Social Environment and Moral Progress. Alfred Russel Wallace
his kingdom to Satyavan and Savitri's sons descend!'
"'Have thy wishes,' answered Yama; 'thy good lord shall live again,
He shall live to be a father, and your children, too, shall reign;
For a woman's troth endureth longer than the fleeting breath,
And a woman's love abideth higher than the doom of death.'"
And when at the end of the epic, the kings and warriors welcome each other in the spirit world, we find the following noble conception of the qualities and actions which give them a place there:
"These and other mighty warriors, in the earthly battle slain,
By their valour and their virtue walk the bright ethereal plain!
They have lost their mortal bodies, crossed the radiant gate of heaven,
For to win celestial mansions unto mortals it is given!
Let them strive by kindly action, gentle speech, endurance long,
Brighter life and holier future unto sons of men belong!"
Mr. Dutt informs us that he has not only reproduced, as nearly as possible, the metre of the original, but has aimed at giving us a literal translation. No one can read his beautiful rendering without feeling that the people it describes were our intellectual and moral equals.
The wonderful collection of hymns known as the Vedas is a vast system of religious teaching as pure and lofty as those of the finest portions of the Hebrew scriptures. A few examples from the translation by Sir Monier Monier-Williams will show that its various writers were fully our equals in their conceptions of the universe, and of the Deity, expressed in the finest poetic language. The following is a portion of a hymn to "The Investing Sky":
"The mighty Varuna, who rules above, looks down
Upon these worlds, his kingdom, as if close at hand.
When men imagine they do aught by stealth, he knows it.
No one can stand or walk, or softly glide along
Or hide in dark recess, or lurk in secret cell
But Varuna detects him and his movements spies.
This boundless earth is his,
His the vast sky, whose depth no mortal e'er can fathom.
Both oceans find a place within his body, yet
In the small pool he lies contained; whoe'er should flee
Far, far beyond the sky would not escape the grasp
Of Varuna, the king. His messengers descend
Countless from his abode—for ever traversing
This world, and scanning with a thousand eyes its inmates.
Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky,
Yea, all that is beyond King Varuna perceives.
May thy destroying snares cast sevenfold round the wicked,
Entangle liars, but the truthful spare, O King."
The following passage from a "Hymn to Death," shows a perfect confidence in that persistence of the human personality after death, which is still a matter of doubt and discussion to-day:
"To Yama, mighty king, he gifts and homage paid.
He was the first of men that died, the first to brave
Death's rapid rushing stream, the first to point the road
To heaven, and welcome others to that bright abode.
No power can rob us of the home thus won by thee.
O king, we come; the born must die, must tread the path
That thou hast trod—the path by which each race of men,
In long succession, and our fathers too, have passed.
Soul of the dead! depart; fear not to take the road—
The ancient road—by which thy ancestors have gone;
Ascend to meet the god—to meet thy happy fathers,
Who dwell in bliss with him.
Return unto thy home, O soul! Thy sin and shame
Leave thou behind on earth; assume a shining form—
Thy ancient shape—refined and from all taint set free."
In this we find many of the essential teachings of the most advanced religious thinkers—the immediate entrance to a higher life, the recognition of friends, the persistence of the human form, and the shining raiment, typical of the loss of earthly taint.
But besides these special deities, we find also the recognition of the one supreme God, as in the following hymn:
"What god shall we adore with sacrifice?
Him let us praise, the golden child that rose
In the beginning, who was born the Lord—
The one sole lord of all that is—who made
The earth, and formed the sky, who giveth life,
Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere,
Whose hiding place is immortality,
Whose shadow, death; who by his might is king
Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world—
Who governs men and beasts; whose majesty
These snowy hills, this ocean with its rivers,
Declare; of whom these spreading regions form
The arms by which the firmament is strong,
Earth firmly planted, and the highest heavens
Supported, and the clouds that fill the air
Distributed and measured out; to whom
Both earth and heaven, established by his will,
Look up with trembling mind; in whom revealed
The rising sun shines forth above the world."
If we make allowance for the very limited knowledge of Nature at this early period, we must admit that the mind which conceived and expressed in appropriate language, such ideas as are everywhere apparent in these Vedic hymns, could not have been in any way inferior to those of the best of our religious teachers and poets—to our Miltons and our Tennysons.
CHAPTER IV
PERMANENCE OF HIGH INTELLECT
Accompanying this fine literature and moral teaching in Ancient India was a civilisation equal to that of early classical races, in grand temples, forts and palaces, weapons and implements, jewelry and exquisite fabrics. Their architecture was highly decorative and peculiar, and has continued to quite recent times. Owing perhaps to the tropical or sub-tropical climate, with marked wet and dry seasons, the oldest buildings that have survived, even as ruins, are less ancient than those of Greece or Rome—but those corresponding in age to the period of our Gothic cathedrals are immensely numerous, and show an originality of design, a wealth of ornament, and a perfection of workmanship equal to those of any other buildings in the world.
Two other great civilisations of which we have authentic records are those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, both of which appear to have been much older than those of India or Greece. But whereas Egypt has left us the most continuous series of tombs, temples, and palaces in the world, abundant works of art in statues and sculptures, together with characteristic reliefs and wall paintings, showing the whole public and domestic life of the people, Mesopotamia is represented only by vast masses of ruins on the sites of the ancient cities of Nineveh and Babylon, from which have been disinterred many fine statues and reliefs, exhibiting a very distinct style of art. For more than 2,000 years the history and remains of this once greatest of civilisations was