Ten Great Religions. James Freeman Clarke

Chhandas period, " " 1000 " 1200.

      Dr. Haug, a high authority, considers the Vedic period to extend from B.C. 1200 to B.C. 2000, and the very oldest hymns to have been composed B.C. 2400.

      The principal deity in the oldest Vedas is Indra, God of the air. In Greek he becomes Zeus; in Latin, Jupiter. The hymns to Indra are not unlike some of the Psalms of the Old Testament. Indra is called upon as the most ancient god whom the Fathers worshipped. Next to India comes Agni, fire, derived from the root Ag, which means "to move."⁴⁶ Fire is worshipped as the principle of motion on earth, as Indra was the moving power above. Not only fire, but the forms of flame, are worshipped and all that belongs to it. Entire nature is called Aditi, whose children are named Adityas. M. Maury quotes these words from Gotama: "Aditi is heaven; Aditi is air; Aditi is mother, father, and son; Aditi is all the gods and the five races; Aditi is whatever is born and will be born; in short, the heavens and the earth, the heavens being the father and the earth the mother of all things." This reminds one of the Greek Zeus-pateer and Gee-mêteer. Varuna is the vault of heaven. Mitra is often associated with Varuna in the Vedic hymns. Mitra is the sun, illuminating the day, while Varuna was the sun with an obscure face going back in the darkness from west to east to take his luminous disk again. From Mitra seems to be derived the Persian Mithra. There are no invocations to the stars in the Veda. But the Aurora, or Dawn, is the object of great admiration; also, the Aswins, or twin gods, who in Greece become the Dioscuri. The god of storms is Rudra, supposed by some writers to be the same as Siva. The two hostile worships of Vishnu and Siva do not appear, however, till long after this time. Vishnu appears frequently in the Veda, and his three steps are often spoken of. These steps measure the heavens. But his real worship came much later.

      The religion of the Vedas was of odes and hymns, a religion of worship by simple adoration. Sometimes there were prayers for temporal blessings, sometimes simple sacrifices and libations. Human sacrifices have scarcely left any trace of themselves if they ever existed, unless it be in a typical ceremony reported in one of the Vedas.

      § 5. Second Period. Laws of Manu. The Brahmanic Age.

      Long after the age of the elder Vedas Brahmanism begins. Its text-book is the Laws of Manu.⁴⁷ As yet Vishnu and Siva are not known. The former is named once, the latter not at all. The writer only knows three Vedas. The Atharva-Veda is later. But as Siva is mentioned in the oldest Buddhist writings, it follows that the laws of Manu are older than these. In the time of Manu the Aryans are still living in the valley of the Ganges. The caste system is now in full operation, and the authority of the Brahman is raised to its highest point. The Indus and Punjaub are not mentioned; all this is forgotten. This work could not be later than B.C. 700, or earlier than B.C. 1200. It was probably written about B.C. 900 or B.C. 1000. In this view agree Wilson, Lassen, Max Müller, and Saint-Martin. The Supreme Deity is now Brahma, and sacrifice is still the act by which one comes into relation with heaven. Widow-burning is not mentioned in Manu; but it appears in the Mahabharata, one of the great epics, which is therefore later.

      In the region of the Sarasvati, a holy river, which formerly emptied into the Indus, but is now lost in a desert, the Aryan race of India was transformed from nomads into a stable community.⁴⁸ There they received their laws, and there their first cities were erected. There were founded the Solar and Lunar monarchies.

      The Manu of the Vedas and he of the Brahmans are very different persons. The first is called in the Vedas the father of mankind. He also escapes from a deluge by building a ship, which he is advised to do by a fish. He preserves the fish, which grows to a great size, and when the flood comes acts as a tow-boat to drag the ship of Manu to a mountain.⁴⁹ This account is contained in a Brahmana.

      The name of Manu seems afterward to have been given by the Brahmans to the author of their code. Some extracts from this very interesting volume we will now give, slightly abridged, from Sir William Jones's translation.⁵⁰ From the first book, on Creation:—

      "The universe existed in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable, and undiscovered; as if immersed in sleep."

      "Then the self-existing power, undiscovered himself, but making the world discernible, with the five elements and other principles, appeared in undiminished glory, dispelling the gloom."

      "He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even he, the soul of all beings, shone forth in person.

      "He having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed."

      "The seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg he was born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits.

      "The waters are called Nárá, because they were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God; and hence they were his first ayana, or place of motion; he hence is named Nara yana, or moving on the waters.

      "In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the creator, at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself.

      "And from its two divisions he framed the heaven above and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters.

      "From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler.

      "And before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness, and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation.

      "Thus, having at once pervaded with emanations from the Supreme Spirit the minutest portions of fixed principles immensely operative, consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures.

      "Thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, and mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable cause of all apparent forms.

      "This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of those seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from immutable ideas.

      "Of created things, the most excellent are those which are animated; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of the intelligent, mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class.

      "Of priests, those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who know their duty; of those who know it, such as perform it virtuously; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrine.

      "The very birth of Brahmans is a constant incarnation of Dharma, God of justice; for the Brahman is born to promote justice, and to procure ultimate happiness.

      "When a Brahman springs to light, he is born above the world, the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of duties, religious and civil.

      "The Brahman who studies this book, having performed sacred rites, is perpetually free from offence in thought, in word and in deed.

      "He confers purity on his living family, on his ancestors, and on his descendants as far as the seventh person, and he alone deserves to possess this whole earth."

      The following passages are from Book II., "On Education and the Priesthood":—

      "Self-love is no laudable motive, yet an exemption from self-love is not to be found in this world: on self-love is grounded the study of Scripture, and the practice of actions recommended in it.

      "Eager desire to act has its root in expectation of some advantage; and with such expectation are sacrifices performed; the rules of religious austerity and abstinence from sins are all known to