rences and
allusions
clear enough to the authors.
Cambridge History of India - v1
But it is clear that
even in the Rigveda the use of the plough was increasing in frequency.
We learn of the use of bulls to draw the plough, of the sowing of seed in
the furrows thus made, of the cutting of the corn with the sickle, the
Jaying of it in bundles on the threshing floor, and the threshing and final
sifting by winnowing. Moreover, the use of irrigation seems to be re-
cognised in the mention of channels into which water is led. On the other
hand, the nature of the grain grown is uncertain : it is called yava, which in
the later Samhitās is barley, but it is quite uncertain whether this definite
sense can be assigned to the word in the Rigvedic period.
Hunting seems still to have played a considerable part in the life of
the day. The hunter used both bow and arrow and snares and traps.
There are clear references to the capture of lions in snares, the taking of
antelopes in pits, and the hunting of the boar with dogs. Birds were
captured in nets stretched out on pegs. Possibly the use of tame elephants
to capture other elephants was known, but this is very uncertain, for there
is no clear proof that the elephant had yet been tamed at this early date,
Buffaloes seem to have been shot by arrows, and occasionally a lion might
be surrounded by hunters and shot to death.
There is some evidence that already in this period specialisation in
industry had begun. The worker in wood has clearly the place of honour,
needed as he was to produce the chariots for war and the race, and the carts
for agricultural purposes. He was carpenter, joiner, wheelwright in one; and
;
the fashioning of the chariots is a frequent source of metaphor, the poet
comparing his own skill to that of the wheelwright. Next in importance was
the worker in metal who smelted ore in the furnace, using the wing of a
bird in the place of a bellows to fan the flame. Kettles and other domestic
utensils were made of meta). It is, however, still uncertain what that metal
which is called ayas was. Copper, bronze, and iron alike may have been
meant, and we cannot be certain that the term has the same sense through-
out. Of other workers the tanner's art is alluded to not rarely; and to
1 See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, pp. 282 sq.
## p. 90 (#124) #############################################
90
CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
women are ascrihed sewing, the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds,
and, much more frequently, the weaving of cloth. It is of importance to
note that there is no sign that those who carried on these functions were
in any way regarded as inferior members of the community, as was the
case in later times. This fact is probably to be explained by the growing
number of the servile population which must have steadily increased with
the conquest of the tribes, though we cannot conjecture the motives which
ascribed to inferior tasks which in the Rigvedic time were apparently
honourable and distinguished. Presumably even at this time the slave
population must have been utilised in assisting their masters in their various
tasks, agricultural, industrial, and pastoral; but the Rigveda unquestionably
presents us with a society which is not dependent on such labour, and in
which the ordinary tasks of life are carried out by the free men of the tribel.
This is one of the facts which show the comparative simplicity of the age of
the Rigveda as compared with the next period of Indian history.
Fishing is not directly mentioned ; and the Vedic Indian seems to
have been very little of a navigator. The use of boats, probably dug-outs,
for crossing rivers, was known, but the simplicity of their construction is
adequately shown by the fact that the paddle alone was used for their
propulsion. There is no mention of rudder or anchor, mast or sails, a fact
which incidentally negatives the theory that the Vedic Indians took any
part in ocean shipping.
Of the domestic life of the time we have a few details. The dress
usually worn consisted either of three or of two garments. These were
generally woven from the wool of sheep, though skins were also employed.
Luxury manifested itself in the wearing of variegated garments or clothing
adorned with gold. Ornaments in the shape of necklets, earrings, anklets,
and bracelets were worn by both sexes and were usually made of gold.
The hair was carefully combed and oiled. Women wore it plaited, while
in some cases men wore it in coils : it was a characteristic of the Vasishțhas
to have it coiled on the right. Shaving was not unknown, but beards were
normally worn, and on festive occasions men bore garlands. .
As was natural with a pastoral people, milk formed a considerable
part of the ordinary food, being taken in its natural state or mixed with
grain. Ghee or clarified butter was also much used. Grain was either
parched or ground into flour, and mixed with milk or butter, and made into
cakes. As throughout the history of India, vegetables and fruits formed a
considerable portion of the dietary. But the Vedic Indians, were a nation
of meat-eaters, nor need we believe that they merely ate meat on occasions
The view of Indian civilisation presented by Baden Powell (Indian Village
Community (1896) and Village Communities in India (1899), etc. ) which assumes that
the Āryans were princely conquerors of agricultural aborigines and not themselves
cultivators cannot be reconciled with the Rigveda.
a
1
## p. 91 (#125) #############################################
IV )
INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC LIFE
91
was
>
of sacrifice. Rather, as in the Homeric age, the slaughter of oxen
always in some degree a sacrificial act, and one specially appropriate for the
entertainment of guests, as the second name of the heroic Divodāsa
Atithigva, 'the slayer of oxen for guests, and as the practice of slaying
oxen at the wedding festival abundantly show. The ox, the sheep, and the
goat were the normal food eaten by men and offered to their gods : horse-
flesh was probably eaten only at the horse-sacrifice, and not so much as
ordinary food as with a view to gain the strength and swiftness of the
steed. There is no inconsistency between this eating of flesh and the growing
sanctity of the cow, which bears already in the Rigveda the epithet aghnya,
‘not to be killed. If this interpretation of the term is correct, it is merely
a proof of the high value attached to that useful animal, the source of the
milk which meant so much both for secular and sacred use to the Vedic
Indian. The flesh eaten was either cooked in pots of metal or earthenware
or roasted on spits.
In addition to milk, the Indians had at least two intoxicating drinks.
The first was the Soma, which however, by the time of the Rigveda,
appears almost exclusively as a sacrificial drink. It stands, however, to
reason that the extraordinary preeminence which it acquired for religious
purposes can hardly have been attained except through its original popular
character ; and it is difficult to resist the impression that the Soma was at
first a popular drink in the home whence the Vedic Indians entered India,
and that in India itself they found no plant which precisely coincided with
that whence the Soma had first been produced, and so were compelled to
resort to substitutes or to use the original plant after it had been brought
from a great distance and has thus lost its original flavour. The popular
drink was evidently the surā, which seems to have been distilled from grain.
It was clearly extremely intoxicating, and the priests regarded it with dis-
approval : in one hymn mention is made of men made arrogant by the surā
reviling the gods, while another couples it with anger and dicing as the
cause of sin.
Of the amusements of the Indian first place must clearly be given to
the chariot race, a natural form of sport among a horse-loving and
chivalrous people. The second belongs to dicing, which forms the occasion
of a lament, already referred to (v. sup. p. 87). Unhappily, the details of
the play are nowhere described, and the scattered allusions cannot be
reduced to a whole without much conjecture ; but, in one form at least,
the aim of the gambler was to throw a number which should be a multiple
of four. Dancing was also practised, and the dancing of maidens is
several times mentioned ; it seems that man also on occasion danced in
the open air, as a metaphor alludes to the dust of the dancing feet of men.
1 See Lüders, Das Würfelspiel in alten Indien ; Caland, Z. D. M. G. , rol. LXII,
pp. 123 sq. ; Keith, J. R. A. S. , 1908, pp. 823 sq.
## p. 92 (#126) #############################################
92
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
/
Music too had advanced beyond the primitive stage; and already the three
types of instrument, percussion, string, and wind, were represented by the
drums, used, among other purposes, to terrify the foe in battle, the lute,
and the flute, the last-named instrument being said to be heard in the
abode of Yama, where the holy dead dwell. The hymns themselves prove
that singing was highly esteemed.
The comparative simplicity of the life of the Vedic Indian stands
in striking contrast to the elaboration of the religious side of life by the
priests. The Rigveda does not present us with any naive outpouring of the
primitive religious consciousness, but with a state of belief which must have
been the product of much priestly effort, and the outcome of wholesale syn-
cretism. Nothing else can explain the comparative magnitude of the Vedic
pantheon, which considerably exceeds that of the Homeric poems. In the
main, the religion revealed to us is in essence simple. The objects of
the devotion of the priests were the great phenomena of nature, conceived as
alive, and usually represented in anthropomorphic shape, though not rarely
theriomorphism is referred to. The chief gods include Dyaus, the sky, who
is usually coupled with Pșithivi, the earth, and whose anthropomorphism is
faint, being in the main confined to the conception of him as father. Varuņa,
the sky-god par excellence, has superseded Dyaus as a popular figure, and
has acquired moreover a moral elevation, which places him far above the
other gods. Varuņa is the subject of the most exalted hymns of the Rig.
veda ; but it seems clear that in this period his claim to divine preeminence
was being successfully challenged by the much less ethical Indra, the god of
the thunder-storm which causes the rain to pour, when the rainy season long
hoped for comes to relieve the parched earth. Varuņa bears the epithet
Asura, which serves to show his parallelism with Ahura Mazda, the highest
of Irānian gods ; nor can there be any reason to doubt that in the Indo-
Irānian period he acquired his moral elevation and preeminence. But in
India it seems that his star paled before that of Indra, whose importance
grew with the advance of the Aryan tribes to the regions where the rain was
confined in the main to the rainy months and the terrors of the storm sup-
planted in the popular imagination the majestic splendour of the sky. With
Varuņa seems to have been bound up in the first instance the conception
of rita as first cosmic and then moral order, and with his lessening glory
these conceptions fade from Indian thought. The importance of the sun is
shown by the fact that no less than five high gods seem to be solar-Sûrya
and Savitri, who represent the quickening power of the luminary, Mitra,
whose fame in Irān is but palely reflected in India, where he is conjoined
with Varuņa and eclipsed by Varuņa’s glories, Pūshan, the representative of
the power of the sun in its effect on the growth of herds and vegetation, and
Vishņu, the personification of the swift moving sun and a god destined to
## p. 93 (#127) #############################################
IV )
DEITIES
93
become one of the two great gods of India. Çiva, his great rival in later
days, appears in the name of Rudra, seemingly in essence at this time a
storm-god, with a dark side to his character presaging his terrible aspect in
later days. Other gods are the Açvins, apparently the morning and evening
stars, who are clearly parallel to the Dioscuri, the Maruts, storm-gods and
attendants on Rudra, Vāyu and Vāta, the wind-gods, Parjanya, the god of
rain, the Waters, and the Rivers. Ushas the Dawn, deserves separate men-
tion, since she has evoked some of the most beautiful of Vedic poetry ; but
her figure seems to belong to the earliest period of Vedic hymnology; when
the Indians were still in the Punjab; and after the Rigveda sbe vanishes
swiftly from the living gods of the pantheon.
Next to Indra in importance rank Agni, 'the fire', and the Soma. To
the priest indeed there can be little doubt that these gods were of even great-
er importance than Indra, but the latter was seemingly more of a national
god, and more nearly alive in the hearts of the people. Agni has three
forms, the sun in the heaven, the lightning, and the terresria) fire ; and his
descent form his highest form is variously pictured. He seems in his growth
to have vanquished older gods, like Trita and Apām Napāt, 'the child of the
waters', who were forms of the lightning, and Mātariçvan, a form of celes-
tial fire. The Soma must have owed its original divine rank to its wonderful
intoxicating power; but priestly speculation by the end of the Rigvedic period
had succeeded in identifying the Soma and the moon, a tour de force which
can indeed be rendered less unnatural by recognising the potent effect of the
moon in the popular imagination on vegetation, but which is none the less
remarkable in the success in which it finally imposed itself on the religious
conscience. The Soma hymns are among the most mystical of the Rigveda;
and one of the legends, that of the bringing of the Soma from heaven by the
eagle, appears to be a reflection of the fall of rain to earth as a result of
the lightning which rends the cloud just when the rain begins to fall.
The creation of what may be called abstract deities is not far advanced
in the Rigveda, such deities as Çraddhā, ‘faith,' and Manyu, ‘wrath,' being
confined to a few hymns of the tenth book. On the other hand, the
specialisation of epithets in some cases results in the production of what is
practically a new figure : thus Prajāpati, an epithet of such gods as Savitri
and Soma, as 'lord of creatures' approaches the position of a creator. The
Ādityas and their mother Aditi, who may be derived from them, present
scarcely any physical features and, as we have seen, have therefore by
Oldenberg been assigned to a Semitic source ; but this hypothesis has not
yet been rendered probable in a mythology which else seems so little touched
by external influence. Personifications like Rātri, 'the night,' are mainly
poetic rather than religious.
a
## p. 94 (#128) #############################################
94
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
A characteristic of the Vedic theology is the tendency to group gods
in pairs, especially Mitra and Varuņa, a practice due in all probability to
the natural union of heaven and earth as a pair. Of larger groups there are
the Maruts, the Ādityas, and the Vasus. The last are associated vaguely
with Indra or Agni, and have practically no individual character. Finally,
priestly speculation has created the class of the Viçve devās, 'the All-gods',
who first include all the gods, and, in the second place, are regarded as a
special group invoked with others, like the Adityas and the Vasus.
Little part is played by minor deities in the Vedic theology. The
predominance of the male element is marked : the goddesses are pale
reflections of their husbands by whose names, with a feminine affix added,
they are called : the only one who has a real character is Ushas, and more
faintly Pșithivi, 'the earth,' and of rivers the sacred Sarasvati. The Ribhus
are aerial elfs, the Apsarasas water nymphs, and the Gandharvas, their
playmates, are aerial sprites. The simpler and more primitive side of
nature worship is seen in the invocation of the plants, of the mountains,
and of the trees of the forest ; but real as these beliefs may have been to
the common people, they are not the true subjects of the priests' devotion.
When speculation turned to deal with these matters, it found an utterance
such as is seen in a striking hymn to the goddess of the forest, which
exhibits much more poetical than religious feeling.
While the great gods might be conceived at times in animal form, for
example Indra or Dyaus as a bull, or the sun as a swift horse, actual
direct worship of animals is hardly found in the Rigveda. The drought
demon which prevents the rain from falling is conceived as a snake whom
Indra crushes, and we hear of the snake of the abyss ; but in striking
contrast with later India, no direct worship of the snake attributable to its
deadliness occurs. Of totemism, in the sense of the belief in an animal
ancestor and the treatment of that animal as sacred and divine, the Rigveda
shows not a trace. On the other hand, fetishism is seen in the allusion
already quoted to the use of an image of Indra against one's enemies.
Analogous to this is the sentiment which defies the pressing-stones which
expressed the Soma, the drum and the weapons of the warrior and the
sacrificial post. The chief opponents of the gods are the Asuras, a vague
group who bear a name which is the epithet of Varuņa and must originally
have had a good mearing, but which may have been degraded by being
associated with the conception of divine cunning applied for evil ends.
On a lower plane are the Rakshasas, demons conceived as in animal as
well as human shape, who seek to destroy the sacrifice and the sacrificers
alike, but whose precise nature cannot be definitely ascertained.
To the gods the Indian stood in an attitude of dependence, but of
hope. The gods are willing to grant boons if they are worshipped ; and the
## p. 95 (#129) #############################################
IV ]
SACRIFICES : PHILOSOPHY
95
overwhelming mass of the evidence shows that the ordinary Vedic sacrifice
was an offering made to win the divine favour, though thank-offerings may
well have been known'. Inextricably bound up with this conception of the
divine relation is that other which regards the gods as subject to control by
the worshipper if he but know the correct means, a motive clearly seen in
the selection of the horse as a sacrifice whereby the swift steed, the sun,
may regain strength and favour his worshippers. The higher and more
mystic view of the sacrifice as a sacrament is not found except in the quite
rudimentary form of the common meal of the priests on the sacrificial victim :
there is no proof that in thus consuming the victim the priests deemed them-
selves to be consuming their god, though doubtless they regarded the meal
as bringing them into special relation with the god who shared it with them
and so in some measure acquired the same nature as themselves. But if the
view of sacrifice was less mystic, in some aspects at least, than in the case
of the Mediterranean peoples, Vedic civilisation at this stage was spared the
horror of human sacrifice, which can be found in the Samhitā only by
implausible conjecture.
The sacrifices offered included offerings of milk, grain, and ghee, as
well as offerings of flesh and of the Soma. It is impossible to adapt the
later sacrificial theory, as it appears in the next period, to the Rigvedic texts,
and it is clear that at this time the sacrifice was less elaborate than it
became; but there is abundant proof that already the Soma sacrifice in
particular had been elaborated, and that the labour had been divided
among several priests, the chief being the Hotội who recited the hymns and
in earlier times composed them, the Adhvaryu who performed the manual
actions to the accompaniment of muttered prayers and deprecations of evil,
the Udgātņi who sung the Sāman chants, and several assistants, the number
seven being found quite frequently in the Rigveda. Naturally these elabo-
rate sacrifices could not be undertaken by any save the rich men of the tribe
and especially the king; and we must therefore picture to ourselves the
priests as maintained by the rich men, the Maghavans, 'bountiful ones,' of
the Rigveda, their number and rewards rising with the social scale of the
patron, until the height of the priest's ambition was attained, the position of
Purohita to the king. Beside all this elaborate ritual there was of course
the daily worship of the ordinary Aryan, which he no doubt in this period,
as later, conducted himself; but the Rigveda is aristocratic collection and
contains little of popular religion beyond a few incantations in the tenth
book, which carry us into the homely region of spells against rivals and to
repel diseases and noxious animals. But these are not really parts of the
main body of the Samhitā.
>
1 fee Caland and Henry, L'Agnistoma, pp. 469-90 ; Keith, J. R. A. S. 1907,
pp. 929. 49.
2 See Hillebrand. 2. D. M. G. , vol. XL, p. 708, who finds it alluded to in X, 18,
8. But see Keith, J. R. A. S. , 1907, p. 946.
## p. 96 (#130) #############################################
96
(сн.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
i
>
The late tenth book also gives us the beginnings of the philosophy of
India. The multiplicity of gods is questioned and the unity of the universe
is asserted, while attempts are made to represent the process of creation as
the evolution of being from not being, first in the shape of the waters and
then in the shape of heat. Other hymns more simply consider the process as
that of a creation by Viçvakarman, 'the all-maker,' or Hiranyagarbha, 'the
golden germ,' apparently an aspect of the sun. In yet another case the
sacrificial theory is applied, and in the Purushasūkta, the earliest authority
for caste divisions, the world is fashioned from the sacrifice of a primeval
giant whose name Purusha, 'man,' reappears in later philosophy as the
technical term for spirit. These speculations are of interest, not for their
intrinsic merit, but for the persistence with which the same conceptions
dominate the religious and philosophical systems of India.
There is little in the Rigveda that bears on the life after death. The
dead were either cremated or buried, and, if cremated, the ashes were regu-
larly buried. This suggests that burial was the older method which was
altered under the pressure of migration and perhaps the Indian climate.
The Rigveda is innocent of widow burning, though it clearly has the con-
ception which gave rise to that practice, the view that life in the next world
is a reflex of this life, and though in the next period we have clear references
to the fact that the burning of widows was not unknown. The direct
authority for the custom, which later days sought to find in the Rigveda,
owes its existence to a daring forgery of quite modern date. The exact
fate of the dead is somewhat obscure : they are conceived, at one time, as
dwelling in peace and converse with the gods of the world of Yama, the
first of the dead and king of the dead. In other passages, the gods and the
fathers are deemed to dwell in different places; while a third conception
declares that the soul departs to the waters or the plants. Beyond this last
idea there is nothing in the Rigvedic literature to suggest that the idea
of metem psychosis had presented itself to the Indian mind : the fate of
the evil after death is obscure : possibly unbelievers were consigned to an
underground darkness; but so scanty is the evidence that Roth held that
the Vedic poet believed in their annihilation. But this vagueness is charac-
teristic of the comparative indifference of the Rigveda to morals ; the gods
are indeed extolled as true, though perhaps rather as a means of securing
that they shall keep faith with their votary than as an assertion of ascer.
tained truth. Except in the case of Varuņi, the omniscient, whose spies
watch men and who knows every thought of man, the characteristics of
the gods are might and strength rather than moral goodness, or
wisdom.
1 See Wilson, J. R. A. S. , vol. XVI, pp. 201 sq. ; Fitzedward Hall, J. R. A. S. , n. 8.
vol. III, pp. 183-92 who traces it to Raghunandana (1500 A. D. ).
1
.
1
even
## p. 97 (#131) #############################################
IV]
THE VEDIC HYMN
97
a
In its metrical form the Rigveda shows traces of the distinction
between the recitative of the Hotội and the song of the Udgātřil : thus
besides hymns in simple metres, 'rhythmical series of eight syllables, three or
four times repeated, or eleven or twelve syllables four times repeated, are
found strophic effects made up of various combinations of series of eight
and twelve syllables, these being intended for Sāman singing. The verse
technique has risen beyond the state of the mere counting of syllables
which it shared as regards the use of eight and eleven syllable lines with the
Irānian versification ; but the process of fixing the quantity of each syllable,
which appears fully completed in the meters of classical Sanskrit verse, is
only in a rudimentary state, the last four or five syllables tending to assume
in the case of the eight and twelve syllable lines an iambic, in the case of
the eleven syllable lines a trochaic cadence. The poetry of the collection is
of very uneven merit : Varuņa and Ushas evoke hymns which now and then
are nearly perfect in poetic conception and expression ; but much of the
work is mechanical and stilted, being overladen with the technicalities of the
ritual : this condemnation applies most heavily to the ninth book, which,
consisting as it does of hymns addressed to the Soma in the process of its
purification for use, is arid and prosaic to a degree. In style, practically all
the hymns are simple enough, and their obscurity, which is considerable,
is due to our ignorance of the Vedic age, which renders unintelligible refe.
rences and allusions clear enough to the authors. But there is unquestion-
ably much mysticism in the later hymns and still more of that confusion of
thought and tendency to take refuge in enigmas, which is a marked feature
of all Indian speculation.
The language is of the highest interest, as it reveals to us an Indo.
European speech with a singular clarity of structure and wealth of inflection,
even if we admit that the first discoverers of its importance from the point
of view of comparative philology exaggerated in some degree these charac-
teristics. Historically it rendered comparative philology the first great
impetus, and it must for all time be one of the most important subjects of
study. But it is clearly, as preserved in the hymns, a good deal more than
a spoken tongue. It is a hieratic language which doubtless diverged consider.
ably in its wealth of variant forms from the speech of the ordinary man of
the tribe. Moreover it shows clear signs of influence by metrical necessities
which induce here and there a disregard of the rules normally strictly
observed of concord of noun and attribute. It must be remembered that it
1 See Oldenberg, Z. D. M. G. , vol. XXXVIII, pp. 439 sq. ; Prolegomena, pp. I sq
Arnold, Vedi: Metre, Cambridge, 1905.
2 Cf. Grierson in Imp. Gaz. , vol. I, pp. 357 sq. ; J. R. A. S. , 1904, pp. 435 sq. ;
Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik, vol. I, pp. xviii sq. ; Petersen, J. A. O. S. , vol.
XXXII. pp. 414-28 : Michelson, J. A. O. S. , vol. XXXIII, pp. 145. 9 ; Keith, Aitareya
Aranyaka, pp, 180, 196.
a
## p. 98 (#132) #############################################
98
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
was in a peculiar position : in the first place, it was the product of an here-
ditary priesthood, working on a traditional basis ; the very first hymn of
the Samhitā alludes to the songs of old and new poets : in the second
place, the language of all classes was being affected by the influence of
contact with the aboriginal tongues. The existence of slaves, male and
especially female, must have tended constantly to affect the Āryan speech,
and the effect must have been very corsiderable, if, as seems true, the
whole series of lingual letters of the Vedic speech was the result of abori-
ginal influence. Many of the vast number of words with no known Aryan
cognates must be assigned to the same influence. Thus in the period of
the Rigveda there was growing up an ever increasing divergence between
the speech of the learned and that of the people. As a result the language
of literature remains the language of the priesthood and the nobility : it is
modified gradually, and finally, at an early date, fixed for good as regards
form and construction by the action of the grammarians : on the other
hand, the speech of the commoner, in consequence of the constant contact
with the aborigines and the growing admixture of blood, develops into
Pāli and the Prākrits and finally into the modern vernaculars of India.
What we do not know is how far at any given moment in the Vedic
period the gulf of separation had extended. Nor do we know whether at
this epoch there were distinct dialects of the Vedic speech ; efforts to
find traces of dialects in the Rigveda have so far ended in no secure result? .
It is natural, at the conclusion of this survey of the more important
aspects of the Vedic civilisation, to consider what date can be assigned to
the main portion of the Rigveda or to the civilisation which it records. One
fact of interest has been adduced from the records of treaties between the
Hittites and the Kings of Mitāni of about 1400 B. C. In them occur names
which a certain amount of faith may induce us to accept as denoting
Indra, the two Açvins under the name Nāsatyā, one of their epithets-of
unknown meaning -- in the Rigveda, Mitra, and Varuņa. It is right to add
that these identifications must not be regarded as certain, though they may
be correct. It has been argued by Jacobiº that these names must be
derived from a tribe practising the religion revealed to us in the Rigveda,
that the ſpresence of this tribe at this date is due to a movement on their
part from India, and that we have a definite date assigned at which the cul-
1The theory of Hoernle, Grierson, and Risley (Imperial Goz. , vol. I, pp. 303 sq. )
which sees in the Rigvedic language the speech of the Middle Country (Madhyadeca)
only is not supported by the Rigveda. Only the N. W. region of the Middle Country,
which lay between the rivers Sarasvati and Drishadvati (Brahmāvarta) was intimately
known to the poets of the Rigveda. They show more acquaintance with the Punjab
and with the Kābul Valley than with the Middle Country generally, that is to say the
region lying between the Sarasvati and Prayāga, the modern Allahābād.
2J. R. A. S. , pp. 721 – 6. For these names see also Chapters III and XIV.
## p. 99 (#133) #############################################
IV ]
EVIDENCES OF DATE
99
true of the Rigveda existed. Unhappily the argument cannot be regarded as
conclusive. It is considered by E. Meyerl and by Oldenbergthat the gods
are proto-Irānian gods, affording a proof of what has always seemed on
other grounds most probable, that the Indian and Irānian period was pre-
ceded by one in which the Indo-Irānians still undivided enjoyed a common
civilisation. This is supported by the fact that the Avesta, which is
doubtless a good deal later than the date in question, still recognises a
great god to whom Varuņa's epithet Asura is applied, that it knows a
Verethrajan who bears the chief epithet of Indra as Vșitrahan, ‘slayer of
VỊitra,' that it has a demon, Nāonhaithya, who may well be a pale reflex
of the Năsatyas, and that the Avestan Mithra is the Vedic Mitra. It is also
possible that the gods represent a period before the separation of Indians
and Irānians, though this would be less likely if it is true that the names of
the Mitāni princes include true Irānian names'. But, in any case, it is to be
feared that we attain no result of value for Vedic chronology.
Another and, at first sight, more promising attempt has been made to
fix a date from internal evidence. It has been argued by Jacobit on the
.
strength of two hymn in the Rigveda that the year then began with the
summer solstice, and that at that solstice the sun was in conjunction with
the lunar mansion Phalgunī. Now the later astronomy shows that the lunar
mansions were, in
were, in the sixth century A. D. , arranged so as to begin for
purposes of reckoning with that called Açvinī, because at the vernal equinox
at that date the sun was in conjunction with the star & Piscium. Given this
datum, the precession of the equinoxes allows us to calculate that the begin-
ning of the year with the summer solstice in Phalguni took place about 4000
B. C. This argument must be considered further in connexion with the dating
of the next period of Indian history ; but, for the dating of the Rigveda it is
certain that no help can be obtained from it. It rests upon two wholly
improbable assumptions, first, that the hymns really assert that the year
began at the summer solstice, and, second, that the sun was then brought into
any connexion at all with the Nakshatras, for which there is no evidence
whatever. The Nakshatras, are, as their name indicates and as all the
evidence of the later Samhitās shows, lunar mansions pure and simple.
In the absence of any trustworthy external evidence, we are forced to
rely on what is after all the best criterion, the development of the civilisation
and literature of the period. Max Müller on the basis of this evidence
divided the Vedic period into four, that of the Sūtra literature, 600-200 B. C. ,
the Brāhmaṇas, 800-600 B. C. , the Mantra period, including the later portions
Sitzungsberichte der k. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1908, pp. 14 sq.
J. R. A. S. , 1909, pp. 1095-1100. Cf. Keith, ibid. 1100. 6.
Sayce, ibid. p. 1107, denies this.
Festgruss an Roth, pp. 68 sq. =Indian Antiquary, vol. XXIII, pp. 154 sq.
Cf. Rigveda Samhitä, vol. IV? , pp. vii sq.
3
>
1
3
4
5
## p. 100 (#134) ############################################
100
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
of the Rigveda, 1000-800 B. C. , and the Chhandas, covering the older and
more primitive Vedic hymns, 1200-1000 B. c. The exact demarcation did not
claim, save as regards the latest period, any special exactitude, and was
indeed somewhat arbitrary. But the fact remains that definitely later than
the Rigveda we find the other Samhitās, of which an account is given below,
and the prose Brāhmaṇa texts, which contain comments on and explanations
of the Samhitās, whose existence they presuppose. It is impossible to deny
that this mass of work must have taken time to produce, especially when we
realise that what has survived is probably a small fraction as compared with
what has been lost. Now in the Brāhmaṇas we find only the most rudimen-
tary elements of the characteristic features of all Indian literature after
Buddhism, the belief in metempsychosis, pessimism, and the search for
deliverance. The distance between the Brāhmaṇa texts with their insistence
on the ritual, and their matter-of-fact and indeed sordid view of the rewards
of action in this world, and the later doctrine of the uselessness of all
mundane effort, is bridged by the Araṇyakas and the Upanishads which
recognise transmigration, if not pessimism, which definitely strive to examine
the real meaning of being, and are no longer content with the explanation of
sacrifices and idle legends. It is unreasonable to deny that these texts must
antedate the rise of Buddhism, which, in part at least, is a legitimate
development of the doctrines of the Upanishads. Now the death of Buddha
falls in all probability somewhere within the second decade of the fifth cen-
tury before Christ? : the older Upanishads can therefore be dated as on the
whole not later than 550 B. C. From that basis we must reckon backwards,
taking such periods as seem reasonable ; and, in the absence of any means
of estimating these periods, we cannot have more than a conjectural
chronology. But it is not likely that the Brāhmaṇa period began later than
800 B. C. , and the oldest hymns of the Rigveda, such as those to Ushas, may
have been composed as early as 1200 B. c. To carry the date further back is
impossible on the evidence at present available, and a lower date would be
necessary if we are to accept the view that the Avesta is really a product of
the sixth century B. C. , as has been argued on grounds of some though not
decisive weight ; for the coincidence in language between the Avesta and the
Rigveda is so striking as to indicate that the two languages cannot have
been long separated before they arrived at their present condition.
The argument from literature and religion is supported also by the
argument from civilisation. The second period, that of the Samhitās, shows
the development of the primitive Vedic community into something more
nearly akin w the Hinduism which, as we learn from the Greek records,
existed at the time of the invasion of Alexander and the immediately succeed-
ing years. But we are still a long way from the full development of the
1 Fleet, J. R. A. S. , 1912, p. 240, thinks 483 B. C. is the most probable date.
>
## p. 101 (#135) ############################################
IV)
DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILISATION
101
system as shown to us in the Arthaçāstra, that remarkable record of Indian
polity which is described in Chapter XIX. The language also of the Vedic
literature is definitely anterior, though not necessarily mush anterior, to
the classical speech as prescribed in the epoch-making work of Pāṇini :
even the Sūtras, which are undoubtedly later than the Brāhamaņas, show
a freedom which is hardly conceivable after the period of the full influence
of Pāņini? ; and Pāņini is dated with much plausibility not later than
300 B. ca.
1Bühler Sacred Books of the East, vol. II", p. XLV, relies on this argument to
assign Āpastamba's Sütras to a date not later than the third cent. B. C. , and suggests
that they may be 150 or 200 years earlier.
2S40 Keith, Aitareya Aranyaka, pp. 21-5.
## p. 102 (#136) ############################################
CHAPTER V
THE PERIOD OF THE LATER SAMHITĀS, THE BRĀH.
MANAS, THE ĀRANYAKAS, AND THE UPANISHADS
DEFINITELY later than that depicted in the Rigveda is the civilisation
presented by the later Samhitās, the Brāhmaṇas, the Araṇyakas, and the
Upanishads. It is on the whole probable that the total time embraced in
this period is not longer, perhaps it is even shorter, than that covered by the
earlier and later strata of the Rigveda ; and there are hymns in the tenth
book of the Rigveda which are really contemporaneous with the later
Samhitās, just as those Samhitās have here and there preserved work of a
much earlier epoch. But the distinction between the main body of the
Rigveda and the rest of the Vedic literature is clear and undeniable. Nor is
it open to much doubt that the redaction of the Samhitā of the Rigveda into
what, in substance as cpposed to verbal form, was its present shape took
place before the other Samhitās were compiled. Of these Samhitās the
Sāmaveda, the collection of chants for the Sāman singers, is so dependent on
the Rigveda for its contents, that it is negligible for purposes of history. On
the other hand, the Samhitās of the Yajurveda, the collection of the
formulae and prayers of the Adhvaryu priest, to whose lot fell the actual
performance of the sacrificial acts, are of the highest historical importance.
They represent two main schools, the Black and the White, the name of the
letter being due, according to tradition, to the fact that, whereas the texts of
the Black Yajurveda contain verse or prose formuiae and the prose expla-
nations and comments combined into one whole, the text of the latter
distinguishes between the verse and prose formulae wliich it collects in the
Samhitā, and the prose explanations which it includes in a Brāhmana. Of
the Black Yajurveda three complete texts exist, those of the Taittiriya, the
Kāțhaka, and the Maitrāyaṇi schools, while considerable fragments of
a Kapishthala Samhitā closely allied to the Kāthaka also exist. In the case
of the Taittiriya there is a Brāhmaṇa which is a supplementary work,
dealing with matter not taken up in the Samhitā. The White school has
the Vājasaneya Samhit, and the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the latter being one
>
102
## p. 103 (#137) ############################################
V]
THE EARLIEST PROSE
103
>
of the most important works in the whole Vedic literature. Finally, there
is the Samhitā of the Atharva veda, which is technically reckoned as apper-
taining to the Brāhman, the priest who in the later state of the ritual
superintends the whole of the sacrifice, and which is a curious repository
of most mingled matter, for the most part spells of every kind, but con-
taining also theosophical hymns of considerable importance.
The conjunction of the prose explanation with the formulae does not
prove the later composition of both the prose and the formulae, and there
is no ground for attributing the two strata to the same date. On the other
hand, the prose of the Yajurveda Samhitās is amongst the earliest Vedic
prose. Possibly somewhat earlier may be that of the Pañchavimça, Brāhmaṇa,
which is the Brāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda, and which, despite the extraordi-
nary technicality of its details, is yet not without importance for the history
of the civilisation of the period. The Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda are proba-
bly slightly later in date, the order being unquestionably the earlier part
(books 1-v) of the Aitareya, and the younger the Kaushitaki or Çārkhāyana.
When the Atharvaveda, which long was not recognised as fully entitled to
claim rank as a Veda proper, came within the circle of the Vedas, it was
considered desirable to provide it with a Brāhmaṇa, the Gopatha, but this
strange work is in part a cento from other texts, including the Çatapatha
Brāhmaṇa, and appears to be later than the Kauçika and Vaitāna Sūtras
attached to the Atharvaveda : its value then for this period is negligible.
Special portions from the Brāhmaṇas are given the title of Āraṇyaka,
'forest books', apparently because their contents were so secret that they
had to be studied in the depths of the forests, away from possibility of over-
hearing by others than students. The extant texts which bear this name are
the Aitareya, the Kaushitaki, and the Taittirīya, which are appendages to
the Brāhmaṇas bearing those names. All three are somewhat heterogeneous
in composition, the Aitareya being the most definitely theosophical, while
the Taittiriya is the least. Still more important are the Upanishads, so
called because they were imparted to pupils in secret session, the term
denoting the sitting cf the pupil before the teacher. Each of the three
Āraṇyakas contains an Upanishad of corresponding name. More valuable
however are the two great Upanishads, the Bțihadāraṇyaka, which is
attached to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa , forming part of its fourteenth and
last book in one recension and the seventeenth book in the other, and the
Chhāndogya Upanishad attached to the Sāmaveda ; these two are in
all probability the oldest of the Upanishads. To the Sāmaveda also belongs,
the Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa, one book of which, the Jaiminiya Upanishad
Brāhmaṇa, is really an Araṇyaka, and like other Āraṇyakas, contains in
itself an Upanishad, the brief but interesting Kena Upanishad.
even in the Rigveda the use of the plough was increasing in frequency.
We learn of the use of bulls to draw the plough, of the sowing of seed in
the furrows thus made, of the cutting of the corn with the sickle, the
Jaying of it in bundles on the threshing floor, and the threshing and final
sifting by winnowing. Moreover, the use of irrigation seems to be re-
cognised in the mention of channels into which water is led. On the other
hand, the nature of the grain grown is uncertain : it is called yava, which in
the later Samhitās is barley, but it is quite uncertain whether this definite
sense can be assigned to the word in the Rigvedic period.
Hunting seems still to have played a considerable part in the life of
the day. The hunter used both bow and arrow and snares and traps.
There are clear references to the capture of lions in snares, the taking of
antelopes in pits, and the hunting of the boar with dogs. Birds were
captured in nets stretched out on pegs. Possibly the use of tame elephants
to capture other elephants was known, but this is very uncertain, for there
is no clear proof that the elephant had yet been tamed at this early date,
Buffaloes seem to have been shot by arrows, and occasionally a lion might
be surrounded by hunters and shot to death.
There is some evidence that already in this period specialisation in
industry had begun. The worker in wood has clearly the place of honour,
needed as he was to produce the chariots for war and the race, and the carts
for agricultural purposes. He was carpenter, joiner, wheelwright in one; and
;
the fashioning of the chariots is a frequent source of metaphor, the poet
comparing his own skill to that of the wheelwright. Next in importance was
the worker in metal who smelted ore in the furnace, using the wing of a
bird in the place of a bellows to fan the flame. Kettles and other domestic
utensils were made of meta). It is, however, still uncertain what that metal
which is called ayas was. Copper, bronze, and iron alike may have been
meant, and we cannot be certain that the term has the same sense through-
out. Of other workers the tanner's art is alluded to not rarely; and to
1 See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, pp. 282 sq.
## p. 90 (#124) #############################################
90
CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
women are ascrihed sewing, the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds,
and, much more frequently, the weaving of cloth. It is of importance to
note that there is no sign that those who carried on these functions were
in any way regarded as inferior members of the community, as was the
case in later times. This fact is probably to be explained by the growing
number of the servile population which must have steadily increased with
the conquest of the tribes, though we cannot conjecture the motives which
ascribed to inferior tasks which in the Rigvedic time were apparently
honourable and distinguished. Presumably even at this time the slave
population must have been utilised in assisting their masters in their various
tasks, agricultural, industrial, and pastoral; but the Rigveda unquestionably
presents us with a society which is not dependent on such labour, and in
which the ordinary tasks of life are carried out by the free men of the tribel.
This is one of the facts which show the comparative simplicity of the age of
the Rigveda as compared with the next period of Indian history.
Fishing is not directly mentioned ; and the Vedic Indian seems to
have been very little of a navigator. The use of boats, probably dug-outs,
for crossing rivers, was known, but the simplicity of their construction is
adequately shown by the fact that the paddle alone was used for their
propulsion. There is no mention of rudder or anchor, mast or sails, a fact
which incidentally negatives the theory that the Vedic Indians took any
part in ocean shipping.
Of the domestic life of the time we have a few details. The dress
usually worn consisted either of three or of two garments. These were
generally woven from the wool of sheep, though skins were also employed.
Luxury manifested itself in the wearing of variegated garments or clothing
adorned with gold. Ornaments in the shape of necklets, earrings, anklets,
and bracelets were worn by both sexes and were usually made of gold.
The hair was carefully combed and oiled. Women wore it plaited, while
in some cases men wore it in coils : it was a characteristic of the Vasishțhas
to have it coiled on the right. Shaving was not unknown, but beards were
normally worn, and on festive occasions men bore garlands. .
As was natural with a pastoral people, milk formed a considerable
part of the ordinary food, being taken in its natural state or mixed with
grain. Ghee or clarified butter was also much used. Grain was either
parched or ground into flour, and mixed with milk or butter, and made into
cakes. As throughout the history of India, vegetables and fruits formed a
considerable portion of the dietary. But the Vedic Indians, were a nation
of meat-eaters, nor need we believe that they merely ate meat on occasions
The view of Indian civilisation presented by Baden Powell (Indian Village
Community (1896) and Village Communities in India (1899), etc. ) which assumes that
the Āryans were princely conquerors of agricultural aborigines and not themselves
cultivators cannot be reconciled with the Rigveda.
a
1
## p. 91 (#125) #############################################
IV )
INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC LIFE
91
was
>
of sacrifice. Rather, as in the Homeric age, the slaughter of oxen
always in some degree a sacrificial act, and one specially appropriate for the
entertainment of guests, as the second name of the heroic Divodāsa
Atithigva, 'the slayer of oxen for guests, and as the practice of slaying
oxen at the wedding festival abundantly show. The ox, the sheep, and the
goat were the normal food eaten by men and offered to their gods : horse-
flesh was probably eaten only at the horse-sacrifice, and not so much as
ordinary food as with a view to gain the strength and swiftness of the
steed. There is no inconsistency between this eating of flesh and the growing
sanctity of the cow, which bears already in the Rigveda the epithet aghnya,
‘not to be killed. If this interpretation of the term is correct, it is merely
a proof of the high value attached to that useful animal, the source of the
milk which meant so much both for secular and sacred use to the Vedic
Indian. The flesh eaten was either cooked in pots of metal or earthenware
or roasted on spits.
In addition to milk, the Indians had at least two intoxicating drinks.
The first was the Soma, which however, by the time of the Rigveda,
appears almost exclusively as a sacrificial drink. It stands, however, to
reason that the extraordinary preeminence which it acquired for religious
purposes can hardly have been attained except through its original popular
character ; and it is difficult to resist the impression that the Soma was at
first a popular drink in the home whence the Vedic Indians entered India,
and that in India itself they found no plant which precisely coincided with
that whence the Soma had first been produced, and so were compelled to
resort to substitutes or to use the original plant after it had been brought
from a great distance and has thus lost its original flavour. The popular
drink was evidently the surā, which seems to have been distilled from grain.
It was clearly extremely intoxicating, and the priests regarded it with dis-
approval : in one hymn mention is made of men made arrogant by the surā
reviling the gods, while another couples it with anger and dicing as the
cause of sin.
Of the amusements of the Indian first place must clearly be given to
the chariot race, a natural form of sport among a horse-loving and
chivalrous people. The second belongs to dicing, which forms the occasion
of a lament, already referred to (v. sup. p. 87). Unhappily, the details of
the play are nowhere described, and the scattered allusions cannot be
reduced to a whole without much conjecture ; but, in one form at least,
the aim of the gambler was to throw a number which should be a multiple
of four. Dancing was also practised, and the dancing of maidens is
several times mentioned ; it seems that man also on occasion danced in
the open air, as a metaphor alludes to the dust of the dancing feet of men.
1 See Lüders, Das Würfelspiel in alten Indien ; Caland, Z. D. M. G. , rol. LXII,
pp. 123 sq. ; Keith, J. R. A. S. , 1908, pp. 823 sq.
## p. 92 (#126) #############################################
92
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
/
Music too had advanced beyond the primitive stage; and already the three
types of instrument, percussion, string, and wind, were represented by the
drums, used, among other purposes, to terrify the foe in battle, the lute,
and the flute, the last-named instrument being said to be heard in the
abode of Yama, where the holy dead dwell. The hymns themselves prove
that singing was highly esteemed.
The comparative simplicity of the life of the Vedic Indian stands
in striking contrast to the elaboration of the religious side of life by the
priests. The Rigveda does not present us with any naive outpouring of the
primitive religious consciousness, but with a state of belief which must have
been the product of much priestly effort, and the outcome of wholesale syn-
cretism. Nothing else can explain the comparative magnitude of the Vedic
pantheon, which considerably exceeds that of the Homeric poems. In the
main, the religion revealed to us is in essence simple. The objects of
the devotion of the priests were the great phenomena of nature, conceived as
alive, and usually represented in anthropomorphic shape, though not rarely
theriomorphism is referred to. The chief gods include Dyaus, the sky, who
is usually coupled with Pșithivi, the earth, and whose anthropomorphism is
faint, being in the main confined to the conception of him as father. Varuņa,
the sky-god par excellence, has superseded Dyaus as a popular figure, and
has acquired moreover a moral elevation, which places him far above the
other gods. Varuņa is the subject of the most exalted hymns of the Rig.
veda ; but it seems clear that in this period his claim to divine preeminence
was being successfully challenged by the much less ethical Indra, the god of
the thunder-storm which causes the rain to pour, when the rainy season long
hoped for comes to relieve the parched earth. Varuņa bears the epithet
Asura, which serves to show his parallelism with Ahura Mazda, the highest
of Irānian gods ; nor can there be any reason to doubt that in the Indo-
Irānian period he acquired his moral elevation and preeminence. But in
India it seems that his star paled before that of Indra, whose importance
grew with the advance of the Aryan tribes to the regions where the rain was
confined in the main to the rainy months and the terrors of the storm sup-
planted in the popular imagination the majestic splendour of the sky. With
Varuņa seems to have been bound up in the first instance the conception
of rita as first cosmic and then moral order, and with his lessening glory
these conceptions fade from Indian thought. The importance of the sun is
shown by the fact that no less than five high gods seem to be solar-Sûrya
and Savitri, who represent the quickening power of the luminary, Mitra,
whose fame in Irān is but palely reflected in India, where he is conjoined
with Varuņa and eclipsed by Varuņa’s glories, Pūshan, the representative of
the power of the sun in its effect on the growth of herds and vegetation, and
Vishņu, the personification of the swift moving sun and a god destined to
## p. 93 (#127) #############################################
IV )
DEITIES
93
become one of the two great gods of India. Çiva, his great rival in later
days, appears in the name of Rudra, seemingly in essence at this time a
storm-god, with a dark side to his character presaging his terrible aspect in
later days. Other gods are the Açvins, apparently the morning and evening
stars, who are clearly parallel to the Dioscuri, the Maruts, storm-gods and
attendants on Rudra, Vāyu and Vāta, the wind-gods, Parjanya, the god of
rain, the Waters, and the Rivers. Ushas the Dawn, deserves separate men-
tion, since she has evoked some of the most beautiful of Vedic poetry ; but
her figure seems to belong to the earliest period of Vedic hymnology; when
the Indians were still in the Punjab; and after the Rigveda sbe vanishes
swiftly from the living gods of the pantheon.
Next to Indra in importance rank Agni, 'the fire', and the Soma. To
the priest indeed there can be little doubt that these gods were of even great-
er importance than Indra, but the latter was seemingly more of a national
god, and more nearly alive in the hearts of the people. Agni has three
forms, the sun in the heaven, the lightning, and the terresria) fire ; and his
descent form his highest form is variously pictured. He seems in his growth
to have vanquished older gods, like Trita and Apām Napāt, 'the child of the
waters', who were forms of the lightning, and Mātariçvan, a form of celes-
tial fire. The Soma must have owed its original divine rank to its wonderful
intoxicating power; but priestly speculation by the end of the Rigvedic period
had succeeded in identifying the Soma and the moon, a tour de force which
can indeed be rendered less unnatural by recognising the potent effect of the
moon in the popular imagination on vegetation, but which is none the less
remarkable in the success in which it finally imposed itself on the religious
conscience. The Soma hymns are among the most mystical of the Rigveda;
and one of the legends, that of the bringing of the Soma from heaven by the
eagle, appears to be a reflection of the fall of rain to earth as a result of
the lightning which rends the cloud just when the rain begins to fall.
The creation of what may be called abstract deities is not far advanced
in the Rigveda, such deities as Çraddhā, ‘faith,' and Manyu, ‘wrath,' being
confined to a few hymns of the tenth book. On the other hand, the
specialisation of epithets in some cases results in the production of what is
practically a new figure : thus Prajāpati, an epithet of such gods as Savitri
and Soma, as 'lord of creatures' approaches the position of a creator. The
Ādityas and their mother Aditi, who may be derived from them, present
scarcely any physical features and, as we have seen, have therefore by
Oldenberg been assigned to a Semitic source ; but this hypothesis has not
yet been rendered probable in a mythology which else seems so little touched
by external influence. Personifications like Rātri, 'the night,' are mainly
poetic rather than religious.
a
## p. 94 (#128) #############################################
94
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
A characteristic of the Vedic theology is the tendency to group gods
in pairs, especially Mitra and Varuņa, a practice due in all probability to
the natural union of heaven and earth as a pair. Of larger groups there are
the Maruts, the Ādityas, and the Vasus. The last are associated vaguely
with Indra or Agni, and have practically no individual character. Finally,
priestly speculation has created the class of the Viçve devās, 'the All-gods',
who first include all the gods, and, in the second place, are regarded as a
special group invoked with others, like the Adityas and the Vasus.
Little part is played by minor deities in the Vedic theology. The
predominance of the male element is marked : the goddesses are pale
reflections of their husbands by whose names, with a feminine affix added,
they are called : the only one who has a real character is Ushas, and more
faintly Pșithivi, 'the earth,' and of rivers the sacred Sarasvati. The Ribhus
are aerial elfs, the Apsarasas water nymphs, and the Gandharvas, their
playmates, are aerial sprites. The simpler and more primitive side of
nature worship is seen in the invocation of the plants, of the mountains,
and of the trees of the forest ; but real as these beliefs may have been to
the common people, they are not the true subjects of the priests' devotion.
When speculation turned to deal with these matters, it found an utterance
such as is seen in a striking hymn to the goddess of the forest, which
exhibits much more poetical than religious feeling.
While the great gods might be conceived at times in animal form, for
example Indra or Dyaus as a bull, or the sun as a swift horse, actual
direct worship of animals is hardly found in the Rigveda. The drought
demon which prevents the rain from falling is conceived as a snake whom
Indra crushes, and we hear of the snake of the abyss ; but in striking
contrast with later India, no direct worship of the snake attributable to its
deadliness occurs. Of totemism, in the sense of the belief in an animal
ancestor and the treatment of that animal as sacred and divine, the Rigveda
shows not a trace. On the other hand, fetishism is seen in the allusion
already quoted to the use of an image of Indra against one's enemies.
Analogous to this is the sentiment which defies the pressing-stones which
expressed the Soma, the drum and the weapons of the warrior and the
sacrificial post. The chief opponents of the gods are the Asuras, a vague
group who bear a name which is the epithet of Varuņa and must originally
have had a good mearing, but which may have been degraded by being
associated with the conception of divine cunning applied for evil ends.
On a lower plane are the Rakshasas, demons conceived as in animal as
well as human shape, who seek to destroy the sacrifice and the sacrificers
alike, but whose precise nature cannot be definitely ascertained.
To the gods the Indian stood in an attitude of dependence, but of
hope. The gods are willing to grant boons if they are worshipped ; and the
## p. 95 (#129) #############################################
IV ]
SACRIFICES : PHILOSOPHY
95
overwhelming mass of the evidence shows that the ordinary Vedic sacrifice
was an offering made to win the divine favour, though thank-offerings may
well have been known'. Inextricably bound up with this conception of the
divine relation is that other which regards the gods as subject to control by
the worshipper if he but know the correct means, a motive clearly seen in
the selection of the horse as a sacrifice whereby the swift steed, the sun,
may regain strength and favour his worshippers. The higher and more
mystic view of the sacrifice as a sacrament is not found except in the quite
rudimentary form of the common meal of the priests on the sacrificial victim :
there is no proof that in thus consuming the victim the priests deemed them-
selves to be consuming their god, though doubtless they regarded the meal
as bringing them into special relation with the god who shared it with them
and so in some measure acquired the same nature as themselves. But if the
view of sacrifice was less mystic, in some aspects at least, than in the case
of the Mediterranean peoples, Vedic civilisation at this stage was spared the
horror of human sacrifice, which can be found in the Samhitā only by
implausible conjecture.
The sacrifices offered included offerings of milk, grain, and ghee, as
well as offerings of flesh and of the Soma. It is impossible to adapt the
later sacrificial theory, as it appears in the next period, to the Rigvedic texts,
and it is clear that at this time the sacrifice was less elaborate than it
became; but there is abundant proof that already the Soma sacrifice in
particular had been elaborated, and that the labour had been divided
among several priests, the chief being the Hotội who recited the hymns and
in earlier times composed them, the Adhvaryu who performed the manual
actions to the accompaniment of muttered prayers and deprecations of evil,
the Udgātņi who sung the Sāman chants, and several assistants, the number
seven being found quite frequently in the Rigveda. Naturally these elabo-
rate sacrifices could not be undertaken by any save the rich men of the tribe
and especially the king; and we must therefore picture to ourselves the
priests as maintained by the rich men, the Maghavans, 'bountiful ones,' of
the Rigveda, their number and rewards rising with the social scale of the
patron, until the height of the priest's ambition was attained, the position of
Purohita to the king. Beside all this elaborate ritual there was of course
the daily worship of the ordinary Aryan, which he no doubt in this period,
as later, conducted himself; but the Rigveda is aristocratic collection and
contains little of popular religion beyond a few incantations in the tenth
book, which carry us into the homely region of spells against rivals and to
repel diseases and noxious animals. But these are not really parts of the
main body of the Samhitā.
>
1 fee Caland and Henry, L'Agnistoma, pp. 469-90 ; Keith, J. R. A. S. 1907,
pp. 929. 49.
2 See Hillebrand. 2. D. M. G. , vol. XL, p. 708, who finds it alluded to in X, 18,
8. But see Keith, J. R. A. S. , 1907, p. 946.
## p. 96 (#130) #############################################
96
(сн.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
i
>
The late tenth book also gives us the beginnings of the philosophy of
India. The multiplicity of gods is questioned and the unity of the universe
is asserted, while attempts are made to represent the process of creation as
the evolution of being from not being, first in the shape of the waters and
then in the shape of heat. Other hymns more simply consider the process as
that of a creation by Viçvakarman, 'the all-maker,' or Hiranyagarbha, 'the
golden germ,' apparently an aspect of the sun. In yet another case the
sacrificial theory is applied, and in the Purushasūkta, the earliest authority
for caste divisions, the world is fashioned from the sacrifice of a primeval
giant whose name Purusha, 'man,' reappears in later philosophy as the
technical term for spirit. These speculations are of interest, not for their
intrinsic merit, but for the persistence with which the same conceptions
dominate the religious and philosophical systems of India.
There is little in the Rigveda that bears on the life after death. The
dead were either cremated or buried, and, if cremated, the ashes were regu-
larly buried. This suggests that burial was the older method which was
altered under the pressure of migration and perhaps the Indian climate.
The Rigveda is innocent of widow burning, though it clearly has the con-
ception which gave rise to that practice, the view that life in the next world
is a reflex of this life, and though in the next period we have clear references
to the fact that the burning of widows was not unknown. The direct
authority for the custom, which later days sought to find in the Rigveda,
owes its existence to a daring forgery of quite modern date. The exact
fate of the dead is somewhat obscure : they are conceived, at one time, as
dwelling in peace and converse with the gods of the world of Yama, the
first of the dead and king of the dead. In other passages, the gods and the
fathers are deemed to dwell in different places; while a third conception
declares that the soul departs to the waters or the plants. Beyond this last
idea there is nothing in the Rigvedic literature to suggest that the idea
of metem psychosis had presented itself to the Indian mind : the fate of
the evil after death is obscure : possibly unbelievers were consigned to an
underground darkness; but so scanty is the evidence that Roth held that
the Vedic poet believed in their annihilation. But this vagueness is charac-
teristic of the comparative indifference of the Rigveda to morals ; the gods
are indeed extolled as true, though perhaps rather as a means of securing
that they shall keep faith with their votary than as an assertion of ascer.
tained truth. Except in the case of Varuņi, the omniscient, whose spies
watch men and who knows every thought of man, the characteristics of
the gods are might and strength rather than moral goodness, or
wisdom.
1 See Wilson, J. R. A. S. , vol. XVI, pp. 201 sq. ; Fitzedward Hall, J. R. A. S. , n. 8.
vol. III, pp. 183-92 who traces it to Raghunandana (1500 A. D. ).
1
.
1
even
## p. 97 (#131) #############################################
IV]
THE VEDIC HYMN
97
a
In its metrical form the Rigveda shows traces of the distinction
between the recitative of the Hotội and the song of the Udgātřil : thus
besides hymns in simple metres, 'rhythmical series of eight syllables, three or
four times repeated, or eleven or twelve syllables four times repeated, are
found strophic effects made up of various combinations of series of eight
and twelve syllables, these being intended for Sāman singing. The verse
technique has risen beyond the state of the mere counting of syllables
which it shared as regards the use of eight and eleven syllable lines with the
Irānian versification ; but the process of fixing the quantity of each syllable,
which appears fully completed in the meters of classical Sanskrit verse, is
only in a rudimentary state, the last four or five syllables tending to assume
in the case of the eight and twelve syllable lines an iambic, in the case of
the eleven syllable lines a trochaic cadence. The poetry of the collection is
of very uneven merit : Varuņa and Ushas evoke hymns which now and then
are nearly perfect in poetic conception and expression ; but much of the
work is mechanical and stilted, being overladen with the technicalities of the
ritual : this condemnation applies most heavily to the ninth book, which,
consisting as it does of hymns addressed to the Soma in the process of its
purification for use, is arid and prosaic to a degree. In style, practically all
the hymns are simple enough, and their obscurity, which is considerable,
is due to our ignorance of the Vedic age, which renders unintelligible refe.
rences and allusions clear enough to the authors. But there is unquestion-
ably much mysticism in the later hymns and still more of that confusion of
thought and tendency to take refuge in enigmas, which is a marked feature
of all Indian speculation.
The language is of the highest interest, as it reveals to us an Indo.
European speech with a singular clarity of structure and wealth of inflection,
even if we admit that the first discoverers of its importance from the point
of view of comparative philology exaggerated in some degree these charac-
teristics. Historically it rendered comparative philology the first great
impetus, and it must for all time be one of the most important subjects of
study. But it is clearly, as preserved in the hymns, a good deal more than
a spoken tongue. It is a hieratic language which doubtless diverged consider.
ably in its wealth of variant forms from the speech of the ordinary man of
the tribe. Moreover it shows clear signs of influence by metrical necessities
which induce here and there a disregard of the rules normally strictly
observed of concord of noun and attribute. It must be remembered that it
1 See Oldenberg, Z. D. M. G. , vol. XXXVIII, pp. 439 sq. ; Prolegomena, pp. I sq
Arnold, Vedi: Metre, Cambridge, 1905.
2 Cf. Grierson in Imp. Gaz. , vol. I, pp. 357 sq. ; J. R. A. S. , 1904, pp. 435 sq. ;
Wackernagel, Altindische Grammatik, vol. I, pp. xviii sq. ; Petersen, J. A. O. S. , vol.
XXXII. pp. 414-28 : Michelson, J. A. O. S. , vol. XXXIII, pp. 145. 9 ; Keith, Aitareya
Aranyaka, pp, 180, 196.
a
## p. 98 (#132) #############################################
98
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
was in a peculiar position : in the first place, it was the product of an here-
ditary priesthood, working on a traditional basis ; the very first hymn of
the Samhitā alludes to the songs of old and new poets : in the second
place, the language of all classes was being affected by the influence of
contact with the aboriginal tongues. The existence of slaves, male and
especially female, must have tended constantly to affect the Āryan speech,
and the effect must have been very corsiderable, if, as seems true, the
whole series of lingual letters of the Vedic speech was the result of abori-
ginal influence. Many of the vast number of words with no known Aryan
cognates must be assigned to the same influence. Thus in the period of
the Rigveda there was growing up an ever increasing divergence between
the speech of the learned and that of the people. As a result the language
of literature remains the language of the priesthood and the nobility : it is
modified gradually, and finally, at an early date, fixed for good as regards
form and construction by the action of the grammarians : on the other
hand, the speech of the commoner, in consequence of the constant contact
with the aborigines and the growing admixture of blood, develops into
Pāli and the Prākrits and finally into the modern vernaculars of India.
What we do not know is how far at any given moment in the Vedic
period the gulf of separation had extended. Nor do we know whether at
this epoch there were distinct dialects of the Vedic speech ; efforts to
find traces of dialects in the Rigveda have so far ended in no secure result? .
It is natural, at the conclusion of this survey of the more important
aspects of the Vedic civilisation, to consider what date can be assigned to
the main portion of the Rigveda or to the civilisation which it records. One
fact of interest has been adduced from the records of treaties between the
Hittites and the Kings of Mitāni of about 1400 B. C. In them occur names
which a certain amount of faith may induce us to accept as denoting
Indra, the two Açvins under the name Nāsatyā, one of their epithets-of
unknown meaning -- in the Rigveda, Mitra, and Varuņa. It is right to add
that these identifications must not be regarded as certain, though they may
be correct. It has been argued by Jacobiº that these names must be
derived from a tribe practising the religion revealed to us in the Rigveda,
that the ſpresence of this tribe at this date is due to a movement on their
part from India, and that we have a definite date assigned at which the cul-
1The theory of Hoernle, Grierson, and Risley (Imperial Goz. , vol. I, pp. 303 sq. )
which sees in the Rigvedic language the speech of the Middle Country (Madhyadeca)
only is not supported by the Rigveda. Only the N. W. region of the Middle Country,
which lay between the rivers Sarasvati and Drishadvati (Brahmāvarta) was intimately
known to the poets of the Rigveda. They show more acquaintance with the Punjab
and with the Kābul Valley than with the Middle Country generally, that is to say the
region lying between the Sarasvati and Prayāga, the modern Allahābād.
2J. R. A. S. , pp. 721 – 6. For these names see also Chapters III and XIV.
## p. 99 (#133) #############################################
IV ]
EVIDENCES OF DATE
99
true of the Rigveda existed. Unhappily the argument cannot be regarded as
conclusive. It is considered by E. Meyerl and by Oldenbergthat the gods
are proto-Irānian gods, affording a proof of what has always seemed on
other grounds most probable, that the Indian and Irānian period was pre-
ceded by one in which the Indo-Irānians still undivided enjoyed a common
civilisation. This is supported by the fact that the Avesta, which is
doubtless a good deal later than the date in question, still recognises a
great god to whom Varuņa's epithet Asura is applied, that it knows a
Verethrajan who bears the chief epithet of Indra as Vșitrahan, ‘slayer of
VỊitra,' that it has a demon, Nāonhaithya, who may well be a pale reflex
of the Năsatyas, and that the Avestan Mithra is the Vedic Mitra. It is also
possible that the gods represent a period before the separation of Indians
and Irānians, though this would be less likely if it is true that the names of
the Mitāni princes include true Irānian names'. But, in any case, it is to be
feared that we attain no result of value for Vedic chronology.
Another and, at first sight, more promising attempt has been made to
fix a date from internal evidence. It has been argued by Jacobit on the
.
strength of two hymn in the Rigveda that the year then began with the
summer solstice, and that at that solstice the sun was in conjunction with
the lunar mansion Phalgunī. Now the later astronomy shows that the lunar
mansions were, in
were, in the sixth century A. D. , arranged so as to begin for
purposes of reckoning with that called Açvinī, because at the vernal equinox
at that date the sun was in conjunction with the star & Piscium. Given this
datum, the precession of the equinoxes allows us to calculate that the begin-
ning of the year with the summer solstice in Phalguni took place about 4000
B. C. This argument must be considered further in connexion with the dating
of the next period of Indian history ; but, for the dating of the Rigveda it is
certain that no help can be obtained from it. It rests upon two wholly
improbable assumptions, first, that the hymns really assert that the year
began at the summer solstice, and, second, that the sun was then brought into
any connexion at all with the Nakshatras, for which there is no evidence
whatever. The Nakshatras, are, as their name indicates and as all the
evidence of the later Samhitās shows, lunar mansions pure and simple.
In the absence of any trustworthy external evidence, we are forced to
rely on what is after all the best criterion, the development of the civilisation
and literature of the period. Max Müller on the basis of this evidence
divided the Vedic period into four, that of the Sūtra literature, 600-200 B. C. ,
the Brāhmaṇas, 800-600 B. C. , the Mantra period, including the later portions
Sitzungsberichte der k. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1908, pp. 14 sq.
J. R. A. S. , 1909, pp. 1095-1100. Cf. Keith, ibid. 1100. 6.
Sayce, ibid. p. 1107, denies this.
Festgruss an Roth, pp. 68 sq. =Indian Antiquary, vol. XXIII, pp. 154 sq.
Cf. Rigveda Samhitä, vol. IV? , pp. vii sq.
3
>
1
3
4
5
## p. 100 (#134) ############################################
100
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
of the Rigveda, 1000-800 B. C. , and the Chhandas, covering the older and
more primitive Vedic hymns, 1200-1000 B. c. The exact demarcation did not
claim, save as regards the latest period, any special exactitude, and was
indeed somewhat arbitrary. But the fact remains that definitely later than
the Rigveda we find the other Samhitās, of which an account is given below,
and the prose Brāhmaṇa texts, which contain comments on and explanations
of the Samhitās, whose existence they presuppose. It is impossible to deny
that this mass of work must have taken time to produce, especially when we
realise that what has survived is probably a small fraction as compared with
what has been lost. Now in the Brāhmaṇas we find only the most rudimen-
tary elements of the characteristic features of all Indian literature after
Buddhism, the belief in metempsychosis, pessimism, and the search for
deliverance. The distance between the Brāhmaṇa texts with their insistence
on the ritual, and their matter-of-fact and indeed sordid view of the rewards
of action in this world, and the later doctrine of the uselessness of all
mundane effort, is bridged by the Araṇyakas and the Upanishads which
recognise transmigration, if not pessimism, which definitely strive to examine
the real meaning of being, and are no longer content with the explanation of
sacrifices and idle legends. It is unreasonable to deny that these texts must
antedate the rise of Buddhism, which, in part at least, is a legitimate
development of the doctrines of the Upanishads. Now the death of Buddha
falls in all probability somewhere within the second decade of the fifth cen-
tury before Christ? : the older Upanishads can therefore be dated as on the
whole not later than 550 B. C. From that basis we must reckon backwards,
taking such periods as seem reasonable ; and, in the absence of any means
of estimating these periods, we cannot have more than a conjectural
chronology. But it is not likely that the Brāhmaṇa period began later than
800 B. C. , and the oldest hymns of the Rigveda, such as those to Ushas, may
have been composed as early as 1200 B. c. To carry the date further back is
impossible on the evidence at present available, and a lower date would be
necessary if we are to accept the view that the Avesta is really a product of
the sixth century B. C. , as has been argued on grounds of some though not
decisive weight ; for the coincidence in language between the Avesta and the
Rigveda is so striking as to indicate that the two languages cannot have
been long separated before they arrived at their present condition.
The argument from literature and religion is supported also by the
argument from civilisation. The second period, that of the Samhitās, shows
the development of the primitive Vedic community into something more
nearly akin w the Hinduism which, as we learn from the Greek records,
existed at the time of the invasion of Alexander and the immediately succeed-
ing years. But we are still a long way from the full development of the
1 Fleet, J. R. A. S. , 1912, p. 240, thinks 483 B. C. is the most probable date.
>
## p. 101 (#135) ############################################
IV)
DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILISATION
101
system as shown to us in the Arthaçāstra, that remarkable record of Indian
polity which is described in Chapter XIX. The language also of the Vedic
literature is definitely anterior, though not necessarily mush anterior, to
the classical speech as prescribed in the epoch-making work of Pāṇini :
even the Sūtras, which are undoubtedly later than the Brāhamaņas, show
a freedom which is hardly conceivable after the period of the full influence
of Pāņini? ; and Pāņini is dated with much plausibility not later than
300 B. ca.
1Bühler Sacred Books of the East, vol. II", p. XLV, relies on this argument to
assign Āpastamba's Sütras to a date not later than the third cent. B. C. , and suggests
that they may be 150 or 200 years earlier.
2S40 Keith, Aitareya Aranyaka, pp. 21-5.
## p. 102 (#136) ############################################
CHAPTER V
THE PERIOD OF THE LATER SAMHITĀS, THE BRĀH.
MANAS, THE ĀRANYAKAS, AND THE UPANISHADS
DEFINITELY later than that depicted in the Rigveda is the civilisation
presented by the later Samhitās, the Brāhmaṇas, the Araṇyakas, and the
Upanishads. It is on the whole probable that the total time embraced in
this period is not longer, perhaps it is even shorter, than that covered by the
earlier and later strata of the Rigveda ; and there are hymns in the tenth
book of the Rigveda which are really contemporaneous with the later
Samhitās, just as those Samhitās have here and there preserved work of a
much earlier epoch. But the distinction between the main body of the
Rigveda and the rest of the Vedic literature is clear and undeniable. Nor is
it open to much doubt that the redaction of the Samhitā of the Rigveda into
what, in substance as cpposed to verbal form, was its present shape took
place before the other Samhitās were compiled. Of these Samhitās the
Sāmaveda, the collection of chants for the Sāman singers, is so dependent on
the Rigveda for its contents, that it is negligible for purposes of history. On
the other hand, the Samhitās of the Yajurveda, the collection of the
formulae and prayers of the Adhvaryu priest, to whose lot fell the actual
performance of the sacrificial acts, are of the highest historical importance.
They represent two main schools, the Black and the White, the name of the
letter being due, according to tradition, to the fact that, whereas the texts of
the Black Yajurveda contain verse or prose formuiae and the prose expla-
nations and comments combined into one whole, the text of the latter
distinguishes between the verse and prose formulae wliich it collects in the
Samhitā, and the prose explanations which it includes in a Brāhmana. Of
the Black Yajurveda three complete texts exist, those of the Taittiriya, the
Kāțhaka, and the Maitrāyaṇi schools, while considerable fragments of
a Kapishthala Samhitā closely allied to the Kāthaka also exist. In the case
of the Taittiriya there is a Brāhmaṇa which is a supplementary work,
dealing with matter not taken up in the Samhitā. The White school has
the Vājasaneya Samhit, and the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the latter being one
>
102
## p. 103 (#137) ############################################
V]
THE EARLIEST PROSE
103
>
of the most important works in the whole Vedic literature. Finally, there
is the Samhitā of the Atharva veda, which is technically reckoned as apper-
taining to the Brāhman, the priest who in the later state of the ritual
superintends the whole of the sacrifice, and which is a curious repository
of most mingled matter, for the most part spells of every kind, but con-
taining also theosophical hymns of considerable importance.
The conjunction of the prose explanation with the formulae does not
prove the later composition of both the prose and the formulae, and there
is no ground for attributing the two strata to the same date. On the other
hand, the prose of the Yajurveda Samhitās is amongst the earliest Vedic
prose. Possibly somewhat earlier may be that of the Pañchavimça, Brāhmaṇa,
which is the Brāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda, and which, despite the extraordi-
nary technicality of its details, is yet not without importance for the history
of the civilisation of the period. The Brāhmaṇas of the Rigveda are proba-
bly slightly later in date, the order being unquestionably the earlier part
(books 1-v) of the Aitareya, and the younger the Kaushitaki or Çārkhāyana.
When the Atharvaveda, which long was not recognised as fully entitled to
claim rank as a Veda proper, came within the circle of the Vedas, it was
considered desirable to provide it with a Brāhmaṇa, the Gopatha, but this
strange work is in part a cento from other texts, including the Çatapatha
Brāhmaṇa, and appears to be later than the Kauçika and Vaitāna Sūtras
attached to the Atharvaveda : its value then for this period is negligible.
Special portions from the Brāhmaṇas are given the title of Āraṇyaka,
'forest books', apparently because their contents were so secret that they
had to be studied in the depths of the forests, away from possibility of over-
hearing by others than students. The extant texts which bear this name are
the Aitareya, the Kaushitaki, and the Taittirīya, which are appendages to
the Brāhmaṇas bearing those names. All three are somewhat heterogeneous
in composition, the Aitareya being the most definitely theosophical, while
the Taittiriya is the least. Still more important are the Upanishads, so
called because they were imparted to pupils in secret session, the term
denoting the sitting cf the pupil before the teacher. Each of the three
Āraṇyakas contains an Upanishad of corresponding name. More valuable
however are the two great Upanishads, the Bțihadāraṇyaka, which is
attached to the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa , forming part of its fourteenth and
last book in one recension and the seventeenth book in the other, and the
Chhāndogya Upanishad attached to the Sāmaveda ; these two are in
all probability the oldest of the Upanishads. To the Sāmaveda also belongs,
the Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇa, one book of which, the Jaiminiya Upanishad
Brāhmaṇa, is really an Araṇyaka, and like other Āraṇyakas, contains in
itself an Upanishad, the brief but interesting Kena Upanishad.
