Topic: Indian Mythology

[Prometheus]

The Asvins remain little changed: their old names of Nasatya
and Dasra have been turned into proper names of the pair,
but they are still the physicians of the gods and the healers of
mankind. Their origin is variously described. In one passage
they are called the children of Martanda, one of the Adityas
born from the nose of his wife Saiijna, whence the name Nas-
atya, since in Sanskrit ndsd means "nose." In another they are
Guhyakas, born of Savitr and the daughter of Tvastr; in yet
another account they are sprung from the tears of Agni. De-
spite their great beauty, they were Sudras, or members of the
lowest caste, and Indra would not allow them to share the
Soma oifering. One day, however, they came across Sukanya,
daughter of Saryati and wife of Cyavana, as she was bathing
and sought her in marriage; but when she refused to listen to
their advances, in reward they promised to make her aged and
decrepit husband fair and young. She then went and brought



142 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Cyavana, who entered the water with the Asvins, all three emerg-
ing in the same youthful and lovely condition. She managed,
however, to choose her own husband from among them, and
in delight he secured for the Asvins a share in the soma drink.
In the epic special interest is given to them by the fact that
they were born as Madrl's two sons Nakula and Sahadeva, the
youngest of the Pandavas.

The Maruts, who have sunk to mere names, serve to aid
Indra in his conflicts with his foes. In one passage they are said
to be descended from the Seven Seers, and in another place
Marici is said to be the chief among them, which brings them
into connexion with the Prajapatis, of whom Marici is the most
important.

The Rudras form an indeterminate group, either eleven or
eleven thousand in number. They are children of Dharma,
and Siva is their protector, but they are effectively swallowed
up in his omnipotence. One list ascribes to their ranks Mrga-
vyadha, Sarpa, Nirrti, Aja Ekapad, Ahi Budhnya, Pinakin,
Dahana, Tsvara, Kapalin, Sthanu, and Bhaga, a curious con-
glomerate of epithets of Siva and the ancient Vedic gods.

The Vasus number eight, and are sons of Dharma or of
Prajapati Manu. In one list they appear as Dhara, Dhruva,
Soma, Aha, Anila, Anala, Pratyusa, and Prabhasa, but in
another Savitra replaces Aha, and in the Harivamsa Apas
takes his place. They sinned against the great sage Vasistha
by stealing his cow to please the wife of Dyaus, and were
doomed by him to be born on earth. Accordingly they became
the children of Ganga, who for another fault had been con-
demned to assume mortal form, and King Santanu. But their
mother cast the first seven into the water, and Santanu suc-
ceeded in saving only the eighth, who became Bhisma, the
famous sage and warrior of the epic. The Vasus, however,
showed their realization of their kinship with Bhisma by curs-
ing Arjuna for slaying him.

The Adityas number, as usual, twelve, but the lists of them



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 143

differ: one gives Indra, Visnu, Bhaga, Tvastr, Varuna, Amsa,
Aryaman, Ravi, POsan, Mitra, Manu, and Parjanya; while
another has Dhatr, Aryaman, Mitra, Varuna, Amsa, Bhaga,
Indra, Vivasvant, Piisan, Tvastr, Savitr, Parjanya, and Visnu,
making thirteen. Of these Arhsa, Aryaman, Pijsan, Bhaga,
Mitra, Ravi, Vivasvant, and Savitr are all equivalents of the
sun-god; Parjanya and Indra have no real solar character; and
Dhatr, Tvastr, and Manu are synonyms of the creator-god
Brahma.

The Gandharvas as heavenly musicians are often mentioned
as playing on their lutes and as singing, while the Apsarases
dance. They reside near Lake Manasa and also on Mount
Nisadha. Two of their leaders, Visvavasu and Tumburu, are
mentioned, and the Kinnaras and Naras are classed with
them. The mystic connexion of the Gandharva with birth has,
however, disappeared; and the Apsarases have also lost all
mystery and have sunk to be the dancers of the gods, beautiful
with lotus eyes, slender waists, and swelling hips, who enchant
mortals with their gestures and their honeyed words. They
serve Sakra in heaven and consort with the Gandharvas. It
is they who are called upon to interrupt from time to time the
devotions of saints when they threaten to acquire too much
sanctity. Yet they are often unsuccessful in these errands, and
even Urvasi herself failed when she sought to attract the love
of Arjuna on his visit to the heaven of Indra. Repulsed, she
cursed him to become a eunuch, but her malediction was only
nominally fulfilled. Long lists of names of Apsarases are
given, among which are Rambha, Menaka, Pufijikasthala,
VisvacI, Ghrtaci, Sahajanya, Pramloca, MisrakesI, and Ira.
Some of these are Vedic, and Ira is none other than the Ida,
or sacrificial food in the Vedic offering. It is a curious fate which
brings the holy consecrated essence of the offering into the
rank of a dancing girl.

The Caranas, wandering minstrels or troubadours, are men-
tioned with the Gandharvas, and the Siddhas and Sadhyas



144 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

also occur as blessed spirits, though without mention of their
special functions. The SIddhas, however, are said to dwell on
the south of the Nlla Mountain and the northern side of Mem
in the realm of the Uttara Kurus. In that land trees yield
fruits at pleasure, milk, and six kinds of food tasting like am-
brosia; the trees bear clothing, and In their fruits are ornaments.
The men there are beautiful and live ten thousand and ten
hundred years; children are born as twins and Intermarry;
at death birds called Bharundas come and carry away the dead,
throwing them Into mountain caves.

The Vidyadharas live in the Himavant on Mount Krauiica;
their chief is Cakradharman, but their only function Is to rain
flowers down on the warriors as they fight with one another.

Still less definitely divine are the Rsis, or seers, of whom
many classes are mentioned. The greatest are the Seven Seers,
normally given as Anglras, Atri, Kratu, Pulastya, Pulaha,
Marici, and Vaslstha. The names, however, vary, and in the
legend of the drawing of the chariot of Nahusa by the Seven
Seers it is Agastya who plays the chief role and hurls Nahusa
from heaven. Another famous story,^ which in its main lines
must have been known as early as the Aitareya Brdhmana
(v. 30) and which is preserved in variant versions in the Jdtaka,
tells of an adventure of Atri, Vaslstha, Kasyapa, Gautama,
Jamadagnl, Bharadvaja, and Visvamitra, with Arundhatl,
Once upon a time the seers found themselves threatened with
famine, and in the midst of It Saibya Vrsadarbhl, who had
been given to them as an ofi^ering by his royal father, died.
The king offered them large sums to prevent them eating human
flesh, but these they declined to take as transgressing the rule'
which forbade the acceptance of presents, and wandered away.
The king performed a sacrifice whence sprang a terrible demon
named Yatudhani, whom he sent after the seers. As they
went along, they were joined by a man with a dog, and finally
they came to a lake guarded by the Yatudhani, who allowed
them to enter it to pluck lotuses for the sake of the edible fibre



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 145

on condition that they should declare their identity. They all
gathered the lotuses, and then laying them down, went to
bathe, only to find them vanished on their return. Thereupon
the seers invoked terrible curses on him who had stolen the
fibres, but their new friend wished that man good luck, thus re-
vealing himself as the thief. He then declared himself to be
Indra and rewarded the seers by according heaven to them.

The seers are also classed as "Divine Seers" (Devarsis),
"Brahman Seers" (Brahmarsis), and "Royal Seers" (Rajarsis).
Brhaspati figures as the sage and protects Saci against Nahusa.
He was the son of Anglras and acted as Indra's charioteer.
Bhrgu was of higher origin, being a son of Brahma; and among
his feats were his curse of Agni, through whom Puloman ab-
ducted his wife Puloma, and his curse of the Himalaya. Narada
and his friend Parvata play a certain part in the Mahdbhdrata,
where they appear as high in honour among sages: Narada
gave to King Saibya Sriijaya a son Suvarnasthivin, whose
evacuations were all gold. Great riches thus accumulated in
the home of the king, but robbers seized the boy and slew him,
only to find no gold within. Finally Narada comforted Suvarna-
sthlvin's father and restored the lad to life. Narada also
cursed the Yadavas and so brought about their final destruc-
tion, which culminated In the death of Krsna, who was already
doomed by Gandharl's curse.

Gautama plays his part in a foolish tale which tells how he
rejuvenated his faithful pupil Utahka and gave him his
daughter in marriage; but for his mother-in-law Ahalya
Utanka had to seek the ear-rings of the wife of Saudasa, who
had become a man-eater. He succeeded in doing this, though
only after a quest in hell for the ear-rings which he had acci-
dentally lost, Ahalya has an evil notoriety through being se-
duced by Indra.

More interesting Is the strife of Vasistha with Visvamitra,
now king of Kanyakubja (the modern Kanauj). Visvamitra
seeks from Vasistha his famous cow, Nandlnl, and on his re-



146 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

fusal endeavours to take her by force, but his troops are de-
feated by hosts of Mlecchas ("Barbarians ") which the cow
produces. He therefore devotes himself to asceticism, and at
last attaining Brahmanhood, he revenges himself on his rival
by getting Kalmasapada to eat Vasistha's son Sakti and other
sons. In despair Vasistha seeks to slay himself, but the river
into which he casts himself bound rejects him and hence ac-
quires its name of Vipas, or "Unbound " (the modern Beas).
At last he is comforted by finding that Sakti's wife is to bear a
son Parasara. Visvamitra also distinguished himself by de-
vouring a dog's flesh when in hunger and by debating with a
Candala, or outcaste; by the Apsaras Menaka he was the
father of the famous Sakuntala. Vasistha, whose wife was
ArundhatI, cursed the Vasus and made them be born as men,
and he also cursed Hiranyakasipu.

Of Agastya wild legends are related. He created Lopamudra
to be his wife, but gave her as an adoptive daughter to the
king of Vidarbha (Berar), a tale doubtless meant to explain
the mixed marriage of persons of the Brahman and warrior
castes. To win treasure for her he made a pilgrimage to various
kings, but took nothing from them, since he found that they
spent their wealth in good deeds. 'Finally, however, he came
to king Ilvala, who had already destroyed many Brahmans by
causing them to eat, in the form of flesh, his brother Vatapi,
who then emerged from them, rending their bodies and killing
them. Ilvala sought to destroy Agastya in like manner, but
by his wondrous power of digestion the sage succeeded in
assimilating Vatapi, who could not, therefore, come forth at
his brother's call, whereupon Ilvala richly rewarded the seer.
The story of the theft of the lotuses is narrated of him also, and
it was he who prevented the Vindhya, which was growing up
to heaven, from actually reaching the sky. He had a son
Drdhasyu, who was of incomparable strength; and he drank
up the ocean and burnt the Asuras, besides bringing Nahusa
to ruin.



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 147

Vamadeva is the hero of a curious episode: in a thicket one
day King Pariksit comes upon a fair maiden who consents to
marry him on condition that she shall never see water. After
a time, however, she unhappily beholds a tank of water and
vanishes while bathing in it; the water is let out, and only a frog
is found. Pariksit orders the massacre of the frogs, whereupon
their king, Ayu, appears and explains that the maiden is his
daughter, who is then united in marriage to the king, but whose
offspring are fated by their grandfather's curse to be foes of
Brahmans. The children of Pariksit, Sala, Dala, and Bala,
grow up, and in hunting one day Sala borrows from Vamadeva
two horses which he refuses to return, even though the seer
causes a Raksasa to tear him to pieces. Dala aims a poisoned
arrow at Vamadeva, but kills only his own son; and Dala's wife,
at last propitiating the sage, returns the horses to him.

Manu plays a comparatively small role: he is the son of
Vivasvant, the brother of Yama, and the hero of the tale of
the deluge. On the advice of the fish he builds a ship and
places in it the seeds of all beings,^ so that he restores the world
again when, after the deluge, the ship rests on Naubandhana.
The fish reveals itself as Brahma, not (as in the later legend) as
Visnu. One of his children, Ila, was of double character, now
man now woman, and he was the father of Pururavas, who op-
pressed the Brahmans. With Ila's androgynous nature there
is a parallel in the Mahdhhdrata (xiii. 528 ff".) in the tale of
Bhangasvana who, with his sons, was turned into a woman and
who preferred to retain that sex. Later Siva is often androgy-
nous, and in the Vedic mythology Prajapati is, it would seem,
occasionally so conceived, but this double character of Ila
cannot be traced earlier in the Vedic legend of Puriiravas.^

Another Vedic story appears in an altered form in the tale
of Sunahsepa. As in the Mahdhhdrata^ Visvamitra is engaged
in rivalry with Vasistha and after the repulse of his efi'ort to
seize the cow of his rival he practises asceticism, rising through
the states of royal seer, great seer, and finally Brahman seer,



148 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

even Vasistha recognizing his position. In the course of this
process he has two adventures without a parallel in the Mahd-
bhdrata. Trisanku, a king who sought to attain heaven with his
own body by means of the sacrifice, found that Vasistha would
not help him to this end. Nevertheless, by a mighty offering
to which all the seers were invited, but from which Mahodaya
and the Vasisthas kept away, Visvamitra raised Trisanku
aloft toward the sky. Indra, however, struck him downward,
but Visvamitra arrested his flight in mid-air, where he hangs
in the southern sky, head down, among other stars and con-
stellations which Visvamitra made to accompany him. The
second experience was his encounter with Ambarisa, a king
whose sacrificial victim had been carried away by Indra from
the altar. As a substitute he decided to offer a human victim
to appease the god, and after long search was able to purchase
Sunahsepa, the second son of Rcika, for a thousand cows. On
being sold by his father, however, Sunahsepa entreated Visva-
mitra to help him, and the seer did so by giving him a couple of
gdthds, or verses, which saved him from death.

There is a curious exception to the rule that the Vedic gods
appear as of little account in the epic. In one passage in the
Mahdbhdrata (iii. 15457 ff.) we are told that in the world of
Brahma, which lies above the worlds of the Vedic gods, are
the seers and others, including the deities of the gods, the
Rbhus, whom even the divinities worship. They are described
as being exempt from old age, from death, from pain or happi-
ness, from love or hate, as living without sacrifice and without
ambrosia ; and — what is yet more wonderful — they do not
perish with the ages like the other gods, who accordingly seek
In vain to attain their rank. The passage is as remarkable as
it is isolated, and it contrasts strongly with the somewhat
lowly position occupied by the Rbhus in the Vedic pantheon.

Diverse as are their natures, there are certain things which
the gods have in common: they are all immortal, though this
must be taken with the qualification that they are subject to



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 149

the periodic absorption of the universe at the end of the cycle
of ages. They move freely in the air; and their place of life is
normally the heaven, whence they descend to earth at will.
Their pleasure-ground is Mount Meru in the Himalaya be-
tween Malayavant and Gandhamadana. This mountain, which
shines like the morning sun, is of gold and is as round as a ball;
it is eighty-four thousand yojanas high and as far below the
earth does it penetrate. The birds on it have golden feathers,
for which reason Sumukha, one of the six sons of Garuda,
refused to stay there because the ranks of the birds were not
distinguished. Round the mountain go the sun, the moon, and
Vayu, and on it gods, Gandharvas, Raksasas, and Asuras play
with bevies of Apsarases. There are lovely forests on its top,
and it rings with the songs of female Kinnaras.

Many signs distinguish the gods from mortals, these being
enumerated in the story of Nala, where DamayantI recognizes
the deities by their exemption from perspiration, their unwink-
ing eyes, their unfading garlands, their freedom from dust, and
their standing without touching the earth. Yet there is no
absolute division between gods and men, and the Mahdbhdrata
can tell us that the Rudras, Vasus, Adityas, Sadhyas, and royal
seers have all attained heaven by their devotion to duty.

While the epic has little to say of the old quasi-ahstvdiCt
deities, such as Aditi, who figures merely as the mother of the
Adityas, or Nirrti, who appears simply as a Rudra, there is
an abstraction which has a real existence and which develops
a slight mythology. This is Dharma, the personified concep-
tion of law, who married ten of the daughters of Daksa, but
who is more closely connected with the heroes of the epic by
the fact that by KuntI he was the father of Yudhisthira,
the chief of the Pandavas. On three occasions he tempted
Yudhisthira in order to test his true worth; and every time
Yudhisthira proved his character, refusing to enter the celestial
realms without his faithful dog, which alone arrived with him
at the entrance to Indra's heaven, and preferring to live in

[Prometheus]

I50 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

hell with his kindred than to dwell in heaven when he was told
that they could not share its pleasures with him. Dharma also
made proof of the virtue of other heroes, but his dealings were
severely criticized by the sage Mandavya. This seer, while en-
gaged on a penance which included complete silence, was
wrongly believed guilty of the theft of property which thieves
in their flight deposited in his place of abode, and was impaled
as a penalty. Nevertheless, he did not die, and the king, recog-
nizing the wrong done to him, had him removed from the stake,
a part of which, however, remained in his body. The sage
sought Dharma in order to learn for what atrocious crime in his
earlier life he had thus cruelly been punished, and was told by
Dharma that it was because, in his childhood, he had stuck a
thorn into the back of an insect. Naturally enraged at the
ridiculous disproportion between the offence and the punish-
ment, Mandavya cursed Dharma to be born as the son of a
Siidra woman, and accordingly he came to life as Vidura,
being born through the union of Vyasa with a slave woman,
instead of with Ambika, one of the widows of Vicitravirya,
who was too frightened to submit to marriage with the sage,
even for the purpose of securing a son for her dead husband
in accordance with the ancient practice of the levlrate. Vidura
proved a wise councillor of Dhrtarastra as well as a protector
of the Pandavas, and at the end, when the Kuru family had
fallen Into ruin. It was he who accompanied to the forest the
aged Dhrtarastra, and there by his power of yoga, or mystic
union, he gave up life and was united with Yudhlsthlra.
Contrary to custom, his body was not burnt.

Just as in the period of the Brdhmanas, the Asuras stand over
against the gods In a compact body and ever wage war with
them. The conflict is one which has no ending, despite the con-
stant slaying of the demons by the gods ; for as often as the fiends
are routed, others arise to take their place. Demon after demon
Is mentioned as causing fear to the gods, and though unquestion-
ably the deities have the superiority, just as they have in the



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 151

Brdhmanas, the ascendancy is only that of one set of Immor-
tals against another. In so far as the triumph of good is secured
in the universe, it is not in the sphere of the empirical world
with its apparatus of gods and demons, but in the absolute
as personified in the sectarian divinities. Moreover, the Asuras
are the elder brothers of the gods, being, like them, children of
Kasyapa Prajapati and of thirteen of the daughters of Daksa
Prajapati; the children of Diti are the Daityas, and those of
Danu the Danavas; and since Diti was the eldest daughter of
Daksa, the Daityas were older even than the gods. The
enmity of the gods and the Asuras commenced at the churning
of the ocean for the sake of the ambrosia and is briefly re-
lated in the Rdmdyana (i. 45 ff".) in concluding its account of
that great event. The Mahdhhdrata (i. 1103 fi".) has a fuller
version of the struggle. When the moon, LaksmI, the white
steed, the Kaustubha gem, and Dhanvantari had appeared —
the latter bearing the nectar in his hand — and when the dread
poison had been swallowed by Siva, the Asuras were filled with
despair and decided to war with the gods for the possession of
Laksmi and the ambrosia. Thereupon Narayana called to his
aid his bewitching power of Illusion {mdyd) and in ravishing
female form coquetted with the Daityas, who placed the nectar
in her hand. Then, with his counterpart Nara, Narayana
took away the amrta, but Rahu, a Danava, was drinking it In
the form of a god. The nectar, however, had reached only his
throat when the sun and the moon discovered his theft and
told the gods, whereupon Narayana with his discus clove the
head of Rahu, which leapt to the sky, where It ever wars with
the sun and moon, swallowing them and causing their eclipse.
Narayana then laid aside his female form and attacked the
demons; and after an appalling conflict Narayana and Nara
defeated their foes, securing the ambrosia for the gods.

The Asuras have strongholds and haunts in the mountain
caves, and they dwell in the depths In Patala, where are the
cities of Nirmocana, Pragjyotlsa, and HIranyapura. Or they



152 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

are within the sea, having been cast there and placed in the
keeping of Varuna. In heaven they made three fortresses, one
of gold, one of iron, and one of silver, and thence they assailed
the three worlds, only to fail in their attempt and to be cast
from heaven. It is characteristic, however, of the constant rela-
tionship in which they stand to the gods that on the divine
Mount Meru itself Asuras and Raksasas mingle in friendly
contact with gods and Gandharvas; and, demons though they
are, Visvakarman, who serves as divine architect, having fallen
to this humble position from his late Vedic rank, builds for
them, to plans devised by Maya, their town Hiranyapura.
It is equally significant that it was Dharma who bound the
demons and handed them over to Varuna to guard in the sea;
and Varuna's loss of rank is shown with special clearness by
the fact that it was with the nooses of Dharma, doubtless the
very ones which had been his own in the Vedic period, that
Varuna bound the Daityas and Danavas, while both Dharma
and Varuna act under the orders of the supreme lord.

Evil as they are, the demons are formidable fighters: Mahisa
attacks the gods with a mountain as his weapon; Kesin snatches
a mountain-peak for an assault. Not only are they numberless,
but they are skilled in sorcery and in every magic art, trans-
forming themselves into all manner of shapes, such as those
used by Ravana in the abduction of Sita, and spreading univer-
sal terror by their appalling roars. The Daityas and Danavas
become invisible and must be met with invisible weapons. An
episode in the Mahdbhdrata (iii. 11903 fi".) tells in detail of the
exploits of Arjuna against the demons: on the instigation of
Indra he attacks the Nivatakavacas in their fortress beneath
the sea, and though they strive against him with magic arts,
at last they are defeated, notwithstanding the fact that they
had taken their city from the gods and had held it despite them.
He then proceeds to destroy the city of Hiranyapura, which
was occupied by the Paulomas and Kalakaiijas and which
Brahma had given to Puloma and Kalaka as the reward of



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 153

asceticism. The practice of asceticism by individual Asuras
reminds us that they had once been virtuous, had practised
righteousness, and had sacrificed; with them Sri ("Fortune ")
dwelt at the beginning of the world. But as they grew in num-
bers they became proud and wicked, they ceased to sacrifice
or to visit Tirthas (holy places), and they set themselves in
defiance of the gods. That they sometimes won partial victory
is sufficiently proved by the tale of Bali, from whom Visnu
had to win back the earth by his three steps, but Sri definitely
forsook them because of their lack of righteousness, and thus
their successes were never lasting.

The names of the Asuras, whether classed as Daityas or as
Danavas, are curiously mixed. Some are clearly ancient Vedic
demons sunk to a lower level: Vrtra and Vala, Sambara,
Namuci, and Trisiras are all old enemies of Indra. It is more
surprising to find among them the pious Vedic sage Usanas,
who is identified with Sukra after emerging from Siva's body
when that god had swallowed him. He was the purohita, or
domestic priest, of the Asura Vrsaparvan and was chiefly
noted for his skill in bringing the dead to life, a feat performed
by him for Kaca, and by Kaca for him. Sunda and Upasunda,
children of Nikumbha, by their ascetic practices obtained from
Brahma the boon that they should be vulnerable only by each
other; but the god then induced Visvakarman to create in
Tilottama a woman of wondrous beauty, and she was revealed
one day to the two brothers as they amused themselves in
the Vindhya, with the fatal result that, casting aside their an-
cient love, the two brothers slew each other. Prahrada was
defeated by Indra, Madhu by Visnu, and Mahisa by Skanda;
while Vatapi, after killing many Brahmans, was devoured and
digested by Agastya. Maya the architect also appears as an
Asura, and it has been conjectured that In him we have a faint
reflex of the supreme god of Iran, the influence of Persian archi-
tecture having been claimed to exist at Patallputra, but the
suggestion seems to rest on no assured foundation. Other names



154 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

are those of Kamalaksa, Kalanemi, Jambha, Tarakaksa,
Talajangha, Darhsa, Naraka (apparently a personified hell),
Nahusa (the rival of Indra, overthrown by Agastya), Paka,
Mada, Virocana, VIra, Vegavant, Sarhhlada, Salva, and
Hiranyakasipu, the latter of whom was slain by Visnu in his
man-lion avatar.

The old Vedic Dasyus, who were often enough nothing but
human foes, but who were also doubtless demons, at least in
part, are practically mere men in the epic, where it is said that
Indra invented armour, arms, and the bow for their destruc-
tion. On the other hand, great importance now attaches to the
Nagas, who are described as serpents and also enumerated
with them. Many and various are their dwelling-places: they
live in Nagaloka ("Snake-World") in the depths of the earth,
where are many palaces, towers, and pleasure gardens, but their
home is also called Patala and Niraya. Their chief town is
Bhogavati, where the serpent king, Vasuki, lives. Yet they
are found also in caves, in inaccessible mountains, in the
valleys, in Kuruksetra, on the banks of the river Iksumati,
in the Naimisa forest, on the shores of the GomatI, on the north-
ern banks of the Ganges, and in the Nisadha district. The
strength of the snakes is great; they are huge in size, very vio-
lent, swift to strike, and full of deadly poison; but they are
also said to be handsome and of many shapes, and to wear
ear-rings. There are many kinds : of Vasuki's race some are blue,
some red, and some white; some have three, some seven, and
some ten heads.

The most famous episode connected with the snakes is the
sacrifice of them by Janamejaya in revenge for his father's
death. When pursuing a wounded gazelle Pariksit met an as-
cetic named Samlka, but since the latter could not help him to
know its path, he threw a dead snake on the hermit's neck.
In anger the son of Samlka cursed the king to die in seven days
from the bite of the serpent ruler Taksaka. Displeased with
this action, Samika warned the king of his fate, and Pariksit



PLATE XVII

Vasuki

Vasuki, the king of the Nagas ("Serpents"), is
represented, like his subjects generally, in human
form, the only trace of his original nature being his
serpent crest. This fact reflects the belief that the
Nagas assume human form at will. For the true
serpent shape of Vasuki, see Fig. 2. From the
temple rail at Bharhut, Baghelkhand. After Cunning-
ham, The Stupa of Bharhut^ Plate XXI.



fmmm-moK



/p4PM/ frflWK AMP

n^mi rM/KOAfMNi



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 155

retired into a carefully guarded palace raised on pillars. Kas-
yapa, who came to heal him from the threatened bite, was
bribed by Taksaka to depart, and the latter introduced him-
self into the palace in the shape of a worm in fruits presented
by snakes in Brahman guise as a gift to the sovereign. Then
appearing in his true form, he bit the king; but Pariksit's son,
Janamejaya, in his anger made so huge a sacrifice of the snakes
that even Taksaka would have perished if it had not been
for the intervention of Astika, who induced the young monarch
to spare him.

Sesa lies underneath the earth and supports it. He is the
son of Kadrii and at the churning of the ocean he performed the
important task of tearing out Mount Mandara so that it
might be placed on the great tortoise in preparation for the
churning. Vasuki also served as churning string at the churn-
ing and was grandfather of Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas.
He healed Bhima when the latter was poisoned. Another snake
is Arbuda, who is reminiscent of a figure of the Atharvaveda;
and Dhrtarastra appears as a serpent king, as in the Satapatha
Brdhmana. Others are Karkotaka, Kalaprstha, Jaya, Maha-
jaya, and Padmanabhi.

The snakes take part even in the epic conflict, and we are
told that the great serpents were for Arjuna and the little for
Karna. There is still a Naga people in India, and it may be
that the epic refers to the Naga tribes of the Ganges valley.
Doubtless many causes have combined to produce the belief
in Nagas. The cloud-snake is Rgvedic, and the serpent is
closely connected with rivers and streams as the genius loci.
Similarly it is a representative of the earth spirit, while, again,
the snake in itself Is a dangerous animal and worthy of wor-
ship for its own sake. It may well be that, in part at least, the
worship was totemlstic and was accompanied by a belief in the
ancestorship of the snake and in its kinship with the worship-
pers, though the epic says nothing directly on these points.

The Raksasas are of particularly terrible aspect: they have



156 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

red hair and eyes and a mouth stretching from ear to ear,
the latter being pointed like spears. Large and strong, they
wander in the darkness and are unconquerable at midnight,
and they are skilled sorcerers and wizards, changing shape at
will. They haunt the woods and the lonely mountains, but
they also lie in wait for the pious at places of pilgrimage and
worship. They delight in destroying the sacrifice and are
cannibals, desiring human flesh; yet they can appear in beauti-
ful form when they wish to deceive the unwary.

Of individual Raksasas by far the greatest is Ravana, the
enemy of Rama, though perhaps he was originally an Asura,
rather than a mere Raksasa. His son Indrajit performed
great deeds of strength before he finally fell in battle; his broth-
ers Khara and Vibhisana also fought on his side, and his sister
Surpanakha assisted him. Marica aided him in his plot to
steal Sita and finally was killed in the form of a golden ga-
zelle by Rama. In the Mahdhhdrata (i. 5928 ff.) Hidimba, a
Raksasa, made an attack on the Pandavas, but was brought
low by Bhima; his sister fell in love with the slayer of her
brother and bore to him Ghatotkaca. More interesting is the
tale of Jara. King Brhadratha had no son, but through the
favour of Candakausika each of his two wives bore a portion
of a boy. These fragments were thrown away as monstrosities,
but when Jara approached and placed them together in order
to carry them away, they formed a complete child who called
out, whereupon his parents came to see what had happened
and found him. Jara then explained that she had refrained
from devouring the child because as the house-deity she had
dwelt in painted form on the walls, surrounded with offerings;
and she declared that this was an infallible mode of securing
prosperity.

Closely akin with such female Raksasas as Jara are the
Matrs, or "Mothers," who appear in the Mahdbhdrata in
close connexion with Skanda. They dwell in cemeteries, at
cross-roads, or on the mountains, and practise witchcraft.



PLATE XVIII

Yaksi

This sculpture of the Yaksi Sirima Devata well
illustrates the Indian ideal of feminine beauty as
represented in sculpture and painting, and as described
in Sanskrit literature. From the temple rail at Bhar-
hut, Baghelkhand. After a photograph in the Library
of the India Office, London.






B






MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 157

They are mentioned together with the Grahas, or "Seizers,"
spirits which afflict men and which are both male and female:
one class is dangerous to children up to the sixteenth year, and
others are perilous from then to the age of seventy, after
which the fever demon is alone to be dreaded. Their effects
are various and range from mere foolish and mischievous
sports, like those of fairies, to gluttony or lust. From the
point of view of religion the presence of the Grahas is signifi-
cant; but despite the identity of their name with the word for
"planet," it does not seem that they have astrological connex-
ions, and at times they are classified with Pisacas, Yaksas,
and similar minor beings.

The Pisacas are closely akin with the Raksasas and often
occur with them: like them they drink blood and rend human
flesh, and their appearance is hideous and revolting. Their
very name has been interpreted as "Eaters of Raw Flesh,"
and their origin traced to cannibal tribes,^ but this suggestion
is not convincing.

On the other hand, the Yaksas are free from savage traits,
and their lord Kubera stands on the verge of divinity. Their
duty is to guard him, and they are often mentioned along with
the Guhyakas, with whom they are sometimes identified. In
the first chapter of the Mahdbhdrata, which is of late origin,
the Yaksas, Sadhyas, Guhyakas, Pisacas, and fathers are
reckoned as manifestations of Siva.

Kubera has a history. He was, it is said, originally an Asura,
his father being the sage Visravas, and his mother Ilavila,
and his half-brothers being Ravana, Kumbhakarna, and
Vibhisana, all of whom figure in the legend of Rama. His half-
brothers were the children of KaikasI, and his grandfather was
Sumali, who lived in Patala, while Kubera dwelt in Lanka.
Incited by Sumali, however, Ravana drove Kubera forth from
his kingdom, and he departed thence with a train of Gan-
dharvas, Yaksas, Raksasas, and Kimpurusas, Vibhisana ac-
companying him and being given in reward the charge of the



158 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Raksasa and the Yaksa armies. He went to the Himalaya range,
to the mountain Gandhamadana, and to Kailasa with the
lively Mandakini River, while Ravana entered Lanka with
those Raksasas who had espoused his cause, attacked both
gods and demons, and won his name by the roars of grief which
he caused

[Prometheus]

On Kailasa and Gandhamadana Kubera now dwells, en-
joying a quarter of the treasure of the mountain and giving one
sixteenth to man. Raksasas, Gandharvas, and KInnaras, as
well as Guhyakas and Yaksas, are in his service and attend him
amid scenes of the utmost beauty. His great forest is called
Nandana, and his grove is Caitraratha. The waters of his river,
the Mandakini, are covered with golden lotuses; and his lake,
Nalini or Jambiinadasaras (also known as Alaka), is full of
golden lotuses and lovely birds, is surrounded by dense trees,
has cool water, and is guarded by the Krodhavasa Raksasas
under their king Manibhadra. In his city of Alaka flags ever
flutter, and women dance. In his assembly hall he sits in solemn
state, surrounded by his retainers; and LaksmI, Siva, and Uma
all visit him there. His chariot Puspaka was wrought, like his
palace, by Visvakarman and was given to him by Brahma,
but Ravana took it from him on his defeat, only to be cursed
in consequence. His favourite weapon is a mysterious one
called Antardhana, with which Sankara once destroyed the
three fortresses of the Asuras. He has, ever guarded by poison-
ous snakes, a jar of honey, and if a mortal might taste of it,
he would win Immortality, a blind man would regain his sight,
and an old man would become young again.

Besides these groups of minor divine powers, more or less
well defined, the epic Is full of worship of anything that can be
regarded as charged with mysterious potency. Prominent
among these lesser beliefs is that In trees, which are deemed to
be not merely homes of spirits, but actual living beings, a relic
of an older stratum of thought. Thus in the days of Prthu
Vainya the trees were not only good, so that clothes pleasant to



PLATE XIX

KUBERA

Kubera, lord of the Yaksas and guardian of treas-
ures, was originally king of the gnomes who hide
metals and jewels in the mountains. As a mountain-
god, he is also a deity who promotes fertility. It is
not impossible that Kubera is the Indian counterpart
of the Greek Kabeiroi, even in name. From the
temple rail at Bharhut, Baghelkhand. After Cunning-
ham, The Stupa of Bharhut, Plate XXII.



TIIC ?,T;\V YORK

PUI>LIC LIBRARY



ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDBN POLNDAriONa



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD 159

touch could be made from all of them, but they themselves
came and had speech with Prthu Vainya, a culture hero of
great antiquity. Or, again, two wives desirous of children em-
brace trees, which, unfortunately, are interchanged, so that the
wife who seeks a heroic obtains a priestly son, and vice versa.
Many trees are sacred in the extreme : the worship of the Ficus
religiosa is equal to the worship of a god, and there are five
heavenly trees of special sanctity. The mountains, too, are
full of life, and the Vedic legend of their wings is still remem-
bered. Vindhya seeks the sky and is restrained only by the
cunning of Agastya; Mainaka is famed because when the other
mountains lost their pinions, it retained its own; and Kraunca
is renowned for being pierced by Skanda. All the mountains
were once reduced to ashes by a saint Dhanusaksa as the
only means to destroy Medhavin, son of Valadhi, who had se-
cured from the gods the promise that his son's life should last
as long as the mountains endured.

The lord of the dead is Yama Vaivasvata, even as In the
Vedic epoch; and he ranks as one of the four Lokapalas, or
"World-Protectors," who are normally reckoned as Indra,
Agnl, Varuna, and Yama, though In one version Kubera takes
the place of Agnl, while Ravana claims that he himself is the
fifth world-guardian. As his name denotes,^ Yama "restrains "
men and thus Is often nearly identified with Dharma, so that
when the sage Mandavya goes to question the latter he seeks his
place of judgement just as if it were Yama's. Yama is also the
king of the Pitrs, or "Fathers," who live in his realm, this being
in the south under the earth at a distance of eighty-six thousand
yojanas, along which the dead must travel. In it are the Vaita-
rani River and the Raurava Hell. His assembly hall is an abode
of bliss which sages and kings attend to pay homage to Yama,
and there Gandharvas and Apsarases sing and dance. He
himself Is of majestic appearance, red-eyed and of dark hue,
but he is also terrible to look at and with noose in hand he
strikes dread into the hearts of men. His messengers wear dark



i6o INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

apparel, and thus are unlike their master, whose clothes are
red; their eyes are red, their hair bristles, and their legs, eyes,
and noses are like a crow's; Yama carries the staff of justice and
a noose, and his charioteer is Roga ("Disease"). He has two
four-eyed dogs, the offspring of Sarama.

Two aspects are inextricably blended in the character of
Yama: he is the ender of the life of man, and therefore is ac-
companied by death and hundreds of dreadful diseases, and
his messengers drag the weary dead through a region with
neither water nor shade. On the other hand, he is also the just
judge, before whose throne all must go without friend or kin
to aid, save only their own deeds. As a ruler of the realm of the
dead he executes righteous punishment on the evil and re-
wards the good, and his staff metes out just judgement to all
mortals. Pleasant places are reserved for the good, while hell
awaits the bad, and the terrors of the infernal world are vividly
described: the evil man is threatened with a hell where he sinks
in the hot stream VaitaranI, where the forest of sword-leaves
wounds his limbs, and where he is bound to He on axes. Another
torture is that described by Agastya, who found that his an-
cestors were hanging head downward in a cave until such time
as he should perform the sacred duty of rearing a son to con-
tinue the race.

The Vedic views as to the future of the dead still survive in
parts of the epic. In one of the finest episodes of the Mahdhhdrata
(iii. 16616 ff.) we are told of the marriage of Savitri, the daugh-
ter of Asvapati of the Madras, to Satyavant. Though the sage
Narada approved the choice, nevertheless he foretold the
death of the husband in a year, but Savitri would not alter
her choice. With Satyavant she lived in happiness in the her-
mitage where he dwelt, for his royal father had lost his king-
dom to his foes. One day when he was cutting wood, he fell
asleep, wearied out, with his head on her lap. Then she saw
Yama approaching, noose in hand, and the dread deity, say-
ing he had come for the soul of her husband, drew it forth with



MINOR EPIC DEITIES AND THE DEAD i6i

his cord and went his way. Savitrl, however, followed him and
would not go back until he gave her as successive boons the
restoration of her father-in-law's kingdom, a hundred sons for
her own father, and the life of her husband as a reward for her
devotion.

In this tale it is assumed that all men must yield their lives
to Yama and go to the realm of the dead. Yet there is an in-
creasing tendency to confuse this simple picture by the growth
of the doctrine that the good depart at once to joy in the
world of Indra, while only the bad go to Yama, who thus be-
comes not a judge of right and wrong, but a punlsher of sin.
By a further development of thought the judicial or retributive
functions of the god usurp his part of ender of the lives of men,
this latter role being given to Mrtyu ("Death ") as an
independent power. With these ideas blends the philosophic
doctrine of release through true knowledge, which makes the
function of Yama wholly meaningless for the few who attain
freedom. A further complication arises from the cross-current of
the doctrine that retribution takes the form of rebirth in a less
fortunate life and reward that of reincarnation in a more for-
tunate existence; and these views are variously and tentatively
fitted Into the scheme of retribution in hell and reward in the
delights of paradise. The same problems had presented them-
selves to the philosophers who wrote the Upanisads, who were
as little able to evolve a harmonious system as were the sages
and saints of the epic.



CHAPTER VI
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS

THERE is no essential difference between the mythology of
the Purdnas and the mythology of the epic. Tradition
is strong in India, and the fame and popularity of the great
epics would in any case have served to make much of their
mythology a permanent inheritance of later ages. There is,
therefore, for the most part no substantial change in the myths
affecting the well known features of the epic pantheon: details
vary, and the outline of the stories tends to be further con-
fused by contamination of legends and by free invention and
rearrangement, but these divergencies, while not without
interest for literary history and folk-lore, seldom have mytho-
logical significance.

The most noteworthy feature of the Pauranic mythology is
the deepening of the sectarianism of the worship of the two
great gods. That worship Is sectarian as early as the epics, in
the latest parts of which there is a free use of language which
goes as far as anything in the Purdnas; but there is a differ-
ence in degree in the devotion when the main body of the epic
is compared with these poems, and sectarianism develops
more and more conspicuously the later the Purdna is. At the
same time these texts show a steadily increasing tendency to
deal with questions of philosophy and to dress out their doc-
trines as far as practicable in the garments of that compound
of the Sarhkhya and the Vedanta philosophical systems which
is seen in the Bhagavadgitd and in the long disquisitions of
the didactic books of the Mahdhhdrata. They unite with this
adoption of theory the rules of yoga practice which they find



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 163

in the Yoga philosophy; and on the other hand they direct
polemics against the Buddhists, Jains, and more especially
the Carvakas, who are held to be the leading and most danger-
ous school of materialists, preaching a life of self-indulgence.

Of the two great gods Visnu has the greater number of
Purdnas as directed in the main in his honour, including the
Visnu, the Bhdgavata, the Brahma, the Brahmavaivarta, the
Brahmdnda, the Fardha, the Fdmana, the Kurma, the Padma,
the Garuda, and the Ndrada. Siva can claim only the Fdyu,
the Agni, the Linga, and perhaps the Matsya, though the latter
has much to say on Visnu. The Mdrkandeya treats both deities
without prepossession for either, and the Bhavisya, with the
Bhavisyottara, is not markedly sectarian. Yet despite the vast
number of legends contained in the Fisnu and the Bhdgavata,
which are par excellence the text-books of Vaisnavism, few of
them are more than quaint or foolish. The depth of the devo-
tion of his followers can, however, be gathered from a tale in
the "Uttarakhanda" of the Padma Purdna. The sage Bhrgu
was sent by the seers to ascertain which god possessed the
quality of goodness, in the highest degree, so that they could
decide whom to worship. The sage found Siva so deeply en-
grossed in his sport with his wife that he did not receive his
visitor, while Brahma was surrounded by seers and so taken
up with himself that he had no attention to pay to Bhrgu.
The latter then went to find Visnu, who was asleep, whereat
the angry sage aroused him with a kick. Instead of showing
anger at this rude awakening, the deity gently stroked the
foot of the seer and expressed the honour which he had felt at
his unusual method of calling his attention. It Is not sur-
prising that, overjoyed at this condescension, Bhrgu declared
that Visnu was by far the most worthy of worship of all the
gods. The Ndrada Purdna, however, goes further. This late
and worthless tract tells us a vapid tale of the daughter of a
king who obtained from her father a promise that he would
grant her anything she desired and who then insisted on her



i64 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

parent either breaking one of the fast-days of Visnu or slaying
his son, whereupon the monarch chose the latter alternative
as being the lesser sin. On the whole the Visnu Purdna is less
absurd in its legends, although it has extravagances enough.
The great name of Bharata is now degraded by a foolish story
(ii. 13-16) of how one day a frightened antelope died near
him, leaving a young fawn, which Bharata took home and
brought up, devoting his whole life to meditation upon it.
Justly enough in the next birth he was reincarnated as an
antelope, but by his practice of asceticism in this state he was
able to be born in his following reincarnation in the position
of the son of a pious Brahman. Nevertheless, though fully
acquainted with the knowledge of the self, he was heedless
of all mundane things, spoke indistinctly and confusedly, per-
formed no rites, went about dirty and in rags, and generally so
conducted himself as to earn the name of Fool Bharata. He
was accordingly engaged on the meanest tasks and in this way
came to be employed in the service of King Sauvlra. This
opportunity being afforded him, he displayed himself as a
skilled and most learned teacher by telling a story which
showed emphatically the unity of the whole of existence and
the lack of any real individuality amongst men. All this
Bharata won through his devotion to Visnu. In contrast the
demerits of such heretics as the Buddhists and the Jains are
revealed by the story of King Satadhanus (iv. 18). On
one sacred moment this true worshipper of Visnu, moved by
courtesy, said a few words to a heretic; and all his goodness
could not avail to prevent his being born successively as a dog,
a jackal, a wolf, a vulture, a crow, and a peacock, until the
devotion of his wife Saibya succeeded in securing his rebirth
into his royal rank. On the other hand, devotion to Visnu
sustains men through appalling trials, this being the case with
Prahlada, the pious son of Hiranyakasipu (i. 17-20). Unin-
structed by his teacher, the lad proclaimed before his father the
deity and supremacy of Visnu and would not desist. Every



PLATE XX

VisNu Slays the Demons

While Visnu slumbered on Ananta (see Plate XI),
two demons, Madhu and Kaitabha, sprang from his
ear and sought to destroy Brahma; but the deity
awakened and slew them. From a painting in a
Sanskrit manuscript. After Hendley, Ulwar and its
Art Treasures, Plate LXIII.



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 165

effort was made to slay him: the snakes, Kuhaka, Taksaka,
and Andhaka bit him in vain; elephants' tusks were harmless
against him; fire could not overcome him; cast down from the
palace, he survived the shock; thrown fettered into the sea, he
rose on the waters. Finally Visnu revealed himself and justi-
fied Prahlada, who begged for his father's life, but ultimately
Hiranyakasipu was slain by the god in his man-lion incar-
nation. Another tale is that of Dhruva (i. 11-12). He was
the son of Uttanapada by his second wife, and for that reason
his father did not take him up on his lap as he did Uttama, his
son by his first wife, whom he was unwilling to annoy. Though
only four or five years old, the younger lad resented this inferior-
ity, but his mother explained to him that it was due to the
fact that his brother was more meritorious than himself
through reason of accumulated goodness. Dhruva then re-
solved, despite his tender years, to attain a virtue which
should surpass even that of his own father, and learning from
some seers the mode to venerate Visnu, he gave himself to
this task. Disturbed by the deepness of his devotions, the
gods attempted to terrify or cajole him to desist, but Visnu
appeared, calmed the fears of the deities, and duly rewarded
Dhruva by elevating him to the position of the pole-star.
The story is the more interesting since many of the Purdnas
merely say that Brahma raised Dhruva to the skies, showing
that Visnu has taken over from Brahma this feat as he has
other of his great deeds.

A further tale (i. 13) tells that Death had a daughter
Sunitha, who married Ahga and by him had a son who was
named Vena. This king unhappily inherited the evil disposi-
tion of his grandfather, and when he was established in the
realm he forbade the paying of sacrifice to Hari (Visnu) on the
ground that all the gods were effectively present in the person
of the king. The Brahmans strove to obtain permission at
least to offer to Hari, but the monarch proved so obdurate
that at last in deep wrath they slew him with the blades of



1 66 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

the sacred grass. Shortly afterward, however, the sages saw
clouds of dust, which, they were told, were raised by hordes of
robbers hastening to steal, now that the strong arm of the king
was removed. They accordingly rubbed the thigh of the corpse,
whence sprang a man with flattened countenance and of dwarf
size, representing the Nisadas, or aboriginal inhabitants of
the country, by whose production the guilt of the sin was
carried away. The sages then rubbed Vena's right arm, from
which came Prthu, at whose birth sacrifice the Siita ("Herald ")
and Magadha ("Minstrel ") were brought forth, and they
sang of the future deeds which he was to do, since they could
not tell of the achievements that a newly born child had
wrought. Prthu found that the earth was withholding all
vegetation because of the period of anarchy and with his
might he compelled her to submit to being milked. He is the
culture hero of India : he made the earth level by lowering the
mountains; he divided out the land and established bound-
aries; and he introduced agriculture.

Another tale (iv. 2) is of King Yuvanasva. Since he was
childless, the seers left on the altar a specially consecrated
draught which they meant his queen to swallow, but by error
he drank it instead, the result being that a boy was born from
his side who won the name Mandhatr from the fact that he
was nourished by sucking the thumb of Indra.^ The daughters
of this emperor were sought in marriage by the sage Saubhari,
who had spent a prolonged period of asceticism, but was
aroused to a desire for the joys of life by gazing at the gambols
of the great fish Sammada in the pool in which he was perform-
ing penance. By his magic might he assumed a lovely form so
that all the daughters of the king insisted on being wedded to
him, and by this same power he made each believe that he
was constantly with her. But from this dream of happiness
he awoke one day to the inutility and unending character of
human joy and with his wives assumed his old ascetic prac-
tices in devotion to Visnu, finally attaining liberation.




Fig. 5. The Matsya ("Fish") Avatar of Visnu

When the world had been destroyed by a deluge which spared only the ship con-
taining Manu, the seven Rsis ("Sages"), and their wives, Visnu assumed the form of
a fish and kept the vessel safe until the waters had subsided. Visnu has here taken the
place of Prajapati or Brahma in earlier myth (see pp. 74, 124). After Moor, Hindu
Pantheon, Plate XLVIII, No. i.
VI — 12

[Prometheus]

i68 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

The list and the details of the avatars naturally begins to
expand, and a very interesting account is given in the Matsya
Pur ana (ccxxxi-ccxxxv). In the interminable wars of the gods
and demons Sukra left the Asuras and went to the gods, but
was entreated by his former associates to return to their aid.
He finally did so and undertook to obtain from Siva spells
which would make him more powerful than Brhaspati, the
priest of the gods. Mahadeva imposed on him the horrible
penance of hanging for a thousand years head downward over
a fire of chaff", and while he was engaged in this the gods at-
tacked the Asuras, whom Sukra's mother sought to protect.
She rendered Indra powerless, and to prevent the complete
discomfiture of the divinities Indra had to seek aid from
Visnu, who with great hesitation cut off her head, for which
deed he was cursed by Sukra to be born seven times on earth
for the good of the world when unrighteousness should prevail;
therefore is Visnu born in this world. After Sukra's thousand
years of penance were over, he was beguiled for ten years by
Jayanti, daughter of Indra, to live with her concealed from all.
In this period Brhaspati took advantage of Sukra's absence to
palm himself off on the Asuras as Sukra, so that at first they
rejected Sukra when he came back to them. Finally they suc-
ceeded in pacifying him and after a thousand years of war they
won a victory over the gods, although this was soon undone
when the deities seduced the demons Sanda and Marka from
their allegiance; and thus the Asuras were finally driven from
heaven.

The list of avatars is then given by the Matsya as ten in all,
the last seven of which represent the results of the curse of
Sukra. They are a part sprung from Dharma, the man-lion,
the dwarf, Dattatreya, Mandhatr, Parasurama, Rama,
Vedavyasa, Buddha, and Kalki. The Bhdgavata (I. iii. 24)
gives twenty-two, namely, Purusa, the boar, Narada, Nara
and Narayana, Kapila, Dattatreya, the sacrifice, Rsabha,
Prthu, the fish, the tortoise, Dhanvantari (counting as two),



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PUR ANAS 169

the man-lion, the dwarf, Parasurama, Vedavyasa, Rama,
Balarama, Krsna, Buddha, and Kalki, the two latter being
ascribed to the future. It adds, however, that, like rivulets
flowing from an inexhaustible lake, the incarnations of Visnu
are innumerable, and seers, Manus, gods, sons of Manus, and
Prajapatis are all but portions of him. Of these varied avatars,
which are diflferently given in other Purdnas, that of Buddha
is a curious example of the desire to absorb whatever is good
in another faith: so far as the Buddha was divine, it is argued
in effect that he must have been Visnu. He is said to have
manifested himself as Buddha in order to encourage wicked
men to despise the Vedas, reject caste, and deny the existence
of the gods, and thus to bring about their own destruction.
As Kalki he will appear at the end of the Kali age, seated on
a white horse, carrying a drawn sword, and blazing like a
comet for the -final destruction of the wicked, the renovation
of creation, and the restoration of purity. The avatar as
Parasurama recalls a hero famous in the Mahdhhdrata and
mentioned also at some length in the Rdmdyana. He was a
son of Jamadagni, at whose bidding he struck off" the head of
his own mother, Renuka, as a punishment for her impurity;
but as a reward for his obedience his father revived Renuka
in purity and gave Rama invincibility in war. King Kartavirya
came to Jamadagni's hermitage and, dissatisfied with his
reception, took away the sacrificial cow. In revenge Rama
slew Kartavirya, whose sons then killed Jamadagni, only to be
themselves slain by Rama, who in his anger annihilated the
Ksatriyas twenty-one times and filled five lakes in Samanta-
pancaka with blood. He also gave the earth to Kasyapa and
made his own dwelling on Mahendra. His relations with the
younger Rama were unfortunate: enraged when the latter
broke Siva's bow, he came against him, but after a contest
was defeated and suff"ered spiritual degradation, though not
death. In his personality the tradition sees the action of
Visnu to humble the Ksatriyas, or warrior caste, when they



lyo INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

became unduly proud. Balarama, another of the incarnations,
is the brother of Krsna, and in this capacity alone is con-
sidered a representative of Visnu, especially when Krsna is
regarded not as a mere partial incorporation, but as the full
incarnation of the deity. The avatar as Dattatreya was due
to a penance performed by Atri, as a result of which the three
gods, Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, became incorporated in part
in his three sons, Soma, Datta, and Durvasas.

All these additions and modifications of the avatar theory
are in keeping with Indian tradition: just as the older attribu-
tion of the fish, the tortoise, and the boar incarnations to
Brahma or Prajapati gradually yields to the tendency to con-
fer them on a real living deity, so it was only natural that
other greater beings should be definitely ranked as incarnations
of Visnu, though originally no such character attached to
them. The process was gradual, as can be seen from the in-
crease in the number of the avatars in the later Purdnas, and
needs no explanation by external influence. Every trend
In Indian religion told toward the process of recognizing a
series of such "descents." From the Rgveda onward the
identification of one god with another was normal and of
increasing frequency, nor can we suppose that these identi-
fications were meaningless. On the other hand, it was the
natural aim of the Brahmans to admit into their pantheon, in
such a manner as to meet their views, the great gods of tribes
which fell under the Influence of their culture. Again, quite
apart from these two motives, from the first the gods are
powerful beings who can assume a multitude of shapes at
will and who may for their own purposes be present in strange
places; and, furthermore, we must not exclude the possibility
that the animal incarnations point to totemism and to the
incorporation of inferior gods into the Hindu pantheon. But
while the motives of the avatars cannot be assigned with cer-
tainty, it is wholly needless to seek to impute them to the
influence of Christianity. There was Indeed In the births of



PLATE XXI

Laksmi

The Goddess of Wealth and Beauty is shown with
her characteristic emblem, the lotus. This is particu-
larly appropriate, not merely because of the beauty
of the flower, but because it is a water-plant, while
Laksmi herself is sprung from the waters, having
come into being at the churning of the ocean (see
Fig. 2). For another conception of her see Plate
XIII. From a bronze statuette in the iMuseum of
Fine Arts, Boston.



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 171

the Buddha, the tradition of which is undoubtedly long anterior
to the Christian era, a form of incarnation which, springing
immediately from the Hindu tenet of reincarnation, would '
have been sufficient to render reference to any external source
superfluous, but it is doubtful whether even this doctrine is
necessary to explain the incarnation of deities, which is already
presaged in texts older than Buddhism.

On the other hand, a new influence does seem to be at work
in the tales of the child Krsna, which are wanting in the genu-
ine portions of the epic and are first recorded in the Harivamsa
(before 500 a.d.) and then appear in the Fisnu and Bhdgavata
Purdnas in full detail, and more or less fully in the Brahma,
the Brahmavaivarta and other Purdnas. Narada, the sage,
warned King Karhsa of Mathura (the modern Muttra), the
land destined to be the holy state of the Krsna cult, that
death awaited him at the hands of the eighth child of DevakI
and A'^asudeva. To avert this evil, Karhsa kept Devaki under
strict watch, and six of her children were duly slain. The
seventh, however, was saved by the goddess Sleep, who re-
moved it before birth from the womb of Devaki to that of
Rohini, the other wife of Vasudeva, of whom it was born as
Balarama or Baladeva. The eighth child had to be saved in a
different way. A herdsman called Nanda had come with his
wife Yasoda up to the town to pay tribute to Kamsa, and so
immediately after the birth of the child Vasudeva bore it
across the deep and dangerous Jumna, which in regard to
him rose no higher than his knee, and exchanged the infant
for the daughter just born from Yasoda. The tiny girl was at
once cruelly slain by the King's order, while Nanda returned
to his home with the youthful Krsna and with Balarama also,
for Karhsa, in his anger at discovering that the child which
he had put to death was not the one destined to kill him, but
was really a form of the goddess Sleep, had given orders for
the slaughter of all male children which showed signs of special
vitality.



172 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

The two boys grew up together, and Krsna early gave signs
of his prowess. He slew the demon Putana, who came to offer
him suck with intent to slay him; he overturned a cart and
broke the pots and pans; when tied with a rope round his
waist, he dragged the mortar, to which it was fastened, between
two trees, and after it had thus become wedged fast, by hard
pulling he overthrew both trees. Not content with these
miracles, according to the Harivamsa he created hundreds of
wolves from his body until he persuaded the herdsmen to settle
in the Vrndavana, where he desired to be. Arrived there, he
leaps into the Jumna and defeats the great serpent Kaliya,
whom he bids depart to the ocean; he destroys the demon
Dhenuka, who was in ass form; he causes Rama to slay the
Asura Pralamba. When the time comes for the festival of
Indra, he persuades the cowherds to abandon the practice of
worshipping Indra, inculcating instead the adoration of the
mountains and of their own cattle as means of success. In
anger at his thus diverting sacrifice from him Indra sends a
terrible storm on the cattle, but Krsna upraises Mount Govar-
dhana and thus protects the kine and the herdsmen until after
seven days the storm dies away, and Indra recognizes the
greatness of the boy, who, however, declines to admit his
divine character to the herdsmen, with whom he continues to
live, enjoying sports of all kinds and in special indulging in
dances with the Gopis, or milkmaids. Here arose the Rasa or
Hallisa dances performed in honour of Krsna in many parts
of India, even to the present day. On one occasion a demon
Arista attacked Krsna in the midst of his dance, but was slain.

Learning of the deeds of Krsna, Kaihsa determines to fetch
him to his capital and there to procure his death, if he cannot
slay him before. He accordingly sends Akrura to fetch Krsna
and his brother to Mathura, and Kesin to attempt his life;
but Kesin, who attacks in horse shape, is destroyed by Krsna.
The boys accompany Akrura to Mathura, and they enter the
town, killing Kariisa's washerman who shows them disre-



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 173

spect, but conferring a benediction on a flower-seller who pays
reverence to Krsna. They also meet a crooked woman, Kubja,
who is made straight by Krsna. Karhsa sets two skilled wres-
tlers to work to slay the brothers, but the bravoes are them-
selves laid low, while Karhsa, who, throwing aside all pretext
in anger at the sight of the death of his men, seeks to have
their conquerors killed, Is seized and dies at the hands of
Krsna. The hero then places a new king on the throne and
proceeds to Ujjayini (Ujjain), where he becomes the pupil of
Sandipani and recovers from the sea the son whom his teacher
had lost there; and he also kills the marine demon Pahcajana
and makes himself a conch from his shell. A new danger now
arises: Jarasandha of Magadha, the father-in-law of Karhsa,
determines to avenge his daughter's husband, and a long
struggle breaks out, ending in the failure of the attacks of
Jarasandha. In the course of this conflict, however, a king
named Kalayavana, "the dark Yavana" (or "Greek"),
advances against Mathura, and as a result Krsna decides, in
view of the strength of his enemy, to establish the Yadavas
at Dvaraka (Gujarat). Nevertheless, he succeeds in over-
throwing Kalayavana by leading him into a cave where the
ancient king Mucukunda, awakened from the sleep which,
at his own request, the gods had bestowed upon him, destroys
the Yavana and praises Krsna, who takes the army and treas-
ure of his enemy and repairs to Dvaraka. His next important
exploit is the wedding of RukminI against the wishes of
her brother, whom he finally conquers, but whose life he spares
at Rukmini's entreaty. By this wife he has a son Pradyumna,
in whom the mystic interpretation of Krsnaism sees Mind
(Manas). When six days old, this boy was stolen by the demon
Sambara, who foresaw that he would cause his death, and who
therefore cast him into the deep. Here Pradyumna was swal-
lowed by a great fish which, being captured, was cut up in the
presence of Sambara's queen, MayadevI, who found the boy
and reared him. When he grew to manhood, she manifested



174 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

her love to him and explained that he was not her son, where-
upon, in anger with Sambara, he slew him and carried Mayadevi
as his wife to Dvaraka, being received there with great joy,
since in reality he was none other than the god of love, reunited
to his wife Rati under the form of Mayadevi. From this mar-
riage was sprung young Aniruddha, who ranks as Egoism to the
mystics and who married Rukmin's granddaughter; but the
wedding-feast ended in bloodshed, for Rukmin challenged
Baladeva to dice, played him false, and was slain by him.

Then one day Indra came to Krsna and told him of the vile
deeds of Naraka of Pragjyotisa, who had robbed Aditi of her
ear-rings and had insulted Varuna and the other gods. After
a valiant fight Krsna destroyed Naraka and returned to Aditi
her ear-rings. This visit to the celestial world, however, leads
him to another adventure, for Satyabhama, one of his other
sixteen thousand one hundred wives, sees the Parijata tree in
heaven and desires him to take it home with them. He agrees to
do so in order to lessen her jealousy of his favourite Rukmini,
though for this purpose he has first to overthrow Indra and the
gods; but finally with the permission of Indra he takes the tree
to Dvaraka and marries the princesses held in captivity by Na-
raka. A greater struggle now awaited him: Usa, the daughter
of Bana, the Asura king, became enamoured of Pradyumna's
son Aniruddha, but Bana strongly opposed his daughter's wish,
and being a devotee of Siva, secured that god's aid. Bana
managed to find Aniruddha in his palace, where he had come
in secret, and bound him; and a terrible struggle then ensued
between Krsna, Balarama, and Pradyumna on the one side,
and Bana, Siva, and Skanda on the other. Finally the might
of Krsna prevailed, and he was about to slay the Asura king
when Siva intervened and asked for his life, which Krsna
graciously granted, as Siva had acknowledged his supreme
position. In the Harivamsa the scene ends differently: the
two gods are reconciled by the intervention of Brahma, who
points out their identity; and the whole ends with a hymn



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 175

asserting their unity. The version of the Visnu Purdna, how-
ever, clearly asserts a victory of the Vaisnavas and doubtless
has some semi-historical basis. Here the Harivamsa ends, but
the Visnu Purdtia, after one or two more legends, narrates
the death of Krsna on the model of the Mahdbhdrata.

The study of Krsna's youth at once raises irresistibly the
question whether we have here a real growth of Indian religion,
derived from native sources, or whether we must look for
foreign, and particularly Christian, influence. The facts as
to Christianity in India are unhappily open to grave doubt:
the legend of the working of St. Thomas in western India,
much discussed as it has been,^ can and will yield no clear
proof of any actual contact of Christianity with India in the
apostolic period. The statement that in 190 a.d. Pantaenus
found Indians who were Christians depends upon the inter-
pretation to be given to the vague word " India " in a notice
of Eusebius, which may with more probability be assigned to
South Arabia. The assertion of Dio Chrysostom that Christian
texts were turned into their native tongue by Indians may
equally well be referred to the same source, if indeed it is any-
thing but a rhetorical exaggeration. Yet it is probable that
by the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era
Christians fleeing from Persian persecution had come to a
land which was to be guiltless of Intolerance until the advent
of Muhammadanism, and we have the conclusive evidence of
the Egyptian traveller Cosmas that about 525-530 a.d. there
were Christian communities on the Malabar coast and that
at Kalliana, which Is doubtless Kalyan near Bombay, there
was a bishop appointed from Persia. This proves that by that
date the Indian Church had become Nestorian, and probably
enough the event was of recent origin, for it was only in the
latter part of the fifth century that the Persian king Per5z
declared that Nestorianism should be the only legitimate form
of Christianity and in 498 a.d. the Bishop of Seleukia formally
declared his independence of the Bishop of Antlochia.



176 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

The fate of the Nestorlan Church was a chequered one: it
was very loosely connected with the parent body and in the
ninth century it seems to have evolved into a practically
autonomous communion at a time when those who professed
the faith were gaining political independence or semi-depend-
ence. Christian influence was also becoming more pronounced
in the north. There it can be fully assumed in 639 a.d., when
we have the first record of the visit of a body of Syrian Chris-
tians to the court of the Chinese emperor and of their setting
forth their doctrines;^ and in 781 a.d. a Nestorian joined with
a Buddhist in a translation of a Buddhist text in China. The
dates are of importance, for they enable us to judge the ex-
ternal probabilities of the introduction into Indian mythology
of conceptions taken from Christianity.

[Prometheus]

The influence of the Gospels has been sought in detail in
the Bhagavadgitd, but though the parallelisms of thought and
language are sometimes remarkable enough, they cannot be
said to prove borrowing, nor, as we have seen, is there any
need to assume that the idea of incarnation was borrowed
from Christianity. There is, however, one passage in the epic
which seems to hint at knowledge of the Christian faith. Here
we are told (xii. 12696 ff.) that Narada once journeyed to the
Svetadvlpa ("White Island"), where he learned the Pancara-
tra doctrine, a mystic form of Vaisnavism ; and it is also said that
three sons of Brahma, Ekata, Dvita, and Trita ("One," "Two,"
and "Three"), went to the same place, which is at a distance
of thirty-two thousand yojanas north or north-west of Mount
Meru on the north bank of the sea of milk. There dwell men
without organs of sense, white in colour, and of a brilliance
which dazzles the eyes of the sinful. They ever revere God in
muttered prayer and with folded hands; but their deity, for
whom they are filled with the deepest love, cannot be seen.
None of them has a higher rank than the others, but all are
equal. Laying aside the fabulous part of the tale, which prob-
ably belongs to one of the latest parts of the epic, it is not



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 177

improbable that we have here a record of a Christian com-
munity, not of Alexandria, but in the vicinity of the Balkash
Sea, which by its physical characteristics may have suggested
the milky ocean of the epic. The episode is, however, of little
importance in Indian religious history and has at most a
faint echo in a story, preserved in the Kurma and Fdyu
Purdnas, that Siva proclaimed the Yoga system to four pupils
of his, Sveta, Svetasva, Svetasikha, and Svetalohita, in the
Himalaya. Nor is it possible to see any real Christian influence
in the legend of the death of Krsna, which bears not the slight-
est real similarity to the motives of the Gospel narrative, nor
in the story (I. 4305 ff.) of the Impaling of Mandavya. It
Is also needless to seek any such influence In the account
(xll. 5742 ff.) of the Sudra Sambuka, who, the epic tells us,
was slain for confusing the castes by seeming to raise himself
to an equality with the gods by the use of ascetic practices
allowed only to the Aryan classes. The Idea might Indeed be
Christian, but it is equally Indian.

It is at first a more attractive theory that the child god In
India Is borrowed from the youthful Christ. This hypothesis,
however, cannot be maintained In face of the evidence of the
Mahdhhdsya^ (of about 150 B.C.), which shows that at that
time Kaihsa and Krsna were deadly foes, and that the former
was the cruel uncle of the latter. That notice suggests irre-
sistibly the fact that there must have been some ground for
the enmity of uncle and nephew, and that basis can scarcely
have been other than the attempts made by Kaihsa to slay
the child. Again, one feature of Krsna's life, his dances with
the Gopis,^ Is already alluded to in an early passage of the
Mahdbhdrata (ii. 2291), and for that reason alone, as well as
for other considerations of probability, cannot be regarded as a
translation into terms of flesh and blood of the mystic doctrine
of the unity of Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, there
Is evidence that the Christian religion did not fail to affect
the theology and cult of Krsna, whose name Is pronounced as



178 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Krsta in many parts of India at the present day and whose
bright and cheerful reHgion with its pronounced theism and
its doctrine of faith was naturally akin to Christianity in far
greater degree than Buddhism, Jainism, or Saivism with its
especial devotion to ceremonies and ascetic practices. For
the most part, though not without important exceptions, in-
cluding the Bhdgavata, the Purdnas describe the festival of
the birthday of Krsna in great detail: the essential feature
is that the child is represented as being born in a cow-stall
and as lying on the breast of his mother Devaki in indubi-
table imitation of the Madonna Lactans. The change from the
orthodox story of the exchange of the children by Vasudeva is
significant of the new influence. The same factor betrays itself
in the traditions of the Visnu Purdna that Nanda was going
to Mathura to pay his tribute to the king in accordance with
the Gospel of Luke, and of the healing of the crooked Kubja,
who presents him with a vessel of salve, in which seem to be
blended events recorded by Matthew (ix. 20; xv. 30-31) and
by Luke (vii. 37-38). To the borrowing may be added the tale
of the bringing to life of the son of Duhsala which is recounted
in the Jaimini Bhdrata, a work not later than the thirteenth
century. Later texts add other small points of resemblance,
but on the whole the influence of Christianity extends to
details, not to principles.

In comparison with the richness of the mythology which
has grown up round the person of Visnu it is astonishing that
Siva remains so poor in legends, though he is given twenty-
eight incarnations to enable him to compete with his rival.
The strength of his worship, however, lies in cult, not in
theory, and the centre of that cult is formed by the sacred
linga. Many of these are described by the Purdnas, and they
represent the god in his creative capacity, while with them
are connected the traditions of Siva's activity, such as that
recorded in the story of Daksa. In a late Pauranic passage the
Mahdhhdrata (xii. 10208 fF.) tells us that M^hen Daksa was



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 179

sacrificing, but ignoring Siva, Uma incited the deity to secure
a part of the offering, and he then created a terrible being
called VIrabhadra, while Uma assumed her form as Bhadrakali,
and together the pair upset the sacrifice. In the result Daksa
recognized his error, and Virabhadra, who showed the
gentle as well as the terrible side of Siva's nature, took
him to Benares, where he erected a linga and by meditation
entered into it. In the Saura Purdiia, a work which is
not later than 1200 a.d., this episode is so narrated as to
bring out in great clearness the anxiety of the supporters
of Siva to prove that he was superior to Visnu, and this indeed
seems to be a trait of all the Saiva Purdnas, which seek to
make good the importance of the god whom they worship. As
in the later additions to the epic, Siva is set off against Visnu,
and it is insisted that he is the father of both Brahma and
Visnu : he created the first from his right side and the second
from his left, while from his heart he sent forth Rudra, the
first deity being formed to create, the second to protect, and
the third to destroy the world. The popular view, which the
Purdna Itself expresses, that Siva was born of Brahma is refuted
by a proof which demonstrates to Brahma that the only real
creator is Siva and that by his power of illusion he has brought
about the apparent birth of himself as the son of Brahma.
Like Visnu, Siva is the all-god, and the tenets of the Vedanta
and the Sarhkhya are fitted to him with as much skill as they
are adapted to Visnu, subject to the fact that he has no sons
like Pradyumna and Aniruddha to identify with Mind and
Egoism in the process of the descent of the Absolute into em-
pirical reality. As a creator, however, Siva has one advantage
over Visnu, for at times he is clearly conceived as being an-
drogynous. This idea is not new, for it is perhaps found on
coins of the so-called Scythian kings, probably about the begin-
ning of the Christian era,^ but stress now begins to be laid on
it. From the female side of his nature Siva created his con-
sort Siva, who serves as his feminine counterpart and who in



i8o INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

the philosophic interpretation of the deities represents Prakrti,
the material out of which the whole universe develops; while
Siva himself is the eternal Purusa, or spirit, for which Prakrti
unfolds itself in its unreal display. Like her husband, Siva is
a terrible foe of the demons: the Saura Purdna (xlix) tells
how Indra in fear of them is fain to go to beg her aid, and then
with her three heads and twenty arms she attacks the Daityas,
slays them in enormous numbers, despite the feats of their
leaders Raktaksa and Dhiimraksa, and dances a wild dance of
victory, a reminiscence of the dance of Siva which is recorded
as early as Megasthenes.

As in the case of Visnu, great rewards await the pious devotee
of Siva. Thus we are told (iii. 14 ff.) of a king who in his
previous birth had been a robber and hunter, a man without
the slightest tincture of virtue or culture. On his death he
comes before Dharma, who takes the place of Yama as judge
of the dead, the ancient lord of the departed being relegated
to the duty of punishment. Dharma's spy, Citragupta, can-
not relate a single virtuous act consciously done by the robber,
but he reveals the fact that day by day, while plying his
nefarious craft, he has been unwittingly invoking Siva as Hara
in the words dhara, "bring the booty," and prahara, "strike";
and this is enough to wipe out every other one of his sins and to
secure his ultimate birth in the royal palace. One Pulaha, who
had the fortune to be a fly in the temple of Siva, is for that
cause alone reborn as the son of Brahma (Ixvii. 14 ff.). Even
a dog-eater who reveres Siva ranks above a Brahman who
does not. Still more striking is the story of the origin of Kubera,
lord of riches (xlvii. 45 ff.). A Brahman in Avanti left home
in greed of gain, and his wife, deserted by him, formed a con-
nexion with a Sudra, bearing to him a son named Duhsaha,
who was disregarded by all his kinsfolk because of his low
origin. He turned to ways of wickedness and finally broke into
the temple of Siva to plunder it; but since the wick of his
lamp failed during his efforts to find the treasure, he had to



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS i8i

light no fewer than ten more, thus unconsciously paying
honour to the god. At last one who was sleeping in the temple
awoke and stunned the intruder with a blow from a club, and
the temple guards put him to death. He was born again as an
unrighteous and vile-living king, Sudurmukha of Gandhara,
but with a remnant of recollection of his deeds in his former
birth he maintained well-lighted lamps in Siva's temple. He
was ultimately slain by his foes, but by this time all his evil
deeds had been wiped out by his piety, and he was next born
as Kubera.

The other gods are of importance and interest only in so far
as they are closely connected with Siva. Thus Skanda is fre-
quently mentioned, and indeed is more and more brought into
the likeness of his father. His position as compared with the
older gods is significant: Indra foolishly seeks to war with him,
but is defeated with humiliation. Importance also attaches to
Nandin or Sailadi, who guards the door of Siva's palace; to
the Rudras, who act as his hosts; and to the Pramathas, his
famihar spirits. Another deity who is really Siva himself is
Ganesa, the lord of the troops who serve Siva; but as Ganesa's
figure has been developed in the mythology he has a distinc-
tive character and a cult of his own. In the Mahdbhdrata he
is mentioned as undertaking the task of writing down the great
work, but he is really foreign to it, and it is only in the Purdnas
— and there sporadically — that his importance is acknowl-
edged, though in course of time he becomes recognized as a
great divinity. This is probably due to the protection which he
gives to learning, for he is the god of wisdom and the remover of
obstacles. As a deity his worship is known in the legal text-
book of Yajnavalkya (i. 291 ff.), which perhaps dates from
300 A.D.,^ and it seems that Bardesanes had heard of him. The
legends which concern him are mainly intended to account for
his abnormal physical appearance: he was short and stout, with
protuberant stomach and four hands, and in place of a human
head he had that of an elephant with only one tusk. The loss



1 82 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

of his real head is variously explained : one story tells that his
mother ParvatI, from the scurf on whose body some believed
him to have been born, asked Sani, the planet Saturn, to look
upon him, forgetful of the effect of his glance. When Sani
obeyed, he burned the child's head to ashes, and Parvati,
on Brahma's advice, replaced it with the first head she could
find, this happening to be an elephant's. Again it is said that
ParvatI, when bathing, placed the boy at the door to guard
her privacy; but Siva sought to enter and in his anger at the
child for attempting to stay him cut off his head, for which he
then substituted an elephant's to propitiate his wife. Another
version attributes it to the punishment inflicted on Siva for
slaying Aditya (the sun), Ganesa losing his head as a result
and receiving in its place that of Indra's elephant. The loss
of the one tusk is explained by a further legend: Parasurama
once came late to see Siva, but since the deity was asleep, his
son Ganesa sought to prevent the visitor from disturbing his
father. Enraged as usual, Rama then attacked him, and while
at first the god had the advantage, his enmity was disarmed by
seeing flung at him the axe which his father had given to Rama,
so that he submissively allowed the weapon to tear away one
of his tusks. A further peculiarity of this deity is that he is
said to ride on the rat. Possibly enough some local variety of
the earth or corn spirit has been amalgamated with the con-
ception of the lord of Siva's hordes. A counterpart to Ganesa
as patron of learning and literature is Sarasvati, who can
trace her origin to the Vedic Vac; but in striking contrast to
Ganesa she is always depicted as a woman of great beauty,
seated on a lotus and with a crescent on her brow.

Among the other gods Agni shares a certain importance,
though merely because he is connected with the birth of Skanda,
who is produced by him and Siva; and in the Saura Purdna,
curiously enough, Varuna is somewhat often mentioned. Indra,
on the other hand, appears only as in constant need of help and
presents almost a comic figure. Himavant as the father of



PLATE XXII

Ganesa

The deity Ganesa is especially honoured as being
the god who averts obstacles, whence he becomes
a divinity of good fortune, who should be worshipped
before each new undertaking. Various legends, hard
to reconcile with each other, are told of his parentage
and to explain his elephant's head, which is apparently
a symbol of wisdom. He is probably a god of some
aboriginal tribe who was adopted by Hinduism. From
a bronze in the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.



PVCLiC LlliilARY



ASTOK, LENOX AN»
TILDBN P0l»JDAT10f«



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 183

Gauri is of some consequence, and Kama is inseparably con-
nected with the Siva legend through his part in bringing about
the wedlock of Parvati with Siva, from which Skanda was fated
to spring. The literature also shows other traces of the prom-
inence of this god, whose role in the epic is small enough.

More important than these survivals of the old mythology
is the new stress laid on the cult of the sun. Sun-worship has
indeed from all time been practised in India, and we hear of
three classes of worshippers who adored the rising, the setting,
and the midday sun; while one form of the triad, or Trimurti,
was the veneration of the whole three forms of the sun. The
record of Hiian Tsang shows what importance at his time
attached to the cult of the sun in India. It appears, however,
that fresh life in that worship was derived from Persian in-
fluence. In a story told in the Bhavisya Purdna (cxxxix) we
learn that Samba, the son of Krsna, was afflicted by leprosy
as a result of the curse of the irascible sage Durvasas, and that
in order to secure healing he decided to apply himself to de-
votion to Surya, of whose power Narada had told him much.
Having obtained the permission of his father, he left Dvaraka,
crossed the Indus and the Candrabhaga (the modern Chenab),
and arrived at the grove of Mitra, where he was freed from his
disease. In gratitude he returned to the Chenab, having sworn
to erect a temple there in honour of the god and to found a
city. When he had done this, however, he was in doubt in
which form to worship the god until an image was miracu-
lously found by him when bathing; but since he was still in
need of priests to tend the idol, and as Brahmans were not avail-
able for such a duty, he was advised to seek "Magas" from
over the sea. By Krsna's aid and by using Garuda he suc-
ceeded in finding the Magas and inducing eighteen families to
come with him to Sambapura and to settle there. The Persian
origin of these Magas is proved by many details given regard-
ing them: they observed the vow of eating in silence, were

afraid of contamination by the dead, wore the sacred girdle
VI— 13



1 84 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

of the Parsis, covered the mouth at worship, etc.^ Moreover
they are found in Sakadvipa, which suggests that the legend
lays hold of the historic fact of the flight of Parsis to India.
The Saura Purdna, which is a purely Saivite work, though it
purports to be revealed by the sun, contains some references
to practices of Saura sects, and here and there it identifies
Siva with the sun. It is, however, significant for the inferior
position of the sun that to it is given the duty of destroying the
world at the end of a period, while the complete annihilation
of the universe is reserved for the great god himself.

In close connexion with the cult of Siva we find a develop-
ment of the Tantric rites and of their accompanying demonology.
For the history of religion in its lower phases the Tantras, the
dates of which are still wholly uncertain, but which doubtless
represent a form of literature belonging to the latter part of
the first millennium, are of great importance; but mythologi-
cally they are of little value. The worship inculcated is that
of the female side of Indra, his Saktl, which philosophically is
regarded as Prakrti and as Maya, or the Delusion which
created the apparent world and which is Identified with Siva
under her various names as Kali, Durga, Aghori, and many
others. She is SatI, daughter of Daksa, whose sacrifice Siva
destroyed, whereupon in anger she departed to be reborn as
Uma and thus to be reunited to her husband. In the ritual of
the Sakta sects human sacrifice has apparently been usual
from the earliest times and has prevailed down to the present
day, though in later years sporadically and by stealth. The
other feature of the cult Is the grave Immorality which it
exalts as a sacred duty, at least among the votaries of the
"left-hand " sect, who are the more numerous, though the
Tantric texts veil the ceremonies in a mass of pseudo-mysticism.
The character of the rites can only be explained, not by any
adoration of an abstraction, but by the continued practice
of a worship of a vegetation or earth spirit who Is identified
with Siva's wife, this nature cult being transformed and altered

[Prometheus]

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE PURANAS 185

by being taken up into the Saivite faith. The primitive type
of the worship further shows itself in the fact that drunken-
ness is an essential feature of its Bacchanalian orgies, and that
the immorality is evidently a refinement on the old fertility
magic of simple and primitive communities, dignified — or
degraded — by being brought into connexion with mystic
principles. Even when human sacrifice is abandoned, blood-
letting is practised by the votaries, and the common phenome-
non of interchange of garments by the two sexes is found.

Not essentially distinct from the Sakta cult of Siva is the form
in which it has been adopted by certain of the adherents of
Rama, and in particular by the Radha Vallabhis. In accord-
ance with the genial character of the worship of Visnu in his
various forms the bloodthirstiness of the Saivite cult is want-
ing, but, on the other hand, the legend of Krsna and the
Gopis is considered to be the fullest justification for the ex-
treme of licence. The curious blend of mysticism with sensual-
ity which pervades this cult is preluded, though not equalled,
by Jayadeva's famous poem, the Gltagovinda, written in the
twelfth century a.d.

Another side of the worship of female divinities or demons
is the growing importance which attaches to such hideous
personalities as that of Putana, the ogress who kills children
after birth by giving them suck and who is slain by the infant
Krsna. The Matrs, or "Mothers," who are connected with
Skanda, are of increasing rank in an age which is nothing if not
catholic in its worship and which recognizes the power of these
disease-demons. It is also clear that the Gandharvas and
Apsarases, the more attractive forms of an earlier mythology,
are sinking to mere names.

The Purdnas show no change of view as to the position of
the dead. Among their miscellaneous and confused contents
many of them include instructions on the just mode of offering
to the dead, and they reveal the same mixture of eschatology
which marks earlier Hinduism. The chief development is in



1 86 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

the doctrine of hells, of which the Mdrkandeya Purdna de-
scribes seven in full detail, and with a certain power enu-
merates with care the tortures of the inhabitants of these
abodes. On the other hand, it gives a tale of remarkable beauty
(xv). It is that of the old king Vipascit ("the Wise"), who
dies and, much to his amazement, is dragged down to hell by
the retainers of Yama, who is still more completely identified
with Dharma than even in the epic. He inquires in wonder
why this treatment is inflicted upon him and learns that it is
a brief and slight penalty for the omission of a trifling domestic
duty during his lifetime. When, however, he is about to depart
from hell, the souls in torment ask him to stay, since from him
a refreshing breath emanates which lessens their pains; and
on learning this he refuses to obey the bidding of Yama's
attendants and will not leave. Dharma himself and Sakra
come to see him and point out that the sinners in hell suffer
for their evil acts, while his good deeds have earned him
celestial bliss, and urge him to go forth from his temporary
place of punishment. He declares, however, that he will not
do so without obtaining freedom from anguish for the souls
in hell, and eventually the gods give way and relieve the
damned of all their pain at the moment when the king goes to
heaven. The last book of the Mahdbhdrata appears to be an
echo of the tale.



CHAPTER VII

BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY IN INDIA
AND TIBET

CAREFUL analysis of the texts of the Buddhist Pali^ Canon,
which at the present day represents the sacred scriptures
of the Buddhists in Ceylon, enables criticism to establish a
picture of the life and teaching of Gotama Sakyamuni, the
Buddha, or "Enlightened One," which deprives him of all
save human attributes. According to this view, which is most
brilliantly represented by the writings of H. Oldenberg,
Gotama was a purely human personage who, building on the
foundation of the thought of the Upanisads and on contem-
porary religious and philosophic movem.ents, arrived at a
theory of human life which, recognizing and accepting as its
basis the fact of human suffering, saw clearly that the attain-
ment of full self-control and the suppression of passion were
the true ends of mankind. Holding these views, he inculcated
them by teaching among a wide circle of pupils, founded a
religious order, and in due course died of a perfectly simple
disease, produced by indigestion, which acted fatally on the
constitution of the old man. A variety of historical considera-
tions lead to the conclusion that the death of the Buddha fell
in the third decade of the fifth century B.C., or possibly a few
years earlier, though it is admitted that this date is not ab-
solutely free from suspicion. Rigorously followed out, but
without real alteration of their principles, the teachings of
the "Enlightened One" show that not only are all life and
striving merely unhappy, but that the true end of existence is
the termination of that existence and the breaking of the chain



1 88 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

of action which keeps in perpetual motion and which the Bud-
dhists substituted for the conception of self which they had
Inherited from the current philosophy. The Buddha also in-
culcated a simple form of monastic discipline and a method
of life which Involves a strict morality and a steady process
of mental culture.

This version of early Buddhism, which reveals it as a faith
of extraordinary simplicity and purity of origin, laying aside
all futile belief in gods, abandoning outworn beliefs In souls,
and carrying to a logical conclusion the reasoning of the
Upanisads, which elevates the subject of thought Into a
meaningless Absolute, may possibly correspond with historical
reality, for we have not, and never can expect to have, any
conclusive proof as to the actual views and teachings of Gotama.
It Is true that high age has been ascribed to the earliest texts
of the Pali Canon, but the evidence for that date is conjectural
and doubtful, and we have no assurance that a single Bud-
dhist text which has come down to us is even as early as two
hundred years after Gotama had departed. There Is, therefore,
abundant room for alteration and change in the tradition. If
the Buddha were but a simple mortal, there was time for him
to be transformed Into something more-than human, and we
may, if we please, cite In favour of this view the opinion of Sir
R. G. Bhandarkar ^ and Professor R. Garbe ^ that the Krsna
myth has arisen from the personality of a simple head of a clan
and religious teacher .who at an early. If uncertain, date, though
still long before the Buddha, taught a religion in which bhakti,
or faith In and devotion to God, played a most Important part,
and who in the course of time was himself regarded as being
a form or incarnation of the divinity whom he preached. On
the other hand. It Is equally legitimate as a matter of hypothesis
to suppose that the rationalistic treatment of the Buddha shown
In part of the texts of the Pali Canon represents a deliberate
effort to place on a purely philosophic basis the fundamental
portion of his creed. Neither is It possible to ignore the force



PLATE XXIII

The Great Buddha

The Buddha here appears as in his youth, when
he was simply Prince Siddhartha and before he had
deserted all for the sake of salvation. His portrayal
is an admirable example of the Indian ideal of manly
beauty. From a fresco at Ajanta, Berar. After
Ajanta Frescoes^ Plate XI.



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 189

of the argument that even if the supposed origin of the divinity
of Krsna be granted, yet it was clearly more easy for a preacher
of faith in a personal god to become regarded as himself a god
than to deify a man who ex hypothesi was no god and had no
real belief in the gods.

Whatever be the truth, it is at least certain that the Pali
Canon does not fail to reveal to us traces that Gotama was more
than a mere man. It is indeed clear that the system of the Pali
Canon, the HInayana, or "Little Vehicle," has no place for
devotion to a personal divinity, for the Buddha is not such a
divinity: no prayers can be addressed to him to be answered,
and no act of grace performed. Yet, on the other hand, the way
to salvation requires meditation upon the Buddha as an in-
dispensable part of it, as necessary as the Dharma, or "Law,"
itself or the Sangha, or "Congregation." This is very far from
constituting the Buddhism of the Pali Canon essentially a
religious system, but undoubtedly it must have had some in-
fluence in this regard.

What is more important, however, is that from the first in
the sacred books of the HInayana school itself obvious traces
appear that the "Enlightened One " is much more than a
mere man, despite all the homely traits which mark his life.
Nor is there any sign in that literature that the legend regarding
the person of the Buddha is of slow and gradual growth, so
that we could trace its development step by step and see how
humanity is merged in divinity. This fact does not preclude
the possibility that the legend did so develop, especially if the
Pali Canon is placed at a much later date than that assigned
to it by the majority of authorities, but it unquestionably
tells against the theory of an original humanity. At least it
proves that no such humanity was sufficient to satisfy the
Buddhists even of the HInayana.

Moreover the period in which the Buddha preached was
essentially one in which his qualities were such as to be reck-
oned divine. As early as the time of the Brdhmanas the gods



190 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

of India had definitely become subject to the need of account-
ing for their existence by some exploit of merit. These texts
are full of explanations of the reasons why the gods gained
immortality, of how they became gods, and why individual
gods have their functions and being. As in the religion of
ancient Rome, as in the religion of modern India, a deity is not
a creature which exists from birth or from all time and con-
tinues to be, irrespective of his actions: the gods must create
their divinity by the sacrifice or by ascetic feats, and the epic
is full of tales of sages of all kinds who seek to become divine
and whose efforts the gods strive to restrain by inducing them
to abandon their asceticism under temptation. These sages
are as powerful as gods and mingle freely with them: when
Indra is hurled from his throne and flees into hiding, and
when Nahusa usurps his place, it is no divine power that re-
stores him to his kingdom, but the anger of the seer Agastya,
with whom Nahusa had rashly entered into a theological dis-
putation. Indeed it must be remembered that the Brdhmanas
assert in all seriousness that the Brahmans are the gods on
earth, their location being the point of distinction between them
and the gods in the skies above, and the whole sacrificial con-
ception of the Brdhmanas is based on the view that by the
sacrifice the priests hold complete control over the gods. It
was inevitable that under these circumstances the Buddha,
with his triple perfection of knowledge, of virtue, and of aus-
terity, should be regarded by his followers as a being of a divine
character, and that a mythology should rapidly develop round
his person.

It might, however, be thought that, though the mythology
did grow, yet in that mythology it would not appear that the
Buddha himself ever made any claim to more than human
nature, that he was in his own opinion a simple man, and that
as a preacher of a system of rationalism any claim of divinity
or superiority in kind to other men would not be asserted by
him. Here again the expectation is disappointed: the texts not



PLATE XXIV

The Buddha and Sujata

Before attaining enlightenment (Bodhi) the Buddha
sought to win salvation by Brahmanic precepts.
While thus engaged, he was mistaken for a deity by
Sujata, the wife of a landholder, who sought of him
a boon and presented him an offering of milk, giving
him likewise a bowl of water to wash his hands.
Touched by her homage, he blessed her and granted
her request. After this he bathed, and when the
golden cup in which Sujata had brought the milk
floated up-stream, he knew that he was soon to gain
Buddhahood. From a painting by the modern Indian
artist Abanindro Nath Tagore. After International
Studio^ XVIII, Plate facing p. 26.



Y ^



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 191

merely ascribe to Gotama traits which are mythological, but
they attribute to him claims which are incompatible with
humanity. Many as are the notices of the Buddha, we find
that at the most important periods of his life the non-human
characteristics have a practice of appearing, whether because
the fancy of the disciples then thought it fit to insert them or
whether from the beginning the Buddha felt himself to be
more than a man.

In the Samyutta Nikdya and elsewhere a comparison occurs
between the Buddha and the flowers: as the lotus grows up in
the water from which it is born, rises above It, and ceases to
be sullied by it, thus the Buddha grows above the world and
is no longer defiled by it. In itself the analogy might be satis-
fied by the view that the Buddha rises from the world into the
way of deliverance from all desire of any kind in Nirvana, that
is, he becomes an Arhat. This interpretation, however, is for-
bidden by an important dialogue in the Anguttara Nikdya
(ii. 37)5 in which the Buddha himself answers the question
as to his humanity and divinity. A certain Brahman named
Dona, seeing on the feet of the Blessed One " — for the
Buddha often bears the title of "Blessed " {Bhagavant), which
is peculiarly that of Krsna — thousands of wheels with their
spokes and their naves, cries out in wonder that, being but a
man, he should have these marks. He then proceeds to ques-
tion the Buddha and asks if he is a god. To this the Buddha
responds, "No." He then asks, "Art thou a Gandharva?"
and receives the same reply, which is repeated In answer to
his next inquiry whether the "Blessed One " is a Yaksa, a
term denoting a sort of demoniac being, which (sometimes at
least) is conceived as of mysterious and heavenly beauty.
The questioner therefore resorts to the only hypothesis which
seems available and suggests that, after all, the Buddha must
be a man; but this conclusion is at once rejected by Gotama,
who finally explains that from him have vanished the passions
which could bring about his being a Gandharva, a Yaksa,



192 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

or a man, and that, like the lotus, he has passed out from the
world and Is not affected by the world; in sum, he is a
Buddha. It is impossible to explain away this passage as a
mere reference to the condition of an Arhat, for Arhats as
men have no such remarkable physical features as the wheels
on the feet of the great god. Similarly, though the Buddha
is fain to eat and drink like other men, and though we have
the full details of his last days and of the efforts to heal him
made by human means, the texts can tell us without hesitation
that he is the first of beings, the controller and the sovereign
of the whole world and of everything which is contained in it,
of Mara who tempts him, of Brahma, of all the generations of
living beings — men and gods, ascetics and Brahmans. When
in the Anguttara Ananda rejoices to know that the Buddha is
able to spread his glory and make his voice heard in countless
worlds, Udayin questions the value of such a power; but the
"Blessed One," far from reproving Ananda's admiration,
declares that if Ananda should fail to secure emancipation
in the present existence, he will, by reason of his acquiescence
in the Buddha's wonderful power, be born for seven exist-
ences to come as king of the gods and for other seven as king
of Jambudvipa, or the world. Again, when the deities of the
sun and moon are assailed by the terrible demon Rahu, who
swallows them and thus from time to time causes their eclipse,
it is to the Buddha that they go seeking shelter. "Rahu,"
says Sakyamuni, "the deity of the moon has had recourse to
me; let go the moon, for the Buddhas pity the world"; and
the demon departs in terror, reflecting that had he harmed the
moon, his head would have flown into seven parts.

While various Buddhas may have their earthly life from
time to time, it is characteristic of these beings in all texts,
both early and late, that in this world there cannot be more than
a single Buddha at any one time, even as in the view of the
Brahmans the god Brahma exists and must exist alone. There
is, however, a distinction between the Brahmanical view and



PLATE XXV

The Buddha on the Lotus

The Buddha, seated on his lotus-throne, is repre-
sented in the "teaching attitude," expounding the
Law to the multitude who surround him. The small
figures in the upper corners show him in the "con-
templative attitude," and the second from the top on
the right portrays him in the attitude of benediction
(cf. Plate XXIV). The "witness attitude" is shown
in Plate XXV[. The principal other "attitude" is
reclining on the right side with the head to the north,
this representing the Buddha's death. From a Gan-
dhara sculpture now in the Lahore Museum. After
'Journal of Indian Art^ viii. No. 62, Plate V, No. 2.



THE v!:w YORK

PU&LJC LIBEAfiY



ASTOR, LENOX AND
TILDliN PODNDATIONa

[Prometheus]

BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 193

the Buddhist as regards the question of time. In the former,
Brahma's existence endures throughout a cosmic age, or kalpa,
at the end of which, he, Hke all things else, is absorbed for
the time in the Supreme Spirit or the Absolute. On the con-
trary, like the Jains and like the Vaisnavas, it is an article of
faith with the Buddhists that the Buddhas come into being
only at irregular intervals, when there is special cause for their
presence, and that they depart again when they have fulfilled
the purpose for which they came, have set in motion the wheel
of the gospel which they preach, and have founded an order
destined to last for some period of time. Nevertheless, the in-
fluence of the former conception breaks forth strongly in the
account given of the last days of Gotama. As he felt the end
approaching, he said to his favourite disciple, Ananda, that
the Buddha could remain in the world for a whole age or to
the end of the present age, and thrice he repeated these words.
Unhappily the heart of Ananda was possessed by the wicked
Mara, who had not forgiven his defeat by the " Blessed One,"
and he took no notice of an occasion so favourable to secure the
prolonged life of the Buddha : when the moment came that he
realized the force of the words, it was too late, for the "En-
lightened One " had decided not to live beyond the limit of
human life. This story, so significant of the Buddha's belief
in his own superhuman nature, is recorded in all the canons.
Moreover his divine character is attested by the transfigura-
tion which awaits his body upon death: it becomes brilliant
like a god, and the brocade in which it has been clothed by
Pukkusa fades in contrast. In the life of the Buddha this event
twice takes place, once when the future Buddha becomes a
Buddha and on the occasion of attaining Nirvana. But in addi-
tion to this, the same text, the Mahaparinibbdna, ascribes to the
Buddha himself the claim that he changes his form in accord-
ance with his audience, be it Brahmans, nobles, householders,
ascetics, gods of the entourage of the four world-guardians, gods
of the thirty-three gods, or gods of the heaven of Brahma,



194 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

and that, after he has finished his discourses, his hearers
wonder whether he be god or man. It is not surprising if the
obsequies of such a man were marked not merely by the honours
due to an earthly supreme king, but by miracles of different
kinds, testifying rather to his immortal nature than to a merely
human character.

The birth of the Buddha is no less remarkable than his death.
The "Buddha To Be," or Bodhisattva, had for some centuries
been living in glory in the world of the Tusita, or "Happy,"
gods, which he had attained by the only possible means, that
of good deeds in earlier births. In the fullness of time, and
after mature consideration of the time and place, and of the
caste, family, and personality of the mother, he selected for
this honour Maya, the wife of the Sakya king, and while she
slept he entered her womb in the guise of a six-tusked elephant.
Four celestial beings guarded the infant before birth, and he
eventually saw the light in the Lumbini grove while his mother
held in her hand a branch of the sacred sdl-tvee. The parallel-
ism with the myth of Leto ^ is made yet more striking in the
legend as told of another Buddha, Diparhkara, which signifies
either "Maker of Light " or "Island-Maker," who was born on
a mystic island in the Ganges. There is no tradition in the early
canon that Maya was a virgin, but although a single passage
in the Tibetan literature^ suggests a natural conception, that
appears to be a blasphemy. Moreover the mysterious na-
ture of the birth is heightened by the fact that Maya dies
seven days afterward.

It is, of course, possible to see in all this a distorted version
of actual facts: death of the mother of the Buddha in child-
birth is as legitimate an explanation of the tale of the death
of Maya as any interpretation based on the theory of a sun-
myth. Yet in the Pali Canon we have the authority of the
Buddha himself for his abode in the Tusita heaven and his
descent from it, and it is not easy to explain the six-tusked ele-
phant which Maya in vision saw entering her womb. The



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 195

most plausible hypothesis is to refer the dream to the Indian be-
lief that a child before its conception already exists in an inter-
mediate condition, as follows naturally from the doctrine of re-
birth, and to find that the six tusks of the elephant arise from
a misunderstanding of a phrase denoting "one who has the six
organs of sense under control."^ These hypotheses, however,
ingenious as they are, seem needless in face of the natural ex-
planation that the Buddha, like his followers, regarded himself
as really divine.

The same difficulty presents itself in a new form regarding
the marks which can be seen on the body of the Buddha,
thirty-two of which are primary and eighty secondary. Can
these be resolved into the products of the Indian conception of
physical perfection combined with the historical tradition of
certain somatic peculiarities of Sakyamuni? These signs are
eagerly noted on the body of the infant Buddha by the sooth-
sayers, and they are found there without lack or flaw. Yet
the legend tells that they could not decide whether the boy
would become a universal monarch or a Buddha, although one
sage declared that the signs showed that if the prince stayed in
the secular life, he would be a universal monarch; but if he
abandoned this world, as he would do, he would be a Buddha.
Moreover the marks are described as being those of a Maha-
purusa, or "Great Male "; and their abnormal character is
clearly shown by the description given of some of them: thus
the feet of the Buddha are covered, as we have seen, by wheels
of great beauty, his hands have the fingers united by a mem-
brane, between his eyebrows extends a circle of soft, white
hair which emits marvellous rays of light, his spine is so rigid
that he cannot turn his head, and so forth.

In these features of the Buddha there is strong reason to see
mythology, for the marks are those of the "universal monarch,"
the Cakravartin, as he is described freely in the Buddhist
scriptures. The Mahdsudassana Sutta of the Digha Nikdya
gives us a picture of such a king in the shape of Sakyamuni in



1^6 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

an earlier birth as a Cakravartin. As he walks on the terrace of
his palace, the divine wheel appears; and the king, after paying
it due honour, bids it roll on and triumph. The wheel rolls to
the east, followed by the king and his army, and the east
yields to him; the wheel rolls then south, then west, then
north, and all the lands submit and accept the Buddhist doc-
trine; after which it comes back to rest on the terrace of the
palace with its sevenfold rampart of gems. It is difficult to
doubt that the conception of the wheel owes its origin to sun-
worship, for as early as the Brdhmanas the wheel is freely used
in the ritual to represent the solar luminary. This hypothesis
receives increased force when it is remembered that the term
Mahapurusa is applied in Brahmanical literature to Narayana,
that form of Visnu which recalls the Purusa of the Rgveda and
the Brdhmanas, the primeval being from which the world
was created, and the spirit which is eternal and unique. The
later northern Buddhist text, the Lalitavistara, actually iden-
tifies Narayana with the Buddha. Further the Brahmanic
character of the marks is interestingly shown by a piece of
ancient evidence — a Sutta in the Suttanipdta which tells how
the Brahman Sela was convinced of the truth of the nature of
the Buddha, not by any preaching of the "Blessed One," but
by the argument that he bore the special marks, a demonstra-
tion of which he gave to the Brahman, including the miracle
by which he covered the whole of his face with his tongue.

It is not surprising that such a saint as the Buddha should
have been subject to temptation, for, despite the fact that one
of the commandments laid down for his order is to avoid asceti-
cism as a means to secure Nirvana, it is certain that it was by a
great feat of self-mortification that he attained to his Buddha-
ship. For six years he practised ascetic rites and wore himself
nearly to a skeleton, though at the end of this time he became
satisfied that starvation was not the due means of securing
the desired end. Yet before Buddhaship is won he has a severe
contest with the evil Mara, the Vedic Mrtyu, or "Death," who



198 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

dhlst tradition: in the Cakkavattisutta of the Dlgha Nikdya
Sakyamuni predicts the coming of Metteya, the future Buddha,
and this is confirmed by the Buddhavamsa, for though the verse
(xxvii. 19) which gives his name is late, it is clear that his
existence is implied, since the text mentions three Buddhas
who have lived in this happy world-period before Gotama,
and a happy period is one in which there must be full five
Buddhas. Metteya, in whose name is recorded the Buddhist
?metta, or the "friendship " of the Buddha for all beings, is
later a subject of special reverence. Moreover the "Enlight-
ened One " himself tells of six prior Buddhas, a conception
hard to reconcile with the idea of a simple human doctrine.
The divine or supernatural character of the Buddha is in-
deed adequately proved by the signs of extreme devotion to his
relics which appeared immediately after his death, and which
are incompatible with the mere interest taken in the remains
of a famous teacher. The fact that only symbols, such as the
tree, the feet, or the wheel, are chosen for representation in
the sculptures of SanchI, Bharhut, and Bodh Gaya, which
afford the oldest examples of Buddhist religious art, shows
that the Buddha was still the centre of the devotion, though it
was not yet considered seemly to portray his bodily figure.
It is true that many of his followers adopted a rationalist
attitude, held that a Mahapurusa was merely a great man,
asserted that this was the Buddha's own interpretation of the
term, denied the mysterious conception and birth, and ex-
plained the reference of the "Blessed One " to his power to live
to the end of the age as meaning merely that he might have
lived to the full age of a hundred years, instead of dying at
eighty, as he actually did. At the same time, however, there
were schools of supernaturalists who held that the Buddha was
something remarkable and far from merely human: thus
some of the faithful asserted that the fact was that Sakyamuni
had never truly lived in the world of men, that during his
alleged stay on earth he was in reality dwelling in the Tusita



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 199

heaven, and that a mere phantom appeared to gods and men.
This doctrine, if we may believe the tradition, was already
current by 256 B.C., and was condemned by the Council which
was held in that year.

Whatever may have been the date of the rise of docetism in
the Buddhist community, the simple, human side of the "En-
lightened One " has entirely disappeared when we find the
Mahayana, or "Great Vehicle," system set forth in the litera-
ture, as in The Lotus of the Good Law {Saddharmapundarikd)\
and we see instead a deity of singular greatness and power. This
Buddha came into being at the beginning, it may be presumed,
of the present age, but he can boast of having taught the true
law for endless millions of years. He possesses a body of de-
light {sambhoga), which has the famous thirty- two marks, in-
cluding the marvellous tongue, which now can reach forth to
the world of Brahma. This, however, is reserved for the vision
of beatified saints, and to men he shows only an artificial
body, which is a derivative, in far inferior nature, of the true
body. It was in this appearance that SakyamunI appeared on
earth, entered Nirvana, and left relics of himself in a Stupa;
but In reality his real body dwelt and dwells In a celestial
sphere and will, when his true Nirvana shall come, be changed
Into a divine Stupa (of which the earthly Stupa Is but a reflex),
where the "Blessed One" will repose after having enjoyed the
pleasures of Instruction. Nevertheless, he will sometimes arise
at the desire of one of the other Buddhas, for the number of
Buddhas now Increases to Infinity, just as space and time are
similarly extended. The oldest stage of the Buddhist canon
knew six earlier Buddhas, and they grew to twenty-four before
the Pall Canon was complete. In the Mahayana there is no
end to the numbers, for the heaping up of huge figures is one
of the most conspicuous features of the school. Thus the
"Blessed One" can remember having honoured eight thou-
sand Buddhas named Diparhkara, five hundred called Padmot-
tara, eighteen thousand Maradhvajas, eighty thousand

VI— 14



YORK



Til-i^^A r,;l.-,b^iii}S



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 197

assails him with all his host as he sits under the tree of knowl-
edge, beneath which he is to attain to Buddhahood. The
gods flee before the terrors of Mara, but the prince remains
unmoved; the mountains and other weapons hurled at him
turn to garlands in his honour; and the enemy is forced to
parley with him and to claim that his liberality in past days
has won him the right to the seat under the tree usurped by
the prince. His hosts support their master's claim with loud
approbation, but when the "Buddha To Be " appeals to the
earth, she asserts his right to his place with such vehemence
that in affright the hosts of Mara are discomfited, and the
elephant on which Mara rides kneels in homage to the "Blessed
One." The tree and the bodhi (the "knowledge" which makes
the Buddhas) now become the property of Gotama, and the
serpent Mucalinda celebrates his victory by covering him with
its coils. A further legend states that Mara endeavoured to
retrieve his defeat by the use of three daughters, Desire,
Pining, and Lust, but these damsels failed wholly to have any
efl"ect upon the sage.

Rationalized, the story means no more than that, after real-
izing the futility of fasting as a means to salvation, in one
moment of insight the truth which he was to teach as his life-
work came home to the future Buddha as he sat, like many
another ascetic or student, under a fig-tree. Among his variant
names Mara has not only that of Namuci, one of Indra's ene-
mies in the Rgveda, but also that of Kama (" Desire ") , who, akin
to Death, is an enemy of that renouncement and enlighten-
ment which It Is the main object of the life of the Buddha to
attain. Did the episode stand alone, the suggested account
might be acceptable, but amid so much mythology it seems
unfair to reject the obvious conclusion that the tree Is no ordi-
nary tree, but the tree of life, and that the conflict with Mara
represents a nature-myth, and not the Inner struggles of an
Indian ascetic.

Yet another fact attests the religious character of the Bud-



iq8 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

dhist tradition: in the Cakkavattisutta of the D'lgha Nikdya
Sakyamuni predicts the coming of Metteya, the future Buddha,
and this is confirmed by the Buddhavamsa, for though the verse
(xxvii. 19) which gives his name is late, it is clear that his
existence is Implied, since the text mentions three Buddhas
who have lived in this happy world-period before Gotama,
and a happy period is one In which there must be full five
Buddhas. Metteya, In whose name Is recorded the Buddhist
metta, or the "friendship" of the Buddha for all beings, is
later a subject of special reverence. Moreover the "Enlight-
ened One " himself tells of six prior Buddhas, a conception
hard to reconcile with the Idea of a simple human doctrine.
The divine or supernatural character of the Buddha Is In-
deed adequately proved by the signs of extreme devotion to his
relics which appeared Immediately after his death, and which
are Incompatible with the mere Interest taken In the remains
of a famous teacher. The fact that only symbols, such as the
tree, the feet, or the wheel, are chosen for representation In
the sculptures of SanchI, Bharhut, and Bodh Gaya, which
afford the oldest examples of Buddhist religious art, shows
that the Buddha was still the centre of the devotion, though It
was not yet considered seemly to portray his bodily figure.
It is true that many of his followers adopted a rationalist
attitude, held that a Mahapurusa was merely a great man,
asserted that this was the Buddha's own Interpretation of the
term, denied the mysterious conception and birth, and ex-
plained the reference of the "Blessed One " to his power to live
to the end of the age as meaning merely that he might have
lived to the full age of a hundred years, instead of dying at
eighty, as he actually did. At the same time, however, there
were schools of supernaturalists who held that the Buddha was
something remarkable and far from merely human: thus
some of the faithful asserted that the fact was that Sakyamuni
had never truly lived In the world of men, that during his
alleged stay on earth he was in reality dwelling In the Tusita



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 199

heaven, and that a mere phantom appeared to gods and men.
This doctrine, if we may believe the tradition, was already
current by 256 B.C., and was condemned by the Council which
was held in that year.

Whatever may have been the date of the rise of docetism in
the Buddhist community, the simple, human side of the "En-
lightened One " has entirely disappeared when we find the
Mahayana, or "Great Vehicle," system set forth in the litera-
ture, as in The Lotus of the Good Law (Saddharmapundarika)]
and we see instead a deity of singular greatness and power. This
Buddha came into being at the beginning, it may be presumed,
of the present age, but he can boast of having taught the true
law for endless millions of years. He possesses a body of de-
light (sambhoga), which has the famous thirty-two marks, in-
cluding the marvellous tongue, which now can reach forth to
the world of Brahma. This, however, is reserved for the vision
of beatified saints, and to men he shows only an artificial
body, which is a derivative, in far inferior nature, of the true
body. It was in this appearance that Sakyamuni appeared on
earth, entered Nirvana, and left relics of himself in a Stupa;
but in reality his real body dwelt and dwells in a celestial
sphere and will, when his true Nirvana shall come, be changed
into a divine Stupa (of which the earthly Stupa is but a reflex),
where the "Blessed One" will repose after having enjoyed the
pleasures of Instruction. Nevertheless, he will sometimes arise
at the desire of one of the other Buddhas, for the number of
Buddhas now increases to Infinity, just as space and time are
similarly extended. The oldest stage of the Buddhist canon
knew six earlier Buddhas, and they grew to twenty-four before
the Pali Canon was complete. In the Mahayana there Is no
end to the numbers, for the heaping up of huge figures is one
of the most conspicuous features of the school. Thus the
"Blessed One" can remember having honoured eight thou-
sand Buddhas named Diparhkara, five hundred called Padmot-

tara, eighteen thousand Maradhvajas, eighty thousand
VI — 14

[Prometheus]

200 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Kasyapas, and so on up to three hundred million Sakyamunis.
His seeming entrance upon Nirvana while yet on earth Is ex-
plained by the great eagerness of the god to benefit men and
is Illustrated by the example of the physician who, being anxious
to persuade his sons to take medicine which they would not
receive so long as they had him to look to for help, withdrew
himself from them, so that, thinking him lost to them, they
made use of the healing agency. The path of salvation, too,
is a very different one from the old conception of moral disci-
pline: it Is true that this is still a means of deliverance, but to
hear the preaching of the Buddha, to honour relics, to erect
Stupas, to set up statues of gems or marble or wood, to offer
flowers or fragrant essences, all these will bring the supreme
reward; nay, even the children who in play build StOpas In the
sand or scrawl figures of the Buddha on the wall, and those
who by accident utter the words, "Reverence to the Buddha,"
are equally fortunate. The parallelism with the legends of the
Purdnas Is clear and convincing, and renders it probable that
the Mahayana texts (at least as they are preserved to us) are
not to be dated earlier than the third or fourth centuries of the
Christian era, even though mention is made of Chinese trans-
lations of some of the important documents at surprisingly
early times.

SakyamunI Is not, however, the greatest figure of the Maha-
yana faith: a certain monk, Dharmakara by name, in ages long
passed addressed to the then reigning Buddha, Lokesvararaja,
an intimation of his determination In due course to become a
Buddha who should be the ruler of a world in which all were
to be free from any trace of suffering and should be saints.
It is through this resolve of Dharmakara that he now exists
as Amitayus or Amitabha ("With Infinite Life " or "With
Infinite Glory") in the SukhavatI heaven, contemporaneously
with the Buddha known as SakyamunI. The glories of this
heaven are described in the Sukhdvativyuha, which was trans-
lated Into Chinese between 148 and 170 a.d., and in the



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 201

Amitdyurdhydnasiltra, works which have had great influence
in China and Japan. The heaven is entirely flat, no mountains
being there; streams of water give lovely music, and trees of
beautiful gems abound. There is no hell, nor animal kingdom,
nor ghosts, nor demons; neither is there distinction between
men and gods, for all the beings in that land are of exceptional
perfection of mind and of body. Day and night are not, be-
cause there is no darkness to create the difference between the
two. Those who dwell in that happy realm are not born in
any natural manner, but are miraculously conceived in the
heart of lotuses, where they grow into maturity, nourished by
the echo of the teaching of the Buddha, until in course of time
they come forth when the fingers or the rays emanating from
the Buddha have brought the flowers to ripeness. Neverthe-
less, the heaven can be attained even by those who speak
Amita's name in blasphemy, so sacred is that utterance.

Another figure of high importance in this pantheon of Bud-
dhas is that of Avalokitesvara, to whose devotion is directed the
Kdrandavyuha, one version of which was translated into
Chinese by 270 a.d. We know also that this worship was a
real one by 400 a.d., for when the Chinese pilgrim Fa Hien
met with a storm on the journey from Ceylon to China, he
had recourse to Avalokitesvara, whose representations in art,
moreover, are dated in the fifth century a.d. He it is who has
decided to remain a "Buddha To Be," a Bodhisattva, until
such time as he has secured deliverance for all mankind. In
return for this he is the patron of those in shipwreck and of
those who are attacked by robbers; the sword of the execu-
tioner is arrested by calling on his name, fetters drop when he
is invoked, a woman who seeks a fair son or daughter need
only pray to him to secure her desire. He descends, into the
dreadful hell Avici to aid the sufferers there and converts it
into a place of joy; the appalling heat changes to agreeable
coolness; the kettle in which millions of the damned are boiling
becomes a lotus pond. In the world of the Pretas, which he



202 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

next visits, he comforts these hungry and thirsty hosts with
food and drink. In Ceylon he converts man-eating Raksasis;
and as the winged horse, Balaha, he rescues from disaster men
who have been shipwrecked and are troubled by evil demons;
while in Benares he preaches to those creatures who are em-
bodied as insects and worms. He ranks as the first minister of
Amitabha, for it is part of the Mahayana doctrine that each
Buddha has two Bodhisattvas as his attendants who visit the
hells, carry souls to paradise, and take care of the dying.
For some reason or other Avalokitesvara ranks high above
Maitreya (or Metteya), who is the only Bodhisattva rec-
ognized by the Buddha of the Hinayana canon. Curiously
enough, Chinese piety has converted this Bodhisattva into a
woman, a view which is contrary to both schools of Buddhism,
though the Mahayana acknowledges the Taras as feminine
deities of maternal tenderness, a point in which it shows agree-
ment with the j^^^i-worship of Saivism. After Avalokitesvara
the most important Bodhisattva is Manjusri, celebrated in
the Gandavyuha^ which was translated into Chinese between
317 and 420 A.D.

It is not surprising that from this mass of speculation and
religion should be evolved the conception of an Adibuddha,
that Is, a Buddha who should, in the fullest sense of the word,
be without beginning, and not merely (like the other Buddhas)
go back to an infinitely distant period In time. This figure was
probably developed as the view of some of the faithful by the
end of the fourth century a.d., for the Sutrdlamkdra of Asanga
refutes the idea, which at least suggests that it was a current
belief, and not merely a possible position, although It cannot
be said ever to have become orthodox or established.

The net result of the Mahayana tradition was to add to the
divine powers the Buddhas, raised to countless numbers, and
to swell the hosts of the deities by the Bodhisattvas in like
abundance, since not for a moment did either school abandon
belief in the ordinary gods. If we may trust the Hinayana



PLATE XXVII

AVALOKITESVARA

The Bodhisattva ("Buddha To Be") Avalokitesvara
bears the expression of calm and benevolence, which
is in conformity with his love for mankind. In his
left hand he bears a lotus, and his right hand is held
in the position which conventionally expresses favour
to suppliants. From a Nepalese jewelled figure of
copper gilt in the collection of Dr. Ananda K.
Coomaraswamy. After Coomaraswamy, Fisvakarma^
Plate XL



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 203

canon, the Buddha himself was completely satisfied of the
existence of the gods, both the higher, of whom Brahma and
Indra are by far the most active and prominent, and the lower,
such as the horde of Nagas, Garudas, Gandharvas, Kinnaras,
Mahoragas, Yaksas, Kumbhandas (a species of goblin), Asuras,
Raksasas, and so forth. The Pretas, the ghosts of the dead, oc-
cupy a somewhat prominent place in Buddhist imagination,
and the Yaksas also are frequently mentioned, though the
word itself is sometimes applied even to a god like Indra, or to
Sakyamuni, in the more ancient sense of a being deserving
worship, or at least a powerful spirit. To the surprise of Bud-
dhaghosa, the great commentator of the Pali Canon, the Buddha
himself recommended that due worship should be paid to
these spirits to secure their good will. The Nagas fall into
several classes, those of the air, of the waters, of the earth, of
the celestial regions, and of Mount Meru; they are conceived
as half human, half snake in form. The point of view of the
Hinayana is shown to perfection in the methods used to guard
the monks against the evil beings around them. Thus the
Atdndtiya Sutta portrays the deities of the four cardinal points
as coming to the Buddha with their retinues and as declaring
to him that among the divine spirits some are favourable to
the Buddha and some unfavourable, since he forbids murder
and other wickednesses, and that, therefore, the monks need
some protection from these beings. Accordingly they offer a
formula which all the faithful should learn by heart, and which,
enumerating the creatures in the various quarters, declares that
they join whole-heartedly in the cult of the Buddha, ending
with a list of the chiefs of the spirits who are to be Invoked if
any of their subjects Improperly attack the monks despite
the assurances of the formula. Similarly the Khandaparittd
prevents danger from snakes by declaring friendship for their
various tribes, and In the Mora Jdtaka an old solar charm Is
converted Into a Buddhist spell to secure safety from all evils.
It Is not unnatural that, when the Hinayana school Is so



204 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

closely associated with the ordinary religion of the day, the
Mahayana is still more open to such influences. The "Great
Vehicle" is especially fond of bringing some quasi-dW'mQ
figure into connexion with its Buddhas, the most striking of
these being Vajrapani ("the Thunderbolt-Handed") who aids
in converting the doubtful, drags such demons as Mara-
Namuci before the Buddha, and assists in deep grief at the
funeral of the "Blessed One." His thunderbolt brings him into
close relation with Indra, the troops who attend him are like
the Ganas of Siva, and he has affiliations with Kubera. For
the Mahayana he is a great Bodhisattva, but though he ranks
high among the future Buddhas, he is nothing more in origin
than a Yaksa by race and a Guhyaka by caste. Another in-
stance of the steady working of the Indian pantheon is the
fact that in this period Narayana becomes definitely identified
with the Buddha.

It is clear, nevertheless, that at first this adoption of closer
connexion with the ordinary deities had no substantial effect
upon the theology of the Mahayana school nor upon its prac-
tice, which was inspired with the conception of benevolence
which difi"erentiates it from the individualistic and less emo-
tional Hinayana, whose aim is personal attainment of Nirvana,
and whose ideal is the Buddha, not the Bodhisattva. But the
development of the worse side of the Pauranic religion had its
influence on the theology of the Mahayana, and apparently
from the sixth century a.d. onward the whole system began
to be seriously altered by the efi"ect of the Tantric doctrines.
At any rate, as early as the eighth century we find in Pad-
masambhava, the converter of Tibet, no orthodox Buddhist,
but a sorcerer who defeats the magicians of Tibet on their own
ground and who, when he has accomplished this task, changes
himself into a horse in order to convert the people of some other
land. Both the literature and the art reveal a vast horde of
terrible forms, largely female, such as Pisacis, Matangis,
Pulkasis (the last two named after debased castes), the Par-



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 205

nasabari (or "Savage Clad in Leaves "), the Jangull (or Snake-
Charmer), the "Maidens," the "Mothers," the "Sisters," the
four, six, eight, or even twenty-five Yoglnis, or "Sorceresses,"
and the naked Daklnis. Above these In rank are the five Taras,
who preside over the senses and the elements and are especially
suited for Incantations, and the gods He, Hum, and "He of
Seven Syllables," who are made to emerge from these syllables.
Naturally Siva and his wife, as Matangi or Candalika or some
one of her many other names, are present, and (what Is per-
haps more Important) the Bodhlsattvas are moulded Into the
likeness of Siva and associated, as he with his wife, with the
Taras as their female counterparts. The epithets of Siva are
freely transferred to the Bodhlsattvas: thus Avalokltesvara
is called "the Lord of the Dance," "the God of the Poison " or
"of the Blue Neck," "the Lord of the Worlds," and so forth.
A further development of this new theology prefixes to the
names the mystic word vajra ("thunderbolt") and places at the
head of the pantheon the Vajrasattva, who Is little else than
an Adibuddha, and then ranges below It the Vajrabodhisattvas,
down to the Vajrayoglnis and other demoniac beings. At
the same time the Tantric cult Is developed to the full with Its
devotion to wine and women, Its revolting ritual, and Its exalta-
tion of magic, which leads the teacher of this agreeable cult to
arrogate to himself the position of the Vajrasattva himself.

It is of course inevitable that the question should have pre-
sented Itself how far the growth of the system of the Mahayana
can be explained by Internal causes, and how far it owes its
development and its missionary force to outside elements.
With much ingenuity Dahlmann has sought to show that the
change In the spirit of the Mahayana as compared with the
Hinayana — its marked theism and its charity — is a reflex
of the Christian religion and that In Its success it really was
Indebted to elements which cannot be regarded as truly
Buddhistic. Yet if, as seems likely, there was from a very early
period a theistic element In the Buddhism of the time, it becomes



2o6 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

unnecessary to seek the thelstic stratum of the Mahayana
from an external source; and, as we have seen, the Pall Canon
already refers to Metteya as a "Buddha To Be." Nor Indeed,
unless we can accept the legend of St. Thomas as referring to
actual mission work In the north-west of India, Is there any
clear proof of Christian Influence there before the third cen-
tury. It would be idle to deny that the negative argument is not
complete, but, on the other hand, we must admit that there is
no conclusive ground to seek for any Christian modification to
explain the rise of the Mahayana. That in later times some
borrowing may have taken place is certainly possible: thus
in the late Mahayana texts we find the comparison of the
Buddha to a fisher, which is not Buddhistic, and the art
exhibits the Influence of the Madonna with the Christ, but
these facts do not affect the main body of the mythology.

It has, on the contrary, been contended that the legends of
the earlier Hlnayana school penetrated to the west and in-
fluenced In detail the Christian Gospels. As the claim Is put
forward by Its ablest expositors, it does not amount to more
than a belief that Buddhist legends had penetrated in some
shape to the east of the Mediterranean and were known In the
circles in which the Gospels of the Church were composed.
The best example adduced in support of this hypothesis is the
parallelism of the story of Simeon in the Gospel of Luke (II.
25-35) with the tale of Aslta, which is found as early as the
Sutta Nipdta and may, therefore, be presumed to be older than
the New Testament. In both cases the old man hears of the
birth of the child and worships it, but realizes that he must
die before the things which he foresees come to pass. There
is also a certain similarity In the account of the temptation of
the Buddha by Mara and that of the Christ by the devil. In
this Instance the evidence for the Buddhist story must be
pieced together from portions of the Tipitaka, and the analogy
is not very convincing. Other parallels which are alleged are
those of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 207

(Matthew xiv. 15-21, Mark vi. 35-44, Luke ix. 12-17) ^^^
Peter's walking on the sea (Matthew xiv. 25-33), but the Bud-
dhist source from which these stories are cited is only the in-
troduction to two legends in the Pali Jdtaka. That text is a
collection, as we now have it, of five hundred forty-seven stories
of the adventures of the present Buddha of the Hinayana in
previous births, and it is a mine of treasures, though for folk-
lore rather than for mythology. The verses which it contains
are of uncertain date, but the prose commentary and the in-
troductions are not, as they stand, older than the fifth century
A.D. It is matter of conjecture to what extent the prose repre-
sents the older tradition,^ and the occurrence of the legends
in question in the Jdtaka prose is of no value as proof of bor-
rowing on the part of the Gospels. Some scholars hold that
in the stories of the Jdtaka we must seek the originals of the
legends of Placidus (who is canonized as St. Eustathius), of
St. Christopher, and of the attempts of the devil to assail saints
under the guise of the Holy One; and it has also been suggested
that it is to Buddhism that we must look for the origin of the
Christian community of monks, for the requirement of celibacy,
the custom of the tonsure, the veneration of relics, the use of
church bells and of incense, and the actual plan of church build-
ing. The proofs of borrowing in these cases are still to seek,
and the essential fact remains that neither Buddhism nor
Christianity appears to have contributed essentially toward
the mythology or the religion of the other.

The Buddhism of Tibet is an offshoot of the Mahayana
school of Indian Buddhism, but it represents the faith of that
sect in a form of marked individuality. In all its types, despite
considerable differences of tenets among the several schools
which have appeared from time to time, the Buddhism of
Tibet is penetrated with Hinduism, especially Saivism, and by
the aboriginal worship of the land, which, though compelled
to assume a Buddhist garb, retains much of its primitive force
and nature.

[Prometheus]

2o8 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

To King Sron-btsan-sgam-po, In the period from 629 to
650 A.D., belongs the credit of Introducing Buddhism into
Tibet, for he sent T'on-mi Sambhota to India to collect books
and pictures pertaining to the Buddhist faith, being assisted
in his work by his two wives, one the daughter of the king of
Nepal and one the daughter of the Chinese emperor. He
transferred the seat of government from Yar-lun to Lha-sa,
and when he died at an advanced age, he took up his abode
with his spouses in a statue of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara,
which is still exhibited at Lha-sa. The legend is quite typical
of the fa^th, as is the story that both his wives were incarna-
tions of the goddess Tara, for the embodiment of the divinities
in human form Is a marked characteristic of Tibetan mythol-
ogy. These features appear fully developed In the account of
Padmasambhava, who in the eighth century a.d. gave the
Tibetans the decisive impulse to the Buddhist faith. He was
apparently a native of Udyana, which, like Kasmir, was the
home of magic arts, and he appears as par excellence a magician
who claimed to excel Gotama himself in this dubious accom-
plishment. The legendary account of his life makes him a spirit-
ual son of Amitabha, produced for the conversion of Tibet,
and he was born from a lotus as the son of the childless, blind
king IndrabhutI, whence his name, which means "Lotus-
Born." Educated as the heir of the monarch, he surpassed all
his equals in accomplishments and was married to a princess
of Ceylon; but a supernatural voice urged him to abandon
worldly things, and by killing some of his father's retainers,
whose past lives had earned them this punishment, he succeeded
in obtaining banishment from the kingdom. Daklnls and
JInns brought him the magic steed Balaha, on which he went
away. After resorting to meditation in cemeteries, and there
winning supernatural powers through the favour of Daklnis,
he travelled through all lands, and despite the fact that he was,
as a Buddha, already omniscient, he acquired each and every
science, astrology, alchemy, the Mahayana, the Hlnayana,



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 209

the Tantras, and all languages. He likewise converted the
princess Mandarava, the incarnation of a Dakinl, who there-
after accompanied him in all his wanderings, now in human
form with a cat's head, now in other shapes. Then he set
himself to the conversion of India and accomplished this by
promulgating in each part the doctrine corresponding to the
local faith, to which he gave an external coat of Buddhism.
At last, on the invitation of the king of Tibet, K'ri-sron-lde-
btsan, he proceeded there to contend with the demons who
hindered the spread of the faith in that land; and though Mara
himself sought to frustrate his success, the fiend was defeated,
and the evil powers were forced to yield, Padmasambhava's
victory being marked by the building of the monastery of
bSam-yas, thirty-five miles from Lha-sa, the oldest of Tibetan
monasteries. On the completion of his mission he departed on
the steed Balaha from the sorrowful king in order to carry the
doctrine to the land of the western demons, among whom he
still dwells and preaches his faith.

It is probably in large degree from the form of Buddhism
promulgated by this teacher that the magic part of modern
Buddhism in Tibet is derived, although the present faith rep-
resents a reform due to the monk Tson-k'a-pa, who was born
in 1355 A.D., and among whose pupils were the two heads of
the monasteries at rNam-rgyal-c'os-sde and bKra-shis-lhun-po
(Ta-shi-lhun-po), whose successors are known as the Dalai
and Tashi Lamas. These dignitaries, the first of whom has
always held the highest rank in the Tibetan hierarchy, are re-
puted to be incarnations of the Bodhisattva Padmapani and
the Buddha Amitabha respectively.^ On the death of the
temporary incarnation of the Bodhisattva the spirit of the
latter passes over to a child who must be born not less than
forty-nine days after the departure of the soul of the last
Lama, the identity of this child being decided by divination,
and the diviner being the Dharmapala of gNas-c'un (near
Lha-sa), who is regarded as an incarnation of the god Pe-har.



2IO INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

The child denoted by the oracle is taken with his parents to a
temple east of the capital; at the age of four he is brought to
Potala and made a novice, and at seven or eight becomes a
monk and the titular head of the two great monasteries of
Lha-sa. The control exercised by China over Tibet led for-
merly to the taking of steps to prevent any Dalai Lama reaching
maturity, doubtless in order to obviate the growth of a power
hostile to Chinese claims. The same doctrine of successive rein-
carnation applies to the Tashi Lama, and the tenet is widely
applied to other spiritual heads, especially among the Mongo-
lians.

Naturallyenough,theTibetanshave added to their mythology

not merely the priests of Tibetan Buddhism proper, but also
the masters of the Mahayana school, from which the Bud-
dhism of Tibet is ultimately derived. Thus the great masters of
the Mahayana, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Asanga, and Vasu-
bandhu, are all elevated to the rank of Bodhisattvas. Other
saints of later origin than these are included in the group of
eighteen Arhats and of eighty-four Mahasiddhas; while addi-
tional famous individuals include Dharmakirti, a contemporary
of the king in whose reign Buddhism was first brought into
Tibet, and Abhayakara, a sage of the ninth century born in
Bengal, who is said to have assumed the form of a Garuda
to rout an army of Turuskas and to have rescued a large num-
ber of believers from slaughter by an atheistic king, a huge
snake appearing above the head of the saint as he interceded
for the captives and terrifying the ruler into compliance with
his request.

In Tibet the Indian practice of placing oneself under the
protection of a special god is carried to the furthest extent, and
each monk adopts some divinity as his patron, either generally
or for some special period of life or for a definite undertaking.
Such gods make up the class of guardian deities, or Yi-dam,
and these are of various kinds. On the one hand there are the
Dhyanibuddhas, and on the other divinities who are manifesta-



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 211

tions of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas; both these classes are marked
out from other kinds of guardian deities in that they are regu-
larly represented in art as holding in their arms their saktis,
or energies in female form, this mode of presentation being
most characteristic of the influence of Saivism on the Bud-
dhism of Tibet.

It is also significant of the change in the faith that Gotama
plays a comparatively slight part in the religious life of Tibet.
A much more important place is taken by the five Dhyani-
buddhas, or "Meditative Buddhas," Vairocana, Aksobhya,
Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddha. They cor-
respond to the five Manusibuddhas of the present period,
Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kasyapa, Sakyamuni, and the
future Buddha, Maitreya. There are also five Dhyanibo-
dhisattvas, of whom the chief are Samantabhadra, the Bo-
dhisattva of Vairocana, and Vajrasattva, that of Aksobhya.
Of the Dhyanibuddhas the chief is Amitabha, whose paradise,
Sukhavati, is as famous in Tibet as in China and Japan; nor
is it Improbable that in the development of this deity, as In
that of the Dhyanibuddhas, Iranian influences may be seen,
since the Iranian Fravashis, or spiritual counterparts of
those born on earth, ^ have some affinity to the conception of
Dhyanibuddhas. Along with Amitabha, or Amitayus, which
is his name in his perfect, or sambhoga, form, we frequently find
representations of a Buddha called Bhaisajyaguru ("Master
of Healing "), whose effigies his worshippers use as fetishes, rub-
bing on them the portions of their persons affected by disease.

Of the forerunners of Gotama, the first, Dipamkara, and
the six immediately preceding, Vipasyin, Sikhin, Visvabhu,
Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, and Kasyapa, are often men-
tioned, although neither they nor Maitreya, the future Buddha,
play any considerable part in the mythology. Of Maitreya,
however, is related a legend with Iranian affinities. In the hill
Kukkutapada, near Gaya, lies the uncorrupted body of
Kasyapa, whether one of the pupils of Gotama or his prede-



212 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

cessor. When Maltreya has abandoned his home and made the
great renunciation expected of all Buddhas, he will proceed
to the place where Kasyapa lies, the hill will miraculously
open, Maitreya will take from his body the Buddha's dress,
and a wondrous fire will consume the corpse of the dead man
so that not a bone or ash shall remain over.^°

Much more prominent than Maitreya is the Dhyanibodhi-
sattva of Gotama, the spiritual son of Amitabha, Padma-
pani, or Avalokitesvara. In one of his forms this deity bears the
name Simhanada ("Lion's Roar"), and in this aspect he has the
half moon as his crest jewel, a sign of the Saivite origin of this
manifestation of the god. The old Buddhist legend of Sirh-
hanada is doubtless the source of the mediaeval story preserved
in the Physiologus, which tells how the lion by its roar vivifies
its lifeless young after their birth, a parable applied to the
Redeemer, who lies in the grave for three days until called to
life by the voice of His heavenly Father. Another Saivite
form of the god is that as Amoghapasa, and the same influence
appears in two other aspects of the deity as Natesa ("Lord
of the Dance") and Halahala, the name of the poison whence
Siva derives his name of Nilakantha, or "Blue Neck." In yet
another manifestation he appears with eleven heads, whose
origin is traced to the grief felt by the sage when, after his un-
wearying work for the freeing of creatures from ill, he found that
the hells were once more becoming full. Because of his sorrow
his head fell off, and from its fragments his spiritual father,
Amitabha, created ten heads, to which he added his own as
the eleventh.

Another Bodhisattva of high rank is Mafijusri, who is reputed
to have been a missionary of Buddhism in north China, and
into whose complex composition the record of a historic teacher
may perhaps have entered. He was born out of a lotus without
father or mother, and from his face a tortoise sprang. This and
other traits of the legends affecting him suggest that he has
been assimilated to the Hindu Brahma. While Avalokitesvara



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 213

is incarnated in the Dalai Lama, the Chinese Emperor was an
embodiment of Mafijusri, as were the envoy to India of Sron-
btsan-sgam-po and the king who patronized Padmasambhava.
His lakti is Sarasvati, just as she is the wife of Brahma, and
hence one of his forms is that of Dharmadhatuvaglsvara, while
he appears also as Maiijughosa and Sirhhanada. Like other
Bodhisattvas, however, he has also a fierce form, in which he
appears as a foe of the enemies of the faith under the names of
Vajrabhairava, Yamantaka, or Yamari, the last two names
(both meaning "Foe of Yama") celebrating his conquest over
Yama, the demon of death who was depopulating the land.
It is characteristic of him that in his effigies he bears a sword,
and this feature of his nature seems connected with his repute
as founder of the civilization of Nepal, where he is credited with
emptying the valley of water.

Vajrasattva or Vajrapani is a Bodhisattva whose title, "the
Bearer of the Thunderbolt," clearly denotes his origin from
Indra. In the later period of Tibetan Buddhism this god sup-
plants Samantabhadra as the representative of the Adibuddha,
a conception which, however, never became generally accepted,
even in Tibet. Vajrapani often forms one of the triad with
Padmapani and Manjusri, although Amitabha is frequently
substituted for Mafijusri. From Vajrasattva the Dhyani-
buddhas are supposed to emanate. On the other hand, there
is a terrible side to the character of the god. In his benevolent
aspect he serves as one of the Yi-dam, or guardian deities, but in
his dread form as one of the Dharmapalas, or "Protectors of
Religion," who are Hindu or local Tibetan gods brought into
the Buddhist system as protectors of the true faith against the
demons of their several spheres. The device is obviously an
ingenious one, and apparently the same principle of distin-
guishing the two sides of the divine character was generally
adopted. The Dharmapalas are represented as beings of fero-
cious aspect, with broad and hideous heads, protruding tongues,
huge teeth, and hair erect. Their limbs are enormously strong,



214 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

but short, and their bodies are misproportioned; they are sur-
rounded with flames or smoke, and on their forehead they bear
a third eye; their appearance is that of readiness to fight.

The hate of Vajrapani for the demons is explained by the
fact that at the churning of the ocean he was entrusted with
the duty of guarding the ambrosia, but being deceived by the
demons, he became their deadly foe. Like his prototype Indra,
he is a god of rain and in this capacity protects the Nagas,
who send rain, from the onslaught of the giant Garuda birds.
The legend tells that when the Nagas came to hear the preach-
ing of Gotama, Vajrapani was given the function of guarding
them, when thus engaged, from the attack of the Garudas.
Yet this special position does not prevent the close association
of Vajrapani and the Garudas, and in one form he appears
with the wings of a Garuda and the head of a Garuda above
his own.

Another Dharmapala, who is also a Yi-dam, is Acala ("Im-
movable"), whose main characteristic is the fact that in his
effigies he always bears a sword, while his wrathful temper is
reflected in his name of Mahakrodharaja ("Great-Wrath-
King"). Better known than he is Hayagrlva ("Horse-Neck"),
a god with a horse's head arising from his hair. He Is described
as generally friendly to men, but he terrifies the demons by
neighing and by the same means he announces his presence
when he is summoned by the appropriate spell. The Mongols
regard him as the protector of the horse, and his name and
character suggest that an animal origin Is not Improbable.

Hayagrlva ranks as the first of the eight dreadful gods united
by the Tibetans In the group of Drag-gshhed. The second in this
list is the war-god ICam-srih, whose Indian prototype Is pos-
sibly Karttikeya, the son of Siva, but who may also be a
purely Tibetan divinity. The third is Yama, the old deity of
death and punisher of sin. Now, however, he is of diminished
importance, for the pains of hell will not endure forever, and
in the end he will be freed from his task; while again he him-



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 215

self is one of the damned and, according to one legend, must
swallow molten metal every day. His sister YamI reappears
beside him, charged with the duty of taking away the clothes
of the dead. As of old, Yama bears the noose to grasp the
souls of the dead and he has retainers, two of whom are repre-
sented with the heads of a bull and a stag. Next to Yama
comes his enemy, Yamantaka, one form of Vajrabhalrava or
ManjusrI. He Is followed by the one female figure among the
dreadful gods, Devi, who rides on a mule over a sea of blood
which flows from the bodies of the demons which she slays.
She Is accompanied by two Daklnis, Slrhhavaktra and Makara-
vaktra, who have the heads of a Hon and a makara (a sort of
dolphin) respectively. Other Daklnis also appear with Slrh-
havaktra, two of whom have the heads of a tiger and a bear.

It is obvious that this goddess, though in part she approxi-
mates to the artistic type of SarasvatI, Is nothing but the dread
aspect of the wife of Siva, and appropriately enough two forms
of Siva are enumerated among the dreadful deities, the white
Mahakala and the six-armed protector. His essential char-
acteristic In Tibet is that of the guardian god and the giver of
inspiration, a feature which connects him closely with the
Indian legends attributing to him the patronage of grammar
and of learning generally. He is not only a Dharmapala, but
also a Yi-dam, and his form is likewise to be recognized In the
two Yi-dam Sambara and Hevajra.

The eighth of the dreadful gods Is a special white form of
Brahma or, more normally, Kubera or Valsravana, the god of
wealth. The latter, however, more commonly and more prop-
erly appears as one of the four Lokapalas, or "World-Guard-
ians." These four great kings are thought to dwell round
Mount Meru, ruling the demon hordes which live about that
mountain, the reputed centre of the Buddhist world. They are
VIrudhaka, lord of the Kumbhandas in the south; in the north
Kubera, lord of the Yaksas; In the west VIrupaksa, lord of the

Nagas; and in the east Dhrtarastra, lord of the Gandharvas.
VI — 15



2i6 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Apparently sometimes identified with this group is another
of local origin, five in number, one of whom serves as their
head and the other four as the Lokapalas. The chief of these
deities is reputed to be incarnate in the head of the monas-
tery of gNas-c'un, who is the giver of oracles and in especial of
the one which determines on whom the spirit of the dead
Grand Lama has descended. The incorporation of this remark-
able body of divinities into the Buddhist pantheon is ascribed,
doubtless rightly, to Padmasambhava, who undertook the
difficult but essential task of assimilating the local deities to
his teaching, following the model adopted at an earlier date by
Asanga in introducing the Saivite pantheon into the Bud-
dhism of the Mahayana school. Another of these local divinities
is Dam-can rDo-rje-legs, who seems to stand in close rela-
tion to the group of five gods.

Tibet has also borrowed directly from India its chief and its
minor deities in various forms. Thus from Indra are derived
not merely Vajrapani of the Mahayana as an attendant of
Gotama, but also the Bodhisattva Vajradhara, the Dhyani-
bodhisattva, the Yaksa Vajrapani, and even Indra eo nomine.
Brahma, again, is not merely reproduced in part in Maiijusri,
but enters the pantheon independently; Rudra appears beside
Mahakala; deities like Agni, Varuna, Vayu, and Vasundhara
("Earth"), which are closely connected with natural phe-
nomena, are often mentioned. More interesting than these
are the minor deities who possess a special affinity for Tibetan
imagination. The Nagas are very conspicuous: they have
human forms with snakes appearing above their heads, or are
figured as serpents or as dragons of the deep. They have castes
and kings and can send famine and epidemics among men.
Their enemies are the Garudas, beings with the heads and
wings of birds, but with human arms and stout, semi-human
bodies. Among the snakes the chief are Nanda, Upananda,
Sagara, Vasuki, Taksaka, Balavant, Anavatapta, Utpala,
Varuna, Elapattra, and Sankhapala.

[Prometheus]

BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 217

The Raksasas, Yaksas, and Ganas are presented in two as-
pects : In the one they are assimilated to the appearance of the
Dharmapalas, while in the other they are regarded as the vic-
tims of the dreadful gods, who destroy them and drink their
blood. The Vetalas, as in Hindu legend, serve in conjurations
in cemeteries.

The female element plays a great part in the mythology of
Tibet. In addition to the saktis, which are inseparable from
the great gods, there exist separate female deities, the Taras
and the Dakinls. The term Tara is rendered in Tibet as
" Saviour," and the Tara par excellence is the sakti of the Bodhi-
sattva of Avalokitesvara, which has two forms, the white and
the green. The two wives, the Chinese and the Nepalese
princesses, of King Sron-btsan-sgam-po are held to have been
incarnations of these two aspects of the Tara, and the dis-
tinction may be traced to the pale colour of the Chinese on the
one hand and the sydmd colour of the Hindu lady on the other, if
(as is possible) "green " is an erroneous version of that difficult
term. In her artistic form the Tara borrows much from the
goddess Sri, who has a prominent role in the iconography of
early Buddhism, but her main features are, like the other ele-
ments of Tibetan Buddhism, rather Saivite. Additional as-
pects of the Tara, who are regarded also as separate deities,
are Marici, Mahamayiiri, Mahajangulitara, Ekajata, Khadi-
ravanatara, and Bhrkuti, though the latter is much more prom-
inent as a separate goddess, who is represented in company
with the Tara and Avalokitesvara. Another very important
divinity is Usnisavijaya, whose ancient fame is attested by the
fact that a dhdrani, or spell, bearing her name Is among those
preserved in the old palm-leaf manuscripts of the Japanese
monastery at Horiuzi, where they have been kept since 609
A.D. Another favourite deity is Sitatapattra Aparajita, who
is distinguished by the possession of eight arms. Much more
savage is the goddess Parnasabari, who is also called Pukkasi,
Pisaci, and Gandharl; her dress of leaves and her names justify



2i8 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

her claim to be the lady of all the Sabaras, or wild aboriginal
tribes of India. Kurukulla ranks as the goddess of wealth and
is closely connected with Vaisravana; it was her help which
secured great wealth for the Dalai Lama who first held that
office. She is the wife of Kamadeva and is clearly nothing
else than the Hindu Rati, the goddess of sexual love.

The sakti of the Bodhisattva Mafijusri is Sarasvati or Vac,
who is represented, in accordance with her Indian prototype,
as a beautiful woman with but one face and two arms, playing
on an Indian vind, or lute. She has a great part In the Srlva-
jrahhairavatantra because she is the wife of ManjusrI in his
aspect as Vajrabhairava.

A less reputable group of female divinities Is composed of
the Dakinls, who are all held to be the wives of a deity Daka,
and whose Sanskrit name, of unknown meaning, is trans-
lated in Tibetan as "Wanderers in the Air." These goddesses
are multiform, but while they can confer supernatural powers on
their worshippers, they are also prone to wrath and must be
assiduously cultivated to win their regard. Those who seek
from them their lore must expect to find them in hideous human
or animal shapes. They form two groups, those who have al-
ready left this earth and those who still remain on it. To the
first belong Buddhadaklnl, Vajradakini, Padmadakini, Rat-
nadaklni, and Karmadakinl. The most important of all
Dakinls is Vajravarahl, incarnate in the priestess who is the
head of the monastery bSam-ldin; she is not permitted to sleep
at night, but is supposed to spend that time in meditation. A
legend tells that a Mongolian raider who, in 1716 a.d., sought
to enter the monastery in order to satisfy himself as to whether
the priestess bore the characteristic mark of the goddess whose
incarnation she was, found nothing within the walls but a
waste space in which a herd of swine wandered, feeding under
the leadership of a large sow. When the danger was over, the
swine changed their shape and once more became monks and
nuns under the control of their abbess, while the Mongol, con-



BUDDHIST MYTHOLOGY 219

verted from his misbelief, richly endowed the monastery. In
Nepal this goddess seems to count as a form of Bhavani, the
wife of Siva. Her representations are characterized by the
presence of the snout of a hog, and her incarnate form must
bear a mark having a similarity to this.

Other Dakinis figure as attendants upon Devi in her aspect
as one of the eight dreadful gods. In all likelihood many of
these Dakinis are local spirits of Tibet, though naturally enough
they do not differ materially from the similar spirits of Hindu
mythology.



CHAPTER VIII
THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS

WHATEVER be the relative antiquity of the Jain and the
Buddhist sects and the trustworthiness of the tradition
which makes the founder of the Jain faith, as we now have it, a
contemporary of the Buddha, and whether or not he merely
reformed and revised a rehgion already preached in substance
by his predecessor Parsvanatha, there can be no doubt that the
mythology of the Jains has a great similarity with that of the
Buddhists and that it also shows close relations to the ordinary
mythology of India, The question is rendered more complex
by the fact that the Jain scriptures of the older type, the Pur-
vas, are confessedly lost, that the sacred texts which we now
possess are of wholly uncertain date, and that even if the com-
paratively early date of the third century B.C. be admitted for
the substance of their contents, nevertheless it is certain that
the documents were not finally redacted until the time of
Devarddhigana in the middle of the fifth century a.d., up to
which period they were always subject to interpolation in
greater or lesser degree. In their present form the Jain beliefs
are schematized to an almost inconceivable extent, and their
mythology, which centres in the personalities of the twenty-four
Tirthakaras, is connected with their remarkable views on the
formation of the world and on the nature of time. Thus the
number of Tirthakaras, or perfected saints, is increased to seven
hundred and twenty by the ingenious device of creating ten
worlds or continents, in each of which are twenty-four Tirtha-
karas, and three ages for each. The worlds are all modelled on
the continent of Jambudvipa, which is the continent on which



PLATE XXVIII

TlRTHAKARA

The gigantic statues of the Jain Tlrthakaras
("Perfected Saints") are invariably represented with
an expression of superhuman calm. As becomes the
oldest Jain sect, the Digambara ("Sky-Clad," i. e.
naked), they are nude. The elongated ears are inter-
esting as recurring in images of the Buddha. From
a statue at Sravana Belgola, Mysore. After a photo-
graph in the Library of the India Office, London.



^j«m^^<^




PlCLIC LIBHART



ASTOT?. -.SN'OX AND

TiLCb;, rjL--r>DAXio.va



J



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS 221

we live, and are separated from It by impassable seas. It has two
parts, the Bharata and the Airavata, and the number ten is
made up by the divisions of Dhatakikhanda and Puskarardha,
each of which has the sections Airavata and Bharata, while
these are subdivided into east and west. In time again the
Jains delight, like the Mahayana Buddhist texts, in huge num-
bers: thus one year alone of the type described as "former"
(purva) embraces seven thousand five hundred and sixty
millions of normal years, a conception which has been com-
pared with the belief of advancing age that the earlier period
of life was the happier and the longer. To the Jain time is
endless and is pictured as a wheel with spokes, perhaps with
six originally corresponding to the six seasons, but at any
rate normally with twelve, divided into two sets of six, one
of which belongs to the avasarpini, or "descending," and
the other to the utsarpini, or "ascending." In the first of
these eras good things gradually give place to bad, while in
the latter the relation is reversed. Of these eras the fifth
"spoke," or ara, of the avasarpini is that in which we live.

The real gods of the Jains are the TIrthakaras of the pres-
ent avasarpini period, and the names of the whole twenty-four
are handed down with a multitude of detail. Yet the minutiae
are precisely the same for each, with changes of name and place,
and with variations in the colour assigned and the stature,
as well as in the designations of the attendant spirits, who are
a Yaksa and a Yaksini, of the Ganadhara, or leader of disciples,
and of the Arya, or first of the female converts. A minor altera-
tion here and there is quite remarkable: thus the twentieth
Tirthakara, Munisuvrata, and the twenty-second, Neminatha,
are said to have been of the Harivarhsa, and not, like all the
others, of the Iksvaku family. Nearly all the TIrthakaras ob-
tain consecration and saving knowledge at their native place,
though Rsabha is said to have become a Kevalin, that is, one
possessed of the highest knowledge, at Purimatala, Neminatha
at Girnar, and Mahavira (the last) on the Rjupalika River.



222 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Twenty of them attained final release on Sametasikhara, or
Mount Parsvanatha, in the west of Bengal, but Neminatha
enjoyed this bliss at Girnar, Vasupujya at Campapurl in north
Bengal, Mahavira at Pavapuri, and Rsabha himself at Asta-
pada, which is identified with the famous Satrumjaya in
Gujarat. B-sabha, Nemi, and Mahavira agree also in the fact
that they attain release when seated on the lotus-throne and
not, like the others, in the kdyotsarga posture, that of a man
standing with all his limbs immovable, by which he fortifies him-
self against any sin. The Tirthakaras all differ, however, in
two further respects: the mark or cognizance which apper-
tains to them and which appears sculptured on their images,
and the tree under which they are consecrated. Nevertheless,
for the most part the economical Jains adopt the sage device
of narrating precisely the same wonders attending their birth,
their determination to become devotees of the life of a Tirtha-
kara, the obtaining of release, and so forth, so that, as handed
down, the canonical texts consist of fragments which may be
expanded, as occasion requires, from notices of other persons
contained in them.

The life of the last Tirthakara, Mahavira, is characteristic
of all. At a time precisely defined, though we cannot abso-
lutely ascertain it, Mahavira descended from his divine place
and, assuming the shape of a lion, took the form of an embryo
in the womb of Devananda of the Jalandharayana Gotra,
wife of the Brahman Rsabhadatta of the Gotra of Kodala.
The "Venerable One" knew when he was to descend and that
he had descended, but not when he was descending, for the
time so occupied was infinitesimally small. The place of his
descent was Kundagrama, which is now Basukund near
Besarh. Indra, however, was dissatisfied with this descent, since
he reflected that it was improper for a Tirthakara to be born
in a poor Brahmanical family; and accordingly, with the full
knowledge of Mahavira, he reverently conveyed the embryo
from the womb of Devananda to that of Trisala of the Vasistha



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS 223

Gotra, wife of the Ksatrlya Siddhartha of the Kasyapa Gotra
and of the clan of the Jnatrs, and transferred the foetus in the
womb of Trisala to that of Devananda. In that night Trisala
beheld fourteen wonderful visions, and similarly the mother of
a Tirthakara always sees these dreams on the night in which
the Arhat enters her womb. She tells her husband, and sooth-
sayers predict the greatness of the child to be. When it is
born, the gods come in vast numbers, and the rites connected
with its nativity are performed with the utmost splendour,
out of all keeping with the real position of the father of Maha-
vira; while from the time of the conception of the child the
prosperity of the house is so augmented that the babe is given
the name Vardhamana ("He that Increases"). At the age of
thirty, with the permission of his elder brother Nandivardhana,
his father having died, Mahavira gave himself up to asceticism
and after a prolonged life of religious teaching, during which
he was for a period closely associated with the Ajlvika sect
under Gosala, he passed away. The gods descended at his
death as at his birth, and in the shape of a heap of ashes a
great comet appeared which has been rashly identified with
the horn-shaped comet that, according to Pliny, was seen at
the time of the battle of Salamis.

This narrative leaves no room for doubt that the Tirthakara
was deemed to be a divine being by his followers and, probably
enough, by himself as well. But what is to be made of the story
of the interchange of the embryos ? Professor H. Jacobi,Howhom
we are indebted for the eifort to make history from the legend
of Mahavira, sees in the account an endeavour to explain away
a fact which told against the advancement of Mahavira. In
his opinion Devananda never had any other husband than
Siddhartha, and the alleged Rsabhadatta is a mythical person.
In reality the boy was the child of Devananda, a Brahman
woman by origin, and the attempt to connect him with Tri-
sala was in order to obtain for him the powerful protection of
the noble relatives of Trisala, who was a Ksatriya lady. The



224 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

story would gain more ready credence since the parents of
Mahavira were dead before he revealed himself as a prophet,
but as the facts could not be wholly forgotten, the story of the
exchange of embryos was invented. Yet on the other hand,
as Jacobi himself notes, the exchange is an open borrowing
from the similar account of the birth of Krsna, and we must
recognize that it is idle to seek any such rational explanation
as that proposed. From whatever cause — most probably the
Krsna legend — it had become a doctrine of the school of the
Jains that the high nature of a Tirthakara required this transfer,
possibly to heighten the importance of the birth, and it is not
impossible that the belief was borrowed from the Ajivika sect,
who have been brought into connexion with the worship of
Narayana.2

The same close association with the Krsna sect is shown to
us by the biography of AristanemI (or Neminatha), the
twenty-second of the Tirthakaras, which is set forth at length
in the Jain Antagadadasdo. In connexion with it we learn of
the life and the death of Krsna, the son of Devaki, with (on the
whole) slight change, though of course the facts selected are only
a small number from the entire life of that hero. The interchange
of embryos is specially mentioned, and we hear of the futile
births of six children to Devaki who, as in the Purdnas, are
destroyed by Kamsa and whose death she mourns. As a result
of the Intervention of Krsna with Harinegamesi an eighth
child, Gaya Sukumala, is born, but his fate is somewhat un-
fortunate. His brother Krsna arranges for his marriage to
Soma, the daughter of the Brahman Somlla and his wife Soma-
slrl, but in the meantime the prince hears a discourse of Arista-
nemi and determines to abandon the worldly for the ascetic
life. In this desire he persists, despite every effort to hold him
back, and in the end Is allowed (as always in these tales) to
have his own will after he has enjoyed the royal state for only
a single day. Now he obtains the permission of the Arhat to
perform meditation in the graveyard of Mahakala for one



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS 225

night, and while thus engaged he is seen by Somila who, deem-
ing him to be devising evil, in anger slays him. Next day the
fact is made known to Krsna, while by a parable the sage shows
him that the dead man has really been profited greatly by
death; but the evil-doer is driven by the terrors of a guilty
conscience to come before Krsna and to fall dead in his pres-
ence. Some interest attaches likewise to the prediction of the
death of Krsna, for the Arhat tells him that when Dvaraka Is
burnt, he shall go with Rama and Baladeva to the southern
ocean to Pandumahura, to the Pandavas, where In the Kosamba
forest he will be wounded in the left foot by a sharp arrow which
Jarakumara will shoot from his bow. Pandumahura Is doubt-
less Madura of the south, where the Pandyas were kings, and
the text assumes the identity of the Pandavas and the Pand-
yas.' Moreover it makes Krsna have as a companion not merely
Baladeva, who is his comrade in the Purdnas, but also Rama,
who is not directly associated with Krsna in the ordinary
mythology. The close connexion of the Krsna mythology and
the Jain Is further Illustrated by the fact that In the same
period as the twenty-four TIrthakaras twelve Cakravartlns
are born, including the well-known Bharata, Sagara, Maghavan,
and Brahmadatta; nine Vasudevas, including Purusottama,
Purusasirhha, Laksmana, and Krsna; nine Baladevas, including
Ramacandra and Balarama; and nine anti-Vasudevas, in-
cluding Ravana and Jarasandha.

The story of the first Tirthakara, Rsabha, leads us to the
very beginning of the first ara of the avasarpini era. In those
days the land was level, men were good and extremely tall and
strong, and lived for long periods of time, receiving from wish-
trees whatever they needed. This was the yugaliii ("pair")
period, for sons and daughters were born as pairs and inter-
married, but there was no pressure on the means of subsistence,
and contentment reigned, a picture of society and life obviously
similar to that of the Uttara Kurus in the epic. As time went
on the people increased, and at length the Kulakaras, the first



226 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

lawgivers, appeared, the last of whom was Nabhi. To his wife
was born a son called Rsabha ("Bull, Hero"), because she
had dreamt of a lion. He it was who taught, for the benefit of
the people, the seventy-two sciences, of which writing is the
first, arithmetic the most Important, and the knowledge of
omens the last; the sixty-four accomplishments of women;
the hundred arts. Including such as those of the potter, black-
smith, painter, weaver, and barber; and the three occupa-
tions. To him tradition also attributes the discontinuance of
the yugalin system of intermarriage. In due course he bestowed
kingdoms on his sons and passed into the ascetic life.

[Prometheus]

Of the legends regarding Parsvanatha special interest at-
taches to one told to show why he has Dharanendra and Pad-
mavati as his attendants. Two brothers, Marubhuti and Kam-
atha, were born as enemies in eight incarnations, the last being
as Parsvanatha and Sambaradeva respectively. Once, while
felling a tree for his fire-rite, an unbeliever, despite the pro-
test of the Jina, cut to pieces two snakes in it, but these the
Jina brought to life by a special Incantation. When, therefore,
Sambaradeva attacked Parsvanatha with a great storm while
he was engaged in the kdyotsarga exercise and was standing
immovable and exposed to the weather, much as Mara assailed
the Buddha at Bodh Gaya, then the two snakes, who had been
born again in the Patala world as Dharanendra and Padma-
vatl, came to his aid from their infernal abode, Dharanendra
holding his folds over the Jina and the Yaksini spreading a
white umbrella over him to protect him. Thereafter they be-
came his Inseparable attendants, just as Sakra in Buddhist
legend accompanies the "Blessed One." Hence in the figures of
the Jina Parsvanatha In the Jain sculptures at Badami, Elura,
and elsewhere he is often represented with the folds of a snake
over him. Curiously enough, the Digambara Jains, who fol-
low the stricter rule of the sect advocating nudity and who have,
therefore, nude statues, assign to the seventh Tirthakara a
smaller set of snake hoods.



PLATE XXIX

DiLWARA Temple

The wealth of detail in sculpture is strikingly
shown in the white marble temple of Dilwara
(Delvada or Devalvada) on Mount Abu, Sirohi,
Rajputana. The temple was built in 1 03 2 A. D. in
honour of the first Jain Tirthakara, Rsabhadatta,
whose statue is seen in the niche. After a photograph
in the Public Library, Boston (copyright, H. C. White
Co., New York).



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS 227

Beside the real deities, the Tirthakaras, the ordinary divini-
ties are minutely and carefully subdivided into classes. In the
thirty-sixth chapter of the Uttarddhyayana Sutra they are enu-
merated as follows : there are four kinds, Bhaumeyikas (or Bha-
vanavasins), Vyantaras, Jyotiskas, and Vaimanikas. Of the
first category there are ten subdivisions, the Asura-, Naga-,
Vidyut-, Suparna-, Agni-, Dvlpa-, Udadhi-, Dik-, Vata-, and
Ghanika-Kumaras. Of the second class there are eight kinds:
Pisacas, Bhutas, Raksasas, Yaksas, Kinnaras, Kimpurusas,
Mahoragas, and Gandharvas. The moons, the suns, the
planets, the Naksatras, and the stars are the dwellings of the
Jyotiskas. The Vaimanika gods are of two kinds: those born
in the kalpas and those born above the kalpas. The former
category of divinities falls into twelve classes who live in the
kalpas after which they are named: Saudharma, Isana, Sanat-
kumara, Mahendra, Brahmaloka, Lantaka, Sukra (or Maha-
sukra), Sahasrara, Anata, Pranata, Araria, and Acyuta. The
gods born in the regions above the kalpas are again subdivided
into those who live in the " neck," or upper part, of the universe,
Graiveyakas, and the Anuttaras ("With None Higher"),
above whom there are no higher gods. The first group consists
of three sets of three, ascending from lowest to highest, and
the Anuttaras are classed as the Vijayas, the Vaijayantas, the
Jayantas, the Aparajitas, and the Sarvarthasiddhas. The
text proceeds to state the duration of the lives of these deities,
which in the case of the highest gods, those of the Sarvar-
thasiddha Vimana, increase to inconceivable numbers, but
still the divinities are subject to samsdra, or transmigration,
and cannot endure for ever.

Twelve yojanas above this Vimana is the place called Isat-
pragbhara, shaped like an umbrella, where go souls which are
finally perfected. It is four million five hundred thousand
yojanas long, as many broad, and rather more than thrice as
many in circumference, with a thickness of eight yojanas in
the middle, decreasing until at the ends it is only the size of



228 INDIAN MIT-HOLOGY

the wing of a fly. Above Isatpragbhara, which consists of
pure gold, is a place of unalloyed bliss, the Sila, which is
white like a conch-shell, and a yojana thence is the end of
the world. The perfected souls penetrate the sixth part of the
topmost krosa of the yojana and dwell there in freedom
from all transmigration. Individually each soul thus per-
fected has had a beginning but no end; collectively, how-
ever, there has not been even a beginning. They have no visible
form, they consist of life throughout, and have developed into
knowledge and faith.

On the other hand, the Jains provide for a series of hells
which lie below our earth, the Ratnaprabha, Sarkaraprabha,
Valukaprabha, Pahkaprabha, Dhumaprabha, Tamahprabha,
and Mahatamahprabha. With due precision it is specified that
in the lowest hell all the inmates have a stature of five hun-
dred poles, which decreases by half with each ascending step.

Apart from its truly remarkable schematism, the most won-
derful things about Jain mythology are the prominence which
it gives to the minor divinities whom it classes as Vyantaras
and who are described as wood-dwellers, and the importance
which it attaches to the sphere of thought corresponding to the
belief in fairies, kobolds, ghosts, spooks, and so forth. These
godlings are present in the Rgveda, though naturally they are
not salient there, and doubtless they have always been essen-
tial Items in the popular belief of India. Another notable figure
in the pantheon is the god Harinegamesi,'* who figures In the
Kalpa Sutra as the divine commander of the foot troops of
Indra and who is entrusted with the unmilitary duty of effect-
ing the transfer of the embryo of Mahavira, while in the
Antagadadasdo he appears as a god who has power to grant the
desire for children. In art he is represented with an antelope's
head, seemingly due to a false rendering of his name, which
Is Sanskritized from the original Prakrit as Harlnaigamaisin,
though he Is scarcely known to the Brahmanlcal books. An
additional deity who is practically — though not entirely —



THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE JAINS 229

confined to the Jain texts Is Nalakuvara, the son of Valsravana
or Kubera, who (In the Tibetan view at least) Is regarded as
a great general of the Yaksas. These latter beings play a con-
spicuous part, as in Buddhism, and a Yaksa and a Yaksini
form the attendants on every Tirthakara.

This close connexion with Brahmanical theology was charac-
teristic of the Jain attitude to the Brahmans. They allowed the
Brahmans to perform for them the ceremonies of birth, mar-
riage, and death, and used Brahmans In their temple worship.
In which Brahmanical deities are to be found side by side with
the saints of Jainism. Ultimately It Is clear that this close
contact with the Brahmans had its Inevitable effect In bringing
the mythology of the Jains Into closer association with that of
Brahmanism. The figure of the Jina begins to bear the ap-
pearance of the deity whom Jainism theoretically refuses to
recognize, though the Jina still remains bereft of the powers of
creation or destruction, of punishment or forgiveness of sins,
for the working of action is without exception and fully ex-
plains all existence. The Tamil poem Sinddmani, In the
twelfth or thirteenth century a.d., can already speak of a
god, uncreated and eternal, who can be represented with four
faces like Brahma, seated under an asoka-tree, and shaded by a
parasol. In theory, indeed, every man may become a Jina,
but there is a sensible difference between the actual conception
of a Jina and that of the potential alteration which may be pro-
duced by the full knowledge which gives the status of perfect
enlightenment. The thelstic conception which is so widely
developed In Buddhism thus attains, though In modest and
simple form, a foothold In Jainism and assimilates that faith
to the theism which constitutes the basis of Indian religion.



CHAPTER IX
THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM

THE religion of India as manifested to us in literary history
has been a constant process of the extension of the influence
of the Brahmanical creed over tribes, whether Aryan or (more
often) non-Aryan, who lay outside its first sphere of control.
Brahmanism has, on the whole, proved itself the most tolerant
and comprehensive of religions and has constantly known how
to absorb within its fold lower forms of faith. In doing so it
has received great assistance from the pantheistic philosophy
which has allowed many of its ablest supporters to look with
understanding and sympathy, or at least with tolerance, upon
practices which, save to a pantheist, would seem hopelessly
out of harmony with the Divine. Thus the doctrine of Devi
as the female side of Siva has enabled Brahmanism to accept
as part of its creed the wide-spread worship of Mother Earth,
which is no real component of the earlier Vedic faith ; the Vai§-
nava can regard as forms of Visnu even such unorthodox per-
sons as the Buddha himself. Of course, in thus incorporating
lower religions Brahmanism has done much to transform them
and has greatly affected the social practices of the tribes which
had become Hinduized, but it is still easy to find among these
peoples stages of the earliest forms of primitive religion, much
less developed than any type recorded for us in the Vedic texts.
In the result the pantheon of Hinduism is a strange and remark-
able thing: on the one hand, there are the great gods Visnu
and Siva with their attendants and assistants, who are in one
aspect regarded as nothing more than forms of the Absolute
and subjects of a refined philosophy, but who at the same time



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 231

are wide enough in character to cover deities of the most primi-
tive savagery. On the other hand, we have innumerable petty
deities (deotds), godHngs as contrasted with real gods, whose
close connexion with nature is obvious and who belong to a
very primitive stratum of religion. Many of these minor deities
represent the same physical facts as the great Vedic gods, but
the mythology of these divinities has perished, and folk-lore
makes a poor substitute.

During this period Vaisnavism passes through an important
period of deepening of the religious interest as a result of the
reforms of Ramanuja in the twelfth century and those of
Ramananda in the fourteenth, which emphasized the essence
of faith which had been a vital feature of the worship of Visnu,
but which now assumed a more marked character, perhaps
under Christian influence from the Syrian church in South
India. ^ The worship of Rama as the perfect hero has been finally
established by the Rdmcaritmdnas of Tulasi Das (1532-1623
A.D.) ; but, on the other hand, the cult of Krsna on its erotic side
has been developed by such sects as the Radha Vallabhis, who
have sometimes brought the worship into as little repute as
the excesses of the votaries of the saktis of Siva. The worship of
these saktis, the personifications of the female aspect of Siva's
nature, is the chief development of the Saivite cult, and it
forms the subject of the new literary species which comes into
prominence after the tenth century of the Christian era, the
Tantric text-books, of which the greater part are modern, but
which doubtless contain older material. The worship which
they seek to treat as philosophy is in itself made up of very
primitive rites, much of it seemingly at the best fertility magic,
but the philosophic guise into which these books seek to throw
it is not proved to be early. While the cult of Siva, as of Vis9u,
has continued to extend by the process of amalgamating with
itself the deities of ruder faiths, that of the sakti has grown
to such a degree as to place the god in the inferior position, the

Absolute now being conceived in the Tantras as essentially
VI — 16



232 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

feminine in character, a curious overthrowing of the older In-
dian religion, which, on the whole, gives very little worship to
the female deities. Brahma has of course disappeared more
and more from popular worship and at the present day has
but two shrines dedicated to him in the whole of India.

Of the celestial deities the sun, Surya or Suraj Narayan, still
has votaries and is worshipped at many famous sun temples.
The Emperor Akbar endeavoured to introduce a new character
into his cult, providing that he should be adored four times a
day, at morning, noon, evening, and midnight, but this exotic
worship naturally did not establish itself. There is a Saura
sect which has its headquarters in Oudh, while the Nimbarak
sect worships the sun in a nim-tree {Azidirachta indica) in
memory of the condescension of the luminary who, after the
time of setting, came down upon such a tree in order to afford
light for an ascetic to enjoy the meal to which he had been
invited, but which his rule of life forbade him to eat in the
night-time. In the villages of North India the villagers re-
frain from salt on Sundays and bow to the sun as they leave their
dwellings in the morning, while the more learned repeat the
famous Gayatri in his honour. In comparison with the sun
the moon has little worship, and that usually in connexion
with the sun. Yet it serves of course to suggest stories to ac-
count for the marks on its surface, which are generally ex-
plained as a hare and attributed to the punishment inflicted
on the moon for some sin; its different phases are used to guide
operations of agriculture; and there are many superstitions
regarding lucky and unlucky days. The demon Rahu, whose
function it is to eclipse the sun and moon, and Ketu, repre-
senting his tail, once turned into constellations, have fallen
on evil days : the latter is a demon of disease, and the former is
the divinity of two menial tribes in the eastern districts of the
North-Western Provinces, whose worship consists ina fire-offering
at which the priest walks through the fire, this ceremony being
clearly a device to secure abundance of sunlight and prosperity



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 233

for the crops. A further degradation reduces Rahu to the
ghost of a leader of the Dusadh tribe; while the Ghaslyas of
MIrzapur hold that the sun and moon once borrowed money
from a Dom but did not pay back, whence a Dom occasionally
devours these two heavenly bodies. Eclipses are, as every-
where, of bad omen and are counteracted by various ceremo-
nials, including the beating of brass pans by women to drive
Rahu from, his prey.

Of the minor luminaries of the sky popular religion knows
for purposes of worship practically only the Navagrahas ("the
Nine Seizers") : the sun and moon, Rahu and Ketu, regarded as
the ascending and descending nodes, and the five planets. The
other signs of the zodiac and the Naksatras have some astrologi-
cal interest, but are not objects of worship, though in Upper
India It is still the popular view that the stars are shepherded as
kine by the moon. The bright and picturesque figures of Usas
and the Asvlns have passed away without leaving a trace.

Indra still exists, but has ceased to be anything but a name,
a god who lives in a heaven of his own, surrounded by his
Apsarases as of old; no real worship is accorded to him. As a
rain-god he Is replaced In Benares by Dalbhyesvara, who must
be carefully arrayed to prevent disturbance of the seasons.
Prayer is no longer addressed to Indra to procure rain, which
is now obtained by many magic rites or by oiferlngs made to
the sun or to Devi, although here and there we find traces of
the old place of Indra as the god of rain par excellence. The
whirlwind and the hail once associated with the gods are now
produced by demons who are to be propitiated. Aerolites,
however, are still divine, and one which fell In 1880 at Sita-
marhi in Bengal is worshipped as Adbhut Nath ("Marvellous
Lord")-

Though the fire Is no longer the great deity that It was In the
early Vedic period, it is still produced in the old-fashioned way
from the fire-sticks by certain Brahmans, and Agnlhotri Brah-
mans are exceedingly careful to preserve the sacred flame. In



234 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

imitation of the Hindu fire-cult the Muhammadans of Gorakh-
pur have maintained for over a century a sacred fire un-
quenched, and its ashes are, like those of the fire of Indian
Yogis, believed to have magic qualities. Volcanic fire is also
revered, but the lightning is now attributed to demoniac
agency. The earth, however, has a fuller share of worship
than in the earlier faith: she is essentially "the Mother who
Supports " (Dharti Mai), and her sanctity is so great that the
dying are laid upon her, as are women at child-birth. The dust
of the earth has powerful curative properties. Hindu cooking-
vessels are regularly cleansed in this way, and in the crisis of
the engagement the Hindu troopers at the battle of Kampti
took dust from their grooms and cast it over their heads, thus
doubtless gaining courage from close contact with Mother
Earth. Among many tribes dust is also flung upon the dead.
The worship of the earth is very marked among the Dravidian
tribes and is beyond question most primitive in character.
' Of the rivers the most holy is Ganga Mai ("Mother Ganges ") ,
to whom temples have been raised all along the bank of the
stream. Her water is holy and is in great demand as a viaticum,
as pure for use in sacrifice, and as valuable for stringent oaths.
The full efficacy of the stream is, however, best obtained by
bathing in it during the full moon or at eclipses, and on these
occasions the ashes of the dead are brought from afar and
cast into the river. The Jumna is also sacred, but since, ac-
cording to modern legend, she is unmarried, she is not of the
highest sanctity, and so the water is heavy and indigestible.
The union of the two sacred streams is especially holy at the
modern Allahabad. The great rival of the Ganges is the
Narmada, which tore through the marble rocks at Jabalpur
in anger at the perfidy of her lover, the Son, who was beguiled
by another stream, the Johila. In the opinion of her supporters
the Narmada is superior to the Ganges, for both its banks are
equally efficacious for bathing, and not — as in the case of her
rival — only the northern shore. The Bhavisya Purdna, in-



PLATE XXX

Shrine of Bhumiya

The earth-deity of the aborigines is Bhumiya,
who is gradually being incorporated into the Hindu
pantheon. The shrine is of interest as showing the
humble character of the temples of the primitive
godlings, who are frequently represented merely by
rough stones and do not enjoy the honour of any
shrines whatever. After Crooke, The Popular Religion
and Folk-Lore of Northern India^ Plate facing i, 105.

[Prometheus]

n;>









THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 235

deed, is credited with the prophecy that after five thousand
years of the KaU age, i.e. in 1895 a.d., the sanctity of the
Ganges should depart and the Narmada take her place, but
this has not yet come to pass. Most other rivers are sacred in
some degree, but there are ill-omened streams. The Vaitarani,
located in Orissa, is the river which flows on the borders of the
realm of Yama and over whose horrible tide of blood the dead
must seek the aid of the cow. The Karamnasa, which for part
of its course traverses the Mirzapur district, is said to represent
the burden of the sins of the monarch Trisahku, which Vis-
vamitra sought to wash away with holy water from all the
streams, or an exudation from the body of that king as he hangs
head downward in the sky where Visvamitra placed him. Even
to touch it destroys the merit of good deeds,^ so that people of
low caste can make a living by ferrying more scrupulous persons
across it. Yet although rivers as a rule are benevolent deities,
many dangerous powers live in them, such as the Nagas (or
water-serpents) and ghosts of men or beasts drowned in their
waters. Whirlpools in particular are held to harbour dangerous
spirits who require to be appeased, and floods are believed to be
caused by demons who are elaborately propitiated. Boatmen
have a special deity called Raja Kidar, or in Bengal Kawaj or
BIr Badr, who is said to be the Muhammadan Kwaja Khidr *
and who has also the curious function of haunting the market in
the early morning and fixing the price of grain, which he pro-
tects from the evil eye.

Wells are sacred if any special feature marks them, such as is
the case with hotsprings, and waterfalls are naturally regarded
as holy, a famous cataract being where the Chandraprabha
descends from the plateau of the Vindhya to the Gangetic
valley. Lakes are at once more common and more renowned.

At Pokhar in Rajputana, where Brahma's shrine and temple
stand, there is a very sacred lake, which, according to tradi-
tion, was once inhabited by a dragon. Still more famous is
Manasarovara, which, formed from the mind of Brahma, is the



236 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

abode not only of him, but of Mahadeva and the gods, and
from which flow the Sutlej and the Sarju. The Nairn Tal Lake
is sacred to Devi. In Lake Taroba in the Chanda district of
the Central Provinces all necessary vessels used to rise out of
the water at the call of pilgrims, but since a greedy man took
them home, this boon has ceased to be granted. Other objects
of reverence are the tanks at certain sacred places, as at Amrit-
sar. Some tanks have healing power, and others contain buried
treasure.

Mountains are likewise the object of worship both by the
Aryanized and the Dravidian tribes. The Himalayan peak
Nanda Devi is identified with Parvati, the wife of Siva, and
the goddess of the Vindhya is worshipped under the style of
Maharani Vindhyesvarl and was once the patron divinity of
the Thags. The Kaimur and the Vindhya ranges are fabled
to be an offshoot from the Himalaya: they were composed of
rocks let fall by Rama's followers when they were returning
from the Himalaya with stones for the bridging of the way to
Lanka; but before they had reached their destination Rama
had succeeded in his aim and he therefore bade them drop their
burdens. Another famous hill is Govardhana, the peak up-
raised by Krsna for seven days to protect the herdsmen from
the storm of rain sent by Indra to punish them for withholding
his meed of sacrifice.

In addition to these deities, and more important than they
for popular religion, must be reckoned the village deities.
Of these a notable figure is Hanuman, whose rude image is
to be found in most Hindu villages of the respectable class. He
is adored by women in the hope of obtaining offspring and he
is the favourite deity of wrestlers. He is a very popular divin-
ity among the semi-Hinduized Dravidian races of the Vindhya
range and he bears his old name of " Son of the Wind." This,
coupled with the fact that in the Panjab appeal is made to him
to stop the whirlwind, suggests that the theory that he is con-
nected with the monsoon has a good deal of probability. What



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 237

is most extraordinary is that the apes in India are regarded as
sacred, and weddings of apes are still occasionally performed at
great cost as a religious service. Bhimasen, who has a certain
amount of popularity in the Central Provinces, has apparently
borrowed his name mainly from the Bhima of the epic, but the
Bhisma of the epic has a real worship as a guardian deity.

Another divinity of the village is Bhumiya, who is either mas-
culine or feminine, in the latter case having the name BhiJmiya
Rani. This is clearly the earth god or goddess in a local form,
and the nature of the worship is shown by the fact that rever-
ence is especially paid when a village site is consecrated, when
a marriage takes place or a child is born, or at the harvest. In
the Hills he is a deity of benevolent character and modest pre-
tensions, being quite satisfied with simple cereal offerings; but
in Patna he is being elevated into a form of Visnu, in the hills
he is becoming identified with the aspect of Svayambhuva wor-
shipped in Nepal, and in the plains a Mahadeva Bhumisvara
and his consort are being created, so that the figure of the
earth god or goddess is being taken up into the bosom of the
Vaisnava and Saiva systems.

Similarly the local god Bhairon is metamorphosed into
Bhairava, a form of Siva, but his epithet Svasva ("Whose
Horse is a Dog ") indicates his real character, for in Upper
India the favourite way of appeasing this deity is to feed a
black dog until surfeit. In Benares he figures as Bhaironnath
("Lord Bhairon") or Bhut Bhairon ("Ghost Bhairon") and
serves as guardian to the temples of Siva. In Bombay he is
Bhairoba or Kala Bhairava, in which aspect he is terrible.
Elsewhere, however, he is called "Child Bhairon" and Nanda
Bhairon, names which suggest a connexion with the Krsna
cycle of legends.

In close fellowship with Siva stands Ganesa, who is often
depicted in Saivite shrines, and whose elephant head con-
tinues to be the subject of conjecture and suggestion, while his
association with the rat seems to imply some humble origin



238 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

for this deity. The "Mothers," who appear as early as the
epic in company with Skanda, have a steadily increasing wor-
ship. Their number ranges from seven to sixteen, and their
names vary, but in Gujarat the total exceeds one hundred
and forty. Some of these "Mothers " are no more than disease-
demons, and some are angry spirits of the dead, whereas others
appear to have a more exalted origin. Thus Porii Mai of Nadiya
seems clearly to be the goddess of the jungle, and in the North-
Western Provinces the title Vanaspati Mai declares her to
be "the Mother of the Forest." Mata Januvi (or Janami) is a
goddess of birth, as her name implies, while BhQkhi Mata
("the Hunger Mother") is a personification of famine. The
Rajputs have a supreme "Mother Deity," Mama Devi, the
mother of the gods, who is presumably a representation of
Mother Earth. In the plains Maya, the mother of the Buddha,
is often accepted as a village deity, and even the famous Bud-
dhist poet Asvaghosa has thus received adoration; while in
similar fashion the Gond deity Gansam Deo has been meta-
morphosed, according to one theory, into Ghanasyama
("Black Like the Rain-Cloud "), an epithet of Krsna.

The belief in the tree-spirit which is found in the Rgveda
is prominent throughout the popular religion. The Maghs of
Bengal would fell trees only at the instigation of Europeans
and in their presence: on cutting down any large tree one of
the party used to place a sprig in the centre of the stump
when the tree fell as a propitiation to the spirit which had been
displaced, pleading at the same time the orders of the stran-
gers for the work. Another example of the same belief in the life
of the tree is the constant practice of the performance of mar-
riage ceremonies with trees for the most various purposes,
either, as often, to enable a man to marry a third wife without
incurring ill luck or to prevent a daughter from remaining
unwed beyond the normal time of marriage. In many places
people object to the collection of toddy from the palm-trees
because it necessitates cutting their necks. Folk-lore is full of



PLATE XXXI

Bhairon

Originally a village godling of the aborigines,
Bhairon has become identified with Bhairava (" the
Fearful "), one of the dread forms of Siva. His
animal is the dog. He is essentially a deity whose
function is to keep guard and thus to give protection.
Accordingly he is usually represented as armed with
club or sword, while his terrible aspect appears in
the bowl of blood which he carries. After Crooke,
The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India^
Plate facing ii, 218.



:^'^ NEW YmK



ASTOn. LKNOX AND



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 239

stories of tree-spirits, and there is no doubt that in many cases
trees have become closely connected with the souls of the
dead; groves of trees are often set aside and treated as sacred,
being a dwelling-place of the spirits of the wild when cultiva-
tion has limited their sphere. The pippala or asvattha {Ficus
religiosa) is said to be the abode of Brahma, Visnu, and Siva;
but the cotton-tree is the home of the local gods, who can more
effectively watch the affairs of the village since they are less
occupied than these great deities. The nlm-tret harbours the
demons of disease, but its leaves serve to drive away serpents.
The coco-nut is revered for its intoxicating qualities as well as
for its similarity to the human skull. The tulasi-plant, or
holy basil {Ocymum sanctum), has aromatic and healing proper-
ties, and in myth it figures as wedded to Visnu, by whose ordi-
nance its marriage to the infant Krsna in his image is still per-
formed. The bel {Aegle marmelos) is used to refresh the symbol
of Siva, and its fruit is fabled to be produced from the milk of
the goddess Sri. The paldsa {Butea frondosa), bamboo, sandal,
and many other trees are more or less sacred and are applied
to specific ceremonial uses or avoided as dangerous, just as in
the Brdhmanas we find many injunctions regarding the due
kinds of wood to be used for the sacred post, the fire-drill
(for which the hard khair, or mimosa [Acacia catechu], and the
pippala are still used), and the implements of sacrifice.

As in the Rgveda also, there is much worship of the work of
human hands. The pickaxe fetish of the Thags was wrought
with great care, consecrated, and tested on a coco-nut: if it
failed to split it at one blow, it was recognized that Devi
was unpropitious. Warriors revere their weapons, tanners their
hair-scrapers, carpenters their yard-measures, barbers their
razors, scribes their writing materials. So, in accordance with
Kfsna's advice to the herdsmen, in the Panjab farmers wor-
ship their oxen in August and their plough at the Dasahra festival,
and shepherds do reverence to their sheep at the full moon of
July. Among other implements the corn sieve or winnowing



240 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

basket, the broom used to sweep up the grain on the threshing-
floor or in cleaning the house, the plough, and the rice pounder
are all marked by distinct powers, as in many other lands.

Stones too are often worshipped, whether for their own sake
or for their connexion with some spirit or deity. The most
famous is the curiously perforated sdlagrdm, or ammonite,
found in the Gandak River and said to be Visnu's form as a
golden bee, for the god, when wandering in this shape, at-
tracted such a host of gods in the guise of bees that he assumed
the form of a rock, whereupon the gods made each a dwelling
in the stone. Visnu's footsteps are also revered at Gaya, and
those of his disciple, Ramanand, at Benares. A fetish stone in
each village represents the abode of the village deities; legends
are told of the stone statues of older gods and spirits found
in the great shrines, or of uncanny or weird-looking natural
rocks; while here and there even the tombs of modern English
dead receive some degree of worship.

As regards animal cults far more evidence of the characteristic
signs of totemism is available than in the Vedic period, but
these data are mainly to be found among the aboriginal tribes
which have been Hinduized. Thus many families are named
after the wolf, cat, rat, heron, parrot, tortoise, weevil,
frog, or other animal. Stories of animal descent are not rare,
as in the case of the royal family of Chota Nagpur, who use
as their seal a cobra with a human face under an expanded
hood, invested with the insignia of royalty. Some tribes refrain
from eating the animals which are their totems, though in
many cases they have different explanations of their refusal;
and other tribes observe exogamy as r-egards the totem of the
family, such as those of Berar, where the totems are trees and
plants. In Bombay the devak, or guardian deity, is held to be
the ancestor or head of the house: families with the same devak
do not intermarry; and if the devak is an animal, they do not
eat its flesh, though if it be a fruit-tree, the use of the fruit is
not generally forbidden. Similar reasons may underlie the non-



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 241

eating of various kinds of food by different tribes, and hence
the suggestion has been made that the avatars of Visnu and
the animals which are regarded as the vehicles of the gods
are traces of totemism grafted upon an original non-totemistic
cult, or even proofs of primitive totemism. Neither view, how-
ever, can be regarded as more than a speculation, the demon-
stration of which cannot be attempted with any prospect of
success in the absence of material bearing on early beliefs.

The Nagas, or " Snakes," are the reputed ancestors of a
people about whom much mythical history has been created,
but who were doubtless and still are a Himalayan tribe claiming
descent from Nagas. These snakes are often considered as
being controllers of the weather, especially of rain, and thus
they reveal, in part at least, an aerial origin: Karkotaka is their
king, but Sesnag, the old Sesa, is still worshipped, and there are
tales of Naga maidens as well as of Nagas. Vasuki survives as
Basuk Nag, and Taksaka Is still known. Serpents again are often
connected with the souls of the dead, especially the domestic
snake, which is the kindly guardian of the family and its goods
and which is naturally thought to be the spirit of an ancestor
returned to watch over the family fortunes. In the Panjab
dead men often become sinhas, or snake spirits, which must be
propitiated. Some snake-gods are legendary persons who per-
formed favours to serpents, like Giiga and Plpa in northern
India. Snakes are also, perhaps as embodying human spirits,
the great guardians of treasure, which in India is constantly
hidden and lost. On the other hand, much of the worship of
the serpent is doubtless due to fear of the uncanny and dan-
gerous beast, and in no small degree the ceremonials in its
honour partake of exorcisms. Inevitably Siva has grown to be
regarded as the sovereign of the snakes, and Devi is often
represented with the cobra.

Of other animals the tiger, as is natural from his ferocity,
comes into due honour, being worshipped in many parts of
India, though other tribes spare no eifort to kill him. He is



242 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

believed to be amenable to control by sorcerers; in Hoshanga-
bad the Bhomkas, who are priests of Bagh Deo ("the Tiger-
God"), can by offerings to the deity restrain the tigers from ap-
pearing for a certain period; and if a tiger is addressed as
"uncle," he will spare his victim. Men may easily turn into
tigers, who can be recognized by lacking a tail. The horse
and the ass both have worshippers, and the dog, curiously
enough, enjoys a good deal of reverence, both from wild tribes
(where it is the wild dog which is respected) and from those
which are more civilized. His connexion with death, his useful
characteristics, and his uncanny power of recognizing spirits
and barking at them are doubtless among the qualities which
give him fame. The Bedd Gelert legend, as told in India,
applies in its normal form to the ichneumon who slays the
cobra which would devour the child; in its application to the
dog it runs that it is mortgaged by a Banya or Banjara to a
merchant, that his goods are stolen, and that it recovers them.
The merchant dismisses it to its home with a paper round its
neck containing a release of the mortgage debt, but the owner
foolishly slays it in anger for failing in its duty. The bull and
the cow receive worship, the latter very widely, and the rule
against the slaying of a cow is in force in orthodox Hindu states
like Nepal to the present day. The wandering Banjara tribe
reveres the bull. Because of his wisdom the elephant is in-
separably associated with Ganesa, and men are also thought
to become elephants. The cat has demoniacal qualities; it is
the vehicle of the goddess Sasthi and is fed at dinner as part of
the orthodox Hindu rite. The rat is the vehicle of Ganesa, and
his sacredness leads to the difficulty of exterminating plague-
bearing rats. Among birds the peacock, the crow, the hoopoe,
and many others are occasionally revered. Alligators are quite
frequently worshipped in tanks, perhaps because of their dan-
gerous qualities, which prevent their destruction except in pur-
suance of a blood feud for the killing of a near relative. Fish
occasionally enjoy adoration, so that the Mundari Kols revere

[Prometheus]

THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 243

the eel and tortoise as totems. Even insects like the silk-worm
are sometimes treated as divine. Much of this adoration of
animals seems clearly to be accorded to them in their own right,
but in other cases the devotion may be no more than a trace of
the temporary entry of the corn spirit into the body of the
animal in question.

No distinction of principle separates the reverence paid to
animals from the worship of saints, and it is still less distinct
from the cult of holy men after their death. The Hindu saint
is often venerated at the spot where he lies interred, for his
sanctity is so great that it is not necessary that he should be
burned, as ordinary people are, while other holy men are buried
in the Ganges enclosed in coffins of stone. The worship takes
place at a shrine or tomb, which is generally occupied by a dis-
ciple (if not by an actual descendant) of the sage, and there
prayers are made and offerings are presented. The grounds for
according the honours due to a saint are many and various.
One holy man is actually said to have won his rank at Meerut
on the strength merely of a prophecy that a mill belonging to
a Mr. Smith would cease shortly to work. Many saints, how-
ever, won their rank by harder means than that. Harsu Panre,
the local god of Chayanpur, was, according to tradition, a
Brahman whose house and lands were confiscated by the local
Raja on the instigation of one of his queens, who was jealous
of his influence with the Raja and insinuated that the priest
proposed to oust the prince from his throne. In revenge the
Brahman performed dharnd, that is, he starved himself to death
at the palace gate in 1427 a.d., but only to arise as a brahm, or
malignant ghost of a Brahman, and he brought to ruin the
family of the Raja, save one daughter who had befriended him
in his misfortunes. He now exorcizes evil spirits who cause dis-
ease, but who cannot resist his Brahmanical power. There are
other such spirits, while Nahar Khan of Marwar is revered
because, in his duty to his chief, he was willing to sacrifice his
life for him in expiation for his prince's crime. Vyasa, the edi-



244 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

tor of the Mahdbhdrata, Valmiki, the author of the Rdmdyana,
Dattatreya, an authority on Yoga or an incarnation of Visnu,
Kalidasa, Tulasi Das, Vasistha, Narada Muni, and Tukaram
are among those whose divinity is due to their learning. The
Pandavas, the heroes of the Mahdbhdrata, receive honour, but
so does their teacher Drona, who was their rival in the actual
fighting. The Banjaras have a saint named Mitthu BhQkhiya,
whom they worship and whom they consult before committing
a crime. A famous Kol deity is Raja Lakhan, who is apparently
none other than the son of Raja Jaichand of Kanauj, a strange
hero for a Dravidian race. Bela, the sister of this prince, has
a temple at Belaun on the banks of the Ganges, though her
only claim to renown is that she was the object of the dissen-
sion of the Rajput princes which preceded the Mussulman in-
vasion. Many of the Muhammadans have holy men who seem
nothing more than Hindu saints thinly veneered. An important
class of women saints are the satis who have burnt themselves
with their husbands on the funeral pyre: offerings are paid to
the memorials erected to them, and they are credited with
saving power. The tombs of saints, moreover, are deemed to
work miracles, and a new holy man will not receive full ac-
ceptance until the account of his marvellous deeds has been
spread abroad and more or less generally admitted to be true.
The demons of modern India are many and varied, but it is
characteristic that the Asuras should show little of their former
greatness; while it is on a par with this that the Devas, their
old rivals, have sunk to the rank of mere cannibal demons who
would be a serious danger, were it not for their stupidity, which
renders them liable to being hoaxed with ease. There are, as
of old, Danos, who represent the Danavas, but they are no
more than the Birs, or heroes, who are malignant village de-
mons. The Daits bear the name of the old Daityas, but are
mere goblins who are fond of residing in trees. Far more im-
portant are the Raksasas, who have retained much of their
primitive character. They are tree-dwellers and cause indiges-



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 245

tion to those who wander into their domain at night. They
are the constant enemies of the gods, and from the blood shed
in these conflicts is derived the Lohia, or "Blood-Red River,"
and the red ferruginous clay which is occasionally observed in
the Hills. The Raksasas often take the form of old women with
long hair, but their malignity is much lessened by their stupid-
ity, which causes them to be easily fooled by those who fall
into their power. They are fond of eating corpses and travel
through the air, but are powerful only at night. Both they
and the Asuras pass for the builders of old temples and tanks.
There are also female Raksasas who take the form of lovely
women and lure young men to destruction. Many Raksasas
have a human origin: not only are the souls of some Muham-
madans supposed by the Hindus to become Raksasas, but there
are cases of Hindus whose cruelty in life has brought them
that fate after death. One of these is Visaladeva, king of
Ajmer, who, turned into a Raksasa as retribution for his op-
pression of his subjects, resumed in that form the kingly task
of devouring his subjects until one of his grandchildren was
patriotic enough to offer himself as a victim, when the Raksasa,
recognizing the victim, departed to the Jumna. A temple at
Ramtek in the Central Provinces is connected in popular tradi-
tion with the Raksasa Hemadpant, who is believed to have been
the minister of Mahadeva, the Yadava king of Devagiri in the
thirteenth century. The Pisaca, which is closely allied in earlier
literature with the Raksasa, is now often regarded as the evil
spirit produced by a man's vices, the ghost of a liar, adulterer,
madman, or criminal of any kind.

One class of evil beings of special importance in a country so
ridden by disease as India is the category of disease-demons.
The most noteworthy of all these is Sitala ("the Cool"), a
word euphemistically appHed to the divinity, since she is the
demon which brings smallpox. She has, of course, many forms :
thus at Kankhal near Hardwar she is reputed to be a Muham-
madan lady who took up her abode there on the bidding of



246 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

Badarlnath, who rewarded her for her piety, as evinced by her
desire to interest herself in the gods of Hinduism, by making
her the incarnation of SItala and the guardian goddess of chil-
dren. In another shrine in the Dehra Diin district she is a
SatI named Gandhari, the wife of Dhrtarastra, the father of the
Kauravas in the epic. Yet she does not stand alone, for ac-
cording to one version of the story there are seven "Mothers "
who represent and control diseases similar to smallpox. In-
evitably she is recognized as a form of Devi, and Mahakali,
Bhadrakall, and Durga, as well as Kali, appear as names of
the seven "Mothers." In Bengal escape from the ravages of
smallpox is the purpose of the worship of the goddess Sasthi
("Sixth "), apparently a personification of the spirit presiding
over the critical sixth day after the birth of a child. Sitala
again is one form of Matangi Sakti, a modification of the
power of Devi as the female side of Siva. This deity is of horri-
ble aspect, with projecting teeth, a hideous face with wide-open
mouth, and ears as large as a winnowing fan. She also carries
such a fan and a broom together with a pitcher and a sword.
In the Panjab the disease is directly attributed to Devi Mata,
who is honoured in order to secure the departure of the malady.
It is clear, however, that the disease is considered to be a mani-
festation of the entry of Devi into the child, and thus, owing
to the holiness produced by the inward presence of the deity,
the bodies of those who die are, like those of saintly persons,
buried, and not cremated.

Cholera has its female divinity. Marl Bhavani, but it is also
represented by a male deity, Hardaul Lala, in the region north
of the Jumna. According to the legend, he is the ghost of a
prince who was murdered in 1627 a.d. by his brother, Jhajhar
Singh; and at one time he was so important that in 1829 it is
said that the village headmen were incited to set up altars to
him in every village at Hoshangabad in order to preserve the
cultivators, who were apt to run away if their fears of epi-
demics were not calmed by the respect paid to local gods.



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 247

Cholera is also sacred to Devi, and In addition to prayers the
ceremony of the formal expulsion of the demon Is often per-
formed. Besides the deities of the great diseases, we find gods
of minor maladies, such as he of the itch, who is solemnly
propitiated.

Other evil beings are the ghosts of the dead, the hhuts, in so
far as they are malignant. Such a spirit is that of a man
who has died a violent death, whether by suicide, accident, or
capital punishment; and the malevolence of a ghost of this
type Is inevitably increased greatly if he has been denied due
funeral rites. Indeed, if a man otherwise free from sin dies
without offspring to perform the srdddha for him he is liable to
become a gaydl, or sonless ghost, especially dangerous to the
young sons of other people. Many Birs are men killed by ac-
cident, as by a fall from a tree, by a tiger, and so on. The
bhiits are particularly feared by women and children, and at
the time of marriage, and a woman who weds a second time
must take steps to propitiate the spirit of her first husband.
Bhuts never rest on the ground, which is inimical to them.
Hence their shrines are provided with a bamboo or other
place to allow them to descend upon it; whereas, on the other
hand, people anxious to avoid ill from bhiits He on the ground,
as do a bride and bridegroom, or a dying man at the moment
of dissolution. Three signs of the nature of a bhut are his lack
of shadow, his fear of burning turmeric, and his speaking with
a nasal accent. A person beset by them should invoke Kali,
Durga, and especially Siva, who is the lord of bhuts. The vam-
pire of Europe has a parallel In the vetdl, who enters corpses,
often being the spirit of a discontented man who chooses such
a home Instead of retaining his own body.

The pret Is in some degree allied to the bhut In that It often
denotes the ghost of a deformed or crippled person or one de-
fective in some member, or of a child which dies prematurely
owing to the omission of certain of the ceremonies prescribed
for Its good during its life as an embryo. In another sense,

VI — 17



248 INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

however, a pret is a spirit after death and before the accom-
plishment of the funeral rites. It wanders round its old home,
in size no larger than a man's thumb, until it is gradually raised
through the intermediate stage of a Pisaca to that of a "father."
One form of ghost with many European parallels is the
headless Diind, who is, according to one account, derived from
the wars of the great epic. He roves about at night and calls
to the householder, but it is dangerous to answer such a sum-
mons. When he visited Agra in 1882, much terror was caused,
and houses were shut at night. Other such demons are not
rare, and at Faizabad there is a road which country folk will
not travel at night, since on it marches the headless army of
Prince Sayyid Salar. In like manner Abu'1-Fadl tells of the
ghosts of the great slaughter at Panlpat, and in modern times
there are the ghosts of the hard-fought field of Chilianwala.
The spirits who haunt burning grounds are styled masdn
from the Sanskrit sma'sdna ("cemetery") and are dangerous
to children, whom they afflict with consumption. Among the
hhuts of the Hills is Airi, the ghost of a man killed in hunting,
who goes about with a pack of belled hounds and to meet whom
is death. The acheri are the ghosts of little girls, living on the
mountain-tops, but descending for revels at night. The
baghauts are the ghosts of men slain by tigers, for whom shrines
are erected on the spot of their sad end. Such spirits are
dangerous and require careful treatment. Still more perilous
is the churel. In origin the name seems to have denoted the
ghosts of some low caste people, whose spirits are always espe-
cially malignant, and whose bodies — like those of suicides in
England in former times — are buried face downward to hinder
the easy escape of the evil spirit. The modern acceptance of
the churel^ however, is that it is the ghost of a woman who dies
while pregnant or in child-birth or before the period of cere-
monial impurity has elapsed. Such a ghost may appear beau-
tiful, but it can be recognized by the fact that its feet are
turned round. She is apt to captivate handsome young men



THE MYTHOLOGY OF MODERN HINDUISM 249

and take them to her abode, where, If they eat the food she
offers, they fall under her power and will not be dismissed until
they are grey-haired old men. All sorts of spells are adopted to
prevent the ghost of a dead woman from becoming a chtirel
and to avert the spirits which threaten evil to children and to
mothers.

Ghosts are accustomed to haunt the deserts, where they can
be seen and heard at night. They also live In old dwellings,
whence the unwillingness In India to demolish ruinous- build-
ings, because the spirits which dwell there may be annoyed and
punish the man who destroys their home. Excavators In their
explorations have constantly found this difficulty In the way
of their work. Other places frequented by bhuts are the hearth
of the household, the roof of the house, cross-roads, and
boundaries; while empty houses and even flowers may be In-
fested by them.

The Hindu Idea of the dead remains quite unchanged. The
spirit of the departed Is still to be worshipped after death, and
It Is clearly believed that the ghost expects these offerings and
cannot be at peace without them. Nor Is there any reason to
doubt that the same view applies to the non-Aryan tribes,
whose worship differs (In so far as It does differ) In detail rather
than In principle. Thus the Dravldlan tribes are, as a rule, con-
vinced that the souls of the dead are mortal, or at any rate
that after a couple of generations there Is no need to trouble
about remote ancestors, so that worship can be restricted to
the later ones. The Gonds go the length of propitiating souls
for only a year, unless the deceased has been one of the Im-
portant people of the tribe. In which case a shrine will be erected
to his memory and annual offerings will be made. In contrast
In detail only Is the Hindu ritual proper with Its due care and
elaboration, which becomes more and more marked with the
passing of time. It Is Interesting to note that In practice
the last three ancestors of the offerer alone are taken Into
account In the performance of srdddhas, and that the modern



2SO INDIAN MYTHOLOGY

conception regards the oblations made during the first period
after death as being intended to create a body for the deceased,
which converts his spirit from a mere preta, or ghost, into a real
individual, capable of experiencing either the pleasures of
heaven or the pangs of hell. Heaven, however, is by no means
difficult of access to the man who believes in one of the secta-
rian divinities: the mere repetition of the name of the god at
the moment of death secures a favourable result, and similar
effects are predicated of the use of sacred water (especially that
of the Ganges) and of the employment of various plants at the
moment of death; while the same idea has led to the wide de-
velopment of the custom of casting the ashes of the dead into
the Ganges or some other holy river.