Sit" l^"("the CooI"), cal led in the Tanri l country\ lJr iyammai ("Mother Death"), the goddess of stnal lpox, wor-.lriyrpcd for prevention and cure, especially by mothers on behalf,,(' their children. Sirnilarly the snake-goddess lvfanasa protectedlr ' ,rrn snakebite. I{er rvorship is not certainly attested in our period,l,ut in t:redieval Bengal she attained a respectable status in the ortho-,1,,x pantheon, and she was almost certainly rvorslr ipped by t lrenrlsses in the earl ier period. A male deity of t i r is type, rvidely populari :r t i re' Iarni l countryside from ancient days, was Aiyanar, a beneficent1'rrardian deity nruch revered by peasants, and sornctirnes thought,, t as a son of Siva.

' l 'he cit ies of ancient India, l ike those of ther l :rssical world, had their guardian deit ics, rvho nright be importantrrrtnrbers of the pantheon but rvere often of only local significance,Ilcsidr:s these local gods the world rvas full of denrigods and spirits,rood and evi l .

' I 'he .srrake-spir i ts (, \ ' , -rc,z) (pl. XXVIII6), half-human but with ser-

1 , r ' r r t s ' ta r l s , were ver_V anc ien t ob jcc ts o f worsh ip . ' fhey dwe l t in thel,r 'e111if,r1 undergrormd city of Bhogavati , and guarded f{reat treasures,s,)n)c or -; 'hich thev occasional ly bestorved on rnortals whorn theyf.rrorrrcd. 'L-hev could take wholly hurhan lortrt , and tnore t l tan one,l \ rrast-\ ' of ancient India claimed descent frorn the union of a human herottvl a ni{ irr i . Probabl-v the prototypes of the nigas were the dark prirni-t rr c tr ibes, met by the Arvans in thcir erpansiott over India, frrr a prirni-t ivc people cal led Nigas exists in Assam to this day; the cult ofs, r l )r ' r) ts is so u' idespread in India that the nigas must certainly owerrrru lr to aboriginal snake cults followed by nrany tribes all over India.

'l'lre Ialgas, especiallyassociated u'ith the god Kubera, were a sort

' I [ rm!d , s t r i c t l y a t lpe o f goose; bu t , ou ing to the connota t ion o f t l re word "goosc"rr I rrglrrlr, laryuais usinlly t ianslated "swan'i in this and other tvorks onancieni Indie,-I

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32O THE woNDER THAT w^s INDIA

of gnome or fairy, reverenced by country people. Before theChristian era their cult was widespread, but they lost their significanceas the great gods of Hinduisr:r became more widely worshippcC,'fhey u'ere gcnerally looked on as friendly to men, but their women-folk might sometimes be malevolent, and ate little children.

'lhe Gandhartar srrrvived from Vedic times as servants of Indrr

and heavenly musicians. In the time of the Buddha they seem to havebeen specially connected with the procreation of children, and thepresence of a Gandharva was thought necessary for conception.Associated with them, and sometimes referred to as a subdivisionof their order, were the Kinnaras, also heavenly musicians, who hadhuman heads and horses' bodies, and thus resembled the classicalcentaurs, with whom they may be connected,

The Gandlrarvas were all male: Their female counterparts werethe Apsarases, in Vedic tirnes connected with water, but later trans-lated to heaven. They u'ere beautiful and libidinous, and speciallydel iglrted in tempting ascetics in their meditat ions. Thus Menakithe apsaras seduced the great sage ViCvimitra, and conceived Sakun-tali, the heroine of Kalidasa's famous drama (p. ,137ff). Anotherapsaras famous in story was Urvaii, the heroine of another drama ofKilidisa, the story of whose love for the mortal king Purfiravas(p.*OZtr) isasold asthepgYeda. Sometimes the apsarases appearin the role of valkyries, raising slain heroes from the battlefield andbearing them to heaven to be their lovers.

A further group of demigods was that of the Yidyddharat uheavenly magicians, mysterious beings who l ived in magic cit ies inthe high Himdlayas. Like the Vedic munis (p. z+S) they could f lythrough the air and transform thenrselves at will, and they weregenerally favourable to men.

The .Bsrs ( " sages " or more liteially " seers " ), were the composertof the Vedic hymns, and other legendary wise men of olden timerwho had been translated to heaven, where they enjoyed a status com-parable to that of the gods. Chief of these were the "Seven $9is",identified with the stars of the Great Bear-Marici, Atri, Afrgiras,Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu and Vasiqtha. Other important f$is wereKa6yapa and Daksa, said in some stories to have been the progenitoruof gods and men; Nirada, who invented the vini and was a sort ofpaffon saint of music; Vi6vimitra, a ksatriya who by his piety andasceticism raised himself to br5hman status, and who is heard of inmany legends; Byhaspati, the preceptor of gods and demons, whobegan his career in Vedic tirnes as a god, but whose status fellto that of a 1pi, also identified with the planet Jupiter, and whois said to have founded the materialist system .of philosophy and

I tEL ICION: CU! ,T5, DOCTRTNES AND METAPHYSTC$ 391

tlre science of statecraft; and Agastya, who taught the Southernerur,'ligion and culture. Less exalted than the fgis were the Siddha, tLrrgc class of saints who had won aplace in heaven by theirpiety.

( l l r icf among evi l spir i ts were the Astras, or detnons. The word.r\r/r .r was in Vedic t imes applied to certain gods (p. 238), but inl l i rr t luism it was used for a group of supernatural beings continu-r l ly at war u' i th the gods, wlrose polr 'er they sometimes shook, but,, , .r 'cr conquered. More inrnrediately dangerous to men were ther.rlirrus classes of goblin, such as the Rdk;asas, most famous of whornrr.rs I l lvapa the ten-headed demon king of Lafrka (Ceylon), whoml(. irna defeated and ki l led, Few rakpasas had the same power asI(.rvana, but all were frightful and dangerous, taking terrible formrrrrr l lurking in dark places at night, to ki l l and eat men and otherwise' j l \ trcss thenl. Somewlrat less terr ible were the Pi idcas, who, l ikerlr t .rr igas, may have had a matcrial basis in a wild tr ibe, since a veryl, ;rsc dialect of Prikr i t was attr ibuted to them. Both t lrese classes ofr lr .nror haunted batt lef ields, cl tarnel ground.s, and places of violent,fr . :r th, as did a special class of denton, the l /etdla or vampire, whichr,ok up i ts abode in corpses. Final ly the night was haunted by

1' lrrrsts (prala, bhi l ta), the naked spir i ts of those who had died violent,1,:rt l rs and for * 'hom Sriddha had not been performed, Tlrese werevr.r-y dangerous to men, particularly to their own surviving rclatives.

l l indu worship was not confined to t l le propit iat ion of gods andrlt 'nr igods, for the whole of nature was in some sense divine. Great.rrrr l l roly men were reverenced, both during t lreir l ive.s and for longaftcr their deaths, for they contain-ed a portion of godhead.

-Thus the

sixty-three Nayalars of Tamil Saivism and the twelve Alvirs of' l ' ; rrni l

Vaignavism sti l l enjoy t lre status of demigods, as do ot lrc-r greatr, l igious teachers. Not only men, but anirnals and plants were and,,rill are holy, notably the cow. According to legend the cowsrrllbhi, the mother of all cows, was one of the treasures churned fromrlr, ' cosmic ocean. The "f ive products of the cow" (paficagaaya)-rrr i l l i , curd, butter, urine and dung -were al l of great puri fying potency,' . \ l )rcial iy when combined in a single mixture. Despite her sancti ty,r lr t ' rc was no cow-goddess, and Surabhi and the various "wishing-r,,ss" ol legend, by milking which al l desires r+'ere fulf i l led, had nor.rrrplcs in thgir honour. The l iving beast was revered, not as re-.

l ,rcscntat ive of any deity, but in her own right. The bul l , on the,,r lrcr hand, recei! 'ed honour as t lre mount of Siva; the image of Nandir, , l i rund in most Saivite temples and honoured with offerings.

Alter the cow the snake was perhaps the rnost revervd animal ofrru icnt India. Legendary serpents, such as S.S" (p. 3o2) andV r srrki (p. 3O4), gave the srrrke prestige, but the cult no doubt sprang

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Y322 THE \PONDEN TH.{T WAS JNDTA RELICION: CULTS, DOCTRTNES AND METApHyStCS 523

( ' , t ln t0(OrU

llintlu cosmology in its final. form lvas perhaps later than the,, ' ' rrrolt ,gies of the I luddhists and Jainas. According to this systcir lrlL'' (:osnros passes througlr cycles rvithin c1'cles for all eternity.I l r t ' basic cycle is the kalpa, a "day of Brahtni", or 4,,920 mil l ion

,.rrt l r ly ycars. FI is night is of equal lengrh. 560 such days andrrrylrts consti tute a "year of Brahrni" arrd his l i fe lasts for loo,,, l r vears.* The largest cycle is therefore 3l l ,o4o,Oo0 mil l ion

.,r.,rls long, after which the whole univcrse returns to the inetfabler,, ,r 'k l-spir i t , unti l another creator god is evolved.f

Irr cach cosmic day the god creates the universe and again absorbsrr. I)uring the cosrnic night he sleeps, and the whole universe is1. rt l :crcd up into his body, where i t remains as a potentiai i ty. Within, ,, lr halpa are fourteen manz:antaras, or secondary cJ'cles, each lasting',()rt,?9o,ooo years, rvith lorrg intervals betrveen them. ln theset,, .r iot ls the.w'orld is recreated, and a newl\fanu appears, as thepro-r ' . ,rr l tor of the human race. We are now in the seventh manvantara, ' t t l r t ' kalpa, of which the Manu is known as Manu Vaivasvata.

l ..tt lr manvantara contains seventy-one Mahdlugas, or eons, of,.. I'i, h a thousand form the kalpa. Each mahiyuga is in turn dividedt r tt,, l\ty17 yyg4s or ages, called K1ta, Tretii, Duipara and Kali (p. 209 ).I l , ' i r lengths are respecti t 'ely 4,8Oo, 3,600, z,+oo, and l ,eoo "years,,t t l rr : gods", each of which equals 36o hunran years. Each yrga re-I, , . , , ,nts a progressive decl ine in piety, moral i ty, strength, staturc,

' . , .. ity and happiness. We are at present in the Kali-yuga, whiclrI , i .rrr, aCcording to tradit ion, in 9lo2 a.c., bel ieved to be the year ofrr ' . \ lahi ibhirata

'War..[

lrc end of the Kali-yuga, according to many epic passages, isr ' , ' r Ltr l by confusion of classes, the overt lrrorv of establ ished stand-. 'r ,1., , t l re cessation of al l rel igious r i tes, and the rule ofharsh and,,1', rr liings. Soon after this the world is destroyed by flood and fire.l l r is 'r ' icrv is propounded strongly in texts rvhich date from about the1,, l i rrrr ing of the Christ ian era, when al ien kings did in fact rule muclr, ' t l rrr l ia, and rvhen establ ished practices u,ere shaken by heresies suclr. , , l l rrrLlhism and Jainism. An earl ier tradit ion u'ould place the Mahn-r,1,. ' r . t t :r War c, 9OO B.c .(p. 4o), according to which t lre l ,2oo years ofr , l i , r l i -vrrga, i [read as human ) 'ears and nc-rt as "year.s of t l re gods",rr, ,q1l1l ,11 t lr is t ime be nearing thcir end. Evidently some pious l l indusr L,'r r1' l rt that the dissolution of the cosmos wa.s imrninent. Perhaps it

. Ilr.rlrrrri is srid to be now in his fifty-first year.| | l , , r r r ; l r r l r e t e r m s " d a y " a n d " y e a r o f B r a h m i " a r e c o m m o n l y u s e d , t h e g o d w h o s c

, . , , , ' r r . r r \ t l r c un iverse is , as we have seen, t l roug l r t o f by Va ignav i tes as V i5nu and by. . r . r \ Sr l r , a r r l l l rahnta is a mere dern iu rge , the god i i r I r i s c rea t ive as fec t .

from very primitive rev'els, since the mysterious snake is revered alloverlhe rvorld by unciv'ized-peupr.. rr"* "-urem

ofboth death andtitilitf.

An ofibring ro ,nuk"s,'mua" ui tl,. t "ginning

of the rainyseason, was parr of t.e regular domestic ritual Jf l l i" ir i;.]- ,;;r-hills n'ere reipected as the" home oi;il;'"b,her animals, thoushassociated with various divinit ies, ptry"Jiitt l" part in Hil;;",rf.:1)re rnonkey, nruch revered Uy p"orinii .r j, irpf" folk in manv partsof India, is not relerred to as specio'y.;;;;'i;.;;.i;H;;ilJ.,;, ,'

Tree cults, common,the *oil,l on.!r r_ong'*.i..,t peoples, werewidespread in India, w'ere each "ill"g"

h.;;?s sacred tree or grove.Speciatly sacred *.ere the pippat_a ",

ilr"ii)ipt;;l; r',.',)J; ,;;;;i,the sanctity of which ,gr1ia'1o IJ"ddl;i;;;; ) rn" oolo or nyagrodha,the banyan (Ficw iniical, the s".ond"; ;;;" of which, reachinsdown from its branches,'formed ttu l"ir-oimuch religior.,urn--bolism. Many other trees were more or r.r, i"rv,'fjiiiiv"t r*alola (p.,aoa), to-which woTen prayed for children. There *.ere alsosacrpd plar.rts, such as the tulasi, a type of basi! which was connectcdwith ViE4u, and which is still grou,i;; ,t;;;;,yards of many Hi'duhomes and tended with greai care. Two types of grass, kula and,darbha, were also sacred"from v.ai"lii".'f,n*aros. The vedicsonra plant,. ltowever, was forgottenrvery lull or nrountain had some degree of sanctity, especially the) Iinri.layas, rv'ie h were the foot'iiis riil"r* rrr"ru, trre centrc of theworld. Around Meru. on-mountains which reache; ;,h.ll;^;;;drvelt..the gods. Vaikuntha, ,h; h;;; ' ;; 'viuor, was never satis-factorily identified, but I{ailasa, tt,u .o*#n ;i1st;";;;;';;_;l;:;as a certain peak in the

_Central Himaluyas *rri.rri", i.#f;"":lk:"

. l-pi|$.image. Numerous ott"r.L*t. ins and hil ls in manyparts of India were famous f9r_-their sanctiil,.'-iven rocks often had areligious significance, "11"cr"rrr

i1 ie.rili.ani vaguely resemblinstlre liirga of siva' The am.monite llit"fra*t1fa f<rss'ized shetfisli,uas.recognized as one of rhe sl,rnbth

"it i ;; i ,:Rivers were also sacred, 9{r."i"ffV, oi

"otil.u, *u Ganga, whichsprang from the foot of thp Jiepu, d;;-;;;; the sky in the formof the mitkv wav ( Manddr;-;), iirJtit""'i.'iri" i*,r, from the mattedIocks of.Siva, bii,ga *", oit"., p";;fi;l'; a goddess in her ownright,,like hc1 great"tributary )-amuna.

--od;. rivers held speciallvsacred were the Sarasy4li,- which *;, b"ii;*d i;'il;t;fiiground and join the Gangi a-t_its conflu"i*'*i,f, the yamuni. atPrayiiga (Allahibid), tt19_ y1.-"ir', ' *."i"oivari, the Krsni( modern Iris tni ) and' the Kaviri.

-i".L r. i"t.".; ;;,;'b.iy ffi ;r.Ji;

:91 iql ll'l it iru' 1.1;y:i:j K;u;'3.,'#ilu er..,u, near Aj mer,were also sacred, and everi cities were aii,:*-fp. eo2, n).

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s24 THD, WONDER THAT WAs INDIA

is to the departure of this fear in later times that we must attribute thedevising of the "years of the gods", which made the dissolution of theworld comfortably distant. Most medieval texts state that the cosn,icdissolution occurs only after the last cycle of the kalpa, and that thetransition from one reon to the next takes place rapidly and compara-tively calmly; the expectation of the Kalkin (p. Sos), who will not de-stroy but will regenerate the world, could not otherwise be harmoniz-ed with the scheme of the yugas. In this, its final form, the Hindurystem of world<ycles is clearly an imperfect s]'nthesis of more thanone independent doctrine; the manvantaras, especially, do not fittidily.into the scheme, and must surely be derived from a sourcedifferent from that of the mahdyugas,

The system of the four yugas immediately brings to mind the fourages of ancient Greece-and indeed the Indian yugas are sometimesnamed after metals-gold, silver, copper and iron. A similar doc-trine of four ages existed in ancient Persia, and the three schemes ma1,have been borrowed from a common source.

The act of creation was thought of in more than one marurer. Theschool called Sdnkhya (p. Seof) and some lesser schools postulated theexistence of primeval nratter (yolrti), of which the creator made useto form the world, but the Yeddnta school, certainly the most in-fluential in the Middle Ages, maintained that everything in the uni-verse, souls and matter alike, was produced from God's own essence.The rnotive of creation was explained by the Vedinta school as the"sport" (lilA) of the World Soul, and the creation of the cosmos wasthought of on the analogy of the production of a work of art from themind of an artist.

Tlu Soul, Karma and Sat.nsdraThe doctrine of karma, elaborated in Upanigadic times and adopted

by Buddhism and Jainisnr, was also part and parcel of Hinduism.Aocording to the Hindu definition karma (literally "work,"or "deed")was the uriseen ripening of past actions, and though not in Hinduism asubstantial category, as in Jainism, it was thought of as accumulatingand dispersing. Through karma the body of the next life, divine,human, animal or hellish, was acquired; and on previous karma de-pended a man's character, fortune and social class, and his happinessand sorrow. Every good act sooner or later brougbt its result inhappiness, and every evil act in sorrow.

The belief in karma does not necessarily involve fatalism. Afatalist srain often appeared in Hindu thought, but most teachersdisapproved of it. Our present condition is inevitable, but only

tEltctoN: culTs, DocrRtNEs AND METAPHYSTCS tt6

hecaus€ of the karma accruing from our past deeds, We cannot escaperlre law of karma any more than we can escape the law of gravity or the

l.rssafle of time, but by judgement and forethought we can utilizet irc larv of karma to our own advantage.

'f he process of transmigration was interpreted somewhat variously,

lrut al l schools agreed that the soul does not transtnigrate in a stateof nudity, but with a sheath or series of sheaths of subtle matter; thec,rrrdit ion of the sheaths depends on the balance ofprevious good andcvil karma, and the new birth is determined by the nature of thesheaths which surround the soul. The subtle body of transmigrationis deprived of sense-organs, including mind, tlte sixth sense, andtlrcrcfore the soul cannot normally remember previous births or the

l,lssage from one body to another. Very advanced souls, however,(.rn sometimes recapture memories of previous existences, and sontes(cts evolved a special technique for doing so. Souls are l iable torransrnigrat ion throughout the l i fe of the god Bral imi, though.rt tlre end of each cosmic day or kalpa they return to his bodyrI potentialities only. On the death of Brahmi, at the final, l isr^olut ion of t l re universe at the end of a hundred Brahrnl-years, they. 're absorbed into the World Spir i t and their karnra is annihi lated.

Salnsira, the continual passage from body to body, often comparedi,) an ever-rol l ing rvheel, is inf ini tely tedious, and } l induism inheritedrlre desire for release from transmigration which was almost universalrrr Indian thought. Conceptions of the state of release or salvation(nu|ti) arrd the means of obtaining it differed widely.

'l'he Siz Systems of Saloation

l,arly in the Christian era, if not before, there was a theoreticalr l .rssif icat ion ofthe various schools ofthouglrt Iooked on as orthodox,errr l t l re Say'dar{ana or "Six Doctr ines" became a regular feature ofI l i rrr luisur. The Six Schools were actual ly of dif fering origin and pur-

1 ', r:t, but all u'ere brought into the scherrre by being treated as equallyr.r lrd rvays of salvation. They were divided into three groups of two,u lr ich wcre thought to be related and complementary. These were:,\ r,9'a and Yaite;i*a; Safihlya and Toga; wtd Mimarysd nd l/cddnta,

.,\'r'.-g'a ("Analysis ") was rather a school of logic and epistemologytl , ,rrr of theology. I t looked back to the teacher Akgapida Gautama,t lr , . .si i tras or aphorisms attr ibuted to whom are probably no earl ierr ir .rrr t l re Clrr ist ian era. Logic was forced into the scheme as a nreans,,1 s.r lvat ion by the contention that clear thinking and logical argu-r,, nt \ i 'ere essential lneans to the highest bl iss, and thus a rel igiousheris was giventowhatwar essential ly asystemof reasoning (p. Sosf).

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'86 TI IE woNDER THAT wAs TNDIA

-I/a!!c$Ia ("the School of Individual Characteristics.,) was conr-plementary to Nyiya, though perhaps older, and in medieval times thetwo.merged into ra,hat was virtually a single school. While Nyeyrspecialized in logic, VaiSegika rvas interesied rather in physics thantheology._ lhe earliest text of the school is the s[tras of the iegendaryfounder, Ul0ka Ka4-da, u'hich had nunrerous exponents

"ril com-

nrentat()rs, the greatest of.whom was Prasastapada tf the stlr century,The basic tenet of vaiiersika, held in commo*with Jaini.srn and sonleschools of Buddhisrn, u'as that nature is atomic. The atorns are clis-tinct fronr the soul, of which they are the instrument. Each elementhas individual characteristics (adEas), which distinguish it fromthe four non-atomic substances (dravyas) which ti'e school re-cognizes-time, space, soul and mind. The atoms are eternal, butin the great dissolution at the end of the life of Braltmi they areseparated one from another, and all things are destroyed, The nerrBrahmi uti l izcs the old atoms to create the world afresh. vaisegikrthus postulated a dualism of matter and soul, and declared thatsalvation depends on fully recognizing the atomic nature of the uni-verse, and its difference from the soul.r

SAilthya ("the Count") is perhaps the oldest of the eix systemr,being mentioned in the Rhagaoad Gita and occurring in a piimitiviform in the Upanipads. Its.legendary founder nuu. ihe anc-ient sageIiapila, but tlre earliest surviving t-ext of the system is tlte Sa;tkh17_lari.,ia of idr'arakrsna, perhaps oT the ath cent;ry A.D. Sankhvaie-sembles Jainism in its rigid dualism and fundamental atheisrir, Itteaclres the existencc of twenty-five basic principles (tattaa), otwhich the firstis pratrti-a term usually loosely translated "rnatier',.creation, or rather evolution, is not due to the operation of a divinitvbut to the inherent nature of praklti. From pra-krti der.elops (e) In'_tell i f ience (buddhi, also called mahat', the Great dne,,), uni lrtnl" i,produced (s) Self-consciousness (ahankara). prakiti has in factevolved into an active divinity. Through self-consciousness emergethe fir'e subtle elements (tanmitra), in'isible matter in its mo"stetlrereal form; the five are (1) "eth.r" (akd{a), (5) air, (o) l ight(z) water and (s) earth. From the subtle eiernents the'rr,.t.". i" ielements (mahdbhuta) enrerge (o-ts). Working on this material,Self-consciousness then produces the five otg"n, of sense (jfidnend_r i l a ) t ( r a ) hea r i r r g , ( r s ) t ouch , ( ro ) s i gh r , ( r z ) t as te i " na f re tsrnell, and tlre five of action (karmendrijta): ( ro) sp'eech, (zo) giasp.ing, (zr ) rvalking, (zz) evacuation and (zs) procreation.

'ei.n lf

I

ITDLIGIoN: cULTs, DoCTRTNES AND METAPHYSTcS 5,7

rlrese organs corresponds to an element, in respective order. FinallyS,'1t'-consciousness produces the twenty-lburth of the basic components,,1-tlrc uorld, mind (manas),looked on as a sixtlr sense, which acts asir)tcrmediary between all the ten organs and the outside world. Thisr,:nrarliable and fantastic doctrine of cosmic evolution, interpreted insinrple terms, irnplies that bodies, and indeed the ra'hole cosmos, arelrroducts of the ego (ahaikara), conceived as basically material.

But there is another tattva, the twenty-fifth. This is Puru;a,litcrally "the Person", the soul. As in Jainism, there is an infinitenumber ofsouls in the universe, all equal, eternally inactive spectatorsof the evolution of prakrti. Puru;a is not dependent on praklti norpraklti on puruga-a universe is conceivable completely devoid ofsoul and yet evohing in the same way as the universe we know, forintclligence, personality and mind are not parts of the soul. Yetsouls in some wav become involved in matter, and their salvation liesin realizing their difference from it.

A very important feature of Sairkhya metaphysics is the doctrine ofthe three constituent qualit ies (glza), causing virtu e (sattca),passion(rajas) and dullness (tanas). In its undeveloped state cosniic mattercontains these three in equilibrium, but as the world evolves one orother of the three preponderates in different objects or beings, andtlre proportions account for the values of the universe. Sattva gu4a,the quality of virtue, is present in all things tending to truth, wisdom,ircauty and goodness; the quality of passion inlteres in all that is{ierce, violent, energetic, forceful or active; while dullness is foundin rvhat is dark, stupid, gloomy, wretched or unhappy. This three-fold classification affected many aspects of Indian life and thoughtand its influence reached fa,r beyond the Sankhya school which madeit its olm.

The dualism of soul and matter and the fundamental atheism ofSiikhya were somervhat modified in the Middle Ages as a concessionto tlre prevalent monism and theism. Puru;a literally mcans "per-son" or "man", and prakyti is of feminine gender. It is not surpris-irrg that the latter was personified as the wiie of the former, especiallyby the tantric sects. The inactive puruga of the earlier system be-came a generative force, and the cold and rather pedantic Safrkhya,in a much modified form, became the comrnon property of popularlndian religion of Iater times.

Toga, the name of the fourth system, is a word well known in the\\'cst, and is connected etymologically with the English word "yoke ".It nray be freely translated "spiritual discipline" or " application ",'l'he term is loosely used to imply all the religious exercises and actsr For furthcr details on Vai6egika atomism see p. ,1199.

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328 THE WONDEN THAT WAS TNDIA

of self-mortification of Indian religion, the earnest follower of suchpractices being a 1ogi. In this broad sense yoga has been part ofthe teaching of every Indian sect, but it was also the name of rdistinct school, which emphasized psychic training as the chiefnreans of salvation. The basic text of this school is the 2logeSritras of Patairjali; this teacher was traditionally identified with rfamous grammarian believed to have lived in the 9nd century 8.c.,but the s[tras in their present form are probably several centurieslater.

The metaplysical ideas of the Yoga school were originally closelyakin to those ofsiirkhya, but they differed in that they brought a deity

into the picture. The God (Tioara) of Yoga was not a creator, but tspecially exalted soul wlrich had existed for all eternity without everbeing enmeshed in matter. Thus the god of Yoga resembled theBuddha of the Lesser Vehicle, or the glorified flrtharikara of Jain-ism, never conring in contact with his worshippers but invaluable aran example. He was specially symbolized in the sacred syllable OM,which in the Yoga school was much revered, as giving insight intothe subl ime purity of the soul and thus aiding meditat ion. A Yogatheism soon developed, horvever, and the God of later Yoga textr

differs little from that of other schools.The course of training of the yogi was divided into eight stages'

reminding us of the eightfold path of Buddhism, but far less practical:

( t ) Self<ontr ol ( lana), the practice of the fi ve moral nrles: non-violence.truthfulness, not stcaling, chastity, and the avoidance of greed'

(e) Observance (niyama), the regular and complete obsen'ance of fivefurthet moral rules, some of them rather overlapping with those in thccategory of self-control-purity, contentment, austerity' study of the Vedar,and devotion to God.

(s) Posture (asana), sitting in certain postures, difficult without prac-tice, lvhich arc tlrouglrt to be essential to meditation. The most famous oftbese isparlmdsana,tl'te "I-otus I'osture", in which the feet are placcd on theopposite thighs, and in rvhicb gods and sages are commonly depicted'-

(+) Control of the Breath (lrdnaynna), uliereby the breath is held andcontrolled and the respiration forced into unusual rhythms, which are b+

lieved to be of great physical and spiritual value.(f) Rcstraint (pratydhara), whereby tlte sense organs are trained to takc

no note of their percePtions.(o) Steadying the N{ind (dharatlA), by concentration on a.single object,

ruch as the tip of the nose, the navel, an icon, or a sacred symbol.(z) Meditation (lhyana), when the object of concentration fills the whole

mind.(8) Deep Meditation (satnndhi),when tle whole personality is tempor-

rrily dissolved.

i.Et.totot{: cvlTs, DoCTRINES AND METApHyStCt s99

Yoga was sometimes developed in special and rather dubious ways,r's1,r1i1lly by the tantric schools of the Middle Ages. Tlre course oftrairr irrg outl ined above was known as "Royal Yoga" (rt jayoga),but, ' t l rcr yoga systems developed, such as the "Yoga of Spells" (zaz-tr,ryoga), which taught the continual repetition of rnagic syllables and

I ' l rrases as a means of dissociat ing the consciousness; the "Yoga ofI rrr. tc" (halhayoga), which enrphasized the inlportance of physicalrrrt'uns such as special acrobatic exercises and very difficult postures,errt l sometimes advocated sexual union as a lneans of salvation; and the" \'<'Fa of I)issolution"(layajtoga), often identified with hatha-yoga,l ' . rscrl on certain ancient Indian physiological notions, wh' ich play a big

1,,rr t i rr t l re form of ; , 'oga sometimes taught by'Western practi t ioners.'I

lre clrief vein of the body, known as sutumna, runs through the' l , i rral colutnn. Along i t at dif ferent points are six "rvheels" (cakra),, , f ( ()r)cer)trat ions of psychic energy. At the top of the vein susumna)rr rtlrirr tlre skrrll, rs sahasrdra, a specially powerful psyclric (:entre sym-l ' , , l ical ly ref lcrred to as a lotus. In the lowest "wheel", behind the

I', rlitals, is t\e kult(alini, the "serpent power", generally in a quies-r.rrt stat€. By yogic practices the ku4{al ini is awakened, r isesrlrr. trgh the vein sugumna, passes through al l the six "wheels" of

1,.r't lric force, and unites u'ith the topmost sahasrira. By awakeningrrr,l laising his kundalini the yogi gains spiritual strength, and byrrrrrt i rrg i t with sahasrira he wins salvation.

'l lrc arvakened kup{alini gives to the yogi superhuman power and

l.rr,'ulcdge, and many yogis have practised yoga rather for thisrlr.rn f<rr salvation. Some adepts of yoga have developed certain

l"'\r'('r's which cannot fully be accounted for by European medicalr, ' n('e and which cannot be explained away as subjective, but the

I l ,r ' , i , 'krgical basis of laya- and ha.tha-yoga is certainly false; there icr ' Aun,lalini, salumna or sahasrAra. The ancient mystical physiology, t l rr , l ia needs further study, not only by professional Indologists,I Lr l,\' ()pcn-minded biologists and psychologists, who may revealr r , q1q11 'sccre t o f the yog i . For rvhatever we may th ink about h is, rrrr.r l t laims there is no doubt that the advanced yogi can holdI I rr ' .r t l r for very long periods without suffering injury, can controlr r lr l t l rrn of l i is own heart-beats, can withstand extrenles of heat. I , , '111, can remain healthy on a starvation diet, and, despite his. ' , r , : rn r l f ruga l l i fe and h is remarkab lephys ica lcontor t ions , wh ich- ' J r uirr tlre sj'stem of any ordinary mar, can often survive to e, ' , .r l r .rru'ed age with ful l use of his facult ies.

\lrn,insii ("Enquiry"), differed in origin from the other systems, rrrr rr \ \ ' ls not so much a school of salvation as of exposit ion. I t t

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3+4 THE WONDER T[!AT WAg INDIA

"There is nothing in the three worlds which I need,nothing I do not orm"

notl) ir)g rvhich I must get-a-rd yet I labour forever.

" I f I did not aluays work unwearying , . .mcn rvould follow my ways.

'lJre *'orlds u'ould perish if I did not work-I should bring back chaos, and all beings would suner.

" So, as the unu'ise work with attachmcnt,the wise should work without attachment,

O son of Bharata,and seek to establish order in the u'orld. . .

" Cast all your acts upon me,with your mind on the Highest Soul.

Have done uith craving and selfhood.Ttrrow offyour terror, and fight! , . .

" For there is more joy in doing one's own duty badlythan in doing inother man's duty well.

It is joy to die in doing one's duty,but doing another rxan's duty brings dread."rt

The teaching of the Bhagaoad Gita is summed up in the maxin"your bu.siness is with the deed, and not with the resuit". In rrorganized society each individual has his special part to play, and inevery circumstance there are actions which are intrinsically right-from the point of view of the poet who wrote tbe Gitd theyare tlrortlaid down b1'the Sacrcd Law of the Ar1'ans antl the traditions of chuand clan. The right course must be chosen according to the circunr.stances, without eny considerations ofpersonal interest or sentimenlThus man serves God, and in so far as lre lives up to this ideal hldraws near to God.

The stern ethics of the GitE are clearly intended as a defence of thaold established order against the attacks ofreformers and unbelieverlThe virtue of the brihmap is wisdom, of the warrior, valour, of thvai6ya, industry, of the Sldra, service; by fulfilling his class functirnto the best of his abllity, with devotion to God and without personrlambition, a man wiil find salvation, whatever his class. It may brthat the author of the Gitd sought merely to convey this messagt,rather barren and uninspiring when thus condensed. But behind hbteaching was the fervour of a great religious poet, which transcendclthe narrow framework of contemporary social and religious lu,Hence the inspiration of the Bhagaaad Gifi has been widely felt IIndia from the time of the Guptas to the present day, and it has beq

IELIGION: CULTS, DoCTR|NES AND METApttySrCs 3+5

. r"rrrended by Christians and Muslims, as well as by the Hindus,.1., sc most influential scripture it is. No one so ungrudgingly. 'r'itted his debt to its doctrine of tireless and unselfish service as\lrlritma Gendhi, who so strongly opposed the two features off,,. r.r)t Indian society which the Gitd itself was in part written to't, r, ntl-militarism and the class svstem.

( v ) x o r - r x D r A N R E L r c r o N s

ll *e are to believe a very old tradition the first Christian converts,, lri,lia were made by the Disciple Thomas himself, soon after the, ,,r,itixion. The Indian king Gondophares sent to Syria for a.r,llrrl architect to build him a new city, and the envoy returned-,rlr St. Thomas, who told the king of a City not made with hands,r," l r orrverted him and many members of his court, St. Thomas after-..r,1,; preached in otherparts of India, and died a martyr's death at:r,.'. lr.rrrds of a king called in Christian tradition Iltisdeos, who carurotr. r,ltntified. The historicity of Gondophares, however, is rrn-

, '.ri.ncd (p. 6l ), and the story in its main outline is not impossible,| ' ,rr rl)e time contact between India and the West was close, and1 , , rrtr rprising missionary could easily have travelled from Palestine, . lr,, lr;r. Roman Catholics believe that the tomb of St. Thonras is tot. t, urrrl ln the cathedral at Mailapur, a suburb of Madras, though ther,.,!,ruc ior the Saint's martyrdom there is not sumcient to satisfy, . , ) r r r t o r i an .

'r'rlral rather unreliable references to other early missions, .r irr church tradition, but the first certain evidence of Christianr, .. rv in India is found in the Clz'stian Topography of Cosmas: , ,, l,l(.u.stes, an adventurous Alexandrian

-monk of the 6th

''.,,,r ,'' rvho left an account of his travels. He states that there-", , lrrrrr-hes in Kerala and Ceylon, in the hands of Persian priests,h. . 'r1'r 'rvised by a Persian bishop at Kall iana (perhaps the modern

',). It is clear that the Indian Christians had embraced ther,,, ' 'r.ur Ireresy, which was then widespread in Persia. Thet' " r i.rrrs rvere active missionaries, and their intrepid monks even. .. I r lrt. wastes of Central Asia and founded successful churches in

, \\'lratever truth there may be in the legend of St. Thomas, itN.. ' t l ,.rt these nrissionaries, no doubt following in the wake of| ,,r rrrr.rchants, were chiefly responsible for establishing the

, ,n (()rnnlunity in South India. 'When, at a later date, Islim

n. | .rrr both Zoroastrianism and Christianity in Persia, the' , , t )n i:tians turned for guidance to the patriarch of Antioch, andr,r ' , rrnr.rincd contact with Syria to this day.

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S+6 THD woNDER THAT w^s INDIA

When European travellers again visited India they noticed thlChristian churches of the South. Marco Polo, at the end of the ltthcentury, saw the tomb of St. Thomas, and remarked on its popularityas a place of pilgrimage. But the Syrian church was corrupt. Therlis no evidence that Indian Christians ever accepted the doctrine oltransmigration, but many Hindu customs had been adopted, and tlnKerala Christians, like the Buddhists and Jainas before them, wercin the process of becoming a rather heterodox Hindu sect. Jesuitmissionaries o[ the t6th and rZth centuries succeeded in preventingfurther decadence. One section of the Syrian church in India acceptedthe authority of Rome, while the other, which remained true to iOtraditions, reformed and purified itself.

It is in this connexion that we find the first record of an Englislr.man visiting India. The Anglo-Sa.ron Chronicle states that in e.o.88a King Alfred, to fulfil a vow, sent an envoy to India with rich giftrfor the tomb of St. Thomas, Florence of Worcester, writing somc2oo years later, adds that the name of the envoy was Swithelm, andthat he retumed safely. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand,gives his name as Bishop Sigelinus, and states that he brought back rrich present ofjewels and spices from the local Indian king, who, if thcstory is true, must have been the C6!a King Aditya I or one of hirchiefs. The Anglo-Saron Chroniclc is generally reliable, and it irreasonable to believe that Alfred sent the €DVol, but " India" for 9tlrcentury Europe was a very loose term, embracing many vaguelyknown parts of Asia and Africa, and we cannot be sure that the envoyactually visited the tomb of St. Thomas at IVailapur, or even that itwas in existence at the time. The discrepancy in the names given tothe envoy by the two later chroniclers shows that the tradition wrrnot vividly remembered, and adds to our suspicion.

On the other hand we know that Christian pilgrims undertook velydifficult journeys in order to visit holy places. At the time Islirr, wunot violently anti-Christian, and the pilgrirn might have found hitway across Egypt without difficulty, and thence in an Arab merchantvessel to South India. It is pleasant to picture the brave Englirhcleric, whatever his name, telling the C6!a king through Arab ardTamil interpreters of King Alfred's battles with the Danes, and KingAlfred, several years later, listening to the envoy's acrount of thcwonders of India and sanrpling the rare spices of the Tamil land.Whatever our doubts, we carnot but hope that the story of BishopSigelinus is a true one.

As well as Christians small communities of Jews settled in Kera|.The earliest certain reference to this community is a loth-centurtcharter by which the king of the CEras, Bheskara Ravivarmrri.

RELIGToN: cuLTs' DocrRtNEs AND METAPHYsIcs 547

,.," lends and privileges to a Jew named Joseph-Rabban; b1t $e

,lrt:r,rr of the Jews of Kerala tells of a large settlement at cochln

, rl,r ' lst century A.D. In any case a small lewish community-has, r '.r.rl in India ior well over a millennium' One branch has mixed

''., 1v with the local Malaydli inhabitants and its members now have,,1 ,,.,1 lrrdian complexions and features; the other branch retains its

, . ,.,1 l,urity, and ii still evidently Semitic' -. A further ancient com-

,, ,,rrrty: of tidian Jews, the Bcni israzl, has lived for many centuries

,, rl,c w'cst coast' and is now centred in Bombay'.\rrrr1|1s1 non-Indian religious community was that of the Zoroas-

r,,r.\, now generally knJwn as P6rsis. Under Achamenid and

.,..,,,,.r, "-p"..o.,

Zoroastrianism was certainly practisedin Pi1.F of

'. \\'. lndia, and had some influence on Hinduism and Buddhism'

l,r'r n() very clear traces of a Zoroastrian community have.survived

rl,,'r,'. Thlugh Zoroastrian merchants may have settled on the

*rrt ('o?st of lrrdin verY early, we have no record of them until

rrr.r' thc Arab conquesi of Persia, when Persianiugitives came to

i,, t'., i,, "pp.eciable

numbers. According-to.the Pdrsis' own tradi-

,, ,,,,, u,,. ULa of tefugees settled first aiDiu in Saurdshtra, and then

rr I lr.rni near Bombay, in the early 8th century'I ct anothercommunitYwas thatof the Muslims' Arabsvisited lndta

l,rry1 Sefore the days of"Muhammad, and there is evidence of small

"t',1,1'rn communities in many of the coastal torvns of the Peninsula

,'. rn rl)e 8th century onwardi. The Mappila (Ivloplah.) community' 'r l i , 'r 'ala is undouttedly descended from settlers and converts of

I ,r1' 11,'1e1" the days of Muslim invasion of India' There is' however'

,,,, , i,'.. evi6ence of any influence of Isldm on Hinduism until after the

\ t r rs l i rn conquest .'t1,,,. Indil, though always loyal to her indigenous cults' g?.t::

"\\ , l( { ,nlc to those of the West. If we except the uncertatn tradltlon

,,t ),t.'l-homas'martyrdom there is no good evidence of the persecu-

r ,,r!rl'rtnv of these non-In<Iian sects. Their members quietly pursued

,',,, ;,r-; icults, smaU but significant elements in the religious l ife of

r' , , ,,:rstal cities, while the g"reat body of Hindus were scarcely aware

t r l'r' alien faiths, and in nJway antagonistic to them' This capacity

t r t, ,le ratiorl contributed to the charaiteristic resiliency of Hinduism'

.',,1 lrt ' lped to assure its survival.