Brāhmaṇas

“ Here we find the germs of sacerdotal pretensions which gradually increased during the Vedic age. Thus the statement occurs in the White Yajurveda that the Brahman who possesses correct knowledge has the gods in his power. The Brāhmaṇas go a step farther in saying that there are two kinds of gods, the Devas and the Brahmans, the latter of whom are to be held as deities among men. In the Brāhmaṇas, too, the sacrifice is represented as all-powerful, controlling not only the gods, but the very processes of nature. ”

“ Among the symbolic conceits in which the authors of the Brāhmaṇas so freely indulge, there is one overshadowing all others—if indeed they do not all more or less enter into it—which may be considered as the sum and substance of these speculations, and the esoteric doctrine of the sacrifice, involved by the Brāhmanical ritualists. This is what may conveniently be called the Prajāpati theory, by which the “Lord of Creatures,” the efficient cause of the universe, is identified with both the sacrifice (yajna) and the sacrificer (yajamāna) . ”

“ In one of the later books of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa (X. vi. 3) this ātman which has already arrived at a high degree of abstraction, is said to "pervade this universe." Brahma (neuter) in the Rigveda signified nothing more than "prayer" or "devotion." But even in the oldest Brāhmaṇas it has come to have the sense of "universal holiness," as manifested in prayer, priest, and sacrifice. In the Upanishads it is the holy principle which animates nature. Having a long subsequent history, this word is a very epitome of the evolution of religious thought in India. ”

“ And he is foremost in might by virtue of possessing this entire Akshauhtni abounding in elephants and horses and cars and standards, and pennons on elephants.' Thus addressed by Vasishtha, that one cognizant of words humbly said in reply unto that Brahmārshi of incomparable power,—'The might of the Kshatriyas is not great,—the Brāhmanas are more mighty than they. O Brāhmana, superhuman is the power of the Brāhmanas, excelling that of the Kshatriyas. Thy power is immeasurable; and the exceedingly energetic Viçwāmitra is not as powerful as thyself. Thy energy is unequalled. ”

“ Even those which have been preserved form quite an extensive literature by themselves; yet many others must have been lost, as appears from the numerous names of and quotations from Brāhmaṇas unknown to us occurring in those which are extant. They reflect the spirit of an age in which [203] all intellectual activity is concentrated on the sacrifice, describing its ceremonies, discussing its value, speculating on its origin and significance. ”

“ We have yet to answer the question as to when the Saṃhitā text, which finally fixed the canonical form of the Rigveda, was constituted. Now the Brāhmaṇas contain a number of direct statements as to the number of syllables in a word or a group of words, which are at variance with the Saṃhitā text owing to the vowel contractions [50] made in the latter. Moreover, the old part of the Brāhmaṇa literature shows hardly any traces of speculations about phonetic questions connected with the Vedic text. ”

“ The works thus named are analogous with the Brāhmaṇas in that they belong to the schools of Vedic study and are named from them, and that they deal with the religious ceremonies: treating them, however, in the way of prescription, not of dogmatic explanation. They, too, contain some mantra or hymn-material, not found to occur elsewhere. In part (çrāuta or kalpa-sūtras) , they take up the great sacrificial ceremonies, with which the Brāhmaṇas have to do; in part (gṛhya-sūtras) , they teach the minor duties of a pious householder ”

“ All creatures mobile and immobile cherish thee with high regard. All these beseech thee. Do thou show consideration unto those that regard thee. Tall trees deprived of motion in consequence of being fast rooted to the earth and incapable of following thee, are prohibiting thee by sounding with the wind. And birds staying upon trees and neither manifesting any motion nor seeking for their food, beseech thee to have compassion upon all creatures." While the Brāhmanas were loudly demanding the return of Rāma, he found the darkness to descend as if forbidding him. ”

“ They are always inactive, being constantly engaged in Vedic studies, and are greatly slothful though having a taste for delicious food, and are always esteemed by great men; to each of all those Brāhmanas, who always come to Kauçalyā, do thou, O Lakshmāna,make a grant of a thousand gold coins, and offer unto them all such gifts as may please my mother." Thereupon Lakshmana, that best of men, distributed amongst all these Brāhmanas all the entire riches as ordered by Rāma like unto the Lord of wealth. ”

“ In the Samhitâ of the Yagur-veda, however, in the Vâgasaneyisâkhâ, we meet with a real Upanishad, the famous Îsâ or Îsâvâsya-upanishad, while the Sivasamkalpa, too, forms part of its thirty-fourth book [16] . In the Brâhmanas several Upanishads occur, even in portions which are not classed as Âranyakas, as, for instance, the well-known Kena or Talavakâra-upanishad. The recognised place, however, for the ancient Upanishads is in the Âranyakas, or forest-books, which, as a rule, form an appendix to the Brâhmanas, but are sometimes included also under the general name of Brâhmana. ”

“ Haug's two volumes, containing the text of the Aitareya-brâhmana, translation, and notes, would probably never have been published, if they had not received the patronage of the Bombay Government. However interesting the Brâhmanas may be to students of Indian literature, they are of small interest to the general reader. The greater portion of them is simply twaddle, and what is worse, theological twaddle. No person who is not acquainted beforehand with the place which the Brâhmanas fill in the history of the Indian mind, could read more than ten pages without being disgusted. ”

“ The religion too is different in the different parts. In the older portions the gods who are most popular are Indra, Agni, and Brahmā—not the neuter abstract Brahma, but the masculine Brahmā, the Demiurge, who corresponds more or less to Prajāpati of the Brāhmaṇas and is represented in classical art as a four-headed old man reciting the Vēdas—and Kṛishṇa seems to figure only as a hero or at best as a demigod; but the later parts with fine impartiality claim the supremacy of heaven variously for Śiva, Brahmā, and Vishṇu ”

“ The other gods—Indra, Agni, Sōma, Varuṇa, Vishṇu, and the rest—are his offspring, and are moved like puppets by the machinery of the ritual of sacrifice created by him. However much they may seem [57] to differ one from another in their attributes and personalities, they are in essence one and negligible in the eyes of the master of the ritual lore. In the beginning, say the Brāhmaṇas, all the gods (except Prajāpati, of course) were alike, and all were mortal; then they performed sacrifices and thereby became immortal, each with his peculiar attributes of divinity. ”

“ It is clear, therefore, that what the Brahmans understood under Sruti was nothing more than literature composed in an ancient language (for the Brâhmanas are also composed in an ancient language, though [pg 166] not as ancient as that of the hymns) , and treating of matters on which apparently man alone can establish no authority. For how could ordinary man take on himself to speak about the gods or to give directions for the sacrifice, to make promises for the reward of pious works, or even to decide what is morally right or wrong? ”

“ And along with Lakshmana and Sitā, Rāma bound for the forest, began to walk near them on foot. Endowed with kindness, that friend of the good, Rāma, could not by proceeding on his car bear to part with the Brāhmanas that were following on foot. Seeing him thus going, the Brāhmanas with agitated hearts, and burning in grief, addressed Rāma in these words,—"The Brāhmanas in a body are following thee ever seeking their good, and mounting on the shoulders of the regenerate ones, the (sacrificial) Fires are walking in thy wake. ”

“ These books follow the same order as, and in fact furnish a parallel recension of, the corresponding parts of the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā. On the other hand, the Taittirīya Saṃhitā contains within itself, but in a different part, the two corresponding Brāhmaṇas, which, on the whole, are free from admixture with mantras. The fifth book is the Brāhmaṇa of the fire ritual, and the sixth is that of the soma sacrifice; but the dogmatic explanation of the new and full moon sacrifice is altogether omitted here, being found in the third book of the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa. ”

“ Nevertheless it must be confessed that there is a tone of ritualistic professionalism in the Brāhmaṇas that is unpleasing; the priesthood are consciously superior to nature, God, and morals by virtue of their "Triple Science," and they constantly emphasise this claim. It is difficult for us to realise that these are the same men who have created the Brahmanic culture of India, which, however we may criticise it from the Western point of view, is essentially a gentle life, a field in which moral feeling and intellectual effort have born abundance of goodly fruit. ”

“ The result was a ritual system far surpassing in complexity of detail anything the world has elsewhere known. The main importance of the old Vedic hymns and formulas now came to be their application to the innumerable details of the sacrifice. Around this combination of sacred verse and rite a new body of doctrine grew up in sacerdotal tradition, and finally assumed definite shape in the guise of distinct theological treatises entitled Brāhmaṇas, "books dealing with devotion or prayer" (brahman) . ”

“ In the case of some of these legends—as those of Śunaḥ-Śepha, and the fetching of Soma from heaven—we can even see how they have grown out of germs contained in some of the Vedic hymns. If the literary style in which the exegetic discussion of the texts and rites is carried on in the Brāhmaṇas is, as a rule, of a very bald and uninviting nature, it must be borne in mind that these treatises are of a strictly professional and esoteric character, and in no way lay claim to being considered as literary compositions in any sense of the word. ”

“ And as the knowledge of Brahman may be reached in this way not only by Sûdras but also by Brâhmanas and members of the other higher castes, the poor Upanishad is practically defunct.—To this the following objection will possibly be raised. Man being implicated in and confused by the beginningless course of mundane existence, requires to receive from somewhere a suggestion as to this empirical world being a mere error and the Reality being something quite different, and thus only there arises in him a desire to enter on an enquiry, proceeding by means of perception, and so on. ”

“ Evidently it was not congenial: the Hindu has always been inclined to think that the individual earns his future in another world by his own thoughts and acts. Even the value of the victim is less important than the correct performance of the ceremony. The teaching of the Brâhmaṇas is not so much that a good heart is better than lavish alms as that the ritually correct sacrifice of a cake is better than a hecatomb not offered according to rule.
The offerings required by the Vedic ritual are very varied. ”

“ Brâhmanas | Bharata (Sub-Incarnation of Vishnu) Bharata had three wives, all of Vidarbha. One of them bore a son to the king, but he pronounced the child to be unlike himself. The wives of the king killed their children for fear of their being called illegitimate. Bharata gave Yajna offerings to the Maruts and to Sōma (Moon) that he might be blessed with a Son. The Maruts gave him Bharadvâja as his son. Brihaspati (Jupiter) produced Bharadvâja on Mamatâ (Egoism) , the wife of his brother Utathya. The parents deserted the child and he was brought up by the Maruts. ”

“ And then turning to the heretics, or what we should call the orthodox Brahmans, he says: "The Brâhmanas are regarded throughout the five divisions of India as the most respectable. They do not walk with the other three castes, and other mixed classes of people are still further dissociated from them. They revere their Scriptures, the four Vedas, containing about 100,000 verses.... ”

“ It should, however, be noticed that the deifying of a "sacrificial post" or a "weapon" is in perfect harmony with the general pantheistic notions which prevailed amongst the people then as now; so that there is nothing unnatural according to their religious ideas in speaking even of inanimate objects as deities. There is little doubt that the Brāhmanas are more recent than the Sanhitas.
The Vedas have not come down to the present time without considerable dispute as to the text. ”

“ The latter, which is closely connected with the Çānkhāyana Brāhmaṇa, seems to be the older of the two, on the ground both of its matter and of its style, which in many parts resembles that of the Brāhmaṇas. It consists of eighteen books, the last two of which were added later, and correspond to the first two books of the Kaushītaki Āraṇyaka. The Çrauta Sūtra of Āçvalāyana, which consists of twelve books, is related to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa. Āçvalāyana is also known as the author of the fourth book of the Aitareya Āraṇyaka, and was according to tradition the pupil of Çaunaka. ”