CHAPTER IV. THE ARYANS IN INDIA

The Aryan Stock

At a very early period we catch sight of a nobler race from the north-west, forcing its way in among the primitive peoples of India. This race belonged to the splendid Aryan or Indo-Germanic stock, from which the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Englishman alike descend. Its earliest home seems to have been in Western Asia. From that common camping-ground certain branches of the race started for the east, others for the further west. One of the western offshoots built Athens and Sparta, and became the Greek nation; another went on to Italy, and reared the city on the Seven Hills, which grew into Imperial Rome. A distant colony of the same race excavated the silver ores of prehistoric Spain; and when we first catch a sight of ancient England, we see an Aryan settlement fishing in wattle canoes, and working the tin mines of Cornwall. Meanwhile other branches of the Aryan stock had gone forth from the primitive Asiatic home to the east. Powerful bands found their way through the passes of the Himalayas into the Punjab, and spread themselves, chiefly as Brahmans and Rajputs, over India.

The Aryans conquer the Early Races in Europe and Asia

The Aryan offshoots, alike to the east and to the west, asserted their superiority over the earlier peoples whom they found in possession of the soil. The history of ancient Europe is the story of the Aryan settlements around the shores of the Mediterranean; and that wide term, modern civilization, merely means the civilization of the western branches of the same race. The history of India consists in like manner of the history of the eastern offshoots of the Aryan stock who settled in that land.

The Aryans in their Primitive Home

We know little regarding these noble Aryan tribes in their early camping-ground in Western Asia. From words preserved in the languages of their long-separated descendants in Europe and India, scholars infer that they roamed over the grassy steppes with their cattle, making long halts to raise crops of grain. They had tamed most of the domestic animals; were acquainted with iron; understood the arts of weaving and sewing; wore clothes; and ate cooked food. They lived the hardy life of the comparatively temperate zone; and the feeling of cold seems to be one of the earliest common remembrances of the eastern and the western branches of the race.

European and Indian Languages merely Varieties of Aryan Speech

The forefathers of the Greek and the Roman, of the English and the Hindu, dwelt together in Western Asia, spoke the same tongue, worshipped the same gods. The languages of Europe and India, although at first sight they seem wide apart, are merely different growths from the original Aryan speech. This is especially true of the common words of family life. The names for father, mother, brother, sister, and widow are the same in most of the Aryan languages, whether spoken on the banks of the Ganges, of the Tiber, or of the Thames. Thus the word daughter, which occurs in nearly all of them, has been derived from the Aryan root dugh, which in Sanskrit has the form of duh, to milk; and perhaps preserves the memory of the time when the daughter was the little milkmaid in the primitive Aryan household.

Common Origin of European and Indian Religions

The ancient religions of Europe and India had a common origin. They were to some extent made up of the sacred stories or myths, which our joint-ancestors had learned while dwelling together in Asia. Several of the Vedic gods were also the gods of Greece and Rome; and to this day the Divinity is adored by names derived from the same old Aryan word (deva, the Shining One), by Brahmans in Calcutta, by the Protestant clergy of England, and by Roman Catholic priests in Peru.

The Indo-Aryans on the March

The Vedic hymns exhibit the Indian branch of the Aryans on their march to the south-east, and in their new homes. The earliest songs disclose the race still to the north of the Khaibar pass, in Kabul; the later ones bring them as far as the Ganges. Their victorious advance eastwards through the intermediate tract can be traced in the Vedic writings almost step by step. The steady supply of water among the five rivers of the Punjab, led the Aryans to settle down from their old state of wandering half-pastoral tribes into regular communities of husbandmen. The Vedic poets praised the rivers which enabled them to make this great change—perhaps the most important step in the progress of a race. “May the Indus,” they sang, “the far-famed giver of wealth, hear us; (fertilizing our) broad fields with water.” The Himalayas, through whose south-western passes they had reached India, and at whose southern base they long dwelt, made a lasting impression on their memory. The Vedic singer praised “Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and the aerial river declare.” The Aryan race in India never forgot its northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the brave for ever repose.

The Rig-Veda

The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan settlements in the Punjab. The age of this venerable hymnal is unknown. Orthodox Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed “from before all time,” or at least from 3000 years B.C. European scholars have inferred from astronomical data that its composition was going on about 1400 B.C. But the evidence might have been calculated backwards, and inserted later in the Veda. We only know that the Vedic religion had been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the sixth century B.C. The Rig-Veda is a very old collection of 1017 short poems, chiefly addressed to the gods, and containing 10,580 verses. Its hymns show us the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes, sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the “black-skinned” Aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the sacrifice in the name of the people. The king himself seems to have been elected; and his title of Vis-pati, literally “Lord of the Settlers,” survives in the old Persian Vispaiti, and as the Lithuanian Widz-patis in east-central Europe at this day. Women enjoyed a high position; and some of the most beautiful hymns were composed by ladies and queens. Marriage was held sacred. Husband and wife were both “rulers of the house” (dampati); and drew near to the gods together in prayer. The burning of widows on their husbands’ funeral pile was unknown; and the verses in the Veda which the Brahmans afterwards distorted into a sanction for the practice, have the very opposite meaning. “Rise, woman,” says the Vedic text to the mourner; “come to the world of life. Come to us. Thou hast fulfilled thy duties as a wife to thy husband.”

Aryan Civilization in the Veda

The Aryan tribes in the Veda have blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and goldsmiths among them, besides carpenters, barbers, and other artisans. They fight from chariots, and freely use the horse, although not yet the elephant, in war. They have settled down as husbandmen, till their fields with the plough, and live in villages or towns. But they also cling to their old wandering life, with their herds and “cattle-pens.” Cattle, indeed, still form their chief wealth—the coin in which payment of fines is made—reminding us of the Latin word for money, pecunia, from pecus, a herd. One of the Vedic words for war literally means “a desire for cows.” Unlike the modern Hindus, the Aryans of the Veda ate beef; used a fermented liquor or beer, made from the soma plant; and offered the same strong meat and drink to their gods. Thus the stout Aryans spread eastwards through Northern India, pushed on from behind, by later arrivals of their own stock, and driving before them, or reducing to bondage, the earlier “black-skinned” races. They marched in whole communities from one river valley to another; each house-father a warrior, husbandman, and priest; with his wife, and his little ones, and his cattle.

The Gods of the Veda

These free-hearted tribes had a great trust in themselves and their gods. Like other conquering races, they believed that both themselves and their deities were altogether superior to the people of the land, and to their poor, rude objects of worship. Indeed, this noble self-confidence is a great aid to the success of a nation. Their divinities—devas, literally “the shining ones,” from the Sanskrit root div, “to shine”—were the great powers of nature. They adored the Father-heaven, Dyaush-pitar in Sanskrit, the Dies-piter or Jupiter of Rome, the Zeus of Greece; and the Encompassing Sky—Varuna in Sanskrit, Uranus in Latin, Ouranos in Greek. Indra, or the Aqueous Vapour that brings the precious rain on which plenty or famine still depends each autumn, received the largest number of hymns. By degrees, as the settlers realized more and more keenly the importance of the periodical rains to their new life as husbandmen, he became the chief of the Vedic gods. “The gods do not reach unto thee, O Indra, nor men; thou overcomest all creatures in strength.” Agni, the God of Fire (Latin ignis), ranks perhaps next to Indra in the number of hymns addressed to him. He is “the Youngest of the Gods,” “the Lord and Giver of Wealth.” The Maruts are the Storm Gods, “who make the rock to tremble, who tear in pieces the forest.” Ushas, “the High-born Dawn” (Greek Eos), “shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go forth to his work.” The Asvins, the “Horsemen” or fleet outriders of the dawn, are the first rays of sunrise, “Lords of Lustre.” The Solar Orb himself (Surya), the Wind (Vayu), the Sunshine or Friendly Day (Mitra), the intoxicating fermented juice of the Sacrificial Plant (Soma), and many other deities are invoked in the Veda—in all, about thirty-three gods, “who are eleven in heaven, eleven on earth, and eleven dwelling in glory in mid-air.”

The Vedic Idea of God

The Aryan settler lived on excellent terms with his bright gods. He asked for protection, with an assured conviction that it would be granted. At the same time, he was deeply stirred by the glory and mystery of the earth and the heavens. Indeed, the majesty of nature so filled his mind, that when he praises any one of his Shining Gods, he can think of none other for the time being, and adores him as the supreme ruler. Verses may be quoted declaring each of the greater deities to be the One Supreme: “Neither gods nor men, reach unto thee, O Indra.” Another hymn speaks of Soma as “king of heaven and earth, the conqueror of all.” To Varuna also it is said, “Thou art lord of all; of heaven and earth; thou art king of all those who are gods, and of all those who are men.” The more spiritual of the Vedic singers, therefore, may be said to have worshipped One God, though not One alone.

A Vedic Hymn

“In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He was the one born lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
“He who gives life, he who gives strength; whose command all the Bright Gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
“He who, through his power, is the one king of the breathing and awakening world. He who governs all, man and beast. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
“He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm; he through whom the heaven was established, nay, the highest heaven; he who measured out the light and the air. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?
“He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds; he who alone is God above all gods. Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?”

Burning of the Dead

While the aboriginal races buried their dead in the earth or under rude stone monuments, the Aryan—alike in India, in Greece, and in Italy—made use of the funeral-pile. Several exquisite Sanskrit hymns bid farewell to the dead:—

“Depart thou, depart thou by the ancient paths to the place whither our fathers have departed. Meet with the Ancient Ones; meet with the Lord of Death. Throwing off thine imperfections, go to thy home. Become united with a body; clothe thyself in a shining form.”

“Let him depart to those for whom flow the rivers of nectar. Let him depart to those who, through meditation, have obtained the victory; who, by fixing their thoughts on the unseen, have gone to heaven. Let him depart to the mighty in battle, to the heroes who have laid down their lives for others, to those who have bestowed their goods on the poor.”

The doctrine of transmigration was at first unknown. The circle round the funeral-pile sang with a firm assurance that their friend went direct to a state of blessedness and reunion with the loved ones who had gone before. “Do thou conduct us to heaven,” says a hymn of the later Atharva-Veda; “let us be with our wives and children.” “In heaven, where our friends dwell in bliss—having left behind the infirmities of the body, free from lameness, free from crookedness of limb—there let us behold our parents and our children.” “May the water-shedding Spirits bear thee upwards, cooling thee with their swift motion through the air, and sprinkling thee with dew.” “Bear him, carry him; let him, with all his faculties complete, go to the world of the righteous. Crossing the dark valley which spreadeth boundless around him, let the unborn soul ascend to heaven. Wash the feet of him who is stained with sin; let him go upwards with cleansed feet. Crossing the gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up to heaven.”

Later Vedic Literature

By degrees the old collection of hymns, or the Rig-Veda, no longer sufficed. Three other collections or service-books were therefore added, making the Four Vedas. The word Veda is from the same root as the Latin videre, to see: the early Greek feid-enai, infinitive of oida, I know: and the English wisdom, or wit. The Brahmans taught that the Veda was divinely inspired, and that it was literally “the wisdom of God.” There was, first, the Rig-Veda, or the hymns in their simplest form. Second, the Sama-Veda, made up of hymns of the Rig-Veda to be used at the Soma sacrifice. Third, the Yajur-Veda, consisting not only of Rig-Vedic hymns, but also of prose sentences, to be used at the great sacrifices; and divided into two editions, the Black and White Yajur. The fourth, or Atharva-Veda, was compiled from the least ancient hymns at the end of the Rig-Veda, very old religious spells, and later sources. Some of its spells have a similarity to the ancient German and Lithuanian charms, and appear to have come down from the most primitive times, before the Indian and European branches of the Aryan race struck out from their common home.

The Brahmanas

To each of the four Vedas were attached prose works, called Brahmanas, in order to explain the sacrifices and the duties of the priests. Like the four Vedas, the Brahmanas were held to be the very word of God. The Vedas and the Brahmanas form the revealed Scriptures of the Hindus—the sruti, literally “Things heard from God.” The Vedas supplied their divinely-inspired psalms, and the Brahmanas their divinely-inspired theology or body of doctrine. To them were afterwards added the Sutras, literally “Strings of pithy sentences” regarding laws and ceremonies. Still later the Upanishads were composed, treating of God and the soul; the Aranyakas, or “Tracts for the forest recluse”; and, after a very long interval, the Puranas, or “Traditions from of old.” All these ranked, however, not as divinely-inspired knowledge, or things “heard from God” (sruti), like the Vedas and Brahmanas, but only as sacred traditions—smriti, literally “The things remembered.”

The Four Castes formed

Meanwhile the Four Castes had been formed. In the old Aryan colonies among the Five Rivers of the Punjab, each house-father was a husbandman, warrior, and priest. But by degrees certain gifted families, who composed the Vedic hymns or learned them off by heart, were always chosen by the king to perform the great sacrifices. In this way probably the priestly caste sprang up. As the Aryans conquered more territory, fortunate soldiers received a larger share of the lands than others, and cultivated it not with their own hands, but by means of the vanquished non-Aryan tribes. In this way the Four Castes arose. First, the Priests or Brahmans. Second, the warriors or fighting companions of the king, called Rajputs or Kshatriyas, literally “of the royal stock.” Third, the Aryan agricultural settlers, who kept the old name of Vaisyas, from the root vis, which in the primitive Vedic period had included the whole Aryan people. Fourth, the Sudras, or conquered non-Aryan tribes, who became serfs. The three first castes were of Aryan descent, and were honoured by the name of the Twice-born Castes. They could all be present at the sacrifices, and they worshipped the same Bright Gods. The Sudras were “the slave-bands of black descent” of the Veda. They were distinguished from their “Twice-born” Aryan conquerors as being only “Once-born,” and by many contemptuous epithets. They were not allowed to be present at the great national sacrifices, or at the feasts which followed them. They could never rise out of their servile condition; and to them was assigned the severest toil in the fields, and all the hard and dirty work of the village community.

The Brahman Supremacy established

The Brahmans or priests claimed the highest rank. But they seem to have had a long struggle with the Kshattriya or warrior caste, before they won their proud position at the head of the Indian people. They afterwards secured themselves in that position, by teaching that it had been given to them by God. At the beginning of the world, they said, the Brahman proceeded from the mouth of the Creator, the Kshattriya or Rajput from his arms, the Vaisya from his thighs or belly, and the Sudra from his feet. This legend is true so far, that the Brahmans were really the brain-power of the Indian people, the Kshatriyas its armed hands, the Vaisyas the food-growers, and the Sudras the down-trodden serfs. When the Brahmans had established their power, they made a wise use of it. From the ancient Vedic times they recognized that if they were to exercise spiritual supremacy, they must renounce earthly pomp. In arrogating the priestly function, they gave up all claim to the royal office. They were divinely appointed to be the guides of nations and the counsellors of kings, but they could not be kings themselves. As the duty of the Sudra was to serve, of the Vaisya to till the ground and follow middle-class trades or crafts; so the business of the Kshattriya was to fight the public enemy, and of the Brahman to propitiate the national gods.

Stages of a Brahman’s Life

Each day brought to the Brahmans its routine of ceremonies, studies, and duties. Their whole life was mapped out into four clearly-defined stages of discipline. For their existence, in its full religious significance, commenced not at birth, but on being invested at the close of childhood with the sacred thread of the Twice-born. Their youth and early manhood were to be entirely spent in learning the Veda by heart from an older Brahman, tending the sacred fire, and serving their preceptor. Having completed his long studies, the young Brahman entered on the second stage of his life, as a householder. He married, and commenced a course of family duties. When he had reared a family, and gained a practical knowledge of the world, he retired into the forest as a recluse, for the third period of his life; feeding on roots or fruits, practising his religious duties with increased devotion. The fourth stage was that of the ascetic or religious mendicant, wholly withdrawn from earthly affairs, and striving to attain a condition of mind which, heedless of the joys, or pains, or wants of the body, is intent only on its final absorption into the deity. The Brahman, in this fourth stage of his life, ate nothing but what was given to him unasked, and abode not more than one day in any village, lest the vanities of the world should find entrance into his heart. This was the ideal life prescribed for a Brahman, and ancient Indian literature shows that it was to a large extent practically carried out. Throughout his whole existence the true Brahman practised a strict temperance; drinking no wine, using a simple diet, curbing the desires; shut off from the tumults of war, as his business was to pray, not to fight, and having his thoughts ever fixed on study and contemplation. “What is this world?” says a Brahman sage. “It is even as the bough of a tree, on which a bird rests for a night, and in the morning flies away.”

The Modern Brahmans

The Brahmans, therefore, were a body of men who, in an early stage of this world’s history, bound themselves by a rule of life the essential precepts of which were self-culture and self-restraint. The Brahmans of the present India are the result of 3000 years of hereditary education and temperance; and they have evolved a type of mankind quite distinct from the surrounding population. Even the passing traveller in India marks them out, alike from the bronze-cheeked, large-limbed, leisure-loving Rajput or Kshattriya, the warrior caste of Aryan descent; and from the dark-skinned, flat-nosed, thick-lipped low castes of non-Aryan origin, with their short bodies and bullet heads. The Brahman stands apart from both, tall and slim, with finely-modelled lips and nose, fair complexion, high forehead, and slightly cocoa-nut shaped skull—the man of self-centred refinement. He is an example of a class becoming the ruling power in a country, not by force of arms, but by the vigour of hereditary culture and temperance. One race has swept across India after another, dynasties have risen and fallen, religions have spread themselves over the land and disappeared. But since the dawn of history the Brahman has calmly ruled; swaying the minds and receiving the homage of the people, and accepted by foreign nations as the highest type of Indian mankind. The position which the Brahmans won resulted in no small measure from the benefits which they bestowed. For their own Aryan countrymen they developed a noble language and literature. The Brahmans were not only the priests and philosophers, but also the lawgivers, the men of science, and the poets of their race. Their influence on the aboriginal peoples, the hill and forest races of India, was even more important. To these rude remnants of the flint and stone ages they brought, in ancient times, a knowledge of the metals and the gods.

Brahman Theology

The Brahmans, among themselves, soon began to see that the old gods of the Vedic hymns were in reality not supreme beings, but poetic fictions. For when they came to think the matter out, they found that the Sun, the Aqueous Vapour, the Encompassing Sky, the Wind, and the Dawn could not each be separate and supreme creators, but must have all proceeded from one First Cause. They did not shock the more ignorant castes by any public rejection of the Vedic deities. They accepted the old “Shining Ones” of the Veda as beautiful manifestations of the divine power, and continued to decorously conduct the sacrifices in their honour. But among their own caste the Brahmans taught the unity of God. The mass of the people were left to believe in four castes, four Vedas, and many deities. But the higher thinkers among the Brahmans recognized that in the beginning there was but one caste, one Veda, and one God.

The Hindu Trinity

The confused old groups of deities or Shining Ones in the Veda thus gave place to the grand conception of one God, in his three solemn manifestations as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer and Reproducer. Each of these had his prototype among the Vedic deities; and they remain to this day the three persons of the Hindu trinity. Brahma, the Creator, or first person of the trinity, was too abstract an idea to be a popular god. Vishnu, the second person of the trinity, was a more useful and friendly deity. He is said to have ten times come down from heaven and lived on the earth. These were the ten incarnations (avatars) of Vishnu. Siva, the third person of the trinity, appears as both the Destroyer and Reproducer; and thus shows to the eye of faith, that death is but a change of state, and an entry into a new life. Vishnu and Siva, in their diverse male and female shapes, now form the principal gods of the Hindus.

Brahman Philosophy

The Brahmans thus built up a religion for the Indian people. They also worked out a system of philosophy, and arranged its doctrines in six schools—darsanas, literally mirrors of knowledge—at least 500 years before Christ. They had moreover a circle of sciences of their own. The Sanskrit grammar of Panini, compiled about 350 B.C., is still the foundation of the study of Aryan language. In this subject the Brahmans were far before the Greeks or Romans, or indeed any European nation down to the present century. Their Sanskrit, or “perfected speech,” succeeded after a long interval to the earlier language of the Veda. But Sanskrit seems to have been used only, or chiefly, by the learned. The people spoke a simpler form of the same language, called Prakrit. From this old Prakrit the modern dialects of India descend. The Brahmans, however, always wrote in Sanskrit, which sunk in time into a dead language unknown to the people. The Brahmans alone, therefore, could read the sacred books or write new ones; and in this way they became the only men of learning in India.

Indian Literature

As early as 250 B.C. two alphabets, or written characters, were used in India. But the Brahmans preferred to hand down their holy learning by memory, rather than to write it out. Good Brahmans had to learn the Veda by heart, besides many other books. This was the easier, as almost all their literature was in verse (slokas). In the very ancient times, just after the Vedic hymns, a pure style of prose, simple and compact, had grown up. But during more than 2000 years the Brahmans have composed almost entirely in verse; and prose-writing was for long almost a lost art in India.

Brahman Astronomy

The Brahmans studied the movements of the heavenly bodies, so as to fix the proper dates for the annual sacrifices. More than 3000 years ago, the Vedic poets had worked out a fairly correct calculation of the solar year, which they divided into 360 days, with an extra month every five years to make up for the odd 5¼ days per annum. They were also acquainted with the phases of the moon, the motions of the planets, and the signs of the zodiac. The Brahmans had advanced far in astronomy before the Greeks arrived in India in 327 B.C. They were not, however, ashamed to learn from the new-comers; and one of the five systems of Brahman astronomy is called the Romaka or Greek science. But in time the Hindus surpassed the Greeks in this matter. The fame of the Brahman astronomers spread westward, and their works were translated by the Arabs about 800 A.D., and so reached Europe. After the Muhammadans began to ravage India in 1000 A.D., Brahman science declined. But Hindu astronomers arose from time to time, and their observatories may still be seen at Benares and elsewhere. An Indian astronomer, the Raja Jai Singh, was able to correct the list of stars published by the celebrated French astronomer De la Hire, in 1702.

Brahman Medicine

The Brahmans also worked out a system of medicine for themselves. As they had to study the heavenly bodies in order to fix the dates of their yearly festivals, so they made their first steps in anatomy, by cutting up the animals at the sacrifice, with a view to offering the different parts to the proper gods. They ranked medical science as an Upa-Veda, or later revelation from heaven. The ancient Brahmans did not shrink from dissecting the dead bodies of animals. They also trained their students by means of operations performed on wax spread over a board, instead of flesh, and on the stems of plants. The hospitals which the Buddhist princes set up throughout India for man and beast, gave great opportunities for the study and treatment of disease.

In medicine the Brahmans learned nothing from the Greeks, but taught them much. Arab medicine was founded on translations from Sanskrit works about 800 A.D. Mediaeval European medicine, in its turn, down to the seventeenth century, was, in many important respects, based upon the Arabic. The Indian physician Charaka was quoted in European books of medicine written in the middle ages.

Decline of Hindu Medicine

As Buddhism passed into modern Hinduism (600-1000 A.D.), and the shackles of caste were imposed with an iron rigour, the Brahmans more scrupulously avoided contact with blood or diseased matter. They left the medical profession to the Vaidyas, a lower caste, sprung from a Brahman father and a mother of the Vaisya or cultivating class. These in their turn shrank more and more from touching dead bodies, and from those ancient operations on “the carcase of a bullock,” &c., by which alone surgical skill could be acquired. The abolition of the public hospitals, on the downfall of Buddhism, must also have proved a great loss to Indian medicine. The Muhammadan conquests, commencing in 1000 A.D., brought in a new school of foreign physicians, who derived their knowledge from the Arabic translations of the Sanskrit medical works of the best period. These Musalman doctors or hakims monopolized the patronage of the Muhammadan princes and nobles of India. The decline of Hindu medicine continued until it sank into the hands of the village kabiraj, whose knowledge consists of a jumble of Sanskrit texts, useful lists of drugs, aided by spells, fasts, and quackery. But Hindu students now flock to the medical colleges established by the British Government, and in this way the science is again reviving in India.

Indian Music

The Brahmans had also an art of music of their own. The seven notes which they invented, at least four centuries before Christ, passed through the Persians to Arabia, and were thence introduced into European music in the eleventh century A.D. Hindu music declined under the Muhammadan rule. Its complex divisions or modes and numerous sub-tones prevent it from pleasing the modern European ear, which has been trained on a different system; but it is highly original and interesting from a scientific point of view. A great revival of Indian music has been brought about by patriotic native gentlemen in our own days, and its strains give delight to millions of our Indian fellow-subjects.

Brahman Law

The Brahmans made law a part of their religion. Their earliest legal works were the Household Maxims (Grihya Sutras), some of them perhaps as early as 500 B.C. The customs of the Brahmans in Northern India were collected into the Code of Manu, composed in its present final form between 100 and 500 A.D. Another famous compilation, known as the Code of Yajnavalkya, was drawn up later; apparently in the sixth or seventh century A.D. These codes, and the commentaries written upon them, still rule the family life of the Hindus. They set forth the law in three branches,—namely, (1) domestic and civil rights and duties; (2) the administration of justice; (3) religious purifications and penance. They contain many rules about marriage, inheritance, and food. They keep the castes apart, by forbidding them to intermarry or to eat together. They were accepted as almost divine laws by the Hindus; and the spread of these codes was the work of the Brahmans as the civilizers of India. But they really record only the customs of the Brahman kingdoms in the north, and do not truly apply to all the Indian races. The greatest Hindu lawgivers agree that the usages of each different country in India are to be respected; and in this way they make allowance for the laws or customs of the non-Aryan tribes. Thus among the Brahmans it would be disgraceful for a woman to have two husbands. But among the Nairs of Southern India and other non-Aryan races it is the custom; therefore it is legal for such races, and all the laws of inheritance among these peoples are regulated accordingly.

Brahman Poetry

The Brahmans were not merely the composers and keepers of the sacred books, the philosophers, the men of science, and the law-makers of the Hindu people—they were also its poets. They did not write history; but they told the ancient wars and the lives of the Aryan heroes in epic poems. The two most famous of these are the Mahabharata, or chronicles of the Delhi kings, and the Ramayana, or story of the Aryan advance into Southern India.

The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is a great collection of Indian legends in verse, some of them as old as the Vedic hymns. The main story deals with a period not later than 1200 B.C. But it was not put together in its present shape till more than a thousand years later. An idea of the extent of the Mahabharata may be gained from the fact that it contains 220,000 lines; while the Iliad of Homer does not amount to 16,900 lines, and Virgil’s Aeneid contains less than 10,000.

Its Central Story

The central story of the Mahabharata occupies scarcely one-fourth of the whole, or about 50,000 lines. It narrates a struggle between two families of the ruling Lunar race for a patch of country near Delhi. These families, alike descended from the Royal Bharata, consisted of two brotherhoods, cousins to each other, and both brought up under the same roof. The five Pandavas were the sons of King Pandu, who, smitten by a curse, resigned the sovereignty to his brother Dhrita-rashtra, and retired to a hermitage in the Himalayas, where he died. The ruins of his capital, Hastinapura, or the “Elephant City,” are pointed out beside a deserted bed of the Ganges, 57 miles north-east of Delhi, at this day. His brother Dhrita-rashtra ruled in his stead; and to him one hundred sons were born, who took the name of the Kauravas from an ancestor, Kura. Dhrita-rashtra acted as a faithful guardian to his five nephews, the Pandavas, and chose the eldest of them as heir to the family kingdom. His own sons resented this act of supercession; and so arose the quarrel between the hundred Kauravas and the five Pandavas, which forms the main story of the Mahabharata.

Its Outline

The hundred Kauravas forced their father to send away their five Pandava cousins into the forest, and there they treacherously burned down the hut in which the five Pandavas dwelt. The Pandavas escaped, and wandered in the disguise of Brahmans to the court of King Draupada, who had proclaimed a swayam-vara, or maiden’s “own-choice.” This was a contest of arms, or with the bow, among the chiefs, at which the king’s daughter would take the victor as her husband. Arjuna, one of the five Pandavas, bent the mighty bow which had defied the strength of all the rival chiefs, and so obtained the fair princess, Draupadi, who became the common wife of the five brethren. Their uncle, the good Dhrita-rashtra, recalled them to his capital, and gave them one half of the family territory, reserving the other half for his own sons. The Pandava brethren hived off to a new settlement, Indra-prastha, afterwards Delhi; clearing the jungle, and driving out the Nagas or forest-races.

For a time peace reigned. But the Kauravas tempted Yudhishthira, “firm in fight,” the eldest of the Pandavas, to a gambling match, at which he lost his kingdom, his brothers, himself, and last of all his wife. Their father, however, forced his sons to restore their wicked gains to their cousins. But Yudhishthira was again seduced by the Kauravas to stake his kingdom at dice, again lost it, and had to retire with his wife and brethren into exile for twelve years. Their banishment ended, the five Pandavas returned at the head of an army to win back their kingdom. Many battles followed, gods and divine heroes joined in the struggle, until at last all the hundred Kauravas were slain, and of the friends and kindred of the Pandavas only the five brethren remained. Their uncle, Dhrita-rashtra, made over to them the whole kingdom. For a long time the Pandavas ruled gloriously, celebrating the asva-medha, or “great horse sacrifice,” in token of their holding imperial sway. But their uncle, old and blind, ever taunted them with the slaughter of his hundred sons, until at last he crept away, with his few surviving ministers, his aged wife, and his sister-in-law, the mother of the Pandavas, to a hermitage, where the worn-out band perished in a forest fire. The five brethren, smitten by remorse, gave up their kingdom; and, taking their wife, Draupadi, and a faithful dog, they departed to the Himalayas to seek the heaven of Indra on Mount Meru. One by one the sorrowful pilgrims died upon the road, until only the eldest brother, Yudhishthira, and the dog reached the gate of heaven. Indra invited him to enter, but he refused if his lost wife and brethren were not also admitted. The prayer was granted; but he still declined unless his faithful dog might come in with him. This could not be allowed; and Yudhishthira, after a glimpse of heaven, was thrust down to hell, where he found many of his old comrades in anguish. He resolved to share their sufferings rather than to enjoy paradise alone. But, having triumphed in this crowning trial, the whole scene was revealed to him to be maya or illusion, and the reunited band entered into heaven, where they rest for ever with Indra.

Remainder of the Mahabharata

The struggle for the kingdom of Hastinapur forms, however, only a fourth of the Mahabharata. The remainder is made up of other early legends, stories of the gods, and religious discourses, intended to teach the military caste its duties, especially its duty of reverence to the Brahmans. Taken as a whole, the Mahabharata may be said to form the cyclopaedia of the Heroic Age in Northern India.

The Ramayana

The second great Indian epic, the Ramayana, recounts the advance of the Aryans into Southern India. It is said to have been composed by the poet Valmiki; and its main story refers to a period loosely estimated at about 1000 B.C. But the Ramayana could not have been put together in its present shape many centuries, if at all, before the Christian era. Parts of it may be earlier than the Mahabharata, but the compilation as a whole apparently belongs to a later date. The Ramayana consists of about 48,000 lines.

Outline of the Ramayana

As the Mahabharata celebrates the Lunar race of Delhi, so the Ramayana forms the epic (or poetic history) of the Solar race of Ayodhya, the capital of the modern province of Oudh. The two poems thus preserve the legends of the two most famous Aryan kingdoms at the two opposite, or eastern and western, borders of the old Middle Land of Hindustan (Madhya-desa). The opening books of the Ramayana recount the wondrous birth and boyhood of Rama, eldest son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh; his marriage with the princess Sita, after he proved himself the victor at her “own choice” of a husband (swayam-vara), by bending the mighty bow of Siva in the contest of chiefs; and his selection as heir-apparent to his father’s kingdom. A zandna intrigue ends in the youngest wife of Dasaratha (Rama’s father) obtaining the succession for her own son, Bharata, and in the exile of Rama, with his bride Sita, for fourteen years to the forest. The banished pair wander south to Prayag, the modern Allahabad, already a place of sanctity, and thence across the river to the hermitage of Valmiki, among the jungles of Bundelkhand, where a hill is still pointed out as the scene of their abode. Meanwhile Rama’s father dies; and the loyal younger brother, Bharata, although declared the lawful successor, refuses to enter on the inheritance, and goes in search of Rama to bring him back as rightful heir. A contest of fraternal affection takes place; Bharata at length returning to rule the family kingdom in the name of Rama, until the latter should come to claim it at the end of his fourteen years of banishment.

The Aryans advance Southwards

So far, the Ramayana merely narrates the local annals of the court of Ayodhya. In the third book the main story begins. Ravana, the demon or aboriginal king of the far south, smitten by the fame of Sita’s beauty, seizes her at the hermitage while her husband Rama is away in the jungle, and flies off with her in a magic chariot through the air to Ceylon. The next three books (4th, 5th, 6th) recount the expedition of the bereaved Rama for her recovery. He allies himself with the aboriginal tribes of Southern India, who bear the names of monkeys and bears, and raises among them a great army. The Monkey general, Hanuman, jumps across the straits between India and Ceylon, discovers the princess in captivity, and leaps back with the news to Rama. The monkey troops then build a causeway across the narrow sea,—the Adam’s Bridge of modern geography,—by which Rama marches across, and, after slaying the monster Ravana, delivers Sita. The rescued wife proves her faithfulness to him, during her stay in the palace of Ravana, by the ancient ordeal of fire. Agni, the god of that element, himself conducts her out of the burning pile to her husband; and, the fourteen years of banishment being over, Rama and Sita return in triumph to Ayodhya. There they reigned gloriously; and Rama celebrated the great horse sacrifice (asva-medha) as a token of his imperial sway over India. But a famine having smitten the land, Rama regards it as a punishment sent by God for some crime committed.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES

THE ARYANS IN INDIA

Arjuna, one of the five Pándavas, bent the mighty bow which had defied the strength of all the rival chiefs, and so obtained the fair princess, Draupadí, who became the common wife of the five brethren. Their uncle, the good Dhrita-ráshtra, recalled them to his capital, and gave them one half of the family territory, reserving the other half for his own sons. The Pándava brethren hived off to a new settlement, Indra-prastha, afterwards Delhi; clearing the jungle, and driving out the Nágas or forest-races.

For a time peace reigned. But the Kauravas tempted Yudhishthira, ‘firm in fight,’ the eldest of the Pándavas, to a gambling match, at which he lost his kingdom, his brothers, himself, and last of all his wife. Their father, however, forced his sons to restore their wicked gains to their cousins. But Yudhishthira was again seduced by the Kauravas to stake his kingdom at dice, again lost it, and had to retire with his wife and brethren into exile for twelve years. Their banishment ended, the five Pándavas returned at the head of an army to win back their kingdom. Many battles followed, gods and divine heroes joined in the struggle, until at last all the hundred Kauravas were slain, and of the friends and kindred of the Pandavas only the five brethren remained. Their uncle, Dhritardshtra, made over to them the whole kingdom. For a long time the Pandavas ruled gloriously, celebrating the asva-medha, or ‘great horse sacrifice,’ in token of their holding imperial sway. But their uncle, old and blind, ever taunted them with the slaughter of his hundred sons, until at last he crept away, with his few surviving ministers, his aged wife, and his sister-in-law, the mother of the Pándavas, to a hermitage, where the worn-out band perished in a forest fire. The five brethren, smitten by remorse, gave up their kingdom; and, taking their wife, Draupadí, and a faithful dog, they departed to the Himálayas to seek the heaven of Indra on Mount Meru. One by one the sorrowful pilgrims died upon the road, until only the eldest brother, Yudhishthira, and the dog reached the gate of heaven. Indra invited him to enter, but he refused if his lost wife and brethren were not also admitted. The prayer was granted; but he still declined unless his faithful dog might come in with him. This could not be allowed; and Yudhishthira, after a glimpse of heaven, was thrust down to hell, where he found many of his old comrades in anguish. He resolved to share their sufferings rather than to enjoy paradise alone. But, having triumphed in this crowning trial, the whole scene was revealed to him to be máyá or illusion, and the reunited band entered into heaven, where they rest for ever with Indra.

Remainder of the Mahábhárata

The Rámáyana

The second great Indian epic, the Rámáyana, recounts the advance of the Aryans into Southern India. It is said to have been composed by the poet Válmíkí; and its main story refers to a period loosely estimated at about 1000 B.C. But the Ramayana could not have been put together in its present shape many centuries, if at all, before the Christian era. Parts of it may be earlier than the Mahábhárata, but the compilation as a whole apparently belongs to a later date. The Ramayana consists of about 48,000 lines.

Outline of the Rámáyana

As the Mahábhárata celebrates the Lunar race of Delhi, so the Rámáyana forms the epic (or poetic history) of the Solar race of Ayodhya, the capital of the modern province of Oudh. The two poems thus preserve the legends of the two most famous Aryan kingdoms at the two opposite, or eastern and western, borders of the old Middle Land of Hindustan (Madhya-desa). The opening books of the Rámáyana recount the wondrous birth and boyhood of Rama, eldest son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh; his marriage with the princess Sitá, after he proved himself the victor at her ‘own choice’ of a husband (swayam-vara), by bending the mighty bow of Siva in the contest of chiefs; and his selection as heir-apparent to his father’s kingdom. A zandna intrigue ends in the youngest wife of Dasaratha (Rama’s father) obtaining the succession for her own son, Bharata, and in the exile of Rama, with his bride Sitá, for fourteen years to the forest. The banished pair wander south to Prayág, the modern Allahábád, already a place of sanctity, and thence across the river to the hermitage of Válmíkí, among the jungles of Bundelkhand, where a hill is still pointed out as the scene of their abode. Meanwhile Rama’s father dies; and the loyal younger brother, Bharata, although declared the lawful successor, refuses to enter on the inheritance, and goes in search of Rama to bring him back as rightful heir. A contest of fraternal affection takes place; Bharata at length returning to rule the family kingdom in the name of Rama, until the latter should come to claim it at the end of his fourteen years of banishment.

The Aryans advance Southwards

So far, the Rámáyana merely narrates the local annals of the court of Ayodhya. In the third book the main story begins. Rávana, the demon or aboriginal king of the far south, smitten by the fame of Sitá’s beauty, seizes her at the hermitage while her husband Rama is away in the jungle, and flies off with her in a magic chariot through the air to Ceylon. The next three books (4th, 5th, 6th) recount the expedition of the bereaved Rama for her recovery. He allies himself with the aboriginal tribes of Southern India, who bear the names of monkeys and bears, and raises among them a great army. The Monkey general, Hanumán, jumps across the straits between India and Ceylon, discovers the princess in captivity, and leaps back with the news to Rama. The monkey troops then build a causeway across the narrow sea,—the Adam’s Bridge of modern geography,—by which Rama marches across, and, after slaying the monster Rávana, delivers Sitá. The rescued wife proves her faithfulness to him, during her stay in the palace of Ravana, by the ancient ordeal of fire. Agni, the god of that element, himself conducts her out of the burning pile to her husband; and, the fourteen years of banishment being over, Rama and Sitá return in triumph to Ayodhya. There they reigned gloriously; and Rama celebrated the great horse sacrifice (asva-medha) as a token of his imperial sway over India. But a famine having smitten the land, Rama regards it as a punishment sent by God for some crime committed in the royal family. Doubts arise in his heart as to his wife’s purity while in her captor’s power at Ceylon. He accordingly banishes the faithful Sitá, who wanders forth again to Valmíkí’s hermitage, where she gives birth to Rama’s two sons. After sixteen years of exile, she is reconciled to her repentant husband, and Rama and Sitá and their children are at last reunited.

Later Sanskrit Epics

The Mahábhárata and the Rámáyana, however overlaid with fable, form the chronicles of the kings of the Middle Land of Hindustan (Madhya-desa), their family feuds, and their national enterprises. In the later Sanskrit epics, the stories of the heroes give place more and more to legends of the gods. Among them the Raghu-vansa and the Kumara-sambhava, both assigned to Kálidása, take the first rank. The Raghu-vansa celebrates the Solar line of Raghu, King of Ayodhya, and especially his descendant Rama. The Kumára-sambhava recounts the Birth of the War-god. These two poems could not have been composed in their present shape before 350 A.D.

The Sanskrit Drama

In India, as in Greece and Rome, scenic representations seem to have taken their rise in the rude pantomime of a very early age, possibly as far back as the Vedic ritual; and the Sanskrit word for the drama, nátaka, is derived from nata, a dancer. But the Sanskrit plays of the classical age which have come down to us probably belong to the period between the first century B.C. and the eighth century A.D. The father of the Sanskrit drama is Kálidása, already mentioned as the composer of the two later Sanskrit epics. According to Hindu tradition, he was one of the ‘Nine Gems,’ or distinguished men at the court of Vikramaditya, King of Ujjain, in 57 B.C. But as a matter of fact there were several king Vikramadityas, and the one under whom Kálidása flourished appears to have ruled over Málwá in the Sixth century A.D.

Sakuntala

The most famous drama of Kalidása is Sakuntala, or the Lost Ring. Like the ancient Sanskrit epics, it divides its action between the court of the king and the hermitage in the forest. Prince Dushyanta, an ancestor of the noble Lunar race, weds a beautiful Brahman girl, Sakuntala, at her father’s retreat in the jungle. Before returning to his capital, he gives his bride a ring as a pledge of his love; but, smitten by a curse from a Brahman, she loses the ring, and cannot be recognized by her husband till it is found. Sakuntala bears a son in her loneliness, and sets out to claim recognition for herself and child at her husband’s court. But she is as one unknown to the prince, till, after many sorrows and trials, the ring comes to light. She is then happily reunited with her husband, and her son grows up to be the noble Bharata, the chief founder of the Lunar dynasty, whose achievements form the theme of the Mahábhárata. Sakuntála, like Sitá, is a type of the chaste and faithful Hindu wife; and her love and sorrows, after forming the favourite romance of the Indian people for perhaps eighteen hundred years, supplied a theme for Goethe, the greatest European poet of our age.

Other Dramas

Among other Hindu dramas may be mentioned the Mrichchhakatí, or Toy Cart, in ten acts, on the old theme of the innocent cleared and the guilty punished; and the poem of Nala and Damayantí, or the Royal Gambler and the Faithful Wife. Many plays, often founded upon some story in the Mahábhárata or Rámáyana, issue every year from the Indian press.

Beast Stories

Fables of animals have from old been favourites in India. The Sanskrit Pancha-tantra, or Book of Beast Tales, was translated into Persian as early as the sixth century A.D.; and thence found its way to Europe. The animal fables of ancient India are the familiar nursery stories of England and America at the present day.

Lyric Poetry

Besides the epic chronicles of their gods and heroes, the Brahmans composed many religious poems. One of the most beautiful is the Gita Govinda, or Song of the Divine Herdsman, written by Jayadeva about 1200 A.D. The Puranas are an enormous collection of religious discourses in verse; they will be described hereafter at p. 103.

Brahman Influence

In order to understand the long rule of the Brahmans, and the influence which they still wield, it is necessary ever to keep in mind their position as the great literary caste. Their priestly supremacy has been repeatedly assailed, and during a space of nearly a thousand years it was overborne by the Buddhists. But throughout twenty-five centuries the Brahmans have been the writers and thinkers of India, the counsellors of Hindu princes and the teachers of the Hindu people. The education and learning which so long gave them their power, have ceased to be the monopoly of their caste; and may now be acquired by all races and all classes of His Majesty’s Indian subjects.

Materials for Reference

The literature on ancient India is so copious that it must suffice to name a few of the most useful and most easily available works. Weber’s History of Indian Literature is perhaps the most compendious; a new edition of Max Müller’s History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (1859) would be a boon to the student, and his Chips from a German Workshop are delightful. Among standard treatises may be mentioned John Muir’s valuable translations of Sanskrit Texts (5 vols. 2nd ed. 1868-73); Max Duncker’s Ancient History of India; Lassen’s Indische Alterthümskunde; James Prinsep’s Essays on Indian Antiquities; Horace Hayman Wilson’s Collected Works; and the writings of Roth, Benfey, K. M. Banarji, General Cunningham, Hoernle, Eühler, and Burnell. Some of the most valuable original Sanskrit texts are now rendered available to the English student in Max Müller’s magnificent series of Sacred Books of the East. His new edition of the Rig-Veda-Samhita forms a splendid monument alike to the Indian prince who provided the cost of the work, and to the European scholar who has executed it.