Part 5

Of a far more complicated nature than these offerings are the Soma-sacrifices, which, besides the simpler ceremonies of this class, such as the _Agnishtoma_ or "Praise of Agni," also include great state functions, such as the _Rajasuya_ or consecration of a king, and the _Asvamedha_ or horse-sacrifice, which, in addition to the sacrificial rites, have a considerable amount of extraneous, often highly interesting, ceremonial connected with them, which makes them seem to partake largely of the nature of public festivals. Whilst the oblations of Soma-juice, made thrice on each offering-day, amidst chants and recitations, constitute the central rites of those services, their ritual also requires numerous single oblations of the _ishti_ kind, including at least three animal offerings, and in some cases the immolation of many hecatombs of victims. Moreover, a necessary preliminary to every Soma-sacrifice is the construction, in five layers, of a special fire-altar of large dimensions, consisting of thousands of bricks, formed and baked on the spot, to each, or each group, of which a special symbolic meaning is attached. The building of this altar is spread over a whole year, during which period the sacrificer has to carry about the sacrificial fire in an earthen pan for at least some time each day, until it is finally deposited on the completed altar to serve as the offering-fire for the Soma oblations. The altar itself is constructed in the form of a bird, because Soma was supposed to have been brought down from heaven by the metre Gayatri which had assumed the form of an eagle. Whilst the Soma-sacrifice has been thus developed by the Brahmanas in an extraordinary degree, its essential identity with the Avestan Haoma-cult shows that its origin goes back at all events to the Indo-Iranian period.

Among the symbolic conceits in which the authors of the Brahmanas so freely indulge, there is one overshadowing all others--if indeed they do not all more or less enter into it--which may be considered as the sum and substance of these speculations, and the esoteric doctrine of the sacrifice, involved by the Brahmanical ritualists. This is what may conveniently be called the Prajapati theory, by which the "Lord of Creatures," the efficient cause of the universe, is identified with both the sacrifice (_yajna_) and the sacrificer (_yajamana_). The origin of this theory goes back to the later Vedic hymns. In the so-called Purusha-sukta (_Rigv._ x. 90) in which the supreme spirit is conceived of as _the_ person or man (_purusha_), born in the beginning, and consisting of "whatever hath been and whatever shall be," the creation of the visible and invisible universe is represented as originating from an "all-offered" (holocaust) sacrifice in which the Purusha himself forms the offering-material (_havis_), or, as we might say, the victim. In this primeval, or rather timeless because ever-proceeding, sacrifice, time itself, in the shape of its unit the year, is made to take its part, inasmuch as the three seasons--spring, summer and autumn--of which it consists, constitute the ghee (clarified butter), the offering-fuel and the oblation respectively. These speculations may be said to have formed the foundation on which the theory of the sacrifice, as propounded in the Brahmanas, has been reared. Prajapati--who (probably for practical considerations, as better representing the sacrificer, the earthly ruler, or "lord of the creatures") here takes the place of the Purusha, the world-man or all-embracing personality--is offered up anew in every sacrifice; and inasmuch as the very dismemberment of the lord of creatures, which took place at that archtypal sacrifice, was in itself the creation of the universe, so every sacrifice is also a repetition of that first creative act. Thus the periodical sacrifice is nothing else than a microcosmic representation of the ever-proceeding destruction and renewal of all cosmic life and matter. The ritualistic theologians, however, go an important step further by identifying Prajapati with the performer, or patron, of the sacrifice, the sacrificer; every sacrifice thus becoming invested--in addition to its cosmic significance--with the mystic power of regenerating the sacrificer by cleansing him of all guilt and securing for him a seat in the eternal abodes.

Whilst forming the central feature of the ritualistic symbolism, this triad--Prajapati, sacrifice (oblation, victim), sacrificer--is extended in various ways. An important collateral identification is that of Prajapati (and the sacrificer) with Agni, the god of fire, embodied not only in the offering-fire, but also in the sacred Soma-altar, the technical name of which is _agni_. For this reason the altar, as representative of the universe, is built in five layers, representing earth, air and heaven, and the intermediate regions; and in the centre of the altar-site, below the first layer, on a circular gold plate (the sun), a small golden man (_purusha_) is laid down with his face looking upwards. This is Prajapati, and the sacrificer, who when regenerated will pass upwards through the three worlds to the realms of light, naturally perforated bricks being for this purpose placed in the middle of the three principal altar-layers. One of the fourteen sections of the Satapatha-brahmana, the tenth, called _Agni-rahasya_ or "the mystery of Agni (the god and altar)," is entirely devoted to this feature of the sacrificial symbolism. Similarly the sacrificer, as the human representatiye of the Lord of Creatures, is identified with Soma (as the supreme oblation), with Time, and finally with Death: by the sacrificer thus becoming Death himself, the fell god ceases to have power over him and he is assured of everlasting life. And now we get the Supreme Lord in his last aspect; nay, his one true and real aspect, in which the sacrificer, on shuffling off this mortal coil, will himself come to share--that of pure intellectuality, pure spirituality--he is Mind: such is the ultimate source of being, the one Self, the Purusha, the Brahman. As the sum total of the wisdom propounded in the mystery of Agni, the searcher after truth is exhorted to meditate on that Self, made up of intelligence, endowed with a body of spirit, a form of light, and of an ethereal nature; holding sway over all the regions and pervading this All, being itself speechless and devoid of mental states; and by so doing he shall gain the assurance that "even as a grain of rice, or the smallest granule of millet, so is the golden Purusha in my heart; even as a smokeless light, it is greater than the sky, greater than the ether, greater than the earth, greater than all existing things;--that Self of the Spirit is my Self; on passing away from hence, I shall obtain that Self. And, verily, whosoever has this trust, for him there is no uncertainty." (J. E.)

BRAHMANISM, a term commonly used to denote a system of religious institutions originated and elaborated by the _Brahmans_, the sacerdotal and, from an early period, the dominant caste of the Hindu community (see BRAHMAN). In like manner, as the language of the Aryan Hindus has undergone continual processes of modification and dialectic division, so their religious belief has passed through various stages of development broadly distinguished from one another by certain prominent features. The earliest phases of religious thought in India of which a clear idea can now be formed are exhibited in a body of writings, looked upon by later generations in the light of sacred writ, under the collective name of _Veda_ ("knowledge") or _Sruti_ ("revelation"). The Hindu scriptures consist of four separate collections, or _Samhitas_, of sacred texts, or _mantras_, including hymns, incantations and sacrificial forms of prayer, viz. the _Rich_ (nom. sing. _rik_) or _Rigveda_, the _Saman_ or _Samaveda_, the _Yajus_ or _Yajurveda_, and the _Atharvan_ or _Atharvaveda_. Each of these four text-books has attached to it a body of prose writings, called _Brahmanas_ (see BRAHMANA), intended to explain the ceremonial application of the texts and the origin and import of the sacrificial rites for which these were supposed to have been composed. Usually attached to these works, and in some cases to the Samhitas, are two kinds of appendages, the Aranyakas and Upanishads, the former of which deal generally with the more recondite rites, while the latter are taken up chiefly with speculations on the problems of the universe and the religious aims of man--subjects often touched upon in the earlier writings, but here dealt with in a more mature and systematic way. Two of the _Samhitas_, the _Saman_ and the _Yajus_, owing their existence to purely ritual purposes, and being, besides, the one almost entirely, the other partly, composed of verses taken from the _Rigveda_, are only of secondary importance for our present inquiry. The hymns of the _Rigveda_ constitute the earliest lyrical effusions of the Aryan settlers in India which have been handed down to posterity. They are certainly not all equally old; on the contrary they evidently represent the literary activity of many generations of bards, though their relative age cannot as yet be determined with anything like certainty. The tenth (and last) book of the collection, however, at any rate has all the characteristics of a later appendage, and in language and spirit many of its hymns approach very nearly to the level of the contents of the _Atharvan_. Of the latter collection about one-sixth is found also in the _Rigveda_, and especially in the tenth book; the larger portion peculiar to it, though including no doubt some older pieces, appears to owe its origin to an age not long anterior to the composition of the _Brahmanas_.

The state of religious thought among the ancient bards, as reflected in the hymns of the _Rigveda_, is that of a worship of the grand and striking phenomena of nature regarded in the light of personal conscious beings, endowed with a power beyond the control of man, though not insensible to his praises and actions. It is a nature worship purer than that met with in any other polytheistic form of belief we are acquainted with--a mythology still comparatively little affected by those systematizing tendencies which, in a less simple and primitive state of thought, lead to the construction of a well-ordered pantheon and a regular organization of divine government. To the mind of the early Vedic worshipper the various departments of the surrounding nature are not as yet clearly defined, and the functions which he assigns to their divine representatives continually flow into one another. Nor has he yet learned to care to determine the relative worth and position of the objects of his adoration; but the temporary influence of the phenomenon to which he addresses his praises bears too strongly upon his mind to allow him for the time to consider the claims of rival powers to which at other times he is wont to look up with equal feelings of awe and reverence. It is this immediateness of impulse under which the human mind in its infancy strives to give utterance to its emotions that imparts to many of its outpourings the ring of monotheistic fervour.

The generic name given to these impersonations, viz. _deva_ ("the shining ones"), points to the conclusion, sufficiently justified by the nature of the more prominent objects of Vedic adoration as well as by common natural occurrences, that it was the striking phenomena of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind. In the primitive worship of the manifold phenomena of nature it is not, of course, so much their physical aspect that impresses the human heart as the moral and intellectual forces which are supposed to move and animate them. The attributes and relations of some of the Vedic deities, in accordance with the nature of the objects they represent, partake in a high degree of this spiritual element; but it is not improbable that in an earlier phase of Aryan worship the religious conceptions were pervaded by it to a still greater and more general extent, and that the Vedic belief, though retaining many of the primitive features, has on the whole assumed a more sensuous and anthropomorphic character. This latter element is especially predominant in the attributes and imagery applied by the Vedic poets to _Indra_, the god of the atmospheric region, the favourite figure in their pantheon.

While the representatives of the prominent departments of nature appear to the Vedic bard as co-existing in a state of independence of one another, their relation to the mortal worshipper being the chief subject of his anxiety, a simple method of classification was already resorted to at an early time, consisting in a triple division of the deities into gods residing in the sky, in the air, and on earth. It is not, however, until a later stage,--the first clear indication being conveyed in a passage of the tenth book of the _Rigveda_--that this attempt at a polytheistic system is followed up by the promotion of one particular god to the dignity of chief guardian for each of these three regions. On the other hand, a tendency is clearly traceable in some of the hymns towards identifying gods whose functions present a certain degree of similarity of nature; attempts which would seem to show a certain advance of religious reflection, the first steps from polytheism towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence. Another feature of the old Vedic worship tended to a similar result. The great problems of the origin and existence of man and the universe had early begun to engage the Hindu mind; and in celebrating the praises of the gods the poet was frequently led by his religious, and not wholly disinterested, zeal to attribute to them cosmical functions of the very highest order. At a later stage of thought, chiefly exhibited in the tenth book of the _Rigveda_ and in the _Atharvaveda_, inquiring sages could not but perceive the inconsistency of such concessions of a supremacy among the divine rulers, and tried to solve the problem by conceptions of an independent power, endowed with all the attributes of a supreme deity, the creator of the universe, including the gods of the pantheon. The names under which this monotheistic idea is put forth are mostly of an attributive character, and indeed some of them, such as _Prajapati_ ("lord of creatures"), _Visvakarman_ ("all-worker"), occur in the earlier hymns as mere epithets of particular gods. But to other minds this theory of a personal creator left many difficulties unsolved. They saw, as the poets of old had seen, that everything around them, that man himself, was directed by some inward agent; and it needed but one step to perceive the essential sameness of these spiritual units, and to recognize their being but so many individual manifestations of one universal principle or spiritual essence. Thus a pantheistic conception was arrived at, put forth under various names, such as _Purusha_ ("soul"), _Kama_ ("desire"), _Brahman_ (neutr.; nom. sing. _brahma_) ("devotion, prayer"). Metaphysical and theosophic speculations were thus fast undermining the simple belief in the old gods, until, at the time of the composition of the _Brahmanas_ and _Upanishads_, we find them in complete possession of the minds of the theologians. Whilst the theories crudely suggested in the later hymns are now further matured and elaborated, the tendency towards catholicity of formula favours the combination of the conflicting monotheistic and pantheistic conceptions; this compromise, which makes _Prajapati_, the personal creator of the world, the manifestation of the impersonal _Brahma_, the universal self-existent soul, leads to the composite pantheistic system which forms the characteristic dogma of the Brahmanical period (see BRAHMAN).

In the Vedic hymns two classes of society, the royal (or military) and the priestly classes, were evidently recognized as being raised above the level of the _Vis_, or bulk of the Aryan community. These social grades seem to have been in existence even before the separation of the two Asiatic branches of the Indo-Germanic race, the Aryans of Iran and India. It is true that, although the _Athrava, Rathaestao_, and _Vastrya_ of the _Zend Avesta_ correspond in position and occupation to the _Brahman, Rajan_ and _Vis_ of the Veda, there is no similarity of names between them; but this fact only shows that the common vocabulary had not yet definitely fixed on any specific names for these classes. Even in the Veda their nomenclature is by no means limited to a single designation for each of them. Moreover, _Atharvan_ occurs not infrequently in the hymns as the personification of the priestly profession, as the proto-priest who is supposed to have obtained fire from heaven and to have instituted the rite of sacrifice; and although _ratheshtha_ ("standing on a car") is not actually found in connexion with the _Rajan_ or _Kshatriya_, its synonym _rathin_ is in later literature a not unusual epithet of men of the military caste. At the time of the hymns, and even during the common Indo-Persian period, the sacrificial ceremonial had already become sufficiently complicated to call for the creation of a certain number of distinct priestly offices with special duties attached to them. While this shows clearly that the position and occupation of the priest were those of a profession, the fact that the terms _brahmana_ and _brahmaputra_, both denoting "the son of a brahman," are used in certain hymns as synonyms of _brahman_, seems to justify the assumption that the profession had already, to a certain degree, become hereditary at the time when these hymns were composed. There is, however, with the exception of a solitary passage in a hymn of the last book, no trace to be found in the _Rigveda_ of that rigid division into four castes separated from one another by insurmountable barriers, which in later times constitutes the distinctive feature of Hindu society. The idea of caste is expressed by the Sanskrit term _varna_, originally denoting "colour," thereby implying differences of complexion between the several classes. The word occurs in the Veda in the latter sense, but it is used there to mark the distinction, not between the three classes of the Aryan community, but between them on the one hand and a dark-coloured hostile people on the other. The latter, called Dasas or Dasyus, consisted, no doubt, of the indigenous tribes, with whom the Aryans had to carry on a continual struggle for the possession of the land. The partial subjection of these comparatively uncivilized tribes as the rule of the superior race was gradually spreading eastward, and their submission to a state of serfdom under the name of _Sudras_, added to the Aryan community an element, totally separated from it by colour, by habits, by language, and by occupation. Moreover, the religious belief of these tribes being entirely different from that of the conquering people, the pious Aryas, and especially the class habitually engaged in acts of worship, could hardly fail to apprehend considerable danger to the purity of their own faith from too close and intimate a contact between the two races. What more natural, therefore, than that measures should have been early devised to limit the intercourse between them within as narrow bounds as possible? In course of time the difference of vocation, and the greater or less exposure to the scorching influence of the tropical sky, added, no doubt, to a certain admixture of Sudra blood, especially in the case of the common people, seem to have produced also in the Aryan population different shades of complexion, which greatly favoured a tendency to rigid class-restrictions originally awakened and continually fed by the lot of the servile race. Meanwhile the power of the sacerdotal order having been gradually enlarged in proportion to the development of the minutiae of sacrificial ceremonial and the increase of sacred lore, they began to lay claim to supreme authority in regulating and controlling the religious and social life of the people. The author of the so-called _Purusha-sukta_, or hymn of Purusha, above referred to, represents the four castes--the _Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya_ and _Sudra_--as having severally sprung respectively from the mouth, the arms, the thighs and the feet of Purusha, a primary being, here assumed to be the source of the universe. It is very doubtful, however, whether at the time when this hymn was composed the relative position of the two upper castes could already have been settled in so decided a way as this theory might lead one to suppose. There is, on the contrary, reason to believe that some time had yet to elapse, marked by fierce and bloody struggles for supremacy, of which only imperfect ideas can be formed from the legendary and frequently biased accounts of later generations, before the Kshatriyas finally submitted to the full measure of priestly authority.

The definitive establishment of the Brahmanical hierarchy marks the beginning of the Brahmanical period properly so called. Though the origin and gradual rise of some of the leading institutions of this era can, as has been shown, be traced in the earlier writings, the chain of their development presents a break at this juncture which no satisfactory materials as yet enable us to fill up. A considerable portion of the literature of this time has apparently been lost; and several important works, the original composition of which has probably to be assigned to the early days of Brahmanism, such as the institutes of Manu and the two great epics, the _Mahabharata_ and _Ramayana_, in the form in which they have been handed down to us, show manifest traces of a more modern redaction. Yet it is sufficiently clear from internal evidence that Manu's Code of Laws, though merely a metrical recast of older materials, reproduces on the whole pretty faithfully the state of Hindu society depicted in the sources from which it was compiled. The final overthrow of the Kshatriya power was followed by a period of jealous legislation on the part of the Brahmans. For a time their chief aim would doubtless be to improve their newly gained vantage-ground by surrounding everything relating to their order with a halo of sanctity calculated to impress the lay community with feelings of awe. In the Brahmanas and even in the Purusha Hymn, and the Atharvan, divine origin had already been ascribed to the Vedic _Samhitas_, especially to the three older collections. The same privilege was now successfully claimed for the later Vedic literature, so imbued with Brahmanic aspirations and pretensions; and the authority implied in the designation of _Sruti_ or revelation removed henceforth the whole body of sacred writings from the sphere of doubt and criticism. This concession necessarily involved an acknowledgment of the new social order as a divine institution. Its stability was, however, rendered still more secure by the elaboration of a system of conventional precepts, partly forming the basis of Manu's Code, which clearly defined the relative position and the duties of the several castes, and determined the penalties to be inflicted on any transgressions of the limits assigned to each of them. These laws are conceived with no sentimental scruples on the part of their authors. On the contrary, the offences committed by Brahmans against other castes are treated with remarkable clemency, whilst the punishments inflicted for trespasses on the rights of higher classes are the more severe and inhuman the lower the offender stands in the social scale.