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But how different have been the resulte upon the Indian mind I The struggle for supremacy between the different classes, which in Greece ended with the down£Edl of the tyrannies and the rising of well*organised republics, has its counterpart in India in the extirpation of the Eshatriya race and the triumph of the Brahmans through Para6u-R4ma.^ The second struggle, or the war against the un- civilised inhabitants of the South, is represented by the Indian poet of the R4m4yana as the battle of a divine hero against evil spirits and uncouth ^ants. What this is to India, the war of Persia was to Greece; the victory of patriotic valour over brute force. The Muses of Herodotus are the Rftmftyana of Hellas. In the third of these parallel struggles the contrast is no less striking. We follow, with a mournful interest, the narrative of international jealousies be- tween the different states of Greece ; we see how one 1 '< Parai&u-R&ma cleared the earth thrice seven times of the Kshatriya caste, and filled with their blood the five large lakes of Samanta-panchaka, from which he offered libations to the race of Bhrigu. Offering a solemn sacrifice to the king of the gods, Parada-R&ma presented the earth to the ministering priests. Having given the earth to Ka^japa, the hero of immeasurable prowess retired to the Mahendra mountain, where he still resides ; and in this manner was there enmity between him and the race of the Eshatrijasy and thus was the whole earth conquered by Fara^n-Bama." (Yishnu-Purana, p. 403.) In the Mahabh&rata the earth is made to saj, ** The fathers and grandfathers of these Elsbatrijas have been killed by the remorseless R&ma in^ warfare on my aocount." C 18 THE INDIAN KIND. tries to crush the power of the other, while all are preparing the common ruin of the country. But what characters are here presented to our analysis, what statesmanship, what eloquence, what bravery ! In India the war of the Mah&bh&rata was, perhaps, more bloody than the Peloponnesian war: but in the hands of the Brahmans the ancient epic has been changed into a didactic legend. Greece and India are, indeed, the two opposite poles in the historical development of the Aryan man. To the Greek, existence is full of life and reality ; to the Hindu it is a dream, an illusion. The Greek is at home where he is born ; all his energies belong to his country : he stands and falls with his party, and is ready to sacrifice even his life to the glory and independence of Hellas. The Hindu enters this world as a stranger ; all his thoughts are directed to another world; he takes no part even where he is driven to act ; and when he sacrifices his life, it is but to be delivered from it. No wonder that a nation like the Indian cared so little for history ; no wonder that social and political virtues were little cultivated, and the ideas of the Useful and the Beautiful scarcely known to them. With all this, however, they had what the Greek was as little capable of imagining as they were of realising the elements of Grecian life. They shut their eyes to this world of outward seeming and activity, to open them full on the world of thought and rest. Their life was a yearning after eternity ; their activity a struggle to return into that divine essence from which this life seemed to have severed them. Believing as they did in a divine and really existing eternal Being (to 6vto}s ou)y they could not believe in the existence of this passing world. If the one existed, the other THE INDIAN MIND. 19 could only seem to exist ; if they lived in the one^ they could not live in the other. Their existence on earth was to them a problem, their eternal life a certainty. The highest object of their religion was to restore that bond^ by which their own self (firtman) was linked- to the eternal Self (param&tman) ; to re- cover that unity which had been clouded and ob- scured by the magical illusions of reality, by the so-called M4y4 of creation. It scarcely entered their mind either to doubt or to affirm the immortality of the soul*, except in later times, and then only for philosophical and controversial purposes.^ Not only their religion and literature, but their very language, reminded them daily of that relation between the real ' In one of the old h jmns of the Rig-veda this thought seems to weigh upon the mind of the poet, when he sajs : ^kr ^*in(rl Pl<R4^^ i|f^ 3?fft^ *4<in H4\m ** Poets discovered in their heart, through meditation, the bond of the existing in the non-existing." Bv. x. 129. 4. * In the Veda life after death is not frequently alluded to, and it is more for the goods of this world, for strength, long life, a large family, food, and cattle, that the favour of the gods is im- plored. One of the rewards for a pious life, however, consists in beixig admitted after death to the seat of the gods. Thus Kakshivan eajs, Rv. L 125. 5. : '' He who gives alms goes and stands on the highest place in heaven, he goes to the gods." Thus Dirghatamas (Hv. i. 150. 3.), after having rebuked those who are rich, and do not give alms, nor worship the gods, exclaims, " The kind mortal,, O Sage, is greater than the great in heaven ; let us worship thee, O Agni, for ever and ever!" The technical term " pretyabhava," which occurs so frequently in Indian philosophy, and has generally been rendered by ^* con- dition of the soul after death," means really the state in which we are while living on earth. Our present life, according to Indian notiona, ia ^ bhava," birth and growth, ''pretya," after a previous death. c 2 20 Itman. and the seeming world. The word dtmattj for instance, which in the Veda occurs often as iman^ means life, particularly animal life. Thus we read, Rv. i. 68. 8,, ^^ Increase, 0 bright Indra ! this our manifold food, like water all over the earth ; by which, 0 Hero ! thou givest us lifej like sap, to move every where." Here tman means the vital principle, and is compared with the juice that circulates in plants. In another hynm, addressed to the horse which is to be sacrificed (Rv. i. 162. 20.), the poet says, " M&tvfi, tapat priya Atrnft- piyantam," literally, " Let not thy dear self bum or afflict thee aa thou approachest the sacrifice." Here priya dtmd corresponds to the Greek ^iXov ^rop. But we find dtman used, also, in a higher sense in theYeda. For instance, Rv. i. 115. 1., "Siirya Atmlt jagatas tasthusha6 cha:" *Hhe sun is the soul of all that moves and rests." ^ Most frequently, however, tnian and dtman are employed for self, just as we say, My soul praises, rejoices, for I praise, I myself rejoice. This is the most usual signification of dtman in the later Sanskrit, where it is used like a pronoun. Yet dtman means there also the soul of the universe, the highest soul or Self (param&tman) of which all other ^ In the same sense the son is called jivo asuh, ** the vital spirit," cf. Rv. i. 113. 16.: *' Rise I our life, our spirit, came ; the darkness went off; the light approaches l** Rv. ii. 8. 14. : " Who has seen the first bom, when he who has no bones (t. e. form) bore him who had bones ? Where was the life, the blood, the soul (selQ of the world ? Who went to ask this from any that knew it ?" ATHAN. 21 souls partake, from which all reality in this created world emanates, and into which every thing will re- turn. Thus a Hindu speaking of himself (ditman) spoke also, though unconsciously, of the soul of the universe (fttman) ; and to know himself was to him to know both his own self and the universal Self, or to know himself in the divine Self. The Sanskrit, ^^ftt- m&nam fttman& pafya," ^*see (thy) self by (thy) self," had a deeper signification than the Greek yi^^& a'€avT6v\ because it has not only a moral, but also a 1 It is difficult to find a satisfactorj etTinology for aimd (nomin.) particiilarlj in its older, and possibly more original, form, imA. Bopp (Comp. Grammar, i. § 140.) says, *'if aimd stand for dhm^ and be derived from a lost root, oA, to think (when it must be re- membered that the root nah also changes its final h sometimes into if upanah and upanat), it might be compared with the Grothic ahnutf souL" This root, dA, is afterwards traced bj Bopp in the Sanskrit oAo, '^he said;" and he observes that to speak and to think are in the Indo-European languages sometimes expressed by one and the same word.