Two Old Faiths. Sir William Muir
essences to the gods. The Soma was also sprinkled on the sacred grass, which was strewn on the floor, and on which the gods and fathers were invited to come and seat themselves that they might enjoy the cheering beverage. The remainder was drunk by the officiating priests. The offerings were understood to nourish and gratify the gods as corporeal beings.
Animal victims are also offered up. We hear of sheep, goats, bulls, cows, and buffaloes Animal victims.being sacrificed, and sometimes in large numbers. But the great offering was the Asvamedha, or sacrifice of the horse. The body of the horse was hacked to pieces; the fragments were dressed—part was boiled, part roasted; some of the flesh was then eaten by the persons present, and the rest was offered to the gods. Tremendous was the potency—at least as stated in later times—of a hundred such sacrifices; it rendered the offerer equal or superior to the gods; even the mighty Indra trembled for his sovereignty and strove to hinder the consummation of the awful rite.
Human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was not unknown, though there are very few allusions to it in the earlier hymns.
Even from the first, however, the rite of sacrifice occupies a very high place, and allusions Sacrifice deemed of very high importance. to it are exceedingly frequent. The observances connected with it are said to be the "first religious rites." Sacrifice was early believed to be expiatory; it removed sin. It was substitutionary; the victim stood in place of the offerer. All order in the universe depends upon it; it is "the nave of the world-wheel." Sometimes Vishnu is said to be the sacrifice; sometimes even the Supreme Being himself is so. Elaborated ideas and a complex ritual, which we could have expected to grow up only in the course of ages, appear from very early times. We seem compelled to draw the inference that sacrifice formed an essential and very important part of the pre-Vedic faith.8
In the Veda worship is a kind of barter. In exchange for praises and offerings the deity is asked to bestow favors. Temporal blessings are implored, such as food, wealth, life, children, cows, horses, success in battle, the destruction of enemies, and so forth. Not much is said regarding sin and the need of forgiveness. A distinguished scholar9 has said that "the religious notion of sin is wanting altogether;" but this affirmation is decidedly too sweeping.
No image-worship. The worship exemplified in the Veda is not image-worship. Images of the fire, or the winds, or the waters could hardly be required, and while the original nature-worship lasted, idols must have been nearly unknown. Yet the description of various deities is so precise and full that it seems to be probably drawn from visible No public worship.representations of them. Worship was personal and domestic, not in any way public. Indeed, two men praying at the same time had to pray quite apart, so that neither might disturb the other. Each dealt with heaven, so to speak, solely on his own behalf.
No temples.We hear of no places set apart as temples in Vedic times.
A Veda consists of two parts called Mantra or Sanhita, and Brahmana. The first is composed of hymns. The second is a statement of The treatises on ritual. ritual, and is generally in prose. The existing Brahmanas are several centuries later than the great body of the hymns, and were probably composed when the Hindus had crossed the Indus, and were advancing along the Gangetic valley. The oldest may be about the date of 800 or 700 BC
The Brahmanas are very poor, both in thought and expression. They have hardly their match in any literature for "pedantry and downright absurdity."10 Poetical feeling and even religious feeling seem gone; all is dead and dry as dust. By this time the Sanskrit language had ceased to be generally understood. The original texts could hardly receive accessions; the most learned man could do little more than interpret, or perhaps misinterpret, them. The worshiper looked on; he worshiped now by proxy. Thus the priest had risen greatly in importance. He alone knew the sacred Growth of priestly power.verses and the sacred rites. An error in the pronunciation of the mystic text might bring destruction on the worshiper; what could he do but lean upon the priest? The latter could say the prayers if he could not pray. All this worked powerfully for the elevation of the Brahmans, the "men of prayer;" they steadily grew into a class, a caste; and into this no one could enter who was not of priestly Schools for the study of sacred books, rites, and traditions.descent. Schools were now found necessary for the study of the sacred books, rites, and traditions. The importance which these attach to theology—doctrine—is very small; the externals of religion are all in all. The rites, in fact, now threw the very gods into the shade; every thing depended on their due performance. And thus the Hindu ritual gradually grew up into a stupendous system, the most elaborate, complex, and burdensome which the earth has seen.
It is time, however, to give a brief estimate of the moral character of the Veda. The first Moral character of the Veda.thing that strikes us is its inconsistency. Some hymns—especially those addressed to Varuna—rise as high as Gentile conceptions regarding deity ever rose; others—even in the Rig Veda—sink miserably low; and in the Atharva we find, "even in the lowest depth, a lower still."
The character of Indra—who has displaced or overshadowed Varuna11—has no high attributes. Indra supersedes Varuna.He is "voracious;" his "inebriety is most intense;" he "dances with delight in battle." His worshipers supply him abundantly with the drink he loves; and he supports them against their foes, ninety and more of whose cities he has destroyed. We do not know that these foes, the Dasyus, were morally worse than the intrusive Aryas, but the feelings of the latter toward the former were of unexampled ferocity. Here is one passage out of multitudes similar:
"Hurl thy hottest thunder-bolt upon them! Uproot them! Cleave them asunder! O, Indra, overpower, subdue, slay the demon! Pluck him up! Cut him through the middle! Crush his head!"
Indra, if provided with Soma, is always indulgent to his votaries; he supports them per fas et nefas. Deterioration begins early.Varuna, on the other hand, is grave, just, and to wicked men severe.12 The supersession of Varuna by Indra, then, is easily understood. We see the principle on which it rests stated in the Old Testament. "Ye cannot serve the Lord," said Joshua to the elders of Israel; "for he is a holy God." Even so Jeremiah points sorrowfully to the fact that the pagan nations clung to their false gods, while Israel was faithless to the true. As St. Paul expresses it, "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge." Unless this principle is fully taken into account we cannot understand the historical development of Hinduism.
Varuna the only divinity possessed of pure and elevated attributes.The Veda frequently ascribes to the gods, to use the language of Max Müller, "sentiments and passions unworthy of deity." In truth, except in the case of Varuna, there is not one divinity that is possessed of pure and elevated attributes.
II.
PHILOSOPHY, AND RITUALISM.
During the Vedic period—certainly toward its conclusion—a tendency to speculation had Speculation begins.begun to appear. Probably it had all along existed in the Hindu mind, but had remained latent during the stirring period when the people were engaged in incessant wars. Climate, also, must have affected the temperament of the race; and, as the Hindus steadily pressed down the valley of the Ganges into warmer regions, their love of repose and contemplative quietism would continually deepen. And when the Brahmans became a fully developed hierarchy, lavishly endowed, with no employment except the performance of religious ceremonies, their minds could avoid stagnation only by having recourse to speculative thought. Again, asceticism Rise of asceticism.has a deep root in human nature; earnest souls, conscious of their own weakness, will fly from the temptations of the world. Various causes thus led numbers of men to seek a life of seclusion; they dwelt chiefly in forests, and there they revolved the everlasting problems of existence, creation, the soul, and God. The lively Greeks, for whom, with all their high intellectual endowments, a happy sensuous existence was nearly all in all, were amazed at the numbers in northern India who appeared weary of the world and indifferent to life itself.