वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 433 advocates of the Central Asian as well as of the northern European home of the Aryans are both unwilling to carry back the beginning of the Aryan civilisation beyond post-glacial times, and we are told that Aryan mythology and religion cannot, therefore, claim any higher antiquity. All such guesses and speculations about the origin of the Aryan race and its civilization will have now to be revised in the new light thrown upon the subject by the theory of the Arctic home in pre-Glacial times. We cannot now maintain that primitive Aryans were a post-Glacial race, or that they advanced from barbarism to civilisation in the Neolithic period either in Central Asia or in the northern parts of Europe; nor is it possible to argue that because the mythologies of the differ- ent branches of the Aryan race do not disclose the existence of common deities, these mythologies must be taken to have developed after the separation of the Aryan races from their common home. Thus, for instance, we are told that though the word Uṣhas occurs in Zend as Ushangh, and may be com- pared to Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Lithuanian Auszra, Teutonic Austrô and Anglo-Saxon Eostra, yet it is only in the Vedic mythology that we find Uṣhas raised to the dignity of the goddess of the morning; and from this we are asked to infer that the worship of the dawn was developed only on the Indian soil. The theory of the Arctic home, however, makes it impossible to argue in this way. If Vedic dieties are clothed with attributes which are unmistakably polar in their origin,—and in the case of Uṣhas, the polar character has been shown to be unquestionable,—we cannot hold that the legends pertaining to these deities were developed on the plains of Central Asia. It was impossible for the Indian priests to conceive or picture the splendours of the dawn in the way we meet with in the Ṛig-Veda; for it has been shown that the evanescent dawn, with which they were familiar, is quite dissimilar in character to the Arctic dawn, the subject of the 28

434 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Vedic hymns. And what applies to the dawn can be predic- ated as well of other deities and myths, e. g., of Indra and Vṛitra or the captive Waters, of Viṣhṇu hibernating for four months in a year, or of Trita or the Third going down in a well, or of the Ashvins rescuing or saving the gods from the temporary affliction to which they were again and again sub- jected. These very names may not be found in the Celtic or the Teutonic mythology, but an examination of the latter has been found to disclose the same polar characteristics which are possessed by Vedic deities or myths; and so long as this fundamental coincidence exists between the two, it is unreason- able to contend that the mythologies of the different branches of the Aryan race had no common origin, or that the resem- blances between the names of the deities are more linguistic than mythological. The destruction of the ancient Aryan home by glaciation and deluge introduces a new factor in the history of the Aryan civilisation; and any short-comings or defects in the civilisation of the Aryan races, that are found to have inhabited the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age, as distinguished from the civilisation of the Asiatic Aryan races, must now be accounted for as the result of a natural relapse into barbarism after the great catastrophe. It is true that ordinarily we cannot conceive a race that has once launched on a career of progress and civili- sation suddenly retrograding or relapsing into barbarism. But the same rule cannot be applied to the case of the continu- ation of the ante-diluvian civilisation into post-diluvian times. In the first place very few people could have survived a cataclysm of such magnitude as the deluge of snow and ice; and those that survived could hardly be expected to have carried with them all the civilisation of the original home, and introduced it intact in their new settlements, under adverse circumstances, amongst the non-Aryan tribes in the north of Europe or on the plains of Central Asia. We must also bear

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 435 in mind the fact that the climate of northern Europe and Asia, though temperate at present, must have been very much colder after the great deluge, and the descendants of those who had to migrate to these countries from the Polar regions, born only to a savage or nomadic life, could have, at best, preserved only fragmentary reminiscences of the ante-diluvian culture and civi- lisation of their forefathers living in the once happy Arctic home. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised if the European Aryas are found to be in an inferior state of civi- lisation at the beginning of the Neolithic age. On the contrary the wonder is that so much of the ante-diluvian religion or cul- ture should have been preserved from the general wreck, caused by the last Glacial epoch, by the religious zeal and industry of the bards or priests of the Iranian or the Indian Aryas. It is true that they looked upon these relics of the an- cient civilisation, as a sacred treasure entrusted to them to be scrupulously guarded and transmitted to future generations. Yet considering the difficulties with which they had to contend, we cannot but wonder how so much of the ante-diluvian civilisation, religion, or worship was preserved in the Veda or the Avesta. If the other Aryan races have failed to preserve these ancient traditions so well, it would be unreasonable to argue therefrom that the civilisation or the culture of these races was developed after their separation from the common stock. It has been shown previously that the climate of the Arctic regions in the inter-Glacial period was so mild and temperate as to be almost an approach to a perpetual spring, and that there was then a continent of land round about the Pole, the same being submerged during the glacial epoch. The primitive Aryans residing in such regions must, therefore, have lived a happy life. The only inconvenience experienced by them was the long Arctic night; and we have seen how this phenomenon has served to give rise to various myths or

436 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. legends describing the struggle between the powers of light and darkness. The occurrence of the Arctic night, its tiresome length, and the long expected morning light on the horizon after some months were, naturally enough, the most import- ant facts which attracted the attention of our primeval fore- fathers, and it is no wonder if they believed it to be the grea- test exploit of their gods when the beneficent dawn came dawn ing up, after several months of darkness, from the nether world of aerial waters, inaugurating a new yearly round of sacri- fices, festivals, or other religious or social ceremonies. It was the beginning of the Devayâna, when the powers of light cele- brated their victory over the demons of darkness, and the Child of the Morning, the Kumâra, the leader of the army of gods, walked victoriously along the Devayâna path commencing the cycle of human ages, or mânushâ yugâ, as mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda. The Pitṛiyâna, or the walk of the Manes, corres- ponded with the dark winter, the duration of which extended in the original home from two to six months. This was the period of rest or repose during which, as observed previously, people refrained even from disposing the bodies of the dead owing to the absence of sunshine. All social and religious ceremonies or feasts were also suspended during this period as the powers of darkness were believed to be in the ascendant. In short, the oldest Aryan calendar was, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, divided into two parts, a summer of seven or ten months and a corresponding winter of five or two months. But it seems to have been an ancient practice to reckon the year by counting the recurrence of summers or winters rather than by combining the two seasons. It is thus that we can account for a year of seven or ten months in old times, or annual sacrificial sattras extending over the same period. This calendar is obviously unsuited to places to the south of the Arctic circle; and the Aryans had, therefore, to change or reform the same, as was done by Numa, in post-glacial

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 437 times, when, expatriated from their mother-land, they settled in the northern parts of Europe and Central Asia. But the reminis- cence of the Devayâna as a special period of sacrifices and cere- monies was tenaciously preserved, and even now it is looked upon as a season of special religious merit. We can, on this theory, easily explain why the Gṛihya-Sûtras attach special importance to the Uttarâyaṇa from a ceremonial point of view, and why death dur- ing the Dakshiṇâyana is regarded as inauspicious. How the inter-glacial year of seven or ten months was changed to a year of twelve months in post-glacial times, and how the equi- . noctial division which obtained at first on the analogy of the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, was subsequently altered to the solstitial one, the old meaning of the word Uttarâyaṇa undergo- ing (Orion, p. 25 f.) a similar change, are questions, which, though important in the history of the Aryan calendar, are not relevant in this place ; and we shall, therefore, proceed with the subject in hand. It is urged by some writers that though the worship of natural elements is found to obtain in several ancient Indo- European religions, yet its beginnings cannot be supposed to go back to the time of the common origin of the related peoples. Dr. Schrader has ably refuted this view in the concluding pages of his book on the pre-historic antiquities of Aryan peoples ; and the theory of the Arctic home powerfully supports Dr. Schrader in his conclusions. " If we put aside everything un- safe and false," observes Dr. Schrader, " that Comparative My- thology and History of Religion has accumulated on this subject, we are solely, from the consideration of perfectly trustworthy material, more and more driven, on all sides, to assume that the common basis of ancient European religions was a worship of the powers of Nature practised in the Indo-European period."* * See Dr. Schrader's Pre His. Antiqui. Ary. Peoples, ..; ; by Jevons, p. 418.

438 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. The fact that the Vedic deities like Uṣhas, the Âdityas, the Ashvins or the Vṛitrahán are found invested with Polar cha- racteristics, further goes to confirm the conclusion based on linguistic grounds, or common etymological equations for sky, morning, fire, light or other natural powers. In short, what- ever be the stand-point from which we view the subject in question, we are led to the conclusion that the shining sky (Dyaus pitâ), the sun (Sûrya), the fire (Agni), the Dawn (Uṣhas), the storm or thunder (Tânyatu) had already attained to the dig- nity of divine beings or gods in the primeval period ; and etymo- logical equations like Sanskrit yaj, Zend yaz and Greek azomai, show that these gods were worshipped and sacrifices offered to them to secure their favour even in primeval times. Whether this worship originated, or, in other words, whether the powers of nature were invested with divine honours only in inter-glacial times, or in times anterior to it, cannot, as stated above, be ascertained from the materials in our hands at present. But this much is beyond question that the worship of these elements, as manifestations of divine power, had already become established amongst the undivided Aryans in the Arctic home, and the post-diluvian Aryan religions were developed from this ancient system of worship and sacrifices. We have seen that the Ṛig-Veda mentions the ancient sacrificers of the race like Manu, Aṅgirases, Bhṛigus and others, and the fact that they completed their sacrificial sessions in seven, nine or ten months proves that they were the sacrificers of the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home. It was these sacrificers who performed the sacrifices of the people during a summer of seven or ten months and worshipped the matutinal deities with offerings in primeval times. But when the sun went down below the horizon, these sacrificers naturally closed their sessions and made their offer- ings only to Vṛitrahan, the chief hero in the struggle with the demons of darkness, in order that he may, invigorated by

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 439 their offerings, eventually bring back the light of the dawn to these worshippers. I do not mean to assert that an elaborate system of sacrifices existed in inter-glacial times; but I do maintain that sacrifice was the main ritual of the primeval Aryan religion, and that it is a mistake to suppose that it origi- nated or was invented only in post-glacial times. I have dwelt at some length on the question of ancient religious worship and ritual in this place because the theory of the Arctic home very well exposes, in my opinion, the fallacious character of many of the existing views on this subject. A people, who had come to worship the powers of Nature as manifestations of divine will and energy, who had a well- developed language of their own, and who had already evolved a legendary literature out of the Arctic conditions of the year in their congenial home near the North Pole, may well be expected to have made a good advance in civilisation. But we have at present very few means by which we can ascertain the exact degree of civilisation attained by the undivided Aryans in their primitive home. Comparative Philology tells us that primitive Aryans were familiar with the art of spinning and weaving, knew and worked in metals, constructed boats and chariots, founded and lived in cities, carried on buying and selling, and had made considerable progress in agriculture. We also know that important social or political institutions or organisations, as, for instance, marriage or the laws of property, prevailed amongst the forefathers of our race in those early days; and linguistic palæontology furnishes us with a long list of the fauna and the flora known to the undivided Aryans. These are important linguistic discoveries, and taking them as they are, they evidently disclose a state of civilisation higher than that of the savages of the Neolithic age. But in the light of the Arctic theory we are naturally led to inquire if the culture of the primitive Aryans was con- fined only to the level disclosed by Comparative Philology, or

440 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. whether it was of a higher type than the one we can predicate of them simply on linguistic grounds. We have seen above that in the case of the mythological deities and their worship the Polar character of many of the deities at once enables us to assign them to the primitive period even when their names are not found in all the Aryan languages; and the results of Comparative Philology regarding primitive Aryan culture will have to be checked and revised in the same way. The very fact that after compulsary dispersion from their mother-land the surviving Aryans, despite the fragmentary civilisation they carried with them, were able to establish their supremacy over the races they came across in their migrations from the original home at the beginning of the post-Glacial period, and that they succeeded, by conquest or assimilation, in Aryanising the latter in language, thought and religion under circumstances which could not be expected to be favourable to them, is enough to prove that the original Aryan civilisation must have been of a type far higher than that of the non-Aryan races, or than the one found among the Aryan races that migrated southward after the destruction of their home by the Ice Age. So long as the Aryan races inhabiting the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age were believed to be autochthonous there was no necessity of going beyond the results of Comparative Philology to ascertain the degree of civilisation attained by the undivided Aryans. But now we see that the culture of the Neolithic Aryans is obviously only a relic, an imperfect fragment, of the culture attained by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home; and it would, there- fore, be unreasonable to argue that such and such civilisation, or culture cannot be predicated of the undivided Aryans simply because words indicating the same are found only in some and not in all the Aryan languages. In other words, though we may accept the results of Comparative Philology so far as they go, we shall have to be more cautious hereafter

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 441 in inferring that such and such a thing was not known to the primitive Aryans because common etymological equations for the same cannot be discovered in all the Aryan languages. We have, it is true, no means of ascertaining how much of the original civilisation was lost in the deluge, but we cannot, on that account, deny that some portion of it must have been irrecoverably lost in the great cataclysm that destroyed the original home. Under these circumstances all that we can safely assert is that the degree of culture disclosed by Compa- rative Philology is the lowest or the minimum that can be pre- dicated of the undivided Aryans. It is important to bear this reservation in mind because undue importance is some- times attached to the results of Comparative Philology by a kind of reasoning which appeared all right so long the question of the site of the original home was unsettled. But now that we know that Aryan race and religion are both inter-Glacial and their ultimate origin is lost in geological antiquity, it does not stand to reason to suppose that the inter-Glacial Aryans were a race of savages. The archæologists, it is true, have established the succession of the ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron ; and according to this theory the Aryan race must have once been in the Stone age. But there is nothing in archæology which requires us to place the Stone age of the Aryan races in post-Glacial times; and when Comparative Philology has established the fact that undivided Aryans were acquainted with the use of metals, it becomes clear that the degree of civilisation reached by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home was higher than the culture of the Stone age or even that of the age of metals. I have referred in the first chapter of the book to the opinion of some eminent archæologists that the metal age was introduced into Europe from other countries either by commerce or by the Indo-European race going there from outside, and the theory of the Arctic home with its inter-Glacial civilisation lends support to this view.

442 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. I might in passing here refer to an instance which illustrates the danger of relying exclusively on Comparative Philology in this respect. Dr. Schrader has shown that copper, at any rate, was known to the primitive Aryans; and he admits the possi- bility that this metal may, in isolated cases, have been employ- ed in the manufacture of weapons like fighting knives or lance- heads. But we are told that there are linguistic difficulties which prevent us from assuming that gold and silver were known in the primitive period. On an examination of the sub- ject it will, however, be seen that in cases like these the phi- lologist relies too much on his own methods or follows them too rigidly. For instance khalkos (copper or bronze) is men- tioned by Homer as a medium of exchange (II. vii, 472); and Comparative Philology discloses two etymological equa- tions, one derived from the root *mei (Sans. me) denoting 'barter,' and the other derived from the Sanskrit krî, Greek priamai, meaning purchase. The Ṛig-Veda (VIII. I, 5) also mentions a measure of value called shulka, and, as the word is used in later Sanskrit literature to denote a small payment made at a toll-house, it is not unlikely that shulka originally meant a small coin of copper or bronze similar in character to the khalkos mentioned by Homer. Now it is true that ordinarily Greek kh, is represented by h in Sanskrit, and that if this rule be rigidly applied to the present case it would not be possible to phonetically identify khalkos with shulka. Philo- logists have, therefore, tried to compare khalkos with Sans- krit hriku or hliku. But, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, the connection seems to be altogether improbable. Hrîku is not a Vedic word, nor does it mean copper or bronze. Despite the phonetic difficulty,—and the difficulty is not so serious as it seems to be at the first sight, for Sanskrit sh is represented by k in Greek, and this k sometimes gives place to the aspir- ated kh,—I am, therefore, inclined to identify khalkos with shulka; and if this is correct, we must conclude that undivided

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 443 . Aryans were familiar with some metal, either copper or bronze, as a medium of exchange. There are many other points si- milar in character. But it is impossible to go further into this subject in this place. I only want to point out the re- servation with which we shall have now to accept the results of Comparative Philology in forming our estimate of the degree of culture reached by the primitive Aryans, and show that when the primitive Aryan culture is carried back to the inter-Glacial age, the hypothesis that primitive Aryans were hardly better than the savage races of the present day at once falls to the ground. If the civilisation of some Aryan races in the Neolithic age appears to be inferior or imperfect it must, therefore, be, as observed above, ascribed to relapse or retrogression after the destruction of the ancient civilisation by the Ice Age, and the necessarily hard and nomadic life led by the people who survived the cataclysm. The Asiatic Aryans, it is true, were able to preserve a good deal more of the origin- al religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose. But even then how difficult the task was can be very well seen from the fact that a greater portion of the hymns and songs originally comprised in the Avesta has been lost; and though the Veda is better preserved, still what we have at present is only a portion of the literature which is believed on good grounds to have once been in existence. It may seem pass- ing strange that these books should disclose to us the ex- istence of an original Arctic home so many centuries after the traditions were incorporated into them. But the evidence in the foregoing pages shows that it is a fact; and if so, we must hold that the Neolithic Aryan people in Europe were not as

444 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Prof. Max Muller thinks, progressive, but, for the time at least, necessarily retrogressive savages working only with such residua of the ante-diluvian civilisation as were saved from its general wreck.* But though the Vedic or Aryan people and their religion and culture can thus be traced to the last inter-glacial period, and though we know that the degree of culture attained by the primitive Aryans was of a higher type than some scholars seem to be willing to assign to them, yet there are many points in the primitive Aryan history which still remain unsolved. For instance, when and where the Aryan race was differenti- ated from other human races, or how and where the Aryan speech was developed, are important questions from the anthropological point of view, but we have, at present, no means to answer the same satisfactorily. It is quite possible that other human races might have lived with the Aryans in their home at this time; but the Vedic evidence is silent on this point. The existence of the human race is traced by geologists to the Tertiary era; and it is now geologically cer- tain that the gigantic changes wrought on this globe by glacial epochs were witnessed by man. But anthropology does not supply us with any data from which we can ascertain when, where, or how the human race came to be differenti- ated according to colour or language. On the contrary, it is now proved that at the earliest date at which human remains have been found, the race was already divided into several sharply distinguished types; and this, as observed by Laing, leaves the question of man's ultimate origin completety open to speculation, and enables both monogenists and polygenists to contend for their respective views with plausible argu- ments and without fear of being refuted by facts.† The evid- ence, set forth in the foregoing pages, does not enable us to

• Max Muller's Last Essays, pp. 172 ff. † Laing's Human Origins, pp. 404-5.

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 445 solve any of these questions regarding the ultimate origin of the human race or even of the Aryan people or their language and religion. We have nothing in this evidence for ascert- aining how far the existence of the Aryan race can be traced back to pre-glacial, as distinguished from inter-glacial times; or whether the race was descended from a single pair (mo- nogeny) or plurality of pairs (polygeny) in the remotest ages. The traditional evidence collected by us only warrants us in taking back the Aryan people and their civilisation from the Temperate zone in post-glacial to the Arctic regions in inter- glacial times. It is true that Aryans and their culture or religion cannot be supposed to have developed all of a sudden at the close of the last inter-glacial period, and the ultimate origin of both must, therefore, be placed in remote geological times. But it is useless to speculate on this question without further evidence, and in the present state of our knowledge we must rest content with the result that though Aryan race or religion can be traced to the last inter-glacial- period yet the ultimate origin of both is still lost in geological antiquity. I cannot conclude this chapter without briefly examining the bearing of our results on the views entertained by Hindu theological scholars regarding the origin, character and autho- rity of the Vedas. It is a question which has been dis- cussed with more or less acuteness, subtlety, or learning ever since the days of the Brâhmaṇas; and from a purely theologi- cal point of view I do not think there remains anything to be now said upon it. Again, for the purposes of scientific investi- gation, it is necessary to keep he theological and the antiqua- rian aspect of the question quite distinct from each other. Yet when our investigation, conducted on strict scientific lines, is completed, we may usefully compare our conclusions with the theological views and see how far they harmonise or clash with each other. In fact no Hindu who reads a book like the

446 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. present, can avoid making such a comparison ; and we shall be lightening his task by inserting in this place a few remarks on this subject. According to the view held by Hindu theo- logians, the Vedas are eternal (nitya), without a beginning (anâdi), and also not created by a human author (a-pauru- sheya); and we are told that these attributes have been predi- cated of our sacred books from the most ancient times known to our divines or philosophers. The whole of the third Volume of Dr. Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts is devoted to the discussion of this subject, a number of original passages and arguments bearing on which are there collected, including Sâyaṇa's lucid summary in the introduction to his commen- tary on the Ṛig-Veda ; and more recently the late Mahâ- mahopâdhyâya Râjârâma Shâstri Bodas, the editor of the Bombay edition of the Ṛig-Veda, has done the same in a Sanskrit pamphlet, the second edition of which is now pub- lished by his son, Mr. M. R. Bodas, of the Bombay High Court Bar. I shall, therefore, give in this place only a summary of the different views of Hindu theologians, without entering into the details of the controversy which can be studied from the above books. The question before us is whether the Vedic hymns, that is, not only the words of the hymns but also the religious system found or referred to therein, are the composi- tions of the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are assigned in the Anu- kramaṇikâs, or the ancient Indexes of the Veda, in the sense in which the Shâkuntala is a composition of Kâlidâsa ; or whether these hymns existed from times immemorial, in other words, whether they are eternal and without a beginning. The hymns themselves are naturally the best evidence on the point. But, as shewn by Dr. Muir in the second chapter (pp. 218–86) of the Volume above mentioned, the utterances of the Vedic Ṛiṣhis on this point are not unanimous. Thus side by side with passages in which the Vedic bards have express- ed their emotions, hopes or fears, or prayed for worldly comforts

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 447 and victory over their enemies, condemning evil practices like gambling with dice (X, 34), or have described events, which on their face seem to be the events of the day; side by side with passages where the poet says that he has made (kṛi), generated (jan), or fabricated (taksh) a new (navyasî or apūrvya) hymn, much in the same way as a carpenter fashions a chariot (I, 47, 2; 62, 13; II, 19, 8; IV, 16, 20; VIII, 95, 5; X, 23, 6; 39, 14; 54, 6; 160, 5; &c.); or with hymns in which we are plainly told that they are composed by so and so, the son of so and so, (I, 60, 5; X, 63, 17; 67, 1; &c.), there are to be found in the Ṛig-Veda itself an equally large number of hymns where the Ṛiṣhis state in unmistakable terms that the hymns sung by them were the results of inspiration from Indra, Varuṇa, Soma, Aditi, or some other deity; or that the Vedic verses (ṛichaḥ) directly emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha, or some other divine source; or that they were given by gods (devatta), or generated by them and only seen or perceived (pashyat) by the poets in later times, (I, 37, 4; II, 23, 2; VII, 66, 11; VIII, 59, 6; X, 72, 1; 58, 8; 90, 9; &c.). We are also told that Vâch (Speech) is nityâ or eternal (VIII, 75, 6, also cf. X, 125); or that the gods generated the divine Vâch and also the hymns (VIII, 100, 11; 101, 16; X, 88, 8). The evidence of the Vedic hymns does not, therefore, enable us to decide the question one way or the other; but if the composition of the hymns is once ascribed to human effort, and once to divine inspiration or to the gods di- rectly, it is clear that at least some of these old Ṛiṣhis believed the hymns to have been sung under inspiration or generated directly by the goddess of speech or other deities. We may reconcile the former of these views with the passages where the hymns are said to be made by human effort, on the supposition that the poets who sang the hymns believed themselves to be acting under divine inspiration. But the explanation fails to account for the statement

448 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. that the Ṛik, the Yajus, and the Sâman, all emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha or the gods ; and we must, therefore, conclude that the tradition about the eternity of the Vedas, or their divine origin is as old as the Veda itself. Accordingly, when we come to the Brâhmaṇas and the Upaniṣhads, we naturally find the same view prevailing. They tell us that the Ṛig-Veda pro- ceeded from Agni (fire), the Yajur-Veda from Vâyu (wind), and the Sâma-Veda from Sûrya (the sun), and that these three deities got their warmth from Prajâpati who practised tapas for the purpose, (Shat. Brâh, XI, 5, 8, 1 ff; Ait, Brâh. V, 32-34; Chhân. Up. IV, 17, 1); or that the Vedas are the breathings of the Supreme Being (Bṛih. Up. II, 4, 10); or that Prajâpati by means of the eternal Vâch created the Vedas and everything else in this world ; and the same view is met with in the Smṛitis like those of Manu (I, 21-23) and others, or in the Purâṇas, several extracts from which are given by Dr. Muir in the volume above referred to. It is admitted that the Vedas, with other things, are destroyed, at the end of a Kalpa, by the deluge (pralaya) which overtakes the world at the time. But we are told that this does not affect the question of the eternity of the new Kalpa by Brahmâ himself after the grand deluge, and by the Ṛiṣhis, who survive, after minor deluges. The authority generally quoted in support of this view is a verse from the Mahâbhârata (Shânti-Parvan, Chap. 210, v. 19) which says, "The great Ṛiṣhis, empowered by Svayambhû (the self-born), formerly obtained, through tapas (religious austerity), the Vedas and the Itihâsas, which had disappeared at the end of the (preceding) Yuga."* The Ṛiṣhis are, therefore, called the seers and not

• The verse is as follows:— युगान्तेऽन्तर्हितान् वेदान् सेतिहासान् म- हर्षयः । लेभिरे तपसा पूर्वमनुज्ञाता स्वयंभुवा ॥ Bhavabhûti, Utt, 1, 15, similarly says in another connection:— ब्रह्मर्षयो ब्रह्महिताय तप्त्वा । परः सहस्राः शरदस्तपांसि ॥ एतान्यपश्यन् गुरवः पुराणाः । स्वाम्येव तेजांसि तपो- मयानि ॥ Also Cf. Ṛig. VIII, 59, 6, quoted infra.

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 449 the makers of the Vedic hymns; and the personal designa- tion of some Shâkhâs, branches or recensions of Vedas, as Taittirîya, Kâṭhaka, &c., as well as the statements in the Vedic hymns, which say that so and so has made or generated such and such a hymn, are understood to mean that the particu- lar Shâkhâ or hymn was perceived, and only perceived, by the particular Ṛiṣhi or poet. It is not, however, till we come to the works of the authors and expositors of the different schools of Hindu philosophy (darshanas) that we find the doctrine of the eternity of the Vedas subjected to a searching examination; and, as remarked by Dr. Muir, one who reads the discussions of these writers cannot fail to be struck "with the acuteness of their reasoning, the logical precision with which their arguments are presented, and the occasional live- liness and ingenuity of their illustrations."* They all bear wit- ness to the fact that so far as tradition went,—an unbroken tradition of great antiquity,—there was no remembrance of the Vedas having been ever composed by or ascribed to any human author; and taking into consideration the learning and the piety of these scholars, their testimony must be regarded as an unimpeachable proof of the existence of such a tradition, which was considered ancient several centuries before the Christian era. But though a tradition whose high antiquity can be so well established deserves to be seriously considered in our investigations regarding the character of the Vedas, yet it is, after all, a negative proof, showing, it may be urged, nothing more than no human author of the Veda has been known from times beyond the memory of all these ancient scholars. Jaimini, the author of Mimâmsâ Sutras, therefore, further deduces (I, 1, 5) the eternity of the Vedas from the re- lation or connection between words and their meanings, which he holds to be eternal (autpattika) and not conventional. 'A word is defined to be an aggregate of letters in a particular

• Muir, O. S. T., Vol. III, p. 58. 29

450 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.

order, and its sense is said to be conveyed by these letters fol- lowing each other in a definite succession. But Grammarians are not satisfied with this view, and maintain that the sense of a word is not expressed by the aggregate of its constituent letters which are transient, but by a certain super-sensuous- entity, called sphoṭa (i. e., manifester, from sphuṭ), which su- pervenes the aggregate of the letters as soon as they are pro- nounced, and reveals their meaning. Jaimini denies that there are words in the Vedas which denote any transient objects, and as the Vedic words and their sense are eternal, it follows, ac- cording to him, that the Vedas are self-demonstrative, or that they shine, like the sun, by their own light, and are, therefore perfect and infallible. If particular parts of the Vedas are designated after some Ṛiṣhis, it does not, we are told, prove those sages to have been their authors, but merely the teachers who studied and handed them down. Bâdarâyaṇa, as inter- preted by Shaṅkarâchârya (I, 3, 26–33), the great leader of the Vedânta School, accepts the doctrine of the eternity of sound or words, but adds that it is the species to which the word be- longs, and not the word itself, that is eternal or indestruct- ible, and, therefore, though the names of deities, like Indra and others, which are all created and hence liable to destruc- tion, are mentioned in the Veda, it does not affect the question of its eternity as the species to which Indra and others are said to belong is still eternal. In short, Vedic names and forms of species are eternal, and it is by remembering these that the world is created by Brahmâ at the beginning of each Kalpa, (Maitr. Up., VI, 22). The Veda is, therefore, the original WORD the source from which every thing else in the world emanated, and as such it cannot but be eternal; and it is interesting, as pointed out by Prof. Max Muller in his Lectures on Vedânta Philosophy, to compare this doctrine with that of Divine Logos of the Alexandrian Schools in the West. The Naiyâyikas, on the other hand, deny the doctrine of the

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 451 eternity of sound or word, but hold that the authority of the Vedas is established by the fact of their having emanated from competent (ápta) persons who had an intuitive percep- tion of duty (sâkshâtkṛita dharmâṇaḥ, as Yâska puts it), and whose competence is fully proved by the efficacy of such of the Vedic injunctions as relate to mundane matters, and can, therefore, be tested by experience; while the author of the Vaisheṣhika Sûtras clearly refers (I, 1, 3) the Veda. to Îshvara or God as its framer. The Sâṅkhyas (Sâṅkhya Sû- tras, V, 40-51) agree with the Naiyâyikas in rejecting the doctrine of the eternity of the connection of a word with its meaning; and though they regard the Veda as paurusheya in the sense that it emanated from the Primeval Purusha, yet they maintain that it was not the result of a conscious effort on the part of this Purusha, but only an unconscious emanation from him like his breathing. According to this view the Veda cannot be called eternal in the same sense as the Mîmâmsa- kas have done, and, therefore, the texts which assert the eter- nity of the Vedas, are said to refer merely to "the un- broken continuity of the stream of homogeneous succession," (Veda-nityatâ-vâkyâni cha sajâtîyânupûrvî-pravâhânuchcheda-parâṇi).* Patanjali, the great grammarian, in his gloss on Pâṇini IV, 3, 101, solves the question by making a distinction between the language (the succession of words or letters, varṇânupûrvî, as we find it in the present texts) of the Vedas and their contents (artha), and observing that the question of the eter- nity of the Vedas refers to their sense which is eternal or permanent (artho nityaḥ), and not to the order of their letters, which has not always remained the same (varṇânupûrvî anityâ), and that it is through this difference

• Cf. Vedântaparibhâshâ Âgama-parichcheda, p. 55, quoted in Mahâmahopâdhyâya Jhalkikar's Nyâya-kosha, 2nd Ed. p. 736. s. v. वेदः—सर्गाद्यकाले परमेश्वरः पूर्वसर्गसिद्धवेदानुपूर्वीसमानानुपूर्वीकं वेदं विर- चितवान् न तु तद्विजातीयं वेदम् ।

452 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. in the latter respect that we have the different versions of Kaṭhas, Kalâpas, Mudakas, Pippalâdas and so on. This view is opposed to that of the Mîmâṁsakas who hold both sense and order of words to be eternal. But Patanjali is led to reject the doctrine of the eternity of the order of words, because in that case we cannot account for the different versions or Shâkhâs of the same Veda, all of which are considered to be equally authoritative though their verbal readings are some- times different. Patanjali, as explained by his commentators Kaiyyaṭa and Nâgojî Bhaṭṭa, ascribes this difference in the different versions of the Veda to the loss of the Vedic texts in the pralayas or deluges which occasionally overtake the world, and their reproduction or repromulgation, at the beginning of each new age, by the sages, who survived, according to their remembrance.* Each manvantara or age has thus a Veda of its own which differs only in expression and not in sense from the ante-diluvian Veda, and that different recensions of co-ordi- nate authority of the same Veda are due to the difference in the remembrance of the Ṛiṣhis whose names are associated with the different Shâkhâs, and who repromulgate, at the beginning of the new age, the knowledge inherited by them, as a sacred trust, from their forefathers in the preceding Kalpa. This view substantially accords with that of Vyâsa as recorded in the verse from the Mahâbhârata quoted above. The later exposi- tors of the different schools of philosophy have further developed these views of the Sûtra-writers and criticised or defended the doctrine of the self-demonstrated authority of the scriptural texts (shabda-pramâṇa) in various ways. But we cannot

• Patanjali's words are,—ननु चोक्तं न हि च्छन्दांसि क्रियन्ते नित्यानि च्छन्दांसीति। यद्यप्यर्थो नित्यो या त्वसौ वर्णानुपूर्वी साऽनित्या। तद्भेदाच्चैतद्भव- यति काठकं कालापकं मौदकं पैप्पलादकमिति॥ Nâgojî Bhaṭṭa in his gloss quotes the verse— प्रतिमन्वन्तरं चैषा श्रुतिरन्याऽभिधीयते; and observes that धाता यथापूर्वमकल्पयत् (Rig. X, 190, 3) does not require us to assume that the order of words was the same in the new Kalpa. See Muir O. S. T., Vol. III, pp. 96-97.