Ruins of Nalanda University
One of the
great branches, we have said, of the Caucasian family of mankind was the
Indo-Persian, which, spreading out in the primeval times from the
original seat of the Caucasian part of the human species, extended
itself from the Caspian to the Bay of Bengal, where, coming into contact
with the southern Mongolians, it gave rise, according to the most
probable accounts, to those new mixed Caucasian-Mongolian races, the
Malays of the Eastern Peninsula; and, by a still farther degeneracy, to
the Papuas, or natives of the South Sea Islands. While thus shading off
into the Mongolism of the Pacific, the Indo-Persian mass of our species
was at the same time attaining maturity within itself; and as the first
ripened fragment of the Mongolians had been the Chinese nation, so one
of the first ripened fragments of the Indo-Persian branch of the
Caucasians seems to have been the Indians. At what time the vast
peninsula of Hindoostan could first boast a civilized population, it is
impossible to say; all testimony, however, agrees in assigning to Indian
civilization a most remote antiquity. Another fact seems also to be
tolerably well authenticated regarding ancient India; namely, that the
northern portions of it, and especially the north-western portions,
which would be nearest the original Caucasian seat, were the first
civilized; and that the civilizing influence spread thence southwards to
Cape Comorin.
Notwithstanding
this general conviction, that India was one of the first portions of
the earth’s surface that contained a civilized population, few facts in
the ancient history of India are certainly known. We are told, indeed
(to omit the myths of the Indian Bacchus and Hercules), of two great
kingdom those of Ayodha (Oude) and Prathisthana (Vitera as having
existed in northern India upwards of a thousand years before Christ; of
conquests in southern India, effected by the monarchs of these kingdoms;
and of wars carried on between these monarchs and their western
neighbors the Persians, after the latter had begun to be powerful. All
these accounts, however, merely resolve themselves into the general
information, that India, many centuries before Christ, was an important
member in the family of Asiatic nations; supplying articles to their
commerce, and involved in their agitations. Accordingly, if we wish to
form an idea of the condition of India prior to that great epoch in its
history - its invasion by Alexander the Great, b. c. 326 we can only do
so by reasoning back from that we know of its present condition,
allowing for the modifying effects of the two thousand years which have
intervened; and especially for the effects produced by the Mohammedan
invasion, a. d. 1000. This, however, is the less difficult in the case
of such a country as India, where the permanence of native institutions
is so remarkable, and though we cannot hope to acquire a distinct notion
of the territorial divisions, etc., of India in very ancient times,
yet, by a study of the Hindoos as they are at present, we may furnish
ourselves with a tolerably accurate idea of the nature of that ancient
civilization which overspread Hindoostan many centuries before the birth
of Christ, and this all the more probably that the notices which remain
of the state of India at the time of the invasion of Alexander,
correspond in many points with what is to be seen in India at the
present day.
The population of
Hindoostan, the area of which is estimated at about a million square
miles, amounts to about 120,000,000; of whom about 100,000,000 are
Hindoos or aborigines, the remainder being foreigners, either Asiatic or
European. The most remarkable feature in Hindoo society is its division
into castes. The Hindoos are divided into four great castes - the
Brahmins, whose proper business is religion and philosophy; the
Kshatriyas, who attend to war and government; the Vaisyas, whose duties
are connected with commerce and agriculture; and the Sudras, or artisans
and laborers. Of these four castes the Brahmins are the highest; but a
broad line of distinction is drawn between the Sudras and the other
three castes. The Brahmins may intermarry with the three inferior castes
- the kshatriyas with the vaisyas and the Sudras; and the vaisyas with
the Sudras; but no Sudra can choose a wife from either of the three
superior castes. As a general rule, every person is required to follow
the profession of the caste to which he belongs: thus the Brahmin is to
lead a life of contemplation and study, subsisting on the contributions
of the rich; the Kshatriya is to occupy himself in civil matters, or to
pursue the profession of a soldier; and the Vaisya is to be a merchant
or a farmer. In fact, however, the barriers of caste have in innumerable
instances been broken down. The ramifications, too, of the caste system
are infinite. Besides the four pure, there are numerous mixed castes,
all with their prescribed ranks and occupations.
A class far below
even the pure Sudras is the Pariahs or outcasts; consisting of the
refuse of all the other castes, and which, in process of time, has grown
so large as to include, it is said, one-fifth of the population of
Hindoostan. The Pariahs perform the meanest kinds of manual labor. This
system of castes - of which the Brahmins themselves, whom some suppose
to have been originally a conquering race, are the architects, if not
the founders - is bound up with the religion of the Hindoos. Indeed of
the Hindoos, more truly than of any other people, it may be said that a
knowledge of their religious system is a knowledge of the people
themselves.
The Vedas,
or ancient sacred books of the Hindoos, distinctly set forth the
doctrine of the infinite and Eternal Supreme Being. According to the
Vedas, there is ‘one unknown, true Being, all present, all powerful, the
creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe.’ This Supreme Being
‘is not comprehensible by vision, or by any other of the organs of
sense, nor can he be conceived by means of devotion or virtuous
practices.’ He is not space, nor air, nor light, nor atoms, nor soul,
nor nature: he is above all these and the cause of them all. He ‘has no
feet, but extends everywhere; has no hands, but holds everything; has no
eyes, yet sees all that is; has no ears, yet hears all that passes. His
existence had no cause. He is the smallest of the small and the
greatest of the great; and yet is, in fact neither small nor great.’
Such is the doctrine of the Vedas in its purest and most abstract form;
but the prevailing theology which runs through them is what is called
Pantheism, or that system which speaks of God as the soul of the
universe, or as the universe itself. Accordingly, the whole tone and
language of the highest Hindoo philosophy is Pantheistic. As a rope,
lying on the ground, and mistaken at first view for a snake, is the
cause of the idea or conception of the snake which exists in the mind of
the person looking at it, so, say the Vedas, is the Deity the cause of
what we call the universe. ‘In him the whole world is absorbed; from him
it issues; he is entwined and interwoven with all creation.’ ‘All that
exists is God: whatever we smell, or taste, or see, or hear, or feel, is
the Supreme Being.’
This one
incomprehensible Being, whom the Hindoos designate by the mystical names
Om, Tut, and Jut, and sometimes also by the word Brahm, is declared by
the Vedas to be the only proper object of worship. Only a very few
persons of extraordinary gifts and virtues, however, are able, it is
said, to adore the Supreme Being - the great Om - directly. The great
majority of mankind are neither so wise nor so holy as to be able to
approach the Divine Being himself, and worship him. It being alleged
that persons thus unfortunately disqualified for adoring the invisible
Deity should employ their minds upon some visible thing, rather than to
suffer them to remain idle, the Vedas direct them to worship a number of
inferior deities, representing particular acts or qualities of the
Supreme Being; as, for instances, Crishnu or Vishnu, the god of
preservation; Muhadev, the god of destruction; or the sun, or the air,
or the sea, or the human understanding; or, in fact any object or thing
which they may choose to represent as God. Seeing, say the Hindoos, that
God pervades and animates the whole universe, everything, living or
dead, may be considered a portion of God, and as such, it may be
selected as an object of worship, provided always it be worshiped only
as constituting a portion of the Divine Substance. In this way, whatever
the eye looks on, or the mind can conceive, whether it be the sun in
the heavens or the great river Ganges, or the crocodile on its banks, or
the cow, or the fire kindled to cook food, or the Vedas, or a Brahmin,
or a tree, or a serpent - all may be legitimately worshiped as a
fragment, so to speak, of the Divine Spirit. Thus there may be many
millions of gods to which Hindoos think themselves entitled to pay
divine honours. The number of Hindoo gods is calculated at 330,000,000,
or about three times the number of their worshipers.
Of these, the three
principal deities of the Hindoos are Brahma the creator, Vishnu the
preserver, and Seeb or Siva the destroyer. These three of course, were
originally intended to represent the three great attributes of the Om or
Invisible Supreme Being namely, his creating, his preserving, and his
destroying attributes. Indeed the name Om itself is a compound word,
expressing the three ideas of creation, preservation, and destruction,
all combined. The three together are called Trimurti, and there are
certain occasions when the three are worshiped conjointly. There are
also sculptured representations of the Trimurti, in which the busts of
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are cut out of the same mass of stone. One of
these images of the Trimurti is found in the celebrated cavern temple of
Elephanta, in the neighborhood of Bombay, perhaps the most wonderful
remnant of ancient Indian architecture. Vishnu and Siva are more
worshipped separately than Brahma each having his body of devotees
specially attached to him in particular.
Hindooism, like
other Pantheistic systems, teaches the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls: all creation, animate and inanimate, being, according to the
Hindoo system, nothing else but the deity Brahm himself parceled out, as
it were, into innumerable portions and forms (when these are reunited,
the world will be at an end), just as a quantity of quicksilver may be
broken up into innumerable little balls or globules, which all have a
tendency to go together again. At long intervals of time, each extending
over some thousand millions of years, Brahm does bring the world to an
end, by reäbsorbing it into his spirit. When, therefore, a man dies, his
soul, according to the Hindoos, must either be absorbed immediately
into the soul of Brahm, or it must pass through a series of
transmigrations, waiting for the final absorption, which happens at the
end of every universe, or at least until such time as it shall be
prepared for being reunited with the Infinite Spirit. The former of the
two is, according to the Hindoos, the highest possible reward: to be
absorbed into Brahm immediately upon death, and without having to
undergo any farther purification, is the lot only of the greatest
devotees. To attain this end, or at least to avoid degradation after
death, the Hindoos, and especially the Brahmins, who are naturally the
most intent upon their spiritual interests, practice a ritual of the
most intricate and ascetic description, carrying religious ceremonies
and antipathies with them into all the duties of life. So overburdened
is the daily life of the Hindoos with superstitious observances with
regard to food, sleep, etc., that, but for the speculative doctrines
which the more elevated minds among the Brahmins may see recognised in
their religion, the whole system of Hindooism might seem a wretched and
grotesque polytheism.
A hundred millions
of people professing this system, divided into castes as now, and
carrying the Brahminical ritual into all the occupations of lazy life
under the hot sun, and amid the exuberant vegetation of Hindoostan, such
was the people into which Alexander the Great carried his conquering
arms; such, doubtless, they had been for ages before that period; and
such did they remain, shut out from the view of the rest of the
civilized world, and only communicating with it by means of spices,
ivory, etc., which found their way through Arabia or the Red Sea to the
Mediterranean, till Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and
brought Europe and India into closer connection. Meanwhile a Mohammedan
invasion had taken place (a. d. 1000); Mohammedans from Persia had
mingled themselves with the Hindoos; and it was with this mixed
population that British enterprise eventually came into collision.
Ere quitting the
Indians, it is well to glance back at the Chinese, so as to see wherein
these two primeval and contemporaneous consolidations of our species -
the Mongolian consolidation of eastern Asia, and the Caucasian
consolidation of the central peninsula of southern Asia - differ.
‘Whoever would perceive the full physical and moral difference,’ says
Klaproth, ‘between the Chinese and Indian nations, must contrast the
peculiar culture of the Chinese with that of the Hindoo, fashioned
almost like a European, even to his complexion. He will study the
boundless religious system of the Brahmins, and oppose it to the bald
belief of the original Chinese, which can hardly be named religion. He
will remark the rigorous division of the Hindoos into castes, sects, and
denominations, for which the inhabitants of the central kingdom have
even no expression. He will compare the dry prosaic spirit of the
Chinese with the high poetic souls of the dwellers on the Ganges and the
Dsumnah. He will hear the rich and blooming Sanscrit, and contrast it
with the unharmonious speech of the Chinese. He will mark, finally, the
literature of the latter, full of matters of fact and things worth
knowing, as contrasted with the limitless philosophic-ascetic writing of
the Indians, who have made even the highest poetry wearisome by
perpetual length.’
Vikramashila University
