2. She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving everywhere. She grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows, (the mornings) the leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold.
3. She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the gods, who leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn was seen revealed by her rays, with brilliant treasures, following every one.
4. Thou who art a blessing where thou art near, drive far away the unfriendly; make the pasture wide, give us safety! Scatter the enemy, bring riches! Raise up wealth to the worshipper, thou mighty Dawn.
5. Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn, thou who lengthenest our life, thou the love of all, who givest us food, who givest us wealth in cows, horses, and chariots.
6. Thou, daughter of the sky, thou high-born Dawn, whom the Vasishthas magnify with songs, give us riches high and wide: all ye gods, protect us always with your blessings.
I must confine myself to shorter extracts, in order to be able to show to you that all the principal elements of real religion are present in the Veda. I remind you again that the Veda contains a great deal of what is childish and foolish, though very little of what is bad and objectionable. Some of its poets ascribe to the gods sentiments and passions unworthy of the deity, such as anger, revenge, delight in material sacrifices; they likewise represent human nature on a low level of selfishness and worldliness. Many hymns are utterly unmeaning and insipid, and we must search patiently before we meet, here and there, with sentiments that come from the depth of the soul, and with prayers in which we could join ourselves. Yet there are such passages, and they are the really important passages, as marking the highest points to which the religious life of the ancient poets of India had reached; and it is to these that I shall now call your attention.
First of all, the religion of the Veda knows of no idols. The worship of idols in India is a secondary formation, a later degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal gods.
The gods of the Veda are conceived as immortal: passages in which the birth of certain gods is mentioned have a physical meaning: they refer to the birth of the day, the rising of the sun, the return of the year.
The gods are supposed to dwell in heaven, though several of them, as, for instance, Agni, the god of fire, are represented as living among men, or as approaching the sacrifice, and listening to the praises of their worshippers.
Heaven and earth are believed to have been made or to have been established by certain gods. Elaborate theories of creation, which abound in the later works, the Brâhmanas, are not to be found in the hymns. What we find are such passages as:
'Agni held the earth, he stablished the heaven by truthful words' (Rv. I. 67, 3).
'Varuna stemmed asunder the wide firmaments; he lifted on high the bright and glorious heaven; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the earth' (Rv. VII. 86, 1).
More frequently, however, the poets confess their ignorance of the beginning of all things, and one of them exclaims:
'Who has seen the first-born? Where was the life, the blood, the soul of the world? Who went to ask this from any that knew it? (Rv. I. 164, 4).25
Or again, Rv. X. 81, 4: 'What was the forest, what was the tree out of which they shaped heaven and earth? Wise men, ask this indeed in your mind, on what he stood when he held the worlds?'
I now come to a more important subject. We find in the Veda, what few would have expected to find there, the two ideas, so contradictory to the human understanding, and yet so easily reconciled in every human heart: God has established the eternal laws of right and wrong, he punishes sin and rewards virtue, and yet the same God is willing to forgive; just, yet merciful; a judge, and yet a father. Consider, for instance, the following lines, Rv. I. 41, 4: 'His path is easy and without thorns, who does what is right.'
And again, Rv. I. 41, 9: 'Let man fear Him who holds the four (dice), before he throws them down (i. e. God who holds the destinies of men in his hand); let no man delight in evil words!'
And then consider the following hymns, and imagine the feelings which alone could have prompted them:
Hymn to Varuna (Rv. VII. 89)1. Let me not yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
2. If I go along trembling, like a cloud driven by the wind; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
3. Through want of strength, thou strong and bright god, have I gone wrong; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
4. Thirst came upon the worshipper, though he stood in the midst of the waters; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
5. Whenever we men, O Varuna, commit an offence before the heavenly host, whenever we break the law through thoughtlessness; have mercy, almighty, have mercy!
And again, Rv. VII. 86:
1. Wise and mighty are the works of him who stemmed asunder the wide firmaments (heaven and earth). He lifted on high the bright and glorious heaven; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the earth.
2. Do I say this to my own self? How can I get unto Varuna? Will he accept my offering without displeasure? When shall I, with a quiet mind, see him propitiated?
3. I ask, O Varuna, wishing to know this my sin. I go to ask the wise. The sages all tell me the same: Varuna it is who is angry with thee.
4. Was it an old sin, O Varuna, that thou wishest to destroy thy friend, who always praises thee? Tell me, thou unconquerable lord, and I will quickly turn to thee with praise, freed from sin.
5. Absolve us from the sins of our fathers, and from those which we committed with our own bodies. Release Vasishtha, O king, like a thief who has feasted on stolen oxen; release him like a calf from the rope.
6. It was not our own doing, O Varuna, it was necessity (or temptation), an intoxicating draught, passion, dice, thoughtlessness. The old is there to mislead the young; even sleep brings unrighteousness.
7. Let me without sin give satisfaction to the angry god, like a slave to the bounteous lord. The lord god enlightened the foolish; he, the wisest, leads his worshipper to wealth.
8. O lord Varuna, may this song go well to thy heart! May we prosper in keeping and acquiring! Protect us, O gods, always with your blessings!
The consciousness of sin is a prominent feature in the religion of the Veda, so is likewise the belief that the gods are able to take away from man the heavy burden of his sins. And when we read such passages as 'Varuna is merciful even to him who has committed sin' (Rv. VII. 87, 7), we should surely not allow the strange name of Varuna to jar on our ears, but should remember that it is but one of the many names which men invented in their helplessness to express their ideas of the Deity, however partial and imperfect.
The next hymn, which is taken from the Atharva-veda (IV. 16), will show how near the language of the ancient poets of India may approach to the language of the Bible:26
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, what 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.
Another idea which we find in the Veda is that of faith: not only in the sense of trust in the gods, in their power, their protection, their kindness, but in that of belief in their existence. The Latin word credo, I believe, is the same as the Sanskrit sraddhâ, and this sraddhâ occurs in the Veda:
Rv. I. 102, 2. 'Sun and moon go on in regular succession, that we may see, Indra, and believe.'
Rv. I. 104, 6. 'Destroy not our future offspring, O Indra, for we have believed in thy great power.'
Rv. I. 55, 5. 'When Indra hurls again and again his thunderbolt, then they believe in the brilliant god.'27
A similar sentiment, namely, that men only believe in the gods when they see their signs and wonders in the sky, is expressed by another poet (Rv. VIII. 21, 14):
'Thou, Indra, never findest a rich man to be thy friend; wine-swillers despise thee. But when thou thunderest, when thou gatherest (the clouds), then thou art called, like a father.'
And with this belief in god, there is also coupled that doubt, that true scepticism, if we may so call it, which is meant to give to faith its real strength. We find passages even in these early hymns where the poet asks himself, whether there is really such a god as Indra,a question immediately succeeded by an answer, as if given to the poet by Indra himself. Thus we read Rv. VIII. 89, 3:
'If you wish for strength, offer to Indra a hymn of praise: a true hymn, if Indra truly exist; for some one says, Indra does not exist! Who has seen him? Whom shall we praise?'
Then Indra answers through the poet:
'Here I am, O worshipper, behold me here! in might I surpass all things.'
Similar visions occur elsewhere, where the poet, after inviting a god to a sacrifice, or imploring his pardon for his offences, suddenly exclaims that he has seen the god, and that he feels that his prayer is granted. For instance:
Hymn to Varuna (Rv. I. 25)1. However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are, O god, Varuna,
2. Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the furious; nor to the wrath of the spiteful!
3. To propitiate thee, O Varuna, we unbend thy mind with songs, as the charioteer a weary steed.
4. Away from me they flee dispirited, intent only on gaining wealth; as birds to their nests.
5. When shall we bring hither the man, who is victory to the warriors; when shall we bring Varuna, the wide-seeing, to be propitiated?
[6. This they (Mitra and Varuna) take in common; gracious, they never fail the faithful giver.]
7. He who knows the place of the birds that fly through the sky, who on the waters knows the ships;
8. He, the upholder of order, who knows the twelve months with the offspring of each, and knows the month that is engendered afterwards;
9. He who knows the track of the wind, of the wide, the bright, the mighty; and knows those who reside on high;
10. He, the upholder of order, Varuna, sits down among his people; he, the wise, sits there to govern.
11. From thence perceiving all wondrous things, he sees what has been and what will be done.
12. May he, the wise Âditya, make our paths straight all our days; may he prolong our lives!
13. Varuna, wearing golden mail, has put on his shining cloak; the spies sat down around him.
14. The god whom the scoffers do not provoke, nor the tormentors of men, nor the plotters of mischief;
15. He, who gives to men glory, and not half glory, who gives it even to our own selves;
16. Yearning for him, the far-seeing, my thoughts move onwards, as kine move to their pastures.
17. Let us speak together again, because my honey has been brought: that thou mayst eat what thou likest, like a friend.
18. Did I see the god who is to be seen by all, did I see the chariot above the earth? He must have accepted my prayers.
19. O hear this my calling, Varuna, be gracious now; longing for help, I have called upon thee.
20. Thou, O wise god, art lord of all, of heaven and earth: listen on thy way.
21. That I may live, take from me the upper rope, loose the middle, and remove the lowest!
In conclusion, let me tell you that there is in the Veda no trace of metempsychosis or that transmigration of souls from human to animal bodies which is generally supposed to be a distinguishing feature of Indian religion. Instead of this, we find what is really the sine quâ non of all real religion, a belief in immortality, and in personal immortality. Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss. We cannot wonder at the great difficulties felt and expressed by bishop Warburton and other eminent divines, with regard to the supposed total absence of the doctrine of immortality or personal immortality in the Old Testament; and it is equally startling that the Sadducees who sat in the same council with the high-priest, openly denied the resurrection.28 However, though not expressly asserted anywhere, a belief in personal immortality is taken for granted in several passages of the Old Testament, and we can hardly think of Abraham or Moses as without a belief in life and immortality. But while this difficulty, so keenly felt with regard to the Jewish religion, ought to make us careful in the judgments which we form of other religions, and teach us the wisdom of charitable interpretation, it is all the more important to mark that in the Veda passages occur where immortality of the soul, personal immortality and personal responsibility after death, are clearly proclaimed. Thus we read:
'He who gives alms goes to the highest place in heaven; he goes to the gods' (Rv. I. 125, 56).
Another poet, after rebuking those who are rich and do not communicate, says:
'The kind mortal is greater than the great in heaven!'
Even the idea, so frequent in the later literature of the Brahmans, that immortality is secured by a son, seems implied, unless our translation deceives us, in one passage of the Veda (VII. 56, 24): 'Asmé (íti) virah marutah sushmî astu gánânâm yáh ásurah vi dhartâ, apáh yéna su-kshitáye tárema, ádha svám ókah abhí vah syáma.' 'O Maruts, may there be to us a strong son, who is a living ruler of men: through whom we may cross the waters on our way to the happy abode; then may we come to your own house!'
One poet prays that he may see again his father and mother after death (Rv. I. 24, 1); and the fathers (Pitris) are invoked almost like gods, oblations are offered to them, and they are believed to enjoy, in company with the gods, a life of never ending felicity (Rv. X. 15, 16).