Veddah people

“ After a short conversation had taken place, Mr Fordyce said:—
“The man is a remnant of one of the tribes of Veddahs. They are the most degraded, or rather least civilised of all the people of Ceylon. They are divided into Rock Veddahs, Village Veddahs, and Coast Veddahs. This man belongs to the first, who are the most barbarous of all. They are omnivorous, eating carrion or anything that comes in their way—roots, or fish, or wild honey, or any animals they can catch; but their favourite food is monkeys and lizards. ”

“ This is what is called Vedânta, the Veda-end, the end of the Veda, and this is the religion or the philosophy, whichever you like to call it, that has lived on from about 500 b.c. to the present day. If the people of India can be said to have now any system of religion at all—apart from their ancestral sacrifices and their Srâddhas, and apart from mere caste-observances—it is to be found in the Vedânta philosophy, the leading tenets [270] of which are known, to some extent in every village. ”

“ Their religion has been described as a kind of demon worship, consisting of rude dances and shouts raised to scare away the evil spirits, whom they confound with their ancestors. The Veddahs are not to be confounded with the Rodiyas of the western uplands, who are a much finer race, tall, wellporportioned, with regular features, and speak a language said to be radically distinct from all the Aryan and Dravidian dialects current in Ceylon. ”

“ It was the change threatening the government of India, and a mighty change it was, that gave me the chance of publishing the Veda, a very small matter as it may seem in the eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the world, particularly of their languages and religions. This, too—the development of language and religion—seems of importance to some people who do not care two straws for the East India Company, particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves, and how we came to be what we are. ”

“ Without insisting on the fact that even chronologically the Veda is the first book of the Aryan nations, we have in it, at all events, a period in the intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel in any other part of the world. In the hymns of the Veda we see man left to himself to solve the riddle of this world. We see him crawling on like a creature of the earth with all the desires and weaknesses of his animal nature. Food, wealth, and power, a large family and a long life, are the theme of his daily prayers. ”

“ Our flesh creeps at the thought.
But in judging of history Mr. Allen deliberately prefers to place himself at the Veddah's point of view, and to see things en gros and out of focus, rather than minutely. It is quite true that there are things and differences enough to be seen either way. But which are the humanly important ones, those most worthy to arouse our interest,—the large distinctions or the small? In the answer to this question lies the whole divergence of the hero-worshippers from the sociologists. As I said at the outset, it is merely a quarrel of emphasis ”

“ The Mohammedans want to have the whole world Mohammedan; the Christians, Christian; and the Buddhists, Buddhist; but Vedanta says, "Let each person in the world be separate, if you will; the one principle, the units will be behind. The more prophets there are, the more books, the more seers, the more methods, so much the better for the world." Just as in social life the greater the number of occupations in every society, the better for that society, the more chance is there for everyone of that society to make a living; so in the world of thought and of religion. ”

“ He himself had no doubt that the whole Veda was really the eternal word of God, and that an unswerving faith in it was the sine quâ non of a religious and pious life. Even such highly esteemed books as the Laws of Manu, the Mahâbhârata and the Purânas had to give way before it, if there should ever be any difference between them and the Veda. 28We can hardly imagine how people in India could live in such an atmosphere, but it evidently agreed both with those who thought for themselves and with those who thought as they were bid. ”

“ A peculiar race of wild people, called Veddahs, inhabit the forest fastness of Bintenne, a district situated southeast from Kandy forty or fifty miles, and a hundred and twenty or thereabouts from Colombo, in a northeast direction. The territory to which these people confine themselves is known as Vedda-ratta, or country of the Veddahs, whither their ancestors retired more than two thousand years ago, when their Singhalese conquerors came to Ceylon from the north. Bintenne, which gives its name to the district, transcends Anuradhapura in antiquity. ”

“ They have no names for years, days, or hours; they can scarcely count beyond five on their fingers, and they have no music, games, or amusements of any sort. The Village Veddahs are a degree superior to them, as they live in huts, and roughly cultivate the ground. The Coast Veddahs are somewhat less savage than the first, and employ themselves in fishing and in cutting timber. They have much gentleness of disposition, and though, as might be expected, their morals are in the lowest state, grave crimes are seldom committed. ”

“ I came here to represent a philosophy of India, which is called the Vedanta philosophy. This philosophy is very, very ancient; it is the outcome of that mass of ancient Aryan literature known by the name of the Vedas. It is, as it were, the very flower of all the speculations and experiences and analyses, embodied in that mass of literature — collected and culled through centuries. This Vedanta philosophy has certain peculiarities. In the first place, it is perfectly impersonal; it does not owe its origin to any person or prophet: it does not build itself around one man as a centre. ”

“ We say you are a born Vedantist, each one of you. You are declaring your oneness with everything each moment you live. Every time that your heart goes out towards the world, you are a true Vedantist, only you do not know it. You are moral without knowing why; and the Vedanta is the philosophy which analysed and taught man to be moral consciously. It is the essence of all religions.
Q.—Should you say that there is an unsocial principle in our Western people, which makes us so pluralistic, and that Eastern people are more sympathetic than we are? ”

“ I asked a Veddah once what the consequence would be if one of their women were to live with two husbands, and the unaffected vehemence with which he raised his axe, and said, ‘A blow would settle it,’ showed conclusively to my mind the natural repugnance with which they regard the national custom of their Kandyan neighbours.”3249 These neighbours are much superior to the Veddahs in civilization; and the other peoples practising polyandry have left the lowest stages of development far behind them. ”

“ With them there is no God—no worship. The Rock Veddahs live in the jungle, follow the chase, sleep in caves or in the woods, eat lizards, and consider roast monkey a prime dish. The Village Veddahs are a shade more civilised. ”

“ Yet it has nothing to say against philosophies which do build themselves around certain persons. In later days in India, other philosophies and systems arose, built around certain persons — such as Buddhism, or many of our present sects. They each have a certain leader to whom they owe allegiance, just as the Christians and Mohammedans have. But the Vedanta philosophy stands at the background of all these various sects, and there is no fight and no antagonism between the Vedanta and any other system in the world. ”

“ The most typical traits of primitive mental culture are doubtless to be found among the Veddahs of Ceylon. The Veddahs, however, are not really Pygmies, but are of large stature. Moreover, there are primitive people who are so far from being Pygmies that they belong rather to the tall races. We might cite the extinct Tasmanians, whose culture was probably a stage lower than that of the modern Australians. In most respects, many of the tribes of Central Australia exhibit traits of primitive culture, even though their social organization is of a far more complicated nature. ”

“ I am a Hindoo by birth. My people were the first to walk in the fields of knowledge, first to divide them, first to make them beautiful. Whatever may hereafter befall, the four Vedas must live, for they are the primal fountains of religion and useful intelligence. ”

“ Mark my words, this is but the small beginning, big things are to follow; what the result of the present work outside India will be I cannot exactly state, but this I know for certain that millions, I say deliberately, millions in every civilised land are waiting for the message that will save them from the hideous abyss of materialism into which modern money-worship is driving them headlong, and many of the leaders of the new social movements have already discovered that Vedanta in its highest form can alone spiritualise their social aspirations. ”

“ That philosophy seems to have entered into the very life-blood of the nation, but it assumed, of course, very different forms as believed in by men of talent and education, and by the drudging tillers of the soil throughout the land. The number of those who study the Vedânta in the works of such minute philosophers as Bâdarâyana and Samkara is naturally very small, but the number of those who have drunk in the spirit of it, it may be in a few sayings only, is legion. ”

“ The essence of the knowledge of the Vedas was called by the name of Vedanta, which comprises the Upanishads; and all the sects of India — Dualists, Qualified-Monists, Monists, or the Shaivites, Vaishnavites, Shâktas, Sauras, Gânapatyas, each one that dares to come within the fold of Hinduism — must acknowledge the Upanishads of the Vedas. They can have their own interpretations and can interpret them in their own way, but they must obey the authority. That is why we want to use the word Vedantist instead of Hindu. ”

“ I maintain then that for a study of man, or, if you like, for a study of Aryan humanity, there is nothing in the world equal in importance with the Veda. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his history, or for his intellectual development, a study of Vedic literature is indispensable; and that, as an element of liberal education, it is far more important and far more improving than the reigns of Babylonian and Persian kings. ”

“ The Vedic singer praised "Him whose greatness the snowy ranges, and the sea, and the aerial river declare." The Aryan race in India never forgot its northern home. There dwelt its gods and holy singers; and there eloquence descended from heaven among men; while high amid the Himalayan mountains lay the paradise of deities and heroes, where the kind and the brave forever repose.
The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan settlements in the Punjab. ”

“ You will generally hear that this Vedanta, this philosophy and other Eastern systems, look only to something beyond, letting go the enjoyments and struggle of this life. This idea is entirely wrong. It is only ignorant people who do not know anything of Eastern thought, and never had brain enough to understand anything of its real teaching, that tell you so. On the contrary, we read in our scriptures that our philosophers do not want to go to other worlds, but depreciate them as places where people weep and laugh for a little while only and then die. ”

“ The people among whom the Vedas were composed, as here introduced to us, had evidently passed the nomadic stage. Their wealth consisted of horses, cattle, sheep, goats, and buffaloes. Coined money, and indeed money in any shape, was unknown. We meet but two allusions to gold, except for the purpose of ornaments. The cow was to the Vedic Hindoo at once food and money. ”

“ The article, which was significantly headed "The potency of Vedic prayers," recalled various cases in which the Vedas lay down the duty of retaliation upon "alien" oppressors. "To kill such people involves no sin, and when Kshatriyas and Vaidhyas do not come forward to kill them, Brahmans should take up arms and protect religion. When one is face to face with such people they should be slaughtered without hesitation. ”

“ All the social upheavalists, at least the leaders of them, are trying to find that all their communistic or equalising theories must have a spiritual basis, and that spiritual basis is in the Vedanta only. I have been told by several leaders, who used to attend my lectures, that they required the Vedanta as the basis of the new order of things."
"What are your views with regard to the Indian masses?"
"Oh, we are awfully poor, and our masses are very ignorant about secular things. Our masses are very good because poverty here is not a crime. Our masses are not violent. ”

“ It is true, no doubt, that the ideas expressed in the Veda presupposed a long development, even a period of savagery, considering that all civilised nations must once have been less civilised, uncivilised, or even savages. There are quite sufficient survivals of savagery even in the Veda itself, only it is Aryan savagery, not savagery of the Pacific Islanders, African negroes, or Dravidians. If only some cases could be produced in which the Australian blacks shared any of the ideas of the Veda, or displayed similar ideas, only more savage, every true scholar would welcome them with open arms. ”