English
Ages must have passed before the grammatical texture of the Vedic Sanskrit could have assumed the consistency and regularity which it shows throughout. Every tense, every mood, every number and person of the verb is fixed, and all the terminations of the cases are firmly established. Every one of these terminations was originally an in- dependent word with an independent meaning. Their first selection was more or less the result of individual choice, their technical character the result of long usage. There was more than one word for /, and more than one expression for the verb to be. The selection of mi, as the termination of the first person ANTECEDENT ELEMENTS. 527 singular, the selection of as in the sense of to be, and the joining of the two so as to produce the auxiliary verb a^mi^ I am, all this was a conventional act, the act of one or two individuals, fixed by circumstances which were more or less accidental. If, then, we find the same combination in the ancient Greek ia-ftl, and the modem Lithuanian esmiy it is clear that the origin of that form goes back to times long anterior to the separate existence of Sanskrit, Greek, and Lithuanian. As soj/j suisi and sono are modern modifications that point back to an earlier type, the Latin sum^ the Sanskrit asmi^ Greek i<r[jJ, Lithuanian esmi^ are like- wise but the modern representatives of some earlier typical form, which existed in the undivided language of the Aryan race. The same applies to the religion of the Veda. Words like deva ibr *god' mark a more than secondary stage in the grammar of the Aryan religion. To use the root div^ * to shine,' with reference to the heavenly bodies, was the result of a free choice. There were other roots which might have been used instead. Nor was it by any means a necessity that the presence of a Divine Power should be felt exclusively in the bright manifestations of nature. All this was the result of a historical growth ; and the early periods of that growth had passed away long before the Rishis of India could have worshipped their Devas or their bright beings, with sacred hymns and invocations. From this point of view the Vedic language and poetry may be ascribed to a modern or secondary period in the history of the world, if only it be under- stood that what preceded that period in India, or in any other part of the Aryan world, is lost to us beyond the hope of recovery, and that, therefore, to us the 52S ANTECEDENT ELEMENTS. Veda represents the most ancient chapter in the his- tory of the human intellect- We find no traces in the Veda, or in any Aryan work, of a growing lan- guage, growing in the sense in i?v^hich some of the Turanian languages may be said to be still growing at the present day.* The whole grammatical mecha- nism is finished, the most complicated forms are sanc- tioned, and the only changes of i?vhich the Aryan speech, arrived at the point where we find it in the Veda, admits, are those of gradual decay and recom- position. Nor do we find any traces, in the Veda, of a growing religion. We look in vain for the efifect produced on the human mind by the first rising of the idea of God. To the poets of the Veda that idea is an old and familiar idea: it is understood, never ques- tioned, never denied. We shall never hear what was felt by man when the image of God arose in all its ma- jesty before his eyes, assuming a reality before which all other realities faded away infg -'^ <^Kich No v/hisper will ever reach us of th f ^^^ shadow, when God for the first time spoked ^^'"'"^'^ colloquy to God ; when man within his own h ^^^' ^^^ ^^^ still small voice through which the F^t^^ ^^^^^^ *'^^* revealed himself to all his chil(Jp-. ^^^MM and also to the Gentile ; and ^j^^' to thJ'V^ ^^^'*od first response from human 1^,^ ^^ Go<j ^ ^^ first Lord?" That first recognitioV '' ^ho '""^^ ^he perception of the real presence of n^^ Goj ^!*' *hou, without which no religion, wheth ^^'^--a 'W can exist or grow, — belonged ?^^'ural ^^^^P^^on songs of the Veda were ^w^tte **^^ Pasf ^ ^^^^aied > See my Letter on the Classig^^ : ^od, guages, p. 30. ^^ion ^^ ANTECEr>J ^^^, though never entirely Ic^^^f ^a-^ ^ *-*^^- errors. The names give^^ to #^ ^^^^r:^ ^ to gods, and their real meani^ ^^ **^.5 V^^^^ ^ the memory of man* Eveti -t,\^ *^^€i ^^^^ ^^^ ^i Veda are not free from 1^x37^ ^"|^ ^P'^^^^^^t \^ ^ p How far the poets retained^ ^^^ -vr>e* _^^^<:::i5a,X the original pui-port of tlie Xi^^xxr^ cnlt to say. To our eyea 1:\:\^^ disclosed the smallest "&\>^^^^ namesj and allowed us %xrrk. secrets of their growth, ^^"ci ^^ Qt ,iov ^^^'e gods the most keen-sightea T%o.-t\v^ ^c>^'Y^^S"'^^*^' ^ butnwwzna, Sometiirnis, l^o-vsr^^v^^^ ^v^ ^*^aT the precision with wliicln. c--^^^^ s^^Vi. too'^t-t Kum&rila are able to iroa.<i ^tic:^ ^^-^zl^ yti.^£vtii mythology. When KLvLTx^^^TrWa is T3.a,:r-a. ^ir^ opponents about th^ il^c:k^□c3Lo^^a.Txt:,\^^^ ot lii answers with all tbo fx^^^^^ioTn^ <r>C ex cioxi::i;pa, legist^: "It is fabloA ^Tcxa.^ T?*x*ajaj>o.ti, Creation, did violexxc^ -fco ln.Vs cla.uig^^lit^r', does it mean? Pra.3£L^£i.t:,x, t:.l^e^ X-tOx-ci of Cj name of the sun ; an*i 1^^ is c^aXled so, tiecE I \ ( ^^ Af M 530 THB CHHANDAS PERIOD. tects all creatures. His daughter Ushas is the dawn. And when it is said that he was in love with her, this only means that, at sunrise, the sun runs after the dawn, the dawn being at the same time called the daughter of the sun, because she rises when he ap- proaches. In the same manner, if it is said that Indra was the seducer of Ahalyft, this does not imply that the god Indra committed such a crime ; but Indra means the sun, and Ahaly& (from ahan and li) the night ; and, as the night is seduced and ruined by the sun of the morning, therefore is Indra called the paramour of Ahalyft." But in spite of the mythological character which the religion of India has assumed in the Veda, in spite of other traces which show that even its most pri- mitive hymns rest on numerous underlying strata of more primitive thoughts and feelings, we should look in vain, in any other literature of the Aryan na- tions, to Greece or Rome, for documents from which to study that important chapter in the history of mankind which we can study in the Veda, — the transition from a natural into an artificial religion. In a history of Sanskrit literature the Chhandas period, though .the most intei^esting from a philoso- phical point of view,. can occupy but a small place. It is represented by a very limited literature, by those few hymns which show none of the signs of a more modem origin which we discussed when treating on the Mantra period. Their number will necessarily vary according to the rules which critics follow in testing the age and character of earlier and later hymns. This critical separation can be carried out successfully only after a comprehensive exami- nation of the leading ideas of the whole Vedic poetry, HYMN TO THE ViSVE DEVAS. 531 and it could not be attempted within the small com- pass of this work. All I can do in this place is to give a few hymns which in thought and language re- present the general character of genuine Vedic poetry, and to contrast them with some other hymns which decidedly belong to a later period. The following hymn is ascribed to Manu Vaiva- svata: viii. 30. 1. Among you, 0 gods, there is none that is small, none that is young : you all are great indeed. 2. Be thus praised, ye destroyers of foes, you who are thirty and three, you the sacred gods of Manu. 3. Defend us, help us, bless us ! do not lead us far away from the path of our fathers, from the path of Manu! 4. You who are here, 0 gods, all of you, and wor- shipped by all men, give us your broad protection, give it to cow and horse- There is nothing striking, nothing that displays any warmth of feeling or power of expression in this hymn. The number of thirty-three, assigned to the gods of Manu, would rather tend to refer its com- position to a time when the gods of old had been gathered up and had been subjected to a strict census. Nevertheless, the hymn is simple and primitive in thought and language ; and the fact of its being ascribed to Manu Vaivasvata shows that the Brahmans themselves looked upon it as a relic of one of their earliest sages.