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" Naj, for aught we know of ourselyes, of our present life, and of death ; death may immediately, in the natural course of things, put us into a higher and more enlarged state of life, as our birth does." — Bishop Butler. ^ The notion of sin is clearly ezpressed/for instancei in a song of Gritsamada's (Ry. iL 28. 5.) : ** Deliver me from sin, as from a rope ; let us obtain thy path of righteousness. May the thread not be torn while I am weaving my prayer ; may the form of my pious work not decay before its season. " Yaruna, take all f€ar away from me ; be kind to me, O just king ! Take away my sin like a rope from a calf; for afar from thee 1 am not the master even of a twinkling of the eye.** And again, Bv. ii. 29. 1. : •* You quick Adityas, ye who never fail in your works, carry away from me all sin, as a woman does who has given birth to a child in secret.** 3 Strabo, xv. 59.: *Ayad6y 3c, $ K-axov, ftij^cv elvai rHv trvfifiat^ AT THE TIMB OF ALBXANBBB. 27 We are told by the same author that the Indians did not communicate their metaphysical doctrines to women ; thinking that, if their wives understood these doctrines, and learned to be indifferent to pleasure and pain, and to consider life and death as the same, they would no longer continue to be the slaves of others: or^ if they failed to understand them, they would be talkative, and communicate their knowledge to those who had no right to it. This statement of the Greek author is fully borne out by the later Sanskrit authorities. We find, for instance, in the ceremonial Sfttras (Srauta and grihya-sAtras), that women were not allowed to learn the sacred songs of the Vedas, the knowledge of which constituted one of the principal requirements for a Brahman before he was admitted to the performance of the sacrifices. Indeed, the whole education of a Brah- man consisted in learning the old sacred literature by heart, and many years were spent for this purpose by every Brahmach&rin in the house and under the severe discipline of his Guru, or of an Achd.rya. As it was necessary^, however, for a husband to perform vovTtay ayOpofTroiQ* oh yap av roic ahrois rove fiev A^Oeadai^ rove ^c ')(aip€tyf IvwyiwdtiQ viro\7i\f/eic Exoyragy koI tovq ahrovQ toIq avrolc rSre fjtky &x^^^^^h ^'^^ ^ "' xaipeiy furafiaWofiiyovs. Ibid. xv. S5, : Ta yovy Xcx^ci'ra cic tout* c^iy ffvyrtlyeiy^ wc "? \6yoQ Apttrroc oc h^y^y Koi Xinrriy yj^xVi cL^ip^trerai' koI 8ti Xvtij koI vdyot iiaibipei ' TO fiey yap noXifiioyy to de iplXoy airroTc* to, 2e awfiara ittrKovtrt vpog jroyoy, ty at yy&fiai ptayyvoiyTOy aif iy Kai ardveic iravouyy koI avfifiovXoi iraaty kyad&y rapeUy, Koi noiy^ KoX IBl^ 1 Sajana, in his commentary on the Rig-yeda, i. 131. 3., ex- plaining the words f% ^T rfrf;^ f^fT ^R'^J?: " Couples wishing for protection have magnified thee, O Indra!" quotes passages from the Brahma^aSy the S^itras, and the Smritis^ in 28 . THE INDIAN MIND sacrifices together with his lawful wife, and as pas- sages of the hymns ^, as well as of the Br&hmanas, speak cleariy of man and wife as performing sacrifices in common, it was laid down in the Siitras that the husband or the priest should, at the sacrifice itself, make his wife recite those hymns which were neces- sary for the ceremony. But although women were thus allowed to participate in the sacrifices of their husbands^ they were not initiated, still less were they admitted to the highest knowledge, the knowledge of the Atman or the Brahman.^ Cases like that of Maitr^yl were exceptions, not the rule. Thus the account which Megasthenes gives of the Indians shows us the same abstract and passive support of the law laid down in the PAryamimfinsS, that man and wife should perform sacrifices in common. From the Brahmanas he quotes the beginning of the Agnyadhana, where it is said that man and wife are to place the sacred fire in common : WPTniT^ ^(||4il4%n41di I From the Siitras he quotes a rule^ ^^ ^n 3(^|€( cIT^^lTI This seems to mean, ''Let him, after giving the Veda to his wife, make her recite it." The passage is taken from the Aivalajana drauta-siitras, i. 1 1. If the word veda, used bj Adval&jana, meant the Veda, this passage would be most important, as proving the existence of the Yeda, as a written book, at the time of A^valajana. Vede^ however, is used here in the sense of " a bundle of grass," and is connected with vedih^ an altar made of grass (Root ve, Lat. viere). Lastly, S&yana quotes from the Smritis, Manu, v. 155., <' Women cannot sacrifice without their hus- bands:" int% ^ftwt TBHini:! * The piety and happiness of a married couple is well described in a hymn ascribed to Manu Yaivasoata, Bv. viii. 31. 5 — ^9. > Manu, ix. 18. translated by Sir W. Jones. *' Women have no business with the texts of the Veda, thus is the law fully settled ; having, therefore, no evidence of law, and no knowledge of expia- tory texts, sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself; and this is a fixed rule." AT THE TDiB OF ALBZAKDER. 29 character whicli we find throughout the whole classi- cal or post-vedic literature of the Brahmans, and which, to a great extent, explains the absence of any- thing like historical literature among this nation of philosophers. A people of this peculiar stamp of mind was never destined to act a prominent part in what is called the history of the world. This exhausting atmosphere of transcendental ideas could not but exercise a de- trimental influence on the active and moral cha- racter of the Indians. But if we admire in classical history even those heroes in whom the love of country was driven to the highest pitch of fanaticism, we have scarcely a right to despise a nation, in whom the love of a purer and higher life degenerated sometimes into reckless self-sacrifice. No people certainly made a more favourable impression upon the Greeks than the Indians. And when we read the account of their moral and intellectual condition at the time of Alex- ander, we are obliged to admit that if some of their good qualities are no longer to be met with among the Indians of later times, this is owing, not entirely to an original defect of character, but to that con- tinual system of oppression exercised upon them by foreign conquerors, to whose physical power they submitted, while they could not help despising their masters as barbarians. Of the demoralising influ- ence of a foreign occupation we have an instance in the time of Alexander, in the story of Kalftnas (Kalydua), who yielded to the flattering offers of the European conqueror, and left his sacred home to follow his royal master as a piece of curi- osity. But Megasthenes was afterwards informed that the behaviour of Ealltnas was strongly disapproved of by his friends, as ambitious and servile ; while Man- 30 THE CHABACTER OF THE INDIANS. danis was praised for his manly answer to Alexander's messengers, not only by his countrymen, but by Alexander himself. It was not long before Kal&nas repented his unworthy ambition, for he burnt him- self soon after at Pasargada, in the same manner as the only other Brahman who reached Europe in ancient times, burned himself at Athens, to the astonishment of the Greeks, who erected a tomb to him, with the inscription, " Here lies the Indian Sarman Cheya (Sarman Ach&rya ?), from Barygaza, who sought immortality after the old custom of the Indians/' The genius of the Greek nation owes its happy and healthy growth to liberty and national indepen- dence. The Homeric songs were addressed to a people, proud of his heroes, whether real or legen- dary. If Persia had crushed the chivalry of Greece, we should never have heard the names of Herodotus, jEschylus, Sophocles, Phidias, and Pericles. Where the feeling of nationality has been roused, the poet is proud to be listened to by his nation, and a nation is proud to listen to her poet. But in times of national degradation the genius of great men turns away from the realities of life, and finds its only con- solation in the search after truth, in science and philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle arose when the Greek nation began to decline ; and, under the heavy grasp first of Macedonian sway, then of Roman tyranny, the life of the Greek genius ebbed away, while its immortal productions lived on in the memory of other and freer nations. The Indian never knew the feeling of nationality, and his heart never trembled in the expectation of national ap- plause.