Part 15

[Footnote 177: See "Lectures on the Science of Language," vol. ii. p. 468.]

[Footnote 178: Rig-Veda I. 160, 4.]

[Footnote 179: L. c. IV. 56, 3.]

[Footnote 180: L. c. VIII. 6, 5.]

[Footnote 181: L. c. III. 30, 5.]

[Footnote 182: L. c. III. 34, 8.]

[Footnote 183: L. c. III. 34, 8.]

[Footnote 184: L. c. VIII. 36, 4.]

[Footnote 185: L. c. X. 54, 3.]

[Footnote 186: Cf. IV. 17, 4, where Dyaus is the father of Indra; see however Muir, iv. 31, note.]

[Footnote 187: Rig-Veda VI. 30, 1.]

[Footnote 188: L. c. I. 131, 1.]

[Footnote 189: L. c. IV. 17, 2.]

[Footnote 190: L. c. II. 40, 1.]

[Footnote 191: L. c. X. 121, 9.]

[Footnote 192: L. c. X. 190, 3.]

[Footnote 193: L. c. X. 81, 2.]

[Footnote 194: Rig-Veda VI. 70, 1.]

[Footnote 195: Rig-Veda X. 75. See Hibbert Lectures, Lect. iv.]

[Footnote 196: Vivasvat is a name of the sun, and the seat or home of Vivasvat can hardly be anything but the earth, as the home of the sun, or, in a more special sense, the place where a sacrifice is offered.]

[Footnote 197: I formerly translated yat va_g_an abhi adrava_h_ tvam by "when thou rannest for the prizes." Grassman had translated similarly, "When thou, O Sindhu, rannest to the prize of the battle," while Ludwig wrote, "When thou, O Sindhu, wast flowing on to greater powers." Va_g_a, connected with vegeo, vigeo, vigil, wacker (see Curtius, Grundzuege, No. 159), is one of the many difficult words in the Veda the general meaning of which may be guessed, but in many places cannot yet be determined with certainty. Va_g_a occurs very frequently, both in the singular and the plural, and some of its meanings are clear enough. The Petersburg Dictionary gives the following list of them--swiftness, race, prize of race, gain, treasure, race-horse, etc. Here we perceive at once the difficulty of tracing all these meanings back to a common source, though it might be possible to begin with the meanings of strength, strife, contest, race, whether friendly or warlike, then to proceed to what is won in a race or in war, viz. booty, treasure, and lastly to take vaga_h_ in the more general sense of acquisitions, goods, even goods bestowed as gifts. We have a similar transition of meaning in the Greek [Greek: athlos], contest, contest for a prize, and [Greek: athlon], the prize of contest, reward, gift, while in the plural [Greek: ta athla] stands again for contest, or even the place of combat. The Vedic va_g_ambhara may in fact be rendered by [Greek: athlophoros], va_g_asati by [Greek: athlosyne].

The transition from fight to prize is seen in passages such as:

Rig-Veda VI. 45, 12, va_g_an indra _s_ravayyan tvaya _g_eshna hitam dhanam, "May we with thy help, O Indra, win the glorious fights, the offered prize" (cf. [Greek: athlothetes]).

Rig-Veda VIII. 19, 18, te it va_g_ebhi_h_ _g_igyu_h_ mahat dhanam, "They won great-wealth by battles."

What we want for a proper understanding of our verse, are passages where we have, as here, a movement toward va_g_as in the plural. Such passages are few; for instance: X. 53, 8, atra _g_ahama ye asan a_s_evah _s_ivan vayam ut tarema abhi va_g_an, "Let us leave here those who were unlucky (the dead), and let us get up to lucky toils." No more is probably meant here when the Sindhu is said to run toward her va_g_as, that is, her struggles, her fights, her race across the mountains with the other rivers.]

[Footnote 198: On _s_ushma, strength, see Rig-Veda, translation, vol. i. p. 105. We find _s_ubhram _s_ushmam II. 11, 4; and iyarti with _s_ushmam IV. 17, 12.]

[Footnote 199: See Muir, Santkrit Texts, v. p. 344.]

[Footnote 200: "O Marudv_ri_dha with Asikni, Vitasta; O Ar_g_ikiya, listen with the Sushoma," _Ludwig_. "Asikni and Vitasta and Marudv_ri_dha, with the Sushoma, hear us, O Ar_g_ikiya," _Grassman._]

[Footnote 201: Marudv_ri_dha, a general name for river. According to Roth the combined course of the Akesines and Hydaspes, _before_ the junction with the Hydraotes; according to Ludwig, the river _after_ the junction with Hydraotes. Zimmer (Altindisches Leben, p. 12) adopts Roth's, Kiepert in his maps follows Ludwig's opinion.]

[Footnote 202: According to Yaska, the Ar_g_ikiya is the Vipa_s_. Vivien de Saint-Martin takes it for the country watered by the Suwan, the Soanos of Megasthenes.]

[Footnote 203: According to Yaska the Sushoma is the Indus. Vivien de Saint-Martin identifies it with the Suwan. Zimmer (l. c. p. 14) points out that in Arrian, Indica, iv. 12, there is a various reading Soamos for Soanos.]

[Footnote 204: "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. p. 157.]

[Footnote 205: Va_g_inivati is by no means an easy word. Hence all translators vary, and none settles the meaning. Muir translates, "yielding nutriment;" Zimmer, "having plenty of quick horses;" Ludwig, "like a strong mare." Va_g_in, no doubt, means a strong horse, a racer, but va_g_ini never occurs in the Rig-Veda in the sense of a mare, and the text is not va_g_inivat, but va_g_inivati. If va_g_ini meant mare, we might translate rich in mares, but that would be a mere repetition after sva_s_va, possessed of good horses. Va_g_inivati is chiefly applied to Ushas, Sarasvati, and here to the river Sindhu. It is joined with va_g_ebhi_h_, Rig-Veda I. 3, 10, which, if va_g_ini meant mare, would mean "rich in mares through horses." We also read, Rig-Veda I. 48, 16, sam (na_h_ mimikshva) va_g_ai_h_ va_g_inivati, which we can hardly translate by "give us horses, thou who art possessed of mares;" nor, Rig-Veda I. 92, 15, yukshva hi va_g_inivati a_s_van, "harness the horses, thou who art rich in mares." In most of the passages where va_g_inivati occurs, the goddess thus addressed is represented as rich, and asked to bestow wealth, and I should therefore prefer to take va_g_ini, as a collective abstract noun, like tretini, in the sense of wealth, originally booty, and to translate va_g_inivati simply by rich, a meaning well adapted to every passage where the word occurs.]

[Footnote 206: Ur_n_avati, rich in wool, probably refers to the flocks of sheep for which the North-West of India was famous. See Rig-Veda I. 126, 7.]

[Footnote 207: Silamavati does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Muir translates, "rich in plants;" Zimmer, "rich in water;" Ludwig takes it as a proper name. Saya_n_a states that silama is a plant which is made into ropes. That the meaning of silamavati was forgotten at an early time we see by the Atharva-Veda III. 12, 2, substituting sun_ri_tavati, for silamavati, as preserved in the _S_ankhayana G_ri_hya-sutras, 3, 3. I think silama means straw, from whatever plant it may be taken, and this would be equally applicable to a _s_ala, a house, a sthu_n_a, a post, and to the river Indus. It may have been, as Ludwig conjectures, an old local name, and in that case it may possibly account for the name given in later times to the Suleiman range.]

[Footnote 208: Madhuv_ri_dh is likewise a word which does not occur again in the Rig-Veda. Saya_n_a explains it by nirgu_n_di and similar plants, but it is doubtful what plant is meant. Gu_n_da is the name of a grass, madhuv_ri_dh therefore may have been a plant such as sugar-cane, that yielded a sweet juice, the Upper Indus being famous for sugar-cane; see Hiouen-thsang, II. p. 105. I take adhivaste with Roth in the sense "she dresses herself," as we might say "the river is dressed in heather." Muir translates, "she traverses a land yielding sweetness;" Zimmer, "she clothes herself in Madhuv_ri_dh;" Ludwig, "the Silamavati throws herself into the increaser of the honey-sweet dew." All this shows how little progress can be made in Vedic scholarship by merely translating either words or verses, without giving at the same time a full justification of the meaning assigned to every single word.]

[Footnote 209: See Petersburg Dictionary, s. v. virap_s_in.]

[Footnote 210: "Among the Hottentots, the Kunene, Okavango, and Orange rivers, all have the name of Garib, _i.e._ the Runner."--Dr. Theoph. Hahn, _Cape Times_, July 11, 1882.]

[Footnote 211: _Deh_li, not _Del_-high.--A. W.]

[Footnote 212: Cunningham, "Archaeological Survey of India," vol. xii. p. 113.]

[Footnote 213: Pliny, Hist. Nat. vi. 20, 71: "Indus incolis Sindus appellatus."]

[Footnote 214: The history of these names has been treated by Professor Lassen, in his "Indische Alterthumskunde," and more lately by Professor Kaegi, in his very careful essay, "Der Rig-Veda," pp. 146, 147.]

[Footnote 215: Ptol. vii. 1, 29.]

[Footnote 216: Arrian, Indica, viii. 5.]

[Footnote 217: Rig-Veda III. 33, 1: "From the lap of the mountains Vipa_s_ and _S_utudri rush forth with their water like two lusty mares neighing, freed from their tethers, like two bright mother-cows licking (their calf).

"Ordered by Indra and waiting his bidding you run toward the sea like two charioteers; running together, as your waters rise, the one goes into the other, you bright ones."]

[Footnote 218: Other classical names are Hypanis, Bipasis, and Bibasis. Yaska identifies it with the Ar_g_ikiya.]

[Footnote 219: Cf. Nirukta IX. 26.]

[Footnote 220: "The first tributaries which join the Indus before its meeting with the Kubha or the Kabul river cannot be determined. All travellers in these northern countries complain of the continual changes in the names of the rivers, and we can hardly hope to find traces of the Vedic names in existence there after the lapse of three or four thousand years. The rivers intended may be the Shauyook, Ladak, Abba Seen, and Burrindu, and one of the four rivers, the Rasa, has assumed an almost fabulous character in the Veda. After the Indus has joined the Kubha or the Kabul river, two names occur, the Gomati and Krumu, which I believe I was the first to identify with the modern rivers the Gomal and Kurrum. (Roth, Nirukta, Erlaeuterungen, p. 43, Anm.) The Gomal falls into the Indus, between Dera Ismael Khan and Paharpore, and although Elphinstone calls it a river only during the rainy season, Klaproth (Foe-koue-ki, p. 23) describes its upper course as far more considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi, et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, according to the poet, we should expect it south. It might be urged that poets are not bound by the same rules as geographers, as we see, for instance, in the verse immediately preceding. But if it should be taken as a serious objection, it will be better to give up the Gomati than the Krumu, the latter being the larger of the two, and we might then take Gomati, 'rich in cattle,' as an adjective belonging to Krumu."--From a review of General Cunningham's "Ancient Geography of India," in _Nature_, 1871, Sept. 14.]

LECTURE VI.

VEDIC DEITIES.

The next important phenomenon of nature which was represented in the Veda as a terrestrial deity is Fire, in Sanskrit Agni, in Latin _ignis_. In the worship which is paid to the Fire and in the high praises bestowed on Agni we can clearly perceive the traces of a period in the history of man in which not only the most essential comforts of life, but life itself, depended on the knowledge of producing fire. To us fire has become so familiar that we can hardly form an idea of what life would be without it. But how did the ancient dwellers on earth get command and possession of fire? The Vedic poets tell us that fire first came to them from the sky, in the form of lightning, but that it disappeared again, and that then Matari_s_van, a being to a certain extent like Prometheus, brought it back and confided it to the safe keeping of the clan of the Bh_r_igus (Phlegyas).[221]

In other poems we hear of the mystery of fire being produced by rubbing pieces of wood; and here it is a curious fact that the name of the wood thus used for rubbing is in Sanskrit Pramantha, a word which, as Kuhn has shown, would in Greek come very near to the name of Prometheus. The possession of fire, whether by preserving it as sacred on the hearth, or by producing it at pleasure with the fire-drill, represents an enormous step in early civilization. It enabled people to cook their meat instead of eating it raw; it gave them the power of carrying on their work by night; and in colder climates it really preserved them from being frozen to death. No wonder, therefore, that the fire should have been praised and worshipped as the best and kindest of gods, the only god who had come down from heaven to live on earth, the friend of man, the messenger of the gods, the mediator between gods and men, the immortal among mortals. He, it is said, protects the settlements of the Aryans, and frightens away the black-skinned enemies.

Soon, however, fire was conceived by the Vedic poets under the more general character of light and warmth, and then the presence of Agni was perceived, not only on the hearth and the altar, but in the Dawn, in the Sun, and in the world beyond the Sun, while at the same time his power was recognized as ripening, or as they called it, as cooking, the fruits of the earth, and as supporting also the warmth and the life of the human body. From that point of view Agni, like other powers, rose to the rank of a Supreme God.[222] He is said to have stretched out heaven and earth--naturally, because without his light heaven and earth would have been invisible and undistinguishable. The next poet says that Agni held heaven aloft by his light, that he kept the two worlds asunder; and in the end Agni is said to be the progenitor and father of heaven and earth, and the maker of all that flies, or walks, or stands, or moves on earth.

Here we have once more the same process before our eyes. The human mind begins with being startled by a single or repeated event, such as the lightning striking a tree and devouring a whole forest, or a spark of fire breaking forth from wood being rubbed against wood, whether in a forest, or in the wheel of a carriage, or at last in a fire-drill, devised on purpose. Man then begins to wonder at what to him is a miracle, none the less so because it is a fact, a simple, natural fact. He sees the effects of a power, but he can only guess at its cause, and if he is to speak of it, he can only do so by speaking of it as an agent, or as something like a human agent, and, if in some respects not quite human, in others more than human or superhuman. Thus the concept of Fire grew; and while it became more and more generalized, it also became more sublime, more incomprehensible, more divine. Without Agni, without fire, light, and warmth, life would have been impossible. Hence he became the author and giver of life, of the life of plants and animals and of men; and his favor having once been implored for "light and life and all things," what wonder that in the minds of some poets, and in the traditions of this or that village-community he should have been raised to the rank of a supreme ruler, a god above all gods, their own true god!

* * * * *

We now proceed to consider the powers which the ancient poets might have discovered in the air, in the clouds, and, more particularly, in those meteoric conflicts which by thunder, lightning, darkness, storms, and showers of rain must have taught man that very important lesson that he was not alone in this world. Many philosophers, as you know, believe that all religion arose from fear or terror, and that without thunder and lightning to teach us, we should never have believed in any gods or god. This is a one-sided and exaggerated view. Thunderstorms, no doubt, had a large share in arousing feelings of awe and terror, and in making man conscious of his weakness and dependence. Even in the Veda, Indra is introduced as saying: "Yes, when I send thunder and lightning, then you believe in me." But what we call religion would never have sprung from fear and terror alone. _Religion is trust_, and that trust arose in the beginning from the impressions made on the mind and heart of man by the order and wisdom of nature, and more particularly by those regularly recurring events, the return of the sun, the revival of the moon, the order of the seasons, the law of cause and effect, gradually discovered in all things, and traced back in the end to a cause of all causes, by whatever name we choose to call it.

Still the meteoric phenomena had, no doubt, their important share in the production of ancient deities; and in the poems of the Vedic Rishis they naturally occupy a very prominent place. If we were asked who was the principal god of the Vedic period, we should probably, judging from the remains of that poetry which we possess, say it was Indra, the god of the blue sky, the Indian Zeus, the gatherer of the clouds, the giver of rain, the wielder of the thunder-bolt, the conqueror of darkness, and of all the powers of darkness, the bringer of light, the source of freshness, vigor, and life, the ruler and lord of the whole world. Indra is this, and much more in the Veda. He is supreme in the hymns of many poets, and may have been so in the prayers addressed to him by many of the ancient septs or village communities in India. Compared with him the other gods are said to be decrepit old men. Heaven, the old Heaven or Dyaus, formerly the father of all the gods, nay the father of Indra himself, bows before him, and the Earth trembles at his approach. Yet Indra never commanded the permanent allegiance of all the other gods, like Zeus and Jupiter; nay, we know from the Veda itself that there were skeptics, even at that early time, who denied that there was any such thing as Indra.[223]

By the side of Indra, and associated with him in his battles, and sometimes hardly distinguishable from him, we find the representatives of the wind, called Vata or Vayu, and the more terrible storm-gods, the Maruts, literally the Smashers.

When speaking of the Wind, a poet says:[224] "Where was he born? Whence did he spring? the life of the gods, the germ of the world! That god moves about where he listeth, his voices are heard, but he is not to be seen."

The Maruts are more terrible than Vata, the wind. They are clearly the representatives of such storms as are known in India, when the air is darkened by dust and clouds, when in a moment the trees are stripped of their foliage, their branches shivered, their stems snapped, when the earth seems to reel and the mountains to shake, and the rivers are lashed into foam and fury. Then the poet sees the Maruts approaching with golden helmets, with spotted skins on their shoulders, brandishing golden spears, whirling their axes, shooting fiery arrows, and cracking their whips amid thunder and lightning. They are the comrades of Indra, sometimes, like Indra, the sons of Dyaus or the sky, but also the sons of another terrible god, called Rudra, or the Howler, a fighting god, to whom many hymns are addressed. In him a new character is evolved, that of a healer and saviour--a very natural transition in India, where nothing is so powerful for dispelling miasmas, restoring health, and imparting fresh vigor to man and beast, as a thunderstorm, following after weeks of heat and drought.

All these and several others, such as Par_g_anya and the _Ri_bhus, are the gods of mid-air, the most active and dramatic gods, ever present to the fancy of the ancient poets, and in several cases the prototypes of later heroes, celebrated in the epic poems of India. In battles, more particularly, these fighting gods of the sky were constantly invoked.[225] Indra is the leader in battles, the protector of the bright Aryans, the destroyer of the black aboriginal inhabitants of India. "He has thrown down fifty thousand black fellows," the poet says, "and their strongholds crumbled away like an old rag." Strange to say, Indra is praised for having saved his people from their enemies, much as Jehovah was praised by the Jewish prophets. Thus we read in one hymn that when Sudas, the pious king of the T_ri_tsus, was pressed hard in his battle with the ten kings, Indra changed the flood into an easy ford, and thus saved Sudas.

In another hymn we read:[226] "Thou hast restrained the great river for the sake of Turviti Vayya: the flood moved in obedience to thee, and thou madest the rivers easy to cross." This is not very different from the Psalmist (78:13): "He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and he made the waters to stand as an heap."

And there are other passages which have reminded some students of the Veda of Joshua's battle,[227] when the sun stood still and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. For we read in the Veda also, as Professor Kaegi has pointed out (l. c. p. 63), that "Indra lengthened the days into the night," and that "the Sun unharnessed its chariot in the middle of the day."[228]

In some of the hymns addressed to Indra his original connection with the sky and the thunderstorm seems quite forgotten. He has become a spiritual god, the only king of all worlds and all people,[229] who sees and hears everything,[230] nay, who inspires men with their best thoughts. No one is equal to him, no one excels him.

The name of Indra is peculiar to India, and must have been formed after the separation of the great Aryan family had taken place, for we find it neither in Greek, nor in Latin, nor in German. There are Vedic gods, as I mentioned before, whose names must have been framed before that separation, and which occur therefore, though greatly modified in character, sometimes in Greek, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in the Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic dialects. D y a u s, for instance, is the same word as Zeus or Jupiter, U s h a s is Eos, N a k t a is Nyx, S u r y a is Helios, A g n i is ignis, B h a g a is Baga in Old Persian, B o g u in Old Slavonic, V a r u _n_ a is Uranos, V a t a is Wotan, V a _k_ is vox, and in the name of the _Maruts_, or the storm-gods, the germs of the Italic god of war, Mars, have been discovered. Besides these direct coincidences, some indirect relations have been established between Hermes and S a r a m e y a, Dionysos and D y u n i _s_ y a, Prometheus and p r a m a n t h a, Orpheus and _R i_ b h u, Erinnys and S a r a _n_ y u, Pan and P a v a n a.[231]

But while the name of Indra as the god of the sky, also as the god of the thunderstorm, and the giver of rain, is unknown among the north-western members of the Aryan family, the name of another god who sometimes acts the part of Indra (Indra_h_ Par_g_anyatma), but is much less prominent in the Veda, I mean Par_g_anya, must have existed before that of Indra, because two at least of the Aryan languages have carried it, as we shall see, to Germany, and to the very shores of the Baltic.

Sometimes this Par_g_anya stands in the place of Dyaus, the sky. Thus we read in the Atharva-Veda, XII. 1, 12:[232] "The Earth is the mother, and I am the son of the Earth. Par_g_anya is the father; may he help us!"

In another place (XII. 1, 42) the Earth, instead of being the wife of Heaven or Dyaus, is called the wife of Par_g_anya.

Now who or what is this Par_g_anya? There have been long controversies about him,[233] as to whether he is the same as Dyaus, Heaven, or the same as Indra, the successor of Dyaus, whether he is the god of the sky, of the cloud, or of the rain.