HINDUISM,
a term generally employed to comprehend the
social institutions, past and present, of the Hindus who form the
great majority of the people of India; as well as the multitudinous
crop of their religious beliefs which has grown up, in the course
of many centuries, on the foundation of the Brahmanical
scriptures. The actual proportion of the total population of
India (294 millions) included under the name of “Hindus”
has been computed in the census report for 1901 at something
like 70% (206 millions); the remaining 30% being made up
partly of the followers of foreign creeds, such as Mahommedans,
Parsees, Christians and Jews, partly of the votaries of indigenous
forms of belief which have at various times separated from the
main stock, and developed into independent systems, such as
Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism; and partly of isolated hill
and jungle tribes, such as the Santals, Bhils (Bhilla) and Kols,
whose crude animistic tendencies have hitherto kept them,
either wholly or for the most part, outside the pale of the
Brahmanical community. The name “Hindu” itself is of
foreign origin, being derived from the Persians, by whom the
river Sindhu was called Hindhu, a name subsequently applied
to the inhabitants of that frontier district, and gradually extended
over the upper and middle reaches of the Gangetic valley,
whence this whole tract of country between the Himalaya and
the Vindhya mountains, west of Bengal, came to be called by
the foreign conquerors “Hindustan,” or the abode of the
Hindus; whilst the native writers called it “Aryavarta,” or
the abode of the Aryas.
But whilst, in its more comprehensive acceptation, the term
Hinduism would thus range over the entire historical development
of Brahmanical India, it is also not infrequently used in
a narrower sense, as denoting more especially the modern phase
of Indian social and religious institutions?from the earlier
centuries of the Christian era down to our own days?as distinguished
from the period dominated by the authoritative doctrine
of pantheistic belief, formulated by the speculative theologians
during the centuries immediately succeeding the Vedic period
(see
Brahmanism
). In this its more restricted sense the term
may thus practically be taken to apply to the later bewildering
variety of popular sectarian forms of belief, with its social
concomitant, the fully developed caste-system. But, though
one may at times find it convenient to speak of “Brahmanism
and Hinduism,” it must be clearly understood that the distinction
implied in the combination of these terms is an extremely
vague one, especially from the chronological point of view.
The following considerations will probably make this clear.
The characteristic tenet of orthodox Brahmanism consists
in the conception of an absolute, all-embracing spirit, the Brahma
(neutr.), being the one and only reality, itself unconditioned,
and the original cause and ultimate
goal of all individual souls (
j?va
,
i.e.
living things).
Connexion with Brahmanism.
Coupled with this abstract conception are two other
doctrines, viz. first, the transmigration of souls (
sa?s?ra
),
regarded by Indian thinkers as the necessary complement of
a belief in the essential sameness of all the various spiritual
units, however contaminated, to a greater or less degree, they
may be by their material embodiment; and in their ultimate
re-union with the
Param?tman
, or Supreme Self; and second,
the assumption of a triple manifestation of the ceaseless working
of that Absolute Spirit as a creative, conservative and destructive
principle, represented respectively by the divine personalities
of Brahma (masc.), Vish?u and ?iva, forming the
Trim?rti
or Triad. As regards this latter, purely exoteric,
doctrine, there can be little doubt of its owing its origin to
considerations of theological expediency, as being calculated
to supply a sufficiently wide formula of belief for general acceptance;
and the very fact of this divine triad including the
two principal deities of the later sectarian worship, Vish?u and
?iva, goes far to show that these two gods at all events must have
been already in those early days favourite objects of popular
adoration to an extent sufficient to preclude their being ignored
by a diplomatic priesthood bent upon the formulation of a
common creed. Thus, so far from sectarianism being a mere
modern development of Brahmanism, it actually goes back
to beyond the formulation of the Brahmanical creed. Nay,
when, on analysing the functions and attributes of those two
divine figures, each of them is found to be but a compound of
several previously recognized deities, sectarian worship may
well be traced right up to the Vedic age. That the theory of
the triple manifestation of the deity was indeed only a compromise
between Brahmanical aspirations and popular worship,
probably largely influenced by the traditional sanctity of the
number three, is sufficiently clear from the fact that, whilst
Brahma, the creator, and at the same time the very embodiment
of Brahmanical class pride, has practically remained a
mere figurehead in the actual worship of the people, ?iva, on
the other hand, so far from being merely the destroyer, is also
the unmistakable representative of generative and reproductive
power in nature. In fact, Brahma, having performed his legitimate
part in the mundane evolution by his original creation
of the universe, has retired into the background, being, as it
were, looked upon as
functus officio
, like a venerable figure of
a former generation, whence in epic poetry he is commonly
styled
pit?maha
, “the grandsire.” But despite the artificial
character of the
Trim?rti
, it has retained to this day at least its
theoretical validity in orthodox Hinduism, whilst it has also
undoubtedly exercised considerable influence in shaping sectarian
belief, in promoting feelings of toleration towards the claims
of rival deities; and in a tendency towards identifying divine
figures newly sprung into popular favour with one or other of
the principal deities, and thus helping to bring into vogue that
notion of avatars, or periodical descents or incarnations of the
deity, which has become so prominent a feature of the later
sectarian belief.
Under more favourable political conditions,
[1]
the sacerdotal
class might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing
something like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous
medley of races and tribes scattered over the peninsula, just
as they certainly did succeed in establishing the social prerogative
of their own order over the length and breadth of India. They
were, however, fated to fall far short of such a consummation;
and at all times orthodox Brahmanism has had to wink at,
or ignore, all manner of gross superstitions and repulsive
practices, along with the popular worship of countless hosts of
godlings, demons, spirits and ghosts, and mystic objects and
symbols of every description. Indeed, according to a recent
account by a close observer of the religious practices prevalent
in southern India, fully four-fifths of the people of the Dravidian
race, whilst nominally acknowledging the spiritual guidance
of the Brahmans, are to this day practically given over to the
worship of their nondescript local village deities (
gr?ma-devat?
),
usually attended by animal sacrifices frequently involving the
slaughter, under revolting circumstances, of thousands of
victims. Curiously enough these local deities are nearly all of
the female, not the male sex. In the estimation of these people
“Siva and Vishnu may be more dignified beings, but the village
deity is regarded as a more present help in trouble, and more
intimately concerned with the happiness and prosperity of the
villagers. The origin of this form of Hinduism is lost in antiquity,
but it is probable that it represents a pre-Aryan religion, more
or less modified in various parts of south India by Brahmanical
influence. At the same time, many of the deities themselves
are of quite recent origin, and it is easy to observe a deity in
making even at the present day.”
[2]
It is a significant fact that,
whilst in the worship of Siva and Vishnu, at which no animal
sacrifices are offered, the officiating priests are almost invariably
Brahmans, this is practically never the case at the popular
performance of those “gloomy and weird rites for the propitiation
of angry deities, or the driving away of evil spirits, when
the pujaris (or ministrants) are drawn from all other castes,
even from the Pariahs, the out-caste section of Indian society.”
As from the point of view of religious belief, so also from
that of social organization no clear line of demarcation can be
drawn between Brahmanism and Hinduism. Though
it was not till later times that the network of class
Caste.
divisions and subdivisions attained anything like the degree of
intricacy which it shows in these latter days, still in its origin the
caste-system is undoubtedly coincident with the rise of Brahmanism,
and may even be said to be of the very essence of it.
[3]
The cardinal principle which underlies the system of caste is the
preservation of purity of descent, and purity of religious belief
and ceremonial usage. Now, that same principle had been
operative from the very dawn of the history of Aryanized India.
The social organism of the Aryan tribe did not probably differ
essentially from that of most communities at that primitive
stage of civilization; whilst the body of the people?the
Vi?
(or aggregate of
Vai?yas
)?would be mainly occupied with
agricultural and pastoral pursuits, two professional classes?those
of the warrior and the priest?had already made good their
claim to social distinction. As yet, however, the tribal community
would still feel one in race and traditional usage. But
when the fair-coloured Aryan immigrants first came in contact
with, and drove back or subdued the dark-skinned race that
occupied the northern plains?doubtless the ancestors of the
modern Dravidian people?the preservation of their racial
type and traditionary order of things would naturally become
to them a matter of serious concern. In the extreme north-western
districts?the Punjab and Rajputana, judging from
the fairly uniform physical features of the present population
of these parts?they seem to have been signally successful in
their endeavour to preserve their racial purity, probably by
being able to clear a sufficiently extensive area of the original
occupants for themselves with their wives and children to
settle upon. The case was, however, very different in the
adjoining valley of the Jumna and Ganges, the sacred
Madhyadesa
or Middle-land of classical India. Here the Aryan immigrants
were not allowed to establish themselves without undergoing
a considerable admixture of foreign blood. It must
remain uncertain whether it was that the thickly-populated
character of the land scarcely admitted of complete occupation,
but only of a conquest by an army of fighting men, starting
from the Aryanized region?who might, however, subsequently
draw women of their own kin after them?or whether, as has
been suggested, a second Aryan invasion of India took place
at that time through the mountainous tracts of the upper Indus
and northern Kashmir, where the nature of the road would
render it impracticable for the invading bands to be accompanied
by women and children. Be this as it may, the physical appearance
of the population of this central region of northern India?Hindustan
and Behar?clearly points to an intermixture of
the tall, fair-coloured, fine-nosed Aryan with the short-sized,
dark-skinned, broad-nosed Dravidian; the latter type becoming
more pronounced towards the lower strata of the social order.
[4]
Now, it was precisely in this part of India that mainly arose
the body of literature which records the gradual rise of the
Brahmanical hierarchy and the early development of the caste-system.
The problem that now lay before the successful invaders
was how to deal with the indigenous people, probably vastly
outnumbering them, without losing their own racial identity.
They dealt with them in the way the white race usually deals
with the coloured race?they kept them socially apart. The
land being appropriated by the conquerors, husbandry, as the
most respectable industrial occupation, became the legitimate
calling of the Aryan settler, the
Vai?ya
; whilst handicrafts,
gradually multiplying with advancing civilization and menial
service, were assigned to the subject race. The generic name
applied to the latter was
??dra
, originally probably the name
of one of the subjected tribes. So far the social development
proceeded on lines hardly differing from those with which one
is familiar in the history of other nations. The Indo-Aryans,
however, went a step farther. What they did was not only to
keep the native race apart from social intercourse with themselves,
but to shut them out from all participation in their own
higher aims, and especially in their own religious convictions
and ceremonial practices. So far from attempting to raise
their standard of spiritual life, or even leaving it to ordinary
intercourse to gradually bring about a certain community of
intellectual culture and religious sentiment, they deliberately
set up artificial barriers in order to prevent their own traditional
modes of worship from being contaminated with the obnoxious
practices of the servile race. The serf, the
??dra
, was not to
worship the gods of the Aryan freemen. The result was the
system of four castes (
var?a
,
i.e.
“colour”; or
j?ti
, “gens”).
Though the Brahman, who by this time had firmly secured his
supremacy over the
kshatriya
, or noble, in matters spiritual
as well as in legislative and administrative functions, would
naturally be the prime mover in this regulation of the social
order, there seems no reason to believe that the other two upper
classes were not equally interested in seeing their hereditary
privileges thus perpetuated by divine sanction. Nothing,
indeed, is more remarkable in the whole development of the
caste-system than the jealous pride which every caste, from the
highest to the lowest, takes in its own peculiar occupation and
sphere of life. The distinctive badge of a member of the three
upper castes was the sacred triple cord or thread (
s?tra
)?made
of cotton, hemp or wool, according to the respective caste?with
which he was invested at the
upanayana
ceremony, or
initiation into the use of the sacred
s?vitri
, or prayer to the sun
(also called
g?yatr?
), constituting his second birth. Whilst the
Arya was thus a
dvi-ja
, or twice-born, the Sudra remained
unregenerate during his lifetime, his consolation being the hope
that, on the faithful performance of his duties in this life, he
might hereafter be born again into a higher grade of life. In
later times, the strict adherence to caste duties would naturally
receive considerable support from the belief in the transmigration
of souls, already prevalent before Buddha’s time, and from the
very general acceptance of the doctrine of
karma
(“deed”),
or retribution, according to which a man’s present station and
manner of life are the result of the sum-total of his actions and
thoughts in his former existence; as his actions here will again,
by the same automatic process of retribution, determine his
status and condition in his next existence. Though this
doctrine is especially insisted upon in Buddhism, and its
designation as a specific term (Pali,
Kamma
) may be due to
that creed, the notion itself was doubtless already prevalent in
pre-Buddhist times. It would even seem to be necessarily and
naturally implied in Brahmanical belief in metempsychosis;
whilst in the doctrine of Buddha, who admits no soul, the
theory of the net result or fruit of a man’s actions serving hereafter
to form or condition the existence of some new individual
who will have no conscious identity with himself, seems of a
peculiarly artificial and mystic character. But, be this as it
may, “the doctrine of
karma
is certainly one of the firmest
beliefs of all classes of Hindus, and the fear that a man shall
reap as he has sown is an appreciable element in the average
morality ... the idea of forgiveness is absolutely wanting;
evil done may indeed be outweighed by meritorious deeds so
far as to ensure a better existence in the future, but it is not
effaced, and must be atoned for” (
Census Report
, i. 364).
In spite, however, of the artificial restrictions placed on the
intermarrying of the castes, the mingling of the two races seems
to have proceeded at a tolerably rapid rate. Indeed, the paucity
of women of the Aryan stock would probably render these
mixed unions almost a necessity from the very outset; and the
vaunted purity of blood which the caste rules were calculated
to perpetuate can scarcely have remained of more than a
relative degree even in the case of the Brahman caste. Certain
it is that mixed castes are found referred to at a comparatively
early period; and at the time of Buddha?some
five or six centuries before the Christian era?the social
organization would seem to have presented an appearance
not so very unlike that of modern times. It must be confessed,
however, that our information regarding the development
of the caste-system is far from complete, especially in
its earlier stages. Thus, we are almost entirely left to conjecture
on the important point as to the original social organization
of the subject race. Though doubtless divided into different
tribes scattered over an extensive tract of land, the subjected
aborigines were slumped together under the designation of
Sudras, whose duty it was to serve the upper classes in all the
various departments of manual labour, save those of a downright
sordid and degrading character which it was left to
vratyas
or
outcasts to perform. How, then, was the distribution of crafts
and habitual occupations of all kinds brought about? Was
the process one of spontaneous growth adapting an already
existing social organization to a new order of things; or was
it originated and perpetuated by regulation from above? Or
was it rather that the status and duties of existing offices and
trades came to be determined and made hereditary by some
such artificial system as that by which the Theodosian Code
succeeded for a time in organizing the Roman society in the
5th century of our era? “It is well known” (says Professor
Dill) “that the tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype
society, by compelling men to follow the occupation of their
fathers, and preventing a free circulation among different
callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain
from Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made
it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs
from Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine
and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths, were
bound to their callings from one generation to another. It was
the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions. Every
avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to his calling
not only by his father’s but also by his mother’s condition.
Men were not permitted to marry out of their gild. If the
daughter of one of the baker caste married a man not belonging
to it, her husband was bound to her father’s calling. Not even
a dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial
chancery, not even the power of the Church could avail to break
the chain of servitude.” It can hardly be gainsaid that these
artificial arrangements bear a very striking analogy to those
of the Indian caste-system; and if these class restrictions were
comparatively short-lived on Italian ground, it was not perhaps
so much that so strange a plant found there an ethnic soil less
congenial to its permanent growth, but because it was not
allowed sufficient time to become firmly rooted; for already
great political events were impending which within a few decades
were to lay the mighty empire in ruins. In India, on the other
hand, the institution of caste?even if artificially contrived
and imposed by the Indo-Aryan priest and ruler?had at least
ample time allowed it to become firmly established in the social
habits, and even in the affections, of the people. At the same
time, one could more easily understand how such a system
could have found general acceptance all over the Dravidian
region of southern India, with its merest sprinkling of Aryan
blood, if it were possible to assume that class arrangements
of a similar kind must have already been prevalent amongst
the aboriginal tribes prior to the advent of the Aryan. Whether
a more intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs
of those rude tribes that have hitherto kept themselves comparatively
free from Hindu influences may yet throw some
light on this question, remains to be seen. But, by this as it
may, the institution of caste, when once established, certainly
appears to have gone on steadily developing; and not even the
long period of Buddhist ascendancy, with its uncompromising
resistance to the Brahman’s claim to being the sole arbiter
in matters of faith, seems to have had any very appreciable
retardant effect upon the progress of the movement. It was not
only by the formation of ever new endogamous castes and
sub-castes that the system gained in extent and intricacy, but
even more so by the constant subdivision of the castes into
numerous exogamous groups or septs, themselves often involving
gradations of social status important enough to seriously affect
the possibility of intermarriage, already hampered by various
other restrictions. Thus a man wishing to marry his son or
daughter had to look for a suitable match outside his sept, but
within his caste. But whilst for his son he might choose a wife
from a lower sept than his own, for his daughter, on the other
hand, the law of hypergamy compelled him, if at all possible,
to find a husband in a higher sept. This would naturally lead
to an excess of women over men in the higher septs, and would
render it difficult for a man to get his daughter respectably
married without paying a high price for a suitable bridegroom
and incurring other heavy marriage expenses. It can hardly
be doubted that this custom has been largely responsible for
the crime of female infanticide, formerly so prevalent in India;
as it also probably is to some extent for infant marriages, still
too common in some parts of India, especially Bengal; and
even for the all but universal repugnance to the re-marriage
of widows, even when these had been married in early childhood
and had never joined their husbands. Yet violations of these
rules are jealously watched by the other members of the sept,
and are liable?in accordance with the general custom in which
communal matters are regulated in India?to be brought before
a special council (
panch?yat
), originally consisting of five (
pancha
),
but now no longer limited to that number, since it is chiefly
the greater or less strictness in the observance of caste rules and
the orthodox ceremonial generally that determine the status
of the sept in the social scale of the caste. Whilst community
of occupation was an important factor in the original formation
of non-tribal castes, the practical exigencies of life have led to
considerable laxity in this respect?not least so in the case of
Brahmans who have often had to take to callings which would
seem altogether incompatible with the proper spiritual functions
of their caste. Thus, “the prejudice against eating cooked food
that has been touched by a man of an inferior caste is so strong
that, although the Shastras do not prohibit the eating of food
cooked by a Kshatriya or Vai?ya, yet the Brahmans, in most
parts of the country, would not eat such food. For these reasons,
every Hindu household?whether Brahman, Kshatriya or Sudra?that
can afford to keep a paid cook generally entertains the
services of a Brahman for the performance of its
cuisine
?the
result being that in the larger towns the very name of Brahman
has suffered a strange degradation of late, so as to mean only a
cook” (Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya,
Hindu Castes and Sects
).
In this caste, however, as in all others, there are certain kinds
of occupation to which a member could not turn for a livelihood
without incurring serious defilement. In fact, adherence to
the traditional ceremonial and respectability of occupation
go very much hand-in-hand. Thus, amongst agricultural castes,
those engaged in vegetable-growing or market-gardening are
inferior to the genuine peasant or yeoman, such as the Jat and
Rajput; whilst of these the Jat who practises widow-marriage
ranks below the Rajput who prides himself on his tradition
of ceremonial orthodoxy?though racially there seems little,
if any, difference between the two; and the Rajput, again, is
looked down upon by the Babhan of Behar because he does not,
like himself, scruple to handle the plough, instead of invariably
employing low-caste men for this manual labour. So also
when members of the Baidya, or physician, caste of Bengal,
ranging next to that of the Brahman, farm land on tenure,
“they will on no account hold the plough, or engage in any
form of manual labour, and thus necessarily carry on their
cultivation by means of hired servants” (H. H. Risley,
Census
Report
).
The scale of social precedence as recognized by native public
opinion is concisely reviewed (
ib.
) as revealing itself “in the facts
that particular castes are supposed to be modern representatives
of one or other of the original castes of the theoretical Hindu system;
that Brahmans will take water from certain castes; that Brahmans
of high standing will serve particular castes; that certain castes,
though not served by the best Brahmans, have nevertheless got
Brahmans of their own whose rank varies according to circumstances;
that certain castes are not served by Brahmans at all but have
priests of their own; that the status of certain castes has been
raised by their taking to infant-marriage or abandoning the re-marriage
of widows; that the status of others has been modified
by their pursuing some occupations in a special or peculiar way;
that some can claim the services of the village barber, the village
palanquin-bearer, the village midwife, &c., while others cannot;
that some castes may not enter the courtyards of certain temples;
that some castes are subject to special taboos, such as that they
must not use the village well, or may draw water only with their
own vessels, that they must live outside the village or in a separate
quarter, that they must leave the road on the approach of a high-caste
man and must call out to give warning of their approach.” . . .
“The first point to observe is the predominance throughout India
of the influence of the traditional system of four original castes.
In every scheme of grouping the Brahman heads the list. Then
come the castes whom popular opinion accepts as the modern
representatives of the Kshatriyas; and these are followed by the
mercantile groups supposed to be akin to the Vai?yas. When we
leave the higher circles of the twice-born, the difficulty of finding a
uniform basis of classification becomes apparent. The ancient
designation Sudra finds no great favour in modern times, and we
can point to no group that is generally recognized as representing
it. The term is used in Bombay, Madras and Bengal to denote
a considerable number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher
of whom are considered ‘clean’ Sudras, while the precise status
of the lower is a question which lends itself to endless controversy.”
. . . In northern and north-western India, on the other hand,
“the grade next below the twice-born rank is occupied by a number
of castes from whose hands Brahmans and members of the higher
castes will take water and certain kinds of sweetmeats. Below
these again is rather an indeterminate group from whom water is
taken by some of the higher castes, not by others. Further down,
where the test of water no longer applies, the status of the caste
depends on the nature of its occupation and its habits in respect of
diet. There are castes whose touch defiles the twice-born, but who
do not commit the crowning enormity of eating beef. . . . In
western and southern India the idea that the social state of a
caste depends on whether Brahmans will take water and sweetmeats
from its members is unknown, for the higher castes will as a rule
take water only from persons of their own caste and sub-caste.
In Madras especially the idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity
of an unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration.
Thus the table of social precedence attached to the Cochin report
shows that while a Nayar can pollute a man of a higher caste only
by touching him, people of the Kammalan group, including masons,
blacksmiths, carpenters and workers in leather, pollute at a distance
of 24 ft., toddy-drawers at 36 ft., Pulayan or Cheruman cultivators
at 48 ft., while in the case of the Paraiyan (Pariahs) who eat beef
the range of pollution is no less than 64 ft.”
In this bewildering maze of social grades and class distinctions,
the Brahman, as will have been seen, continues to hold the
dominant position, being respected and even worshipped by all
the others. “The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration
for the priestly class to such a degree that they will not cross
the shadow of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be
under a vow not to eat any food in the morning, before drinking
Bipracharanamrita
,
i.e.
water in which the toe of a Brahman
has been dipped. On the other hand, the pride of the Brahmans
is such that they do not bow to even the images of the gods
worshipped in a Sudra’s house by Brahman priests” (Jog.
Nath Bh.). There are, however, not a few classes of Brahmans
who, for various reasons, have become degraded from their high
station, and formed separate castes with whom respectable
Brahmans refuse to intermarry and consort. Chief amongst
these are the Brahmans who minister for “unclean” Sudras
and lower castes, including the makers and dealers in spirituous
liquors; as well as those who officiate at the great public shrines
or places of pilgrimage where they might be liable to accept
forbidden gifts, and, as a matter of fact, often amass considerable
wealth; and those who officiate as paid priests at cremations and
funeral rites, when the wearing apparel and bedding of the deceased
are not unfrequently claimed by them as their perquisites.
As regards the other two “twice-born” castes, several
modern groups do indeed claim to be their direct descendants,
and in vindication of their title make it a point to perform the
upanayana
ceremony and to wear the sacred thread. But
though the Brahmans, too, will often acquiesce in the reasonableness
of such claims, it is probably only as a matter of policy
that they do so, whilst in reality they regard the other two
higher castes as having long since disappeared and been merged
by miscegenation in the Sudra mass. Hence, in the later classical
Sanskrit literature, the term
dvija
, or twice-born, is used simply
as a synonym for a Brahman. As regards the numerous groups
included under the term of Sudras, the distinction between
“clean” and “unclean” Sudras is of especial importance for
the upper classes, inasmuch as only the former?of whom nine
distinct castes are usually recognized?are as a rule considered
fit for employment in household service.
The picture thus presented by Hindu society?as made up of a
confused congeries of social groups of the most varied standing,
each held together and kept separate from others
by a traditional body of ceremonial rules and by the
Theology.
notion of social gradations being due to a divinely
instituted order of things?finds something like a counterpart
in the religious life of the people. As in the social sphere, so also
in the sphere of religious belief, we find the whole scale of types
represented from the lowest to the highest; and here as there,
we meet with the same failure of welding the confused mass
into a well-ordered whole. In their theory of a triple manifestation
of an impersonal deity, the Brahmanical theologians, as
we have seen, had indeed elaborated a doctrine which might
have seemed to form a reasonable, authoritative creed for
a community already strongly imbued with pantheistic notions;
yet, at best, that creed could only appeal to the sympathies of
a comparatively limited portion of the people. Indeed, the
sacerdotal class themselves had made its universal acceptance
an impossibility, seeing that their laws, by which the relations
of the classes were to be regulated, aimed at permanently excluding
the entire body of aboriginal tribes from the religious
life of their Aryan masters. They were to be left for all time
coming to their own traditional idolatrous notions and practices.
However, the two races could not, in the nature of things, be
permanently kept separate from each other. Indeed, even
prior to the definite establishment of the caste-system, the
mingling of the lower race with the upper classes, especially
with the aristocratic landowners and still more so with the
yeomanry, had probably been going on to such an extent as to
have resulted in two fairly well-defined intermediate types of
colour between the priestly order and the servile race and to have
facilitated the ultimate division into four “colours” (
varna
).
In course of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen,
assumed such proportions that the priestly class, in their pride
of blood, felt naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only
two “colours,” the Aryan Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra.
Under these conditions the religious practices of the lower race
could hardly have failed in the long run to tell seriously upon the
spiritual life of the lay body of the Brahmanical community.
To what extent this may have been the case, our limited knowledge
of the early phases of the sectarian worship of the people
does not enable us to determine. But, on the other hand, the
same process of racial intermixture also tended to gradually
draw the lower race more or less under the influence of the Brahmanical
forms of worship, and thus contributed towards the
shaping of the religious system of modern Hinduism. The
grossly idolatrous practices, however, still so largely prevalent
in the Dravidian South, show how superficial, after all, that
influence has been in those parts of India where the admixture
of Aryan blood has been so slight as to have practically had no
effect on the racial characteristics of the people. These present-day
practices, and the attitude of the Brahman towards them,
help at all events to explain the aversion with which the strange
rites of the subjected tribes were looked upon by the worshippers
of the Vedic pantheon. At the same time, in judging the apparently
inhuman way in which the Sudras were treated in the
caste rules, one has always to bear in mind the fact that the
belief in metempsychosis was already universal at the time, and
seemed to afford the only rational explanation of the apparent
injustice involved in the unequal distribution of the good things
in this world; and that, if the Sudra was strictly excluded from
the religious rites and beliefs of the superior classes, this exclusion
in no way involved the question of his ultimate emancipation
and his union with the Infinite Spirit, which were as certain in
his case as in that of any other sentient being. What it did make
impossible for him was to attain that union immediately on the
cessation of his present life, as he would first have to pass through
higher and purer stages of mundane existence before reaching
that goal; but in this respect he only shared the lot of all but
a very few of the saintliest in the higher spheres of life, since
the ordinary twice-born would be liable to sink, after his present
life, to grades yet lower than that of the Sudra.
To what extent the changes, which the religious belief of the
Aryan classes underwent in post-Vedic times, may have been
due to aboriginal influences is a question not easily answered,
though the later creeds offer only too many features in which
one might feel inclined to suspect influences of that kind. The
literary documents, both in Sanskrit and Pali, dating from about
the time of Buddha onwards?particularly the two epic poems,
the
Mahabharata
and
Ramayana
?still show us in the main the
personnel
of the old pantheon; but the character of the gods has
changed; they have become anthropomorphized and almost
purely mythological figures. A number of the chief gods,
sometimes four, but generally eight of them, now appear as
lokapalas
or world-guardians, having definite quarters or
intermediate quarters of the compass assigned to them as their
special domains. One of them, Kubera, the god of wealth, is
a new figure; whilst another, Varuna, the most spiritual and
ethical of Vedic deities?the king of the gods and the universe;
the nightly, star-spangled firmament?has become the Indian
Neptune, the god of waters. Indra, their chief, is virtually a
kind of superior raja, residing in
svarga
, and as such is on visiting
terms with earthly kings, driving about in mid-air with his
charioteer Matali. As might happen to any earth-lord, Indra
is actually defeated in battle by the son of the demon-king
of Lanka (Ceylon), and kept there a prisoner till ransomed
by Brahma and the gods conferring immortality on his conqueror.
A quaint figure in the pantheon of the heroic age is
Hanuman, the deified chief of monkeys?probably meant to
represent the aboriginal tribes of southern India?whose wonderful
exploits as Rama’s ally on the expedition to Lanka Indian
audiences will never weary of hearing recounted. The Gandharvas
figure already in the Veda, either as a single divinity,
or as a class of genii, conceived of as the body-guard of Soma
and as connected with the moon. In the later Vedic times
they are represented as being fond of, and dangerous to, women;
the Apsaras, apparently originally water-nymphs, being closely
associated with them. In the heroic age the Gandharvas have
become the heavenly minstrels plying their art at Indra’s court,
with the Apsaras as their wives or mistresses. These fair
damsels play, however, yet another part, and one far from
complimentary to the dignity of the gods. In the epics considerable
merit is attached to a life of seclusion and ascetic practices
by means of which man is considered capable of acquiring
supernatural powers equal or even superior to those of the gods?a
notion perhaps not unnaturally springing from the pantheistic
conception. Now, in cases of danger being threatened to their
own ascendancy by such practices, the gods as a rule proceed
to employ the usually successful expedient of despatching
some lovely nymph to lure the saintly men back to worldly
pleasures. Seeing that the epic poems, as repeated by professional
reciters, either in their original Sanskrit text, or in their
vernacular versions, as well as dramatic compositions based
on them, form to this day the chief source of intellectual enjoyment
for most Hindus, the legendary matter contained in these
heroic poems, however marvellous and incredible it may appear,
still enters largely into the religious convictions of the people.
“These popular recitals from the Ramayan are done into
Gujarati in easy, flowing narrative verse . . . by Premanand,
the sweetest of our bards. They are read out by an intelligent
Brahman to a mixed audience of all classes and both sexes.
It has a perceptible influence on the Hindu character. I believe
the remarkable freedom from infidelity which is to be seen in
most Hindu families, in spite of their strange gregarious habits,
can be traced to that influence; and little wonder” (B. M.
Malabari,
Gujarat and the Gujaratis
). Hence also the universal
reverence paid to serpents (
naga
) since those early days; though
whether it simply arose from the superstitious dread inspired
by the insidious reptile so fatal to man in India, or whether the
verbal coincidence with the name of the once-powerful non-Aryan
tribe of Nagas had something to do with it must remain
doubtful. Indian myth represents them as a race of demons
sprung from Kadru, the wife of the sage Kasyapa, with a jewel
in their heads which gives them their sparkling look; and
inhabiting one of the seven beautiful worlds below the earth
(and above the hells), where they are ruled over by three chiefs
or kings, Sesha, Vasuki and Takshaka; their fair daughters
often entering into matrimonial alliances with men, like the
mermaids of western legend.
In addition to such essentially mythological conceptions, we
meet in the religious life of this period with an element of more
serious aspect in the two gods, on one or other of whom the
religious fervour of the large majority of Hindus has ever since
concentrated itself, viz. Vishnu and Siva. Both these divine
figures have grown out of Vedic conceptions?the genial Vishnu
mainly out of a not very prominent solar deity of the same name;
whilst the stern Siva,
i.e.
the kind or gracious one?doubtless
a euphemistic name?has his prototype in the old fierce
storm-god Rudra, the “Roarer,” with certain additional features
derived from other deities, especially Pushan, the guardian of
flocks and bestower of prosperity, worked up therewith. The
exact process of the evolution of the two deities and their advance
in popular favour are still somewhat obscure. In the epic poems
which may be assumed to have taken their final shape in the
early centuries before and after the Christian era, their popular
character, so strikingly illustrated by their inclusion in the
Brahmanical triad, appears in full force; whilst their cult
is likewise attested by the coins and inscriptions of the early
centuries of our era. The co-ordination of the two gods in the
Trimurti does not by any means exclude a certain rivalry between
them; but, on the contrary, a supreme position as the true
embodiment of the Divine Spirit is claimed for each of them
by their respective votaries, without, however, an honourable,
if subordinate, place being refused to the rival deity, wherever
the latter, as is not infrequently the case, is not actually represented
as merely another form of the favoured god. Whilst
at times a truly monotheistic fervour manifests itself in the
adoration of these two gods, the polytheistic instincts of the
people did not fail to extend the pantheon by groups of new
deities in connexion with them. Two of such new gods actually
pass as the sons of Siva and his consort Parvati, viz. Skanda?also
called Kumara (the youth), Karttikeya, or Subrahmanya
(in the south)?the six-headed war-lord of the gods; and
Ganese, the lord (or leader) of Siva’s troupes of attendants, being
at the same time the elephant-headed, paunch-bellied god of
wisdom; whilst a third, Kama (Kamadeva) or Kandarpa, the
god of love, gets his popular epithet of Ananga, “the bodiless,”
from his having once, in frolicsome play, tried the power of his
arrows upon Siva, whilst engaged in austere practices, when
a single glance from the third (forehead) eye of the angry god
reduced the mischievous urchin to ashes. For his chief attendant,
the great god (Mahadeva, Mahe?vara) has already with him
the “holy” Nandi?presumably, though his shape is not
specified, identical in form as in name with Siva’s sacred bull
of later times, the appropriate symbol of the god’s reproductive
power. But, in this re
s
pect, we also meet in the epics with the
first clear evidence of what in after time became the prominent
feature of the worship of Siva and his consort all over
India, viz. the feature represented by the
linga
, or phallic
symbol.
As regards Vishnu, the epic poems, including the supplement
to the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, supply practically the
entire framework of legendary matter on which the later Vaishnava
creeds are based. The theory of Avataras which makes
the deity?also variously called Narayana, Purushottama,
or Vasudeva?periodically assume some material form in order
to rescue the world from some great calamity, is fully developed;
the ten universally recognized “descents” being enumerated
in the larger poem. Though Siva, too, assumes various forms,
the incarnation theory is peculiarly characteristic of Vaishnavism;
and the fact that the principal hero of the Ramayana
(Rama), and one of the prominent warriors of the Mahabharata
(Krishna) become in this way identified with the supreme god,
and remain to this day the chief objects of the adoration of
Vaishnava sectaries, naturally imparts to these creeds a human
interest and sympathetic aspect which is wholly wanting in
the worship of Siva. It is, however, unfortunately but too true
that in some of these creeds the devotional ardour has developed
features of a highly objectionable character.
Even granting the reasonableness of the triple manifestation of
the Divine Spirit, how is one to reconcile all these idolatrous
practices, this worship of countless gods and godlings, demons and
spirits indwelling in every imaginable object round about us, with
the pantheistic doctrine of the
Ekam Advitiyam
, “the One without
a Second”? The Indian theosophist would doubtless have little
difficulty in answering that question. For him there is only the
One Absolute Being, the one reality that is all in all; whilst all the
phenomenal existences and occurrences that crowd upon our senses
are nothing more than an illusion of the individual soul estranged
for a time from its divine source?an illusion only to be dispelled
in the end by the soul’s fuller knowledge of its own true nature
and its being one with the eternal fountain of blissful being. But
to the man of ordinary understanding, unused to the rarefied atmosphere
of abstract thought, this conception of a transcendental,
impersonal Spirit and the unreality of the phenomenal world can
have no meaning: what he requires is a deity that stands in intimate
relation to things material and to all that affects man’s life. Hence
the exoteric theory of manifestations of the Supreme Spirit; and
that not only the manifestations implied in the triad of gods representing
the cardinal processes of mundane existence?creation,
preservation, and destruction or regeneration?but even such as
would tend to supply a rational explanation for superstitious
imaginings of every kind. For “the Indian philosophy does not
ignore or hold aloof from the religion of the masses: it underlies,
supports and interprets their polytheism. This may be accounted
the keystone of the fabric of Brahmanism, which accepts and even
encourages the rudest forms of idolatry, explaining everything by
giving it a higher meaning. It treats all the worships as outward,
visible signs of some spiritual truth, and is ready to show how each
particular image or rite is the symbol of some aspect of universal
divinity. The Hindus, like the pagans of antiquity, adore natural
objects and forces?a mountain, a river or an animal. The Brahman
holds all nature to be the vesture or cloak of indwelling, divine
energy, which inspires everything that produces awe or passes
man’s understanding” (Sir Alfred C. Lyall,
Brahminism
).
During the early centuries of our era, whilst Buddhism, where
countenanced by the political rulers, was still holding its own by
the side of Brahmanism, sectarian belief in the Hindu
gods seems to have made steady progress. The caste-system,
Sectarianism.
always calculated to favour unity of religious
practice within its social groups, must naturally have contributed
to the advance of sectarianism. Even greater was the support
it received later on from the Puranas, a class of poetical works
of a partly legendary, partly discursive and controversial character,
mainly composed in the interest of special deities, of which
eighteen principal (
maha-purana
) and as many secondary ones
(
upa-purana
) are recognized, the oldest of which may go back
to about the 4th century of our era. It was probably also
during this period that the female element was first definitely
admitted to a prominent place amongst the divine objects of
sectarian worship, in the shape of the wives of the principal gods
viewed as their
sakti
, or female energy, theoretically identified
with the
Maya
, or cosmic Illusion, of the idealistic Vedanta,
and the
Prakriti
, or plastic matter, of the materialistic Sankhya
philosophy, as the primary source of mundane things. The
connubial relations of the deities may thus be considered “to
typify the mystical union of the two eternal principles, spirit
and matter, for the production and reproduction of the universe.”
But whilst this privilege of divine worship was claimed for
the consorts of all the gods, it is principally to Siva’s consort,
in one or other of her numerous forms, that adoration on an
extensive scale came to be offered by a special sect of votaries,
the
Saktas
.
In the midst of these conflicting tendencies, an attempt was
made, about the latter part of the 8th century, by the distinguished
Malabar theologian and philosopher Sankara
Acharya to restore the Brahmanical creed to
Sankara.
something like its pristine purity, and thus once more
to bring about a uniform system of orthodox Hindu belief.
Though himself, like most Brahmans, apparently by predilection
a follower of Siva, his aim was the revival of the doctrine of the
Brahma as the one self-existent Being and the sole cause of
the universe; coupled with the recognition of the practical
worship of the orthodox pantheon, especially the gods of the
Trimurti, as manifestations of the supreme deity. The practical
result of his labours was the foundation of a new sect, the
Smartas
,
i.e.
adherents of the
smriti
or tradition, which has a
numerous following amongst southern Brahmans, and, whilst
professing Sankara’s doctrines, is usually classed as one of the
Saiva sects, its members adopting the horizontal sectarial
mark peculiar to Saivas, consisting in their case of a triple line,
the
tripundra
, prepared from the ashes of burnt cow-dung and
painted on the forehead. Sankara also founded four Maths,
or convents, for Brahmans; the chief one being that of Sringeri
in Mysore, the spiritual head (
Guru
) of which wields considerable
power, even that of excommunication, over the Saivas of
southern India. In northern India, the professed followers of
Sankara are mainly limited to certain classes of mendicants
and ascetics, although the tenets of this great Vedanta teacher
may be said virtually to constitute the creed of intelligent
Brahmans generally.
Whilst Sankara’s chief title to fame rests on his philosophical
works, as the upholder of the strict monistic theory of Vedanta, he
doubtless played an important part in the partial remodelling of
the Hindu system of belief at a time when Buddhism was rapidly
losing ground in India. Not that there is any evidence of Buddhists
ever having been actually persecuted by the Brahmans, or still less
of Sankara himself ever having done so; but the traditional belief
in some personal god, as the principal representative of an invisible,
all-pervading deity, would doubtless appeal more directly to the
minds and hearts of the people than the colourless ethical system
promulgated by the Sakya saint. Nor do Buddhist places of worship
appear as a rule to have been destroyed by Hindu sectaries, but
they seem rather to have been taken over by them for their own
religious uses; at any rate there are to this day not a few Hindu
shrines, especially in Bengal, dedicated to Dharmaraj, “the prince
of righteousness,” as the Buddha is commonly styled. That the
tenets and practices of so characteristic a faith as Buddhism, so
long prevalent in India, cannot but have left their marks on Hindu
life and belief may readily be assumed, though it is not so easy
to lay one’s finger on the precise features that might seem to betray
such an influence. If the general tenderness towards animals,
based on the principle of
ahimsa
, or inflicting no injury on sentient
beings, be due to Buddhist teaching, that influence must have
made itself felt at a comparatively early period, seeing that sentiments
of a similar nature are repeatedly urged in the Code of Manu.
Thus, in v. 46-48, “He who does not willingly cause the pain of
confinement and death to living beings, but desires the good of all,
obtains endless bliss. He who injures no creature obtains without
effort what he thinks of, what he strives for, and what he fixes his
mind on. Flesh-meat cannot be procured without injury to animals,
and the slaughter of animals is not conducive to heavenly bliss:
from flesh-meat, therefore, let man abstain.” Moreover, in view
of the fact that Jainism, which originated about the same time as
Buddhism, inculcates the same principle, even to an extravagant
degree, it seems by no means improbable that the spirit of kindliness
towards living beings generally was already widely diffused among
the people when these new doctrines were promulgated. To the
same tendency doubtless is due the gradual decline and ultimate
discontinuance of animal sacrifices by all sects except the extreme
branch of Sakti-worshippers. In this respect, the veneration shown
to serpents and monkeys has, however, to be viewed in a somewhat
different light, as having a mythical background; whilst quite
a special significance attaches to the sacred character assigned to
the cow by all classes of Hindus, even those who are not prepared
to admit the claim of the Brahman to the exalted position of the
earthly god usually conceded to him. In the Veda no tendency
shows itself as yet towards rendering divine honour to the cow;
and though the importance assigned her in an agricultural community
is easily understood, still the exact process of her deification
and her identification with the mother earth in the time of Manu
and the epics requires further elucidation. An idealized type of
the useful quadruped?likewise often identified with the earth?presents
itself in the mythical Cow of Plenty, or “wish-cow”
(Kamadhenu, or Kamadugha,
i.e.
wish-milker), already appearing
in the Atharvaveda, and in epic times assigned to Indra, or identified
with Surabhi, “the fragrant,” the sacred cow of the sage Vasishtha.
Possibly the growth of the legend of Krishna?his being reared at
Gokula (cow-station); his tender relations to the
gopis
, or cow-herdesses,
of Vrindavana; his epithets
Gopala
, “the cowherd,”
and
Govinda
, “cow-finder,” actually explained as “recoverer of
the earth” in the great epic, and the
go-loka
, or “cow-world,”
assigned to him as his heavenly abode?may have some connexion
with the sacred character ascribed to the cow from early times.
Since the time of Sankara, or for more than a thousand years,
the gods Vishnu and Siva, or
Hari
and
Hara
as they are also
commonly called?with their wives, especially that
of the latter god?have shared between them the
Worship.
practical worship of the vast majority of Hindus. But, though
the people have thus been divided between two different religious
camps, sectarian animosity has upon the whole kept within
reasonable limits. In fact, the respectable Hindu, whilst owning
special allegiance to one of the two gods as his
ish?? devat?
(favourite deity), will not withhold his tribute of adoration from
the other gods of the pantheon. The high-caste Brahman will
probably keep at his home a ??lagr?m stone, the favourite
symbol of Vishnu, as well as the characteristic emblems of Siva
and his consort, to both of which he will do reverence in the morning;
and when he visits some holy place of pilgrimage, he will
not fail to pay his homage at both the Saiva and the Vaishnava
shrines there. Indeed, “sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness
are to be found chiefly among the professional leaders of the
modern brotherhoods and their low-caste followers, who are
taught to believe that theirs are the only true gods, and that the
rest do not deserve any reverence whatever” (Jog. Nath).
The same spirit of toleration shows itself in the celebration of
the numerous religious festivals. Whilst some of these?
e.g.
the
Sankranti
(called
Pongal
,
i.e.
“boiled rice,” in the south),
which marks the entrance of the sun into the sign of Capricorn
and the beginning of its northward course (
uttar?yana
) on the
1st day of the month M?gha (c. Jan. 12); the
Ga?e?a-caturth?
,
or 4th day of the light fortnight of Bhadra (August-September),
considered the birthday of Ganesa, the god of wisdom; and the
Holi
, the Indian Saturnalia in the month of Ph?lgunḁ (February
to March)?have nothing of a sectarian tendency about them;
others again, which are of a distinctly sectarian character?such
as the
Krishna-janm?sh?am?
, the birthday of Krishna on
the 8th day of the dark half of Bhadra, or (in the south) of
?r?va?a (July-August), the
Durga-puja
and the
Dipavali
,
or lamp feast, celebrating Krishna’s victory over the demon
Narakasura, on the last two days of A?vina (September-October)?are
likewise observed and heartily joined in by the whole
community irrespective of sect. Widely different, however, as is
the character of the two leading gods are also the modes of
worship practised by their votaries.
Siva
has at all times been the favourite god of the Brahmans,
[5]
and his worship is accordingly more widely extended than
that of his rival, especially in southern India. Indeed there is
hardly a village in India which cannot boast of a shrine dedicated
to Siva, and containing the emblem of his reproductive power;
for almost the only form in which the “Great God” is adored
is the
Linga
, consisting usually of an upright cylindrical block
of marble or other stone, mostly resting on a circular perforated
slab. The mystic nature of these emblems seems, however,
to be but little understood by the common people; and, as
H. H. Wilson remarks, “notwithstanding the acknowledged
purport of this worship, it is but justice to state that it is unattended
in Upper India by any indecent or indelicate ceremonies,
and it requires a rather lively imagination to trace any
resemblance in its symbols to the objects they are supposed
to represent.” In spite, however, of its wide diffusion, and
the vast number of shrines dedicated to it, the worship of Siva
has never assumed a really popular character, especially in
northern India, being attended with scarcely any solemnity
or display of emotional spirit. The temple, which usually stands
in the middle of a court, is as a rule a building of very moderate
dimensions, consisting either of a single square chamber, surmounted
by a pyramidal structure, or of a chamber for the
linga and a small vestibule. The worshipper, having first circumambulated
the shrine as often as he pleases, keeping it at his
right-hand side, steps up to the threshold of the sanctum, and
presents his offering of flowers or fruit, which the officiating
priest receives; he then prostrates himself, or merely lifts
his hands?joined so as to leave a hollow space between the
palms?to his forehead, muttering a short prayer, and takes
his departure. Amongst the many thousands of Lingas, twelve
are usually regarded as of especial sanctity, one of which, that
of Somnath in Gujarat, where Siva is worshipped as “the lord
of Soma,” was, however, shattered by Mahmud of Ghazni;
whilst another, representing Siva as
Visvesvara
, or “Lord of the
Universe,” is the chief object of adoration at Benares, the great
centre of Siva-worship. The Saivas of southern India, on the
other hand, single out as peculiarly sacred five of their temples
which are supposed to enshrine as many characteristic aspects
(linga) of the god in the form of the five elements, the most
holy of these being the shrine of Chidambaram (
i.e.
“thought-ether”)
in S. Arcot, supposed to contain the ether-linga. According
to Pandit S. M. Natesa (
Hindu Feasts, Fasts and Ceremonies
),
“the several forms of the god Siva in these sacred shrines are
considered to be the bodies or casements of the soul whose
natural bases are the five elements?earth, water, fire, air
and ether. The apprehension of God in the last of these five
as ether is, according to the Saiva school of philosophy, the
highest form of worship, for it is not the worship of God in a
tangible form, but the worship of what, to ordinary minds, is
vacuum, which nevertheless leads to the attainment of a knowledge
of the all-pervading without physical accessories in the
shape of any linga, which is, after all, an emblem. That this is
the case at Chidambaram is known to every Hindu, for if he
ever asks the priests to show him the God in the temple he is
pointed to an empty space in the holy of holies, which has been
termed the Akasa, or ether-linga.” But, however congenial
this refined symbolism may be to the worshipper of a speculative
turn of mind, it is difficult to see how it could ever satisfy the
religious wants of the common man little given to abstract
conceptions of this kind.
From early times, detachment from the world and the practice
of austerities have been regarded in India as peculiarly conducive
to a spirit of godliness, and ultimately to a
state of ecstatic communion with the deity. On these
Mendicant orders.
grounds it was actually laid down as a rule for a man
solicitous for his spiritual welfare to pass the last
two of the four stages (
??rama
) of his life in such conditions of
renunciation and self-restraint. Though there is hardly a sect
which has not contributed its share to the element of religious
mendicancy and asceticism so prevalent in India, it is in connexion
with the Siva-cult that these tendencies have been most
extensively cultivated. Indeed, the personality of the stern
God himself exhibits this feature in a very marked degree,
whence the term
mah?yog?
or “great ascetic” is often applied
to him.
Of Saiva mendicant and ascetic orders, the members of which are
considered more or less followers of Sankara Acharya, the following
may be mentioned: (1)
Da???s
, or staff-bearers, who carry a wand
with a piece of red cloth, containing the sacred cord, attached to it,
and also wear one or more pieces of cloth of the same colour. They
worship Siva in his form of Bhairava, the “terrible.” A sub-section
of this order are the Dandi Dasnamis, or Dandi of ten names, so
called from their assuming one of the names of Sankara’s four
disciples, and six of their pupils. (2)
Yogis
(or popularly, Jogis),
i.e.
adherents of the Yoga philosophy and the system of ascetic
practices enjoined by it with the view of mental abstraction and the
supposed attainment of superhuman powers?practices which,
when not merely pretended, but rigidly carried out, are only too
apt to produce vacuity of mind and wild fits of frenzy. In these
degenerate days their supernatural powers consist chiefly in conjuring,
sooth-saying, and feats of jugglery, by which they seldom
fail in imposing upon a credulous public. (3)
Sannyasis
, devotees
who “renounce” earthly concerns, an order not confined either
to the Brahmanical caste or to the Saiva persuasion. Those of the
latter are in the habit of smearing their bodies with ashes, and
wearing a tiger-skin and a necklace or rosary of
rudraksha
berries
(Elaeocarpus Ganitrus, lit. “Rudra’s eye”), sacred to Siva, and
allowing their hair to grow till it becomes matted and filthy. (4)
Parama-hamsas
,
i.e.
“supreme geese (or swans),” a term applied to
the world-soul with which they claim to be identical. This is the
highest order of asceticism, members of which are supposed to be
solely engaged in meditating on the Brahma, and to be “equally
indifferent to pleasure or pain, insensible of heat or cold, and incapable
of satiety or want.” Some of them go about naked, but
the majority are clad like the Dandis. (5)
Aghora Panthis
, a vile
and disreputable class of mendicants, now rarely met with. Their
filthy habits and disgusting practices of gross promiscuous feeding,
even to the extent of eating offal and dead men’s flesh, look almost
like a direct repudiation of the strict Brahmanical code of ceremonial
purity and cleanliness, and of the rules regulating the matter and
manner of eating and drinking; and they certainly make them
objects of loathing and terror wherever they are seen.
On the general effect of the manner of life led by
Sadhus
or “holy
men,” a recent observer (J. C. Oman,
Mystics, Ascetics and Saints
of India
, p. 273) remarks: “
Sadhuism
, whether perpetuating the
peculiar idea of the efficiency of austerities for the acquisition of
far-reaching powers over natural phenomena, or bearing its testimony
to the belief in the indispensableness of detachment from the
world as a preparation for the ineffable joy of ecstatic communion
with the Divine Being, has undoubtedly tended to keep before
men’s eyes, as the highest ideal, a life of purity, self-restraint, and
contempt of the world and human affairs. It has also necessarily
maintained amongst the laity a sense of the righteous claims of
the poor upon the charity of the more affluent members of the
community. Moreover,
sadhuism
, by the multiplicity of the independent
sects which have arisen in India, has engendered and
favoured a spirit of tolerance which cannot escape the notice of the
most superficial observer.”
An independent Saiva sect, or, indeed, the only strictly
Saiva sect, are the
V?ra ?aivas
, more commonly called
Lingayats
(popularly Lingaits) or
Lingavats
, from their
practice of wearing on their person a phallic emblem
Lingayats.
of Siva, made of copper or silver, and usually enclosed
in a case suspended from the neck by a string. Apparently from
the movable nature of their badge, their
Gurus
are called
Jangamas
(“movable”). This sect counts numerous adherents in
southern India; the Census Report of 1901 recording nearly
a million and a half, including some 70 or 80 different, mostly
endogamous, castes. The reputed founder, or rather reformer,
of the sect was Basava (or Basaba), a Brahman of the Belgaum
district who seems to have lived in the 11th or 12th century.
According to the Basava-purana he early in life renounced his
caste and went to reside at Kalyana, then the capital of the
Chalukya kingdom, and later on at Sangamesvara near Ratnagiri,
where he was initiated into the V?ra ?aiva faith which he
subsequently made it his life’s work to propagate. His doctrine,
which may be said to constitute a kind of reaction against the
severe sacerdotalism of Sankara, has spread over all classes of
the southern community, most of the priests of Saiva temples
there being adherents of it; whilst in northern India its votaries
are only occasionally met with, and then mostly as mendicants,
leading about a neatly caparisoned bull as representing Siva’s
sacred bull
Nandi
. Though the Lingayats still show a certain
animosity towards the Brahmans, and in the Census lists are
accordingly classe
s
d
as an independent group beside the Hindus,
still they can hardly be excluded from the Hindu community,
and are sure sooner or later to find their way back to the
Brahmanical fold.
Vishnu, whilst less popular with Brahmans than his rival,
has from early times proved to the lay mind a more attractive
object of adoration on account of the genial and,
so to speak, romantic character of his mythical personality.
Avatars.
It is not, however, so much the original figure of the
god himself that enlists the sympathies of his adherents as
the additional elements it has received through the theory of
periodical “descents” (
avat?ra
) or incarnations applied to this
deity. Whilst the Saiva philosophers do not approve of the
notion of incarnations, as being derogatory to the dignity of
the deity, the Brahmans have nevertheless thought fit to adopt
it as apparently a convenient expedient for bringing certain
tendencies of popular worship within the pale of their system,
and probably also for counteracting the Buddhist doctrines;
and for this purpose Vishnu would obviously offer himself as
the most attractive figure in the Brahmanical trinity. Whether
the incarnation theory started from the original solar nature
of the god suggestive of regular visits to the world of men, or
in what other way it may have originated, must remain doubtful.
Certain, however, it is that at least one of his Avatars is clearly
based on the Vedic conception of the sun-god, viz. that of the
dwarf who claims as much ground as he can cover by three steps,
and then gains the whole universe by his three mighty strides.
Of the ten or more Avatars, assumed by different authorities,
only two have entered to any considerable extent into the
religious worship of the people, viz. those of
Rama
(or Ramachandra)
and
Krishna
, the favourite heroes of epic romance.
That these two figures would appeal far more strongly to the
hearts and feelings of the people, especially the warlike Kshatriyas,
[6]
than the austere Siva is only what might have been
expected; and, indeed, since the time of the epics their cult
seems never to have lacked numerous adherents. But, on the
other hand, the essentially human nature of these two gods
would naturally tend to modify the character of the relations
between worshipper and worshipped, and to impart to the
modes and forms of adoration features of a more popular and
more human kind. And accordingly it is exactly in connexion
with these two incarnations of Vishnu, especially that of Krishna,
that a new spirit was infused into the religious life of the people
by the sentiment of fervent devotion to the deity, as it found
expression in certain portions of the epic poems, especially the
Bhagavadgita
, and in the
Bhagavata-purana
(as against the more
orthodox Vaishnava works of this class such as the Vishnu-purana),
and was formulated into a regular doctrine of faith
in the
Sandilya-sutra
, and ultimately translated into practice
by the Vaishnava reformers.
The first successful Vaishnava reaction against Sankara’s
reconstructed creed was led by Ramanuja, a southern Brahman
of the 12th century. His followers, the Ramanujas,
or Sri-Vaishnavas as they are usually called, worship
Ramanujas.
Vishnu (Narayana) with his consort Sri or Lakshmi
(the goddess of beauty and fortune), or their incarnations Rama
with Sita and Krishna with Rukmini. Ramanuja’s doctrine,
which is especially directed against the Linga-worship, is essentially
based on the tenets of an old Vaishnava sect, the Bhagavatas
or Pancharatras, who worshipped the Supreme Being under
the name of Vasudeva (subsequently identified with Krishna,
as the son of Vasudeva, who indeed is credited by some scholars
with the foundation of that monotheistic creed). The sectarial
mark of the Ramanujas resembles a capital U (or, in the case of
another division, a Y), painted with a white clay called gopi-chandana,
between the hair and the root of the nose, with a red
or yellow vertical stroke (representing the female element)
between the two white lines. They also usually wear, like all
Vaishnavas, a necklace of
tulas?
, or basil wood, and a rosary of
seeds of the same shrub or of the lotus. Their most important
shrines are those of Srirangam near Trichinopoly, Mailkote
in Mysore, Dvaraka (the city of Krishna) on the Kathiawar
coast, and Jagannath in Orissa; all of them decorated with
Vishnu’s emblems, the tulasi plant and salagram stone. The
Ramanuja Brahmans are most punctilious in the preparation
of their food and in regard to the privacy of their meals, before
taking which they have to bathe and put on woollen or silk
garments. Whilst Sankara’s mendicant followers were prohibited
to touch fire and had to subsist entirely on the charity
of Brahman householders, Ramanuja, on the contrary, not only
allowed his followers to use fire, but strictly forbade their eating
any food cooked, or even seen, by a stranger. On the speculative
side, Ramanuja also met Sankara’s strictly monistic theory
by another recognizing Vishnu as identical with Brahma as the
Supreme Spirit animating the material world as well as the
individual souls which have become estranged from God through
unbelief, and can only attain again conscious union with him
through devotion or love (
bhakti
). His tenets are expounded
in various works, especially in his commentaries on the Vedanta-sutras
and the Bhagavadgita. The followers of Ramanuja
have split into two sects, a northern one, recognizing the Vedas
as their chief authority, and a southern one, basing their tenets
on the Nalayir, a Tamil work of the Upanishad order. In point
of doctrine, they differ in their view of the relation between
God Vishnu and the human soul; whilst the former sect define
it by the
ape
theory, which makes the soul cling to God as the
young ape does to its mother, the latter explain it by the cat
theory, by which Vishnu himself seizes and rescues the souls
as the mother cat does her young ones.
Madhva Acharya
, another distinguished Vedanta teacher
and founder of a Vaishnava sect, born in Kanara in
A.D.
1199,
was less intolerant of the Linga cult than Ramanuja,
but seems rather to have aimed at a reconciliation of
Madhvas.
the Saiva and Vaishnava forms of worship. The
Madhvas
or
Madhvacharis
favour Krishna and his consort as their special
objects of adoration, whilst images of Siva, Parvati, and their
son Ganesa are, however, likewise admitted and worshipped in
some of their temples, the most important of which is at Udipi
in South Kanara, with eight monasteries connected with it.
This shrine contains an image of Krishna which is said to have
been rescued from the wreck of a ship which brought it from
Dvaraka, where it was supposed to have been set up of old by
no other than Krishna’s friend Arjuna, one of the five Pandava
princes. Followers of the Madhva creed are but rarely met with
in Upper India. Their sectarial mark is like the U of the Sri-Vaishnavas,
except that their central line is black instead of
red or yellow. Madhva?who after his initiation assumed
the name Anandatirtha?composed numerous Sanskrit works,
including commentaries on the Brahma sutras (
i.e.
the Vedanta
aphorisms), the Gita, the Rigveda and many Upanishads.
His philosophical theory was a dualistic one, postulating distinctness
of nature for the divine and the human soul, and
hence independent existence, instead of absorption, after the
completion of mundane existence.
The Ramanandis or Ramavats (popularly Ramats) are a
numerous northern sect of similar tenets to those of the Ramanujas.
Indeed its founder, Ramananda, who probably
flourished in the latter part of the 14th century,
Ramats.
according to the traditional account, was originally a Sri-Vaishnava
monk, and, having come under the suspicion of laxity
in observing the strict rules of food during his peregrinations,
and been ordered by his superior (Mahant) to take his meals
apart from his brethren, left the monastery in a huff and set
up a schismatic math of his own at Benares. The sectarial
mark of his sect differs but slightly from that of the parent stock.
The distinctive features of their creed consist in their making
Rama and Sita, either singly or conjointly, the chief objects of
their adoration, instead of Vishnu and Lakshmi, and their attaching
little or no importance to the observance of privacy in the
cooking and eating of their food. Their mendicant members,
usually known as Vairagis, are, like the general body of the sect,
drawn from all castes without distinction. Thus, the founder’s
twelve chief disciples include, besides Brahmans, a weaver,
a currier, a Rajput, a Jat and a barber?for, they argue, seeing
that Bhagavan, the Holy One (Vishnu), became incarnate even
in animal form, a Bhakta (believer) may be born even in the
lowest of castes. Ramananda’s teaching was thus of a distinctly
levelling and popular character; and, in accordance therewith,
the Bhakta-mal? and other authoritative writings of the sect
are composed, not in Sanskrit, but in the popular dialects. A
follower of this creed was the distinguished poet Tulsidas, the
composer of the beautiful Hindi version of the Ramayana and
other works which “exercise more influence upon the great
body of Hindu population than the whole voluminous series
of Sanskrit composition” (H. H. Wilson).
The traditional list of Ramananda’s immediate disciples
includes the name of Kabir, the weaver, a remarkable man
who would accordingly have lived in the latter part
of the 15th century, and who is claimed by both Hindus
Kabir.
and Moslems as having been born within their fold. The story
goes that, having been deeply impressed by Ramananda’s
teaching, he sought to attach himself to him; and, one day
at Benares, in stepping down the ghat at daybreak to bathe
in the Ganges, and putting himself in the way of the teacher,
the latter, having inadvertently struck him with his foot, uttered
his customary exclamation “Ram Ram,” which, being also
the initiatory formula of the sect, was claimed by Kabir as such,
making him Ramananda’s disciple. Be this as it may, Kabir’s
own reformatory activity lay in the direction of a compromise
between the Hindu and the Mahommedan creeds, the religious
practices of both of which he criticized with equal severity.
His followers, the Kabir Panthis (“those following Kabir’s
path”), though neither worshipping the gods of the pantheon,
nor observing the rites and ceremonial of the Hindus, are nevertheless
in close touch with the Vaishnava sects, especially the
Ramavats, and generally worship Rama as the supreme deity,
when they do not rather address their homage, in hymns and
otherwise, to the founder of their creed himself. Whilst very
numerous, particularly amongst the low-caste population, in
western, central and northern India, resident adherents of
Kabir’s doctrine are rare in Bengal and the south; although
“there is hardly a town in India where strolling beggars may
not be found singing songs of Kabir in the original or as translated
into the local dialects.” The mendicants of this creed,
however, never actually solicit alms; and, indeed, “the quaker-like
spirit of the sect, their abhorrence of all violence, their
regard for truth and the inobtrusiveness of their opinions render
them very inoffensive members of the state” (H. H. Wilson).
The doctrines of Kabir are taught, mostly in the form of dialogues,
in numerous Hindi works, composed by his disciples
and adherents, who, however, usually profess to give the teacher’s
own words.
The peculiar conciliatory tendencies of Kabir were carried
on with even greater zeal from the latter part of the 15th century
by one of his followers, Nanak Shah, the promulgator of the
creed of the
Nanak Shahis
or
Sikhs
?
i.e.
(Sanskr.)
sishya
, disciples,
whose guru, or teacher, he called himself?a peaceful
sect at first until, in consequence of Mahommedan persecution,
a martial spirit was infused into it by the tenth, and last, guru,
Govind Shah, changing it into a political organization. Whilst
originally more akin in its principles to the Moslem faith, the sect
seems latterly to have shown tendencies towards drifting back
to the Hindu pale.
Of Ramananda’s disciples and successors several others, besides
Kabir, have established schismatic divisions of their own, which
do not, however, offer any very marked differences of creed. The
most important of these, the Dadu Panthi sect, founded by Dadu
about the year 1600, has a numerous following in Ajmir and Marwar,
one section of whom, the Nagas, engage largely in military service,
whilst the others are either householders or mendicants. The
followers of this creed wear no distinctive sectarial mark or badge,
except a skull-cap; nor do they worship any visible image of any
deity, the repetition (
japa
) of the name of Rama being the only
kind of adoration practised by them.
Although the Vaishnava sects hitherto noticed, in their
adoration of Vishnu and his incarnations, Krishna and Ramachandra,
usually associate with these gods their
wives, as their
saktis
, or female energies, the sexual
Eroticism and Krishna worship.
element is, as a rule, only just allowed sufficient scope
to enhance the emotional character of the rites of
worship. In some of the later Vaishnava creeds, on the other
hand, this element is far from being kept within the bounds of
moderation and decency. The favourite object of adoration
with adherents of these sects is Krishna with his mate?but
not the devoted friend and counsellor of the Pandavas and
deified hero of epic song, nor the ruler of Dvaraka and wedded
lord of Rukmini, but the juvenile Krishna, Govinda or Bala
Gopala, “the cowherd lad,” the foster son of the cowherd Nanda
of Gokula, taken up with his amorous sports with the
Gopis
,
or wives of the cowherds of Vrindavana (Brindaban, near Mathura
on the Yamuna), especially his favourite mistress Radha or
Radhika. This episode in the legendary life of Krishna has
every appearance of being a later accretion. After barely a few
allusions to it in the epics, it bursts forth full-blown in the
Harivansa, the Vishnu-purana, the Narada-Pancharatra and
the Bhagavata-purana, the tenth canto of which, dealing with
the life of Krishna, has become, through vernacular versions,
especially the Hindi
Prem-sagar
, or “ocean of love,” a favourite
romance all over India, and has doubtless helped largely to
popularize the cult of Krishna. Strange to say, however, no
mention is as yet made by any of these works of Krishna’s
favourite Radha; it is only in another Purana?though scarcely
deserving that designation?that she makes her appearance,
viz. in the Brahma-vaivarta, in which Krishna’s amours in
Nanda’s cow-station are dwelt upon in fulsome and wearisome
detail; whilst the poet Jayadeva, in the 12th century, made
her love for the gay and inconstant boy the theme of his beautiful,
if highly voluptuous, lyrical drama,
Gita-govinda
.
The earliest of the sects which associate Radha with Krishna in
their worship is that of the Nimavats, founded by Nimbaditya or
Nimbarka (
i.e.
“the sun of the Nimba tree”), a teacher of uncertain
date, said to have been a Telugu Brahman who subsequently
established himself at Mathura (Muttra) on the Yamuna, where
the headquarters of his sect have remained ever since. The Mahant
of their monastery at Dhruva Kshetra near Mathura, who claims
direct descent from Nimbarka, is said to place the foundation of
that establishment as far back as the 5th century?doubtless an
exaggerated claim; but if Jayadeva, as is alleged, and seems by
no means improbable, was really a follower of Nimbarka, this
teacher must have flourished, at latest, in the early part of the
12th century. He is indeed taken by some authorities to be
identical with the mathematician Bhaskara Acharya, who is known
to have completed his chief work in
A.D.
1150. It is worthy of
remark, in this respect, that?in accordance with Ramanuja’s and
Nimbarka’s philosophical theories?Jayadeva’s presentation of
Krishna’s fickle love for Radha is usually interpreted in a mystical
sense, as allegorically depicting the human soul’s striving, through
love, for reunion with God, and its ultimate attainment, after many
backslidings, of the longed-for goal. As the chief authority of their
tenets, the Nimavats recognize the Bhagavata-purana; though
several works, ascribed to Nimbarka?partly of a devotional character
and partly expository of Vedanta topics?are still extant.
Adherents of this sect are fairly numerous in northern India,
their frontal mark consisting of the usual two perpendicular white
lines, with, however, a circular black spot between them.
Of greater importance than the sect just noticed, because of
their far larger following, are the two sects founded early in the
16th century by Vallabha (Ballabha) Acharya and Chaitanya.
In the forms of worship favoured by votaries of these creeds the
emotional and erotic elements are allowed yet freer scope than in
those that preceded them; and, as an effective auxiliary to these
tendencies, the use of the vernacular dialects in prayers and hymns
of praise takes an important part in the religious service. The
Vallabhacharis, or, as they are usually called, from the title of
their spiritual heads, the Gokulastha Gosains,
i.e.
“the cow-lords
(
gosvamin
) residing in Gokula,” are very numerous in western and
central India. Vallabha, the son of a Telinga Brahman, after
extensive journeyings all over India, settled at Gokula near
Mathura, and set up a shrine with an image of Krishna Gopala.
About the year 1673, in consequence of the fanatical persecutions
of the Mogul emperor, this image was transferred to Nathdvara in
Udaipur (Mewar), where the shrine of Srinatha (“the lord of Sri,”
i.e.
Vishnu) continues to be the chief centre of worship for adherents
of this creed; whilst seven other images, transferred from Mathura
at the same time, are located at different places in Rajputana.
Vallabha himself went subsequently to reside at Benares, where he
died. In the doctrine of this Vaishnava prophet, the adualistic
theory of Sankara is resorted to as justifying a joyful and voluptuous
cult of the deity. For, if the human soul is identical with God, the
practice of austerities must be discarded as directed against God,
and it is rather by a free indulgence of the natural appetites and
the pleasures of life that man’s love for God will best be shown.
The followers of his creed, amongst whom there are many wealthy
merchants and bankers, direct their worship chiefly to Gopal Lal,
the boyish Krishna of Vrindavana, whose image is sedulously
attended like a revered living person eight times a day?from its
early rising from its couch up to its retiring to repose at night.
The sectarial mark of the adherents consists of two red perpendicular
lines, meeting in a semicircle at the root of the nose, and having a
round red spot painted between them. Their principal doctrinal
authority is the Bhagavata-purana, as commented upon by Vallabha
himself, who was also the author of several other Sanskrit
works highly esteemed by his followers. In this sect, children are
solemnly admitted to full membership at the early age of four, and
even two, years of age, when a rosary, or necklace, of 108 beads of
basil (tulsi) wood is passed round their necks, and they are taught
the use of the octo-syllabic formula
Sri-Krishnah saranam mama
,
“Holy Krishna is my refuge.” Another special feature of this
sect is that their spiritual heads, the Gosains, also called Maharajas,
so far from submitting themselves to self-discipline and austere
practices, adorn themselves in splendid garments, and allow themselves
to be habitually regaled by their adherents with choice kinds
of food; and being regarded as the living representatives of the
“lord of the Gopis” himself, they claim and receive in their own
persons all acts of attachment and worship due to the deity, even,
it is alleged, to the extent of complete self-surrender. In the final
judgment of the famous libel case of the Bombay Maharajas, before
the Supreme Court of Bombay, in January 1862, these improprieties
were severely commented upon; and though so unsparing
a critic of Indian sects as Jogendra Nath seems not to believe in
actual immoral practices on the part of the Maharajas, still he
admits that “the corrupting influence of a religion, that can make
its female votaries address amorous songs to their spiritual guides,
must be very great.”
A modern offshoot of Vallabha’s creed, formed with the avowed
object of purging it of its objectionable features, was started, in the
early years of the 19th century, by Sahajananda, a Brahman of the
Oudh country, who subsequently assumed the name of Svami
Narayana. Having entered on his missionary labours at Ahmadabad,
and afterwards removed to Jetalpur, where he had a meeting
with Bishop Heber, he subsequently settled at the village of Wartal,
to the north-west of Baroda, and erected a temple to Lakshmi-Narayana,
which, with another at Ahmadabad, forms the two chief
centres of the sect, each being presided over by a Maharaja. Their
worship is addressed to Narayana,
i.e.
Vishnu, as the Supreme
Being, together with Lakshmi, as well as to Krishna and Radha.
The sect is said to be gaining ground in Gujarat. Chaitanya, the
founder of the great Vaishnava sect of Bengal, was the son of a
high-caste Brahman of Nadiya, the famous Bengal seat of Sanskrit
learning, where he was born in 1485, two years after the birth of
Martin Luther, the German reformer. Having married in due
time, and a second time after the death of his first wife, he lived as
a “householder” (
grihastha
) till the age of 24, when he renounced
his family ties and set out as a religious mendicant (
vairagin
),
visiting during the next six years the principal places of pilgrimage
in northern India, and preaching with remarkable success his
doctrine of Bhakti, or passionate devotion to Krishna, as the Supreme
Deity. He subsequently made over to his principal disciples the
task of consolidating his community, and passed the last twelve
years of his life at Puri in Orissa, the great centre of the worship of
Vishnu as Jagannatha, or “lord of the world,” which he remodelled
in accordance with his doctrine, causing the mystic songs of
Jayadeva to be recited before the images in the morning and evening
as part of the daily service; and, in fact, as in the other Vaishnava
creeds, seeking to humanize divine adoration by bringing it into
accord with the experience of human love. To this end, music,
dancing, singing-parties (
sankirtan
), theatricals?in short anything
calculated to produce the desired impression?would prove welcome
to him. His doctrine of Bhakti distinguishes five grades of devotional
feeling in the
Bhaktas
, or faithful adherents: viz. (
santi
)
calm contemplation of the deity; (
dasya
) active servitude; (
sakhya
)
friendship or personal regard; (
vatsalya
) tender affection as between
parents and children; (
madhurya
) love or passionate attachment,
like that which the Gopis felt for Krishna. Chaitanya also seems
to have done much to promote the celebration on an imposing
scale of the great Puri festival of the Ratha-yatra, or “car-procession,”
in the month of Ashadha, when, amidst multitudes of
pilgrims, the image of Krishna, together with those of his brother
Balarama and his sister Subhadra, is drawn along, in a huge car,
by the devotees. Just as this festival was, and continues to be,
attended by people from all parts of India, without distinction of
caste or sex, so also were all classes, even Mahommedans, admitted
by Chaitanya as members of his sect. Whilst numerous observances
are recommended as more or less meritorious, the ordinary form of
worship is a very simple one, consisting as it does mainly of the
constant repetition of names of Krishna, or Krishna and Radha,
which of itself is considered sufficient to ensure future bliss. The
partaking of flesh food and spirituous liquor is strictly prohibited.
By the followers of this sect, also, an extravagant degree of reverence
is habitually paid to their gurus or spiritual heads. Indeed, Chaitanya
himself, as well as his immediate disciples, have come to be
regarded as complete or partial incarnations of the deity to whom
adoration is due, as to Krishna himself; and their modern successors,
the Gosains, share to the fullest extent in the devout attentions
of the worshippers. Chaitanya’s movement, being chiefly
directed against the vile practices of the Saktas, then very prevalent
in Bengal, was doubtless prompted by the best and purest of intentions;
but his own doctrine of divine, though all too human,
love was, like that of Vallabha, by no means free from corruptive
tendencies,?yet, how far these tendencies have worked their way,
who would say? On this point, Dr W. W. Hunter?who is of
opinion that “the death of the reformer marks the beginning of
the spiritual decline of Vishnu-worship,” observes (
Orissa
, i. 111),
“The most deplorable corruption of Vishnu-worship at the present
day is that which has covered the temple walls with indecent
sculptures, and filled its innermost sanctuaries with licentious
rites” . . . yet . . . “it is difficult for a person not a Hindu to
pronounce upon the real extent of the evil. None but a Hindu
can enter any of the larger temples, and none but a Hindu priest
really knows the truth about their inner mysteries”; whilst the
well-known native scholar Babu Rajendralal Mitra points out
(
Antiquities of Orissa
, i. 111) that “such as they are, these
sculptures date from centuries before the birth of Chaitanya, and
cannot, therefore, be attributed to his doctrines or to his followers.
As a Hindu by birth, and a Vaishnava by family religion, I have
had the freest access to the innermost sanctuaries and to the most
secret of scriptures. I have studied the subject most extensively,
and have had opportunities of judging which no European can
have, and I have no hesitation in saying that, ‘the mystic songs’
of Jayadeva and the ‘ocean of love’ notwithstanding, there is
nothing in the rituals of Jagannatha which can be called licentious.”
Whilst in Chaitanya’s creed, Krishna, in his relations to Radha,
remains at least theoretically the chief partner, an almost inevitable
step was taken by some minor sects in attaching the greater importance
to the female element, and making Krishna’s love for his
mistress the guiding sentiment of their faith. Of these sects, it
will suffice to mention that of the Radha-Vallabhis, started in the
latter part of the 16th century, who worship Krishna as Radha-vallabha,
“the darling of Radha.” The doctrines and practices
of these sects clearly verge upon those obtaining in the third principal
division of Indian sectarians which will now be considered.
The Saktas, as we have seen, are worshippers of the
sakti
,
or the female principle as a primary factor in the creation and
reproduction of the universe. And as each of the principal
gods is supposed to have associated with him his own
Saktas.
particular
sakti
, as an indispensable complement enabling
him to properly perform his cosmic functions, adherents of this
persuasion might be expected to be recruited from all
sects. To a certain extent this is indeed the case; but
though Vaishnavism, and especially the Krishna creed, with its
luxuriant growth of erotic legends, might have seemed peculiarly
favourable to a development in this direction, it is practically
only in connexion with the Saiva system that an independent cult
of the female principle has been developed; whilst in other
sects?and, indeed, in the ordinary Saiva cult as well?such
worship, even where it is at all prominent, is combined with, and
subordinated to, that of the male principle. What has made this
cult attach itself more especially to the Saiva creed is doubtless
the character of Siva as the type of reproductive power, in
addition to his function as destroyer which, as we shall see,
is likewise reflected in some of the forms of his Sakti. The theory
of the god and his Sakti as cosmic principles is perhaps already
foreshadowed in the Vedic couple of Heaven and Earth, whilst
in the speculative treatises of the later Vedic period, as well
as in the post-Vedic Brahmanical writings, the assumption of
the self-existent being dividing himself into a male and a female
half usually forms the starting-point of cosmic evolution.
[7]
In
the later Saiva mythology this theory finds its artistic representation
in Siva’s androgynous form of Ardha-narisa, or “half-woman-lord,”
typifying the union of the male and female energies;
the male half in this form of the deity occupying the right-hand,
and the female the left-hand side. In accordance with this
type of productive energy, the Saktas divide themselves into
two distinct groups, according to whether they attach the greater
importance to the male or to the female principle; viz. the
Dakshinacharis
, or “right-hand-observers” (also called
Dak-shina-margis
,
or followers “of the right-hand path”), and the
Vamacharis
, or “left-hand-observers” (or
Vama-margis
,
followers “of the left path”). Though some of the Puranas,
the chief repositories of sectarian doctrines, enter largely into
Sakta topics, it is only in the numerous Tantras that these
are fully and systematically developed. In these works, almost
invariably composed in the form of a colloquy, Siva, as a rule,
in answer to questions asked by his consort Parvati, unfolds
the mysteries of this occult creed.
The principal seat of Sakta worship is the north-eastern part of
India?Bengal, Assam and Behar. The great majority of its
adherents profess to follow the right-hand practice; and apart
from the implied purport and the emblems of the cult, their mode
of adoration does not seem to offer any very objectionable features.
And even amongst the adherents of the left-hand mode of worship,
many of these are said to follow it as a matter of family tradition
rather than of religious conviction, and to practise it in a sober and
temperate manner; whilst only an extreme section?the so-called
Kaulas
or
Kulinas
, who appeal to a spurious Upanishad, the Kaulopanishad,
as the divine authority of their tenets?persist in carrying
on the mystic and licentious rites taught in many of the Tantras.
But strict secrecy being enjoined in the performance of these rites,
it is not easy to check any statements made on this point. The
Sakta cult is, however, known to be especially prevalent?though
apparently not in a very extreme form?amongst members of the
very respectable Kayastha or writer caste of Bengal, and as these
are largely employed as clerks and accountants in Upper India,
there is reason to fear that their vicious practices are gradually
being disseminated through them.
The divine object of the adoration of the Saktas, then, is
Siva’s wife?the
Devi
(goddess),
Mahadevi
(great goddess),
or
Jagan-mata
(mother of the world)?in one or other of her
numerous forms, benign or terrible. The forms in which she
is worshipped in Bengal are of the latter category, viz.
Durga
,
“the unapproachable,” and
Kali
, “the black one,” or, as some
take it, the wife of
Kala
, “time,” or death the great dissolver,
viz. Siva. In honour of the former, the
Durga-puja
is celebrated
during ten days at the time of the autumnal equinox, in commemoration
of her victory over the buffalo-headed demon
Mahishasura; when the image of the ten-armed goddess, holding
a weapon in each hand, is worshipped for nine days, and cast
into the water on the tenth day, called the Dasahara, whence
the festival itself is commonly called Dasara in western India.
Kali
, on the other hand, the most terrible of the goddess’s forms,
has a special service performed to her, at the
Kali-puja
, during
the darkest night of the succeeding month; when she is represented
as a naked black woman, four-armed, wearing a garland
of heads of giants slain by her, and a string of skulls round her
neck, dancing on the breast of her husband (Mahakala), with
gaping mouth and protruding tongue; and when she has to be
propitiated by the slaughter of goats, sheep and buffaloes. On
other occasions also Vamacharis commonly offer animal sacrifices,
usually one or more kids; the head of the victim, which
has to be severed by a single stroke, being always placed in front
of the image of the goddess as a blood-offering (
bali
), with an
earthen lamp fed with ghee burning above it, whilst the flesh
is cooked and served to the guests attending the ceremony,
except that of buffaloes, which is given to the low-caste musicians
who perform during the service. Even some adherents of this
class have, however, discontinued animal sacrifices, and use
certain kinds of fruit, such as coco-nuts or pumpkins, instead.
The use of wine, which at one time was very common on these
occasions, seems also to have become much more restricted;
and only members of the extreme section would still seem to
adhere to the practice of the so-called five
m’s
prescribed by
some of the Tantras, viz.
mamsa
(flesh),
matsya
(fish),
madya
(wine),
maithuna
(sexual union), and
mudra
(mystical finger
signs)?probably the most degrading cult ever practised under
the pretext of religious worship.
In connexion with the principal object of this cult, Tantric theory
has devised an elaborate system of female figures representing either
special forms and personifications or attendants of the “Great
Goddess.” They are generally arranged in groups, the most important
of which are the
Mahavidyas
(great sciences), the 8 (or 9)
Mataras
(mothers) or
Mahamataras
(great mothers), consisting of
the wives of the principal gods; the 8
Nayikas
or mistresses; and
different classes of sorceresses and ogresses, called
Yoginis
,
Dakinis
and
Sakinis
. A special feature of the Sakti cult is the use of obscure
Vedic
mantras
, often changed so as to be quite meaningless and on
that very account deemed the more efficacious for the acquisition
of superhuman powers; as well as of mystic letters and syllables
called
bija
(germ), of magic circles (
chakra
) and diagrams (
yantra
),
and of amulets of various materials inscribed with formulae of
fancied mysterious import.
This survey of the Indian sects will have shown how little
the character of their divine objects of worship is calculated to
exert that elevating and spiritualizing influence,
so characteristic of true religious devotion. In all
General conclusions.
but a few of the minor groups religious fervour is
only too apt to degenerate into that very state of
sexual excitation which devotional exercises should surely tend
to repress. If the worship of Siva, despite the purport of
his chief symbol, seems on the whole less liable to produce
these undesirable effects than that of the rival deity, it is doubtless
due partly to the real nature of that emblem being little
realized by the common people, and partly to the somewhat
repellent character of the “great god,” more favourable to
evoking feelings of awe and terror than a spirit of fervid devotion.
All the more are, however, the gross stimulants, connected with
the adoration of his consort, calculated to work up the carnal
instincts of the devotees to an extreme degree of sensual frenzy.
In the Vaishnava camp, on the other hand, the cult of Krishna,
and more especially that of the youthful Krishna, can scarcely
fail to exert an influence which, if of a subtler and more insinuating,
is not on that account of a less demoralizing kind.
Indeed, it would be hard to find anything less consonant with
godliness and divine perfection than the pranks of this juvenile
god; and if poets and thinkers try to explain them away by
dint of allegorical interpretation, the plain man will not for
all their refinements take these amusing adventures any the less
au pied de la lettre
. No fault, in this respect, can assuredly be
found with the legendary Rama, a very paragon of knightly
honour and virtue, even as his consort Sita is the very model
of a noble and faithful wife; and yet this cult has perhaps
retained even more of the character of mere hero-worship than
that of Krishna. Since by the universally accepted doctrine of
karman
(deed) or
karmavipaka
(“the maturing of deeds”)
man himself?either in his present, or some future, existence?enjoys
the fruit of, or has to atone for, his former good and bad
actions, there could hardly be room in Hindu pantheism for a
belief in the remission of sin by divine grace or vicarious substitution.
And accordingly the “descents” or incarnations of
the deity have for their object, not so much the spiritual regeneration
of man as the deliverance of the world from some material
calamity threatening to overwhelm it. The generally recognized
principal Avatars do not, however, by any means constitute
the only occasions of a direct intercession of the deity in worldly
affairs, but?in the same way as to this day the eclipses of the
sun and moon are ascribed by the ordinary Hindu to these
luminaries being temporarily swallowed by the dragon
Rahu
(or
Graha
, “the seizer”)?so any uncommon occurrence would
be apt to be set down as a special manifestation of divine power;
and any man credited with exceptional merit or achievement,
or even remarkable for some strange incident connected with
his life or death, might ultimately come to be looked upon as a
veritable incarnation of the deity, capable of influencing the
destinies of man, and might become an object of local adoration
or superstitious awe and propitiatory rites to multitudes of people.
That the transmigration theory, which makes the spirit of the
departed hover about for a time in quest of a new corporeal
abode, would naturally lend itself to superstitious notions of this
kind can scarcely be doubted. Of peculiar importance in this
respect is the worship of the
Pitris
(“fathers”) or deceased
ancestors, as entering largely into the everyday life and family
relations of the Hindus. At stated intervals to offer reverential
homage and oblations of food to the forefathers up to the third
degree is one of the most sacred duties the devout Hindu has to
discharge. The periodical performance of the commemorative
rite of obsequies called
Sraddha
?
i.e.
an oblation “made in faith”
(
sraddha
, Lat.
credo
)?is the duty and privilege of the eldest son
of the deceased, or, failing him, of the nearest relative who thereby
establishes his right as next of kin in respect of inheritance;
and those other relatives who have the right to take part in the
ceremony are called
sapinda
,
i.e.
sharing in the
pindas
(or balls of
cooked rice, constituting along with libations of water the usual
offering to the Manes)?such relationship being held a bar to
intermarriage. The first
Sraddha
takes place as soon as possible
after the
antyeshti
(“final offering”) or funeral ceremony proper,
usually spread over ten days; being afterwards repeated once a
month for a year, and subsequently at every anniversary and
otherwise voluntarily on special occasions. Moreover, a simple
libation of water should be offered to the Fathers twice daily at
the morning and evening devotion called
sandhya
(“twilight”).
It is doubtless a sense of filial obligation coupled with sentiments
of piety and reverence that gave rise to this practice of offering
gifts of food and drink to the deceased ancestors. Hence also
frequent allusion is made by poets to the anxious care caused to
the Fathers by the possibility of the living head of the family
being afflicted with failure of offspring; this dire prospect compelling
them to use but sparingly their little store of provisions,
in case the supply should shortly cease altogether. At the same
time one also meets with frank avowals of a superstitious fear
lest any irregularity in the performance of the obsequial rites
should cause the Fathers to haunt their old home and trouble the
peace of their undutiful descendant, or even prematurely draw
him after them to the Pitri-loka or world of the Fathers, supposed
to be located in the southern region. Terminating as it usually
does with the feeding and feeing of a greater or less number of
Brahmans and the feasting of members of the performers’ own
caste, the Sraddha, especially its first performance, is often a
matter of very considerable expense; and more than ordinary
benefit to the deceased is supposed to accrue from it when it takes
place at a spot of recognized sanctity, such as one of the great
places of pilgrimage like Prayaga (Allahabad, where the three
sacred rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati, meet), Mathura,
and especially Gaya and Kasi (Benares). But indeed the
tirtha-yatra
,
or pilgrimage to holy bathing-places, is in itself considered
an act of piety conferring religious merit in proportion to the
time and trouble expended upon it. The number of such places
is legion and is constantly increasing. The banks of the great
rivers such as the Ganga (Ganges), the Yamuna (Jumna), the
Narbada, the Krishna (Kistna), are studded with them, and the
water of these rivers is supposed to be imbued with the essence
of sanctity capable of cleansing the pious bather of all sin and
moral taint. To follow the entire course of one of the sacred
rivers from the mouth to the source on one side and back again on
the other in the sun-wise (pradakshina) direction?that is,
always keeping the stream on one’s right-hand side?is held to be
a highly meritorious undertaking which it requires years to carry
through. No wonder that water from these rivers, especially the
Ganges, is sent and taken in bottles to all parts of India to be used
on occasion as healing medicine or for sacramental purposes. In
Vedic times, at the
Rajasuya
, or inauguration of a king, some
water from the holy river Sarasvati was mixed with the sprinkling
water used for consecrating the king. Hence also sick persons are
frequently conveyed long distances to a sacred river to heal them
of their maladies; and for a dying man to breathe his last at the
side of the Ganges is devoutly believed to be the surest way of
securing for him salvation and eternal bliss.
Such probably was the belief of the ordinary Hindu two thousand
years ago, and such it remains to this day. In the light of facts
such as these, who could venture to say what the future of Hinduism
is likely to be? Is the regeneration of India to be brought about
by the modern theistic movements, such as the Brahma-samaj and
Arya-samaj, as so close and sympathetic an observer of Hindu life
and thought as Sir A. Lyall seems to think? “The Hindu mind,”
he remarks, “is essentially speculative and transcendental; it will
never consent to be shut up in the prison of sensual experience, for
it has grasped and holds firmly the central idea that all things are
manifestations of some power outside phenomena. And the tendency
of contemporary religious discussion in India, so far as it can
be followed from a distance, is towards an ethical reform on the
old foundations, towards searching for some method of reconciling
their Vedic theology with the practices of religion taken as a rule
of conduct and a system of moral government. One can already
discern a movement in various quarters towards a recognition of
impersonal theism, and towards fixing the teaching of the philosophical
schools upon some definitely authorized system of faith and
morals, which may satisfy a rising ethical standard, and may thus
permanently embody that tendency to substitute spiritual devotion
for external forms and caste rules which is the characteristic of
the sects that have from time to time dissented from orthodox
Brahminism.”
Authorities.
?
Census of India
(1901), vol. i. part i.;
India
, by
H. H. Risley and E. A. Gait; vol. i.
Ethnographical Appendices
,
by H. H. Risley;
The Indian Empire
, vol. i. (new ed., Oxford, 1907);
J. Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts
(2nd ed., 5 vols., London, 1873);
Monier Williams,
Religious Thought and Life in India
(London,
1883);
Modern India and the Indians
(London, 1878, 3rd ed. 1879);
Hinduism
(London, 1877); Sir Alfred C. Lyall,
Asiatic Studies
(2 series, London, 1899); “Hinduism” in
Religious Systems of the
World
(London, 1904); “Brahminism” in
Great Religions of the
World
(New York and London, 1902); W. J. Wilkins,
Modern
Hinduism
(London, 1887); J. C. Oman,
Indian Life, Religious and
Social
(London, 1879);
The Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India
(London, 1903);
The Brahmans, Theists and Muslims of India
(London, 1907); S. C. Bose,
The Hindus as they are
(2nd ed.,
Calcutta, 1883); J. Robson,
Hinduism and Christianity
(Edinburgh
and London, 3rd ed., 1905); J. Murray Mitchell,
Hinduism Past
and Present
(2nd ed., London, 1897); Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya,
Hindu Castes and Sects
(Calcutta, 1896); A. Barth,
The Religions
of India
(London, 1882); E. W. Hopkins,
The Religions of India
(London, 1896).
(
J. E.
)