The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)
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Title: The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6)
Author: Max Duncker
Translator: Evelyn Abbott
Release date: October 6, 2012 [eBook #40960]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
1. Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
2. A carat character is used to denote superscription. A
single character following the carat is superscripted
(example: 1^2).
3. Mixed fractions in this text version are indicated with
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text version these letters have been replaced with
transliterations.
THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY.
From the German of
PROFESSOR MAX DUNCKER,
by
Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D.,
Fellow And Tutor Of Balliol College, Oxford.
VOL. IV.
London:
Richard Bentley & Son, New Burlington Street,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1880.
Bungay:
Clay and Taylor, Printers.
CONTENTS.
BOOK V.
_THE ARIANS ON THE INDUS AND THE GANGES._
CHAPTER I. PAGE
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 1
CHAPTER II.
THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS 27
CHAPTER III.
THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND OF THE GANGES 65
CHAPTER IV.
THE FORMATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF THE ORDERS 110
CHAPTER V.
THE OLD AND THE NEW RELIGION 154
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE INDIANS 188
CHAPTER VII.
THE CASTES AND THE FAMILY 236
CHAPTER VIII.
THE THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE BRAHMANS 270
BOOK VI.
_BUDDHISTS AND BRAHMANS._
CHAPTER I.
THE STATES ON THE GANGES IN THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. 315
CHAPTER II.
BUDDHA'S LIFE AND TEACHING 332
CHAPTER III.
THE KINGDOM OF MAGADHA AND THE SETTLEMENTS IN THE SOUTH 365
CHAPTER IV.
THE NATIONS AND PRINCES OF THE LAND OF THE INDUS 383
CHAPTER V.
THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE INDIANS IN THE FOURTH
CENTURY B.C. 408
CHAPTER VI.
CHANDRAGUPTA OF MAGADHA 439
CHAPTER VII.
THE RELIGION OF THE BUDDHISTS 454
CHAPTER VIII.
THE REFORMS OF THE BRAHMANS 491
CHAPTER IX.
AÇOKA OF MAGADHA 521
CHAPTER X.
RETROSPECT 544
BOOK V.
THE ARIANS ON THE INDUS AND THE GANGES.
INDIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.
It was not only in the lower valley of the Nile, on the banks of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, and along the coast and on the heights of
Syria that independent forms of intellectual and civic life grew up in
antiquity. By the side of the early civilisation of Egypt, and the
hardly later civilisation of that unknown people from which Elam,
Babylon, and Asshur borrowed such important factors in the development
of their own capacities; along with the civilisation of the Semites of
the East and West, who here observed the heavens, there busily explored
the shores of the sea; here erected massive buildings, and there were so
earnestly occupied with the study of their own inward nature, are found
forms of culture later in their origin, and represented by a different
family of nations. This family, the Indo-European, extends over a far
larger area than the Semitic. We find branches of it in the wide
districts to the east of the Semitic nations, on the table-land of Iran,
in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Other branches we have
already encountered on the heights of Armenia, and the table-land of
Asia Minor (I. 512, 524). Others again obtained possession of the
plains above the Black Sea; others, of the peninsulas of Greece and
Italy. Nations of this stock have forced their way to the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean; we find them settled on the western coast of the Spanish
peninsula, from the mouth of the Garonne to the Channel, in Britain and
Ireland no less than in Scandinavia, on the shores of the North Sea and
the Baltic. Those branches of the family which took up their abodes the
farthest to the East exhibit the most independent and peculiar form of
civilisation.
The mutual relationship of the Arian, Greek, Italian, Letto-Sclavonian,
Germanic, and Celtic languages proves the relationship of the nations
who have spoken and still speak them; it proves that all these nations
have a common origin and descent. The words, of which the roots in these
languages exhibit complete phonetic agreement, must be considered as a
common possession, acquired before the separation; and from this we can
discover at what stage of life the nation from which these languages
derive their origin stood at the time when it was not yet divided into
these six great branches, and separated into the nations which
subsequently occupied abodes so extensive and remote from each other. We
find common terms for members of the family, for house, yard, garden,
and citadel; common words for horses, cattle, dogs, swine, sheep, goats,
mice, geese, ducks; common roots for wool, hemp or flax, corn (_i.e._
wheat, spelt, or barley), for ploughing, grinding, and weaving, for
certain metals (copper or iron), for some weapons and tools, for waggon,
boat and rudder, for the elementary numbers, and the division of the
year according to the moon.[1] Hence the stock, whose branches and
shoots have spread over the whole continent of Europe and Asia from
Ceylon to Britain and Scandinavia, cannot, even before the separation,
have been without a certain degree of civilisation. On the contrary,
this common fund of words proves that even in that early time it tilled
the field, and reared cattle; that it could build waggons and boats, and
forge weapons, and if the general name for the gods and some names of
special deities are the same in widely remote branches of this
stock,--in India, Iran, Greece, and Italy, and even on the plains of
Lithuania,--it follows that the notions which lie at the base of these
names must also be counted among the common possessions existing before
the separation.
We can hardly venture a conjecture as to the region in which the fathers
of the Indo-European nations attained to this degree of cultivation. It
must have been of such a nature as to admit of agriculture beside the
breeding of cattle. The varieties of produce mentioned and the domestic
animals point to a northern district, which, however, cannot have
reached down to the ocean, inasmuch as no common roots are in existence
to denote the sea. This proof is strengthened by the fact that in all
the branches the wolf and bear alone among beasts of prey are designated
by common roots. If we combine these considerations with the equal
extension of the tribes of this nation towards east and west, we may
assume that an elevated district in the middle of the eastern continent
was the abode of the nation while yet undivided.
The branches which occupied the table-land of Iran and the valley of the
Indus were the first to rise from the basis acquired in common to a
higher civilisation; and even they did not attain to this till long
after the time when Egypt, under the ancient kingdom of Memphis, found
herself in the possession of a many-sided culture, after Babylon had
become the centre of a different conception of life and development. The
western branches of the Indo-Europeans remained at various stages behind
their eastern fellow-tribesmen in regard to the epochs of their higher
culture. If the Greeks, who were brought into frequent contact with the
civilisation of the Semites, came next in point of time after the
eastern tribes, and the Italians next to the Greeks, it was only through
conflict and contact with the culture of Greece and Rome that the
western branches reached a higher stage, while the dwellers on the
plains of the Baltic owe their cultivation to the influences of Germanic
life. Finally, when the West European branches, the Indo-Germans, had
developed independently their capacities and their nature, when in
different phases they had received and assimilated what had been left
behind by their Greek and Roman kinsmen, and formed it into the
civilisation of the modern world, their distant navigation came into
contact with the ancient civilisation, to which their fellow-tribesmen
in the distant East had finally attained some 2000 years previously.
With wonder and astonishment the long-separated, long-estranged
relatives looked each other in the face. But even now the ancient,
deeply-rooted, and variously-developed civilisation of the eastern
branch maintains its place with tough endurance beside the mobile,
comprehensive, and restlessly-advancing civilisation of the west.
On the southern edge of the great table-land which forms the nucleus of
the districts of Asia, the range of the Himalayas rises in parallel
lines. The range runs from north-west to south-east, with a breadth of
from 200 to 250 miles, and a length of about 1750 miles. It presents the
highest elevations on the surface of the earth. Covered with boundless
fields of snow and extensive glaciers, the sharp edges and points of the
highest ridge rise gleaming into the tropic sky; no sound breaks the
deep silence of this solemn Alpine wild. To the south of these mighty
white towers, in the second range, is a multitude of summits, separated
by rugged ravines. Here also is neither moss nor herb, for this range
also rises above the limits of vegetation. Much lower down, a third
range, of which the average elevation rises to more than 12,000 feet,
displays up to the summits forests of a European kind; in the cool,
fresh air the ridges are clothed with birches, pines, and oaks. Beneath
this girdle of northern growths, on the heights which gradually sink
down from an elevation of 5000 feet, are thick forests of Indian
fig-trees of gigantic size. Under the forest there commences in the west
a hilly region, in the east a marshy district broken by lakes which the
mountain waters leave behind in the depression, and covered with
impenetrable thickets, tall jungles, and rank grass--a district
oppressive and unhealthy, inhabited by herds of elephants, crocodiles,
and large snakes.
The mighty wall of the Himalayas decides the nature and life of the
extensive land which lies before it to the south in the same way as the
peninsula of Italy lies before the European Alps. It protects hill and
plain from the raw winds which blow from the north over the table-land
of Central Asia; it checks the rain-clouds, the collected moisture of
the ocean brought up by the trade winds from the South Sea. These clouds
are compelled to pour their water into the plains at the foot of the
Himalayas, and change the glow of the sun into coolness, the parched
vegetation into fresh green. Owing to their extraordinary elevation, the
mountain masses of the Himalayas, in spite of their southern situation,
preserve such enormous fields of ice and snow that they are able to
discharge into the plains the mightiest rivers in the world. From the
central block flow the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahmaputra, _i.e._
the son of Brahma.
Springing from fields of snow, which surround Alpine lakes, the Indus
descends from an elevated mountain plain to the south of the highest
ridge. At first the river flows in a westerly direction through a cleft
between parallel rows of mountains. In spite of the long and severe
winter of this region, mountain sheep and goats flourish here, and the
sandy soil contains gold-dust. To the south of the course of the river
we find depressions in the mountains, where the climate is happily
tempered by the nature of the sky and the elevation of the soil. The
largest of these is the valley of Cashmere, surrounded by an oval of
snowy mountains. To the west of Cashmere the Indus turns its course
suddenly to the south; it breaks through the mountain ranges which bar
its way, and from this point to the mouth accompanies the eastern slope
of the table-land of Iran. As soon as the Himalayas are left behind, a
hilly land commences on the left bank, of moderate warmth and fruitful
vegetation, spreading out far to the east between the tributaries of the
stream. The river now receives the Panjab, and the valley is narrowed in
the west by the closer approach of the mountains of Iran; in the east by
a wide, waterless steppe, descending from the spurs of the Himalayas to
the sea, which affords nothing beyond a scanty maintenance for herds of
buffaloes, asses, and camels. The heat becomes greater as the land
becomes flatter, and the river more southerly in its course; in the dry
months the earth cracks and vegetation is at a standstill. Any overflow
from the river, which might give it new vigour, on the melting of the
snow in the upper mountains, is prevented for long distances by the
elevation of the banks. The Delta formed by the Indus at its mouth,
after a course of 1500 miles, contains only a few islands of good marsh
soil. The sea comes up over the flat shore for a long distance, and
higher up the arms of the river a thick growth of reeds and rushes
hinders cultivation, while the want of fresh water makes a numerous
population impossible.
Not far from the sources of the Indus, at the very nucleus of the
highest summits of the Himalayas, rise the Yamuna (Jumna) and the
Ganges. The Ganges flows out of fields of snow beneath unsurmountable
summits of more than 20,000 feet in height, and breaking through the
mountains to the south reaches the plains; here the course of the river
is turned to the east by the broad and thickly-wooded girdle of the
Vindhyas, the mountain range which rises to the south of the plains.
Enlarged by a number of tributaries from north and south, it pours from
year to year copious inundations over the low banks, and thus creates
for the plains through which it flows a fruitful soil where tropic
vegetation can flourish in the most luxuriant wildness. This is the land
of rice, of cotton, of sugar-canes, of the blue lotus, the edible
banana, the gigantic fig-tree. On the lower course of the river, where
it approaches the Brahmaputra, which also at first flows between the
parallel ranges of the Himalayas towards the east, in the same way as
the Indus flows to the west, there commences a hot, moist, and luxuriant
plain (Bengal) of enervating climate, covered with coco and arica palms,
with the tendrils of the betel, and the stalks of the cinnamon, with
endless creepers overgrowing the trunks of the trees, and ascending even
to their topmost branches. Here the river is so broad that the eye can
no longer reach from one bank to the other. In the region at the mouth,
where the Ganges unites with the Brahmaputra, and then splits into many
arms, the numerous waters create hot marshes; and here the vegetation is
so abundant, the jungles of bamboo so thick and impenetrable, that they
are abandoned to the rhinoceros, the elephant, and the tiger, whose
proper home is in these wooded morasses.
Into this wide region, which in length, from north to south, exceeds the
distance from Cape Skagen to Cape Spartivento, and in breadth, from east
to west, is about equal to the distance from Bayonne to Odessa, came a
branch of the family, whose common origin has been noticed, and their
civilisation previous to the separation of the members sketched. The
members of this branch called themselves Arya, _i.e._ the noble, or the
ruling. In the oldest existing monuments of their language and poetry
these Aryas are found invoking their gods to grant them room against the
Dasyus,[2] to make a distinction between Arya and Dasyu, to place the
Dasyus on the left hand, to turn away the arms of the Dasyus from the
Aryas, to make the hostile nations of the Dasyus bow down before the
Aryas, to increase the might and glory of the Aryas, to subjugate the
"Black-skins" to them.[3] In the epic poetry of the Indians we find
mention of black inhabitants of Himavat (_i.e._ inhabitants of the snowy
mountains, the Himalayas), and of "black Çudra" beyond the delta of the
Indus. By the same name, Çudra, the Aryas designated the population
which became subject to them in the valley of the Ganges; and when they
advanced from the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges towards the south,
to the coasts of the Deccan, they found there also populations of a
similar kind. Even at the present day the inhabitants of India fall into
two great masses, essentially distinguished from each other by the
formation of their bodies and their language. In the broad and
inaccessible belt of the Vindhya mountains, which separates the
peninsula of the Deccan from the plains of the two rivers, are situated
the tribes of the Gondas, men of a deep-black colour, with thick, long,
and black hair, barbarous manners, and a peculiar language. Closely
allied to these nations are the slim and black Bhillas, of small
stature, who inhabit the western slopes of the Vindhyas to the sea; and
the Kolas, who dwell in the mountainous district of Surashtra (Guzerat),
and to this day form two-thirds of the inhabitants of this district.[4]
On the eastern declivities and spurs of the Vindhyas we find in the
south the Kandas, in the north the Paharias, nations also of a dark
colour and thick long hair. Distinct from these rude savages, less dark
in colour, and exhibiting other modes of life, are the tribes which
possess the coasts of the Deccan, the Carnatas, Tuluwas, and Malabars on
the west, the Tamilas and Telingas on the east. Opposed to all these
tribes are the Aryas, with their light colour and decisively Caucasian
stamp. These once spoke Sanskrit, and are still acquainted with the
language, and to them is due the development of civilisation in these
wide districts.
This juxtaposition of two populations, of which one is in possession of
the best districts in the country, while of the other only fragments
are in existence (combined masses are not found except in the most
inaccessible regions),--the indications supplied by these invocations,
according to which the light-coloured population on the Indus was in
conflict with the "Black-skins,"--the fact that the light-coloured
population, both on the Ganges and the coasts of the Deccan, has always
taken up an exclusive and contemptuous position towards the darker
tribes existing there, justify the conclusion that the whole region from
the Indus to the mouths of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to Cape
Comorin, once belonged to the dark population, and that the Aryas are
immigrants. These immigrants partly drove back the ancient population,
and confined it in hardly accessible mountains or morasses, partly
forced it to submit to their rule and accept their civilisation, partly
allowed it to live among them, as now, in a despicable and subordinate
position. In historical times we can trace this process, by which the
old population was driven back or civilised, on the coasts of the Deccan
and in Ceylon. From the position of the remnant of this population on
the Ganges, and these invocations of the Aryas, which spring from a time
when they were not yet established in the land of the Ganges, we may
conclude that a similar process went on in a severer form on the Indus.
Following the example of the Indians, modern science collects the
languages of these inhabitants of India, who are found under and among
the Aryas, so far as they at present exist, under the names of the
Nishada and Dravida languages.[5] The language of the Brahuis to the
west of the Indus,--they were settled there, or at least retired from
thence, at the time of the immigration of the Aryas,--the Canaresian,
the Malayalam, the language of the Tamilas, of the Telingas, the Badaga
of the inhabitants of the Nilgiri, on the southern apex of the Deccan,
are closely related, but to which of the great stems of language they
are to be apportioned is not determined.[6]
The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They
stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of
Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call
themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya,
and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest
connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in
very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and
Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of
the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous
character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths,
sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is
not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover,
the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the
region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here, in the west, the Aryas had
their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently
mention the Indus, but not the Ganges.[7] Even the name by which the
Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha
(Deccan), _i.e._ path to the right[8], confirms the fact already
established, that the Aryas came from the west.
From this it is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the
heights of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five
tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from the
north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures and arable
land, _i.e._ as far eastward as the desert which separates the valley of
the Indus from the Ganges. The river which irrigated their land, watered
their pastures, and shaped the course of their lives they called Sindhu
(in Pliny, Sindus), _i.e._ the river[9]. It is, no doubt, the region of
the Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the land
_hapta hindu_ (_hendu_), i.e. the seven streams. The inscriptions of
Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus. These names the Greeks
render by Indos and Indoi.
Can we fix the time at which the Aryas immigrated into India and
occupied the valley of the Indus? As we proceed it will become clear
that it was not till a late period that the nation began to record the
names of the kings of their states, that they never wrote down in a
satisfactory matter their legends and the facts of their history, and
that we cannot find among them any trustworthy chronology. Even with the
assistance of the statements of western writers, we can only go back
with any certainty to the year 800 B.C. for the dynasties of the kingdom
of Magadha, the most important kingdom in ancient times on the Ganges.
But if at this period the Aryas held sway not on the upper Ganges only,
but also on the lower, they must have been already settled on the Indus
for centuries. If the narratives already given of the foundation of the
Assyrian kingdom and the war of Semiramis on the Indus (II. 9 ff) were
historical, the Aryas must have been settled in that country even at
this date, _i.e._ about 1500 B.C. They must have lived there under a
monarchy which could place great forces in the field, and they must have
been already acquainted with the use of elephants in war. Stabrobates,
the name of the king of the Indians who met Semiramis and repulsed her,
would become Çtaorapati, _i.e._ lord of oxen, in the language of the
Aryas. But after what has been previously said (II. 19 ff), we can only
allow this narrative to have a value for the conceptions existing in
Persian epic poetry about the foundation of the empire of Assyria, and
the campaigns of Assyrian rulers to the distant East. In their
statements about India we can only, at most, expect to find a repetition
of the information existing about that country in the western half of
Iran in the seventh or sixth century, and even this takes a form
corresponding to the views expressed in the poems. In the monuments of
the kings of Assyria we found the elephant and the rhinoceros among the
tribute offered to Shalmanesar II., who reigned from 859-823 B.C. (II.
320); the inscriptions of Bin-nirar III. (810-781 B.C.) pointed to
campaigns of this king extending as far as Bactria (II. 328); we were
able to follow the marches of Tiglath Pilesar II. (745-727 B.C.) in the
table-land of Iran as far as Arachosia (III. 4). Hence the Assyrian
tablets do not as yet supply any definite information about the land of
the Indus. Arrian has preserved a notice according to which the
Astacenes and Assacanes, Indian nations on the right bank of the Indus,
between the river and Cophen (Cabul), were once subject to the
Assyrians.[10] The Indian epics extol the horses of the Açvakas, who, in
them also, are an Indian nation, and we may venture to regard them as
the Assacenes of Arrian. Alexander of Macedon found them in that region;
they could place many warriors in the field against him on their high
mountain uplands. But the observation in Arrian, even if we attach
weight to it, does not carry us far in answering the question when the
Aryas came into the valley of the Indus, for it does not make it clear
at what period the Açvakas were subject to the Assyrians. More may be
gained, perhaps, from the Hebrew scriptures. We saw that about 1000 B.C.
Solomon of Israel and Hiram of Tyre caused ships to be built and
equipped at Elath, on the north-east point of the Arabian Gulf. These
ships were to visit the lands of the south, and we saw what wealth they
brought back from Ophir after an absence of three years (II. 188). They
are laden with gold, silver, precious stones, and sandal-wood in
abundance, the like of which was not seen afterwards; peacocks, apes,
and ivory.[11] Now ivory, sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks are the
products of India, and peacocks and sandal-wood belong to that land
exclusively. It is true that they might have been transported to the
south coast of Arabia or the Somali coast of East Africa by the trade of
the Arabians, or even of the Indians (I. 321); but the ships of Solomon
and Hiram would not need to be absent for three years in order to obtain
them there. For our question it is decisive that the names with which
the Hebrews denote apes, peacocks, and sandal-wood, _kophim_, _tukijim_,
_almugim_, are Sanskrit (_kapi_, _çikhi_, _valgu_), and from this it
follows that the Aryas must have been in possession, at any rate, of
the land of the Indus and the coast of that region as early as 1000 B.C.
The book of the law of the Aryas mentions a nation Abhira. According to
the Aryan epics this nation possessed cows, goats, sheep, and camels.
Ptolemy places a land Abiria at the mouth of the Indus, and to this day
a tribe of the name of Ahir possesses the coast of the peninsula of
Cashtha (Kattywar).[12] These Abhiras may therefore have been meant by
the Ophir of the Hebrews. It is true that the genealogical table in
Genesis puts Ophir among the tribes which are said to spring from
Joktan, but no doubt it includes under the name of Joktan all the
nations of the south-east known to the Hebrews. If the ships of Hiram
brought back gold in abundance from their voyages to the mouth of the
Indus, this can only have been conveyed to the lower Indus, where there
is no gold, from the upper Indus, which is rich in gold, and from other
upland valleys in the Himalayas, where the mountain streams carry down
this metal. Hence about the year 1000 B.C. there must have been a lively
trade between the upper and lower Indus. Further, if the Phenicians and
Hebrews purchased sandal-wood among the Abhiras, this can only have been
transported to the mouth of the Indus by sea, and the coast navigation,
which is rendered easy in the Indian Sea by the regular occurrence of
the monsoons, for sandal-wood nowhere flourishes except in the glowing
sun of the Malabar coast. Whatever may have been the case with this
trade, products of India, and among them such as do not belong to the
land of the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B.C., under
names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must have been
settled there for centuries previously. For this reason, and it is
confirmed by facts which will appear further on, we may assume that the
Aryas descended into the valley of the Indus about the year 2000 B.C.,
_i.e._ about the time when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the
valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the
dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by the Hyksos.
We have no further accounts from the West about the Aryas till the year
500 B.C., and later. It is not improbable that the arms of Cyrus reached
the Indus. The Astacenes and Assacanes are said to have been subject to
the Medes after the Assyrians; then Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, imposed
tribute upon them.[13] As Cyrus subjugated Bactria, fought in Arachosia,
and marched through Gedrosia, we may assume that he compelled the
nations of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus to pay tribute. It
was in conflict with the Derbiccians, to whom the Indians sent elephants
as auxiliaries, that Cyrus, according to the account of Ctesias, was
slain. Darius, as Herodotus tells us, sent messengers to explore the
land of the Indus. Setting out from Arachosia, they proceeded from
Caspapyrus (Kaçpapura), a city which, according to Hecatæus, belonged to
the Gandarii[14]--_i.e._ without doubt from Kabura (Cabul) down the
Indus to the sea. According to Herodotus' account the Gandarii, together
with the Arachoti and Sattagydæ, paid 170 talents of gold yearly; the
rest of the Indians paid a larger tribute than any other satrapy--360
talents of gold.[15] The Indians who paid this tribute were, according
to Herodotus, the most northerly and the most warlike of this great
nation. They dwelt near the city of Caspapyrus, _i.e._ near Cabul; their
mode of life was like that of the Bactrians, and they obtained the gold
from a sandy desert, where ants, smaller than dogs, but larger than
foxes, dug up the gold-dust.[16] Darius tells us himself, in the
inscriptions of Persepolis, that the Gandarii and the Indians were
subject to him. Like Herodotus, these inscriptions comprise the tribes
of the Aryas on the right bank of the Indus as far down as Cabul under
the name of Indians, so that the Açvakas were included among them. The
Gandarii, as is shown by their vicinity to and connection with the
Arachoti, lay to the south of Cabul. In the epos of the Indians the
daughter of the king of the Gandharas is married to the king of the
Bharatas, who lie between the Yamuna and the Ganges, and the Buddhist
writings speak of the Brahmans of the Gandarii as the worst in
India.[17] In the campaign of Xerxes, Herodotus separates the Gandarii
from the rest of the Indians who are subject to the Persian kingdom. The
first, he says, were armed like the Bactrians; with the rest marched the
Ethiopians of the East, equipped almost like the Indians; but on their
heads they had the skins of horses' heads, with the ears and mane erect,
and their shields were made from the skins of cranes. These Ethiopians
of the East were not distinguished from the others in form and
character, but by their language and hair. The Libyan Ethiopians, _i.e._
the negroes, had the curliest hair of all men; but the hair of the
Eastern branch was straight.[18] We have already observed that now, as
in the days of Xerxes, remains of the dark-coloured pre-Aryan population
of India are found on the right bank of the Indus (p. 10).
Of the Indians "who never obeyed Darius,"[19] Herodotus tells us that
they lived the furthest to the east of all the nations about which
anything definite was known. Still further in that direction were sandy
deserts. The Indians were the largest of all nations, and the Indus was
the only river beside the Nile in which crocodiles are found (they are
alligators).[20] The remotest parts of the earth have always the best
products, and India, the remotest inhabited land to the east, was no
exception. The birds and the quadrupeds were far greater in size here
than elsewhere, with the exception of the horse; for the Nisæan horses
of the Medes were larger than the horses of the Indians. Moreover, India
possessed an extraordinary abundance of gold, of which some was dug up
from mines, and some brought down by the rivers, and some obtained from
the deserts. The wild trees also produced a wool which in beauty and
excellence surpassed the wool of sheep; this the Indians used for
clothing. There were many nations of the Indians, and they spoke
different languages. Some were stationary; some dwelt in the marshes of
the rivers, and lived on raw fish, which they caught in canoes made of
reeds, and every joint of the reed made a canoe. These Indians wore
garments of bark, which they wove like cloths, and then drew on like
coats of mail. Eastward of these dwelt the Padæans, a migratory tribe,
who ate raw flesh; and when any one, even the nearest relative, among
them was sick, they slew him, in order to eat the corpse. This custom
was also observed by the women. Even the few who attained to old age
they killed, in order to eat them. Other Indian nations lived only on
herbs, which they ate cooked, and troubled themselves neither about
their sick nor their dead, whom they carried out, like the sick, into
desert places. All the nations spoken of were black in colour.[21]
These, the oldest accounts from the West on the ancient pre-Aryan
population of India, and on the black-skins of the Rigveda, we owe to
Herodotus. His statements about their physical formation are correct;
those on their savage life may be exaggerated; but even to this day a
part of these nations live in the marshes and mountains in a condition
hardly removed from that of animals.
The contrast between the light-coloured and dark population of India,
between the Aryas and the ancient inhabitants, did not escape Ctesias.
India, he maintained, was as large as the rest of Asia, and the
inhabitants of India almost as numerous as all the other nations put
together. The Indians were both white and black. He had himself seen
white Indians, five men and two women. The sun in India appeared ten
times as large as in other lands, and the heat was suffocating. The
Indus was a great river flowing through mountains and plains; in the
narrowest places the water occupied a space of 40 stades, or five miles,
in the broadest it reached 100 stades.[22] The river watered the land.
In India it did not rain, and there were no storms there, though there
were violent whirlwinds which carried everything before them.[23] On the
Indus grew reeds small and great; the stoutest reeds could not be
spanned by two men, and the height of the largest was equal to the mast
of a ship.[24] The fruit of the palms also in India was three times as
large as in Babylonia, and the sheep and goats there were equal in size
to asses elsewhere, and had such enormous tails that they had to be cut
off to enable them to walk. Ctesias goes on to describe the large cocks
of India, with their beautiful combs, and broad tails of gold,
dark-blue, and emerald; the peacocks, the many-coloured birds with red
faces, dark-blue necks, and black beards, which had a human tongue, and
could speak Indian, and would speak Greek if they were taught; the
little apes with tails four cubits long.[25] He was the first to
describe the elephant to the Greeks.[26] He had seen these animals, and
had been present in Babylon when the elephants of the Persian king had
torn up palm trees with their roots out of the ground. These animals
could even throw down the walls of cities. In war the king of India was
preceded by 100,000 elephants, and 3000 of the strongest and bravest
followed him.[27]
After the army of Alexander of Macedon had encamped in the Panjab, the
Greeks could give more accurate accounts of India. Megasthenes assures
us that India reached in breadth, from west to east, an extent of from
15,000 to 16,000 stades (1940 to 2000 miles), while the length, from
north to south, was 22,000 stades (2750 miles);[28] and in these
distances he is not very greatly in error, for, measured in a direct
line, the breadth is 13,600 stades (1720 miles), and the length 16,400
stades (2050 miles). To the north India was bounded by lofty mountains,
which the Greeks called Caucasus, and the Indians Paropamisos
(Paropanishadha[29]), and Emodos, or Imaos. Emodos, like Imaos,
is the Greek form of the old Indian name for the Himalayas, Haimavata
(Himavat).[30] In India there were many great mountains, but
still greater plains; and even the mountains were covered with
fruit-trees, and contained in their bowels precious stones of various
kinds--crystals, carbuncles, and others. Gold also and silver, metals
and salt, could be obtained from the mines,[31] and the rivers carried
down gold from the mountains.[32] The streams of India were the largest
and the most numerous in the world. The Indus was larger than the Nile,
and all the rivers of Asia; the Ganges, which took an easterly direction
on reaching the plains, was a great river even at its source, and
reached a width of 100 stades, or 12-1/2 miles. In many places it formed
lakes, so that one bank could not be seen from the other, and its depth
reached 20 fathoms.[33] The first statement is exaggerated, the second
is correct for the lower course of the river. The Indus, according to
Megasthenes, had 15 navigable affluents, and the Ganges 19, the names of
which he could enumerate.[34] In all there were 58 navigable rivers in
India.
This abundance of streams in India the Greeks explained by the fact that
the lands which surrounded the country--Ariana, as the Greeks call
eastern Iran, Bactria, and the land of the Scythians--were higher than
India, so that the waters from them flowed down, and were collected
there.[35] The water was also the cause of the great fertility of India,
which the Greeks unite in extolling. The rivers not only brought down,
as Nearchus observes, soft and good earth into the land from the
hills,[36] but they traversed it in such a manner that, from the
universal irrigation, it was turned into a fruit garden.[37] Onesicritus
tells us that India is better irrigated by its rivers than Egypt by its
canals. The Nile flows straight on through a long and narrow land, and
so is continually passing into a different climate and different air,
while the Indian rivers flow through much larger and broader plains, and
continue long in the same region. Hence they are more nourishing than
the Nile, and the fish are larger than the fish in the Nile;[38] they
also refresh the land better by their moist exhalations.[39] Besides,
there were the inundations caused by the rivers; and the land was also
watered by the heavy rains, which fell constantly each year at a fixed
period with the regular winds, so that the rivers rose fully 20 cubits
above their beds,--a statement quite accurate,--and in many places the
plains were changed into marshes,[40] in consequence of which the Indus
had sometimes taken a new channel through them.[41] Since, then, the
warmth of the sun was the same in India as in Arabia and Ethiopia,--for
India lay far to the south, and in the most southern parts of the land
the constellation of the Bear was seen no longer, and the shadows fell
in the other direction, i.e. to the south,--[42]while in India there was
more water and a moister atmosphere than in those other countries, the
creatures of the water, air, and land were much larger and stronger in
India than anywhere else.[43] Further, as the water in the river and
that which fell from heaven was tempered by the sun's heat, the growth
of the roots and plants was extraordinarily vigorous. The strength of
the tiger, which, according to Megasthenes, is twice the size of the
lion, the docility of the elephant, the splendour of the birds, were the
admiration of the Greeks. With horror they saw the whale for the first
time in the Indian waters. Nearchus caused his ship to be rowed forward
at double speed to contend with this peaceful monster of the deep.
According to the statement of Megasthenes--which for the land of the
Ganges is quite correct--there are two harvests in India. For the winter
sowing rice and barley were used, and other kinds of fruit unknown to
the Greeks; for the summer sowing, sesame, rice, and bosmoron; while
during the rainy season flax and millet were planted, so that in India
want and famine were unknown.[44] Equally luxuriant in growth were the
herbs and reeds. There was a reed there which produced honey without
bees (the sugar-cane); and in Southern India cinnamon, nard, and the
rest of the spices grew as well as in Arabia and Ethiopia.[45] The
Greeks did not know that the cinnamon is a native of India only, and
that the bark came to them from that country, though it came through
Arabia. The marshes of India were filled with roots, wholesome or
deadly; the trees there grew to a larger size than elsewhere; some were
so tall that an arrow could not be shot over them, and the leaves were
as large as shields. There were other trees there of which the trunks
could not be spanned by five men, and the branches, as though bent, grew
downwards till they touched the earth, and then, springing up anew,
formed fresh trunks, to send out other arches, so that from one tree
was formed a grove, not unlike a tent supported by many poles. Fifty or
even 400 horsemen could take their mid-day rest under such a tree.
Nearchus even goes so far as to say that there were trees of this kind
under which there was room for 10,000 men.[46] There were also trees in
India which produced intoxicating fruits. This description of the Indian
fig tree and the statements about the shelter its branches afford are
not exaggerated. By intoxicating fruits the coco and fan-palms are, no
doubt, meant, from which palm-wine is made.[47]
The northern, _i.e._ the light-coloured, Indians, or Aryas, are said by
the Greeks of this period to have most closely resembled the Egyptians
in the colour of their skin and their shape. They were light, delicate,
and slim of body, and not so heavy as other nations. They were free from
diseases, for their climate was healthy, and their land possessed good
air, pure water, and wholesome fruits. The southern Indians, _i.e._ the
non-Aryan population, who were at that time far less broken up in the
Deccan by Aryan and other settlers than now, and must therefore have
existed in far greater masses, were not quite so black as the Ethiopians
(the negroes), and had not, like them, a snub nose and woolly hair.
Strabo was of opinion that their colour was not so black owing to the
moist air of India, which also caused the hair of the inhabitants to be
straight.[48] Of the 200 millions, at which the population of India is
now estimated, more then 150 millions either spring from the Aryas or
have adopted their civilisation. The number of the dark-coloured races,
dwelling in the mountains and broad marshes, who have remained free from
the dominion of the Aryas, the Mohammedans, and the English, and are,
therefore, strangers to their civilisation, is estimated at 12
millions.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Whitney, "Language," p. 327; Benfey, "Geschichte der
Sprachwissenchaft," s. 598.
[2] "Rigveda," 1, 59, 2; 7, 5, 6; 10, 69, 6. Cf. Manu, 10, 45. That in
the Rigveda the Dasyus are always enemies, and even evil spirits, is
beyond a doubt, and cannot excite any wonder when we remember how the
Indians confound the natural and supernatural; Muir, "Sanskrit Texts,"
2^2, 358 ff. On the original meaning of the word Dasyu, and its
signification in the Mahabharata, cf. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 633.
[3] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 110, 113.
[4] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 440.
[5] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 461.
[6] According to Whitney ("Language," p. 327), the language of the Kolas
and Santals is quite distinct from the Dravidian languages. Lassen's
view on the relation of the Vindhya tribes to the Dravida and the
Nishada is given, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 456.
[7] The Ganges (Ganga) is mentioned only twice in the Rigveda, and then
without any emphasis or epithet; "Rigveda," 10, 75, 5; 64, 9. This book
is of later origin; Roth, "Zur Literatur und Geschichte des Veda," s.
127, 136, 137, 139.
[8] This name, it is true, may also have arisen from the fact that the
Indians turned to the east when praying.
[9] The root _syand_ means "to flow."
[10] Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3; "Anab." 4, 25.
[11] 1 Kings ix. 26-28; x. 11, 12, 22.
[12] Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 651 ff.; 2^2, 595 ff.
[13] Arrian, "Ind." 1, 3.
[14] Steph. _sub. voc._
[15] Herod. 3, 94, 105; 4, 44.
[16] Herod. 3, 102 ff.
[17] "Mahavança," ed. Turnour, p. 47.
[18] Herod. 7, 66, 70.
[19] Herod. 3, 101.
[20] Herod. 3, 94; 4, 44.
[21] Herod. 3, 96, 98 ff.
[22] Ctes. "Ecl." 1.
[23] "Ecl." 1, 8.
[24] "Ecl." 6.
[25] Ctes. "Ecl." 3; Aelian, 16, 2.
[26] Herodotus only makes a passing mention of the elephant in Libya, 4,
191.
[27] Ælian 17, 29. Arrian also ("Anab." 4, 14) maintains that the Indus
is 100 stades in breadth, and even broader; Megasthenes also relates
that the elephants tore down walls, and that the bamboo was a fathom in
thickness. Strabo, p. 711. That Ctesias followed Persian-Bactrian
accounts is clear from the fact that the scene of all his history is the
north-west of India. He knows that India is a civilised land, though he
also believes that it obeys only one king; he knows the veneration of
the Indians for their kings, their contempt of death, and some products
of Indian industry. The fabulous stories of the Pygmæans, Dog-heads,
Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet, and Macrobii he did not invent, but copied.
Similar marvels of men with dogs' heads, and without a head, and of
unicorns, are narrated by Herodotus, only he ascribes these stories to
the western Ethiopians, not to the eastern (4, 191). Homer had already
sung of the Pygmæans ("Il." 3, 6). Hecatæus had spoken of the
Shovel-eared and Shadow-feet (fragm. 265, 266, ed. Klausen), and also
Aristophanes ("Aves," 1553). Of the griffins, the one-eyed Arimaspians,
the long-lived, happy Hyperboreans, Aristeas of Proconnesus had told and
Æschylus had sung long before Ctesias (above, III. 232). Megasthenes
repeats the legends of the Pygmæans, Shovel-eared, Shadow-feet,
Dog-heads, and adds accounts of men without mouths, and other marvels.
Ctesias, therefore, had predecessors as well as followers in these
stories. The fantastic world with which the Indians surrounded
themselves, the nicknames and strange peculiarities which they ascribed
to some of the old population and to distant nations, reached the
Persians, and through them the Greeks. "Kirata" of small stature in the
Eastern Himalayas, against which Vishnu's bird fights, Çunamukhas
(Dog-heads), "brow-eyed" cannibals, "one-footed" men, who bring as
tribute very swift horses, occur in the Indian epics, and in other
writings. On the divine mountain Meru, according to the Indians, dwell
the Uttara Kuru, _i.e._ the northern Kurus, who live for 10,000 years,
among whom is no heat, where the streams flow in golden beds, and roll
down pearls and precious stones instead of gravel. Lassen, "Ind.
Alterth." 1, 511; 2, 653, 693 ff.; Muir, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 324 ff.
According to the cosmology of the Buddhists, whose Sutras also knew
these Uttara Kuru, Mount Meru is the centre of the world. To the south
of Meru is Yambudvipa, to the north the region of the Uttara Kuru, who
live for 1000 years, while the inhabitants of Yambudvipa only live for
100 years. Burnouf, "Introduction à l'histoire du Bouddhisme," p. 177;
Koppen, "Buddh." p. 233. Ptolemy, obviously following Indian sources,
puts the [Greek: Ottora Korra] to the north of the Imaus, beyond the
highest range, which with the Indians is a spur of the divine mountain
Meru. This land and nation is obviously the garden of Yima and his
elect, whom the myth of Iran places on the divine hill. These are the
long-lived Hyperboreans of the Greeks, who dwell in the remote north
beyond the Rhipaean mountains--one of the old common myths of the Aryan
and Greek branch of the Indo-Germanic stock.
[28] Megasthenes and Eratosthenes in Strabo, pp. 689, 690; Arrian,
"Ind." 3, 8.
[29] Lassen explains Paropamisus as Paropa-nishadha, "lower mountain,"
in opposition to Nishadha, "high mountain," by which the high ridge of
the Hindu Kush is meant, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 27, _n._ 4.
[30] Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," 2^2, 324, 328.
[31] Strabo, pp. 690, 691.
[32] Diod. 2, 35; Strabo, pp. 700, 717.
[33] Megasthenes in Strabo, pp. 690, 702; cf. Arrian, "Ind." 4. Diodorus
allows the upper Ganges a breadth of 30 stades, at Palibothra a breadth
of 32 stades--2, 37; 17, 93.
[34] Arrian, "Ind." 4.
[35] Diod. 2, 37.
[36] Strabo, p. 691.
[37] Diod. 2, 37.
[38] Strabo, p. 695.
[39] Diod. 2, 37.
[40] Strabo, pp. 690, 691.
[41] Aristobulus in Strabo, pp. 692, 693; cf. Curtius, 8, 30, ed.
Mützell.
[42] These statements, which are quite correct, are found in Megasthenes
in Strabo, p. 76; Diod. 2, 35.
[43] Strabo, p. 695; Diod. 2, 35.
[44] Strabo, pp. 690, 693.
[45] Strabo, p. 695.
[46] Strabo, p. 694; Arrian, "Ind." 11.
[47] Strabo, pp. 692, 693. Arrian ("Ind." 7) mentions the Sanskrit name
of the umbrella palm, _tala_, and tells us that the shoots were eaten,
which is also correct.
[48] Arrian, "Ind." 6, 17; Strabo, pp. 96, 690, 696, 701, 706, 709.
CHAPTER II.
THE ARYAS ON THE INDUS.
We have already examined the earliest date at which the kings who
reigned in antiquity in the lower valley of Nile attempted to bring
their actions into everlasting remembrance by pictures and writing. The
oldest inscription preserved there dates from the period immediately
preceding the erection of the great pyramids. The same impulse swayed
the rulers of Babylon and Asshur, of whom we possess monuments reaching
beyond the year 2000 B.C. The Hebrews also began at a very early time to
record the fortunes of their progenitors and their nation. With the
Indians the reverse is the case. Here neither prince nor people show the
least interest in preserving the memory of their actions or fortunes. No
other nation has been so late in recording their traditions, and has
been content to leave them in so fragmentary a condition. For this
reason, fancy is in India more lively, the treasures of poetry are more
rich and inexhaustible. Thus it becomes the object of our investigation,
from the remains of this poetry, and the wrecks of literature, to
ascertain and reconstruct, as far as possible, the history of the
Indians. From the first the want of fixed tradition precludes the
attempt to establish in detail the course of the history of the Aryan
states and their rulers. Our attempts are essentially limited to the
discovery of the stages in the advance of the power of the Aryas in the
regions where they first set foot, to the deciphering of the successive
steps through which their religious views and intellectual culture were
developed. And when we have thus exhumed the buried history of the
Indians, we are assisted in determining its periods by the contact of
the Indians with their western neighbours, the Persian kingdom, and the
Greeks, and by the accounts of western writers on these events.
The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas, whose immigration into the
region of the Indus and settlement there we have been able to fix about
2000 _B.C._, is given in a collection of prayers and hymns of praise,
the Rigveda, _i.e._ "the knowledge of thanksgiving." It is a selection
or collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the priestly
families, of hymns and prayers arising in these families, and sung and
preserved by them. In the ten books which make up this collection, the
poems of the first book are ascribed to minstrels of various families;
in some the minstrel is even named. "This song was made by Dirghatamas,
of the race of Angiras;" "this new hymn was composed by Nodhas, a
descendant of Gautama." Of the other books, each is ascribed to a single
family of priests--to the Gritsamadas, Viçvamitras, Vamadevas, Atris,
Bharadvajas, Vasishthas, and Kanvas. The tenth book contains isolated
pieces which found no place in the earlier books; several of these
pieces bear the stamp of a later origin, as they exhibit a more
complicated ritual, the operation of various classes of priests, and
reflections of an abstract character.[49]
We see, then, that from ancient times there were among the Aryas
families in possession of effectual invocations of the gods, who knew
how to pronounce and sing the prayers at sacrifice, and offer the
sacrifice in due form. We may gather further from the Rigveda that these
families were distinguished by special symbols. The family of Vasishtha
had a coil or knot of hair on the right side,[50] the family of Atri had
three knots, the family of Angiras five locks, while the Bhrigus shaved
their hair.[51] Sung for centuries in these families, in these circles
of minstrels and priests, these poems were thus revised and preserved,
until at length out of the possessions of these schools arose the
collection which we have in the Rigveda. We find frequent mention in the
poems of the invocations of ancient time, of the prayers of the fathers,
and hence what is in itself probable becomes certain--that we have
united in the Rigveda poems of various dates, and invocations divided in
their origin by centuries.
Though the minstrels of the poems of the Rigveda could look back on a
distant past, though they could distinguish the sages of the ancient,
the earlier time, and the present, and the men of old from those of the
later and most recent times,[52] there is yet nothing in these poems to
point to an earlier home, to older habitations, or previous fortunes of
the nation, unless, indeed, we ought to find an indication of life in a
more northern region in the fact that the older poems in the collection
count by winters, and the later by autumns.[53] In any case there is no
remembrance of earlier abodes, and therefore we must conclude that even
the oldest of these poems had been sung long after the immigration. If
the assumption established above, that the immigration took place soon
after 2000 _B.C._, is approximately probable, the extinction of any
memory of earlier abodes and fortunes will hardly allow us to carry back
the origin of the oldest songs of the Veda beyond the sixteenth century
_B.C._
On the other hand, the hymns of the Veda contain conceptions of the
creation and early ages of the world, the outlines of which, like the
conception of the contrast between the men of the old time and the
present, must have been brought by the Aryas into the land of the Indus
from the common possession of the Aryan tribes. The oldest man, the
father and progenitor of the Aryas, is, in the hymns of the Veda, Manu,
the son of Vivasvat, _i.e._ "the illuminating," the sun. Frequent
mention occurs in these poems of the "father Manu," of "our father
Manu," "the paternal path which Manu trod," "the children of Manu," "the
people of Manu." Manu brought the first offering to the gods of light;
with Atharvan and Dadhyanch he kindled the first sacrificial fire; he
has set Agni to give light to all the people, and to summon the gods,
and prayed to him with Bhrigu and Angiras.[54] Five races of men sprung
from Agni--the Yadus, the Turvaças, Druhyus, Anus, and Purus.[55] Beside
Manu stands Yama (_geminus_), like Manu, the son of Vivasvat. In the
hymns of the Rigveda he is the assembler of the people, the king, the
pattern of just dealing. He "has discovered the path which leads from
the deeps to the heights;" he "has removed the darkness," and "made
smooth the path of the godly." He first discovered the resting-place
from which no one drives out those who are there. From the depth of the
earth he first ascended to the heights of heaven; he has had experience
of death, he has entered into heaven, and there gathered round him all
the godly and brave. "He went before us, and found for us a
dwelling-place on a plain, which no one takes from us, whither the
fathers of old time have gone; thither his path guides every child of
earth."[56]
Manu and Yama are not unknown to the mythology of the nations of Iran.
With the Iranians Yama is Yima; his father, according to the laws of the
Bactrian, the language of East Iran, is not Vivasvat, but Vivanghat. The
meaning is of course the same. According to the myths of Iran, Yima is
the sovereign who first established the _cultus_ of fire, and first
tilled the field with the plough. In his reign of 1000 years there was
neither heat nor cold, hunger nor thirst, age nor sickness, hate nor
strife. And when this golden age came to an end, Yima continued to live
an equally happy life in his garden on the mountain of the gods (_i.e._
in heaven), where the sun, moon, and stars shone together, where there
was neither night nor darkness, in everlasting light with the elect. In
the Rigveda the sacrificers of old time, who kindled the fire with Manu,
and offered the first sacrifice,--Angiras, Bhrigu, Atharvan, and their
families,--are half divine creatures, though not quite on an equal with
Manu and Yama. They were ranged with the spirits of light, and shone
like them, though with less brilliancy.[57] In the faith of the Aryas
the good and pious deed confers supernatural power; it makes the body
light, and therefore like the body of the gods. The myths of Iran also
praise certain heroes and sages of old time, who sacrificed first after
Yima.
We can ascertain with exactness the region in which the greater number
of these poems grew up. The Indus is especially the object of praise;
the "seven rivers" are mentioned as the dwelling-place of the Aryas.
This aggregate of seven is made up of the Indus itself and the five
streams which unite and flow into it from the east--the Vitasta, Asikni,
Iravati, Vipaça, Çatadru. The seventh river is the Sarasvati, which is
expressly named "the seven-sistered." The land of the seven rivers is,
as has already been remarked, known to the Iranians. The "_Sapta
sindhava_" of the Rigveda are, no doubt, the _hapta hendu_ of the
Avesta, and in the form Harahvaiti, the Arachotus of the Greeks, we
again find the Sarasvati in the east of the table-land of Iran. As the
Yamuna and the Ganges are only mentioned in passing (p. 11), and the
Vindhya mountains and Narmadas are not mentioned at all, the conclusion
is certain that, at the time when the songs of the Aryas were composed,
the nation was confined to the land of the Panjab, though they may have
already begun to move eastward beyond the valley of the Sarasvati.[58]
We gather from the songs of the Rigveda that the Aryas on the Indus were
not one civic community. They were governed by a number of princes
(_raja_). Some of these ruled on the bank of the Indus, others in the
neighbourhood of the Sarasvati.[59] They sometimes combined; they also
fought not against the Dasyus only, but against each other. They ruled
over villages (_grama_), and fortified walled places (_pura_), of which
overseers are mentioned (_gramani_, _purpati_).[60] We find minstrels
and priests in their retinue. "Glorious songs of praise," says one of
them, "did I frame by my skill for Svanaya, the son of Bavya, who dwells
on the Indus, the unconquerable prince." Other poems in the Veda tell us
that the princes make presents to the minstrels and priests of cows,
chariots, robes, slave-women, and bars of gold. Whatever we may have to
deduct from these statements on the score of poetical exaggeration, they
still show that the court and possessions of the princes cannot have
been utterly insignificant. The descriptions of the ornaments and
weapons of the gods in the Rigveda are without a doubt merely enlarged
copies of the style and habit of the princes. The gods travel in golden
coats of mail, on splendid chariots, yoked with horses; they have
palaces with a thousand pillars and a thousand gates; they linger among
the lights of the sky, like a king among his wives.[61] From these
pictures, by reducing the scale, we may represent to ourselves the life
and customs of the princes in the land of the Indus.
From the numerous invocations for victory and booty, it follows that the
life of the Aryas in the Panjab was disturbed by wars, that raids and
feuds must have been frequent. War-chariots, and infantry,
standard-bearers, bows, spears, swords, axes, and trumpets are
mentioned.[62] We learn that those who fought in chariots were superior
to the foot-soldiers. "There appears like the lustre of a cloud when
the mailed warrior stalks into the heart of the combat. Conquer with an
unscathed body; let the might of thine armour protect thee. With the bow
may we conquer cattle; with the bow may we conquer in the struggle for
the mastery, and in the sharp conflicts. The bow frustrates the desire
of our enemy; with the bow may we conquer all the regions round. The
bow-string approaches close to the bowman's ear, as if to speak to or
embrace a dear friend; strung upon the bow, it twangs like the scream of
a woman, and carries the warrior safely through the battle. Standing on
the chariot, the skilful charioteer directs the horses whithersoever he
wills. Laud the power of the reins, which far behind control the impulse
of the horses. The strong-hoofed steeds, rushing on with the chariots,
utter shrill neighings; trampling the foe with their hoofs, they crush
them, never receding." Again and again are the gods invoked that the
bow-strings of the enemy may be snapped.[63]
The poems of the Veda distinguish the rich from the poor. The
cultivation of the land is practised and recommended. Corn (_dhana_),
barley, beans, and sesame were sown, but the rice of the Ganges valley
is unknown. Channels also are mentioned for leading water on the land.
Healing herbs are not unknown to the poems, nor the person who is
skilled in applying them, the physician. We find in them the desire for
health and a long life,[64] blessed with abundance, with sons and
daughters. Beautiful garments, precious stones, adorned women with four
knots of hair, dancers, wine-houses, and dice are repeatedly mentioned.
Weaving and leather-work are known, and also the crafts of the smith,
the carpenter, the wheelwright, and the shipbuilder.[65]
Among the Aryas of those days more attention must have been given to the
breeding of cattle than to the cultivation of the field. A great number
of similes and metaphors in the hymns of the Veda show that the Aryas
must have lived long with their flocks, and that they stood to them in
relations of the closest familiarity. The daughter is the milkmaid
(_duhitar_), the consort of the prince is even in later poems the
buffalo-cow (_mahishî_), the prince is at times the cow-herd, or
protector of cows (_gôpa_), the assembly of the tribe and the fold which
encloses the cows are called by the same name (_gôshtha_), and the word
expressing a feud (_gavisshthi_) denotes in the first instance the
desire for cows. Similes are taken especially from cows and horses.
Beside cattle and horses, buffaloes, sheep, and goats are mentioned. The
gods are invoked to protect and feed the cows, to increase the herds, to
make the cows full of milk, and satisfy the horses, to lead the herds to
good pastures, and protect them from misfortune on the way. At the
sacrifices parched corn was sprinkled for the horses of the gods.[66]
In regard to the ethical feeling and attitude of the nation, we learn
from the hymns of the Rigveda that it was filled at that time with a
courageous and warlike spirit, with freshness and enjoyment of life.
Liberality and fidelity were highly praised; theft and plunder held in
contempt; faithlessness and lying severely condemned. The friend of the
gods could look forward to horses, chariots, and cows. Beautiful to look
upon, and filled with vigorous strength, he will shine in the assembly
of the people. There is a lively feeling that the gods feel themselves
injured by untruth and falsehood, by neglect and improper offering of
the sacrifice, and the conscience is awake. The gods are earnestly
entreated to forgive the sins of the fathers, and those committed by the
suppliants, in wine, play, or heedlessness, to soften their anger, and
spare the transgressor from punishment or death. If princes and nobles
did not content themselves with one wife, monogamy was nevertheless the
rule, so far as we can see. The beautiful maiden is accounted happy
because she can choose her husband in the nation. Many a one certainly
would be content with the wealth of him who seeks her.
In the beneficent forces and phenomena of nature, which are friendly and
helpful to men, the religious conceptions of the Aryas see the power of
kindly deities; and in all the influences and phenomena which injure the
prosperity and possessions of men they see the rule of evil deities. To
the Aryas light was joy and life, darkness fear and death; the night and
the gloom filled them with alarm, the light cheered them. With gladsome
hearts they greeted the returning glow of morning, the beams of the sun,
which awaken us to life. The obscuring of the sun by dark clouds raised
the apprehension that the heavenly light might be taken from them. In
the heat of the summer the springs and streams were dried up, the
pastures were withered, the herds suffered from want, and therefore the
more fervent were the thanks of the Aryas to the spirits who poured down
fructifying water from heaven, and caused the springs, streams, and
rivers again to flow full in their banks.
The basis of these views the Aryas brought with them into the valley of
the Indus. Their name for the deity of light--_deva_, from _div_, to
shine--is found among the Greek, Italian, Lettish, and Celtic nations
in the forms [Greek: theoi], _dii_, _diewas_, and _dia_; it recurs in
the Zeus (_dyaus_) of the Greeks, and the Jupiter (_dyauspitar_) of the
Romans. The god of the upper air is with the Aryas Varuna, the Uranos of
the Greeks. And these were not the only ideas possessed by the Aryas
before their immigration. When they had broken off from the original
stem of the Indo-European tribes, they must for a time have lived in
union with another branch of the same stem, which inhabited the
table-land of Iran, and only after a long period of union did they
become a nation, and emigrate to the East. The nucleus of the view of
the nature and action of the gods is identical in the Aryas and the
tribes of Iran to such a degree that it can only have grown up in a
common life. In both it lies in the struggle and opposition in which the
spirits of light stand to the spirits of darkness, the spirits who give
water to the spirits who parch up all things--in the contest of good and
evil gods. It is assistance and protection against the evil spirits, the
boon of light and water, which is sought for in the worship of both
nations. The names of the deities of light, which the Indians and the
Iranians serve, are the same. Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Ushas are invoked
on the Indus and Sarasvati as well as on the Hilmend, in Bactria and
Media. Here, as there, the beneficent morning wind which drives away the
clouds of night is called Vayu; the same drink offerings were offered
under the same names in both nations to the good gods. With the Indians
Atharvan lights the sacrificial fire;[67] among the Iranians the fire
priests are called Athravas. The chief of the evil spirits, against
which the good spirits have to contend, is called Veretra among the
Iranians, and Vritra among the Indians; another evil spirit is called
Azhi (_Aji_) in one nation, Ahi in the other. Such was the development
given to the common inheritance from the parent stock, attained while
the Airyas and Aryas lived together; and after the community was broken
up, and the two nations became separated, those views received a
peculiar shape in each. The point in this special development reached by
the Aryas while yet in the Panjab we know from the poems of the Rigveda.
To the Iranians, as to the Aryas, the brightness of fire was a friendly
spirit which gave light in darkness. To it, among both nations, almost
the first place was allotted. By far the greatest number of invocations
in the Rigveda are addressed to this spirit, Agni (_ignis_). When the
darkness of evening came on, the glowing fire scared the beasts of prey
from the encampment of men and the herds, and so far as the flame shone
it drove back the evil spirits of the night.[68] Then the demons were
seen from a distance hovering round the kindled fire, and the changing
outlines of their forms were seen on the skirts of the darkness. Thus in
the Rigveda, the fire-god is a bringer of light, who overpowers the
night with red hues, who drives away the Rakshasas, or evil spirits; he
is the conqueror and slayer of demons, with sharp teeth and keen
weapons, a beautiful youth of mighty power. But the fire of the hearth
also unites the family, and provides them with nourishment. As such Agni
is the gleaming guest of men, the dear friend and companion of men, the
far-seeing house-lord, who dwells in every house, and despises none; a
god, giving food and wealth;[69] the protector, leader, and guide of his
nation. As his power carries the sacrificial gifts to the gods, he is
also the priest of the house; to the sensuous conception of the Aryas
he is the messenger of men to the gods; his gleam leads the eye of the
gods to the sacrifice of men; hence he is himself a priest, the first of
priests, the true offerer of sacrifice, the mediator between heaven and
earth, the lord of all religious duties, the protector and supporter of
the worship. With his far-reaching tongue, the smoke of the kindled fire
of sacrifice, he announces to the gods the gifts offered, the prayers
which accompany the sacrifice, and brings the gods to the place of
offering. Through Agni they consume their food. He is to the gods what
the goblet is to the mouth of men.[70] With a thousand eyes Agni watches
over him who brings him food, _i.e._ wood, and pours fat and clarified
butter into his mouth; he rejects not the gifts of him who possesses
neither cow nor axe, and brings but small pieces of wood; he protects
him from hunger, and sends him all kinds of good; in the battle he
fights among the foremost, and consumes the enemy like dry underwood.
When he yokes to his chariot the red, wind-driven horses, he roars like
a bull; the birds are terror-stricken when his sparks come consuming the
grass; when, like a lion, he blackens the forest with his tongue, and
seizes it with his flames, which sound like the waves of the sea; when
he shears off the hair of the earth, as a man shaves his beard, and
marks his path with blackness. Nothing can withstand the lightning of
the sky, the sounding winds, and Agni; by his power the gods Varuna,
Mitra, and Aryaman are victorious.[71]
In the conception of the Indians Agni was born from the double wood; in
this he lay concealed. They kindled fire by friction. A short staff was
fixed in a round disc of wood, and whirled quickly round till fire was
kindled.[72] This process was the birth of Agni. The disc was compared
to the mother, the staff to the father; the disc was impregnated by
friction, and soon a living creature springs forth from the dry wood. At
the moment of birth this golden-haired child begins to consume his
parents; he grows up in marvellous wise, like the offspring of serpents,
without a mother to give suck. Eagerly he stretches forth his sharp
tongue to the wood of the sacrifices; with gnashing and neighing he
springs up like a horse on high, when the priests sprinkle melted
butter; streaming brightly forth, he rolls up the sacred smoke, and
touches the sky with his hair, uniting with the sun.[73] Yet not on
earth only is Agni born; he is born in the air and the sky by the
lightning; in the lightning he descends to earth, and he is thus the
twice-born. But as the lightning descends in the torrents of the storm,
Agni is also born from the water of the sky, and is thus the
triple-born; he is also named the bull begotten in the bed of water.[74]
"We call on Agni, who gives food, with solemn songs," we are told in a
hymn. "We choose thee as a messenger to the all-knowing; thy rising
gleam shines far into the sky. To thee, rich youth, is every sacrifice
offered; be gracious to us to-day, and for the future. Sacrifice thyself
to the mightiest gods; bring our sacrifice to the gods. Mighty as a
horse, who neighs in the battle, give rich gifts, O Agni, to the
suppliant. Bring thyself to us, O mighty one; shine, most beloved of the
gods; let the winged smoke ascend. Bring thyself to us, thou whom the
gods once gave to man upon the earth. Give us treasures; gladden us.
Come, ascending at once to help us, like Savitar; shine and protect us
from sin by knowledge; make us strong for action and life; destroy our
enemies; protect us, Agni, from the Rakshasas; protect us from the
murderer and cruel bird of prey, and from the enemy who plans our
destruction, thou shining youth. Strike down the enemies who bring no
gifts, who sharpen their arrows against us, thou who art armed with a
gleaming beam as with a club, that our enemies may never rule over us.
No one can approach thy darting, strong, fearful flames; burn the evil
spirits, and every enemy."[75]
If Agni scared away the spirits of the night for the Aryas, they greeted
with the liveliest joy the earliest light, the approach of breaking day,
the first white rays of the dawn, which assured them that the night had
not been victorious over the light, that the daylight was returning.
These rays are for them a beautiful pair of twins, the brothers of
Ushas, the morning glow, the sons of the sky.[76] They are named the two
Açvins, _i.e._ the swift, the horsemen; and also Nasatyas, _i.e._
apparently, the trustworthy, or guileless. Swift spirits, they hasten on
before the dawn. As they pass onward victorious against the spirits of
the night, and each morning assist the earth against the darkness, they
are the helpers and protectors of men. That this conception of the
Açvins springs from the common possession of the parent-stock of the
Indo-Europeans, is proved by the Dioscuri of the Greeks. Dioskouroi
means, "the young sons of the sky," and in the myth of the Greeks they
are the brothers of Helena, _i.e._ of the Bright one, the Light; and if,
in this myth, they live alternately in heaven and in the gloom of the
under-world, this fact is no doubt founded in the idea that the first
beams which break forth from the night belong to the darkness as much as
to the light. In the Rigveda, the Açvins are compared to two swans, two
falcons, two deer, two buffaloes, two watchful hounds. They are invoked
to harness their light cars, drawn by swan-like, falcon-like,
golden-winged horses, to descend and drink the morning offering with
Ushas (the [Greek: Auôs, Eôs] of the Greeks.) They heal the sick, the
blind, the lame, and make the old young again, and strong; they give
wealth and nourishment, they accompany ships over the wide sea, and
protect them. In invocations in the Rigveda to the Açvins, in which the
benefits done by them to the forefathers are extolled and enumerated, we
find: "Açvins, come on your chariot which is yoked with the good horses,
which flies like the falcon, and is swifter than the wind, or the
thoughts of men, on which ye visit the houses of pious men; come to our
dwelling. On the chariot, whose triple wheel hastens through the triple
world (the Indians distinguish the heaven of light, the region of the
atmosphere and the clouds, and the earth as three worlds) approach us.
Make the cows full of milk, and feed our horses, and give us goodly
progeny. Approach in swift, fair-coursing chariots; listen, ye
bounteous, to my prayer; ye Açvins, whom the men of old extol as driving
away want. The falcons, the swift-winged ones, who fly like the vultures
in the sky, may they bring you, ye Nasatyas, like water streaming from
heaven, to the sacrifice. In old days ye gave nourishment to Manu; ye
speedily brought food to Atri in the dark dungeon, and freed him from
his bonds; ye restored light to the blind Kanva, ye bounteous ones, whom
we love to praise. With your onward flying horses ye brought Bhujyu
without harm from the wide pathless sea; for Çayu, when he prayed to
you, ye filled the cow with milk, and gave to Pedu the white horse,
clear-neighing, fearful, who is victorious over enemies, and defeats
them. Even as ye were of old, we invoke you, beautiful-born, to come to
our help; come with the swift flight of the falcons to us, for I summon
you to a sacrifice prepared at the first light of the eternal dawn."[77]
This dawn is in the hymns of the Veda a ruddy cow, a tawny mare, a
beautiful maiden, who is born anew every day, when the Açvins yoke their
chariot.[78] Many are the generations of men that she has seen, yet she
grows not old. Like a maiden robed for the dance, like a daughter
adorned by her mother, as a loving wife approaches her husband, as a
woman rising in beauty from the bath, smiling and trusting to her
irresistible charms, unveils her bosom to the eye of the beholder, so
does Ushas divide the darkness and unveil the wealth hidden therein.
From the far east she travels on her gleaming car, which the ruddy
horses and ruddy cows bring swiftly over thirty Yojanas, and illumines
the world to the uttermost end. She looses the cows (_i.e._ the bright
clouds) from the stall, and causes the birds to fly from their nests;
she awakes the five tribes (p. 30), as an active housewife wakes her
household, and sets each to his work; she passes by no house, but
everywhere kindles the sacrificial fire, and gives breath and life to
all. Occasionally the hymns call upon her to accelerate her awakening,
to linger no longer, to hasten that the sun may not wither her away.[79]
"Come, Ushas," we find in invocations, "descend from the light of the
sky on gracious paths: let the red cows lead thee into the house of the
sacrificer. The light cows bring in the gleaming Ushas; her beams appear
in the east. As bold warriors flash their swords, the ruddy cows press
on; already they are shining clear. The bright beam of Ushas breaks
through the dark veil of black night at the edge of heaven. We are
beyond the darkness. Rise up. The light is there. Thou hast opened the
path for the sun; rise up, awakening glad voices. Listen to our prayer,
O giver of all good; increase our progeny."[80]
The god of the sun was invoked under the names Surya and Savitar
(Savitri), _i.e._ "the impeller." The first name seems to belong
specially to the rising, the second to the sinking, sun. "Already," the
hymn tells us, "the beams raise up Surya, so that all see him. With the
night, the stars retire like thieves before Surya, the all-seeing. His
beams shine clear over the nations, like glowing flames. Before gods and
men thou risest up, Surya. With thy glance thou lookest over the
nations, wanderest through heaven, the broad clouds, measuring the day
and the night. Thy chariot, bright Surya, far-seeing one with the
gleaming hair, seven yellow horses draw. Looking on thee after the
darkness, we invoke thee, the highest light. Banish the pain and fear of
my heart; pale fear we give to the thrushes and parrots. The sun of
Aditi has arisen with all his victorious power;[81] he bows down the
enemy before me."[82] A hymn says to Savitar: "I summon Savitar to
help, who calls all gods and men to their place, when he returns to the
dark heaven. He goes on the ascending path, and on the sinking one;
shining from far, he removes transgression. The god ascends the great
gold-adorned chariot, armed with the golden goad. The yellow horses with
the white feet bring on the light, drawing the golden yoke. With golden
hands Savitar advances between heaven and earth. Golden-handed, Renewer,
rich one, come to us; beat off from us the Rakshasas; come, thou who art
invoked every night on thine old firm paths through the air, which are
free from dust; protect us to-day also."[83] In an evening song to
Savitar we find: "With the swift horses which Savitar unyokes, he brings
even the course of the swift one to a stand: the weaving woman rolls up
her web; the workman stops in the middle of his work; where men dwell,
the glimmer of the house fire is spread here and there; the mother puts
the best piece before the son; he who has gone abroad for gain returns,
and every wanderer yearns for home; the bird seeks the nest, the herd
the stall. From the sky, from the water, and the earth, Savitar caused
gifts to come to us, to bless the suppliant as well as thy friend, the
minstrel, whose words sound far."[84] A third god of light, who seems to
stand in some relation to the sun, especially the setting sun, is
Pushan, _i.e._ "the nourisher." He pastures the cows of the sky, the
bright clouds, and leads them back into the stall; he never loses one;
he is the protector and increaser of cattle; he weaves a garment for the
sheep; he protects the horses; he is also lord and keeper of the path of
heaven and earth; he protects and guides the wanderers in their paths;
he brings the bride to the bridegroom, and leads the souls of the dead
into the other world.[85]
Above the spirits of fire, of the first streaks of light, of the dawn,
and the sun, are those gods of the clear sky, with which we have already
made acquaintance, as belonging partly to the undivided possessions of
the Indo-Europeans, and partly to the undivided possessions of the Aryas
in Iran and on the Indus. Though still enthroned in the highest light
and the highest sky, these spirits are nevertheless, in the minds of the
Aryas, expelled from the central position in their religious conceptions
and worship, by a form which, though it did not spring up in the land of
the Indus, first attained this pre-eminent position among the Aryas
there. With the tribes of Iran, the god of the clear sky, the god of
light, is Mitra, the victorious champion against darkness and demons. It
is he who has overcome Veretra, the prince of the evil ones, the demon
of darkness; as a warrior-god, he is for the Iranians the god of
battles, the giver of victory. The nature of the land of the Panjab was
calculated to give a special development and peculiar traits to the
ancient conception of the struggle of the god of light against the demon
of darkness. There the pastures were parched in the height of summer,
the fields burnt, the springs and streams dried up, until at length,
long awaited and desired, the storms bring the rain. Phenomena of so
violent a nature as the tropical storms were unknown to the Aryas before
they entered this region. The deluge of water in storm and tempest, the
return of the clear sky and sunlight after the dense blackness of the
storm, could not be without influence on the existing conceptions of the
struggle with the spirits. In the heavy black clouds which came before
the storm, the Aryas saw the dark spirits, Vritra and Ahi, who would
change the light of the sky into night, quench the sun, and carry off
the water of the sky. The tempest which preceded the outbreak of the
storm, the lightning which parted the heavy clouds, and caused the rain
to stream down, the returning light of the sun in the sky, these must be
the beneficent saving acts of a victorious god, who rendered vain the
object of the demons, wrested from them the waters they had carried off,
rekindled the light of the sun, sent the waters on the earth, caused
streams and rivers to flow with renewed vigour, and gave fresh life to
the withered pastures and parched fields. These conceptions underlie the
mighty form into which the struggle of the demons grew up among the
Aryas on the Indus, the god of storm and tempest--Indra. The army of the
winds fights at his side, just as the wild army surrounds the storm-god
of the Germans. Indra is a warrior, who bears the spear; heaven and
earth tremble at the sound of his spear. This sound is the thunder, his
good spear is the lightning; with this he smites the black clouds, the
black bodies of the demons which have sucked up the water of the sky;
with it he rekindles the sun.[86] With it he milks the cows, _i.e._ the
clouds; shatters the towers of the demons, _i.e._ the tempests which
gather round the mountain top; and hurls back the demons when they would
ascend heaven.[87] "I will sing of the victories of Indra, which the god
with the spear carried off," so we read in the hymns of the Veda. "On
the mountain he smote Ahi; he poured out the waters, and let the river
flow from the mountains; like calves to cows, so do the waters hasten to
the sea. Like a bull, Indra dashed upon the sacrifice, and drank thrice
of the prepared drink, then he smote the first-born of the evil one.
When thou, Indra, didst smite them, thou didst overcome the craft of the
guileful: thou didst beget the sun, the day, and the dawn. With a mighty
cast Indra smote the dark Vritra, so that he broke his shoulders; like a
tree felled with an axe Ahi sank to the earth. The waters now run over
the corpse of Ahi, and the enemy of Indra sleeps there in the long
darkness."[88] "Thou hast opened the cave of Vritra rich in cattle; the
fetters of the streams thou hast burnt asunder."[89]
On a golden chariot, drawn by horses, yellow or ruddy, cream-coloured or
chestnut, Indra approaches;[90] his skilful driver is Vayu, _i.e._ "the
blowing," the spirit of the morning wind,[91] which, hastening before
the morning glow, frees the nocturnal sky from dark clouds. Indra is
followed by Rudra, _i.e._ the terrible, the spirit of the mighty wind,
the destroying, but also beneficent storm, and the whistling winds, the
swift, strong Maruts, who fight with Indra against the demons. These
are twenty-seven, or thirty-six in number, the sons of Rudra. Their
chariots are drawn by dappled horses; they wear golden helmets, and
greaves, and spears on their shoulders. They dwell in the mountains,
open the path for the sun, break down the branches of the trees like
wild elephants, and when Indra has overpowered Vritra, they tear him to
pieces. To Indra, as to Mitra, horses were sacrificed, and bulls also,
and the libation of soma was offered.[92] Indra is the deity addressed
in the greater part of the poems of the Rigveda. Himself a king, hero,
and conqueror, he is invoked by minstrels to give victory to their
princes. They entreat him "to harness the shrill-neighing,
peacock-tailed pair of cream-coloured horses;" to come into the ranks of
the warriors, like a wild, terrible lion from the mountains; to approach
with sharp spear and knotty club; to give the hosts of the enemy to the
vultures for food. The warriors are urged to follow Indra's victorious
chariot, to vie with Indra: he who does not flinch in the battle will
fight before them; he will strike back the arrows of the enemies. Indra
destroys the towers and fortresses of the enemies; he casts down twenty
kings; he smites the opponents by fifties and sixties of thousands.[93]
The prayer has already been mentioned in which Indra is invoked to give
the Aryas victory against the Dasyus. "Lead us, O Indra," we read in an
invocation of the Samaveda; "let the troop of the Maruts go before the
overpowering, victorious arms of the god. Raise up the weapons, O
wealthy god; raise up the souls of our warriors; strengthen the vigour
of the strong; let the cry of victory rise from the chariots. Be with
us, Indra, when the banners wave; let our arrows be victorious; give our
warriors the supremacy; protect us, ye gods, in the battle. Fear, seize
the hearts of our enemies, and take possession of their limbs."[94]
The old Arian conception of Mitra as the highest god of light, may still
be recognised in the Rigveda; the hymns declare that his stature
transcends the sky, and his glory spreads beyond the earth. He sustains
heaven and earth; with never-closing eyes he looks down on all
creatures. He whom Mitra, the mighty helper, protects, no evil will
touch, from far or from near; he will not be conquered or slain. A
mighty, strong, and wise king, Mitra summons men to activity.[95] Driven
back by the predominance of Indra, the functions of Mitra in the Rigveda
are found amalgamated with those of Varuna, but even in this
amalgamation the nature of light is completely victorious. In the
conception of the Arians light is not only the power that awakens and
gives health and prosperity, it is also the pure and the good, not
merely in the natural, but also in the moral sense, the true, the
honourable, just and faithful. Thus Mitra, removed from immediate
conflict with the evil spirits, is combined with Varuna, the god of the
highest heaven, and the life-giving water which springs from the heaven;
and becomes the guardian of truth, fidelity, justice, and the duties of
men to the gods. The sun is the eye of Mitra and Varuna; they have
placed him in the sky; at their command the sky is bright; they send
down the rain. Even the gods cannot withstand their will. They are the
guardians of the world; they look down on men as on herds of
cattle.[96] The light sees all, illuminates all: hence Mitra and Varuna
know what takes place on earth; the most secret thing escapes them not.
They are angry, terrible deities; they punish those who do not honour
the gods; they avenge falsehood and sin. But to those who serve them,
they forgive their transgressions. Varuna, whose special duty it is to
punish the offences of men, is entreated in the hymns, with the greatest
earnestness, to pardon transgression and sin. In the conception of the
hymns of the Rigveda, he is the highest lord of heaven and earth. In the
waters of heaven he dwells in a golden coat of mail, in his spacious
golden house with a thousand doors. He has shown to the sun his path; he
has excavated their beds for the rivers, and causes them to flow into
the sea; his breath sounds with invigorating force through the breezes.
He knows the way of the winds, and the flight of birds, and the course
of ships on the sea. He knows all things in heaven, on earth, and under
the earth. Even he who would fly further than the sky extends is not
beyond his power. He numbers the glances of the eyes of men; where two
men sit together and converse, king Varuna is a third among them.[97] He
knows the truth and falsehood of men; he knows their thoughts, and
watches them as a herdman his herd. His coils, threefold and sevenfold,
embrace them who speak lies. "May he remain unscathed by them who speak
truth," is the prayer of the invocations. "Was it for an old sin,
Varuna," we read in a prayer, "that thou wishest to destroy thy friend,
who praises thee? Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from
those which we committed with our own bodies. Release Vasishtha, O king,
like a thief who has feasted on stolen oxen; release him like a calf
from the rope. It was not our own doing that led us astray, O Varuna, it
was necessity (or temptation), an intoxicating draught, passion, dice,
thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young; even sleep
brings unrighteousness. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright
god, have I gone wrong: have mercy, almighty, have mercy. I go along
trembling, like a cloud driven before the wind; let not us guilty ones
reap the fruit of our sin. Let me not yet enter into the house of clay,
king Varuna. Protect, O wise god, him who praises thee. Whenever we men,
O Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly host, whenever we break
the law through thoughtlessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy."[98]
The chief offering which the Aryas made to the spirits of the sky, was
of ancient origin; even before they entered the land of the Indus, at
the time when they were one nation with their fellow-tribesmen of
Iran--this libation had been established. It was a drink-offering, the
juice of a mountain plant, the soma, or haoma of the Irans, which they
offered. The expressed sap of this plant, which is the _asclepias acida_
of our botanists, mixed with milk, narcotic and intoxicating, was to the
Arya the strongest, most exhilarating liquor, a drink fit for their
gods. According to the Rigveda, a tamed falcon brought the soma from the
summit of the sky, or from the tops of the mountains, where Varuna had
placed it. The drink of the soma inspires the songs of the poet, heals
the sick, prolongs life, and makes the poor believe themselves rich.
The rites of preparing the soma were already widely developed when the
songs of the Rigveda over the offering were composed. The sacrificial
vessels were washed out with kuça-grass, and with "the sacred word,"
_i.e._ with traditional forms of words. The plants of the
soma--according to the rubrics of later times, they are to be collected
by moonlight on the hills,[99]--were crushed between stones. In the Veda
we are told that the suppliants "squeeze the soma with stones." The
liquor thus obtained was then strained through a sieve, with songs and
incantations. The sieve appears to have been made out of the hairs of a
ram's tail, and the juice is pressed through it with the ten sisters,
_i.e._ with the fingers; "it rushes to the milk as fiercely as the bull
to the cow." The sound of the drops of the golden fluid falling into the
metal vessels is the roaring of the bulls, the neighing of the horses of
Indra, "the hymn of praise, which the song of the minstrel
accompanies."[100] The drink thus prepared was then placed in the
sacrificial vessel, on outspread, delicate grass, over which was laid a
cloth. Then the Açvins, Vayu, the Maruts, Indra were invoked to descend,
to place themselves at the sacrificial cloth, and drink the draught
prepared for them. According to the faith of the Aryas, Indra fights on
the side of the tribe whose soma offering he has drunk, and gives the
victory to them. The invocations to Indra, to the Maruts, and the
Açvins, who were considered mightiest and most influential in inviting
and bringing down the gods to the sacrifice, are preserved in the
Rigveda.
It would be futile to attempt to distinguish in detail the exuberant
abundance of conceptions and pictures which the young and vigorous fancy
of the Indians has embodied in the songs of the Veda. One poetical idea
presses on another; scarcely a single image is retained for any length
of time, so that we not unfrequently receive the impression of a
restless variety, of uncertain effort, of flux and confusion. On the
other hand, it is impossible to deny that in these poems there is a
freshness and vigour of thought, a wide sympathy and moral earnestness.
Beside the most lively conceptions of the phenomena of the heavens, the
formation of clouds and storms; besides deep delight in nature, and a
sensuous view of natural life, we find attempts to form a comprehensive,
exhaustive idea of the nature of God, the beginnings of reflection and
abstraction. If this contrast proves that the poems of the Veda were
divided in their origin by intervals of time, we can hardly be wrong if
we look upon the _naïve_, coarse and sensuous conceptions as the older,
and the attempts at combination and abstraction as of later origin. Yet
the basis of that conception of moral purity, of the just avenging power
of the high deities of light, Mitra and Varuna, cannot be regarded as of
later date, since it occurs also in the Mitra of the Iranians. We can
hardly find a more _naïve_ conception than the view expressed in the
poems of the Veda that the sacrifice not only gives food and drink to
the hungry deities, but also gives them the power to fulfil their
duties. The offering of soma strengthens Indra in the battles which he
has to fight against the evil spirits; it invigorates him for the
struggle against the enemies of the tribe whose offering he drinks. The
god requires strength for the contest; and this, according to the
peculiar view of the Indians, is increased by the offering of soma made
to him. And not only does the offering give strength, it inspires the
god for battle. Just as men sought courage in drinking, so does Indra
drink courage from the sacrificial goblet. If Indra is to give wealth
and blessing, if he is to fight victoriously his ever-recurring struggle
against Vritra and Ahi, to win the fructifying moisture, and contend in
the ranks of the tribe, the "honey-sweet" soma must be prepared for him
without ceasing, he must be invoked to harness his horses, and place
himself at the meal of the sacrifice, and exhilarate himself with the
drink prepared for him; in his exhilaration, victory over the demons is
certain; he will fight invincibly before the ranks of his friends. His
enemies, we are told of Indra, he overcomes in the inspiration of the
soma. "Drink, Indra, of the soma like a wise man, delighting thyself in
the mead; it is good for exhilaration. Come down, Indra, who art truly a
bull, and drink thyself full; drink the most inspiring of drinks. The
intoxicating drink of the rich gives bulls."[101] By the side of
conceptions such as this, the invocation praises the lofty power, the
sublime nature of the gods, in moving images, which attempt, to the
utmost degree, to glorify the power of the god to whom they are
addressed. They elevate him and his power above the other gods, and
concentrate the divine action in the deity to whom the prayer or
thanksgiving is made, at the expense of his divine compeers. The object
was to win by prayer and sacrifice the grace of the deity who was
invoked. In this manner Agni, Surya, Indra, Mitra, and Varuna are
celebrated as the highest deities. Of Indra we are told that none of the
gods is like him; that none can contend with him; that before him, the
thunderer, all worlds tremble. He is the lord of all; the king of the
firm land and flowing water; his power has set up the ancient hills, and
causes the streams to flow; he sustains the earth, the nourisher of all;
he has created the sky, the sun, the dawn; he has fixed the lights of
the sky; should he desire to take up both worlds--the heaven and
earth--it would be but a handful for him. Who of the seers of old has
seen the limits of his power?[102] As we have observed, the form of the
mighty storm-god which grew up in the land of the Indus, had driven back
the ancient forms of Mitra and Varuna, and thus the minstrels found a
strong tendency to unite in the mighty warrior, the thunderer, the sum
total of divine power. But Mitra and Varuna were not forgotten; and as
the warlike life fell into the back-ground, and the impulse to seize the
unity of the divine nature became stronger, these ancient forms were in
their turn more easily idealized, and framed into a higher ethical
conception than was possible with the peculiarly warlike nature of
Indra. In the songs of praise addressed to Varuna, which have been
quoted, it is impossible not to see the effort to concentrate in him as
the highest god the highest divine power.
If in the conception of the gods in the Veda we find besides sensuous
views important ethical elements, and traits transcending sense, we also
find in the worship of the Aryas, in the relation of man to the gods, a
certain simplicity coexisting with sharply defined ethical perception.
Men pray to the gods for protection against the evil spirits, for the
preservation and increase of the herd, for help in sickness, and long
life, for victory in battle. It is allowed that sacrifices are offered
in order to obtain treasures and wealth. Indra is to "give gift for
gift;" he is to send wealth "so that one may wade therein to the knee."
From this the god will obtain his advantage in turn; if Indra gives
horses, chariots and bulls, sacrifices will be offered without
ceasing.[103] Like flies round a jar of honey, we are told in another
place, do the suppliants sit round the bowl of the offering; as a man
sets his foot in the chariot, so does the host of minstrels longing for
treasure place their confidence in Indra.[104] In a hymn, the minstrel
says to Indra: "If I were the lord of cattle, master of such wealth as
thou art, Indra, then would I assist the minstrel; I would not leave him
in need."[105] But, on the other hand, it is emphatically stated that
Indra rejects the wicked, as a man spurns a toadstool with his
foot;[106] that no evil is concealed from Mitra and Varuna. It is left
to Indra to give to the sacrificer whatever he considers best and most
valuable; he is entreated to instruct the sacrificer, to give him
wisdom, as a father to his child.[107] Stress is laid on the fact that
sacrifice can remove a multitude of sins, and purify him who offers it,
and we saw how earnestly Varuna was invoked to forgive the guilt that
had been incurred.
The _naïve_ conception that the god drank vigour and courage out of the
sacrificial bowl is developed among the Aryas in a very peculiar manner.
From this fact they derived the idea that the sacrifice gave power to
the gods generally to increase their strength; that the gods "grew" by
prayer and sacrifice. Thus we read: "The suppliants, extolling Indra by
their songs of praise, have strengthened him, to slay Ahi. Increase, O
hero Indra, in thy body, praised with piety, and impelled by our
prayers. The hymns whet thy great strength, thy courage, thy power, thy
glorious thunder-club."[108] As it is men who offer sacrifice to the
gods, this conception gives mankind a certain power over the deities;
it lies with them to strengthen the gods by sacrifice and gifts; they
can compel the gods to be helpful to them, if only they understand how
to invoke them rightly. The holy words, _i.e._ the invocations, are, in
the conception of the Veda, "a voyage which leads to heaven." Hence
those who are acquainted with the correct mode of prayer and offering
become magicians, who are in a position to exercise force over the gods.
The idea that man has power to compel the gods is very _naïve_,
childlike, and childish; in its most elementary form it lies at the root
of fetishism. In other nations also great weight is laid on the correct
mode of offering sacrifices, as the essential condition of winning the
grace of the gods; but the conception that a hearing must attend a
sacrifice and prayer correctly made is far more strongly present in the
Indians, than in any other civilised people. Yet the hymns of the Veda
are far above fetishism, which attempts to exercise direct external
compulsion upon the gods. The Indian faith is rather that this effect is
obtained not merely by the custom of sacrifice, but by the intensity of
invocation, by the power of meditation, by elevation of spirit, by the
passionate force of prayer, which will not leave the god till he has
given his blessing. It is inward, not outward compulsion that they would
exercise. Developed in a peculiar direction, this mode of conception is
of deep and decisive importance for the religious and civic views of the
Indians.
The power ascribed to the sacrificial prayers of bringing down the gods
from heaven; the eager desire of every man to invite the gods
effectually to his own sacrifice, in order that he may scorn the
sacrifice of his enemy; the notion that it was possible by the correct
and pleasing invocation to disturb the sacrifice of the enemy and make
it inoperative, had their natural effect. The singers of these prayers,
who knew the strongest forms of invocation, or could "weave" them--the
priests--early obtained a position of importance. It has been already
remarked what rich presents they boast to have received from the
princes. The minstrel Kakshivat tells us that king Svanaya had presented
him with one hundred bars of gold, ten chariots with four horses each, a
hundred bulls and a thousand cows.[109] Other songs advise the princes
to place before them a pious suppliant at the sacrifice, and to reward
him liberally. These suppliants or priests were called _purohita_,
_i.e._ "men placed before." "He dwells happily in his house," we are
told; "to him the earth brings fruit at all times; to that king all
families willingly give way, who is preceded by the suppliant; that king
is protected by the gods, who liberally rewards the suppliant who seeks
food."[110] The invocations which have drawn down the gods and have
obtained an answer to the prayer of the sacrificer, are repeatedly used,
and handed down by the minstrel to his descendants. This explains the
fact that even in the Veda we find these families of minstrels; that
some of the hymns are said to spring from the ancestors of these races,
while others are mentioned as the new compositions of members of these
families; that the supposed ancestors are considered the first and
oldest minstrels and suppliants, and have already become mythical and
half-divine forms, of whom some kindled the first sacrificial fire, and
offered the first sacrifice with Manu, the progenitor of the Aryas.
The hymns of the Veda make frequent mention of the dead. They are
invited to the sacrificial meal; they are said to sit at the fire; to
eat and drink the gifts set before them on the grass. Those who have
attained "life," are entreated to protect the invocations of their
descendants, to ward off the evil spirits, to give wealth to their
descendants. We know from a later period that daily libations were
offered "to the fathers," and special gifts were given at the new moon;
that a banquet of the dead was kept. In Iran also similar honours were
given to the spirits of the dead. Yama, who first experienced death, who
ascended from the depths of the earth to the summit of heaven, has
discovered the path for mortals (p. 31). He dwells with Varuna in the
third heaven, the heaven of light. To him, in this heaven of light, come
the heroes who are slain in battle, the pious who are distinguished by
sacrifices and knowledge, who have trodden the path of virtue, who have
observed justice and have been liberal, _i.e._ all those who have lived
a holy and pure life, and have thus purified their own bodies. In this
body of light they walk in the heaven of Yama. According to the
Mahabharata, the heroes and saints of ancient days shine in heaven in a
light of their own (chapter viii.). In the heaven of Yama is milk,
butter, honey, and soma, the drink of the gods, in large vats.[111] Here
the weak no longer pay tribute to the strong;[112] here those whom death
has separated are again united; here they live with Yama in feasting and
rejoicing. The souls of the wicked, on the other hand, fall into
darkness.[113] According to an old commentary on the Rigveda, the heaven
of Yama is in the South-east, one thousand days journey on horse from
the earth.[114]
The Aryas buried their dead, a custom which was also observed in old
time among the Arians of Iran. A form of words, to be spoken at the
burial, which is preserved among the more recent hymns of the Veda,
shows that even at this period burial was practised. The bow was taken
from the hand of the dead; a sacrifice was offered, in which the widow
of the dead and the wives of the family took part, and during the
ceremony a stone was set up as a symbol between the dead and the living.
"Get thee gone, death, on thy way,"--such is this form of words--"which
lies apart from the way of the gods. Thou seest, thou canst hear what I
say to thee; injure not the children nor the men. I set this wall of
separation (the stone) for those that live, that no one may hasten to
that goal; they must cover death with this rock, and live a hundred
autumns. He comes to a length of years, free from the weakness of age.
The women here, who are wives not widows, glad in their husbands,
advance with sacrificial fat and butter, and without tears; cheerful,
and beautifully adorned, they climb the steps of the altar. Exalt
thyself, O woman, to the world of life. The breath of him, by whom thou
art sitting, is gone; the marriage with him who once took thy hand, and
desired thee, is completed. I take the bow out of the hand of the
dead--the symbol of honour, of courage, of lordship. We here and thou
there, we would with force and vigour drive back every enemy and every
onset. Approach to mother earth; she opens to receive thee kindly; may
she protect thee henceforth from destruction. Open, O earth; be not too
narrow for him; cover him like the mother who folds her son in her
garment. Henceforth thou hast thy house and thy prosperity here; may
Yama procure thee an abode there."[115]
The Arians in Iran gave up the burial of their corpses, and exposed them
on the mountains; the Arians on the Indus burnt them. For some time
burial and cremation went on side by side in the valley of the Indus.
"May the fathers," we are told in an invocation, "have joy in our
offering whether they have undergone cremation or not."[116] In other
prayers Agni is entreated to do no harm to the dead, to make the body
ripe, to carry the "unborn" part into heaven where the righteous keep
festival with the gods; where Yama says: "I will give this home to the
man who comes hither if he is mine."[117] "Warm, O Agni," so we are told
in one of these prayers, "warm with thy glance and thy glow the immortal
part of him; bear it gently away to the world of the righteous. Let him
rejoin the fathers, for he drew near to thee with the libation of
sacrifice. May the Maruts carry thee upwards and bedew thee with rain.
May the wise Pushan (p. 47) lead thee hence, the shepherd of the world,
who never lost one of his flock. Pushan alone knows all those spaces; he
will lead us on a secure path. He will carefully go before as a lamp, a
complete hero, a giver of rich blessing. Enter, therefore, on the old
path on which our fathers have gone. Thou shalt see Varuna and Yama,
the two kings, the drinkers of libations. Go to the fathers; there abide
with Yama in the highest heaven, even as thou well deservest. On the
right path escape the two hounds--the brood of Sarama--of the four eyes.
Then proceed onward to the wise fathers who take delight in happy union
with Yama. Thou wilt find a home among the fathers; prosper among the
people of Yama. Surround him, Yama, with thy protection against the
hounds who watch for thee, the guardians of thy path, and give him
health and painless life. With wide nostrils, eager for men, with
blood-brown hair, Yama's two messengers go round among men. O that they
may again grant us the pleasant breath of life to-day, and that we may
see the sun!"[118] In other invocations of the Rigveda the object of the
prayer is "to reach to the imperishable, unchangeable world, where is
eternal light and splendour; to become immortal, where king Vaivasvata
(Yama) dwells, where is the sanctuary of heaven, where the great waters
flow, where is ambrosia (_amrita_) and peacefulness, joy and delight,
where wishes and desires are fulfilled."[119]
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Max Müller, "Hist. of Sanskrit Liter." p. 481 ff. Kaegi, "Rigveda,"
1, 9 ff.
[50] Roth, "Literatur des Veda," s. 120.
[51] In the later hymns of the Rigveda, Angiras and Bhrigu are combined
with other sages and minstrels of old time into a septad of saints (10,
109, 4), and designated the great saints. They are, beside Bhrigu and
Angiras, Viçvamitra, Vasishtha, Kaçyapa, Atri, Agastya. The eight saints
from whom the eight tribes of the Brahman priests now in existence are
derived are: Jamadagni, Gautama, Bharadvaja, Viçvamitra, Vasishtha,
Kaçyapa, Atri, Agastya. Jamadagni is said to have sprung from Bhrigu;
Gautama and Bharadvaja from Angiras.
[52] Muir, "Sanskrit texts," 3, 117 ff.; 121 ff.
[53] A. Weber, "Ind. Studien," 1. 88.
[54] Muir, "Sanskrit texts," 1^2, 160 ff.
[55] Kuhn in Weber, "Ind. Stud." 1. 202. The Çatapatha-Brahmana (Weber,
"Ind. Stud." 1. 161) tells us that Manu, when washing his hands in the
morning, took a fish in his hands, which said to him--"Spare me, and I
will save thee; a flood will wash away all creatures." The fish grew to
a monstrous size, and Manu brought him to the ocean; and it bid Manu
build a ship, and embark on the ocean. When the flood rose, the fish
swam beside the ship, and Manu attached it by a rope to the horn of the
fish. Thus the ship passed over the northern mountains. And the fish
told Manu that he had saved him, and bade him fasten the ship to a tree.
So Manu went up as the waters sank from the northern hills. The flood
carried away all creatures; Manu alone remained. Eager for posterity,
Manu offered sacrifice, and threw clarified butter, curdled milk, and
whey into the water. After a year a woman rose out of the water, with
clarified butter under her feet. Mitra and Varuna asked her whether she
was their daughter, but she replied that she was the daughter of Manu,
who had begotten her, and she went to Manu and told him that he had
begotten her by the sacrifice which he had thrown into the water. He was
to conduct her to the sacrifice, and he would then receive posterity and
herds. And Manu did so, and lived with her with sacrifice and strict
meditation, and through her began the posterity of Manu. Cf. M. Müller,
"Hist. of Sanskrit Liter." p. 425 ff. The later form of the Indian
legend of the flood is found in an episode of the Maha-bharata. Here the
fish appears to Manu when he is performing some expiatory rites on the
shore of a river. The fish grew so mighty that Manu was compelled to
bring it into the Ganges, and when it became too large for this into the
ocean. When swimming in the ocean the fish announced the flood, and bade
Manu and the seven saints (Rishis) ascend the ship, and take with them
all kinds of seeds. Then the fish drew the ship attached to his horn
through the ocean, and there was no more land to be seen; for several
years all was water and sky. At last the fish drew the ship to the
highest part of the Himavat, and with a smile bade the rishis bind the
ship to this, which to this day bears the name of Naubandhana
(ship-binding). Then the fish revealed himself to the seven saints as
Brahman, and commanded Manu to create all living creatures, gods,
Asuras, and men, and all things movable and immovable; which command
Manu performed. The legend overlooks the fact that the new creation was
unnecessary, as we have already been told that Manu brought seeds of
everything on board ship. The poems of the Rigveda present no trace of
the legend of the flood. It may have arisen in the land of the Ganges,
from the experience of the floods there, unless it is simply borrowed
from external sources. In any case it is of later date; the
Çatapatha-Brahmana is one of the later Brahmanas. Weber, "Ind. Stud." 9,
423; Kuhn, "Beiträge," 4, 288. I cannot follow De Gubernatis, "Letture,"
p. 228, ff, _seqq._
[56] Kaegi, "Rigveda," 2, 58.
[57] On the Bhrigus see A. Weber, "Z. D. M. G." 9, 240. Kuhn,
"Herabkunft," s. 21 ff.
[58] On the Sarayu, which is mentioned, "Rigveda," 4, 30, 14, and 10,
64, 9, cf. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 644.
[59] "Rigveda," 1, 126, 1; 8, 21, 18.
[60] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 451, 456.
[61] "Rigveda," 7, 18, 2; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 455.
[62] "Rigveda," 1, 28, 5; 6, 47, 29.
[63] "Rigveda." 6, 75, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 469, 471.
[64] Roth, "Das lied des Arztes," "Rigveda," 10, 97. "Z. D. M. G." 1871,
645.
[65] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 457, 461, 465.
[66] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 463.
[67] "Rigveda," 10, 21, 5. Above, p. 29.
[68] "Rigveda," 1, 94, 7; 1, 140, 1.
[69] "Samaveda," by Benfey, 2, 7, 2, 1.
[70] "Samaveda," by Benfey, 1, 1, 2, 2; 1, 1, 1, 9.
[71] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 212 ff.
[72] Kuhn, "Herabkunft des Feuers," s. 23 ff., 36 ff., 70 ff.
[73] Kaegi, "Rigveda," 1, 23.
[74] The triple birth is explained differently in the poems of the
Rigveda and in the Brahmanas.
[75] "Rigveda," 1, 36; cf. 1, 27, 58, 76.
[76] _Divo napata_: "Rigveda," 1, 182, 1, 4.
[77] "Rigveda," 1, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, according to Roth's
rendering; cf. Benfey's translation, "Orient," 3, 147 ff.
[78] "Rigveda," 1, 92; 1, 30; 4, 52; 10, 39, 12.
[79] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 193 ff.
[80] "Rigveda," 1, 49; 1, 92; 1, 2, 5; 1, 113, 19 in Benfey's rendering,
"Orient," 1, 404; 2, 257; 3, 155. The three skilful Ribhus, who are
frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, are assistants of the spirits of
light. They assist the gods to liberate the cows, which the spirits of
the night have fastened in the rock-stable, _i.e._ the bright clouds.
[81] The spirits of light are called sons of Aditi, _i.e._ of the
Eternal, Unlimited, Infinite; seven or eight sons are ascribed to her;
Hillebrandt, "Die Göttin Aditi." Originally Aditi meant, in mythology,
merely the non-ending, the imperishable, in opposition to the perishable
world, and the gods are called the sons of immortality because they
cannot die. Darmesteter, "Haurvatat," p. 83.
[82] "Rigveda," 1, 50, according to Sonne's translation in Kuhn, "Z. V.
Spr." 12, 267 ff.; cf. Benfey's rendering, "Orient," 1, 405.
[83] "Rigveda," 1, 35, according to Roth's translation; cf. Benfey,
"Orient," 1, 53.
[84] "Rigveda," 2, 38, according to Roth's translation, "Z. D. M. G."
1870, 306 ff.
[85] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 171 ff. Kaegi, "Rigveda," 2, 43.
[86] Kuhn, "Herabkunft des Feuers," s. 66.
[87] "Rigveda," 1, 51, 5; 2, 12, 12.
[88] "Rigveda," 1, 32, according to Roth's translation; cf. Benfey,
"Orient," 1, 46.
[89] "Rigveda," 1, 11; 1, 121.
[90] Indra is derived by Benfey from _syand_, "to flow," "to drop," in
which case we shall have to refer it to the rain-bringing power of the
god. Others have proposed a derivation from _idh_, _indh_, "to kindle;"
others from _indra_, "blue." In any case, Andra, the corresponding name
in the Rigveda, must not be left out of consideration.
[91] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 144.
[92] Roth, "Zwei Lieder des Rigveda, Z. D. M. G.," 1870, 301 ff. Muir,
_loc. cit._ 5, 147 ff.
[93] "Rigveda," 4, 30; "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 3, 2, 1. 1, 4, 1, 1.
[94] "Samaveda," Benfey, _loc. cit._
[95] "Rigveda," 3, 59, in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 69.
[96] "Rigveda," 1, 115, 1 in Benfey; "Orient," 3, 157; "Rigveda," 6, 51,
2; 7, 61, 1; 7, 63, 4; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 157.
[97] "Atharvaveda," 4, 16, according to M. Müller's translation
"Essays," 1, 40, 41. Cf. Roth, "Atharvaveda," 8. 19.
[98] "Rigveda," 7, 86, 89, according to Müller's rendering, "Essays," 1,
38, 39; cf. Muir's translation, _loc. cit._ 5, 63 ff. [who reads "like
an inflated skin" for "like a cloud," etc.]
[99] Windischmann, "Abh. der Münch. Akademie," 1847, s. 129.
[100] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 2, 2; "Rigveda," 1, 2, 2; 1, 5, 5, and
elsewhere.
[101] "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 4, 1, 1; 5, 2, 4, 1, 15, and elsewhere.
[102] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 98, ff.
[103] "Samaveda," Benfey, 1, 3, 2, 4.
[104] "Samaveda," 2, 8, 2, 6.
[105] "Samaveda," 1, 4, 1, 2; 2, 9, 2, 9.
[106] "Samaveda," 1, 6, 2, 1.
[107] "Rigveda," 1, 32; "Samaveda," 1, 3, 2, 4.
[108] "Rigveda," 5, 31, 10; 1, 63, 2; 2, 20, 8; 1, 54, 8.
[109] "Rigveda," 1, 126, 2, 3.
[110] "Rigveda," 4, 50, 8, 9. Roth, "Z. D. M. G.," 1, 77. Lassen, _loc.
cit._ 1^2, 951.
[111] M. Müller, "Z. D. M. G.," 9, 16. These bright bodies of the
fathers led to the idea that the souls of the fathers had adorned the
heaven with stars, and that they were these stars. "Rigveda," 10, 68,
11.
[112] "Atharvaveda," 3, 29, 3; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 310.
[113] Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 308, 309, 311. In the later portion of the
Rigveda, 10, 15, the old conception of the fathers is already changed.
Three classes of fathers are distinguished, and burning and non-burning
are mentioned side by side.
[114] "Aitareya-Brahmana," 2, 17; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 322.
[115] "Rigveda," 10, 18; according to Roth's rendering, "Z. D. M. G.,"
8, 468 ff.
[116] "Rigveda," 10, 15, 14; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 297.
[117] "Atharvaveda," 18, 2, 37; in Muir, _loc. cit._ 5, 294.
[118] M. Müller, "Die Todtenbestattung der Brahmanen," s. 14 ff.
[119] "Rigveda," 9, 113, 7 ff.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONQUEST OF THE LAND OF THE GANGES.
The life of the Aryas in the Panjab was manly and warlike. From the
songs of the Rigveda we saw how familiar they were with the bow and the
chariot, how frequent were the feuds between the princes, and the
prayers offered to the gods for victory. Such a life could, no doubt,
increase the pleasure in martial achievements, and lead to further
enterprises, even if the plains and pastures of the Panjab had not been
too narrow for the inhabitants. We remember the prayer in which the
war-god was invoked to grant the Arian tribes room against the
black-skins (p. 8). As a fact the Aryas extended their settlements to
the East beyond the Sarasvati; and as on the lower Indus the broad
deserts checked any progress towards the region of the Yamuna and the
Ganges, the advance from the Sarasvati to the Yamuna must have taken
place in the North along the spurs of the Himalayas.
From the hymns of the Rigveda we can ascertain that the Arian tribes
pressed on each other, and that the tribes settled in the East were
pushed forward in that direction by tribes in the West. Ten tribes of
the Panjab, who appear to have occupied the region of the
Iravati,[120]--the Bharatas, Matsyas, Anus, and Druhyus, are specially
mentioned among them--united for a campaign against king Sudas, the son
of Divodasa, the descendant of Pijavana, who ruled over the Tritsus on
the Sarasvati. On the side of the united tribes was the priest
Viçvamitra of the race of the Kuçikas; on the side of the Tritsus the
family of Vasishtha.[121] The Bharatas, Matsyas, Anus, and Druhyus, must
have crossed the Vipaça and the Çatadru in order to attack the Tritsus.
The Rigveda mentions a prayer addressed by Viçvamitra to these two
streams. "Forth from the slopes of the mountains; full of desire, like
horses loosed in the course, like bright-coloured cows to their calves,
Vipaça and Çatadru hasten with their waves. Impelled by Indra, seeking
an outlet to the sea, ye roll onward like warriors in chariots of war:
in united course with swelling waves ye roll into each other, ye clear
ones. Listen joyfully to my pleasant speech, for a moment. O abounding
in waters, halt on your steps to the sea. With strong earnestness,
crying for help, I entreat you, I, the son of Kuçika. Listen to the
minstrel, ye sisters; he has come from far with horse and chariot.
Incline yourselves, that ye may be crossed; your waves, ye streams,
must not reach the axles. When the Bharatas have crossed you, the
mounted host, goaded by Indra, then run on in your renewed course."
After the two rivers were crossed a battle took place. Viçvamitra
uttered the prayer for the Bharatas: "Indra, approach us with manifold
choice help; great hero, be friendly. May he who hates us fall at our
feet; may he whom we hate, be deserted by the breath of life. As the
tree falls beneath the axe, as a man breaks asunder a husk, as a boiling
kettle throws off the foam, so deal thou, O Indra, with them. These sons
of Bharata, O Indra, know the battle. They spur their horses; they carry
the strong bow like an eternal enemy, looking round in the battle."[122]
In spite of the prayer of Viçvamitra the Bharatas and their confederates
were defeated; Sudas was even able to invade their land, to capture and
plunder several places. The song of victory of the Tritsus, which a
minstrel of Sudas may have composed after their success, runs thus: "Two
hundred cows, two chariots with women, allotted as booty to Sudas, I
step round with praises, as the priests step round the place of
sacrifice. To Sudas Indra gave the flourishing race of his enemies, the
vain boasters among men. Even with poor men Indra has done marvellous
deeds; by the weak he has struck down the lion-like. With a needle Indra
has broken spears; all kinds of good things he has given to Sudas. Ten
kings, holding themselves invincible in battle, could not strive against
Sudas, Indra, and Varuna; the song of them who brought food-offerings
was effectual. Where men meet with raised banner in the battle-field,
where evil of every kind happens, where all creatures are afraid, there
have ye, Indra and Varuna, spoken (words of) courage above us, as we
looked upwards. The Tritsus in whose ranks Indra entered went onward
like downward streaming water: their enemies, like hucksters when
dealing, leave all their goods to Sudas. As Sudas laid low twenty-one
enemies in glorious strife, as the sacrificer strews holy grass on the
place of sacrifice, so did Indra the hero pour out the winds. Sixty
hundred of the mounted Anus and Druhyus perished; sixty and six heroes
fell before the righteous Sudas. These are the heroic deeds, all of
which Indra has done. Without delay, Indra destroyed all the fortresses
of the enemy, and divided the goods of the Anus in battle to the
Tritsus. The four horses of Sudas, the coursers worthy of praise, richly
adorned, stamping the ground, will bring race against race to glory. Ye
strong Maruts, be gracious to him as to his father Divodasa, preserve to
him the house of Pijavana, and let the power of the righteous king
continue uninjured." In another song of the Rigveda the glory of this
victory of king Sudas is especially ascribed to Vasishtha and his sons
"in white robes with the knot on the right side" (p. 29). They were seen
surrounded in the battle of the ten kings, then Indra heard Vasishtha's
song of praise, and the Bharatas were broken like the staffs of the
ox-driver. The Vasishthas had brought the mighty Indra from far by their
soma-offering, by the power of their prayer; then had Indra given glory
to the Tritsus, and their tribes had extended.[123]
The extension of the Aryas in the rich plains of the Yamuna and the
Ganges must in the first place have followed the course of the former
river towards the south, and then reached over the land between the two
rivers, until the immigrants arrived further and further to the east on
the banks of the Ganges. We have no historical information about the
facts of these migrations and conquests, of the occupation of the
valleys of the Yamuna, the upper and middle Ganges; we can only
ascertain that the valley of the Yamuna, and the doab of the two rivers
were first occupied and most thickly colonised. It is not till we come
lower down the course of the Ganges, that we find a large number of the
old population in a position of subjection to the Arian settlers.
Lastly, as we learn from the Indian Epos, the Aryas had not merely to
contend against the old population at the time of their settlement; nor
did they merely press upon one another, while those who came last sought
to push forward the early immigrants, as we concluded to be the case
from the hymns quoted from the Rigveda; they also engaged in conflicts
among themselves for the possession of the best land between the Yamuna
and the Ganges. In these struggles the tribes of the immigrants became
amalgamated into large communities or nations, and the successful
leaders found themselves at the head of important states. The conquest
and colonisation of such large regions, the limitation and arrangement
of the new states founded in them, could only be accomplished in a long
space of time. According to the Epos and the Puranas, _i.e._ the very
late and untrustworthy collections of Indian legends and traditions, it
was after a great war among the Aryas in the doab of the Yamuna and
Ganges, in which the family of Pandu obtained the crown of the Bharatas
on the upper Ganges, that the commotion ceased, and the newly founded
states enjoyed a state of peace. In the Rigveda, the Bharatas are to the
west of the Vipaça, in the Epos we find them dwelling on the upper
Ganges; on the Yamuna are settled the nations of the Matsyas, and the
Yadavas; between the upper Yamuna and the Ganges are the Panchalas,
_i.e._ the five tribes; eastward of the Bharatas on the Sarayu, down to
the Ganges, are the Koçalas. Still further to the east and north of the
Ganges are the Videhas; on the Ganges itself are the Kaçis and the
Angas, and to the south of the Ganges the Magadhas.
Are we in a position to fix even approximately the period at which the
settlement of the Aryas in the valley of the Ganges took place, and the
struggles connected with this movement came to an end? The law-book of
the Indians tells us that the world has gone through four ages; the age
of perfection, _Kritayuga_; the age of the three fires of sacrifice,
_i.e._ of the complete observance of all sacred duties, _Tritayuga_; the
age of doubt, _Dvaparayuga_, in which the knowledge of divine things
became obscured; and lastly the age of sin, the present age of the
world, _Kaliyuga_. Between the end of one period and the beginning of
the next there came in each case a period of dimness and twilight. If
this period is reckoned in, the first age lasted 4800 divine years, or
1,728,000 human years; the life of men in this age reached 400 years.
The second age lasted 3600 divine years, or 1,296,000 human years, and
life reached 300 years. The third age lasted 2400 divine years, or
864,000 human years, and men only lived to the age of 200 years. The
present age will last 1200 divine years, or 432,000 human years, and men
will never live beyond the age of 100 years.[124] This scheme is
obviously an invention intended to represent the decline of the better
world and the increase of evil, in proportion to the distance from the
divine origin. In the matter of numbers the Indians are always inclined
to reckon with large figures, and nothing is gained by setting forth the
calculations in greater detail. From the Rigveda it is clear that the
year of the Indians contained 360 days in twelve months of 30 days. In
order to bring this year into accordance with the natural time, a month
of thirty days was inserted in each fifth year as a thirteenth month
although the actual excess in five years only amounted to 26-1/4 days.
Twelve of these cycles of five years were then united into a period of
60 years, _i.e._ 12 x 5, and both the smaller and the larger periods
were called _Yuga_.[125] On this analogy the world-periods were formed.
By multiplying the age of sin by ten we get the whole duration of the
world; the perfect age is four times as long as the age of sin.[126] A
year with the gods is as long as a day with men; hence a divine year
contains 360 years of men, and the world-period, _i.e._ the great
world-year, is completed in 12 cycles each of 1000 divine years, _i.e._
360,000 human years. In the first age, the age of perfection, Yama and
Manu walked and lived on earth with their half-divine companions (p.
30); in the age of the three fires of sacrifice, _i.e._ of the strict
fulfilment of sacred duties, lived Pururavas, who kindled the triple
sacrificial fire,[127] and the great sacrificers or minstrels, the seven
or ten Rishis (p. 29 _n._ 2); the period of darkness and doubt was the
age of the great heroes. With the priests who invented this system of
ages the period of the great heroes was naturally placed lower than that
of the great sacrificers and saints. The historical value attaching to
this scheme lies in the fact that the Epos places the great war of the
Pandus and Kurus in the period of transition between the age of doubt
and the age of evil, in the twilight of the Kaliyuga, and the Puranas in
consequence make the beginning of the reign of the first Pandu over the
Bharatas after the great war, the accession of Parikshit, coincide with
the commencement of the Kaliyuga.[128] Now according to the date of the
Puranas the Kaliyuga begins in the year 3102 B.C. On this calculation
the great movement towards the east and in the east came to an end about
this time.
That the Indians once contented themselves with smaller numbers in
fixing the ages than those which we find in the book of the law and the
Puranas, we may conclude from the statements of the Greek Megasthenes,
who drew up his account at the court of Chandragupta (Sandrakottos) of
Magadha at the end of the fourth century B.C. This author tells us that
in ancient times the Indians were nomads, clothed in the skins of
animals, and eating raw flesh, till Dionysus came to them and taught
them the tillage of the field, the care of vines, and the worship of the
gods. On leaving India he made Spatembas king, who reigned 52 years;
after him his son Budyas reigned for 20 years, who was in turn succeeded
by his son Kradeuas, and so the sceptre descended from father to son;
but if a king died without children the Indians selected the best man to
be king. From Dionysus to Sandrakottos the Indians calculated 153 kings,
and 6402 years. In this period the line had been broken three times; the
second interruption lasted 300 years, the third 120 years.[129] What
particular rite among the Indians caused the Greeks to represent
Dionysus as visiting India and to make him the founder of Indian
civilisation, will become clear further on. Putting this aside, the
account of Megasthenes of the triple break in the series of kings shows
that the system of the four ages was in vogue among the Indians even at
that time. If Megasthenes speaks of a single line of Indian kings ruling
over the whole of India from the very beginning, the reason is obviously
that he transfers to the past the condition in which India was at the
time when he abode on the Ganges. Chandragupta did what had never been
done before; he united under his dominion all the regions of India from
the Panjab to the mouth of the Ganges, from the Himalayas to the
Vindhyas. But the close of this series of kings at which Sandrakottos is
himself placed shows us plainly that the royal line of Megasthenes is no
other than the royal line of Magadha. The Puranas of the Indians also
carry back the line of Magadha to the ancient heroes, and through them
to the progenitors of the nation. Spatembas, with whom the series of
Indian kings commences in Megasthenes, may be the Manu Svayambhuva whom
the cosmogonic systems of the priests had meanwhile placed before Manu
Vaivasvata, the son of Vivasvat. Budyas the successor of Spatembas may
have been the Budha of the Indians who is with them the father of
Pururavas, the kindler of the triple fire of sacrifice: and Pururavas
himself may be concealed under the Kradeuas of the manuscripts, which
is possibly Prareuas, the Grecised form of the Indian name. However this
may be, the statements of Megasthenes present us with far smaller and
more intelligible numbers for the periods of Indian history than those
obtained from Manu's book of the law and the Puranas.[130]
The year in which Chandragupta conquered Palibothra, and so ascended the
throne of Magadha, can be fixed with accuracy from the accounts of
western writers. It was the year 315 B.C. As 6042 years are supposed to
elapse between Spatembas and the accession of Sandrakottos, Spatembas
must have begun to reign over the Indians in the year 6717 B.C. But this
date it is impossible to maintain. In the first place it is impossible
that 153 reigns should have filled up a space of 6400 years. This would
allow each king a reign of 42 years, or of about 38 years if we deduct
600 years for the three interruptions in the series. Moreover, the
Indian lists of kings, at any rate as we now find them in the Epos and
in the Puranas, present a smaller total of kings than 153, whether they
come down to Chandragupta himself, or to his age. From Chandragupta to
Brihadratha, the supposed founder of the race, the lists of the kings of
Magadha give 53 kings according to the lesser total and 64 according to
the larger. If to these lists we add the rulers who unite the kings of
Magadha to the family of Kuru, and those who carry back the family of
Kuru to Manu, we are still able to add no more than 28 or 38 kings
according as we take the shorter or longer lists. Hence in these lists,
instead of 153 kings, we get at most only 100, as reigning before
Chandragupta. The list given in the Vishnu Purana for the kings of the
Koçalas is somewhat longer; it enumerates 116 kings from Manu to
Prasenajit, whose reign fills the interval between 600 and 550 B.C. If
we add 10 or 14 reigns for the period between Prasenajit and the
accession of Chandragupta, the longest of the lists preserved by the
Indians would still only present 130 reigns before the time of
Chandragupta.[131]
It is not clear from the account of Megasthenes, or at any rate from the
excerpts which have come down to us, what was the extent of the period
which elapsed between the last interruption in the list of kings and
Sandrakottos. Hence we are not in a position to ascertain the duration
of the fourth age, or Kaliyuga, as it was fixed among the Indians in his
time; we must therefore have recourse to other proofs in order to
discover whether the year given in the Puranas, 3102 B.C., may be taken
for the commencement of a new period, _i.e._ the post-epic, or historic,
in the valley of the Ganges. The fixed point from which we must start is
the year of the accession of Sandrakottos, a date rendered certain by
the accounts of the Greeks. In the period before this date, the lists of
the Brahmans taken together with the lists of Buddhists carry back the
series of the kings of Magadha, which was the most important kingdom on
the Ganges long before Sandrakottos, with tolerable certainty as far as
the year 803 B.C., _i.e._ to the beginning of the sway of the dynasty
of the Pradyotas over Magadha.[132]
Can we ascend beyond this point? According to the Puranas, the race of
the Barhadrathas had ruled over Magadha before the Pradyotas, from
Somapi to Ripunjaya, the last of the family, and their sway had
continued 1000 years. Of this family the Vayu-Purana enumerates 21
kings, and the Matsya-Purana 32 kings. This domination of a thousand
years is obviously a round, cyclic sum: and both in the Vayu-Purana and
the Matsya-Purana the total of the reigns given for the several rulers
of this dynasty falls below the sum of 1000 years. If we take 25 years,
the highest possible average for each reign, 21 reigns or 525 years will
only bring us to the year 1328 B.C. (803 + 525). At this date, then, the
Barhadrathas may have begun to reign over Magadha. If, on the other
hand, we keep 32 as the number of these kings, and an average of only 15
years is allotted to the several reigns--an average usually correct in
long lists of reigns in the East--we arrive at 1283 B.C. as the date of
the beginning of the reign of the Barhadrathas (803 + 480). To this
date, or near it, we come, if we test the lists of kings supplied by the
Puranas for the series of the kings of the Koçalas and the Bharatas in
the land of the Ganges. The time at which Prasenajit was king of the
Koçalas can be fixed at the first half of the sixth century B.C. (see
below). Before him the Vishnu-Purana gives a series of 23 kings down to
the close of the great war. Twenty-three reigns, allowing an average of
25 years for each, carry us 575 years beyond the commencement of
Prasenajit, _i.e._ up to 1175 B.C. (600 + 575). In the list of the
rulers of Hastinapura, for which throne the great war was waged,
Çatanika appears as the twenty-fourth successor of Parikshit, to whom,
as we found, this throne fell, after the conclusion of the great war. As
Çatanika died about the year 600 B.C. (cf. Book VI. chap, i.), 24 reigns
of 25 years before him would bring us to the year 1200 B.C. as the
beginning of the year of Parikshit. The statement of the Puranas that he
ascended the throne in the year 3102 B.C. and that the Kaliyuga began
with that year cannot therefore be maintained. And this date is
contradicted not only by the results of an examination of the lists of
the kings of Magadha, of the Koçalas and Bharatas, but also by a
statement in the Vishnu-Purana. This tells us that, from the beginning
of the Kaliyuga to the date when the first Nanda ascended the throne of
Magadha, a period of 1015 years elapsed.[133] The accession of this king
we can place with tolerable certainty in the year 403 B.C.; and thus,
even on the evidence of the Vishnu-Purana, the Kaliyuga began in the
year 1418 B.C., and Parikshit ascended the throne of the Bharatas in
that year. It is not impossible, therefore, that the 32 reigns which the
Matsya-Purana gives to the Barhadrathas may have filled up the time from
the year 1418 to the year 803 B.C. (615 years).[134] Before the first
Barhadrathas, Sahadeva, Jarasandha, and Brihadratha are said to have
reigned over Magadha. Hence the foundation of the kingdom of Magadha
would have to be placed, at the earliest, in the year 1480 B.C., and not
earlier; but rather, if we follow the comparison of the parallel reigns
as above, a century later. If the great movement towards the east and in
the east was brought to an end at the accession of Parikshit and the
commencement of the Kaliyuga in the year 1418 B.C., and thus in the
course of the fifteenth or fourteenth century the foundation could be
laid for the kingdom of Magadha, _i.e._ for a great civic community far
to the east, the migration into the regions of the Yamuna and the upper
Ganges must have commenced at the least about the year 1500 B.C. We have
already referred to the fact that the colonisation of such extensive
districts, the foundation and fortification of large kingdoms in them,
which was moreover rendered still more difficult by severe contests
among the immigrants, could not have been the work of a few decades of
years.
If the immigration of the Aryas into the land of the Ganges took place
about 1500 B.C. we should have a point whereby to fix the time at which
the hymns of the Veda were composed, for in them, as has been already
remarked, the Ganges is rarely mentioned. The great number of the hymns
must therefore have received the form in which they were retained and
handed down by the families of minstrels before the year 1500 B.C. The
period of migration brought with it more serious and earnest tasks than
had occupied the Aryas in the Panjab. The struggles against the old
population, the wars of the newly-established states with one another,
claimed the whole power of the emigrants. Hence the duties of the
sacrificial songs or of hymns of thanksgiving were thrown into the
background by the imperative necessities of the moment. Men were
contented with the invocations of the gods which lived in the memory of
the minstrel-families, and had been brought from the ancient home. The
minstrels also, who led the emigrant princes and tribes, naturally gave
their attention to songs of war and victory--songs of which the fragment
preserved from the wars of the Bharatas against the Tritsus is an
example (p. 67). When at length the period of emigration, of settlement,
and struggle was over, with the advent of more peaceful times, the
excitement of the moment gave place to reflection and to the remembrance
of the great deeds of the ancestors. The inspired flights, the pressure
of immediate feeling which had prompted the songs before the battle and
after the victory, were followed by a more peaceful and narrative tone.
Hence grew up a series of songs of the marvels and deeds of the heroes
who had conquered the land in the Yamuna and Ganges, and had founded
states and cities there. As the heroes and events thus celebrated passed
into the background, as the intervening periods became wider, the
greater was the tendency of this mass of song to gather round a few
great names and incidents. The less prominent forms and struggles
disappeared, and in the centuries which followed the strain of
settlement and establishment an artificial culture of this warlike
minstrelsy united the whole recollections of the heroic times into the
narrative of the great war, the Mahabharata.
If we could present to ourselves this Epos of the Indians in the form
which it may have assumed two or three centuries after the close of the
great migrations and struggles, _i.e._ about the eleventh century B.C.,
it would still be a valuable source of historical knowledge. We could
not indeed have taken the occurrences described in it as historical
facts, without criticism, but we should have possessed a tradition of
which the outline would have been approximately correct, and a
description of manners historically true for the period when the poems
arose and were thrown into shape--though untrue for the period depicted
in the poem--after deducting what was due to the idealism of the poet.
Unfortunately, repeated revisions and alterations have almost effaced
the original lines; each new stage of civilisation attained by the
Indians has eagerly sought to infuse its ideas and conceptions into the
national tradition; older and later elements lie side by side often
without any attempt at reconciliation, sometimes in direct opposition.
The original warlike character of the poetry is forced into the
background by the priestly point of view of a later age. In the poems in
their present form there is none of that freshness of feeling and
impression which is so vividly expressed in the prayers of the priests
of the Bharatas, and the songs of the Tritsus; there is no immediate
recollection at work. The effort to comprise all the stories and legends
of the nation into a whole, to bring forward in these poems, as in a
pattern and mirror of virtue, every lesson of religion and morals, and
unite them into one great body of doctrine, has swelled the Indian Epos
into a heavy and enormous mass, an encyclopædia, in which it is not
possible without great labour to discover the connecting links of the
narrative in the endless chaos of interpolations and episodes, the
varying accounts of one and the same event. The Epos has thus become a
tangle in which we cannot discover the original threads. It received its
present form in the last centuries B.C.[135]
In the poem of the great war once waged by the kings of the Aryas on the
Yamuna and the upper Ganges the Tritsus are no longer found on the
Sarasvati or the Yamuna. The enemies at this period are the Matsyas and
the Bharatas, the former on the Yamuna, the latter further to the east
on the upper Ganges. The Tritsus have been forced further to the east,
and have become lost among the Koçalas, who are situated on the Sarayu,
or have taken that name; at any rate, the name of Sudas appears in the
genealogical table of the rulers of the Koçalas, and in the Ramayana, as
in other traditions, Vasishtha, who (or whose family) then gained
victory by his prayers for Sudas, is the wisest priest among the
Koçalas.[136] Hence we may conclude that at a later time the Bharatas
were more fortunate in their advance to the east. The struggle for their
country and throne is the central point in the poem. According to the
Mahabharata the rulers of the Bharatas spring from Manu. With Ila, the
daughter of Manu, Budha the son of the moon, begot the 'pious'
Pururavas, _i.e._ the far-famed. Pururavas is succeeded by Ayus,
Nahusha, and Yayati. From Yayati's elder sons, Anu, Druhyu, Yadu, spring
the Anus, the Drahyus, and the Yadavas,[137] of whom we already have the
two first as confederates of the Bharatas.[138] Yayati was followed on
the throne by his youngest son Puru. Dushyanta, one of the successors of
Puru, married Çakuntala, the daughter of the priest Viçvamitra. To him
she bore Bharata, who reduced all nations, and was lord of the whole
earth. After Bharata, Bhumanyu, Suhotra, Ajamidha, and Samvarana,
occupied the throne of Hastinapura, the chief city of the kingdom on the
upper Ganges.[139] In Samvarana's reign the kingdom was attacked by
droughts, famine, and pestilence; and the king of the Panchalas advanced
with a mighty host, and conquered Samvarana in the battle, who fled with
his wife Tapati, his children and dependants, to the west, and took up
his abode in a forest hut in the neighbourhood of the Indus. There the
Bharatas lived for a long time, protected by the impenetrable country.
Afterwards Samvarana reconquered the glorious city which he had
previously inhabited, and Tapati bore him Kuru, whom the nation chose to
be king. Kuru was succeeded on the throne of Hastinapura by Viduratha,
Anaçvan, Parikshit, Pratiçravas, Pratipa and Çantanu.
The names which the poem places at the head of the genealogical tree of
the rulers of the Bharatas are taken from the Veda. Yayati, like
Pururavas, is commended in the Rigveda as a sacrificer. The name of
Yayati's son, Puru, is borrowed from a name which in the Veda designates
the Bharatas, who in these poems are variously called Purus and
Bharatas.[140] The tribes of the Anus, and the Druhyus, whom the Rigveda
presented to us as confederates of the Bharatas, are in the Epos united
with them by their ancestors. We have become acquainted with Viçvamitra
as a priest and minstrel of the Bharatas, when they crossed the Vipaça
against the Tritsus. In the Epos a descendant of Puru begets Bharata,
_i.e._ the second eponymous hero of the tribe, with the daughter of
Viçvamitra. In order to glorify the position of this priest, and secure
his blessing for the royal race of the Puru-Bharatas, he becomes, in the
Epos, by his daughter, the progenitor of king Bharata, to whom at the
same time is ascribed the dominion over the whole earth. Thus far, it is
obvious, the Epos goes to work upon the names of the tribes, and changes
them into the names of heroes or kings. Apart from any poetical
exaggeration, the wide dominion of the mythical king Bharata is, no
doubt, an anticipation of the predominance to which the Bharatas
attained at a later time on the upper Ganges. At any rate, according to
the Epos, Samvarana, the descendant of Bharata, was compelled to return
once more to the Indus, and there take up his abode for a long time. The
statement that it is the Panchalas who conquer Samvarana is no doubt an
invention based on the attitude of the Panchalas towards the Bharatas in
the great war (p. 88). With Kuru, the successor of Samvarana, it is
obvious that a new dynasty begins to reign over the Bharatas. This is
obviously the first dynasty, whose achievements were widely felt, to
which the Epic poetry could attach itself. Owing to his justice, Kuru is
chosen by the nation of the Bharatas to be their king; this, of itself,
is evidence of a new beginning. But Kuru is also said to be of divine
origin, like Pururavas, the progenitor of his supposed ancestors.
Pururavas is the child of the son of the moon and the daughter of Manu;
Kuru is the child of Samvarana and the sister of Manu, the daughter of
the god of light. Manu was the son of Vivasvat (p. 30); Tapati, the
mother of Kuru, is the daughter of Vivasvat.[141] The name Kurukshetra,
_i.e._ land or kingdom of Kuru, which adheres to the region between the
Drishadvati and the Yamuna, is evidence that the Bharatas, under the
guidance of the kings descended from Kuru, first conquered this region
and settled in it. When they had been there long enough to give to the
country as a lasting name a title derived from their kings, they
extended their settlements from the Yamuna further to the north-east.
Here, on the upper Ganges, Hastinapura became the abode of their kings
of the stock of Kuru, whose name now passed over to the people, so that
the Bharatas, who, in the Veda, are called Purus and Bharatas, are now
called Kurus after their royal family. With the Bharatas, or soon after
them, other Arian tribes advance to the Yamuna; here we meet in the Epos
the tribes which, according to the Rigveda, once fought with the
Bharatas against the Tritsus, the Matsyas, and the Yadavas, the latter
lower down on the Yamuna. Hence we may conclude with tolerable certainty
that the Bharatas, under the guidance of the Kurus, succeeded in driving
further to the east the tribes which had previously emigrated in that
direction--the Tritsus (_i.e._ the Koçalas), Angas, Videhas, and
Magadhas (as they were afterwards called), and that it was the family of
the Kurus who established the first extensive dominion among the Indians
on the upper Ganges. It is the struggles of the tribes, who once in part
united with the Bharatas, and followed them into the valley of Yamuna,
against the kingdom of the Kurus which are described in the Mahabharata.
Çantanu, the descendant of Kuru, had a son Bhishma, so we are told in
this poem. When Çantanu was old he wished to marry a young wife,
Satyavati; but her parents refused their consent, because the sons of
their daughter could not inherit the throne. Then Bhishma vowed never to
marry, and to give up his claim to the throne. Satyavati became the wife
of Çantanu, and bore him two sons. The oldest of these Bhishma placed,
after Çantanu's death, on the throne, and, when he fell in war, he
placed the younger son, Vijitravirya, to whom he married two daughters
of the king of the Kaçis, a people situated on the Ganges (in the
neighbourhood of Varanasi or Benares). But the king died without
children. Anxious that the race of Kuru should not die out, Satyavati
bade the wise priest Vyasa, the son of her love, whom she had borne
before her marriage with Çantanu, raise up children to the two widows of
Vijitravirya. When the first widow saw the holy man approach by the
light of the lamp, with knots in his hair, with flashing eyes, and bushy
brows, she trembled and closed her eyes. The second widow became pale
with fear; and so it befell that the son of the first, Dhritarashtra,
was born blind, and the son of the second, Pandu, was a pale man.
Bhishma took both under his care. He married Dhritarashtra to Gandhari,
the daughter of the king of the Gandharas, on the Indus; for Pandu he
chose the daughter of a prince of the Bodshas, Kunti; and with gold and
precious stones, Bhishma also purchased for him a second wife, Madri,
the sister of the prince of the Madras. As Dhritarashtra was blind,
Bhishma made Pandu king of Hastinapura, and he became a mighty warrior;
under him the kingdom was as powerful as under Bharata. But he loved
hunting even more than war. He went with his wives to the Himalayas in
order to hunt, and there he died at an early age. The blind
Dhritarashtra now reigned over the Bharatas. His wife Gandhari had first
borne him Duryodhana and then ninety-nine sons; but on the same day on
which Duryodhana saw the light Kunti had borne Yudhishthira to Pandu,
and after him Arjuna and Bhima. Madri bore twins to Pandu, Nakula and
Sahadeva. With these five sons Kunti returned to Hastinapura after
Pandu's death. Dhritarashtra received them into the palace, and they
became strong and brave, and showed their power and skill in arms at a
great tournament, which Dhritarashtra caused to be held at Hastinapura.
The martial skill exhibited in this tournament by the sons of Pandu, and
a victory which they obtained against the Panchalas, who had defeated
Duryodhana, induced Dhritarashtra to fix on Yudhishthira as his
successor. But Duryodhana would not allow the throne to be taken from
him. At his instigation Dhritarashtra removed the sons of Pandu from
Hastinapura to Varanavata at the confluence of the Yamuna and the
Ganges. Even here Duryodhana's hatred pursued them; he caused their
house to be set on fire, so that they with difficulty escaped from the
flames. They fled into the wilderness. As they wandered up and down,
they heard that Drupada, the king of the Panchalas, against whom they
had fought for Dhritarashtra, had made proclamation, that whosoever
could bend his great bow and hit the mark, should win his daughter. In
vain did all kings and heroes try their strength on this bow, till
Arjuna came. He strung the bow, hit the mark, and so won the king's
daughter to wife--whom he shared with his four brothers. When the Kurus
discovered that the sons of Pandu were alive and had become the
sons-in-law of the king of the Panchalas, they were afraid, and in order
to avoid a war between the Panchalas and Bharatas, Dhritarashtra divided
his kingdom with the sons of Pandu. As Dhritarashtra's royal abode was
at Hastinapura, on the Ganges, the sons of Pandu founded the city of
Indraprashtha in their portion of the kingdom (it lay to the south-west
of Hastinapura on the Yamuna), conquered the surrounding people, and
amassed great wealth in their new city, so that Yudhishthira offered the
great royal sacrifice. This aroused the envy and anxiety of Duryodhana.
He caused the sons of Pandu to be invited to Hastinapura to a game of
dice. As Çakuni, the brother of his mother Gandhari, was very skilful in
throwing the dice and always won, Duryodhana hoped to be able to gain
back his kingdom from Yudishthira. The sons of Pandu came. Yudishthira
lost his kingdom and his goods, his slaves, himself, and finally he lost
Draupadi. Duryodhana bade the latter, as a slave, sweep the room; and
when she refused, Dushana, one of his brothers, dragged her by her long
black hair. Then the blind Dhritarashtra came, and said that his sons
had done wrong; the Pandus should return into their kingdom and forget
what had happened on this day. When they returned home, Duryodhana
induced his father to allow a second game of dice against the Pandus, as
he and his brothers were not allowed to take up arms against them; the
defeated party was to go into banishment for twelve years. This was
done, and Çakuni, who again threw the dice for Duryodhana, was once more
victorious. For twelve years the Pandus wandered with Draupadi into the
desert, and lived by the chase. In the thirteenth they went in disguise
to Virata the king of the Matsyas, and became his servants. Yudishthira
was his instructor in the game of dice; Arjuna, clothed as a eunuch,
taught dancing and music in the women's apartment; Bhima was cook;
Nakula and Sahadeva were overseers of the horses and cattle; Draupadi
was the queen's maid. When Duryodhana invaded the land of the Matsyas
and lifted their cattle, Arjuna recovered the booty, and in reward, when
the Pandus had made themselves known, he received the king's daughter as
a wife for his son Abhimanyu. On the day after the marriage a
consultation was held how the Pandus could recover their sovereignty, as
the time of exile was now over. An embassy was sent to Hastinapura to
demand the part of the kingdom possessed by the Pandus. Through
Duryodhana's efforts the request was refused. The Pandus and Kurus
prepared for war.
The armies met in the plain of Kurukshetra, in the ancient territory of
the Kuru-Bharatas, between the Drishadvati and the Yamuna. The Bharatas
were led by the aged Bhishma, Çantanu's eldest son, with whom was
associated his grand-nephew Duryodhana, the oldest son of Dhritarashtra
and the bitter foe of his cousins. With the Bharatas were the Çurasenas,
whom we afterwards find on the Yamuna, the Madras, the Koçalas, the
Videhas and the Angas--who were situated on the eastern affluents of the
Ganges, and the northern bank of the river. The Pandus were supported by
the Matsyas, the king of the Panchalas, Drupada, with his young son
Çikhandin, and his people, the Kaçis from the Ganges, and Krishna, a
hero of the Yadavas, with a part of his people; the remainder fought for
the Kurus. In front of the army of the Pandus were seen the five
brothers on their chariots of war, from which waved their standards.
Before the banner of Yudishthira, who stood upon his chariot, slim of
shape, in garments of yellow and gold, with a nose like the flower of
Prachandala, the two drums sounded; beside him was the long-armed Bhima,
holding in his hand his iron club adorned with gold, with dark glance
and knitted brows. The third was the bearer of the great bow, Arjuna,
with an ape on his banner, the steadfast hero of men, who reverenced the
men of old, the destroyer of the troops of the enemy, who banished the
fears of the fearful. Last were seen Nakula who fought with the sword,
and Sahadeva. Opposite them Bhishma's banner waved from his chariot on a
golden palm-stem; it displayed five silver stars. When the armies
approached each other Bhishma cried with a voice of thunder to his
warriors: "To-day the gates of heaven are opened for the brave; go ye
the way which your fathers and ancestors have gone to heaven, by falling
gloriously. Would ye rather end life on a sick-bed in pain? Only in the
field may the Kshatriya (warrior) fall." Then he seized the great
gold-adorned shell and blew for onset. As the sea surges to and fro in a
storm when driven by roaring winds, the armies dashed upon each other;
from afar the ravens screamed and the wolves howled, announcing a great
slaughter, and heaps of carcasses. The heroes fight against the hostile
heroes; rarely do they spring down from their chariots, and scatter the
"heads of the foot soldiers like seed." The princes mutually cover each
other with clouds of arrows; they shoot down the hostile charioteers, so
that the horses rage uncontrolled hither and thither in the battle; if
the elephants are driven against the chariots in order to overthrow
them, the riders shoot them like "peacocks from trees," or they seize
the great swords and hew off their trunks, at the root, close by the
tusks, so that "the harnessed elephants" raise a great roar. In their
turn they tear the warriors from their chariots; they press on
irresistibly through the ranks of the warriors, like streams "leaping
from rock to rock;" they check the advance of the enemy "as rocks beat
back the waves of the sea." Covered with arrows they drop blood, till,
deeply wounded in the head and neck, they fall to the ground, or turn
raging on their own army. When the heroes have shot forth their arrows,
their bows broken, the missiles driven through their coats of mail, so
that the warriors "blossom like rose-trees," they leap down from their
chariots, seize their great painted shields of hide, raise aloft their
war-clubs and rush like buffalo-bulls upon each other. At one time in
attack, at another in defence, they circle round each other, and spy out
a moment to give a deadly blow. If the shields are destroyed and the
clubs broken, they rush like "maddened tigers" to wrestle and fight hand
to hand, till one sinks to earth pouring out blood, like a tree of which
the root has been hewn through.
Thus, for nine days, the contest went on between the two armies. The
army of the Kurus had the advantage; no one ventured to meet the aged
Bhishma. Then Krishna, the driver of Arjuna, advised him to mount the
chariot of Çikhandin, the young son of Drupada, the prince of the
Panchalas, on the following morning and to put on his armour. The aged
Bhishma would not fight against Çikhandin; he held it beneath him to
fight against children. When he saw Arjuna approach him with the ensigns
of Çikhandin, and in his armour, he cried out, "Attack me as you will,
I will not fight with you." Then Arjuna laid the smooth arrows of reed,
furnished with feathers from the heron and points of iron, on the string
of the bow, and covered Bhishma with arrows as a cloud in summer pours
its rain on the mountain. The invincible old man looked up with
astonishment, and cried: "Like a row of swarming bees, arrow hisses
after arrow through the air. As the lightning of Indra travels to earth,
so do these arrows fly. They are not the arrows of Çikhandin. Like
thunder-bolts shattering all they pierce through my mail and shield into
my limbs. Like poisonous snakes darting their tongues in anger, their
arrows bite me and drink my heart's blood. They are not the arrows of
Çikhandin; they are Yama's messengers (p. 63); they bring the death I
have long desired; they are the arrows of Arjuna." Head foremost,
streaming with blood, Bhishma fell from the chariot. Delighted at this
victory, Arjuna cried aloud with a clear lion's cry, and the army of the
Pandus shouted for joy and blew their shells. Duryodhana's warriors were
seized with panic; their tower and defence was gone. Drona, whom the
sons of Pandu had once instructed in the use of arms, now led the army
of the Kurus; and a second time they gained the advantage. Bhima sought
in vain to overcome Drona; then the brother of Draupadi attacked him,
and at Krishna's advice, Yudishthira and Bhima called to Drona that his
son Açvatthaman had fallen. Deceived by this craft, Drona allowed his
arms to drop, and Draupadi's brother smote off his head. After his fall,
the Kurus were led by Karna, the prince of the Angas. He passed as the
son of a waggoner; his real father, the sun-god Surya, appeared to him
in the night, and warned him against Arjuna; he would meet his death.
Glory was sweet to the living, when parents, children, and friends
surrounded him with pride, and kings celebrated his courage; but what
was honour and glory to the withered man who had become ashes?--it was
only the flowers and the chaplets placed on his corpse to adorn it.
Karna answered: He had no friend, no wife nor child; he feared not
death, and would gladly sacrifice his body in the battle; but Arjuna
would not conquer him. On the next morning he prudently besought Çalya,
the prince of the Madyas, to guide his horses, since Krishna, the best
of charioteers, guided the horses of Arjuna. At the instance of
Duryodhana, Çalya undertook to do this, but his heart was angered at the
degrading thought that he was guiding the horses of a waggoner, and he
guided them so that while Karna was fighting against Arjuna, and had
wounded him with his arrows, the chariot sank in a marsh. As Karna
sprang down in order to draw the chariot out, Arjuna, at Krishna's
instigation, shot a deadly arrow into the hero's back. Then one hero of
the Kurus fell after the other. On the eighteenth day of the struggle,
Duryodhana and Bhima met. As two raging elephants goad each other for
the possession of a female elephant, so did these princes meet with
their battle-clubs, whirling round sometimes to the right and sometimes
to the left, each seeking the unprotected part of his opponent, and
brandishing his club in the air. Duryodhana has the advantage. He has
retired before a stroke of Bhima's club, which has thus spent itself on
the ground; seeing the unprotected state of his opponent, he has dealt
him a mighty blow on the breast. Then, on Krishna's advice, Bhima dealt
a blow at Duryodhana's thigh, broke the bone, and the two fell to the
earth. The army of the Pandus shouted for joy, but Duryodhana spoke with
his dying voice: "We have always fought honourably, and, therefore, the
honour remains with us. You have won by craft and dishonour, and
dishonour attends your victory. In honourable fight you would never have
conquered us. In the garments of Çikhandin, Arjuna slew Bhishma when
defenceless. To Drona ye cried in subtlety that his son was dead, and
slew him as he dropped his arms. Karna, Arjuna slew by a shameful blow
from behind; by dishonour Bhima brings me to the ground, for it is said,
'In battle with the club it is dishonourable to strike below the
navel.'" Red with rage, Bhima stepped up to the king-lion who lay
outstretched, with his club beside him, beat in his skull with his foot,
and said: "We have not laid fire to burn our enemies, nor cheated them
in the game, nor outraged their wives; by the strength of our arms alone
we destroy our enemies." On the evening of the eighteenth day of the
battle, all the brothers of Duryodhana, all the princes who fought for
the Kurus, and all the warriors of the Kurus were dead. The victors blew
their shells, called Yudishthira to the king, and obtained as booty
numberless treasures in gold and silver, in precious stones, in cloths,
skins, and slave-women. Then all is sunk in deep slumber. But three
warriors of the army of the Kurus have escaped into the forest;
Açvatthaman, the son of the slain Drona, Kritavarman and Kripa. Sorrow
for his father made rest impossible for Açvatthaman; on the branches of
the fig-tree under which he lay he saw a troop of crows asleep; an owl
softly flew up and slew one crow after the other. Açvatthaman set out
with his companions and penetrated into the camp of the Pandus. First he
slays the brother of Draupadi who had killed his father; then he throws
fire into the camp, and slays the five sons of Draupadi, and all the
Matsyas and Panchalas. Then he hastens to the place where Duryodhana
lies. "Thou art still living," he says to Duryodhana; "listen, then, to
a word which will be pleasing to thine ear: all the Panchalas, all the
Matsyas, all the sons of Draupadi are dead." Only the four brothers, the
sons of Pandu, Krishna and his charioteer, escaped this nocturnal
massacre.
Then the dead were buried on the field of Kurukshetra: the sons of Pandu
knelt before Dhritarashtra, and Vyasa reconciled the old king with the
sons of his step-brother; but Gandhari cursed Krishna, who by his
devices had brought her sons to death. Then the Pandus made their
entrance into Hastinapura, and Yudishthira was consecrated king under
the guidance of Krishna. He treated the old king as a son treats his
father, but the latter could not forget the death of Duryodhana and his
other sons: he went with Gandhari into the jungles on the Ganges, and
with her he perished, when the jungle was set on fire. At Vyasa's
command Yudishthira offered a sacrifice of horses, and then obtained the
dominion over the whole earth. Following the course of the sacrificial
horse (chap. VIII.) Arjuna conquered for him the Magadhas on the south
bank of the Ganges, the Chedis, the Nishadas, the Saindhavas, _i.e._ the
inhabitants of the Indus, and the Gandharas, beyond the Indus.[142]
Afterwards all the conquered kings presented themselves at this
sacrifice of the horse in Hastinapura, and acknowledged Yudishthira as
their lord. He sat on the throne of Hastinapura for 36 years, and then
heard that the curse which Gandhari had pronounced upon Krishna was
fulfilled. At a great festival of the Yadavas the reproach was made
against Açvatthaman that he had basely slain the heroes in their sleep,
after the great battle. Then there arose a strife among the princes of
the Yadavas. They seized their weapons and mutually slaughtered each
other. Distressed at the loss of his people Krishna retired into the
wilderness, and there he was slain by the arrow of a hunter who took him
for an antelope. The death of the hero to whom he owed his victory
filled Yudishthira and his brothers with deep sorrow. On Vyasa's advice
they determined to withdraw with Draupadi into the forest. All her sons
had fallen in the great battle; but the wife of one (Abhimanyu), who was
the daughter of the king of the Matsyas, had borne a son, Parikshit,
after the death of her husband. When he had been consecrated at
Hastinapura, the sons of Pandu went on a pilgrimage to the east, to the
Himalayas, and beyond this to the holy mountain, Meru. Draupadi was the
first to succumb, then Nakula and Sahadeva; last of all Arjuna and Bhima
fell exhausted. Yudishthira climbed on, till Indra met him with his
chariot, and carried him with his body to the imperishable world, the
heaven of the heroes; there he would again behold his brothers and his
wife, when their souls had been freed from the earthly impurity still
adhering to them. For Bhima had trusted too much to his bodily power,
and had eaten too much. Arjuna had loved battle too well, and had been
too harsh against his enemies; Sahadeva was too proud of his wisdom,
Nakula of his beauty; and Draupadi had loved Arjuna too dearly. But
Parikshit reigned in Hastinapura 60 years. He died from the bite of a
snake. Hence his son, Janamejaya, caused all the snakes to be burned in
one great fire of sacrifice. On this occasion he asked Vyasa how the
strife had arisen in old times between the Kurus and the Pandus, for
Vyasa had been a witness: "I would hear from thee, Brahman, the story of
the fortunes of the Kurus and Pandus." So the king concludes. Then Vyasa
bids Vaiçampayana repeat the great poem which he had taught him.
Janamejaya was succeeded by Çatanika, Açvamedhadatta, Asimakrishna, and
Nichakra, in his sway over the Bharatas, Nichakra changed the place of
residence from Hastinapura to Kauçambi lower down the Ganges. And after
Nichakra 24 kings of the race of Pandu reigned over the Bharatas.
No words are needed to point out the absurdity and recent origin of an
arrangement which not only ascribes to Vyasa the reconciliation of the
last Kurus with the Pandus, but also makes him the father of the
progenitors of the two hostile houses of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, and
the author of the great poem. The name Vyasa means collector, arranger;
and if the arranger of the poem is also the father of the ancestors of
the contending tribes, this expression can only mean, that poetry has
invented the whole legend. But a more minute examination limits this
interpretation to a _naïve_ confession on the part of poetry, that she
and not tradition has transferred the origin of the Pandus to the race
of the Kurus, and has represented the progenitors of the hostile races
as brothers.
We can do no more than make hypotheses about the original contents of
the poem on the great war. Against the Kurus, who, at the head of the
Bharatas, maintained their supremacy on the upper course of the Yamuna
and the Ganges, there rises in rebellion a younger race, the Pandus, who
have risen into note among the Panchalas. The sons of Pandu receive in
marriage the daughter of the king of the Panchalas, who are situated to
the south of the Bharatas on the confluence of the Yamuna and the
Ganges; and they are aided by the king of the Matsyas. It is Krishna, a
hero of the Yadavas, to whom the Pandus owe their success in council and
action. The Epos represents the Pandus as growing up in their childhood
in the forest, and afterwards again making their home in the wilderness;
they receive half of the kingdom of the Bharatas, and then lose it; and
in their half they found Indraprastha to the west of Hastinapura on the
Yamuna. From this we may conclude that the supremacy of the Bharatas
established by the Kurus was resisted by the Panchalas and Matsyas and a
part of the Yadavas--the Yadavas fight in the Epos partly for the Kurus
and partly against them--and that a family among these nations,
apparently a family of the Panchalas, succeeded in combining this
resistance and establishing another kingdom, with Indraprastha as a
centre, beside the kingdom of Hastinapura, from which they finally
conquered the Bharatas. This struggle of the Panchalas and Matsyas
against the Bharatas is the nucleus of the Epos. A tradition may lie at
the base of the statement in the poems, that the nations of the East,
the Madras, Koçalas, Videhas and Angas (in north-western Bengal), fight
beside the Kurus against the Panchalas and Matsyas: at any rate it would
be to the interest of the previous settlers on the Ganges to repel the
advance of later immigrants. On the other hand, the Kaçis, in the region
of the later Benares, may have fought against the Bharatas. However this
may be, the race of the Kurus disappeared in a great war, and kings of
the race of Pandu ascended the throne of Hastinapura. If, as we have
assumed, the Bharatas had previously forced the Tritsus from the
Sarasvati to the Yamuna, and from the Yamuna to the upper Ganges, and
from the upper Ganges further east to the Sarayu, they were now, in
turn, not indeed expelled, but over-mastered, by the tribes which had
followed them and settled on the Yamuna. The metropolis of the kingdom
which arose out of these struggles was Hastinapura, the chief city of
the Bharatas; under the rule of the race of Pandu it comprised the
Bharatas and the Panchalas; in the old ritual of consecration we find
the formula: "This is your king, ye Kurus, ye Panchalas."[143]
The original poem no doubt took the part of the Kurus against the
Pandus, of the Bharatas against the Panchalas. In some passages of the
old poem, which have remained intact, Duryodhana, _i.e._ Bad-fighter, is
called Suyodhana, _i.e._ Good-fighter. It is not by their bravery but by
their cunning that the Pandus were victorious. The words of the dying
Duryodhana: "The Pandus have fought with subtlety and shame, and by
shame have obtained the victory," are an invention made from this point
of view. The vengeance which follows close after the victory of the
Pandus, the massacre of their army in the following night, through which
the life of the dying Duryodhana is prolonged; the fulfilment of the
curse which the mother of Duryodhana pronounces upon Krishna and the
Yadavas--at a later time the tribes of the Yadavas disappeared, at any
rate in these regions--all enable us to detect the original form and
object of the poem. It was the lament over the fall of the famous race
of the Kurus, which had founded the oldest kingdom in India, over the
death of Bhishma and his hundred sons, and the narration of the
vengeance which overtook the crime of Krishna and the Pandus.
In any case certain traits which reappear in the Epic poetry of the
Greeks and the Germans--the contest with the bow for Draupadi, the death
of the young hero of half-divine descent by an arrow shot in secret, the
fall of an ancient hero with his hundred sons, the destruction even of
the victors in the great battle--are evidence that old Indo-Germanic
conceptions must have formed the basis of the original poem. Even in
the form in which we now have them they remind us of the grand, mighty,
rude style of the oldest Epic poetry. In other respects also traits of
antiquity are not wanting--the marriage of five brothers with one wife,
the hazard of goods, kingdom, wife, and even personal liberty, on a
single throw of the dice, which is an outcome of the passionate nature
already known to us through the songs of the Vedas. In the songs of the
conquests and struggles on the Yamuna and Ganges, sung by the minstrels
to the princes and nobles of these new states, these elements became
amalgamated with the praises of the deeds achieved by their ancestors at
their first foundation. This is proved by the tone of the poem, which
penetrates even the description of the great war. It was only before
princes who made war and battle their noblest occupation, before
assemblies of a warlike nobility, and in the spirit of such circles,
that songs could be recited, telling of the contests in all knightly
accomplishments--the wooing of the king's daughter by the bow, the
choice of a husband by the princess, who gives her hand to the noblest
knight. Only there could such lively and detailed descriptions of single
contests and battles be given, and the laws of knightly honour and
warfare be extolled with such enthusiasm. These must have penetrated
deeply into the minds of the hearers, when the decision in the great
battle could be brought about by a breach of these laws, and the
destruction of the Yadavas accounted for by a quarrel arising out of a
question of this kind. Even the law-book which bears the name of Manu
places great value on the laws of honourable contest.[144] Hence we may
with certainty assume that the songs of the princes who conquered the
land on the Yamuna and the Ganges, were sung at the courts of their
descendants, at the time when the latter, surrounded by an armed
nobility, ruled on the Ganges. There, after the tumult of the first
period of the settlement had subsided, these songs of the marvels and
achievements of ancient heroes, coloured with mythical conceptions, were
united into a great poem, the original Epos of the great war, and in
this the living heroic song came to an end. In the German Epos, the
Nibelungen, we find a foundation of mythical elements, together with
historical reminiscences of the wars of Dietrich of Bern, overgrown by
the conflicts and destruction of the Burgundians.
At a much later time the Epos of the great war passed from the tradition
of the minstrels into the hands of the priests, by whom it was recorded
and revised from a priestly point of view. Descendants of the Pandus who
had overthrown the ancient famous race of the Kurus, and had gained in
their place the kingdom of Hastinapura, are said to have remained on the
throne for 30 generations in that city, and afterwards at Kauçambi. From
other sources we can establish the fact, that at least in the sixth
century B.C. the sovereignty among the Kuru-Panchalas belonged to kings
who traced their descent from Pandu; and even in the fourth century we
have mention of families of Nakula, and Sahadeva, and among the Eastern
Bharatas, of descendants of Yudhishthira and Arjuna.[145] Hence the
rulers of the tribe of Pandu must have thought it of much importance not
to appear as evil-doers and rebels, and to invent some justification of
their attack on the Kurus, and the throne of Hastinapura. In this way
they would appear both to the Panchalas and the Bharatas as legitimate
princes sprung from noble ancestors, and would share wherever possible
in the ancient glory of the kings of the Bharatas, who were sprung from
the race of Kuru. This end it was attempted to gain by revision and
interpolation; and the views of the priests, which were of later origin,
have no doubt supported the subsequent justification of the usurpation
of the race of the Pandus. The priestly order might think it desirable
to win the favour of the Pandu-kings of Kauçambi. Of this they were
secure if they united the ancestors of the race with the family of the
Kurus, while at the same time they brought the kings of the Bharatas and
Panchalas into connection with priestly views of life by representing
their ancestors as patterns of piety, virtue, and respect for priests.
In the old poem, Bhishma, the descendant of Kuru on the throne of the
Bharatas, perished, at an advanced age, with his son Suyodhana, and his
ninety-nine brothers, in stout conflict against the Pandus, who were at
the head of the Panchalas; but his fall was due to the craft of the
latter. On the other hand, the revision maintains that king Çantanu was
the last legitimate Kuru; that his son Bhishma renounced the throne,
marriage, and children; that Çantanu's younger son died childless; and
represents the Dritarashtras and the Pandus as his illegitimate
descendants. Thus the Pandus are brought into the race of Kuru, and the
claims of the descendants of Dhritarashtra and Pandu are placed on an
equality. It was an old custom among the Indians, not wholly removed by
the law-book of the priests, even in the later form of the regulation,
that if a father remained without a son his brother or some other
relation might raise up a son to him by his wife or widow.[146]
According to the poem, the wife of Çantanu charged her nearest
relation, her natural son, to raise up children to the two childless
widows of her son born in marriage. Agreeably to the tendency of the
revision, this son is a very sacred and wise person; and thus it is
proved that it was within the power of the priests to summon into life
the most famous royal families. But great as the freedom of the revision
is, it does not venture to deny the right of birth of the Kurus.
Dhritarashtra is the older, Pandu is the younger, of the two sons. In
order to clear the younger brother, Dhritarashtra is afflicted with
blindness, because his mother could not endure the sight of the great
Brahman. Even the son of Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana, is allowed to have
the right of birth; it is only maintained that Yudhishthira, Pandu's
elder son, was born on the same day. That this insertion of the Pandus
into the race of the Kurus in the Epic poem was completed in the fourth
century B.C. we can prove.[147] The revision then represents
Dhritarashtra as voluntarily surrendering half his kingdom to the sons
of Pandu, and this is a great help towards their legitimacy. When the
Pandus are resolved on war, Krishna removes Yudhishthira's scruples by
asserting "that even in times gone by it has not always been the eldest
son who has sat on the throne of Hastinapura." These traits are all
tolerably transparent. How weak the position of the Pandus was in the
legend, how little could be told of their ancestors and of Pandu
himself, is shown in the poem by the fact that the want of ancestors can
only be supplemented by inserting the family in the race of the Kurus,
and that no definite achievement of Pandu is mentioned. He is allowed to
die early, and his sons grow up in the forest. So transparent is the
veil thrown over the fact that an unknown family rose to be the leaders
of the Panchalas. The insertion of Dhritarashtra is caused by the
insertion of Pandu. The Indian poetry of the later period is not
troubled by the fact that Bhishma, Çantanu's eldest son, renounces the
throne in order to allow a blind nephew to reign in his place; that even
as a great-uncle he is the mightiest hero of the Kurus, and can only be
slain on the battle-field by treachery.
Thus, rightly or wrongly, the Pandus were brought into the family of the
Kurus. But why should the elder branch make way for the younger? To
explain this circumstance, the blind king, the honourable Dhritarashtra,
_i.e._ "firmly holding to the kingdom," must first fix on Yudhishthira
as his successor, to the exclusion of his own sons, and then, even in
his own lifetime, divide the kingdom with Yudhishthira. Hence the Pandus
could advance claims, and the more fiercely Duryodhana opposed the
surrender of his legitimate right, the more does he lose ground from a
moral standard against the Pandus. His persecutions and villainies
provide the revision with the means to bring the Pandus repeatedly into
banishment, and into the forest, from which in the old poem they had
been brought to stand at the head of the Panchalas. It is Duryodhana who
causes the house of Pandu to be set on fire, who by false play wins
Draupadi from Yudhishthira, and treats her despitefully, and takes from
him the half of the kingdom. On the other hand, the sons of the Pandus,
so far as the lines of the old poem allow, are changed into persecuted
innocents, patterns of piety, virtue, and obedience to the Brahmans. It
is naturally the form of Yudhishthira which undergoes the main change
from these points of view, since he twice succumbs to the passion for
the game. By these interpolations his brother Bhima is fortunately put
in a position to answer the reproach of the dying Duryodhana--that the
Pandus had conquered by treachery and shame--by asserting that they had
not laid fire for their enemies as he had, or cheated them in the game,
or outraged their women.
The revision carries the justification and legitimisation of the Pandus
even beyond the destruction of Duryodhana and the Kurus. Owing to his
blindness the king Dhritarashtra could not be brought into the battle
and slain there. Where the old poem represents the mother of the slain
Kurus as cursing Krishna, the revision interpolates a reconciliation
between the aged Dhritarashtra and the destroyers of his race, a
reconciliation naturally accomplished through the instrumentality of a
Brahman. Hence Yudhishthira is allowed to ascend the throne of
Hastinapura with the consent of the legitimate king, and reign in his
name. Lastly, in order to remove every stain from the Pandus, they are
represented as renouncing the world, and dying on a pious pilgrimage to
the divine mountain.
A second revision of the poem--which, as will become clear below,
cannot, in any case, have been made before the seventh century
B.C.--represents the Pandus as becoming the sons of gods, and thus makes
still easier the task of their justification. It was not by Pandu that
Kunti became the mother of Yudhishthira, Arjuna, and Bhima, but the
first and most just of all rulers she bore to the very god of justice.
Hence his claim to the throne and his righteous life were established
from the first. The second brother, the great warrior Arjuna, owed his
birth to Indra; the third, Bhima, to the strong wind-god, Vayu; the
twin-sons of Madri are then naturally the children of the twins in
heaven, the two Açvins. More serious is the change of Krishna, _i.e._
the black, into the god Vishnu, assumed in a third revision, which was
completed in the course of the fourth century B.C. (Book VI. chap.
viii.). Krishna, after whom the city of Krishnapura on the Yamuna is
said to have been named,[148] belongs to the tribe of the Yadavas, who
were settled on the Yamuna, in the district of Mathura. He is the son of
the cow-herd Nanda and his wife Yaçoda; he is himself a cow-herd, drives
off herds of cows, carries away the clothes of the daughters of the
herdsmen while they are bathing, and engages in many other exploits of a
similar kind. He rebels against the king of Mathura, and slays him. His
crafty and treacherous plans then bring the heroes of the Kurus to
destruction; at length, with his whole nation, he succumbs to the curse
hurled against him by the mother of Duryodhana. Out of this form of the
ancient poem the later revision has made an incarnation of Vishnu, the
beneficent, sustaining god. The child of Vasudeva and Devaki, who bears
all the marks of Vishnu, is no other than Vishnu, who permits himself to
be born from Devaki; he is changed with the child of Yaçoda, which was
born in the same night. But these new points of view are not thoroughly
carried out; the Mahabharata is not consistent about the origin of
Krishna or his divine nature. At one time he is a human warrior, at
another the highest of the gods, and the original position both of
Krishna and the Pandus is still perceptible.[149]
The second great Epic of the Indians--the Ramayana--is essentially
distinguished from the poems of the great war. Here also a legend, or
ancient ballads, may have formed the basis; here, too, it is clear that
a later redaction has changed the hero of the poem into an incarnation
of a god. But the legend is already changed into the fairy tale, of
which the scene is principally the Deccan, the banks of the Godavari,
the island of Lanka (Ceylon) where the Aryas first arrived about the
year 500 B.C. The cast of the poem as a whole is essentially different
from that of the Mahabharata. The old legend may have related the story
of a prince who wins his wife by his power to string the great bow of
her father, and who, when banished from the banks of the Sarayu,
contends in the Himavat, or in the south of the Ganges, against the
giants dwelling there. These giants carried off his wife from the forest
hut, and he is only able to regain her after severe struggles. Rama, the
banished prince, is supposed to be a son of a king of the Koçalas (the
Tritsus of the Rigveda), who had taken up their abode on the Sarayu.
Daçaratha, the father of Rama, had apparently reigned a long time before
the great war; he was descended from Ikshvaku, the son of Manu.
According to the Vishnu-Purana, Daçaratha is the sixtieth king of this
family, the eleventh after Sudas, who repelled the attack of the
Bharatas.[150] In their battle the Tritsus were aided by the priest
Vasishtha, to whom in the poem of Rama the same place is allotted which
in the Mahabharata is first allotted to Viçvamitra and then to Vyasa.
Without regard to the ancient poems and their strongly-marked traits of
great battles and mighty contests, the priests entirely transformed the
legend of Rama from their point of view into the form in which it now
lies before us; and this took place at a period of Indian life, when the
warlike impulse had long given way to peaceful institutions, and the
requirements of the priests had driven out the military code of honour
and martial glory--a time when the weaker sides of the Aryan
disposition, submission and sacrifice, had won the victory over the hard
and masculine qualities of activity and self-assertion. The Ramayana
gives expression to the feeling of calm subjection, virtuous
renunciation, passionless performance of duties, patient obedience,
unbroken reticence. Throughout, prominence is given to the system of
priestly asceticism, of the eremite's life in the forest, of voluntary
suicide. Here we can scarcely find any echoes of that desire of honour,
that jealousy, that lust of battle, and eagerness for revenge, which
occur unmistakably in the Mahabharata; nothing remains of the knightly
pride which scorns to give a blow forbidden by the rules of the battle.
The hero of the Ramayana is a hero of virtue, not of the battle. He
commends without ceasing renunciation and the fulfilment of duties; he
abandons throne and kingdom; he gives up his right out of obedience to
his father, and respect for a promise made by him; his wife leads him
against his will into the desert, because she also knows her duties.
Respect, devotion, and sacrifice in the relation of children to their
parents, of younger brothers to the elder, of the wife to her husband,
of subjects to their lords, are described with great poetical beauty and
power, but often with the weakest sentimentality. The mission of the
hero in his banishment is the defence of the settlements of holy
penitents against the giants. But his battles are no merely human
struggle; he not only strings the bow of Çiva, he breaks it, so that it
sounds like the fall of a mountain or like Indra's thunder. He fights
with the bow of Indra and the arrows of Brahman, and at length even with
the chariot of Indra against the giants. These battles are no less
legendary than are his confederates' against the giants of Lanka, the
vulture Jatayu, the apes and bears, which build him a bridge into that
island. These are all described with an exaggeration and monstrous
unreality into which Indian poetry only strayed after traversing many
stages. We do indeed once hear, even in the Ramayana, of heroes "who
never turned in the battle, and fell struck in front." Even here, in
isolated passages, the old manly independence breaks forth, which,
conscious of its strength, beats down injustice instead of enduring it,
and makes a path for itself, but only in order to place in a still
clearer light a quick compliance, a patient fulfilment of duties, and
thus allow to the latter a greater advantage.
At this day Epic poetry lives in India in full force, just as it left
the hands of the priests. At the close of the Mahabharata we are told:
"What the Brahman is to the rest of mankind, the cow to all quadrupeds,
the ocean to the pool, such is the Mahabharata in comparison with all
other histories." To the readers and hearers of the Mahabharata and
Ramayana the best rewards in this life and the next are promised:
wealth, forgiveness of sins, entrance into heaven. At all festivals and
fairs, at the marriages of the wealthy, episodes from one of the two
poems are recited to the eager crowd of assembled hearers; the audience
accompany the acts and sufferings of the heroes with cries of joy or
signs of sorrow, with laughter or tears. In the village, the Brahman,
sitting beneath a fig-tree, recites the great poems, in the order of the
events no doubt, to the community. The interest of the audience never
flags. If the piece recited touches on happy incidents--on victory,
triumph, happy return home, the marriage or consecration of the heroes,
the village is adorned with crowns as at a festival. The Indians live
with the forms of their Epos; they know the fortunes of these heroes,
and look on them as a pattern or a warning. The priests have fully
realised their intention of setting before the nation in these poems a
mirror of manners and virtue.
FOOTNOTES:
[120] This follows from the fact that the army of the confederates had
to cross the Vipaça and Çatadru in order to reach the Tritsus.
[121] In the Rigveda king Sudas is at once a son of Divodasa and a scion
of the house of the Pijavanas, possibly because Pijavana was the father
or some ancestor of Divodasa. In the Samaveda (2, 5, 1, 5) Divodasa is
called the noble. In the book of Manu (7, 41; 8, 110) Sudasa is the son
of Pijavana. In the genealogy of the kings of the Koçalas, by whom the
Tritsus were destroyed, the Vishnu-Purana mentions in the fiftieth
generation after Ikshvaku, the founder of the race, a king Sudasa, the
son of Sarvakama, grandson of Rituparna. So also the Harivança, and in
the Vishnu-Purana (ed. Wilson, p. 381) Vasishtha is the priest of king
Sudas as well as of Nimi, the son of Ikshvaku. On the other hand the
Vishnu-Purana (p. 454, 455) is aware of a second Sudas, the grandson of
Divodasa, in the race of the moon. Viçvamitra is himself called a
Bharata; we shall see below that the Mahabharata connects Viçvamitra
with the genealogy of the kings of the Bharata. Cp. Roth, "Zur
Literatur," S. 142 ff. [On the names of Indian rivers, see Muir, _loc.
cit._ 2, 345 ff.]
[122] Cf. Muir, _loc. cit._ 1^2, 339, where the hymn is translated.
[123] Roth, "Zur Literatur," S. 87, 91 ff. [Rigveda, 3, 33; 7, 83. Muir,
_loc. cit._ 322, 323.]
[124] Manu, 1, 67 ff. [Muir, 1, 43 ff.]
[125] Weber, "Jyotisham, Abh. d. Berl. Akad." 1862, s. 23 ff. and below.
[126] With similar exaggeration "Duty" tells king Parikshit at the close
of the Mahabharata that her four feet measured 20 yodhanas in the first
age, 16 in the second, 12 in the third, whereas now in the Kaliyuga they
only measure four yodhanas. The whole narrative is intended to point out
that in the Kaliyuga even Çudras could become kings. The Vishnu-Purana
(ed. Wilson, p. 467) calls the first Nanda who ascended the throne of
Magadha in 403 B.C. the son of a Çudra woman.
[127] "Bhagavata-Purana," 9, 14.
[128] Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 1^2, 600.
[129] Arrian, "Ind." 7, 8, 9. Plin. 6, 21, 4. Solin. 52, 5. As to the
numbers, Bunsen, "Ægypt." 5, 156; Von Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 64. The
duration of the first interruption is lost; but it was less than the
second, for Arrian says that the second continued as much as 300 years.
Perhaps the number of the first and third interruptions taken together
are as long as the second. Diodorus (2, 38, 39) allots the 52 years to
Dionysus, which Arrian gives to Spatembas.
[130] That the Kalpa--_i.e._ the great world-period--was a current
conception in the third century B.C. is proved by the inscriptions of
Açoka at Girnar. Lassen, _loc. cit._ 2^2, 238.
[131] Not more than nine names can be given to the dynasty of the
Nandas, which reigned for 88 years before Chandragupta; seventeen for
the dynasty of the Çaiçunagas, even if Kalaçoka's sons are all counted
as independent regents; and five for the Pradyotas. For the Barhadrathas
the Vayu and Vishnu-Puranas give 21 kings after Sahadeva, the
Bhagavata-Purana 20, the Matsya-Purana 32. Hence, taking the highest
figures, the united dynasties number 64 reigns. To these are to be added
the seven names which connect Brihadratha with Kuru, and the 31 or 21
names given in the longer and
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