CHAPTER II.
STATISTICS, MYTHOLOGY, AND VEDIC LITERATURE.
EVEN among educated men there is a very inadequate idea of what India really is. It is spoken of as though it were one country, with one language and one race of men, just as persons would speak of England or France; whereas India ought to be regarded as a number of nations, speaking twenty-three different languages, and devoted to various faiths and forms of civilization.
During the long period from the time of William the Conqueror till Clive fought the battle of Plassey in 1756, the Hindoos and Mohammedans maintained their diversity, and were as far from any unity or amalgamation when England entered the country, as they were when Mahmoud of Ghizni conquered Delhi. While the nations of Europe tended to unity, and fused their tribes and clans into homogeneous people, who gloried in a common faith and fatherland, these millions of hostile men have retained the sharp outlines of race, religion, language, and nationality as distinctly as ever.
The diversity of race is shown in the Coles, the Jats, the Santhals, the Tartars, the Shanars, the Mairs, the Karens, the Affghans, the Paharees, the Bheels; in religion, we have the Mohammedans, the Hindoos, the Buddhists, the Jains, the Parsees, the Pagans, and the Christians. While in nationality, there are the Bengalese, the Rohillas, the Burmans, the Mahrattas, the Seikhs, the Telugoos, the Karens, and many others.
India is thus, in fact, a congregation of nations, a crowd of civilizations, customs, languages, and types of humanity, thrown together, with no tendency to homogeneity, until an external civilization and a foreign faith shall make unity and common interest possible by educating and Christianizing them.
In regard to the real numbers of these wonderful people we are now able, from a census taken by the English Government last year, and also from Missionary Reports and other authorities, to furnish reliable civil and religious statistics of the Indian Empire. A few items are approximations, but they come as near to accuracy as is now necessary. India has an area of 1,577,698 square miles. It is nearly 2,000 miles from North to South, and 1,900 miles from East to West. The country is divided into 221 British Districts, and 153 Feudatory States, with a population of 212,671,621 souls.
The average density of this population to the square mile is 135 persons. But in Oude and Rohilcund (the mission field of the Methodist Episcopal Church) the density is 474 and 361 respectively, and is therefore probably the most compact population in the world. England has 367, and the United States only 26, persons to the square mile. As to race, this vast multitude of men are divided as follows:
| The English army | 58,000 |
| Europeans and Americans (civil, mercantile, and missionary life) | 89,585 |
| Eurasians (the mixed races) | 40,789 |
| Asiatics | 212,483,247 |
In religion the native population are distributed, as nearly as we can approximate them, into
| Parsees (followers of Zoroaster) | 150,000 |
| Jains (Heterodox Buddhists) | 400,000 |
| Syrian and Armenian Christians | 140,000 |
| Protestants (attendants on Worship) | 350,000 |
| Roman Catholics (attendants on Worship) | [1]760,000 |
| Karens (in British Burmah) | 500,000 |
| Seikhs (in the Punjab) | 2,000,000 |
| Buddhists (in British Burmah and Ceylon) | 3,280,000 |
| Aborigines, and undefined | 11,000,000 |
| Mohammedans | 30,000,000 |
| Hindoos | 165,000,000 |
There are a few Jews, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Armenians, Nestorians, and others in the country, but of these we make no account here.
The vastness of this wonderful country may be further illustrated by the amazing number of languages spoken throughout its wide extent; and these are living languages, separate and distinct from each other, so that even the characters of their alphabets have no more similarity than the Greek letter has to the Roman. Nor do I include dialects of tongues, or languages of limited and local use, but those which are well known and extensively employed. Of such there are not less than twenty-three spoken in the various provinces of India. They are
1. The Urdu, (the Hindustanee proper,) the French of India, the language of the Mohammedans, of trade, etc.; spoken in Oude and Rohilcund, the Doab, and by traders generally; 2. The Bengalee, spoken in Bengal and eastward; 3. The Hindee, used in Oude, Rohilcund, Rajpootana, Bundlecund, and Malwa by the agricultural Hindoos, etc.; 4. The Punjabee, in the great Indus valley; 5. The Pushtoo, in Peshawar and the far West; 6. The Sindhee, in the Cis-Sutlej States and Sinde; 7. The Guzerattee, in Guzerat, and by the Parsees; 8. The Cutchee, in Cutch ; 9. The Cashmerian, in Cashmere; 10. The Nepaulese, in Nepaul ; 11. The Bhote, in Bootan ; 12. The Assamese, in Assam; 13, 14. The Burmese and Karen, in Burmah and Pegu; 15. The Singhalese, in Ceylon; 16. The Malayalim, in Travencore and Cochin; 17. The Tamul, from Madras to Cape Comorin; 18. The Canarese, in Mysore and Coorg; 19. The Teloogoo, in Hydrabad, and thence to the East Shore; 20. The Oorya, in Orissa; 21. The Cole and Gond, in Berar; 22. The Mahratta, in Bombay, Nagpore, and Gwalior; and 23. The Khassiya, in the North-east. Add the English, and there are twenty-four living languages extensively spoken in India to-day! Nor is this all: the great classics of the leading tongaes, the ancient and venerable Pali, the Sanscrit, the Persian, and the Arabic are studied and used by the scholarship of India, because they hold in their charge the venerable treasures of their voluminous literature, and are as important to their faiths as sacred Greek is to Christianity.
Compare India with Europe, leaving out Russia, and she has more States, languages, and people. The principal tongues of Europe are the English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, Russ, Polish, Turkish, Greek, Dutch, Danish, Swede, Norwegian, and Finn—15. There were (according to the Census of 1861) in Europe 52 States, 15 languages, and 198,014,432 people; but, in India, there are 374 States, 23 languages, and 212,483,247 people. Giving India more States, more languages, and more population than all the great Western nations combined!
To understand what India is, and what was the force and importance of her great Sepoy Rebellion, and what is likely to be her relation to Christianity, and to the magnificent future which awaits her Hemisphere, the reader needs to understand and bear these facts in mind.
Of course, such a people are not destitute of national conceit. Indeed, the Hindoos hold up their heads with a sovereign sense of superiority above all other people on the earth. Admit their claims, and their system of chronology, and the assumptions of their history, and all other nations must hang their heads as modern novelties, and bow down in humility in the presence of a civilization of divine origin and a venerable aristocracy that counts its life and honors by millions of years! No Hindoo doubts but that his country is, or has been, the fount of all the blessings which have spread over the world, and in this rich conceit they hold it as a maxim that
“Min-as-shark talata ba kudrat ar-rahman,
Anwar-ud-din wa al-ilm, wa al-umran.”
That is,
“From the East, by the power of the Merciful One,
Lights of Science, Religion, and Culture have shone.”
The name India is apparently derived from the river Indus, and may have originated in the fact that that river divided this then unknown land from Persia and the world of ancient classical literature. The country is called in Sanscrit Bharatkund, from a dynasty of ancient kings; Punya Dhurma, “The Holy Land,” and also Djam-bhu-dwip, the “Peninsula of the Tree of Life.”
The trade of India is immense. The Imports are cotton cloth, jewelry, watches, stationery, hardware, metals, salt, silk, books, woolens, American ice, bullion, etc., etc.; and the Exports are coffee, tea, raw cotton, (in 1861 to England alone 3,295,000 cwt., producing there $47,500,000,) indigo, opium, ($50,000,000 annually,) saltpeter, jute, seeds, sugar, wool, (23,432,689 lbs. in 1865,) rice, raw silk, ivory, lac, oils, etc. The balance of trade is in favor of India, and the difference has to be paid in cash; so that the specie of England, Germany, and America is drained off to the East, and wealthy India grows richer all the time on a foreign commerce which has now risen to $577,000,000 (gold) per annum. The tonnage is at present 4,268,666 tons, and the revenue $249,646,040, which is only about $1 18 per head—an easier rate of taxation than is levied upon its people by any other civilized Government, while the proportion of the revenue spent on the Administration itself is equally economical. Deduct the annual charges for roads and bridges, police, jails, and courts of justice, education, canals, reservoirs, and irrigation, army, navy, telegraphs, public works, interest on Government securities, and it seems remarkable that the scanty remainder could meet all the charges of the Administration. The Hindoos well know that they were never so well and so cheaply governed as they are now. Their own testimony to this fact will be presented further on. If it were not for the extent to which the cultivated land is almost exclusively made to bear the burden, with its uncertain tenure, (though this is the practice in most Oriental Governments,) and the growth and sale of that vile opium, there would be little now to rebuke in the government of British India. Yet none are more earnest than some of the English themselves for the abolition of this reproach upon their fair fame.
There are seven railroads now running in different parts of the country, with an entire extent of 4,039 miles, and the total traffic receipts of which for the week ending April 22, 1871, was £140,220 11s. 4d., or $701,102, gold. Other lines are in process of construction. The telegraphs, 14,000 miles long, run all through India, while roads as feeders to the railways are being made over the land. But all has been done or furthered by the Government, and the whole has been accomplished during the past fifteen years.
The wealth of India has been proverbial since the time of Solomon, who imported therefrom his “ivory, apes, and peacocks.” It has also seemed to be inexhaustible. From the earliest antiquity, the merchants of Persia, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt sought to enrich themselves by her commerce; and when Europe awoke from her sleep of ages, and entered upon her career of improvement, her first efforts were directed toward gaining a share of the trade of the East. England, at length, entered the field, and soon outstripped all her rivals, Dutch, Portuguese, and French. Agreeably to the policy of the times, the East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth, and vested with the monopoly of the commerce of the East. And advancing by a steady progress, this giant Company, under the patronage of the Imperial power, at length held and governed, or protected, all that immense region.
A leading American journal very justly remarked on this subject, at the time of the great Sepoy Rebellion, that “the achievements by which these stupendous results have been effected are among the marvelous realities of history, compared with which the tales of romance are tame and spiritless. In future times they will, perhaps, constitute the most deeply-interesting portion of the history of our age. We believe that in the present troubles the cause of Great Britain, notwithstanding the many and grave abuses which have been practiced or tolerated by the East India Company, is nevertheless the cause of humanity and Christian civilization. It is this fact, no doubt, which has awakened no small share of the fierce invectives against the proceedings of the English in India. For a long time that region has been the field of an extensive and successful missionary enterprise, to which the British rulers have extended, at least, a protection from Hindoo and Moslem violence, and so afforded an opportunity for the free exercise of Christian philanthropy. This is, doubtless, the head and front of their offending in the minds of many of those who are loudest in their outcries against British cruelty and reckless ambition. We are very far from approving all that has been done by British agents in India, but we are equally clearly convinced that it is much more for their good deeds than their faults that they are most intensely disliked.”
Any man who has resided in India, and known the condition of the people and the actions of that Government in regard to them, and the encouragement extended to efforts for the welfare of the natives, especially of late years, will be prepared to accept these words as a fair, and yet generous, statement of the situation. The position of England in India was a very peculiar one, and, in all candor, should be clearly understood before forming an opinion upon the merits of the case. For instance, in India there is no such thing as patriotism, no capability of self-government. If the English rule were withdrawn to-morrow, the last thing the natives would think of would be to unite and form a general Government. Each Rajah and Nawab would simply set up for himself, hold all he had, and take all he was able to seize. Then would begin a renewal of those religious and national contentions which form such a sad part of India's history, and the bloody exercise of which Britain terminated when she took control of the country, ever since holding the peace between those hostile elements.
The natives, especially the more military races, caring little for love of country, are willing to fight for compensation, and to serve any master; so they were found very ready to wear the livery of England, to bear her weapons, and receive her pay. These men were called “Sepoys,” (the Hindustanee for soldier,) each regiment being officered by English gentlemen. By degrees this force rose up to be an immense power, so that in 1856, there were two hundred thousand of them, constituting the regular Sepoy army, besides as many more called “Contingents,” maintained by native courts under treaty, having English officers in command. Then there were the armed police; making altogether a force of about four hundred thousand trained men, with the best weapons of England in their hands.
The total of British troops in all India in 1856 was not much over forty thousand, and they were scattered on the frontier and in a few of the leading cities, seldom more than one regiment in a place, and sometimes only half a regiment.
By degrees the Sepoy army, especially that of Bengal, became what might be called “a close service,” a high caste Brahminical force, to whose notions constant concessions were made by the Government. They were a fine body of men, invincible to any thing in the East so long as they were led by their English officers, these officers and their ladies and children being afterward the first victims of the Rebellion. The Sepoys were utterly uneducated, as superstitious as they were ignorant, and entirely under the control of their Fakirs and Priests. This weak-minded and fanatical body of men had won for England her Oriental empire, and she chiefly relied on them for its defense and preservation. She could well do so, as long as they were faithful to her rule, but not a day longer. By degrees her policy changed, and, instead of maintaining a mixed army of all castes and creeds and nationalities, the “Bengal Army,” as it was called, grew more and more Brahminical, united, and fanatical.
It has been asked, Why did not England let India go when she threw off her allegiance, and free herself from the care and risk of governing a people who thus disdained her rule? Two answers may be given to this question. One would be the secular reason of men who valued India for what she was to England in the way of profit and power. Millions of British money were invested in the funds and reproductive works of India; then, there was the vast, increasing, and lucrative market for English goods, one item alone of which will express its importance. The clothing of the Hindoo is not very voluminous, yet, what a business was it for Lancashire to have the right to supply cotton cloth for one sixth of the human family! But, besides the merchant and the manufacturer, the politician, the military and the educated man had a deep interest in the retention of this “brightest jewel of the British crown,” for here was furnished the most splendid patronage that ever lay in the gift of a statesman. Hundreds of the cultured classes of England had careers of position and emolument as civil servants of the Government, under “covenants” that secured them munificent compensation, and which enabled them, when their legal term of service expired, to retire on pensions equal to about one half their splendid pay; so that Montgomery Martin estimates that the money remittances to Great Britain from India averaged five million sterling ($25,000,000) per annum for the past sixty years. Landed property in England has been largely enhanced in value by the investments of fortunes, the fruit of civil, military, and commercial success in Hindustan. A nation controlling the resources of such a dependency, with such a noble field in which to elicit and educate the genius of its youth and display the ability of its commanders, with the profitable employment of its mercantile shipping in the boundless imports and exports of such a country as India, could not lightly resign, or throw it away without a mighty struggle for its retention.
But, the man who would present no further reasons than these for British resolution to keep India in its control, would do injustice to the better section of English society, and to many of her noble representatives in the East. There is another and a better reason than what was measured by the pounds, shillings, and pence of mere worldly men, underlying the determination of England in this matter. The Christians of Britain hold firmly that, the Ruler of heaven and earth, in so wonderfully subjecting that great people to their rule, has done so for a higher than secular purpose; that he has given them a moral and evangelical mission to fulfill in that land for him; and that it is their high and solemn duty to maintain that responsibility until, by education and Christianity, they shall attach those millions by the tie of a common creed to the English throne, or fit them for assuming for themselves the responsibilities of self-government. For such men Montgomery Martin (one of their most voluminous Oriental writers) speaks when, in his last edition of his “Indian Empire,” (4 vols, octavo,) dedicated by permission to the British Queen, he so distinctly declares to his Government and countrymen their high accountability before God and man in this respect, when he asks, “On what principle is the future government of India to be based? Are we simply to do what is right, or what seems expedient? If the former, we may confidently ask the Divine blessing on our efforts for the moral and material welfare of the people of India, and we may strive, by a steady course of kind and righteous dealing, to win their alienated affections for ourselves as individuals, and their respect and interest for the religion which inculcates justice, mercy, and humility as equally indispensable to national as to individual Christianity.”
Those who know India best, know that I speak the truth when I assert, that these words are represented by deeds as honorable in the lives, and devotion to India's welfare, of many of the men who represent Great Britain there. I do not know a community of public men where you can find a greater number of “the excellent of the earth,” than among the civil and military officers of England in India; men who have stood up for Jesus and for humanity, loving the poor, degraded race whom they ruled, and pleading, coiling, and giving munificently for their elevation to a better condition. Such names as Bentinck, Lawrence, Herbert Edwards, Havelock, Muir, Tucker, Ramsay, Gowan, Durand, and scores of others, amply justify this statement. The Annual Missionary Reports of the Methodist Episcopal Church (and this is equally true of the other missions as well) bear witness to this fact for many years past. During that time, such was the sympathy for the work which we attempted, in helping them to educate and enlighten the people of our own mission field, that noble-hearted Englishmen in all stations of life, from the Governor-General down to the private soldier, have aided us as freely as though we were of their own nation or Church, so that their contributions since 1857 will be found to aggregate over $150,000 in gold to our mission alone; while this assistance is all the time increasing, and is also equally extended by these good men to the missions of any Church or nation which goes there, and whose labors are aiming to elevate the benighted natives, and prepare them by education and a public conscience for self-government.
The Hindoo Chronology and division of time are very singular,
and even whimsical. They hold to four great Ages of the
world, called Yugs. Each of these Yugs is inferior to its
immemediate predecessor in power, virtue, and happiness. These
divisions are denominated the Satya, the Treta, the Dwarper,
and the Kali Yugs, whose united length amounts to the
prodigious sum of 4,320,000 years; yet this sum of the Ages is
but a Kalpa, or one “Day of Brahma,” at the end of which this
sleepy deity wakes up to find the universe destroyed, and which
he has then to create anew for another “Day” ere he goes to
sleep again.
The Satya Yug, they tell us, lasted 1,728,000 years, and was the Age of Truth—the Golden Age—during which the whole race was virtuous, and lived each of them 100,000 years, and men attained the stature of “21 cubits” (37 feet) in height!
The Treta Yug lasted 1,296,000 years; this was the Silver Age, (using the same figures as the Greek and Roman poets,) during which one third of the race became corrupt, the human stature was lowered, and its life shortened to 10,000 years.
The Dwarper Yug extended to only 864,000 years—their Brazen Age—when fully one half of the race degenerated, and their height was again reduced, and their lives shortened to 1,000 years each.
The Kali Yug is the one in which we now live, and is regarded by them as the last—the Iron Age—in which mankind has become totally depraved, and their stature further reduced, and their life limited to 100 years. This Yug, according to them, began 4,950 years ago, and is to last exactly 427,050 years longer, which will close this Kalpa, or “Day of Brahma.”
They assert that one patriarch called Satyavrata, or Vaivaswata, had an existence running the whole period of the Satya Yug, (1,728,000 years!) and that he escaped with his family from a universal deluge, which destroyed the rest of mankind. He is regarded by Indian archaeologists as the same person as the Seventh Menu, and by Colonel Tod, in his “Annals of Rajasthan,” as designating the patriarch of mankind, Noah.
The “Night of Brahma” is held to be of equal length with his “Day,” and that in the life of Brahma there are 36,000 such nights and days. At the end of each “Day” there is a partial destruction of the universe, and a reconstruction of it at the close of each “Night.” During that long night, “sun, moon, and stars are shrouded in gloom; ceaseless torrents of rain pour down; the waves of the ocean, agitated with mighty tempests, rise to a prodigious height—the seven lower worlds, as well as this earth, are all submerged. In the midst of this darkness and ruin, and in the center of this tremendous abyss, Brahma reposes in mysterious slumber upon the serpent Ananta, or eternity. Meanwhile the wicked inhabitants of all worlds utterly perish. At length the long night ends, Brahma awakes, the darkness is instantly dispelled, and the universe returns to its pristine order and beauty.”
This amazing chronology further states, that when these 36,000 “days” and “nights” (each of them 4,320,000 solar years in duration) have run their course, Brahma himself shall then expire, amid the utter annihilation of the universe, or its absorption into the essence of Brahm. This they call a Maha Pralaya, or great destruction. After this, Brahm, (the original spirit,) who had reposed during the whole duration of the creation's existence, awakes again, and from him another manifestation of the universe takes place, all things being reproduced as before, and Brahma, the Creator, commences a new existence. Each creation is coextensive with the life of Brahma, and lasts over three hundred billions of years, (311,040,000,000 years,) and the people of India believe that thus it has been during the past eternity, and thus it will continue to be in the eternity to come, an alternating succession of manifestations and annihilations of the universe at regular intervals of this inconceivable length. Truly does Wheeler call this daring reckoning “a bold attempt of the Brahmins to map out eternity!”
Trevor has remarked that the present age (the Kali Yug) being 432,000 years, the other three Yugs are found simply by multiplying that number by 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The number itself is the tithe of the sum total of the four Yugs. The “divine year,” being computed like the prophetic, at a year for a day, (counting 360 days to the year,) is equal to 360 ordinary years; and these, multiplied by the perfect number 12,000, makes 4,320,000 years, the sum of the Ages, and a Kalpa, or “Day of Brahma.”
Trevor supposes, that as this chronologic scheme is too absurd for reception, it must have been originally designed as a sort of arithmetical allegory, expressing the character, rather than the duration, of the periods referred to; while the descending ratios of 100,000, 10,000, 1,000, and 100 may indicate only the gradual shortening of the term of human life since the creation of man, as the corresponding proportions of the virtuous and vicious denote the spread of moral evil, till in the present age “they are altogether become filthy.” This theory I leave to the learned reader, having introduced the topic chiefly to illustrate the mental characteristics of the people of India, and to show into what vagaries the human intellect, albeit cultivated and subtile, can be drawn in the day-dreams of a people on whom the light of Revelation never dawned. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
Their divisions of time are singular: 18 Mimeshas (twinkling of an eye, the standard of measure) are equal to 1 Kashta; 30 Kashtas to 1 Kala; 30 Kalas (48 of our minutes) to 1 Muhurtta; 30 Muhurttas to 1 day and night; 1 Month of Men to 1 day and night of the Pitris, (ancestors;) 1 Year of Men to 1 day and night of the Gods. The Hindoos have four watches of the day, and the same at night; these are called Pahars, and are three hours long, the first commencing at six o'clock in the morning. The day and night together are also divided into sixty smaller portions, called Ghurees, so that each of the eight Pahars consists of seven and a half Ghurees. They have twelve months in the year, each month having thirty days. Half the month, when the moon shines, is called Oojeeala-pakh, and the other half, which is dark, they call Andhera-pakh, and these distinctions they recognize in writing and dating their letters. They reckon their era from the reign of Bikurmaditt, one of their greatest and best kings, the present year of their era being 1934. The Mohammedans date their era from the Hejira, or flight of Mohammed from Mecca, which took place in A. D. 622; this is therefore their 1249th year.
I saw a very primitive method of measuring time, or ascertaining the “ghuree,” in India. It was a small brass cup, with a hole in the bottom, immersed in a pan of water, and watched by a servant. When the cup sinks from the quantity of water its perforation has admitted the ghuree is completed, and the cup is again placed empty on the top of the water to measure the succeeding ghuree. Great attention is, of course, required to preserve any moderate degree of correctness by this imperfect mode of marking the progress of the day and night, and establishments are purposely entertained for it when considered as a necessary appendage of rank. In most other cases, the superior convenience and certainty of our clocks and watches are making considerable strides in superseding the Hindustanee ghuree.
A brief glimpse at the wonderful Mythology, Geography, and Astronomy of these people will be expected here, as also some notice of their venerable Vedas and their voluminous literature. Their “Sacred Books” gravely teach as follows:
“The worlds above this earth are peopled with gods and goddesses, demi-gods and genii—the sons and grandsons, daughters and granddaughters, of Brahma and other superior deities. All the superior gods have separate heavens for themselves. The inferior deities dwell chiefly in the heaven of Indra, the god of the firmament. There they congregate to the number of three hundred and thirty millions. The gods are divided and subdivided into classes or hierarchies, which vary through every conceivable gradation of rank and power. They are of all colors: some black, some white, some red, some blue, and so through all the blending shades of the rainbow. They exhibit all sorts of shape, size, and figure: in forms wholly human or half human, wholly brutal or variously compounded, like many-headed and many-bodied centaurs, with four, or ten, or a hundred or a thousand eyes, heads, and arms. They ride through the regions of space on all sorts of etherealized animals: elephants, buffaloes, lions, deer, sheep, goats, peacocks, vultures, geese, serpents, and rats! They hold forth in their multitudinous arms all manner of offensive and defensive weapons: thunderbolts, scimetars, javelins, spears, clubs, bows, arrows, shields, flags, and shells! They discharge all possible functions. There are gods of the heavens above, and of the earth below, and of the regions under the earth; gods of wisdom and of folly; gods of war and of peace; gods of good and of evil; gods of pleasure, who delight to shed around their votaries the fragrance of harmony and joy; gods of cruelty and wrath, whose thirst must be satiated with torrents of blood, and whose ears must be regaled with the shrieks and agonies of expiring victims. All the virtues and the vices of man, all the allotments of life—beauty, jollity, and sport, the hopes and fears of youth, the felicities and infelicities of manhood, the joys and sorrows of old age—all, all are placed under the presiding influence of superior powers.”—Duff's India.
The Geography and Astronomy of the Hindoos are on a par with their Theology. It would be a waste of time and patience to crowd these pages with their wild, ridiculous, and unscientific nonsense upon these topics. Yet it may be a duty to say something in order to convey a general idea of the subject to such persons as have not made their system a study. Dr. Duff has had the patience to epitomize it; and from him we quote a passage or two, which the reader will deem to be all sufficient, and which he may be assured is only a sample of the monstrous extravagances of Hindoo “science,” falsely so called.
Speaking of the constitution of the physical universe, as revealed in the Sacred Books of the Brahmins, he says: “It is partitioned into fourteen worlds—seven inferior, or below the world which we inhabit, and seven superior, consisting—with the exception of our own, which is the first—of immense tracts of space, bestudded with glorious luminaries and habitations of the Gods, rising, not unlike the rings of Saturn, one above the other, as so many concentric zones or belts of almost immeasurable extent.
“Of the seven inferior worlds which dip beneath our earth in a regular descending series, it is needless to say more than that they are destined to be the abodes of all manner of wicked and loathsome creatures.
“Our own earth, the first of the ascending series of worlds, is declared to be ‘circular or flat, like the flower of the water-lily, in which the petals project beyond each other.’ Its habitable portion consists of seven circular islands or continents, each surrounded by a different ocean. The central or metropolitan island, destined to be the abode of man, is named Jamba Dwip, around which rolls the sea of salt water; next follows the second circular island, and around it the sea of sugar-cane juice; then the third, and around it the sea of spirituous liquors; then the fourth, and around it the sea of clarified butter; then the fifth, and around it the sea of sour curds; then the sixth, and around it the sea of milk; then the seventh and last, and around it the sea of sweet water. Beyond this last ocean is an uninhabited country of pure gold, so prodigious in extent that it equals all the islands, with their accompanying oceans, in magnitude. It is begirt with a bounding wall of stupendous mountains, which inclose within their bosom realms of everlasting darkness.
“The central island, the destined habitation of the human race, is several hundred thousand miles in diameter, and the sea that surrounds it is of the same breadth. The second island is double the diameter of the first, and so is the sea that surrounds it. And each of the remaining islands and seas, in succession, is double the breadth of its immediate predecessor; so that the diameter of the whole earth amounts to several hundred thousand millions of miles—occupying a portion of space of manifold larger dimensions than that which actually intervenes between the earth and the sun! Yea, far beyond this; for, if we could form a conception of a circular mass of solid matter whose diameter exceeded that of the orbit of Herschel, the most distant planet in our solar system, such a mass would not equal in magnitude the Earth of the Hindoo Mythologists!
“In the midst of this almost immeasurable plain, from the very center of Jamba Dwip, shoots up the loftiest of mountains, Su-Meru, to the height of several hundred thousand miles, in the form of an inverted pyramid, having its summit, which is two hundred times broader than the base, surmounted by three swelling cones—the highest of these cones transpiercing upper vacancy with three golden peaks, on which are situate the favorite residences of the sacred Triad. At its base, like so many giant sentinels, stand four lofty hills, on each of which grows a mango-tree several thousand miles in height, bearing fruit delicious as nectar, and of the enormous size of many hundred cubits. From these mangoes, as they fall, flows a mighty river of perfumed juice, so communicative of its sweetness that those who partake of it exhale the odor from their persons all around to the distance of many leagues. There also grow rose-apple trees, whose fruit is ‘large as elephants,’ and whose juice is so plentiful as to form another mighty river, that converts the earth over which it passes into purest gold!”—Duff's India and India Missions, p. 116.
Such is a brief notice of the Geographical outline, furnished by their sacred writings, of the world on which we dwell. In turning to the superior worlds we obtain a glimpse of some of the revelations of Hindoo Astronomy.
“The second world in the ascending series, or that which immediately over-vaults the earth, is the region of space between us and the sun, which is declared, on divine authority, to be distant only a few hundred thousand miles. The third in the upward ascent is the region of space intermediate between the sun and the pole star. Within this region are all the planetary and stellar mansions. The distances of the principal heavenly luminaries are given with the utmost precision. The moon is placed beyond the sun as far as the sun is from the earth. Next succeed at equal distances from each other, and in the following order, the stars. Mercury, (beyond the stars,) Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Ursa Major, and the Pole Star. The four remaining worlds (beyond the Pole Star) continue to rise, one above the other, at immense and increasing intervals. The entire circumference of the celestial space is then given with the utmost exactitude of numbers.
“In all of these superior worlds are framed heavenly mansions, differing in glory, destined to form the habitation of various orders of celestial spirits. In the seventh, or highest, is the chief residence of Brahma, said by one of the “divine sages” to be so glorious that he could not describe it in two hundred years, as it contains, in a superior degree, every thing which is precious, or beautiful, or magnificent in all the other heavens. What then must it be, when we consider the surpassing grandeur of some of these? Glance, for example, at the heaven which is prepared in the third world, and intended for Indra—head and king of the different ranks and degrees of subordinate deities. Its palaces are ‘all of purest gold, so replenished with vessels of diamonds, and columns and ornaments of jasper, and sapphire, and emerald, and all manner of precious stones, that it shines with a splendor exceeding the brightness of twelve thousand suns. Its streets are of the clearest crystal, fringed with fine gold. It is surrounded with forests abounding with all kinds of trees and flowering shrubs, whose sweet odors are diffused all around for hundreds of miles. It is bestudded with gardens and pools of water; warm in winter and cool in summer, richly stored with fish, water-fowl, and lilies, blue, red, and white, spreading out a hundred or a thousand petals. Winds there are, but they are ever refreshing, storms and sultry heats being unknown. Clouds there are, but they are light and fleecy, and fantastic canopies of glory. Thrones there are, which blaze like the coruscations of lightning, enough to dazzle any mortal vision. And warblings there are, of sweetest melody, with all the inspiring harmonies of music and of song, among bowers that are ever fragrant and ever green.’ ”—P. 118.
The reader will remember that these descriptions are not to be taken as figurative and emblematic, as is appropriate to a state of glory of whose nature and details the heart of man cannot conceive, but that they are to be understood, as they are taught, in the strictest literality.
The Vedas are undoubtedly the oldest writings in the world, with the exception of the Pentateuch. Colebrook supposes that they were compiled in the fourteenth century before Christ. Sir William Jones assigns them to the sixteenth century. They are certainly not less than three thousand years old. Veda is from the Sanscrit root vid, to know, the Veda being considered the fountain of all knowledge, human and divine. A Veda, in its strict sense, is simply a Sanhita, or collection of hymns. There are three Vedas, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur Veda, and the Sama-Veda. The fourth, the Atharva Veda, is of more modern date and doubtful authority. The Hindoos hold that the Vedas are coeval with creation. As to their several contents, the Rig-Veda consists of prayers and hymns to various deities; the Yajur Veda, of ordinances about sacrifices and other religious rites; the Sama-Veda is made up of various lyrical pieces, and the Atharva Veda chiefly of incantations against enemies.
The Rig-Veda is the oldest and most authentic of all, and many scholars consider that from it the others were formed. The Hindoo writers attach to each Veda a class of compositions, chiefly liturgical and legendary, called Brahmanas, and they have besides a sort of expository literature, metaphysical and mystical, called Upanishads. They have also an immense body of Vedic literature, including philology, commentaries, Sutras or aphorisms, etc., the study of which would form occupation for a long and laborious life. The remote antiquity of the Vedas is indicated, among other reasons, by the entire absence of most of the modern doctrines of Hindooism, such as the worship of the Triad, the names of the modern deities, the doctrines of transmigration, caste, incarnations, suttee, etc., which are now the cardinal points of Hindooism, and the personified Triad of divine attributes, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, in their capacities of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, with the popular forms of the two latter, Krishna and the Linga, and all the manifestations of the bride of Mahadeva certainly were utterly unknown to the primitive texts of the religion of the Hindoos.
The Rig-Veda Sanhita (a complete copy of which is before us as we write) was translated from the original Sanscrit by Horace H. Wilson, and published in English in four volumes, the first being issued in 1850, and the last in 1866. The learned Introduction which the translator attached to the first volume, and an extensive and discriminating notice in the Calcutta Review for 1859, assist us in our description of these venerable writings.
The Rig-Veda is a miscellaneous collection of hymns. Each hymn is called a Sukta. The whole work is divided into eight books, or Ashtakas. Each Ashtaka is subdivided into eight Adhyayas, or chapters, containing an arbitrary number of Suktas. The whole number of hymns in the Rig-Veda is about a thousand. Each Sukta has for its reputed author a Rishi, or inspired teacher, by whom, in Brahminical phraseology, it has been originally seen, that is, to whom it was revealed; the Vedas being, according to mythological fictions, the uncreated dictation of Brahma. Each hymn is addressed to some deity or deities.
Who are the gods to whom the prayers and praises are addressed? Here we find a striking difference between the mythology of the Rig-Veda and that of the heroic poems and Puranas, which come so long after them. The divinities worshiped are not unknown to later systems, but they there perform very subordinate parts, while those deities who are the great gods—the Dii Majores—of the subsequent and present period, are either wholly unnamed in the Veda, or are noticed in an inferior and different capacity. The names of Shiva, of Mahadeva, of Durga, of Kali, of Rama, of Krishna, never occur, and there is not the slightest allusion to the form in which, for the last ten centuries at least, Shiva seems to have been almost exclusively worshiped in India, that of the Linga or Phallus; neither is there any hint of another important feature of later Hindooism, the Trimurti, or Triune combination of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, as typified by the mystical syllable Om, although, according to high Brahminical authority, the Trimurti was the first element in the faith of the Hindoos, and the second was the Linga.
The deities mentioned in the Vedas are numerous, and of different sexes. The leading ones are Indra, Agni, and Surya; and the female deities are Ushas, Saraswati, Sinivali, etc. “The wives of the gods” are spoken of as a large number, and are often invoked. The operations and powers of nature are deified, as the Murats, the winds; the Aswins, the sons of the sun; and even the cows are invoked in a special Sukta.—Vol. iii, p. 440. In fact, the deities, inferior and superior, of the Vedas may be counted by the dozen, and the work is manifestly polytheistic to the core in its teaching and tendencies. The evidence of this is on every page.
For the general reader, the mystery that covered the Vedas is a mystery no longer; all that they contain stands out for public view in the common light of day. Except as to grammatical construction and translation into modern words, we are far abler to discover and understand what story these ancient documents tell than is any of the Pundits. For, in ascertaining their sense, we have to deal with questions of race, of language, of history, of chronology, and external influences; questions unknown, and therefore unintelligible, to the Hindoo mind. Forbidden to the Sudras, inaccessible from their rarity and high price to most of the Brahmins, for that very reason they are the objects of a more profound and superstitious veneration; and, if any thing can be supposed, a priori, to startle and excite all Hindustan, it is surely the announcement that the Vedas have become public property, and that Sudra and Mlechcha (barbarian) may read them at his will.
It was almost entirely from such writings as these that European scholars had to undertake the compilation of a true chronology and history for India. The task was certainly not an easy one. It was like this: Given the Psalms of David, to discover from these alone the manners, customs, religions, arts, sciences, history, chronology, and origin of the Jewish nation; to classify the hymns too, and assign to each its time and author, with no other help than the heading to each Psalm, added by a later hand. Knowing, as we do, that they range almost from Moses till after the captivity—at least seven hundred years—the later parts of the task alone would demand all the resources of scholarship. It is true that the Vedic hymns are ten times more numerous than the Psalms, but they are at the same time ten times more monotonous, and full of wearisome repetitions, under which even Professor Wilson's patience gives way. In our Sacred Books the Code precedes, and the history precedes, accompanies, and follows the Psalms. With the Hindoo the Code comes after the hymns, and has to do with a different stage of society, and the history never comes at all! Nevertheless, the Vedas, with all their difficulties, throw a flood of light upon the origin and early state of the Hindoos.
The people among whom the Vedas were composed, as here introduced to us, had evidently passed the nomadic stage. Their wealth consisted of horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and buffaloes. Coined money, and indeed money in any shape, was unknown. We meet but two allusions to gold, except for the purpose of ornaments. The cow was to the Vedic Hindoo at once food and money. It supplied him with milk, butter, ghee, curds, and cheese. Oxen ploughed his fields, and carried his goods and chattels. He preserved the Soma-juice in a bag of cow-skin, (Rig-Veda, vol. I, p. 72,) and the cow-hide girt his chariot. (Vol. III, p. 475.) No idea of sacredness was connected with the cow; and it is quite clear, however abhorrent and revolting the truth may appear to their descendants, that in the golden age of their ancestors the Hindoos were a cowkilling and beef-eating people, and that cattle are declared in the Vedas to be the very best of food! Yet modern Hindooism holds it to be a deadly sin to kill a cow, or eat beef, or to use intoxicating drink, and they dare to assert that this was always their creed. We quote texts which leave no room for a doubt on this, to them, important fact:
“Agni, descendant of Bharata thou art entirely ours when sacrificed to with pregnant kine, barren cows, or bulls.”
“Agni, the friend of Indra, has quickly consumed three hundred buffaloes.”
“When thou hast eaten the flesh of the three hundred buffaloes.”
“Bestow upon him who glorifies thee, divine Indra, food, the chiefest of which is cattle.”—Vol II, p. 225; III, p. 276.
“Sever his joints, Indra, as butchers cut up a cow.”—Vol. III, p. 458; I, p. 165.
What an amount of beef-eating is implied in a sacrifice of three hundred buffaloes! the greater part, as usual, being devoured by the assistants. The cooking is very minutely and graphically described in vol. II, pp. 117, etc. Part was roasted on spits, while the attendants eagerly watched the joints, sniffing up the grateful fumes, and saying, “It is fragrant.” The queens and wives of the sacrificers assisted in cooking and preparing the banquet, which, on particular occasions, alluded to in the text, consisted of horseflesh! All was washed down with copious libations of a strong spirit, made from the juice of the soma plant. Rishi Kakshivat had in every way most unclerical propensities. He thanks the Aswins most cordially for giving him a cask holding a hundred jars of wine, (vol. I, p. 308;) and Rishi Vamadeva, who was taken out of his mother's side, solicits Indra (vol. III, p. 185) for a hundred jars of soma-juice. Rishi Agastya also, in a queer, half-crazy Sukta, (vol. II, p. 200,) writes of “a leather bottle in the house of a vender of spirits!” These were the men that fought Alexander the Great. After such a feast of the gods, Indra puts forth all his might, and destroys the fiercest of the Asuras, (the evil spirits.)
The social position of woman, this Veda demonstrates, was considerably higher than it is in modern India. She is spoken of kindly and pleasantly as “the light of the dwelling.” The Rishi and his wife converse on equal terms, go together to the sacrifice, and practice austerities together. Lovely maidens appear in a procession. Grown-up unmarried daughters remain without reproach in their father's house. Now, all this is the reverse of the Hindooism of the present day. On the other hand, we have a case of polygamy of the most shameful kind. Kakshivat, one of the most illustrious of the Rishis, married ten sisters at once, (vol. II, p. 17;) and, if the tone of female society is to be judged of from the wife even of a Rishi, or from a lady who is herself the author of a Sukta, women in those days were no better than they should be.
A gallant, deep-drinking, high-feeding race were the wild warriors of the Indus, and very unlike their descendants.
The picture of Hindoo life and manners, at the time of the Macedonian invasion, (326 B. C.,) was darkly shaded. The Hindoo even then had degenerated; and the “Life of an Eastern King” on the banks of the Indus differed little in its shameless details from that of his modern successor at Lucknow, on the banks of the Goomtee.
Rufus Curtius Quintus, the historian of Alexander, writes of the Hindoos thus: “The shameful luxuries of their prince surpasses that of all other nations. He reclines in a golden palankeen, with pearl hangings. The dresses which he puts on are embroidered with purple and gold. The pillars of his palace are gilt; and a running pattern of a vine, carved in gold, and figures of birds, in silver, ornament each column. The durbar is held while he combs and dresses his hair; then he receives embassadors, and decides cases. . . . The women prepare the banquet and pour out the wine, to which all the Indians are greatly addicted. Whenever he, or his queen, went on a journey, crowds of dancing girls in gilt palankeens attended; and when he became intoxicated they carried him to his couch.”—Liber VIII, 32. And, if we are to believe his biographer, into such a vile, sensual thing as this the great Alexander himself was rapidly degenerating at that very time!
The religion of the Vedas, then, was Nature worship; light, careless, and irreverent, utterly animal in its inmost spirit, with little or no sense of sin, no longings or hopes of immortality, nothing high, serious, or thoughtful. There was no love in their worship. They cared only for wealth, victory, animal gratification, and freedom from disease. The tiger of the forest might have joined in such prayers, and said, “Grant me health, a comfortable den, plenty of deer and cows, and strength to kill any intruder on my beat!” “The blessings they implore,” says Professor Wilson, “are for the most part of a temporal and personal description—wealth, food, life, posterity, cattle, cows, and horses; protection against enemies, victory over them, and sometimes their destruction. There are a few indications of a hope of immortality and of future happiness, but they are neither frequent, nor, in general, distinctly announced. In one or two passages Yama, and his office of ruler of the dead, are obscurely alluded to. There is little demand for moral benefactions.”—Vol. I, p. 25.
So merely fanciful, so wearisome and monotonous, so contemptuously irreverent are the great bulk of these Vedic prayers, (to Indra especially,) that Professor Wilson, with all his patience, can scarce believe them to be earnest. Take, for instance, the following Hymn. It is addressed to the goddess Anna Devata, personified as Pitu, or material food, and is recited by a Brahmin when about to eat. Pitu is also identified with the Soma juice, mentioned below. The Rishi is Agastya, and the reader can judge if any utterances (and this, too, professing to be sacred and inspired) that he has ever seen, more fully illustrates the words of Holy Writ, “Whose God is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things:”
“1. I glorify Pitu, the great, the upholder, the strong, by whose invigorating power Trita slew the mutilated Vritra.
“2. Savory Pitu; sweet Pitu; we worship thee: become our protector.
“6. The thoughts of the mighty gods are fixed, Pitu, upon thee: by thy kind and intelligent assistance Indra slew Ahi.
“8. And since we enjoy the abundance of the waters and the plants, therefore, Body, do thou grow fat!
“9. And since we enjoy. Soma, thy mixture with boiled milk or boiled barley, therefore. Body, do thou grow fat!
“10. Vegetable cake of fried meal, do thou be substantial, wholesome, and invigorating; and, Body, do thou grow fat!
“11. We extract from thee, Pitu, by our praises, the sacrificial food, as cows yield butter for oblation; from thee, who art exhilarating to the gods; exhilarating also to us.”—Rig-Veda, Vol. II, p. 194. Sukta viii.
In a similar strain the Soma-plant is addressed.
It was bruised between two stones, mixed with milk or barley juice, and, when fermented, formed a strong, inebriating, ardent spirit—probably not very unlike the whisky of the present day.
It appears that the Rishis of the Vedas introduced this custom, or belief, into religion, Indra and all the other gods are everywhere represented as unable to perform any great exploit without the inspiration of the Soma, or, in plain English, until they were more or less drunk! Hear the Veda:
“May our Soma libation reach you, exhilarating, invigorating, inebriating, most precious. It is companionable, Indra, enjoyable, the overthrower of hosts, immortal.
“Thy inebriety is most intense: nevertheless thy acts are most beneficent.”—Vol. II, p. 169.
“Savory indeed is this Soma; sweet it is, sharp, and full of flavor; no one is able to encounter Indra in battle, after he has been quaffing this—by drinking of it Indra has been elevated to the slaying of Vritra,” etc.—Vol. III, p. 470.
“The stomach of Indra is as capacious a receptacle of Soma as a lake.”—Vol. III, p. 60. “The belly of Indra, which quaffs the Soma juice abundantly, swells like the ocean, and is ever moist, like the ample fluids of the palate.”— Vol. III, pp. 17, 231, 232. “Indra, quaff the Soma juice, repeatedly shaking it from your beard.”—Vol. II, p. 233. What common revelry is expressed in the following verse: “Saints and sages, sing the holy strain aloud, like screaming swans, and, together with the gods, drink the sweet juice of the Soma.”—Vol. III, p. 86.
This license runs riot, and “the goddesses, the wives of the gods,” (Vol. III. p. 316,) with earthly ladies, one of them (Viswavara) herself a Rishi and compiler of a Sukta (Vol. III, p. 273) in which she prays for “concord between man and wife,” all are joined—gods, goddesses, and “divine Rishis”—in high carousal. But, then, mark what Rishi Avatsara says of this lady, Viswavara, and of his brother Rishis, and the rest of the boisterous crew, all “gloriously drunk” together:
“11. Swift is the excessive and girt-distending inebriation of Viswavara, Yajata, and Mayin: by drinking of these juices they urge one another to drink: they find the copious draught the prompt giver of intoxication!”—Vol. III, p. 311.
And this was the worship of Ancient India! Jolly and easy are the terms on which deity and worshiper meet together for their wassail! Prajapate addresses his god thus: “Indra, the showerer of benefits, drink the Soma offered after the other presentations, for thine exhilaration for battle; take into thy belly the full wave of the inebriating Soma, for thou art lord of libations from the days of old!” (Vol. III, p. 75.) But the Rishi Viswamitra evidently thought that, under the circumstances, there was no use in standing upon even Hindoo ceremony, so he says to his deity: “Sit down, Indra, upon the sacred grass—and when thou hast drunk the Soma, then, Indra, go home!” finishing up the address by reminding him that the hungry steeds in his car at the door need consideration, and require their provender!— Vol. III, p. 84.
How melancholy and degrading is all this—god, worshiper, and the traffic between them! But one grade above the beasts that perish; yet these are the teachings of the most sacred of the so-called “Holy Vedas?” This drunken worship realizes and surpasses Dionysius and the Bacchanals themselves.
These besotted mortals had evidently reached that stage of debasement when men can suppose that the Almighty “was altogether such a one as themselves,” and when they can “call evil good” and “put darkness for light.” Well might the reviewer exclaim, from the abundant and fearful evidence before him that, “No worship ever mocked the skies more miserable and contemptible than the religion of the Veda!”
But, what are we to think of professedly enlightened Hindoos, like Rajah Rammohun Roy, or this modern Baboo, Keshub Chunder Sen, who, if they ever read the Vedas, of which they talk so glibly, must surely have dared to presume upon the ignorance of their auditors, when they had the temerity, in a day like this, and before a London audience, to assert that “the worship of Almighty God in his unity,” and “a pure system of theism” are taught in the Vedas?— Men, who after all this have the impertinence to assume a patronizing aspect toward Christianity, and superciliously inform us that, however good or pure our faith is in itself, its doctrine and services are not needed in India, because “the Holy Vedas” contain all that is requisite for the regeneration of their country! Yet this is said and repeated, and Miss Carpenter and her Unitarian friends clap their hands, applaud the assertions, and lionize the man who utters them, and commend the Brahmo Somaj, of which he is the High Priest! Do not such people deserve to be deceived? and is it really a violation of Christian charity to fear that such persons must be given over to “strong delusion” when they can believe such “a lie” as this?
After a careful examination, from beginning to end, of this venerable and lauded work, (the doors of which have so lately opened for the admission of mankind,) with the remembrance in my mind of the long years when men have listened to the reiterations of its holiness, as the very source of all Hindoo faith—the oracle from which Vedantic Philosophy has drawn its inspiration, the temple at whose mere portal so many millions have bowed in such awe and reverence, with its interior too holy for common sight, containing, as it was asserted, all that was worth knowing, the primitive original truth that could regenerate India, and make even Christianity unnecessary—well, with no feelings save those of deep interest and a measure of respect, we have entered and walked from end to end, to find ourselves shocked at every step with the revelations of this mystery of iniquity and sensuality, where saints and gods, male and female, hold high orgies amid the fumes of intoxicating liquor, with their singing and “screaming,” and the challenging by which “they urge one another” on to deeper debasement, until at length decency retires and leaves them “glorying in their shame!”
The sad samples which we have presented are taken at random, and can be matched by hundreds of passages equally contemptible; while we have purposely avoided quoting Suktas and verses whose indelicacy is even worse than these; nor have we found, because it is not there, any thing pure, sublime, or good, with which to offset the vileness here laid before the reader. Coming out again from the gloomy scenes of these “works of darkness” into the light and purity of our blessed Bible, with all its “fruits of the Spirit,” never before were we so thankful for our holy religion, nor have we ever felt as deep a compassion for the millions so shamefully and so long deluded by the false and hollow pretensions of the Vedic teaching.
Before dismissing the subject I will, for the sake of such readers as may not have seen an entire Sukta of the Veda, quote one in full, so that he may have a complete view of the “holiest” and most venerable of all India's “Scriptures,” selecting one, however, that may be regarded as respectable in its ideas and language. I take the fifth Sukta, on page 38 of volume I of the Rig-Veda. The Rishi (or author) is Medhalithi, the son of Kanwa, and the hymn is addressed to Indra, their God of the Heavens:
“Sukta V.
“1. Indra, let thy coursers hither bring thee, bestower of desires, to drink the Soma juice; may the priests, radiant of the sun, make thee manifest.
“2. Let his coursers convey Indra in an easy-moving chariot hither, where these grains of parched barley, steeped in clarified butter, are strewn upon the altar.
“3. We invoke Indra at the morning rite, we invoke him at the succeeding sacrifice, we invoke Indra to drink the Soma juice.
“4. Come, Indra, to our libation, with thy long-maned steeds; the libation being poured out, we invoke thee.
“5. Do thou accept this our praise, and come to this our sacrifice, for which the libation is prepared; drink like a thirsty stag.
“6. These dripping Soma juices are effused upon the sacred grass; drink them, Indra. to recruit thy vigor.
“7. May this our excellent hymn, touching thy heart, be grateful to thee, and thence drink the effused libation.
“8. Indra, the destroyer of enemies, repairs assuredly to every ceremony where the libation is poured out, to drink the Soma juice for exhilaration.
“9. Do thou, Satakratu, accomplish our desire with cattle and horses: profoundly meditating, we praise thee.”
As the Greeks and Romans had their Homer and Virgil, so the
Hindoos have had their Valmiki and Vyasa. The great epics of
India are the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. These stand peerless
in their voluminous literature, and have held control of the
minds of the people since long before the Incarnation.
The Ramayana is probably the most ancient and connected epic poem in the Sanscrit, and exceeded only by the Vedas in antiquity. It contains the mythical history of Rama, one of the incarnations of the god Vishnu, and was written by the great poet Valmiki. For a very brief epitome of this wonderful and venerable development of Hindoo literature we are indebted to Speir's “Ancient India.”
The style and language of the Ramayana are those of an early heroic age, and there are signs of its having been popular in India at least three centuries before Christ. The original subject of the poem is sometimes considered as mythological, and sometimes as heroic; but the mythological portions stand apart, and have the air of after-thoughts, intended to give a religious and philosophical tone to what was at first a tale rehearsed at festivals in praise of the ancestors of kings. The mythological introduction states that Lanka, or Ceylon, had fallen under the dominion of a prince named Ravana, who was a demon of such power that by dint of penance he had extorted from the god Brahm a promise that no immortal should destroy him. Such a promise was as relentless as the Greek Fates, from which Jove himself could not escape; and Ravana, now invulnerable to the gods, gave up the asceism he had so long practiced, and tyrannized over the whole of Southern India in a fearful manner. At length, even the gods in heaven were distressed at the destruction of holiness and oppression of virtue consequent upon Ravana's tyrannies, and they called a council in the mansion of Brahma to consider how the earth could be relieved from such a fiend. To this council came the “god Vishnu, riding on the eagle Vain-a-taya, like the sun on a cloud, and his discus and his mace in hand.” The other gods entreat him to give his aid, and he promises, in consequence, to be born on earth, and to accomplish the destruction of the terrific Ravana. Vishnu therefore became incarnated (his Seventh Avatar) as Rama or Ramchundra, and his life and exploits as the celebrated King of Ayodhya, form the subject of this, the earliest epic poem of India. According to this work, Rama was born as the son of Dasharatha, King of Ayodhya, the modern Oude. In early life Rama married Seeta, the lovely daughter of the King of Mithili. But domestic trouble, caused by the intrigues of his mother-in-law in behalf of her own son, caused Rama and Seeta to retire to the forests, and there they lived the lives of hermits for years, till the time for his action should come. While in this seclusion, Ravana, the demon King of Lanka, (Ceylon,) who had heard of the beauty of Seeta, resolved to steal her from Rama. Finding it in vain to hope to succeed without the aid of stratagem, he took with him an assistant sorcerer, disguised as a deer; and as Rama took great pleasure in the chase, it was not difficult for the deer to lure him from his cottage in pursuit. He did not leave his beloved Seeta without requesting Lakshman, his brother, to remain in charge; but the wily deer knew how to defeat his precaution, and, when transfixed by Rama's arrow, he cried out in the voice of Rama, “O, Lakshman, save me!” Seeta heard the cry, and entreated Lakshman to fly to his brother's rescue. He was unwilling to go, but yielded to her earnestness, and she was left alone. This being the state of affairs which Ravana desired, he now left his hiding-place, and came forward, disguised as an Ascetic Brahmin, in a red, threadbare garment, with a single tuft of hair upon his head, and three sticks and a pitcher in his hand. In the rich, glowing poetry all creation is represented as shuddering at his approach; birds, beasts, and flowers were motionless with dread; the summer wind ceased to breathe, and a shiver passed over the bright waves of the river. Ravana stood for awhile looking at his victim, as she sat weeping and musing over the unknown cry; but soon he approached, saying, (we quote the metrical translation here,)
“O thou that shinest like a tree
With summer blossoms overspread,
Wearing that woven kusa robe,
And lotus garland on thy head,
Why art thou dwelling here alone,
Here in this dreary forest's shade,
Where range at will all beasts of prey,
And demons prowl in every glade?
Wilt thou not leave thy cottage home,
And roam the world, which stretches wide—
See the fair cities which men build.
And all their gardens and their pride?
Why longer, fair one, dwell'st thou here,
Feeding on roots and sylvan fare.
When thou might'st dwell in palaces,
And earth's most costly jewels wear?
Fearest thou not the forest gloom,
Which darkens round on every side?
Who art thou, say! and whose, and whence,
And wherefore dost thou here abide?”
Even a lady alone is not supposed to be necessarily alarmed at meeting “a holy Brahmin,” and the fiend's disguise was so complete that only a temporary flush of excitement followed his sudden address. So the poet continues:
“When first these words of Ravana
Broke upon sorrowing Seeta's ear.
She started up, and lost herself
In wonderment, and doubt, and fear;
But soon her gentle, loving heart
Threw off suspicion and surmise.
And slept again in confidence,
Lull'd by the mendicant's disguise.
‘Hail, holy Brahmin!’ she exclaimed;
And, in her guileless purity.
She gave a welcome to her guest,
With courteous hospitality.
Water she brought to wash his feet,
And food to satisfy his need.
Full little dreaming in her heart
What fearful guest she had received,”
She even tells him her own story, how Rama had won her for his bride and taken her to his father's home, and how the jealous Kaikeyi had cast them forth to roam the woods; and after dwelling fondly on her husband's praise, she invited her guest to tell his name and lineage, and what had induced him to leave his native land for the wilds of the Dandaka forest, inviting him to await hei husband's return, for “to him are holy wanderers dear.” Suddenly Ravana declares himself to be the demon monarch of the earth, “at whose name Heaven's armies flee.” He has come, he says, to woo Seeta for his queen, and to carry her to his palace in the island of Ceylon! Astonished and indignant at his character and proposal, the wrath of Rama's wife burst forth in these words:
“Me would'st thou woo to be thy queen,
Or dazzle with thy empire's shine?
And didst thou dream that Rama's wife
Could stoop to such a prayer as thine?
I, who can look on Rama's face,
And know that there my husband stands,—
My Rama, whose high chivalry
Is blazoned through a hundred lands!
What! shall the jackal think to tempt
The lioness to mate with him?
Or did the King of Lanka's isle,
Build upon such an idle dream?”
But vain was poor Seeta's indignant remonstrance. Ravana's only answer was to throw off his disguise, and, “with brows as dark as the storm-cloud,” he carried off the shrieking Seeta as an eagle bears its prey, mounting up aloft and flying with his burden through the sky. The unhappy Seeta calls loudly upon Rama, and bids the flowery bowers and trees and rivers all tell her Rama that Ravana has stolen his Seeta from his home. In Rama's time the woods were inhabited by demons and monkeys. On returning and ascertaining his great loss, Rama did not feel strong enough to recover Seeta single-handed. He therefore entered into an alliance with the monkeys. First, the monkey-king Sugriva dispatched emissaries in all directions to ascertain where Seeta was concealed; and when the monkey-general Hunoomam (the Mars of India) ascertained that she was in a palace in Ceylon, Rama and all the allied monkey forces marched down to the Coromandel coast, and, making a bridge by casting rocks into the sea, passed quickly into Lanka. After fighting a few battles the Rakshasas (demons) were defeated, Ravana was put to death by Rama, and Seeta rescued from her palace prison. Rama will, however, have nothing to say to his recovered wife until she has gone through “the ordeal of fire;” but as she passed through the blazing pile unhurt, and Brahma and other gods attested her fidelity, her husband once more received her with affection, and, the term of exile over, the whole party returned in happiness to Ayodhya. Such, in brief, is the story of the Ramayana, which is spun out into details and episodes of great length. It is read very extensively to listening crowds in India, who believe every word, no matter how improbable, as we would the most authentic records of our own history or our Holy Bible.
The Mahabarata is the second famous epic of India. We have only room to say that it describes a contest between the two branches of the Chundra, or Moon dynasty, for the sovereignty of the Ganges territory. The “Great War” (as the word Mahabarata expresses) is generally regarded as having taken place about two hundred years before the siege of Troy.
Princes are enumerated as taking part in the struggle from the Deccan, and the Indus, and even beyond the Indus, especially the Yarases, thought to be Greeks. Fifty-six royal leaders were assembled on the field of battle, which raged for eighteen days with prodigious slaughter—another proof of the division of India into many separate States, though occasionally combined, as in this poem, under the leadership of some great general on either side. The contest was waged between the sons of Pandu, the deceased Rajah, and their cousins the Kooroos, who denied their legitimacy—a never-failing subject of dispute in Hindoo successions. It ended in the victory of the Pandus; but what they gained by arms they lost through gaming. Yudisthira, the Agamemnon of the poem, departs with his brothers and the beautiful Draupadi into exile on the Himalayas. Their evil deeds prevailing, they drop dead, one after another, by the way-side. Yudisthira is the last, and when Indra comes to admit him to Swarga (Paradise) he demands to be accompanied by his faithful dog. The poem follows the hero into the other world. Arrived in Indra's paradise, and finding his enemies there before him, with none of his party, he refuses to stay, and, descending to the shades in quest of Draupadi and his brothers, succeeds in rescuing them from torment. The gods applaud his virtue, and he is permitted to convey himself and all his party to Swarga. The hero of this poem is Krishna, the great ally of the Pandus, and generally regarded as the eighth incarnation of Vishnu.—Trevor's India, p. 52.
- ↑ The Roman Catholic Bishop of Madras in 1869 estimated the whole number of native Romanists in their communion at 760,623, supervised by the Bishops, and 734 priests, in addition to 124,000 with 128 priests under the jurisdiction of the almost schismatic and Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. But Dr. George Smith, one of the highest authorities on India statistics, regards these figures as unworthy of trust, and sets down the numbers for both as not over 700,000.—Friend of India, May 10, 1871, p. 554.