The Scriptures of Mankind: An Introduction by Charles Samuel Braden
Chapter 5: The Sacred Literature of Hinduism
"Mother" India, as she is lovingly called by her sons, has indeed been a mother of religions.
Four of the eleven principal living faiths of the world were born in India: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and all have extensive sacred literatures. Hinduism itself, from which all the others have sprung, has a vast and highly variegated set of scriptures. In general there are two types of scripture that are regarded as authoritative in Hinduism: (1) sruti: that which may be regarded as the ipsissima verba, the very, very word of God. It was given by verbal
inspiration to the rishiis or seers, and gathered into a closed Canon. From this nothing may be taken away and nothing may be added. This type of sacred writing has, in the course of time, come to be thought of very much as the Bible is thought of by Christian Fundamentalists: as infallible, incapable of error, because of its non-human character.
The second type of scripture is known as smriti. While admittedly of human origins, it has come to be thought of as authoritative also, in the expression of religious faith, and of very high value in the teaching of religion and morals. Though of less exalted origin, and not of equal value with sruti, as a basis of religious dogma, it is perhaps quite as influential in the lives of the people in inculcating and nourishing religious faith and practice. If all the books which are comprised within these two classes of sacred literature were to be brought together in a single collection, as has nowhere yet been done, they would fill many thousands of pages. While there is rather general agreement as to what may be considered as smriti, there is no closed canon.
Sectarian groups differ to a considerable degree as to what may be so considered. Certainly they differ as to which particular books of this category are to be emphasized within their own
groups. The rather generally tolerant attitude of Indians toward the religious beliefs of others inclines them to admit as sacred for others what they might not accept for themselves. As a matter of fact some sectarian groups make, practically, much greater use of non-sruti literature, as the basis for present belief and practice than they do of the recognized sruti writings. Indeed for them some books generally regarded as smriti have actually become sruti. There is nothing in Hinduism to prevent this from happening.
Within Hindu sacred literature may be found, as in most scripture, almost every type of writing.
There is both poetry and prose. Examples of nearly every variety of poetic expression may be found. Some of it is lyric, some elegiac, some epic, some dramatic. Love songs abound. There is poetry of praise, poetry of lamentation, heroic verse, and poetry of despair, poetry of
thanksgiving, poetry of devotion, poetry that is light, airy, fanciful, and poetry that seeks to express the most profound philosophic insight. Of prose there is every kind, the short story, the drama, the fable, legal lore, philosophic essays, history, drama. Only the epistolary, which is so important in the New Testament, seems to be lacking. There are prose passages of unusual beauty and strength; there are innumerable pages of dry dialectic material, without grace or charm, but none the less important for an understanding of Hinduism.
This Hindu literature like that of most other religions represents the work of many, many hands over a long period of time. It records the hopes, aspirations, ideals, triumphs, failures, strivings after meaning of a great people, across the centuries, as they developed from barbarism to the highly cultured society which is India today at its best. Out of the struggle upward the literature was born and by it India’s life has been shaped and controlled to a remarkable degree, for India’s sacred literature is no mere museum piece. The daily routine of the orthodox Hindu is probably much more determined by some part of his scriptures than that of the people of the West by the Bible, or for that matter than that of any other people by its scripture, save only the Moslems.
India’s sacred literature divides itself logically and to some extent chronologically, into four main groups: (1) Vedic literature, (2) Legal literature, (3) Epic literature and (4) Puranic literature. The exact chronology of some writings it is difficult to fix, and there is often a
difference in time between the beginnings of a given body of literature and its final completion.
The beginnings of the Epics may well have been within the late Vedic age, their completion more than a millennium later. The earliest formulation of legal codes may go well back into the past; the final fixing of the codes is comparatively late, and of course some codes are much earlier than others. Some of the Puranic lore is old. The Puranas, as now found, are the latest of all Hindu sacred writings. We consider first Vedic literature.
Vedic Literature
Vedic literature is sruti, the infallible, verbally inspired word of God. It is the most sacred of all.
So sacred was it held to be at the time of the making of the Code of Manu, greatest of the law books, that it was therein decreed that a lowly Sudra, i.e., low caste man, who so much as listened to the sacred text would have molten metal poured into his ears, and his tongue cut out if he pronounced the sacred words of the holy Vedas.1 ‘Whether such laws were ever actually enforced may be doubted. Certainly there is no evidence that they were, but they do serve to accentuate the degree of sacredness which attached to the Vedic literature.
Vedic literature comprises much more than the Vedas. These give their name to an extensive literature which grew out of them. Specifically regarded as part of the Veda are (1) the
Brahmanas, (2) the Aranyakas, and (3) the Upanishads. It has become a dogma generally accepted that all that is found in these later writings is simply an outgrowth of the Vedas, the making explicit of what was therein implicit. They are therefore regarded as equally sacred.
There is another reason -- perhaps the primary reason -- for considering them as Vedic, namely, that these writings, except the Vedanta Sutras, were physically attached to the Vedas in their written form.
Most basic of all Hindu sacred writings are the Samhitas, generally called the Vedas
themselves, of which there are four, and most basic of the four is the Rig-Veda. The others, the Sama-Veda, the Yajur-Veda and the Atharva-Veda, all derive to a considerable extent from the Rig. Most of our attention will therefore be given to this highly important sacred book.
The name of the book, Rig-Veda, means probably "Verse Wisdom." It is a collection of hymns, 1017 in all according to Griffith. In bulk it is longer than the combined Iliad and Odyssey of Homer. Translated into English, and with some notes, the hymns make two quite substantial volumes.2 In the original there are some 20,000 metrical verses in the whole collection.
For the Rig-Veda is just that, a collection, the work of a great many writers, or in some cases, guilds of writers. It consists chiefly of hymns to one or another of the numerous Vedic gods, designed for use in the worship of these divinities. It represents the oldest stratum of Hinduism of which very much is known. In recent times archaeological discoveries in the Indus valley have brought to light evidences of a highly developed culture in India long before the coming of the invading Aryans. Whereas, earlier, it had been believed that the Aryans found only peoples of relatively undeveloped culture, now it is known that at least some of these early Indians had developed the arts to a high degree, that they even had a kind of hieroglyphic writing, not yet deciphered, and probably an equally well developed religion which, suppressed for a time, gradually reasserted itself and greatly modified Vedic religion, gradually transforming it into the Hinduism as practiced in India today. (For an interesting account of this civilization see Sir John Marshall, Mohenjo-daro, 3 volumes.)
Reference has been made to the Aryan invasion of India. Who were the Aryans? There is much that is not known concerning them, but it is known that long, long before they arrived in India they were part of a great migratory movement of people, sometimes identified incorrectly as a race, probably better as a people of a common culture. To this people, eventually, the name Indo-European came to be attached, since sure signs of their presence are to be found all the way from the British Isles on the West, to the Bay of Bengal on the East, and from the Scandinavian countries on the North to the Mediterranean on the South. Though possessing many common cultural traits found also in Europe and the West, the much closer similarities between the cultures of Iran or Persia and India have led scholars to distinguish an Indo-Iranian branch of the larger whole as having early separated itself from the central or original Aryan
migration, perhaps moving eastward from the, as yet, not certainly located origin of the Aryan group. Later this segment again separated into two branches. One of these entered the Iranian plateau, amalgamated with the native populations and eventually gave rise to a new faith, Zoroastrianism, which developed its own sacred literature. The other crossed the Khyber pass and entered the land of India, gradually fanning out to cover the greater part of that vast
subcontinent, but losing, in the course of its southern movement, much of its original character.
It was of this Aryan migration that the Vedic hymns were born. In a real sense they, at least the older of them, are not really Indian in origin at all, but were produced either before the Aryans had set foot on Indian soil, or were composed by Aryans, i.e., the foreign invaders, before India had had time to put her own impress upon them. When this invasion took place it is impossible to state with any certainty. It is rather generally supposed to have occurred some time within the period 2500-1500 B.C., though some Indian scholars put it at a much earlier date, even as early as 5000 B.C.
In modern times the term Aryan has become a racial term, as in Germany under the Nazis, when a sharp distinction was made between the Aryan and the Semitic elements in the
population. But beyond the probable fact that the Aryan invaders were light rather than dark of skin, little can be alleged as to their racial character. This is evidenced by the lighter
complexions of the present-day Indian in the northern parts of India where the Aryans mingled in largest proportion with the indigenous population, in contrast to the much darker complexion of southern Indians where the Aryan influence is least. Also it is an easily recognized fact that modern-day Indians, particularly of the northern half, or more, appear to have European
features despite their darker color. Modern anthropologists and ethnologists give no support to the existence, now or at any time, of a pure Aryan race. They do attest to an Aryan culture widely spread over most of Europe, Persia and India, on the basis of evidences drawn from language, the archaeological discovery of artifacts and objects of art, and certain similarities of religious ideas to be found in the areas overrun by these far-ranging migrants.
Whatever the nature of the Aryans, it is a proudly held word in contemporary India. One vigorous modern reform movement in Hinduism which seeks to recapture the best of India’s religious heritage calls itself the Arya-Samaj, the Society of Aryans; another publishes a religious journal which it calls The Aryan Path. To behave as a true Aryan comes to have
something of the meaning of the Confucian term, "the Superior Man," or the old English phrase of "the true gentleman."
The hymns of the Rig-Veda are much older, of course, than the collection itself. Most of them were composed for use in the cult, although there are hymns which seem to be the more or less spontaneous expression of the individual human spirit. At first this cult, or worship was
conducted by the father of the household, but in time there arose a specialized priesthood for the performance of the appropriate sacrifices and rituals, and the hymns were probably largely produced by them and for their use in the cult. Not many hymns can be assigned to specific
authors, though the Rig-Veda contains seven groups of hymns attributed to seven families, the Gritsamada, Visvamitra, Vamadeva, Atri, Bharadvaja, Vasistha, and Kanva. These may
represent separate schools of poetry -- the hymns in any one group are certainly not all by the same individual. The collection was not made all at one time, as seems evident also in the Hebrew book of Psalms.
There are ten books in all. Of these, Books II through VII contain the greater number of the oldest hymns and were the first to be brought together, possibly at the command of some famous chief. Here a uniform arrangement appears. Hymns are grouped by families and within each family group they are arranged according to the gods to whom the hymns are addressed;
and within these groups according to the number of stanzas, in descending order. Conjecturally, there were then collected and added what is now the second half of Book I, then the first half of Book I and Book VIII, then Book IX which is dedicated entirely to the god Soma, the intoxicant deity, and, finally, the latest of all the books, the tenth and last. Book IX, while collected later than most of the others, contains hymns which may well be as old as any.
From these hymns can be discovered much concerning the life and thought of the ancient Vedic Indians. It is a rare source book for the study of their culture. Here are disclosed not only their religious ideas, their deepest longings, their sins and failures, their ideas of good and evil, their hopes and fears; but also how they worked, how they played, how they fought, what they ate, how they dressed, the pattern of their domestic and public life. Indeed, all we can know about this people is here preserved, for they left no monuments, or buildings, or inscriptions from which the archaeologist might recapture their ancient civilization. It is not only the sacred literature of the period, it is the only literature that has been preserved, and it was preserved only because it became sacred.
From the older hymns it is clear that they were still an invading, conquering people, dependent upon military skill and power to make their way ever more deeply into India. Proof of this is the prominent place given to Indra who was their god of war. Much can be inferred as to the
character and activity of people from the gods who hold positions of principal importance. In war times there has always been, and still is, a need for a god of battles to spur men on to fight.
In modern times when men believe in but one god, his militant character always comes to the front in war time, and his more pacific character is played down. Nearly one-fourth of all the hymns of the Rig-Veda are to Indra. Of course he is more than a war god; he is also god of storm, beneficent, life-bringing storm, which makes grass to grow. The ruder, more destructive aspects of storm are assigned to Rudra, father of the Maruts, who are often associated with Indra in his hymns.
The Vedic people are still pastoral to a large degree. Cultivation of the soil has not yet become a primary source of their living. It is a cattle culture, as only a very cursory glance at the hymns will quickly disclose. Their prayers -- to Indra, and to others as well -- are largely for rich pasturage, great herds of cattle, long life, big families, and of course success in battle. Rain is a
necessity if pastures are to be green. Indra is the slayer of the demon Vritra who herds the cloud cows into a cave and prevents the rains from coming. Prayers rise to Indra. He prepares himself by consuming ponds of Soma, the intoxicant, then sallies forth to slay the monster Vritra. This is all recalled in one of the hymns.
1. Let me tell out the manly deeds of Indra,
Which he accomplished first of all, bolt-weaponed:
He slew the serpent, opened up the waters, And cleft in twain the belly of the mountains.
3. With bull-like eagerness he sought the soma;
Out of three vats he drank the pressed out liquor;
Maghavan took in hand his bolt, the missile, And smote therewith the first-born of the serpents.
6. For, like a drunken weakling, Vritra challenged The mighty hero, the impetuous warrior; He did not meet the clash of Indra’s weapons, Broken and crushed he lay, whose foe was Indra.
13. Lightning and thunder profited him nothing, Nor mist nor hailstorm which he spread around him;
When Indra and the serpent fought their battle, Maghavan won the victory forever.
15. Indra is king of that which moves and moves not, Of tame and horned creatures, too, bolt weaponed;
Over the tribes of men he rules as monarch;
As felly spokes, so holds he them together.3
Indra’s close relationship to the preservation of cattle -- and therefore to wealth and prosperity of the people -- is seen in this hymn which reflects the naive character of a simple pastoral people:
The Kine have come and brought good fortune: let them rest in the cow-pen and be happy near us.
Here let them stay prolific, many colored, and yield through many moms their milk for Indra.
Indra aids him who offers sacrifice and gifts; he takes not what is his, and gives him more thereto.
Increasing ever more and ever more his wealth, he makes the pious dwell within unbroken bounds.
These are ne’er lost, no robber ever injures them: evil- minded foe attempts to harass them.
The master of the Kine lives many a year with these, the Cows whereby he pours his gifts and serves the Gods.4
But Indra also comes to be thought of at times as more than just a fertility and war god. In one of the hymns he assumes almost the character of a monotheistic creator god. If no other hymn of the whole collection had been preserved it would be easy to assume that Indra had indeed become the one god of the world. This is but an example of the habit of Vedic people to elevate momentarily first one divinity, then another to supremacy. To describe this attitude, Max Muller proposed a new synthetic word, henotheism. Here is a part of a hymn too long to quote entire:
1. He who as soon as born keen-thoughted, foremost, Surpassed the gods, himself, a god, in power;
Before whose vehemence the worlds trembled Through his great valour; he, O men, is Indra.
2. He who the quivering earth hath firm established, And set at rest the agitated mountains;
Who measured out the mid-air far-extending, And sky supported: he, O men, is Indra.
3. Who slew the snake and freed the seven rivers, Drove out the cattle by unclosing Vala;
Who fire between two rocks hath generated, In battles victor: he, O men, is Indra.
13. Even the heavens and earth bow down before him, And at his vehemence the mountains tremble;
Who, bolt in arm, is known as Soma-drinker, With hands bolt-wielding; he, O men, is Indra.5
Fire plays an important role in the life of any people, and is coimmonly worshiped throughout the world. In Vedic India this element whether as in the hearthfire, in the lightning stroke, or in the blazing sun was an object of constant worship as Agni.6 It is not easy in many of the hymns to say whether the object of cult is the fire itself or a god behind it; perhaps they themselves were not always sure either. Fire is a servant, fire is a friend, it is a purifier, a cleanser, and perhaps most important of all, it is that which transmutes the sacrifice into a holy food for the gods. Easily Agni becomes a mediator or priest god. One of the many hymns reads thus: