Vedic ritual

“ It seems also to be found in the Vedic religion. Dr. Farnell writes: "In the Vedic ritual we find a pure and spiritual form of prayer; yet a certain spell-power may attach even to the highest types, for we find not infrequently the conception that not only the power of the worshipper, but the power of the deity also is nourished and strengthened by prayer, and the prayer itself is usually accompanied by a potent act (such as that of sacrifice) . ”

“ The heretics of Vedic religion, the opponents of the orthodox commentators in ages comparatively recent, used to complain that the Vedas were simply nonsense, and their authors "knaves and buffoons." There are moments when the modern student of Vedic myths is inclined to echo this petulant complaint. For example, it is difficult enough to find in the Rig-Veda anything like a categoric account of the gods, and a description of their personal appearance. But in Rig-Veda viii. 29, 1, we read of one god, "a youth, brown, now hostile, now friendly; a golden lustre invests him." Who is this youth? ”

“ One does not read long in the sacred books of India without attaining the conviction that the highest religion of the Vedas was deeply penetrated with sacerdotal magic; which was so far from losing its hold in the later period that it imprisoned the religious thought, and the later Brahmanism was capable of the belief that without the spell of the sacrifice the sun could not run his course in heaven. And the recital of spells forms a great part of the Vedic ritual. Thus the hymns say of the fire-god Agni, “The thoughtful men find Agni when they have recited the spells” ”

“ It is certain that the Indians, when they came to reflect and philosophise on their own religion (and they had reached this point before the Veda was compiled) , were themselves horrified by the immoralities of some of their gods. Yet in Vedic times these gods were already acknowledged as beings endowed with strong moral attributes and interested in the conduct of men. ”

“ But all this aspect of the Vedic deities is essentially the province of the science of religion rather than of mythology. Man's consciousness of sin, his sense of being imperfect in the sight of "larger other eyes than ours," is a topic of the deepest interest, but it comes but by accident into the realm of mythological science. That science asks, not with what feelings of awe and gratitude the worshipper approaches his gods, but what myths, what stories, are told to or told by the worshipper concerning the origin, personal characteristics and personal adventures of his deities. ”

“ The men of old, distinguished for their knowledge, have said, neither this world nor that hereafter nor bliss can be his who is disturbed by doubts. And belief of one’s identity with the Supreme Soul is the indication of salvation. He that knoweth the true meaning of the Vedas, understandeth their true use. Such a man is affrighted at the Vedic ritual like a man at sight of a forest conflagration. Giving up dry disputation, have recourse to Sruti and Smriti, and seek thou, with the aid of thy reason, the knowledge of the Undecaying One that is without a second. ”

“ It is, of course, in their anthropomorphic aspect that the Vedic deities share or exceed the infirmities of mortals. The gods are not by any means always regarded as practically equal in supremacy. There were great and small, young and old gods,* though this statement, with the habitual inconsistency of a religion without creeds and articles, is elsewhere controverted. "None of you, O gods, is small or young; you are all great."** As to the immortality and the origin of the gods, opinions are equally divided among the Vedic poets and in the traditions collected in the Brahmanas. ”

“ Whereas the Vedic sacrificers propitiated all the gods impartially and regarded ritual as a sacred science giving power over nature, the worshipper of the later deities is generally sectarian and often emotional. He selects one for his adoration, and this selected deity becomes not merely a great god among others [137] but a gigantic cosmical figure in whom centre the philosophy, poetry and passion of his devotees. He is almost God in the European sense, but still Indian deities, though they may have a monopoly of adoration in their own sects, are never entirely similar to Jehovah or Allah. ”

“ The complicated ritual, in which prayer and sacrifice were supposed to exert a constraining influence on the supernatural powers, already existed, Haug thinks, in the time of the chief Rishis or hymnists of the Rig-Veda. [21] In many respects the nature of the idea of the divine, as entertained by the Rishis of the Rig-Veda, is still matter for discussion. In the chapter on Vedic gods such particulars as can be ascertained will be given. Roughly speaking, the religion is a cult of departmental gods, originally, in certain cases, forces of Nature, but endowed with moral earnestness. ”

“ The four Vedas are "collections," called saṃhitā, of hymns and prayers made for different ritual purposes. They are of varying age and significance. By far the most important as well as the oldest—for it is the very foundation of all Vedic literature—is the Rigveda, the "Veda of verses" (from ṛich, "a laudatory stanza") , consisting entirely of lyrics, mainly in praise of different gods. It may, therefore, be described as the book of hymns or psalms. ”

“ Buddhism did not create the type of ritual now used in Hindu temples, yet it contributed towards it, for it attacked the old Brahmanic sacrifices, it countenanced the idea that particular places and objects are holy, and it encouraged the use of images. It is strange that these widespread ideas should find no place in the Vedic religion, but even now-a-days whenever the old Vedic sacrifices are celebrated they are uncontaminated by the temple ceremonial. More than this, the priests or Pujâris who officiate in temples are not always Brahmans and they rarely enjoy much consideration. ”

“ Vedic literature is far from being discredited in India, though some Tantras say openly that it is useless. It still has a place in ritual and is appealed to by reforming sects. But to see Hinduism in proper perspective we must remember that from the time of the Buddha till now, the composition of religious literature in India has been almost uninterrupted and that almost every century has produced works accepted by some sect as infallible scripture. ”

“ If this view be correct, Vedic mythology does by no means represent what is primitive and early, but what, in order of development, is late, is peculiar, and is marked with the mark of a religious tendency as strongly national and characteristic as the purest Semitic monotheism. ”

“ Müller add, "I simply say that in the arts and political society of the Vedic age we have a nearer approach to a beginning than in the arts and society of Hottentots and Bushmen"? Is the use of chariots, horses, ships—are kings, walled cities, agriculture, the art of weaving, and so forth, all familiar to the Vedic poets, nearer the beginning of man's civilisation than the life of the naked or skin-clad hunter who has not yet learned to work the metals, who acknowledges no king, and has no certain abiding-place? ”

“ This is a very good (though very extreme) example of the difference in age between the early hymns of the Rig Veda and the more modern ritual. Müller, ib. IX. p. I (sic) , has given a thorough account of the later ritual and ritualistic paraphernalia. We confine ourselves here to the older ceremony.
The scene of the Vedic hymn is as follows: The friends and relatives stand about the corpse of a married man. By the side of the corpse sits the widow. The hymn begins: "Depart, O Death, upon some other pathway, upon thy path, which differs from the path of gods ... ”

“ The growth of the subjective speculation, as being capable of bringing the highest good, gradually resulted in the supersession of Vedic ritualism and the establishment of the claims of philosophic meditation and self-knowledge as the highest goal of life. ”

“ Or apply the same test to the literature of Hinduism, even in its earliest and purest stages. The sacred Vedas, which are supposed to have been breathed into the souls of ancient rishis by direct divine effluence, are tainted here and there by debasing human elements, and that not incidentally but as the very soul of the Hindu system. For example, when the Vedic hymns promise as future rewards the lowest sensual indulgences [225] none can doubt the earthly source of their inspiration. ”

“ The next quarter is almost equally powerful in spirituality. But after the middle is passed, a little decline is perceptible, not so much in spirituality as in the outward habits of the people. During this period the Vedic truths reveal themselves through the mediums of the entranced minds of some of the highly illuminated men. Now, what is a Vedic truth? It is an expression in sound-form of one of the inmost laws of Nature. Before this period the Golden Age people breathe, move and have their being in these laws—as sensitive embodiments of these laws. ”

“ We have not to deal with hard formulas only, with unintelligible ceremonies, or petrified fetiches. We can see how the human mind arrives by a perfectly rational process at all its later irrationalities. This is what distinguishes the Veda from all other Sacred Books. Much, no doubt, in the Veda also, and in the Vedic ceremonial, is already old and unintelligible, hard, and petrified. ”

“ We are not called upon either to admire or to despise that ancient Vedic literature; we have simply to study and to try to understand it.
There have been silly persons who have represented the development of the Indian mind as superior to any other, nay, who would make us go back to the Veda or to the sacred writings of the Buddhists in order to find there a truer religion, a purer morality, and a more sublime philosophy than our own. ”

“ The old childlike joy in life, so manifest in the Vedas, had died away. A funereal gloom hung over the land; and the gloomiest people of all were the Brahmans themselves, devoted to a complicated ritual of ceremonial observances, to needless and cruel sacrifices, and a repulsive theology. The worship of Nature had degenerated into the worship of impure divinities. The priests were inflated with a puerile but sincere belief in their own divinity, and inculcated a sense of duty which was nothing else than a degrading slavery to their own caste. ”

“ Even a stone may have something of the same effect, for it connects the deity with the events, rites and ideas of a locality. But the earliest stratum of Vedic religion is worship of the powers of nature—such as the Sun, the Sky, the Dawn, the Fire—which are personified but not localized or depicted. ”

“ I do so, partly because I feel myself most at home in that ancient world of Vedic literature in which the germs of Aryan religion have to be studied, partly because I believe that for a proper understanding of the deepest convictions, or, if you like, the strongest prejudices of the modern Hindus, nothing is so useful as a knowledge of the Veda. It is perfectly true that nothing would give a falser impression of the actual Brahmanical religion than the ancient Vedic literature, supposing we were to imagine that three thousand years could have passed over India without producing any change. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He has virtually no cult except in soma-hymns, and shows clearly the first Aryan conception of the moon as a demoniac power, potent over women, and associated with waters.
Mountains, and especially rivers, are holy, and of course are deified. Primitive belief generally deifies rivers. But in the great river-hymn in the Rig Veda there is probably as much pure poetry as prayer. The Vedic poet half believed in the rivers' divinity, and sings how they 'rush forth like armies,' but it will not do to inquire too strictly in regard to his belief. ”

“ With all the qualifications now stated, the Veda must retain a position of high importance for all who study Indian thought and life. The religious stamp which the compilers of the Veda impressed so widely and so deeply has not been obliterated in the course of thirty centuries.
Their religion is Nature-worship. The prevailing aspect of the religion presented in the Vedic hymns may be broadly designated as Nature-worship.
[Pg 16] All physical phenomena in India are invested with a grandeur which they do not possess in Physical phenomena in India.northern or even southern Europe. ”

“ Our troglodyte ancestors, and their sweet feeling for the spiritual aspect of landscape, are thus brought into relation with the Rishis of the Vedas, the sages and poets of a pleasing civilisation. The reverence felt for such comparatively refined or remote things as fire, the sun, wind, thunder, the dawn, furnished a series of stepping-stones to the Vedic theology, if theology it can be called. It is impossible to give each step in detail ”