Part 6

The three first castes, however unequal to each other in privilege and social standing, are yet united by a common bond of sacramental rites (_samskaras_), traditionally connected from ancient times with certain incidents and stages in the life of the Aryan Hindu, as conception, birth, name-giving, the first taking out of the child to see the sun, the first feeding with boiled rice, the rites of tonsure and hair-cutting, the youth's investiture with the sacrificial thread, and his return home on completing his studies, marriage, funeral, &c. The modes of observing these family rites are laid down in a class of writings called _Grihya-sutras_, or domestic rules. The most important of these observances is the _upanayana_, or rite of conducting the boy to a spiritual teacher. Connected with this act is the investiture with the sacred cord, ordinarily worn over the left shoulder and under the right arm, and varying in material according to the class of the wearer. This ceremony being the preliminary act to the youth's initiation into the study of the Veda, the management of the consecrated fire and the knowledge of the rites of purification, including the _savitri_, a solemn invocation to _Savitri_, the sun (probl. Saturnus),--as a rule the verse _Rigv_. iii. 62. 10, also called _gayatri_ from the metre in which it is composed--which has to be repeated every morning and evening before the rise and after the setting of that luminary, is supposed to constitute the second or spiritual birth of the Arya. It is from their

## participation in this rite that the three upper classes are called the

twice-born. The ceremony is enjoined to take place some time between the eighth and sixteenth year of age in the case of a Brahman, between the eleventh and twenty-second year of a Kshatriya, and between the twelfth and twenty-fourth year of a Vaisya. He who has not been invested with the mark of his class within this time is for ever excluded from uttering the sacred _savitri_ and becomes an outcast, unless he is absolved from his sin by a council of Brahmans, and after due performance of a purificatory rite resumes the badge of his caste. With one not duly initiated no righteous man is allowed to associate or to enter into connexions of affinity. The duty of the Sudra is to serve the twice-born classes, and above all the Brahmans. He is excluded from all sacred knowledge, and if he performs sacrificial ceremonies he must do so without using holy mantras. No Brahman must recite a Vedic text where a man of the servile caste might overhear him, nor must he even teach him the laws of expiating sin. The occupations of the Vaisya are those connected with trade, the cultivation of the land and the breeding of cattle; while those of a Kshatriya consist in ruling and defending the people, administering justice, and the duties of the military profession generally. Both share with the Brahman the privilege of reading the Veda, but only so far as it is taught and explained to them by their spiritual preceptor. To the Brahman belongs the right of teaching and expounding the sacred texts, and also that of interpreting and determining the law and the rules of caste. Only in exceptional cases, when no teacher of the sacerdotal class is within reach, the twice-born youth, rather than forego spiritual instruction altogether, may reside in the house of a non-Brahmanical preceptor; but it is specially enjoined that a pupil, who seeks the path to heaven, should not fail, as soon as circumstances permit, to resort to a Brahman well versed in the Vedas and their appendages.

Notwithstanding the barriers placed between the four castes, the practice of intermarrying appears to have been too prevalent in early times to have admitted of measures of so stringent a nature as wholly to repress it. To marry a woman of a higher caste, and especially of a caste not immediately above one's own, is, however, decidedly prohibited, the offspring resulting from such a union being excluded from the performance of the _sraddha_ or obsequies to the ancestors, and thereby rendered incapable of inheriting any portion of the parents' property. On the other hand, a man is at liberty, according to the rules of Manu, to marry a girl of any or each of the castes below his own, provided he has besides a wife belonging to his own class, for only such a one should perform the duties of personal attendance and religious observance devolving upon a married woman. As regards the children born from unequal marriages of this description, they have the rights and duties of the twice-born, if their mother belong to a twice-born caste, otherwise they, like the offspring of the former class of intermarriages, share the lot of the Sudra, and are excluded from the investiture and the _savitri_. For this last reason the marriage of a twice-born man with a Sudra woman is altogether discountenanced by some of the later law books. At the time of the code of Manu the intermixture of the classes had already produced a considerable number of intermediate or mixed castes, which were carefully defined, and each of which had a specific occupation assigned to it as its hereditary profession.

The self-exaltation of the first class was not, it would seem, altogether due to priestly arrogance and ambition; but, like a prominent feature of the post-Vedic belief, the transmigration of souls, it was, if not the necessary, yet at least a natural consequence of the pantheistic doctrine. To the Brahmanical speculator who saw in the numberless individual existences of animate nature but so many manifestations of the one eternal spirit, to union with which they were all bound to tend as their final goal of supreme bliss, the greater or less imperfection of the material forms in which they were embodied naturally presented a continuous scale of spiritual units from the lowest degradation up to the absolute purity and perfection of the supreme spirit. To prevent one's sinking yet lower, and by degrees to raise one's self in this universal gradation, or, if possible, to attain the ultimate goal immediately from any state of corporeal existence, there was but one way--subjection of the senses, purity of life and knowledge of the deity. "He" (thus ends the code of Manu) "who in his own soul perceives the supreme soul in all beings and acquires equanimity toward them all, attains the highest state of bliss." Was it not natural then that the men who, if true to their sacred duties, were habitually engaged in what was most conducive to these spiritual attainments, that the Brahmanical class early learnt to look upon themselves, even as a matter of faith, as being foremost among the human species in this universal race for final beatitude? The life marked out for them by that stern theory of class duties which they themselves had worked out, and which, no doubt, must have been practised in early times at least in some degree, was by no means one of ease and amenity. It was, on the contrary, singularly calculated to promote that complete mortification of the instincts of animal nature which they considered as indispensable to the final deliverance from _samsara_, the revolution of bodily and personal existence.

The pious Brahman, longing to attain the _summum bonum_ on the dissolution of his frail body, was enjoined to pass through a succession of four orders or stages of life, viz. those of _brahmacharin_, or religious student; _grihastha_ (or _grihamedhin_), or householder; _vanavasin_ (or _vanaprastha_), or anchorite; and _sannyasin_ (or _bhikshu_), or religious mendicant. Theoretically this course of life was open and even recommended to every twice-born man, his distinctive class-occupations being in that case restricted to the second station, or that of married life. Practically, however, those belonging to the Kshatriya and Vaisya castes were, no doubt, contented, with few exceptions, to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a certain amount of religious instruction before entering into the married state, and plying their professional duties. In the case of the sacerdotal class, the practice probably was all but universal in early times; but gradually a more and more limited proportion even of this caste seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of self-mortification involved in the two final stages. On the youth having been invested with the badge of his caste, he was to reside for some time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific or theoretic treatises attached to them, in the social duties of his caste, and in the complicated system of purificatory and sacrificial rites. According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of this period of instruction was to be, probably in the case of Brahmanical students chiefly, of from twelve to forty-eight years; during which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance and self-control were to be firmly implanted in the youth's mind by his unremitting observance of the most minute rules of conduct. During all this time the student had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house; and his behaviour towards the preceptor and his family was to be that prompted by respectful attachment and implicit obedience. In the case of girls no investiture takes place, but for them the nuptial ceremony is considered as an equivalent to that rite. On quitting the teacher's abode, the young man returns to his family and takes a wife. To die without leaving legitimate offspring, and especially a son, capable of performing the periodical rite of obsequies (_sraddha_), consisting of offerings of water and balls of rice, to himself and his two immediate ancestors, is considered a great misfortune by the orthodox Hindu. There are three sacred "debts" which a man has to discharge in life, viz. that which is due to the gods, and of which he acquits himself by daily worship and sacrificial rites; that due to the _rishis_, or ancient sages and inspired seers of the Vedic texts, discharged by the daily study of the scripture; and the "final debt" which he owes to his _manes_, and of which he relieves himself by leaving a son. To these three some authorities add a fourth, viz. the debt owing to humankind, which demands his continually practising kindness and hospitality. Hence the necessity of a man's entering into the married state. When the bridegroom leads the bride from her father's house to his own home, and becomes a _griha-pati_, or householder, the fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony accompanies the couple to serve them as their _garhapatya_, or domestic fire. It has to be kept up perpetually, day and night, either by themselves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should at any time become extinguished by neglect or otherwise, the guilt incurred thereby must be atoned for by an act of expiation. The domestic fire serves the family for preparing their food, for making the five necessary daily and other occasional offerings, and for performing the sacramental rites above alluded to. No food should ever be eaten that has not been duly consecrated by a portion of it being offered to the gods, the beings and the _manes_. These three daily offerings are also called by the collective name of _vaisvadeva_, or sacrifice "to all the deities." The remaining two are the offering to Brahma, i.e. the daily lecture of the scriptures, accompanied by certain rites, and that to men, consisting in the entertainment of guests. The domestic observances--many of them probably ancient Aryan family customs, surrounded by the Hindus with a certain amount of adventitious ceremonial--were generally performed by the householder himself, with the assistance of his wife. There is, however, another class of sacrificial ceremonies of a more pretentious and expensive kind, called _srauta_ rites, or rites based on _sritu_, or revelation, the performance of which, though not indispensable, were yet considered obligatory under certain circumstances (see BRAHMANA). They formed a very powerful weapon in the hands of the priesthood, and were one of the chief sources of their subsistence. However great the religious merit accruing from these sacrificial rites, they were obviously a kind of luxury which only rich people could afford to indulge in. They constituted, as it were, a tax, voluntary perhaps, yet none the less compulsory, levied by the priesthood on the wealthy laity.

When the householder is advanced in years, "when he perceives his skin become wrinkled and his hair grey, when he sees the son of his son," the time is said to have come for him to enter the third stage of life. He should now disengage himself from all family ties--except that his wife may accompany him, if she chooses--and repair to a lonely wood, taking with him his sacred fires and the implements required for the daily and periodical offerings. Clad in a deer's skin, in a single piece of cloth, or in a bark garment, with his hair and nails uncut, the hermit is to subsist exclusively on food growing wild in the forest, such as roots, green herbs, and wild rice and grain. He must not accept gifts from any one, except of what may be absolutely necessary to maintain him; but with his own little hoard he should, on the contrary, honour, to the best of his ability, those who visit his hermitage. His time must be spent in reading the metaphysical treatises of the Veda, in making oblations, and in undergoing various kinds of privation and austerities, with a view to mortifying his passions and producing in his mind an entire indifference to worldly objects. Having by these means succeeded in overcoming all sensual affections and desires, and in acquiring perfect equanimity towards everything around him, the hermit has fitted himself for the final and most exalted order, that of devotee or religious mendicant. As such he has no further need of either mortifications or religious observances; but "with the sacrificial fires reposited in his mind," he may devote the remainder of his days to meditating on the divinity. Taking up his abode at the foot of a tree in total solitude, "with no companion but his own soul," clad in a coarse garment, he should carefully avoid injuring any creature or giving offence to any human being that may happen to come near him. Once a day, in the evening, "when the charcoal fire is extinguished and the smoke no longer issues from the fire-places, when the pestle is at rest, when the people have taken their meals and the dishes are removed," he should go near the habitations of men, in order to beg what little food may suffice to sustain his feeble frame. Ever pure of mind he should thus bide his time, "as a servant expects his wages," wishing neither for death nor for life, until at last his soul is freed from its fetters and absorbed in the eternal spirit, the impersonal self-existent Brahma.

The tendency towards a comprehension of the unity of the divine essence had resulted in some minds, as has been remarked before, in a kind of monotheistic notion of the origin of the universe. In the literature of the Brahmana period we meet with this conception as a common element of speculation; and so far from its being considered incompatible with the existence of a universal spirit, _Prajapati_, the personal creator of the world, is generally allowed a prominent place in the pantheistic theories. Yet the state of theological speculation, reflected in these writings, is one of transition. The general drift of thought is essentially pantheistic, but it is far from being reduced to a regular system, and the ancient form of belief still enters largely into it. The attributes of Prajapati, in the same way, have in them elements of a purely polytheistic nature, and some of the attempts at reconciling this new-fangled deity with the traditional belief are somewhat awkward. An ancient classification of the gods represented them as being thirty-three in number, eleven in each of the three worlds or regions of nature. These regions being associated each with the name of one principal deity, this division gave rise at a later time to the notion of a kind of triple divine government, consisting of _Agni_ (fire), _Indra_ sky) or _Vayu_ (wind), and _Surya_ (sun), as presiding respectively over the gods on earth, in the atmosphere, and in the sky. Of this Vedic triad mention is frequently made in the Brahmana writings. On the other hand the term _prajapati_ (lord of creatures), which in the _Rigveda_ occurs as an epithet of the sun, is also once in the _Atharvaveda_ applied jointly to Indra and Agni. In the Brahmanas Prajapati is several times mentioned as the thirty-fourth god; whilst in one passage he is called the fourth god, and made to rule over the three worlds. More frequently, however, the writings of this period represent him as the maker of the world and the father or creator of the gods. It is clear from this discordance of opinion on so important a point of doctrine, that at this time no authoritative system of belief had been agreed upon by the theologians. Yet there are unmistakable signs of a strong tendency towards constructing one, and it is possible that in yielding to it the Brahmans may have been partly prompted by political considerations. The definite settlement of the caste system and the Brahmanical supremacy must probably be assigned to somewhere about the close of the Brahmana period. Division in their own ranks was hardly favourable to the aspirations of the priests at such a time; and the want of a distinct formula of belief adapted to the general drift of theological speculation, to which they could all rally, was probably felt the more acutely, the more determined a resistance the military class was likely to oppose to their claims. Side by side with the conception of the Brahma, the universal spiritual principle, with which speculative thought had already become deeply imbued, the notion of a supreme personal being, the author of the material creation, had come to be considered by many as a necessary complement of the pantheistic doctrine. But, owing perhaps to his polytheistic associations and the attributive nature of his name, the person of Prajapati seems to have been thought but insufficiently adapted to represent this abstract idea. The expedient resorted to for solving the difficulty was as ingenious as it was characteristic of the Brahmanical aspirations. In the same way as the abstract denomination of sacerdotalism, the neuter _brahma_, had come to express the divine essence, so the old designation of the individual priest, the masculine term _brahma_, was raised to denote the supreme personal deity which was to take the place and attributes of the Prajapati of the Brahmanas and Upanishads (see BRAHMAN).