The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6). Duncker Max
and seen by the senses, must lie the dim and secret source of existence; behind the external side must be another, inward, immaterial, and invisible. Thus not man only, but all nature, fell into two parts, body and soul. As behind the body of men, so also behind the perishable outward side of nature, there seemed to live a great soul, penetrating through all phenomena, the source and fountain of their being. The priests discovered that behind all the changing phenomena there must exist a single breath, a soul, Atman – it is also called Mahanatma, Paramatman, i. e. "the great soul"164– and this must be the creative, sustaining, divine power, the source and seat of the life which we behold at one time rising in gladness, at another sinking in exhaustion.
This world-soul was amalgamated with Brahman and denoted by that name. In and behind the prayers and sacred acts an invisible spirit had been discovered, which gave them their power and efficacy, and this holy spirit ruled over the deities, inasmuch as it compelled them to listen to the prayers of men. Behind, above, and in the gods, the nature of the Holy was all-powerful; and it was the divine, the highest form of deity. The same spirit must be sought for behind the great and various phenomena of the life of nature. There must be the same spirit ruling in both spheres, a spirit which existed at once in heaven and on earth, which gave force to the prayers of the Brahmans, and summoned into life the phenomena of nature, and caused the latter to move in definite cycles, which was also the highest god and the lord of the gods. Thus the sacred spirit ruling over the gods became extended into a world-soul, penetrating through all the phenomena of nature, inspiring and sustaining life.
From prayer and meditation, which are mightier than the power of the gods, from this inward concentration, which, according to the faith of the Indians, reaches even unto heaven, the priests arrived at the idea of a deity which no longer rested on any basis in the phenomena of nature, but was ultimately regarded as the Holy in the general sense of the word. To them this Holy was the soul of the world, and the creator of it, or rather, not so much the creator as the cause and basis. From it the world emanated as the stream from the spring. The Brahman, the 'That' (tat), does not stand to the world in the contrast of genus and species; it has developed into the world. In the latest hymns of the Veda we read: "Let us set forth the births of the gods in songs of praise and thanksgiving. Brahmanaspati blew forth these births like a smith. In the first age of the gods being sprang out of not-being. There was neither being nor not-being, neither air nor heaven overhead, neither death nor immortality, no division of day or night, darkness existed, and this universe was indistinguishable waters. But the 'That' (from which was nothing different, and nothing was above it), breathed without respiration, but self-supported. Then rose desire (kama) in it; this was the germ which by their wisdom the wise discovered in their hearts as the link uniting not-being and being; this was the original creative seed. Who knows, who can declare, whence has sprung this creation? – the gods are subsequent to this, who then knows whence it arose?"165 We see how, in spite of consistency, Brahman is retained beside the purely spiritual potency, the fructifying water of heaven beside not-being, as the material in existence from the first.
From the point of view which the priests gained by this conception of Brahman, a new idea of the world lay open to them. Behind and above the gods stood an invisible, pure, and holy spirit, which was at once the germ and source of the whole world, the life of nature's life; in Brahman the world and all that was in it had their origin; there was no difference between the nature of Brahman and the world. Brahman was the efficient and material cause of the world, but while Brahman streamed forth into the world and became at every step further removed from itself, its products became less clear and pure, less like the perfection of its nature. Beginning from a spiritual being, suprasensual, transcendental, and yet existing in the world, the Indians ended in discovering a theory of creation, according to which all creatures proceeded from this highest being in such a manner, that the most spiritual forms were the nearest to him, while the most material, sensual, and rude were the most remote. There was a graduated scale of beings from Brahman down to the stones, and from these again to the holy and pure, the only true and real, self-existent, eternal being of this world-soul. In the first instance the gods had sprung from Brahman. From Brahman the impersonal world-soul, the self-existent Holy, a personal Brahman, first streamed forth, who was the highest deity. The personal Brahman was followed by the origin of the old gods. After the gods the spirits of the air are said to have flowed from Brahman, and after them the holy and pure men, the castes in their order, according as they are nearer to the sanctity of Brahman or more remote. Men were succeeded by the beasts according to their various kinds, by trees, plants, herbs, stones, and the lifeless matter.
In this way all created things emanated from Brahman, and to each class and kind a definite occupation was appointed, to perform which was the duty of the class in the universal system. Thus the life of all creatures was defined, and their vocation assigned to them in such a manner that they must fulfil it even in subsequent births.166 The orders of priests, Kshatriyas, Vaiçyas, and Çudras, were a part in the divine order of the world; the distinction between them, the nature and relative position of each, emanated from Brahman. They are, therefore, distinct steps in the development of Brahman, and, for this reason, distinct occupations are apportioned to them. Thus there now stood, side by side, among the Indians, four classes or varieties of men, separated by God, and each provided by him with a different function. Henceforth no change was possible for one class into another, no mixture of one with another could be endured. The limits drawn by God were not to be broken through. The Brahmans are nearest to Brahman; in them the essence of Brahman, the holy spirit, the power of sanctification, lives in greater force than in the rest; they emanated from Brahman before the others; they are the first-born order. In one of the latest songs of the Rigveda, the Purusha-suktas, we are told of the world-spirit: "The Brahman was his mouth, the Rajnaya (Kshatriya) his arm, the Vaiçya his thigh, the Çudra his foot." This is a parable: the Brahman was his mouth, because the Brahmans are in possession of the prayers and holy hymns; whether the arm or the mouth, strength or speech, was preferable, is a question which remains unanswered. More distinctly and with special insistance that the mouth of Brahman is the best part of him, the law book of the priests tells us: Brahman first allowed the Brahmans to proceed from his mouth; then the Kshatriyas from his arms; next the Vaiçyas from his thigh; and lastly, the Çudras from his foot.167 The duties fixed by Brahman for the Brahmans were sacrifice, the study and teaching of the Veda, to give justice and receive it. The duty of the Kshatriyas is to protect the people; of the Vaiçyas to tend the herds, till the fields, and carry on trade; the Çudras were only pledged to serve the three other orders.168 It is a duty for the Kshatriyas and Vaiçyas to be reverent, submissive, and liberal to the Brahmans or first-born caste. The vocation of man is to adapt himself to the existing order of the world, to fulfil the particular mission assigned to him at birth. Any rebellion against the order of the castes is a rebellion against the divine order of the world.
This new view of the world, at which, beginning from the conception of the Holy and the world-soul, the meditation of the priests had arrived, was at variance with the old faith. The new idea of God and the doctrine of the world-soul, in its abstract and speculative form, could have but little influence on the kings, the nobles, the peasants, and the people. As a fact, it shattered almost too violently the belief of the Aryas in the ancient gods. With the people Indra continued to be the highest god, and still, as before, the spirits of light, of the wind, of fire were invoked. But even without the new doctrine the forms of the ancient gods were fainter in the minds of the nobles and people, partly in consequence of the change in climate and country, and partly because the old impulses which had given the first place in heaven to the gods of battle no longer moved the heart so strongly, when the Aryas lived in larger states and under more peaceful relations. The atmosphere of the valley of the Ganges also required a more passive life, and the ideas of the people, no less than the fancy of the priests, must have received from the gigantic forms of the landscape, and the rich and marvellous animal world of the new region, a direction and elevation quite different from that felt in the land of the Indus. More especially, the reasons noticed above – the contrast between the Aryas on the one hand and the Çudras on the other – facilitated the reception of the doctrine maintained
So in Manu,
"Rigveda," 10, 72, 1-3; 10, 129, 1-6, in Muir,
Manu, 1, 28, 29.
"Rigveda," 10, 90; Manu, 1, 31 and in the Puranas; Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 5, 371. A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 9, 7.
Manu, 1, 88-91, and in many other places.