Chapter VI · HOLY BOOKS, OR BIBLES. (continued 2)

It has in fact been questioned in China, not indeed on very valid grounds, by a scholar whose letter he has translated in his Prolegomena, and he himself candidly acknowledges the extreme difficulty of reconciling the character of our present text with the statement of Mang. But he considers the external testimony to the recovery of the book sufficiently weighty to dispose of this and other difficulties. Yet, without disputing the strength of the grounds on which this conclusion rests, we may still permit ourselves to entertain a modest doubt whether this compilation was really the handiwork of such a man as we know Confucius to have been, and that doubt will be strengthened when we recall the common tendency of the popular mind to connect the authorship of standard works with names of high repute. And the bare existence of such a doubt will compel us to suspend our judgment on the very serious charges of misrepresentation and falsehood which Dr. Legge has brought against Confucius in his capacity of historian. If the actual Ch'un Ts'ëw be shown to be identical with that edited by Confucius, and if he simply adopted, without alteration, or with very trivial alteration, the labors of his predecessors, the gravity of these charges will be very considerably diminished. For we know not but what some feeling of respect for that which he found already recorded may have stayed his hand from revision and improvement.

Passing to the work itself, we shall find little in it worthy of attention, unless by those who may be desirous of studying the history of China. Chinese commentators have indeed discovered all kinds of recondite meanings in it, as is usually the case with the commentators on Sacred Books, but these are of no more value than the similar discoveries of types and mystic foreshadowings in the Hebrew Scriptures. In itself, the text is profoundly uninteresting. Here is one of the shortest chapters as a specimen. The title of the Book from which it is taken is "Duke Chwang:"—

XXVI. 1. "In his twenty-sixth year, in spring, the duke invaded the Jung.

2. "In summer, the duke arrived from the invasion of the Jung.

3. "Ts'aou put to death one of its great officers.

4. "In autumn, the duke joined an officer of Sung and an officer of Ts'e in invading Seu.

5. "In winter, in the twelfth month, on Kwei-hae, the first day of the moon, the sun was eclipsed" (Ch'un Ts'ëw, iii. 26).

The events noted in these annals refer to various States—for it appears that the several States were in the habit of communicating remarkable occurrences to each other—but they are of a very limited class, and are invariably recorded in the brief manner of the chapter that has just been quoted. Eclipses of the sun are duly registered, and the record thus acquires a chronological value of high importance in historical researches. Among the other facts commonly mentioned are sacrifices for rain, which occur very frequently; wars, with the results of great battles; the marriages or deaths of rulers and important persons; their journeys; occasionally their murder; meetings of rulers for the purpose of common action in matters of State; diplomatic missions; invasions of locusts or other troublesome insects; and lastly, peculiarities of various kinds in the state of the weather. It is plain that annals of this kind have no religious significance beyond that which they derive from the mere fact of being reputed sacred. And in this aspect the Ch'un Ts'ëw is certainly curious. Having been assigned—rightly or wrongly—to the pen of the prophet of China, it seems to have become a point of honor with Chinese scholars to extract from it, by hook or by crook, the profoundest lessons on politics and morals.

Section II.—The Taò-tĕ-Kīng.[46]

There are in China three recognized sects or "religiones licitæ:"—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Tao-ism. We have examined the Sacred Books of the first; those of the second will come under review in another section. There remains the comparatively small and unimportant sect of the Taò-tsé, or "Doctors of Reason," who derive their origin from Laò-tsé, and who possess as their classic the single written composition which emanated from their founder. It is entitled the Taò-tĕ-Kīng.

Ancient as this book is (probably about B.C. 520), there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.[47] This is sufficiently guaranteed by quotations from it which are found in authors belonging to the fourth century B.C., and by the fact that a scholar who wrote in B.C. 163 made it the subject of a commentary, which accompanies it sentence by sentence. Nor does Chinese tradition state that it perished in the Burning of the Books (B.C. 212-209), which was a measure leveled against the Confucian school, and took place under an Emperor who was favorable to the Taò-tsé. We may safely conclude that we are in possession of the genuine composition of the ancient philosopher (T. T. K., lxxiii., lxxiv).

Of the three words which compose its title, King has already been explained (Supra p. 390-391). The full meaning of Taò will appear in the sequel: we may here term it the Absolute. Te means Virtue; and the title would thus imply either that this Canonical Book deals with the Absolute and with Virtue, or with that kind of virtue which emanates from, and is founded upon, a belief in and a spiritual union with the Absolute.[48]

Whatever the signification of its name, its principal subjects undoubtedly are Taò and Te: the Supreme Principle and human Virtue. Let us see what is Laò-tsé's description of Taò, the great fundamental Being on whom his whole system rests. "Taò, if it can be pronounced, is not the eternal Taò. The Name, if it can be named, is not the eternal Name. The Nameless One is the foundation of Heaven and Earth; he who has a Name is the Mother of all beings" (Ch. 1). These enigmatical sentences open the Taò philosophy. The idea that Taò is unnameable is a prominent one in the author's mind, although he seems also to recognize a subordinate creative principle—like the Gnostic Æons—which is nameable. Thus we read: "Taò, the Eternal has no Name.... He who begins to create, has a Name" (Ch. 32). Again: "For ever and ever it is unnameable, and returns into non-existence." Or: "I know not its Name; if I describe it, I call it Taò" (Ch. 25). We are reminded of Faust's reply in Goethe:—

Nor is Taò only without a Name; it is sometimes described as if devoid of all intelligible attributes. Thus, in one chapter, we learn that it is eternally without action, and yet without non-action (Ch. 37). Nay, the entire absence of all activity is not unfrequently predicated of Taò, whose great merit is stated to be complete quiescence. Taò is moreover incomprehensible, inconceivable, undiscoverable, obscure (Ch. 21). Its upper part is not clear, its lower part not obscure. It returns into non-existence. It is the form of the Formless; the image of the Imageless (Ch. 14). Mysterious as this Being is, yet in other places attributes are ascribed to it which go far to elucidate the author's conception of its nature. Productive energy, for instance, is plainly attributed to Taò, for it is stated that Taò produces one, one two, and two three, while three produces all creatures (Ch. 32). The following account is less mystical: "Taò produces them [creatures], its Might preserves them, its essence forms them, its power perfects them: therefore of all beings there is none that does not adore Taò, and honor its Might. The adoration of Taò, the honoring of its Might, is commanded by no one and is always spontaneous. For Taò produces them, preserves them, brings them up, fashions them, perfects them, ripens them, cherishes them, protects them. To produce and not possess, to act and not expect, to bring up and not control, this is called sublime Virtue."[49] In addition to these creative and preservative qualities, it has moral attributes of the highest order. Thus, its Spirit is supremely trustworthy. In it is faithfulness (Ch. 21). All beings trust to it in order to live. When a work is completed, it does not call it its own. Loving and nourishing all beings, it still does not lord it over them. It is eternally without desire. All beings turn to it, yet it does not lord it over them (Ch. 34). It is eminently straightforward. It dwells only with those who are not occupied with the luxuries of this world (Ch. 53). Nay, it is altogether perfect (Ch. 25). The last assertion is found in a chapter which, as it is probably the most important in the book for the purpose of understanding the theology of the author, deserves to be translated in full:—"There existed a Being, inconceivably perfect, before Heaven and Earth arose. So still! so supersensible! It alone remains and does not change. It pervades all and is not endangered. It may be regarded as the Mother of the World. I know not its name; if I describe it, I call it Taò. Concerned to give it a Name, I call it Great; as great, I call it Immense; as immense, I call it Distant; as distant, I call it Returning. For Taò is great; Heaven is great; the Earth is great; the King is also great. In the world there are many kinds of greatness, and the King remains one of them. The measure of Man is the earth; the measure of earth, Heaven; the measure of Heaven, Taò; Taò's measure itself."[50]

Such is the picture of Taò; but the Taò-tĕ-Kīng is much more than a treatise on theology; it is even more conspicuously a treatise on morals. Taò is indeed the transcendental foundation on which the ethical superstructure is raised; but the superstructure occupies a much more considerable space than the foundation, and seems to have been the main practical end for which the latter was laid down. Intermingled with the image of Taò we find the image of the good man, or, as we may call him, in Scriptural phraseology, the righteous man; an ideal of perfect virtue, whom the author holds up, not as an actual person, but as an imaginary model for the guidance of human conduct. By putting together the scattered traits of his character, we may arrive at a tolerable comprehension of the author's conception of perfect goodness. In the first place, the righteous man is in harmony in his actions with Taò; he becomes one with Taò, and Taò rejoices to receive him (Ch. 23). He places himself in the background, and by that very means is brought forward (Ch. 7). He does not regard himself, and therefore shines; he is not just to himself, and is therefore distinguished; does not praise himself, and is therefore meritorious; does not exalt himself, and is therefore preëminent. As he does not dispute, none can dispute with him (Ch. 22). If he acts, he sets no store by his action; for he does not wish to render his wisdom conspicuous (Ch. 77). He knows himself, but does not regard himself; loves himself, but does not set a high price on himself (Ch. 72). Unwilling lightly to promise great things, he is thereby able to accomplish the more; by treating things as difficult, he finds nothing too difficult during his whole life (Ch. 63). Inaccessible alike to friendship and enmity, uninfluenced by personal advantage or injury, by honor or dishonor, he is honored by all the world (Ch. 56). He is characterized by quiet earnestness; should he possess splendid palaces, he inhabits them or quits them with equal calm (Ch. 26). He clothes himself in wool (a very coarse material in China), and hides his jewels (Ch. 70). He is ever ready to help others; for the good man is the educator of the bad, the bad man the treasure of the good (Ch. 27). "The righteous man does not accumulate. The more he spends on others, the more he has; the more he gives to others, the richer he is" (Ch. 81). "He who knows others is clever; he who knows himself is enlightened" (Ch. 33). Thus the sage, like Socrates, makes νῶθι σéαντον a main principle of his conduct. Should he be called to the administration of the realm, he adopts a policy of laisser faire, for he has observed the evils produced by over-legislation. It is his belief that if he be inactive, the people will improve by themselves; if he be quiet, they will become honorable; if he abstain from intermeddling, they will become rich; if he be free from desires, they will become simple (Ch. 57). Compelled to engage in war, he will not make use of conquest to triumph or exalt himself, neither will he take violent measures (Ch. 30). Mercy is a quality that must not be despised; the merciful will conquer in battle (Ch. 67). Endowed with these characteristics, the good man need fear nothing. Like Horace's

"Integer vitæ scelerisque purus,"

he is preserved from danger. The horn of the rhinoceros, the claws of the tiger, the blade of the sword, cannot hurt him (Ch. 50). He is like a new-born child: serpents do not sting it, nor wild beasts seize it, nor birds of prey attack it.[51]

A few features, which do not directly enter into the delineation of the character of the sage, must still be added to complete that image. And first, a prominent place must be assigned to a quality which is a large ingredient in Laò-tsé's conception of goodness, both human and divine. It is that of gentleness, or, as he would call it, weakness. It is a favorite principle of his, that the weak things of the earth overcome the strong, and that they overcome in virtue of that very weakness. He has an aversion to all conspicuous exercise of force. The deity of his philosophy is one who is indeed all-powerful, but who never displays his power. The method of Heaven—and it should also be that of man—is apparent yielding, leading to real supremacy. "It strives not, yet is able to overcome. It speaks not, yet is able to obtain an answer. It summons not, yet men come to it of their own accord; is long-suffering, yet is able to succeed in its designs" (Ch. 73). The superiority of the weak—or the seeming weak—to the strong, is further illustrated by Laò-tsé in several parallels. We enter life soft and feeble; we quit it hard and strong. Therefore softness and feebleness are the companions of life; hardness and strength of death (Ch. 76). And does not the wife overcome her husband by her quietness? (Ch., 61.) Is not water the softest and weakest of all things in the world, yet is there anything which ever attacks the hard and strong that is able to surpass it? (Ch., 78.) Thus, the most yielding of all substances overcomes the most inflexible. Hence is manifest the advantage of inactivity and of silence (Ch. 43). It is fully in accordance with these notions that Laò-tsé should distinctly deprecate warfare, and should assert that the most competent general will not be warlike. Calmly conscious of his power, he is not quarrelsome or eager for battle, and thus possessing the virtue of peaceable and patient strength, he becomes the peer of Heaven (Ch. 68). War is altogether to be condemned, as pregnant with calamity to the state (Ch. 30). "The most beauteous weapons are instruments of misfortune; all creatures abhor them; therefore he who has Taò does not employ them." They are not the instruments of the wise man. If he must needs resort to them, yet he still values peace and quietness as the highest aims. He conquers with reluctance. "He who has killed many men, let him weep for them with grief and compassion. He who has conquered in battle, let him stand as at a funeral pomp" (Ch. 31).

Another striking characteristic of Laò-tsé's moral system is his dislike of luxury, and his earnest injunction to all men to be contented with modest circumstances. We have seen that the sage is depicted as wearing coarse clothing, and Laò-tsé considers that the very presence of considerable riches indicates the absence of Taò from the minds of their possessors. As we should express it, the devotion to worldly wealth is inconsistent with a spiritual life. "To wear fine clothes, to carry sharp swords, to be filled with drink and victuals, to have a superfluity of costly gems, this is to make a parade of robbery (Or, this is "magnificent robbery," O. P., p. 41); truly not to have Taò" (Ch. 53). Moreover, the very pomp of the palace leads to uncultivated fields and empty barns (Ibid). Laò-tsé therefore warns every one not to consider his abode too narrow or his life too confined. If we do not think it too confined, it will not be so (Ch. 72). Nay, he goes further, and asserts that the world is best known by staying at home. The further a man goes, the less he knows (Ch. 47). A truly virtuous and well-governed people will never care to travel beyond its own limits. To such a people its food will be so sweet, its clothing so beautiful, its dwellings so comfortable, and its customs so dear, that it will never visit the territory of its neighbors, even though that territory should lie so close that the cackling of the hens and the barking of the dogs may be heard across the boundary (Ch. 80).

It results from the above exposition of his ethical principles that Laò-tsé insists mainly upon three virtues: Modesty, Benevolence, and Contentment. "For my part," he says himself, "I have three treasures; I guard them and greatly prize them. The first is called Mercy,[52] the second is called Frugality, the third is called Not daring to be first in the kingdom. Mercy—therefore I can be brave; Frugality—therefore I can give away; Not daring to be first in the kingdom—therefore I can become the first of the gifted ones" (Ch. 67).

Of all the sacred books, the Taò-tĕ-Kīng is the most philosophical. It stands, indeed, on the borderland between a revelation and a system of philosophy, partaking to some extent of the nature of both. Since, however, it forms the fundamental classic of a religious sect, and since it has engaged in its interpretation a multitude of commentators,[53] it appears to be fully entitled to a place among Scriptures. Not indeed that the Chinese regard it as a revelation in the same sense in which nations of a more theological cast of mind apply that term to the books composing their Canon. But I see no reason to doubt that the Taò-tsé, however little they attend to its precepts, yet treat it as a work of unapproachable perfection and unquestionable truth. Indeed, the writer of a fabulous life of Laò-tsé, who lived many centuries after his death, expressly ascribes to it those peculiar qualities which, as we have seen, are the special attributes of sacred books (L. V. V., pp. xxxi., xxxii).

To the European reader who approaches it for the first time it will probably appear a perplexing study. Participating largely in that disorder and confusedness which characterizes the class of literature to which it belongs, it presents, in addition, considerable difficulties peculiarly its own. The correct translation of many passages is doubtful. The sense of still more is ambiguous and obscure. Laò-tsé is fond of paradox, and his constant employment of paradoxical antithesis seems specially designed to puzzle the reader. If his doctrine was understood by few, it must be confessed that this was partly his own fault. Moreover, the reverence with which he speaks of Taò, and the care with which he insists that Taò does nothing, seem at first sight inconsistent. We feel ourselves in an atmosphere of hopeless mysticism. Nevertheless, these superficial troubles vanish, or at least retire into the background, after repeated perusals of the work. There are few books that gain more on continued acquaintance. Every successive study reveals more and more of a wisdom and a beauty which we miss at first in the obscurity and strangeness of the style.

And first, Taò itself turns out to be a less incomprehensible and contradictory being than we originally supposed. For although he may sometimes be spoken of as doing nothing, or even as destitute of all distinct qualities, yet other attributes expressly exclude the notion of absolute inaction. A being which creates, cherishes and loves, and in which all the world implicitly trusts, is not the kind of nonentity that can be described as wholly devoid of "action, thought, judgment, and intelligence."[54] Moreover, it is to be borne in mind that the sage is to imitate Taò in the quality—for which he is highly lauded—of doing nothing. The two pictures, that of Taò and his follower, must be held side by side in order to be correctly understood. Now what is the peculiar beauty, from a philosophical point of view, of the order of Nature? It is that all its parts harmoniously perform their several offices, without any violent or conspicuous intrusion of the presiding principle which guides them all.

Other teachers, indeed, have seen God mainly in violent and convulsive manifestations, and have appealed to miraculous suspensions of natural order as the best proofs of his existence. Not so Laò-tsé. He sees him in the quiet, unobtrusive, unapparent guidance of the world; in the unseen, yet irresistible power to which mankind unresistingly submit, precisely because it is never thrust offensively upon them. The Deity of Laò-tsé is free from those gross and unlovely elements which degrade his character in so many other religions. He rules by gentleness and love, not by vindictiveness and anger. So should it be with the holy man who takes him for his model. Assuredly we are not to understand those passages which enjoin quiescence so earnestly upon him as a meaning that he is to lead a life of absolute indolence. Like Taò, he is to guide his fellow-creatures rather by the beauty of his conduct than by positive commands laid imperatively upon them. Let him but be a shining example; they will be drawn towards him. The activity from which a wise ruler is to abstain is the vexatious multiplication of laws and edicts, which do harm rather than good. But neither ruler nor philosopher is told to do nothing; for benevolence, love, and the requital of good for evil, to say nothing of other positive virtues, are most strictly enjoined on all. Laò-tsé himself no doubt lived, and loved, a retired contemplative life. This is the kind of existence which he evidently considered the most perfect and the most godlike. He counsels his followers to be wholly unambitious, and to abstain from all active pursuit of political honor. Such counsel might possibly be well adapted to the time in which he lived. But none the less does he lay down rules for the guidance of kings, statesmen, and warriors, in their several spheres. Nor is the book wanting in pithy apothegms applicable to all, and remarkable alike for the wisdom of their substance and the neatness of their form. Whether, in short, we look to the simplicity and grandeur of its speculative doctrine, or to the unimpeachable excellence of its moral teaching, we shall find few among the great productions of the human mind that evince, from beginning to end, so lofty a spirit and so pure a strain.

APPENDIX TO SECTION II. Translations of the Taò-tĕ-Kīng, ch. 25.

Abel Rémusat.—"Avant le chaos qui a précédé la naissance du ciel et de la terre, un seul être existait, immense et silencieux, immuable et toujours agissant sans jamais s'altérer. On peut le regarder comme la mère de l'univers. J'ignore son nom, mais je le désigne par le mot de raison.

Forcé de lui donner un nom, je l'appelle grandeur, progression, éloignement, opposition. Il y a dans le monde quatre grandeurs; celle de la raison, celle du ciel, celle de la terre, celle du roi, qui est aussi une des quatre. L'homme a son type et son modèle dans la terre, la terre dans le ciel, le ciel dans la raison, la raison en elle-même."[55]

Stanislas Julien.—"Il est un être confus qui existait avant le ciel et la terre.

O qu'il est calme! O qu'il est immatériel!

Il subsiste seul et ne change point.

Il circule partout et ne périclite point.

Il peut être regardé comme la mère de l'univers.

Moi, je ne sais pas son nom.

Pour lui donner un titre, je l'appelle Voie (Tao).

En m'efforçant de lui faire un nom, je l'appelle grand.

De grand, je l'appelle fugace.

De fugace, je l'appelle éloigné.

D'éloigné, je l'appelle (l'être) qui revient.

C'est pourquoi le Tao est grand, le ciel est grand, la terre est grande, le roi aussi est grand.

Dans le monde, il y a quatre grandes choses, et le roi en est une.

L'homme imite la terre; la terre imite le ciel; le ciel imite le Tao; le Tao imite sa nature" (L. V. V., p. 35).

John Chalmers.—"There is something chaotic in nature which existed before heaven and earth. It was still. It was void. It stood alone and was not changed. It pervaded everywhere and was not endangered. It may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe. I know not its name, but give it the title of Tau. If I am forced to make a name for it, I say it is Great; being great, I say that it passes away; passing away, I say that it is far off; being far off, I say that it returns.

Now Tau is great; Heaven is great; Earth is great; a king is great. In the universe there are four greatnesses, and a king is one of them. Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from Tau; and Tau takes its law from what is in itself" (O. P., p. 18).

Reinhold von Plänckner.—"Es existirt ein das All erfüllendes, durchaus vollkommenes Wesen, das früher war denn der Himmel und die Erde. Es existirt da in erhabener Stille, es ist ewig und unveränderlich, und ohne Anstoss dringt es überall hin, überall da.

Man möchte es als den Schöpfer der Welt ansehen. Seinen Namen weiss ich nicht, ich nenne es am liebsten das Tao; soll ich diesem eine bezeichnende Eigenschaft beilegen, so würde es die der höchsten Erhabenheit sein.

Ja, erhaben ist das Wesen, um das sich das All und Alles im All bewegt, als solches muss es ewig sein, und wie es ewig ist, ist es folglich auch allgegenwärtig.

Ja das Tao ist erhaben, erhaben ist auch der Himmel, erhaben die Erde, erhaben ist auch das Ideal des Menschen. So sind denn vier erhabene Wesen im Universum, und das Ideal des Menschen ist ohne Zweifel eins derselben.

Denn der Mensch stammt von der Erde, die Erde stammt vom Himmel, der Himmel stammt vom Tao.—Und das Tao stammt ohne Frage allein aus sich selbst" (L. T., p. 113).

Section III.—The Veda.[56]

The word Veda is explained by Sanskrit scholars as meaning knowing or knowledge, and as being related to the Greek oἵδα. The works comprised under this designation are manifold, and appertain to widely different epochs. In the first place they fall into two main classes, the Sanhitâ and the Brâhmana. The Sanhitâ portion of the Veda consists of hymns or metrical compositions addressed to the several deities worshiped by their authors, and expressing religious sentiment; the Brâhmana portion, of theological treatises in prose of an expository, ritualistic and didactic character. Across this subdivision into two classes there runs another of the whole Veda into four so-called Vedas, the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sâma-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. Each of these has its own Sanhitâs, and its own Brâhmanas; but the Sanhitâ, or hymns, of the three other Vedas are not materially different from those of the Rig-Veda. On the Rig-Veda they are all founded; this is the fundamental Veda, or great Veda; and in knowing this one we should know all. The other three, according to Max Müller, contain "chiefly extracts from the Rig-Veda, together with sacrificial formulas, charms, and incantations" (Chips, vol. i. p. 9). It must not therefore be imagined that we have in these four Vedas four different collections of hymns. They are rather four different versions of the same collection, the Sâma-Veda, for instance, containing but seventy-one verses which are wanting in the Rig-Veda (S. V., p. xxviii), and being otherwise "little more than a repetition of the Soma Mandala of the Rich" (Wilson, vol. i. p. xxxvii), or of that book of the Rig-Veda which is devoted to the god Soma. The Atharva-Veda-Sanhitâ is indeed to a certain extent an exception; belonging to a later age, it has some hymns altogether peculiar to itself, and its fifteenth book "has something of the nature of a Brâhmana" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 2). It must be noted, moreover, that of the Yajur-Veda there are two different versions, the Black and the White Yajur-Veda, said to have descended from two rival schools. The hymns of the first are termed the Taittiriya-Sanhitâ, those of the second the Vâjasaneyi-Sanhitâ.

The origin of those four distinct, yet not different Vedas, is thus explained. In certain sacrifices, formerly celebrated in India, four classes of priests were required, each class being destined for the performance of distinct offices. To such of these classes was assigned one of the Vedas, which contained the hymns required by that class. Thus the Sâma-Veda was the prayer-book of the Udgâtri priests, or choristers, who chant the hymns. The Yajur-Veda was the prayer-book of the Adhvaryu priests, or attendant ministers, who prepare the ground, slay the victims, and so forth. The Atharva-Veda was said to be intended for the Brahman who was, according to one of the Brâhmanas, the "physician of the sacrifice;" the general superintendent who was to tell if any mistake had been committed in it (A. B., 5. 5.—vol. ii. p. 376). For the fourth class, the Hotri priests, or reciters of hymns, no special collection was made in the form of a liturgy. They used the Rig-Veda, a collection of the hymns in general without any special object, and they were supposed to know the sacred poetry without the help of a prayer-book (A. S. L., pp. 175, 473, and Chips, vol. i. p. 9).

Originally preserved by scattered individuals (for the Mantra part of the Vedas, [or their Sanhitâ] was composed in an age when writing was not in use), the hymns were subsequently collected and arranged in their present form: a task which Indian tradition assigns to Vyâsa, the Arranger, but which was probably the work of many different scholars, possibly during many generations. The same tradition asserts that each Veda was collected, under Vyâsa's superintendence, by a different editor; and that the collections, transmitted from these primary compilers to their disciples, were, in the course of transmission, rearranged in various ways, until the number of Sanhitâs of each Veda in circulation was very considerable. Each school had its own version, but the differences are supposed by Wilson to have concerned only the order, not the matter of the Sûktas.

The extreme antiquity of our extant Veda is guaranteed by the amplest testimony. In the indexes compiled by native scholars 500 or 600 years before Christ, "we find every hymn, every verse, every word and syllable of the Veda accurately counted" (Chips, vol. i. p. 11). Before this was done, not only was the whole vast collection complete, but it was ancient; for had it been a recent composition it would not have enjoyed the preëminent sanctity which rendered it the object of this minute attention. And not only is the Veda ancient, but it has been shown that, from the variety of its component strata, it must have been the growth of no small period of time, its earliest elements being of an almost unfathomable antiquity. Max Müller, who has elaborately treated this question, divides the Vaidik age—the age during which the Veda was in process of formation—into four great epochs. The most primitive hymns of the Rig-Veda he attributes to what he terms the Chhandas period (from Chhandas, or metre), the limits of which cannot be fixed in the ascending direction, but which descends no later than 1000 B.C. And he thinks that "we cannot well assign a date more recent than 1200 to 1500 before our era" (Ibid., vol. i. p. 13) for the composition of these hymns. The ten books of the Rig-Veda, however, comprise the poetry of two different ages. Some of the hymns betray a more recent origin, and must be assigned to the second, or Mantra period. These comparatively modern compositions belong to a time which may have extended from about 1000 to about 800 B.C. After this we enter on the Brâhmana period, in which the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ not only existed, but had reached the stage of being misinterpreted, its original sense having been forgotten. During this period—which we may place from B.C. 800 to 600—the national thought took the form of prose, and the Brâhmanas were written. Here the age of actually-inspired literature terminates, and we arrive at the Sûtra period, which may have lasted till 200 B.C. Works of high authority, but not in the strict sense revealed works, were produced during these four hundred years (A. S. L., passim). An equal, or greater antiquity is usually claimed by other Sanskritists for these several classes of sacred literature. Wilson would place Manu (who belongs to the Sûtra period) not lower than the fifth or sixth century; the Brâhmana literature in the seventh or eighth; and would allow at least four or five centuries before this for the composition and currency of the hymns, thus reaching the date of 1200 or 1300 before the Christian era (Wilson, vol. i. p. xlvii).

Haug, who believes that "a strict distinction between a Chhandas and Mantra period is hardly admissible," and that certain sacrificial formulas, considered by Max Müller to be more recent, are in fact some centuries older than the finished hymns ascribed by that scholar to the Chhandas age, carries back the composition of both Sanhitâ and Brâhmana to a much earlier date. "The bulk of the Brâhmanas" he assigns to B.C. 1400-1200; and "the bulk of the Sanhitâs" to B.C. 2000-1400; while "the oldest hymns and sacrificial formulas may be a few hundred years more ancient still," and thus "the very commencement of Vedic literature" might be between B.C. 2400 and 2000 (A. B., vol. i. pp. 47, 48). While Benfey, considering that the Prâtisâkhyas (a branch of the Sûtras) must have been composed from B.C. 800 to 600, observes that the text of the Sâma-Veda must extend beyond this epoch (S. V., p. xxix).

Of the several Sanhitâs, that of the Rig-Veda (whose name is derived from a word rich, praise) is usually considered the most ancient, though Benfey expresses the opinion that the text of the Sâma-Veda may possibly be borrowed from an older version of the Rig-Veda than before us (Ibid., p. xxix). Max Müller, on the other hand, conceives the Sâma and Yajur-Vedas to have been probably the production of the Brâhmana period (A. S. L., p. 457). He even denies to any but the Rich the right to be called Veda at all (Chips, vol. i. p. 9). Whatever claim, or want of claim, they may possess to the honor, it is certain that they have for more than 2,000 years invariably received it at the hands of the Hindus themselves. So far from admitting the preëminence of the Rich, the ancient Hindus, according to one of their descendants, held the Sâma in the highest veneration (Chhand. Up., introduction, p. 1). If a doubt can exist as to the canonicity of any one of them, it can only apply to the Atharva-Veda; for in certain texts we find mention made of three Vedas only, the Atharva, from its comparatively late origin, having apparently been long denied the privilege of admission to an equal rank with its compeers.

Whatever their antiquity, the sanctity of these works in Indian opinion is of the highest order. Never has the theory of inspiration been pushed to such an extreme. The Veda was the direct creation of Brahma; and the Rishis, or Sages, who are the nominal authors of the hymns, did not compose them, but simply "saw" them. Although, therefore, the name of one of these seers is coupled with each hymn, it must not be supposed that he did more than perceive the divine poem which was revealed to his privileged vision. And the Veda is distinguished as Sruti, Revelation, from the Smriti, Tradition, under which term is included a great variety of works enjoying a high, but not an independent, authority. They are to be accepted, in theory at least, only when they agree with the Veda, and to be set aside if they happen to differ from it; while no such thing as a contradiction within the body of the Veda is for a moment to be thought of as possible, apparent inconsistencies being only due to our imperfect interpretations. The Sruti class comprises only the Mantra of each Veda and its Brâhmanas; the Smriti consists of the great national epics, namely the Râmâyana and Mahâbhârata; the Mânava-Dharma-Sastra, or Menu; the Purânas; the Sûtras, or aphorisms; and the so-called six Vedângas, a term indicating six branches of study carried on by the help of treatises on the pronunciation, grammar, metre, explanation of words, astronomy, and ceremonial of the Veda. How thoroughly the Veda was analyzed, how minutely every word of it was investigated, is shown by the fact that these Vedângas all have direct reference to it, and were intended to assist in its comprehension. And in ancient times it was the duty of Brahmans to be well acquainted both with the Sûktas (hymns), and with their application to ritual. A Brahman, indeed, who wanted to marry was not obliged to devote more than twelve years to learning the Veda, but an unmarrying Brahman might spend forty-eight years upon it (A. S. L., p. 503).

Subdivision 1.—The Sanhitâ.

Passing now to a more detailed consideration of the Mantra division, we find that the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ—the most comprehensive specimen of this division—comprises more than a thousand short poems, of which the vast majority are addressed to one or more of the Indian gods. A few only, and those believed to be of later origin, are of a different character. This collection is divided in two ways; into ten Mandalas, or eight Ashtakas, the two divisions being quite independent of one another. Under each of these greater heads are several lesser ones, which it is needless to enumerate. The deities to whom the hymns are devoted are exceedingly various and numerous, but as this is not an essay specially intended to elucidate the Veda, but aiming only at a general comparison of this with other sacred books, it would be going beyond our scope to attempt a full account of their several names, attributes, and honors. A few only of the more conspicuous gods need be noticed.

Of these, Agni, as the one with whose praises the Rig-Veda opens, and who, next to Indra, is the principal character in the Vedic hymnology, claims our attention first. He is the god of fire, or more literally, he is the fire itself, and a god at the same time. His name is almost identical with the Latin Ignis. He is frequently spoken of as generated by the rubbing of sticks, for in this manner did the Rishis kindle the fire required for their sacrifices. The sudden birth of the fiery element in consequence of this process must have impressed them as profoundly mysterious. They allude to it under various images. Thus, the upper stick is said to impregnate the lower, which brings forth Agni. He is the bearer of human sacrifices to the gods; a kind of telegraph from earth to heaven. Many are the blessings asked of him. But let the Rishis speak for themselves. Here is the first Sûkta of the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ:—

1. "I praise Agni, the household priest, the divine offerer of the sacrifice, the inviter who keeps all treasures. 2. Agni, worthy of the praises of the ancient Rishis, and also of ours, do thou bring hither the gods. 3. By Agni, the sacrificer enjoys wealth, that grows from day to day, confers renown, and surrounds him with heroes. 4. Agni, the sacrifice which thou keepest from all sides uninvaded, approaches surely the gods. 5. Agni, inviter, performer of gracious deeds, thou who art truthful, and who shinest with various glories, come thou, O God, with the gods. 6. The prosperity, which thou, O Agni, bestowest upon the worshiper, will be in truth a prosperity to thee, O Angiras. 7. We approach thee in our minds, O Agni, day after day, by night and day, to offer thee our adoration. 8. Thee the radiant guardian of the meet reward of the sacrifices, who is resplendent and increasing in his sacred house. 9. Be thou, O Agni, accessible to us, as a father is to the son; be near us for our welfare" (Roer, p. 1).

Even more important than Agni is Indra, the great national god of the Hindus. He is above all things a combative god. His strength is immense, and his worshipers implore him to give them victory and power. He slays the demon Vrittra, a myth symbolizing the dispersion of clouds by the sun. Above all, he loves the juice of the Soma plant (Asclepias acida), which is poured out to him abundantly in sacrifice, which he consumes with avidity, and from which he derives renewed force and energy. These two stanzas, taken from the Sâma-Veda, express some of his attributes:—

"Thou, O Indra, art glorious, thou art victorious, thou art the lord of strength; thou conquerest the strong enemies singly and alone, thou unconquered refuge of men. To thee, living One, we pray; to thee now the very wise, for treasures, as for our share; may thy blessing be granted us" (S. V., ii. 6. 2. 12).

The following hymn brings into especial prominence the more warlike functions of Indra, and may be regarded as a prayer "in the time of war and tumults:"—

8. "May Indra be the leader of these (our armies); may Brihaspati, Largess, Sacrifice and Soma march in front; may the host of Maruts precede the crushing, victorious armies of the gods. May the fierce host of the vigorous Indra, of King Varuna, of the Adityas, and the Maruts (go before us); the shout of the great-souled, conquering, world-shaking gods, has ascended.... 10. Rouse, O opulent god, the weapons, rouse the souls of our warriors, stimulate the power of the mighty men; may shouts arise from the conquering chariots. 11. May Indra be ours when the standards clash; may our arrows be victorious: may our strong men gain the upper-hand; preserve us, O gods, in the fray. 12. Bewildering the hearts of our enemies, O Apvâ (Apvâ is explained as a disease or fear), take possession of their limbs and pass onward; come near, burn them with fires in their hearts; may our enemies fall into blind darkness" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 110.—Rig-Veda, x. 103).

Indra's Soma-drinking propensities are not particularly alluded to in these verses: elsewhere they form the ever-recurring burden of the chants of which he is the hero. Thus, to take but one specimen, which, by its resemblance to others, may fitly stand for all, he is thus lauded:—

1. "May the Somas delight thee! bestow grace, O hurler of lightning! destroy him who hates the priest. 2. Thou who art praiseworthy, drink our drink! thou art sprinkled with streams of honey! from thee, O Indra, glory is derived.... 4. The Indus (the Somas) stream into thee, like rivers, Indra! into the sea, and never overfill thee" (S. V., i. 1. 1).

Indra is, in fact, the Zeus of Indian mythology; the thunderer, the god of the sky, the all-powerful protector of men and destroyer of the demons of darkness. His functions are easily understood, but it is curious that the Soma, which is offered to him in sacrifice, and which he drinks with all the avidity of a confirmed toper, is itself celebrated as a god of very considerable powers. Soma appears to be regarded as a sort of mediator between the greatest gods and men, especially between man and Indra. He is repeatedly entreated to go to Indra, to flow around him, and thus to conciliate and delight him. But Soma can confer benefits independently. One poet implores him to stream forth blessing "on the ox, the man, and the horse; and, O king, blessings on plants" (S. V., ii. 1. 1. 1). In the hymns devoted to him he is raised to an exalted station among the celestial beings, while the sacrifice in which he is drunk by the priests is the capital right in the Brahmanical liturgy (A. B., vol. i. p. 59). The most eminent virtues are inherent in this divine beverage, when taken with all the ceremonies prescribed by traditional law. The Soma juice has, in the opinion of Hindu theologians, "the power of uniting the sacrificer on this earth with the celestial King Soma," and making him "an associate of the gods, and an inhabitant of the celestial world" (Ibid., vol. i. pp. 40, 80). Such was the excellence of this juice, that none but Brahmans were permitted to imbibe it. Kings, at their inaugural ceremonies, received a goblet which was nominally Soma, but on account of their inferior caste they were in fact put off with some kind of spirituous liquor which was supposed, by a mystical transformation, to receive the properties of that most holy divinity (Ibid., vol. ii. p. 522). Agreeably to this theory of Soma's extensive powers, he is invoked in such terms, for instance, as these:—

7. "Place me, O purified god, in that everlasting and imperishable world where there is eternal light and glory. O Indu (Soma), flow for Indra. 8. Make me immortal in the world where king Vaivasvata (Yama, the son of Vivasvat) lives, where is the innermost sphere of the sky, where those great waters flow" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 266.—Rig-Veda, ix. 113).

Singular as it may seem that the juice of the Soma-plant should be at once an object sacrificed on the altar to other gods and a god himself, such a confusion of attributes will be less surprising to those who are familiar with the Christian theory of the Atonement, in which the same God is at once the person who decrees the sacrifice, the person who accepts it, and the victim. At least the double function of Soma is less perplexing than the triple function of Christ.

Considerable among Vedic deities are the Maruts, or gods of tempest. They are in intimate alliance with Indra, to whom their violent nature is closely akin. Their attributes are simple. A notion of them may perhaps be gained from these verses:—

1. "What then now? When will you take (us) as a dear father takes his son by both hands, O ye gods, for whom the sacred grass has been trimmed? 2. Whither now? On what errand of yours are you going, in heaven, not on earth? Where are your cows sporting? 3. Where are your newest favors, O Maruts? Where the blessings? Where all delights?... 6. Let not one sin after another, difficult to be conquered, overcome us; may it depart together with lust. 7. Truly they are furious and powerful; even to the desert the Rudriyas bring rain that is never dried up. 8. The lightning lows like a cow, it follows as a mother follows after her young, that the shower (of the Maruts) may be let loose. 9. Even by day the Maruts create darkness with the water-bearing cloud, when they drench the earth. 10. From the shout of the Maruts over the whole space of the earth, men reeled forward. 11. Maruts on your strong-hoofed steeds go on easy roads after those bright ones (the clouds) which are still locked up. 12. May your felloes be strong, the chariots, and their horses; may your reins be well fashioned. 13. Speak out forever with thy voice to praise the Lord of prayer, Agni, who is like a friend, the bright one. 14. Fashion a hymn in thy mouth! Expand like a cloud! Sing a song of praise. 15. Worship the host of the Maruts, the brisk, the praiseworthy, the singers. May the strong ones stay here among us" (R. V. S., vol. i. p. 65.—Rig-Veda, i. 38).

The most charming member of the Vedic pantheon, and the one who seems to have called forth from the Rishis the deepest poetical feeling, is Ushas (Ἔως), the Dawn. Her continual reappearance, or birth, morning after morning, seems to have filled them with delight and tenderness. The hymn now to be quoted—too long to be extracted in full—gives expression to the feelings with which they gazed upon this ever-recurring mystery:—

2. "The fair and bright Ushas, with her bright child (the Sun), has arrived; to her the dark (night) has relinquished her abodes; kindred to one another, immortal, alternating Day and Night go on changing color. 3. The same is the never-ending path of the two sisters, which they travel, commanded by the gods. They strive not, they rest not, the prolific Night and Dawn, concordant, though unlike. 4. The shining Ushas, leader of joyful voices (or hymns) has been perceived; she has opened for us the doors (of the sky); setting in motion all moving things, she has revealed to us riches. Ushas has awakened all creatures.... 6. (Arousing) one to seek royal power, another to follow after fame, another for grand efforts, another to pursue as it were his particular object,—Ushas awakes all creatures to consider their different modes of life. 7. She, the daughter of the sky, has been beheld breaking forth, youthful clad in shining attire: mistress of all earthly treasures. Auspicious Ushas, shine here to-day. 8. Ushas follows the track of the Dawns that are past, and is the first of the unnumbered Dawns that are to come, breaking forth, arousing life and awaking every one that was dead.... 10. How great is the interval that lies between the Dawns which have arisen, and those which are yet to arise! Ushas yearns longingly after the former Dawns, and gladly goes on shining with the others (that are to come). 11. Those mortals are gone who saw the earliest Ushas dawning; we shall gaze upon her now; and the men are coming who are to behold her on future morns.... 13. Perpetually in former days did the divine Ushas dawn; and now to-day the magnificent goddess beams upon this world: undecaying, immortal, she marches on by her own will" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 188.—Rig-Veda, i. 113).

Hardly a trace of a moral element is to be found in those productions of the Rishis which have hitherto been quoted. And such as these are is the general character of the Rig-Veda-Sanhitâ. It consists in petitions for purely material advantages, coupled with unbounded celebrations of the power of the god invoked, often under the coarsest anthropomorphic images. But while it must be admitted that the sentiment expressed is rarely of a high order, it must not be supposed that the old Hindu gods are altogether destitute of ethical attributes. Marked exceptions to the general tenor of the supplications offered to them certainly occur. There are passages which betray a decided consciousness of sin, a desire to be forgiven and a conviction that certain kinds of conduct entail divine disapprobation, while other kinds bring divine approbation. Thus, in the hymns addressed to the Adityas, a class of gods generally reckoned as twelve in number, and to Mitra and Varuna, two of these Adityas, such feelings are plainly expressed (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 56 ff). Of these two, Mitra is sometimes explained as the Sun, or the god of Day, Varuna as the god of Night. Varuna—whose name corresponds to that of Ouranos—is a very great and powerful divinity, who is endowed by his adorers with the very highest attributes. He is said to have meted out heaven and earth, and to dwell in all worlds as their sovereign, embracing them within him (Ibid., vol. v. p. 61). He is said to witness sin, and is entreated to have mercy on sinners. One penitent poet implores Varuna to tell him for what offense he seeks to kill his worshiper and friend, for all the sages tell him that it is Varuna who is angry with him. And he pleadingly contends that he was not an intentional culprit; he has been seduced by "wine, anger, dice, or thoughtlessness." Another begs the god that, in whatever way mortals may have broken his laws, he will be gracious. A third admits that he, who was Varuna's friend, has offended against him, but asks that they who are guilty may not reap the fruits of their sin; concluding with this amicable hint: "Do thou, a wise god, grant protection to him who praises thee" (O. S. T., vol. v. pp. 66, 67). "The attributes and functions ascribed to Varuna," observes Dr. Muir, "impart to his character a moral elevation and sanctity far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic deity" (Ibid., vol. v. p. 66). And while even in the earlier portion of the Rig-Veda—from which the above expressions have been collected by Dr. Muir—such qualities are ascribed to Varuna, we shall find a still higher conception of his character in a later work, the Atharva-Veda. Here is the description of the Lord of Heaven from the mouth of the Indian Psalmist:—

1. "The great lord of these worlds sees as if he were near. If a man thinks he is walking by stealth, the gods know it all. 2. If a man stands or walks or hides, if he goes to lie down or to get up, what two people sitting together whisper, King Varuna knows it, he is there as the third. 3. This earth, too, belongs to Varuna, the king, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky and the ocean) are Varuna's loins; he is also contained in this small drop of water. 4. He who should flee far beyond the sky, even he would not be rid of Varuna, the king. His spies proceed from heaven towards this world; with thousand eyes they overlook this earth. 5. King Varuna sees all this that is between heaven and earth, and what is beyond. He has counted the twinklings of the eyes of men. As a player throws the dice he settles all things. 6. May all thy fatal nooses, which stand spread out seven by seven and threefold, catch the man who tells a lie; may they pass by him who tells the truth" (A. S. L.—Atharva-Veda, iv. 16).

A consciousness of the unity of Deity, under whatever form he may be worshiped, adumbrated here and there in earlier hymns, becomes very prominent in the later portions of the Veda. From the most ancient times, possibly, occasional sages may have attained the conception so familiar to the Hindu thinkers of a later age, that a single mysterious essence of divinity pervaded the universe. And in the tenth book of the Rig-Veda, which is generally admitted to belong to a more recent age than the other nine books, as also in the Atharva-Veda, this essence is celebrated under various names; as Purusha, as Brahma, as Prajapati (Lord), or Skambha (Support). The hymns in which this consciousness appears are extremely mystical, but a notice of the Veda, however slight, would be very imperfect without a due recognition of their presence. They form the speculative element partly in the midst of, partly succeeding to, the simple, practical, naked presentation of the commonplace daily wants and physical desires of the early Rishis. Take the following texts from the first book of the Rig-Veda. They give utterance to an incipient sentiment of divine unity. The first celebrates a goddess Aditi: "Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the air, Aditi is the mother and father and son. Aditi is all the gods and the five classes of men. Aditi is whatever has been born. Aditi is whatever shall be born" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 354.—Rig-Veda, i. 89. 10). More remarkable than this—for we may suspect here a sectarian desire to glorify a favorite goddess—is this assertion: "They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; and he is the celestial (well-winged) Garutmat. Sages name variously that which is but one: they call it Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan" (O. S. T., vol. v. p. 353.—Rig-Veda, i. 164. 46). In the tenth book of the Rig-Veda, the presence of the speculative element in the theology of the Rishis,—their longing to find a universal Being whom they could adore,—is much more marked. Thus do they express this sentiment:—"Wise poets make the beautiful-winged, though he is one, manifold by words" (Chips, vol. i. p. 29.—Rig-Veda, x. 114. 5). Or more elaborately thus:—

1. "In the beginning there arose the golden Child—He was the one born lord of all that is. He established the earth and this sky;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 2. He who gives life, He who gives strength; whose command all the bright gods revere; whose shadow is immortality, whose shadow is death;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 3. He who through his power is the one King of the breathing and awakening world; He who governs all man and beast; Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 4. He whose greatness these snowy mountains, whose greatness the sea proclaims, with the distant river—He whose these regions are, as it were his two arms;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 5. He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm—He through whom the heaven was established,—nay, the highest heaven;—He who measured out the light in the air;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 6. He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, took up, trembling inwardly—He over whom the rising sun shines forth;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 7. Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the sole life of the bright gods;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 8. He who by his might looked even over the water-clouds, the clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice; He who alone is God above all gods;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? 9. May He not destroy us—He the creator of the earth; or He, the righteous, who created the heaven; He also created the bright and mighty waters;—Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" (Chips, vol. i. p. 29, or A. S. L., p. 569.—Rig-Veda, x. 121).

The same book contains a very important hymn, entitled the Purusha Sûkta. In it we find ourselves transported from the transparent elemental worship of the ancient Aryas into the misty region of Brahmanical subtleties. Purusha appears to be conceived as the universal essence of the world, all existences being but one-quarter of him. The theory of sacrifice occupies, as in the later Indian literature generally, a prominent position. Purusha's sacrifice involved the momentous consequences of the creation of the several Vedas and of living creatures. The four castes sprang from different parts of his person, the parts corresponding to their relative dignity. The purpose of this portion is obvious, namely, to give greater sanctity to the system of caste, a system to which the earlier hymn makes no allusion, and which we may suppose to have grown up subsequently to the era of their composition. Tedious as it is, the Purusha Sûkta is too weighty to be quite passed over.

1. "Purusha has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. On every side enveloping the earth, he overpassed (it) by a space of ten fingers. 2. Purusha himself is this whole (universe), whatever has been and whatever shall be. He is also the lord of immortality, since (or when) by food he expands. 3. Such is his greatness, and Purusha is superior to this. All existences are a quarter of him; and three-fourths of him are that which is immortal in the sky. 4. With three-quarters Purusha mounted upwards. A quarter of him was again produced here. He was then diffused everywhere over things which eat and things which do not eat. 5. From him was born Virāj, and from Virāj, Purusha. When born, he extended beyond the earth, both behind and before. 6. When the gods performed a sacrifice with Purusha as the oblation, the spring was its butter, the summer its fuel, and the autumn its (accompanying) offering. 7. This victim, Purusha, born in the beginning, they immolated on the sacrificial grass. With him the gods, the Sādhyas, and the Rishis sacrificed. 9. From that universal sacrifice sprang the rich and sāman verses, the metres and the yajush. 10. From it sprang horses, and all animals with two rows of teeth; kine sprang from it; from it goats and sheep. 11. When (the gods) divided Purusha, into how many parts did they cut him up? what was his mouth? what arms (had he)? what (two objects) are said (to have been) his thighs and feet? 12. The Brahman was his mouth; the Râjanya was made his arms; the being (called) the Vaisya, he was his thighs; the Sûdra sprang from his feet. 13. The moon sprang from his soul (manas), the sun from his eye, Indra and Agni from his mouth, and Vāyu from his breath. 14. From his navel arose the air, from his head the sky, from his feet the earth, from his ear the (four) quarters; in this manner (the gods) formed the worlds. 15. When the gods, performing sacrifice, bound Purusha as a victim, there were seven sticks (stuck up) for it (around the fire), and thrice seven pieces of fuel were made. 16. With sacrifice the gods performed the sacrifice. These were the earliest rites. These great powers have sought the sky, where are the former Sādhyas, gods" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 9.—Rig-Veda, x. 90).

The wide interval which separates theological theories of this kind from the primitive hymns to the old polytheistic gods, is also marked by a tendency to personify abstract intellectual conceptions, and to confer exalted attributes upon them. Skambha, or Support, mentioned above; Kâla, Time, celebrated in the Atharva-Veda; Speech, endowed with personal powers in the tenth book of the Rig-Veda; Wisdom, to whom prayer is offered in the Atharva-Veda, are instances of this generalizing tendency. As a specimen, the hymn to Wisdom may be taken, and readers may console themselves with the reflection that it is our last quotation from the Mantra part of the Veda:—

1. "Come to us, wisdom, the first, with cows and horses; (come) thou with the rays of the sun; thou art to us an object of worship. 2. To (obtain) the succor of the gods, I invoke wisdom the first, full of prayer, inspired by prayer, praised by rishis, imbibed by Brahmachārins. 3. We introduce within me that wisdom which Ribhus know, that wisdom which divine beings (asurāh) know, that excellent wisdom which rishis know. 4. Make me, O Agni, wise to-day with that wisdom which the wise rishis—the makers of things existing—know. 5. We introduce wisdom in the evening, wisdom in the morning, wisdom at noon, wisdom with the rays of the sun, and with speech" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 255 note.—Atharva-Veda, vi. 108).

Interesting as the Mantra of the Vedas is from the fact of its being the oldest Bible of the Aryan race, it is impossible for modern readers to feel much enthusiasm for its contents. The patient labor of these scholars who have engaged in translations of some parts of it for the benefit of European readers is highly commendable, but it is probable that few who have read any considerable number of these hymns will be desirous of a further acquaintance with them, unless for the purpose of some special researches. Indeed, it may be said that the devoted industry of Benfey, Muir, Max Müller, and others, has placed more than a sufficient number of them within reach of the general public to enable us all to judge of their literary value and their religious teaching. With regard to the former, it would be difficult to concede to them anything but a very modest place. In beauty of style, expression, or ideas, they appear to me to be almost totally deficient. Assuming, as we are entitled to do, that all the best specimens have been already culled by scholars eager to find something attractive in the Veda, it must be confessed that the general run of the hymns is singularly monotonous, and their language by no means conspicuous for poetical coloring. No doubt, poetry always loses in translation; but Isaiah and Homer are still beautiful in a German or English dress; the Sûktas of the Rig-Veda are not. A few exceptions no doubt occur, as in the stanzas to Ushas, or Dawn, quoted above, but the ordinary level is not a high one.

Although, however, the literary merit of the Veda cannot be ranked high, its value to the religious history of humanity at large, and of our race in particular, can hardly be overrated. To the comparative mythologist, above all, it possesses illimitable interest, from the new light it sheds upon the origin and significance of many of those world-wide tales which, in their metamorphosed Hellenic shape, could not be effectually brought under the process of dissection by which their primitive elements have now been laid bare. Mythology is beyond the province of this work, and therefore I purposely refrain from entering upon any explanation of the physical meaning of the old Aryan gods, or of the stories in which they figure.[57] All that I have to do with here is the grade attained in the development of religious feeling among those who worshiped them. And this, it is plain, was at first a very elementary one. The more striking phenomena of nature—the sun, the moon, the sky, the storms, the dawn, the fire—at first attracted their attention, and absorbed their adoration. To these personal beings, as they seemed to the awe-struck Rishis, petitions of the rudest type were confidently addressed. Very little allusion, if any, was made to the necessities of the moral nature; the craving for spiritual knowledge was scarcely felt; but great stress was laid on temporal prosperity. Boons of the most material kind were looked for at the hands of the gods. Plenty of offspring, plenty of physical strength, plenty of property, especially in cattle, and victory over enemies; such are the requests most commonly poured into the ears of Indra, or Agni, or the Maruts. These gods are regarded as the sympathizing friends of men, and if they should fail to do what may reasonably be expected of a god, are almost upbraided for their negligence. The conception of their power is a high one, though that of their moral nature is still rudimentary. Their greatness and their glory, their victories, their splendor, are described in vigorous and high-sounding phrases. The changes are rung upon their peculiar attributes or their famous exploits. Each god in his turn is a great god; but all are separate individuals; there appears in the crude Aryan mind to be as yet no dawning of the perplexing questions on the unity of the Divine which troubled its later development. For as it progresses, the Hindu religion gradually changes. External calm, succeeding the wars of the first settlers, promotes internal activity. The great problem of the Universe is no longer solved, five or six centuries after the older Rishis had passed away, in the simple fashion which satisfied their curiosity. Multiplicity is now resolved into unity; mystical abstractions take the place of the elementary powers of nature. Speech is a goddess; the Vedas themselves—as in the Purusha hymn—acquire a quasi-divinity; the Brahmachârin, or student of theology, is endowed with supernatural attributes, due to the sacred character of his pursuits. Sacrifice, fixed and regulated down to the smallest minutiæ, has a peculiar efficacy, and becomes something of far deeper meaning than a merely acceptable present to the gods. Every posture, every word, every tone acquires importance. There are charms, there are curses, there are incantations for good and evil purposes, for the acquisition of wealth or the destruction of an enemy. It is by its collection of such magical formulæ that the Atharva-Veda is distinguished from its three predecessors. It forms the last stone laid upon the edifice of the genuine Veda, an edifice built up by the labor of many centuries, and including the whole of that original revelation to which the centuries that succeeded it bowed down in reverence and in faith.

Subdivision 2.—The Brâhmanas.

Attached to this edifice as an outgrowth rather than an integral part, the treatises known as Brâhmanas took their place as appendages of the Sanhitâ. Although they are reckoned by the Hindus as belonging to the Sruti, although their nominal rank is thus not inferior to that of the true Veda, yet it must have taken them many generations to acquire a position of honor to which nothing but tradition could possibly entitle them. For any gleams of poetical inspiration, of imaginative religious feeling, of naturalness or simple earnestness that had shone athwart the minds of devout authors in preceding ages, had apparently passed away when the Brâhmanas were composed. They are the elaborate disquisitions of scholars, not the outpourings of men of feeling. Religion was cut and dried when they were written; every part of it has become a matter of definition, of theory, of classification. If in the Vedic hymns we are placed before a stage where religious faith is a living body, whose movements, perhaps uncouth, are still energetic and genuine, the Brâmhanas, on the other hand, take us into the dissecting-room, where the constituent elements of its corpse are exposed to our observation. Not indeed that a true or deep faith had ceased in the Brâhmana period; such an assertion would no doubt be extravagant; but the Brâhmanas themselves are the products of minds more given to analysis than to sentiment, and of an age in which the predominant tendency, at least among cultivated Brahmans, was not so much to feel religion as to think about it. It is so everywhere. The Hebrew Bible, once fixed and completed, gives rise to the Mishnah. The Apostles and Fathers of the Christian Church are followed by a race of schoolmen. The simple Sûtras of Buddhism, replete with plain, world-wide lessons of moral truth, give place to the abstruse developments of incomprehensible theology. Thus the Brâhmanas mark the epoch when the Veda had finally ceased to grow, and its every word and letter had become the object of an unquestioning adoration as the immediate emanation of God.

But among a people so subtle and so inquisitive in all matters of religious belief as the Hindus, opinion could not rest unmoved upon the original foundation. Their minds did not, like those of the Jews, stop short for ever in their intellectual progression, chained to the unshakeable rock of a god-given Revelation. Ever active, ever attracted to the enigmas of life, the Brahmans pushed their speculations into new regions of thought, pondered upon new problems, and invented new solutions. Not that we are to expect to find in the literature of this period any valuable discoveries or any very striking philosophy. The true philosophical systems came later. But still we do find a restless spirit of inquiry, ever prompting fresh efforts to conceive the significance of the gods or to penetrate the mysteries of nature, though the questions discussed are often trifling, and the results arrived at frivolous.

Every Veda has, as already stated, its own Brâhmana or Brâhmanas. Thus, two of these treatises appertain to the Rig-Veda; three to the Sâma-Veda, one to the Black and one to the White Yajur-Veda, and one to the Atharva-Veda (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 5). Appended to the Brâhmanas, and forming, according to Dr. Muir, their "most recent portions," are the Âranyakas and Upanishads, a kind of supplementary works devoted to the elucidation of the highest points of theology. The Brâhmanas present an example of Ritualism in all its glory. They fix the exact nature of every part of every ceremony; describe minutely the mode in which each sacrifice is to be offered; mention the Mantras to be recited on each occasion; declare the benefits to be expected from the several rites, and explain the reasons—drawn from the history of the gods—why they are all to be performed in this particular way and order, and in no other. They are in fact liturgies, accompanied by exposition. Hence they are totally unfit for quotation in a general work, for they would be incomprehensible without an accompanying essay on the Vedic sacrifices, entering into details which would interest none but professional students of the subject.

Thus, the Aitareya Brâhmana occupies itself entirely with the duties of the Hotri priests; for the recitation of the Rig-Veda, to which this Brâhmana belonged, was their province. Occasionally, however, the Brâhmanas, Upanishads, and Âranyakas are enlivened by the introduction of apologues, intended to illustrate the point of theological dogma to which the author is addressing himself. Some of these apologues are curious, though the style in which they are related is generally so prolix as to preclude extraction. A notion of them may be gathered from condensed statements. Thus, in the Brihad Âranyaka Upanishad a story is told of a dispute among the vital organs as to which of them was "best founded," i. e., most essential to life. To obtain the decision of this controversy they repaired to Brahma, who said, "He amongst you is best founded by whose departure the body is found to suffer most." Hereupon Speech departed, and returning after a year's absence, inquired how the others had lived without it. "They said, 'As dumb people who do not speak by speech, breathing by the vital breath, seeing by the eye, hearing by the ear, thinking by the mind, and begetting children, so have we lived.'" The eye, the ear, the mind, the organ of generation, each departed for a year, and, mutatis mutandis, with similar results; blindness, deafness, idiocy, impotence, were all compatible with life. Lastly, "the vital breath being about to depart, as a great, noble horse from the Sindhu country raises its hoofs, so it shook these vital organs from their places. They said, 'Do not depart, O Venerable. We cannot live without thee.' 'If I am such, then offer sacrifice to me.' (They answered)—'Be it so.'" All the other organs hereupon admitted that their own existence depended on that of the vital breath (B. A. U., ch. vi. p. 259).

Several narratives in various Brâhmanas point to the fact that theological knowledge was not in these early days confined to the single caste by which it was afterwards monopolized, for they speak of well-read kings by whom Brahmans were instructed. In the Chândogya Upanishad, for example, five members of the Brahmanical caste engaged in a debate upon the question "Which is our soul, and which is Brahma?" Unable to satisfy themselves, they repaired, accompanied by another theologian who had been unable to answer them, to a monarch named Asvapati, and declining his proffered gifts, requested him to impart to them the knowledge he possessed of the Universal Soul. He accordingly asked each of them in turn which soul he adored. The first replied that he adored the heaven; the second, the sun; the third, the winds; the fourth, the sky; the fifth, water; the sixth, the earth. To each of them in turn the king admitted that it was indeed a partial manifestation of the Universal Soul which he worshiped, and that its adoration would confer some advantages. But, he finally added, "You consume food, knowing the Universal Soul to be many; but he who adoreth that Universal Soul which pervadeth the heaven and the earth, and is the principal object indicated by (the pronoun) I, consumeth food everywhere and in all regions, in every form and in every faculty." Of that all-pervading Soul the several phenomena of the visible Universe worshiped by the Brahmans in their ignorance are but parts (Chhand. Up., ch. v. section 11-18, p. 92-97). Other Brâhmanas tell similar stories of the occasional preëminence of the Kshattriya caste in the rivalry of learning. Thus, the Satapatha Brâhmana, the Brihad Âranyaka Upanishad, and the Kaushîtaki Brâhmana Upanishad, all refer to a certain king Ajâtasatru, who proved himself superior in theological disputation to a Brahman named Bālāki, "renowned as a man well-read in the Veda." Let us take the version of the last-named Upanishad. Bālāki proposed to "declare divine knowledge" to the king, who offered to give him a thousand cows for his tuition. But after he had propounded his views on the Deity, and had been put to shame by the king's answers, the latter said, "Thou hast vainly proposed to me; let me teach thee divine knowledge. He, son of Balaka, who is the maker of these souls, whose work that is,—he is the object of knowledge." Convinced of his ignorance, Bālāki proposed to become the king's pupil. "The king replied, 'I regard it as an inversion of the proper rule that a Kshattriya should initiate a Brahman. But come, I will instruct thee'" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 431).

Both these stories illustrate the striving towards conceptions of the unity of the divine essence which is characteristic of this speculative age. The next, from the Satapatha Brâhmana, has reference to another important point,—the future of the soul. A young Brahman, called Svetaketu, came to a monarch who inquired whether he had received a suitable education from his father. The youth replied that he had. Hereupon the king proceeded to put him through an examination, in which he completely broke down. One of the questions was this:—"Dost thou know the means of attaining the path which leads to the gods, or that which leads to the Pitris (Ancestors (patres)); by what act the one or the other is gained?" In other words did he know the way to heaven? The student did not. Vexed at his failure, the young man hastened to his father, reproached him with having declared that he was instructed, and complained that the Râjanya had asked him five questions, of which he knew not even one. Gautama inquired what they were, and on hearing them, assured his son that he had taught him all he himself knew. "But come, let us proceed thither, and become his pupils." Receiving his guest with due respect, the king offered Gautama a boon. Gautama begged for an explanation of the five questions. "That," said the king, "is one of the divine boons; ask one of those that are human." But Gautama protested that he had wealth enough of all kinds, and added, "Be not illiberal towards us in respect to that which is immense, infinite, boundless." The king accordingly accepted them as his pupils, saying, "Do not attach any blame to me, as your ancestors (did not). This knowledge has never heretofore dwelt in any Brahman; but I shall declare it to thee. For who should refuse thee when thou so speakest?" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 434.)

Unhistorical as they probably are in their details, these traditions are curious both as illustrating the predominant inclination to speculative inquiries, and the fact that in those inquiries the priestly caste was sometimes outshone by their more secular rivals. The following quotation bears upon another doctrine, the transcendent merit of patience under trials, even of the severest kind. Manu, the typical ancestor of mankind, is represented as resigning his most precious possessions to enable impious priests to perform a sacrifice:—

"Manu had a bull. Into it an Asura-slaying, enemy-slaying voice had entered. In consequence of this (bull's) snorting and bellowing, Asuras and Râkshasas (these are species of demons) were continually destroyed. Then the Asuras said, 'This bull, alas! does us mischief; how shall we overcome him?' Now there were two priests of the Asuras called Kilâta and Akuli. They said, 'Manu is a devout believer: let us make trial of him.' They went and said to him, 'Let us sacrifice for thee.' 'With what victim?' he asked. 'With this bull,' they replied. 'Be it so,' he answered. When it had been slaughtered, the voice departed out of it, and entered into Manu's wife Mânavî. Wherever they hear her speaking, the Asuras and Râkshasas continue to be destroyed in consequence of her voice. The Asuras said, 'She does us yet more mischief; for the human voice speaks more.' Kilâta and Akuli said, 'Manu is a devout believer: let us make trial of him.' They came and said to him, 'Manu, let us sacrifice for thee.' 'With what victim?' he asked. 'With this (thy) wife,' they replied. 'Be it so,' he answered" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 188).

Sometimes, though not often, the Brâhmanas contain references to moral conduct. A very theological definition of Duty is given in the Chândogya Upanishad, where it is stated, "Threefold is the division of Duty. Sacrifice, study, and charity constitute the first; penance is the second; and residence by a Brahmachârin (a student of theology) exclusively in the house of a tutor is the third. All those [who attend to these duties] attain virtuous regions; the believer in Brahma alone attains to immortality" (A. B., vii. 2. 10). In another Brâhmana it is asserted that "the marriage of Faith and Truth is a most happy one. For by Faith and Truth joined they conquer the celestial world" (Chhand. Up., ch. ii. sec. 23). And the the story of Sunahsepa, which contains an emphatic repudiation of human sacrifice, has a moral bearing. As a rule, however, the Brâhmanas do not concern themselves with ethical questions. The rules of sacrifice, and the doctrines of a complicated theology, are their main business; and the topics they are thus led to debate in elaborate detail must frequently impress the European reader as not only uninteresting, but unmeaning.

Section IV.—The Tripitaka.[58]

When the master-mind who, by oral and personal instruction, has led his disciples to the knowledge of new and invaluable truths passes away—when the lips that taught them are closed forever, and the intellect that solved the problems of human life is at rest, when the soul that met the spiritual cravings of their souls is no more near them—a necessity at once arises for the collection of the sayings, the apologues, or the parables which can now be heard no more, and which only live in the memories of those who heard them. The precious possession must not be lost. The light must not be suffered to die out. Either the words of the Departed One must be transmitted orally from disciple to disciple, from generation to generation (as happens in countries where writing is uncommon or unknown), or they must be rendered imperishable by being once for all recorded in books.

Such was the course of events upon the death of Gautama Buddha. Tradition tells us that immediately after that great Teacher had entered into Nirvâna, his disciples assembled in council to collect his λόγια, and to fix the Canons of the Faith. This Canon consisted of three portions, and is therefore called the Tripitaka, or Three Baskets. Of these baskets, his disciple Upali was appointed to recall to memory, and edit, the one termed Vinaya, or the Buddha's instructions on discipline; Ananda (the intimate friend of Gautama), the Sûtras, or practical teachings; and Kâsyapa, the Abhidharma, or metaphysical lectures. Into these three classes the Buddhist Canon remains still divided. But the text, as thus established, did not escape the necessity of further revision. One hundred and ten years after Sakyamuni's decease, certain monks brought considerable scandal on the Church by disregarding his precepts. To meet the difficulty, a council was held under the Buddhist king Asoka, the orthodox faith was determined, and a new edition of the Canonical Works compiled by seven hundred "accomplished priests." Divisions and heresies, however, could not be prevented. In Kanishka's reign, four hundred years after Buddha, the Church was split up into eighteen sects, and a third council had to issue a third Revision of the Sacred Texts.[59]

All this is not to be taken as literally true. Especially is it impossible to accept the story that a Text of the Buddha's precepts and lectures was formed immediately after his death. It is probable that not even the earliest parts of the Tripitaka were committed to writing till long after that event, and it is quite certain that its later elements could not have been added till some centuries after it. Nevertheless, there may be, and indeed it is almost beyond doubt that there are, some works in this Canon which were already current as the Word of Buddha in the time of Asoka, who reigned in the third century before Christ. In an inscription quoted by Burnouf, and indisputably emanating from that monarch, it is stated that the law embraces the following topics:—"The limits marked by the Vinaya, the supernatural faculties of the Ariyas, the dangers of the future, the stanzas of the hermit, the Sûtra of the hermit, the speculation of Upatisa (Sariputtra) only, the instruction of Laghula (Rahula), rejecting false doctrines. This," adds the proclamation, "is what has been said by the blessed Buddha" (Lotus, p. 725). In this enumeration we recognize, as Burnouf has observed, the classes Vinaya and Sûtra, which still form two out of the three baskets, and we find also that certain texts were accepted by the Church as containing the genuine teaching of the Buddha. We must suppose, therefore, that at the epoch of the Council held under Asoka in B. C. 246, there were already many unquestioned works in circulation. Nor is there any reason to doubt that some of these have descended to our times. Burnouf divides the Sûtras (in the more general sense of instructions or sermons) into two kinds: simple, and developed Sûtras, of which the simple ones bear marks of antiquity and of fairly representing primitive Buddhism, while the developed Sûtras contain the fanciful speculations of a later age.

Two most fortunate discoveries, the one made by Mr. Hodgson in Nepaul, the other by Csoma Kőrösi in Thibet, have placed the vast collection forming the Canon of Buddhism within the reach of European scholars. Brian Houghton Hodgson was the British Resident in Nepaul in the early part of the present century, and he there succeeded in obtaining a large number of volumes in Sanskrit which he presented to the Asiatic Societies of London and Paris. To the latter he presented first twenty-four works, and subsequently sixty-four MSS., being copies of works he had sent to the Asiatic Society in London. These books happily fell into the hands of one of the greatest of Sanskrit scholars, Eugène Burnouf, who, in his "History of Indian Buddhism," translated a sufficient number of them to serve as specimens. About the same time a zealous Hungarian, Csoma Kőrös, undertook an adventurous journey into the heart of Asia, with a view of discovering the original stock of the Hungarian race. Failing in this object, he achieved another of greater value, that of unearthing the whole of the sacred books known in Thibet under the name of the Kah-gyur, or Kan-gyur (properly bkah-hgyur), which is the Thibetan translation, in one hundred volumes, of the very works of which Hodgson in Nepaul had discovered the Sanskrit originals. Such is the nature of our guarantees for the authenticity of the text.

Subdivision 1.—The Vinaya-Pitaka.

Let us proceed to consider in detail the division which stands first in the Buddhist classification, the Vinaya-Pitaka, or basketful of works on Discipline. These, according to Burnouf, are of very different ages, some being, from the details they furnish with reference to Sakyamuni, his institutions and his surroundings, of very ancient date, and others, which relate events that did not occur till two hundred years or more after his death, belonging to a more recent period. One of the most instructive of the legends which form the staple of the works on Discipline, is that of Pûrna. Only a brief extract of it can be attempted here.

Bhagavat (that is, the Lord, or Buddha) was at Srâvasti, in the garden of Anâtha-pindika. (Anâtha-pindika was a householder who had embraced the religion of the Buddha, and in whose garden he was accustomed to preach.) There resided at this time in the town of Surparaka a very wealthy householder, named Bhava. This Bhava had three sons by his legitimate wife, who were christened respectively Bhavila, Bhavatrata, and Bhavanandin. After some years he fell into an illness which led to his using language of extraordinary violence. His wife with her three sons deserted him in consequence, but a young female slave, reflecting that he had immense wealth, and that it would not be suitable for her to desert him, remained in the house and nursed him throughout his malady. Seeing that he owed her his life, Bhava on his recovery told her that he would give her a reward. The young woman begged that if satisfied she might be admitted to her master's bed. Bhava endeavored to get off, promising a handsome sum of money and her liberty instead, but the girl was determined, and obtained her wish. The result was that "after eight or nine months" she gave birth to a beautiful boy, to whom the name of Pûrna (the Accomplished) was given. The infant Pûrna was confided to eight nurses, and subsequently received a first-rate education. In due time, the three elder sons were married by their father's desire, but the father, seeing them absorbed in mere uxoriousness, reproved their indolence, telling them that he had not been married until he had amassed a lac (100,000) of Suvarna (representing about twenty-eight shillings). Struck by this reproof, the three sons went to sea on a mercantile expedition, and returned after having each made a lac of Suvarnas. But Pûrna, who had remained at home to manage the shop, was found to have gained an equal sum in the same time. Bhava, perceiving Pûrna's talents, impressed on his sons the importance of union, and the duty of disregarding what was said by their wives, women being the destroyers of family peace. He illustrated his remarks by a striking expedient. Having desired his sons to bring some wood, and to kindle it, he then ordered them all to withdraw the brands. This being done, the fire went out, and the moral was at once understood by the four young men. United the fuel burns; and thus the union of brothers makes their strength. Bhavila in particular was warned by his father never to abandon Pûrna. In course of time Bhava died, and the three legitimate sons undertook another voyage. During their absence, the wives of the two younger sons fancied themselves ill-treated by Pûrna, who, in the midst of his business in the shop, did not supply their maids fast enough with all they sent for. On the return of their husbands these two complained to them that were treated as happens to those in whose family the son of a slave exercises the command. The two brothers merely reflected that women sowed divisions in families. Unhappily, however, some trifling incidents, in which Bhavila's child appeared to have been treated by Pûrna with undue partiality, gave the sister-in-law a more plausible pretext for their complaints. Such was the effect of their jealousy, that the younger brothers determined to demand a division of the property, in which Pûrna (as a slave) was to form one of the lots. Bhavila, as eldest brother, had first choice, and remembering his father's advice, chose Pûrna. One of the other brothers took the house and land, and ejected Bhavila's wife; the other took the shop and the property in foreign parts, and ejected Pûrna. Bhavila, his wife, and Pûrna, retired penniless to the house of a relative. The wife in distress sent out Pûrna with nothing but a brass coin, which had been attached to her dress, to buy provisions. Pûrna met a man who had picked up some stranded sandal-wood on the sea-shore, and buying it of him (on credit) for five hundred Kârshâpanas, sold a portion of it again for one thousand. With this sum he first paid the man who had sold the wood, and then obtained provisions for the household. He had still in his possession some pieces of the sandal-wood, which was of a very valuable species called Gosirsha. Shortly after this, the king fell ill, and his doctors having prescribed an unguent of this very wood, it was found that no one but Pûrna had any in his possession. Pûrna sold a piece of it to the Government at one thousand Kârshâpanas, and the king recovered. Hereupon he reflected that he was but a poor sort of king who had no Gosirsha sandal-wood in his establishment, and sent for Pûrna. Pûrna, guessing his object, approached him with one piece in his hand, and three in his robe. The king, after ascertaining that the price of the one piece would be a lac of Suvarnas, inquired if there was more. Pûrna then showed him the three other pieces, and the king would have given him four lacs of Suvarnas. The wily merchant, however, offered to present him with one piece, and when the grateful monarch offered him a boon, requested that he might henceforth be protected against all insults, which was at once accorded.

About this time five hundred merchants arrived at Surparaka with a cargo of goods. The Merchants' Company passed a resolution that none of them should act independently of the rest in buying any of these goods; in short, that there should be no competition. Any one dealing with the merchants alone was to pay a fine. Pûrna, however, at once went to the vessel and bought the whole cargo at the price demanded, eighteen lacs of Suvarnas, paying the three lacs he had received as security. The Merchants' Company, finding themselves anticipated, seized Pûrna and exposed him to the sun to force him to pay the fine. No sooner was the king informed of this than he sent for the Merchants' Company to learn the cause of their proceedings. They told him; but being obliged to confess that they had never informed Pûrna or his brother of the resolution passed, they had to release him with shame. Fortune still favored him. Soon after this, the king happened to require the very articles which Pûrna had purchased, and desired the Merchants' Company to purchase them. Pûrna hereupon sold them at double the price he had paid. His next step was to undertake a sea-voyage for commercial purposes, and the first having been successful, it was followed by five others, all equally so. His seventh was undertaken at the instance of some Buddhist merchants from Srâvasti, where Gautama was teaching. During the voyage he was profoundly impressed with their religious demeanor. "These merchants, at night and at dawn, read aloud the hymns, the prayers which lead to the other shore, the texts which disclose the truth, the verses of the Sthaviras, those relating to the several sciences, and those of the hermits, as well as the Sûtras containing sections about temporal interests. Pûrna, who heard them, said to them, 'Gentlemen, what is that fine poetry which you sing?' 'It is not poetry, O prince of merchants; it is the very words of the Buddha.' Pûrna, who had never till now heard this name of Buddha mentioned, and who felt his hair stand up all over his body, inquired with deep respect, 'Gentlemen, who is he whom you call Buddha?' The merchants replied, 'The Sramana Gautama, descended from the Sakya family, who having shaven his hair and beard, having put on garments of yellow hue, left his house with perfect faith to enter upon a religious life, and who has reached the supreme condition of an all-perfect Buddha; it is he, O prince of merchants, who is called the Buddha.' 'In what place, gentlemen, does he now reside?' 'At Srâvasti, O prince of merchants, in the wood of Jetavana, in the garden of Anâtha-pindika.'" The result of this conversation was that Pûrna, on his return, announced to his brother his intention of becoming a monk, and advised him never to go to sea, and never to live with his two brothers. After this he went straight to Anâtha-pindika, and was by him presented to the Buddha, who received him with the remark that the most agreeable present he could have was a man to convert. Pûrna then received the investiture and tonsure by miracle, and was instructed in the law (in an abridged version) by his master. A beautiful, and very characteristic conversation follows the reception of the new doctrine. The Buddha inquired of Pûrna where he would now reside, and the latter (who intended to lead an ascetic life) replied that he would reside "in the land of the Sronaparantakas.[60] 'O Pûrna,' says Gautama, 'they are violent, these men of Sronaparanta: they are passionate, cruel, angry, furious, and insolent. When the men of Sronaparanta, O Pûrna, shall address thee to thy face in wicked, coarse, and insulting language, when they shall become enraged against thee and rail at thee, what wilt thou think of that?' 'If the men of Sronaparanta, O Lord, address me to my face in wicked, coarse, and insulting language, if they become enraged against me and rail at me, this is what I shall think of that: They are certainly good men, these Sronaparantakas, they are gentle, mild men, they who address me to my face, in wicked, coarse and insulting language, they who become enraged against me and rail at me, but who neither strike me with the hand nor stone me.'" The rest must be given in an abridged form. "But if they do strike thee with the hand or stone thee?" "I shall think them good and gentle for not striking me with swords or sticks." "And if they do that?" "I shall think them good and gentle for not depriving me entirely of life." "And if they do that?" (What follows is literal.) "If the men of Sronaparanta, O Lord, deprive me entirely of life, this is what I shall think: There are hearers of Bhagavat [the Lord] who by reason of this body full of ordure, are tormented, covered with confusion, despised, struck with swords, who take poison, who die of hanging, who are thrown down precipices. They are certainty good people, these Sronaparantakas, they are gentle people, they who deliver me with so little pain from this body full of ordure." "Good, good, Pûrna; thou canst, with the perfection of patience with which thou art endowed, yes, thou canst live, thou canst take up thy abode in the land of the Sronaparantakas. Go, Pûrna; delivered thyself, deliver; arrived thyself at the other shore, cause others to arrive there; consoled thyself, console; having come thyself to complete Nirvâna, cause others to arrive there."