Part 10

The religion of Boodhism is an offshoot of the Brahman system, having originated in the so-called incarnation of Vishnu, Gautama Boodha, whose powerful personality has left an indelible impress upon the religion. This remarkable man lived about the end of the sixth century; but the real history of Boodhism does not commence until about the middle of the third century before our era. The doctrines taught by this great reformer were brotherly love, self-sacrifice, and an eternal Nirvana as the consummation of all bliss. The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul was still maintained; but a state of Nirvana, or absolute non-existence, was declared to be the deliverance from the endless succession of re-births for those who, by their purity of life and heart, merit such a blissful end. Admitting that men were born in different castes, determined by their good or evil deeds in a prior existence, Boodha yet declared that all might attain the highest salvation, and that none, not even those of the highest caste and most sacred offices, could do this without having regard to the well-being of all his fellow creatures. The authority of the Vedas was rejected by the Boodhists, as also the whole dogmatic system of the Brahmans; and in their place was substituted a higher moral teaching, a more equitable relationship of men, and a wide-spreading system of communism. This reformation of ancient dogmatic faith was not destined to last long uncorrupted, for the monasteries established by the Boodhists for the purpose of affording an asylum to the poor and destitute soon became infested with religious fanatics—Jainas, as they were called, some of whom went naked, while others robed themselves in white linen. These ascetic monks looked forward to Nirvana as their final goal, practised the most severe austerities, received confession, administered priestly absolution, and kept regular feast and fast days; but they discountenanced the growing custom of worshipping relics which was finding favour with other Boodhist sects. Thus gradually the primitive Aryan conception of a ruling power developed into a huge system of dogmatism, monachism, and ritual in the countries south and east of the Indus, as far even as the confines of the country of the great Mongol race, whose religion is as yet but little known to us, although it bears strong marks of having been originally derived from the same source as that from which came the Vedic system.

Having glanced somewhat cursorily at the religious development of the Eastern Aryan peoples, we will now turn to the Western Aryans, and observe the manner in which the old Vedic myth was perpetuated in Western Europe, leaving the Central Aryans, or that branch which remained in and around Persia and Western Afghanistan, for subsequent consideration; for, in this central district, the Mongol Akkadians and the Semites intermingled so frequently with the Aryans that a very intricate mythological system gradually came into operation in some districts, bearing resemblance to the Vedic, the Semitic, and the Mongolian mythologies.

The Western branch of the great Aryan family, after penetrating into Southern Europe, became the progenitors of the ancient Pelasgi, the earliest known inhabitants of Greece, and through them transmitted the original Aryan myth to their successors, the Hellenes. Homer, in his “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” written at latest B.C. 900, well describes the religion of the Acheans, who inhabited Hellas for centuries prior to B.C. 1000, and long before the supremacy of the Dorians; and, in this description, as well as in that of Hesiod’s “Theogony,” written immediately afterwards, there is exhibited a remarkable similarity to the old Vedic system, the very name of the supreme deity being clearly derived from an Aryan source, and that root being the identical expression used to designate the Vedic Dawn God. From Dyaus Pitar, the Day Father or Dawn God of the Aryans, the Greeks derived their Zeus Pater, from whence we get Dios, Theos, the Latin _Deus Pater_, _Dies Pater_ and Jupiter, and the French _Dieu_. Zeus was supreme god, high above all others, having unlimited power, and living up in the vault of heaven, surrounded by the inferior and subordinate deities, who together formed his Olympian court. Instead of being nature powers, these gods were endowed with freedom of action, subject to pain and pleasure, and depended for their sustenance upon food. The supremacy of King Zeus was firmly established; he presided over councils of the gods to deliberate great matters, and was not bound or fettered by any recognised restraint. With Athena and Apollo, he formed a supreme triad, himself being the head, Athena the reason or wisdom of the Divine Father, and Apollo the mouth, revealer of his counsel, and loving son, who is always of one will with his father. With Apollo was closely associated Prometheus, the great benefactor and liberator of the race of man, who, according to that beautiful tragedy of “Æschylus,” brought salvation to the world in spite of Jupiter, his father and torturer, by whom he was crucified on a rock, where he remained in fearful anguish until liberated by Hercules. Here we find the old Vedic saviour redeeming the world from the darkness and misery of night or winter, the same drama precisely as that described in connection with the Eastern Aryan mythology. In both instances the apparent daily and annual ascension and decline of the sun is depicted: in the one case it rises again after its period of defeat in winter, or night, as the sun-god Indra, afterwards Surya, and still later Krishna; while in the other case it resuscitates the earth as Prometheus, the benefactor of mankind. Just as Prometheus was but the Greek counterpart of the Hindu Krishna, so also were Apollo, Hercules, Iao, and Dionysos precisely the same. Each was the new-born sun, bringing back light and glory to suffering humanity; and each passed through the very same periods of power, decline, and misery before being born again.

Zeus was the sun-god _par excellence_, residing on the summit of Olympus, or in the highest part of the heavenly vault, during the summer months, when he was called Olympian Zeus, and down in Hades during the winter period, when he was known as the Stygian Zeus; and thus the oracle of the Klarion Apollon taught that the supreme God was called, according to the seasons of the year, Hades, Zeus, Helios, and Iao. Apollo and Prometheus, although saviour sun-gods, representing the new-born sun victorious over death and winter, were yet one with Zeus, and merely repetitions of the same character under different names. So, in like manner, Hercules was not only son of Zeus, but Zeus himself, and may be traced right through the complete annual circuit in his twelve labours, from Hades to Olympus, and from Olympus to Hades again. Dionysos was, in reality, not an Aryan deity, but of Egyptian origin, having been introduced into Greece at a very early time, either from Egypt, where he was worshipped as Mises, or, more probably, from Phœnicia, where he was worshipped under the name of Iēs, which accounts for the fact that hero personifications of Dionysos in later times were accorded the designation of Iesous, (Ιησους, or in capitals ΙΗΣΟΥΣ—Latin _Jesus_), the Greek form of Iēs (Ιης, or in capitals ΙΗΣ). This Egyptian saviour sun-god became later the popular god Bacchus of the Romans, just as Apollo had been the popular Greek divinity, and was thus described by Macrobius: “The images or statues of Bacchus represent him sometimes under the form of a child, sometimes under that of a young man, at other times with a beard of a mature man, and, lastly, with the wrinkles of old age, as the Greeks represent the god whom they call Baccapee and Briseis, and as the Neapolitans in Campania paint the god whom they honour under the name of Hebon. These differences of age relate to the sun, who seems to be a tender child at the winter solstice, such as the Egyptians represent him on a certain day [December 25th], when they bring forth from an obscure nook of their sanctuary his infantine image, because, the day being then at the shortest, the god seems yet to be but a feeble infant: gradually growing from this moment, he arrives, by degrees, at the vernal equinox, under the form of a young man, of which his images at that time bear the appearance; then he arrives at his maturity, indicated by the tufted beard with which the images which represent him at the summer solstice are adorned, the day having then taken all the increase of which it is susceptible. Lastly, he decreases insensibly, and arrives at his old age, pictured by the state of decrepitude in which he is portrayed in the images.”

Yao, Iao, or Adonis was of Semitic origin, although widely worshipped in Greece, and generally identified with Zeus, whose Semitic counterpart he really was, although himself a saviour sun-god. Yao, to the Phœnicians and Chaldeans, was as Zeus and Prometheus to the Greeks, and represented the whole annual circuit, though he was always called by the Greeks specially the god of the autumn, on account of his having, at that period, to part from his lover, Aphrodite (Venus), for six months; and thus there was usually a certain melancholy attached to his worship, the oracle of the Klarion Apollon terming him the darling or tender Yao (Ιαω), god of the autumn.

As the Greek power and civilisation declined and the Roman advanced, the god Yao, like his counterpart Iēs, became one of the most popular of the Roman deities, being worshipped under the name Adonis in every city of Italy; and the mythological horizon became crowded with gods and demi-gods of every description, until, at length, it became a very difficult matter to determine who was a god and who was not worthy of that distinction; for the Roman Emperors were invariably deified, as well as others of less degree. The old Aryan drama, however, was preserved throughout in the worship of the principal gods, and has even been perpetuated in the reformed religion of the Semitic communistic enthusiast, Yahoshua, which became, soon after the commencement of our era, the popular religious system of the whole of Europe.

We have now to deal with the Central Aryans, or Eranians; and, in doing so, must bear in mind that, while the Eastern Aryans, or Hindus, and the Western Aryans of Europe, were almost altogether uninfluenced for many centuries by the mythologies of surrounding tribes of other and distinct families of the human race, this was far from being the case with the Eranians, who were almost entirely cut off from their Western brethren; and, although still in comparatively close contact with the Eastern Aryans, were yet completely wedged in between the Turanian Urals on the north, and the great Semitic stream of life on the south and west. Such being the case, it is at once apparent that the religion of the Eranian people would quickly lose many of its distinctive Aryan marks and acquire many Turanian and Semitic characteristics. Bactria, in Eastern Eran (Persia), appears to have been the ancient birth-place of this semi-Aryan religion, which afterwards developed, under the influence of that great reformer, Zoroaster (Zarathustra), into the cultus called Mazdeism, or Parsism. From the Avesta, the sacred writings of the Parsis, written in the old Zend language, we derive considerable knowledge of Mazdeism. Ahura Mazdao (Ormazd), the all-wise spirit, is supreme god, far above all gods, being creator of the world, god of light and truth, existing from the beginning, and eternal. Inferior to him are Mithra, god of light; Nairyo Sanha, god of fire; Apan Napat, god of water; Haoma, god of the drink of immortality; and Tistrya, the dog-star god. The chief goddess of fruitfulness was Anahita, who in later time became an important deity in association with the worship of Mithra, the son of Ormuzd. Mazdeism also recognised a god of evil, Ahro Mainyus (Ahriman), who, with the evil Devas, inhabit the under-world, and oppose Ormuzd on every occasion; the world lying between the two kingdoms of righteousness and evil, ruled over respectively by Ormuzd and Ahriman. This dualism is the most marked feature of Mazdeism, and runs through the whole religion, being found in every myth, and giving rise to the most hideous conceptions of morality. In the cosmogony of the Parsis the great creator, Ormuzd, after making a perfect world and introducing a perfect pair of human beings, is defeated by the wicked Ahriman, who creates evil, and seduces the man and woman to sin, thus placing in opposition to each other upon this earth the two forces, good and evil. To avoid the influence of this evil force, and to gain that of the good power, was the great aim of all true Mazda-worshippers; and the means whereby this much-desired end could be attained was the fire-god, Nairyo Sanha, to whom constant supplications were made for this purpose. So great was the influence of Ahriman upon human beings that the god of light, Mithra, was promised as a saviour to come upon the earth and rescue his people from the power of evil, his mission being to avenge his father’s defeat by the god of the under-world, after doing which he would ascend to his father and become one with him for ever. The Magi, or Mithraitic priests of the “black art,” or “hidden science of astrology,” are thus addressed in the “Zend-Avesta”:—”You, my children, shall be first honoured by that divine person who is to appear in the world; a star shall be before you to conduct you to the place of his nativity; and when you have found him, present to him your oblations and sacrifices, for he is indeed your lord and an everlasting king,” meaning that after the constellation of the virgin came to the eastern line of the horizon, as it did at twelve o’clock at midnight, between December 24th and December 25th, in the period immediately following that in which the words were written, the great star, _Vindemiatrix_, in the virgin’s elbow, would, on January 6th, begin to shine, pointing out to the astrologers, or Magi, her exact situation, who would then know that the birth of the god-light of the new revolution had taken place, and that by his re-appearance he would declare himself to be the everlasting ruler of the universe. Consequently, for centuries after this time the image of the god-light Mithra was presented to the people for adoration every year on December 25th, soon after midnight, in the shape of a newly-born male child, brought from the recesses of the sacred grotto, or mystic cave of Mithra. Another image, supposed to be the same deity fully grown, was said to die, and was carried to the tomb after death by the priests, who chanted solemn hymns and groaned. After pretending to mourn for three days, the sacred torch, or emblem of new life, was lighted, and the priests exclaimed, “Reassure yourselves, sacred bands of initiated; your god is restored to life; his pains and sufferings procure your salvation.” This took place at the vernal equinox, and the people responded: “I salute you, new light; I salute you, young bridegroom and new light.”

Like the old Aryan scheme, this Mithra myth was derived from the constellations, having reference to the decline of the year in autumn, the defeat of the sun by the powers of darkness (or winter), and the rebirth and ascension of that grand luminary in the spring of the year. Mithra was “spiritual life contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labours the kingdom of darkness will be lit with heaven’s own light: the eternal will receive all things back into his favour; and the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the good; his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace; in relation to men he is the life-giver and mediator. He brings the Word, as Brahma brings the Vedas from the mouth of the Eternal” (Plutarch, “De Iside et Osiride ”). The close connection of the later Eranians with the Chaldeans no doubt gave the former facilities for studying the Akkadian astronomy; and, therefore, it is fair to presume that the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes was well understood by them, which would account for the fact that Mithra is always represented in earlier times under the figure of a bull, and afterwards under that of a lamb. The reason of this is that, prior to about B.C. 2,200, the vernal equinoxial sign was the zodiacal figure of the bull (_Taurus_); while, after that period, the figure of the lamb or ram (_Aries_) took its place; and as the saviour sun-god Mithra was the personification of the new annual sun, born in the December constellation, crossing the equator in March, and thereby conquering the powers of evil or darkness, he was invariably represented by the figure of that zodiacal constellation which happened to be at the vernal equinoxial point at the time.[1]

Having thus briefly glanced at the religious cults of the three branches of the great Aryan family, and found the very same religious conception of a divine and incarnate saviour, redeeming the universe from the powers of darkness and evil, running through each mythological system, we cannot help coming to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the saviour-myth was developed into its full proportions long after the separation of the families took place, and inasmuch as the development followed similar lines in each separate case, there must have been some common guide, and that guide was the unwritten word of nature as expressed in the heavens above.

[1] _Vide_ my “Popular Faith Unveiled.”

Leaving the Aryan stream, and turning back to that division of the great Iranian family which migrated to the valley of the Nile, and which we call the Egyptian, we find a very similar religious system in vogue among them from the very earliest times, as existed among the Aryans. The first settlers in Egypt carried with them, no doubt, the primitive religious conceptions of their Iranian fathers, which were derived from a contemplation of the various phenomena of nature, as previously stated; and it is highly probable that, at a very early period, they gave considerable attention to the movements of the heavenly bodies, for from monumental inscriptions, unearthed in modern times, which geologists inform us must have lain _sub terra_ for several thousands of years, we learn that the Egyptians, at that remote time, well understood the theory of the precession of the equinoxes, placing the zodiacal constellation of the bull at the vernal equinoxial point in the period prior to about B.C. 4300, and that of the ram in the period immediately following. It is probable, therefore, that hundreds of years before this time these primitive men of the Nile were engaging themselves with the study of astronomy, and using effective astronomical instruments, which indicates a high state of civilisation; and this is further borne out by the fact that, at the commencement of the first Egyptian dynasty, about the year B.C. 5000, when Menes reigned over Egypt, there was every appearance of a very advanced civilisation that had lasted for centuries. From the “Book of the Dead” and the Prisse Papyrus (most of the former written at latest prior to B.C. 4000, and the latter very soon after) we derive a tolerably accurate notion of the mythological system of the Egyptians during the first portion of the Old Empire, and probably many hundreds of years previously; while, from the writings of Herodotus, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Manetho, we learn the progress the religion made during the 4,000 following years.

The “Book of the Dead” treats principally of the refining processes through which the spirits of dead people passed in the under-world, or Cher Nuter, before being purified sufficiently to inherit a state of bliss and become spirits of light (Chu) to be absorbed into the sun at the point where it is born, and taken within it to An, the celestial Heliopolis. Before the time of Menes the religion of Egypt was animistic, blended with a vague kind of sun-worship, the supreme deity being, at Thinis-Abydos, the ancient capital, called Osiris, the god of gods, son of Seb, god of earth, and Nu, goddess of the heavenly ocean, and grandson of Ra. Osiris was the sun-god of the daily and annual circle, who enjoyed his spouse, Isis, the great mother, during the summer months and the daytime, after which he was overcome by the evil Set-Typhon and his wife Nephthys, and tortured in the under-world, until released by his son Horus, the conqueror sun-god, who rose into the upper world as the avenger of his father’s defeat, and liberated the soul of Osiris from torture, to be absorbed by, and for ever shine forth in the constellation _Orion_, as the soul of Isis shines for ever in _Sirius_. At Heliopolis, An, On, or Para, the city of the sun, Ra was worshipped as supreme god, who as Tum, the hidden god, fought the demon of darkness, the serpent Apap, in Amenti, and who rose again from the under-world as Harmachis. Later, when Menes reigned as the first monarch of the Old Empire (_circa_ B.C. 5000), Memphis, or Mennefer, was the capital city, in which Phtah was worshipped as the supreme god or creator of the world (called Sekru, the slain god, when in the lower world), together with Ma, goddess of righteousness, and Imhotep, the chief of priests, whose name signified “I come in peace,” and who formed the third part of a kind of trinity, with Phtah and Ma. All these, and other minor deities, such as deified kings, etc., were represented on earth by incarnations in the shape of animals, Ra, Osiris, and Phtah, the supreme gods, being manifested in the sacred bull Apis, representing the sun at the vernal equinoctial point in the zodiacal constellation _Taurus_. During six dynasties these gods were worshipped peacefully, their incarnations and religious rites being protected by the kings; but about the year B.C. 3800 the kingdom appears to have dropped to bits, its religion to have been mixed up in a most confused manner, and its people divided into a number of small nationalities, with separate kings and separate laws; until, at length, the whole country was once more united under the reigning monarchs of the eleventh dynasty (Second Empire), whose capital was Thebes, and whose popular deity was Amen, the hidden god, called also Amen-Ra, to signify that he was not only the sun-god in the under-world, but also the rising and conquering sun-god of the early morn and spring of the year. In fact, Amen was the sun-god of the whole revolution, the Theban Yao, one with his father Osiris in the mid-day and mid-summer, one with his counterpart Horus at the early morn and spring of the year, and one with Tum in the darkness of night and winter; just as Zeus of the Greeks was Zeus Amen (Jupiter Ammon), Olympian Zeus, Zeus Yao, and Stygian Zeus, according to the season of the year.