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AuthorTopic: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele  (Read 13098 times)

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #15 on: February 17, 2018, 11:49:40 PM »

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

a preliminary history of the Israelites wrapped up in
legends, or did they find it in existence in Canaan and
adopt it? In other words, were the tribes of Israel
originally a branch of the Northern Semites, or were
they a branch of the Southern Semites related to the
Ishmaelites, who only mingled with the Northern Semites
when settled in their new abode, and there became
acquainted with the civilisation brought by their kinsmen
from Mesopotamia? Before these questions are solved
by further inquiry, all that we can say with certainty of
the origin of the Israelites is that they belong to the
Semitic race, and I have therefore been purposely silent
on the subject in the text.

53.   This religion they did not abandon in their new
fatherland, although it was really sometimes in danger
of being supplanted. At first the Israelites, or those of
them, at least, who had settled on the west of the Jordan,
placed their national god Yahveh by the side of the
Canaanite deity of the country, whom they called briefly
“ the Baal,” and whom most of them, after they had
renounced their wandering shepherd-life and begun to
devote themselves to agriculture, worshipped together
with Ashera, the goddess of fertility, and other native
deities. As the god of the conquerors, however, Yahveh
was still commonly placed above the others. Even his
ardent worshippers, such as some of the judges, and
especially Samuel, only maintained his supremacy; and
such zealous champions of Yalivism as Saul and David
named their children after the Baal. Solomon, who erected
a splendid temple for Yahveh in his capital, saw no harm
in building sanctuaries for other gods as well, which was
regarded as a sin, indeed, by the later historians, but cer-
THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL.

87

tainly not by liis contemporaries. The Baal against
which the stern Elijah contended so vigorously in the
kingdom of Israel, was not the deity of the country; it
was the Phenician Baal, introduced by the wife of Aliab,
the Sidonian princess Jezebel. Elijah’s disciple Elisha,
and his follower Jehu, rooted out this foreign cultus with
violence, but did not interfere with that of the native
Ashera.

54.   In the meantime, largely through the instrumen-
tality, it would seem, of the prophetic schools, the stricter
Yahvism had quietly, and even imperceptibly to itself,
adopted a number of elements from the native religion, and
brought them into harmony with its spirit and require-
ments. This appears especially in the cosmogony, the
narratives of Paradise, of the Deluge, and others, the myth
of Samson, the legend of the patriarch Jacob-Israel—
particularly in that of his quarrel with his brother Esau,
who plays a similar part in Phenician mythology, and
is also named in the Assyrian inscriptions—and more of
the same kind. To the conception of Yahveli, also, as the
dreadful god of the desert, there were slowly added various
traits borrowed from that of the beneficent Baal, the god
of blessing and abundance. By this process the represen-
tation of Yahveh was gradually softened, without, how-
ever, losing its original character. There was now no
longer any reason for supplementing his worship with that
of the Canaanite god of agriculture; Yahveh was now
sufficiently like the latter to be able, even alone, to
satisfy the wants of the nation when it was civilised and
settled.
83

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

55.   This gradual modification of the conception of
deity paved the way for the reforming work of the
great prophets, who began in the eighth century before
Christ to insist on the exclusive worship of Yahveh.
To attain this end, they contended not only against the
cruel worship of the god of fire, called by the Israelites
briefly “ the Molek,” to whom in the Assyrian period,
following probably the example of their neighbours, they
sacrificed children and men, but also against the cultus
of the native Baal, and even against the purely national
worship dedicated to the sun, moon, and stars, to which
not a few of the Israelites had always remained faithful.
Some kings, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, devoted them-
selves to carrying out their doctrine; other princes, how-
ever, supported by the majority of the people, maintained
the old and the' new nature-gods. It was not till the
establishment of a priestly state by the small section of
the nation who returned to the fatherland after the cap-
tivity, that Yahveh was recognised as the only god, and
there was no further mention of any Baal or Molek.

Molek is the old Akkadian fire-god, who was blended
in Assyria partly with Anu, partly with Adar, and was
worshipped in the same fashion by Phenicians, Moa-
bites, Ammonites, and other kindred tribes. It is uncer-
tain whether the prominence which his worship acquired
in Israel after the ninth century, must be ascribed to
Assyrian influence or to local causes.

56.   The prophets, however, were not only the teachers of
tlieir people, but also the interpreters of whatever passed
in the inmost heart of the nation. The monotheism which
THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL.

89

was the last and ripest fruit of the preaching of the pro-
phets before the captivity, grew slowly, and remained,
besides, purely national. Out of the conception of Yah-
veli’s supremacy over the other gods of the country
sprang the idea of his sole lordship over Israel. Beyond
this idea the first prophets of the reformed Mosaism
made no great advance. Even the Book of Deuteronomy,
which is written entirely in their spirit, still assigns to
each people a deity of its own, while the Most High
retains Israel for himself. It is not till Jeremiah that
utterance is given to the thought that Yahveh is the
eternal God, besides whom there exists no other, and
in contrast with whom the other gods are nothing but
emptiness, and the Babylonian Isaiah, with more 'emphasis
and genius, develops the same conception. The pan-
theistic monotheism of the Aryans, which regards all
deities simply as names of the One, the All-embracing
and Infinite, remained unknown to them; and to the
universalist monotheism of the Gospel, which has entirely
broken down the bounds of nationality, not even the
noblest of them was able to rise. The great value of the
preaching of the prophets lies in its ethical character,
and in the pure and elevated representation which it
gave of their Yahveh. But even this conception of deity
is still one-sided, and their universalism continues par-
ticularist. What they opposed to the religions of other
nations was not a universal religion, but simply their
own national religion, and they expected that every one
would be converted to it, and would recognise the sole
supremacy of their national god. This expectation is the
highest expression of the theocratic belief which rules the
90

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

whole Semitic life, the conclusion to which the reflective
mind was necessarily impelled by progressive develop-
ment, when it had once adopted as its point of departure
the idea of the unlimited sovereignty of a God in contrast
with whom man is nothing more than a slave.

57.   This prophetic movement gave rise to a religious
sect, or nomistic religion, the foundations of which were
firmly laid before the captivity by the code prepared
under Josiah, and during the captivity and after it by
Ezekiel and the priestly legislation, and which was organ-
ised, chiefly by Ezra, as a priestly community. Out of
the Mosaism of the prophets grew Judaism. Superficially
considered, the period of Israelite religious history which
now ensued, appears an era not of progress but of ex-
clusion and petrifaction. In reality this is not the
case. The Jewish mind took into itself new elements,
which worked and fermented in silence till they produced
a nobler thought. Before the gaze of Israel opened
a world hitherto unknown.   It came into contact

?with the Indo-Germans, first with the Persians, then with
the Greeks, and lastly with the Romans. Pars ism at-
tracted them by its ethical tendency, though they could
make no terms with the dualism on which it rested, the
doctrine of two Creators, one good and one evil; it even
seems that the great prophet of the captivity denounced
it (Isa. xlv. 7). But the prominence and the large de-
velopment attained among them after the captivity
by the doctrine of good and evil angels, can only be
ascribed to Persian influence, and Persian representations
may be recognised no less clearly in their eschatology.
THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL.

9*

The Greek polytheism, which it was sought to force
upon them with violence, they resisted obstinately
and successfully, and the Eomans they hated. But
Greek humanism and Greek philosophy made their way
unobserved even among them, and the struggle with the
universal sovereignty of Eome caused their ancient ideal,
the kingdom of God, the universal sovereignty of the only
true God, to awake with new power. Out of the mutual
co-operation of these factors, the union of IsraeEte piety
with Persian morality, Greek humanism, and a universal-
ism vying with that of Eome—in other words, out of the
alliance of the Semitic with the Indo-Germanic mind—
arose the mighty universal religion which reconciles them
both, and has nowhere found so many adherents and
reached so high a development as among the Indo-Ger-
mardc nations of Europe.

On the debts of Judaism to Parsism, see Kuenen’s
Religion of Israel, vol. iii. pp. 1-44. A. Kohut, “ Ueber
die jiidische Angelologie und Damonologie in ihrer Ab-
bangigkeit vom Parsismus,” in Abhandl. fur die Kunde des
Morgenl., iv. 3. Id., “ Was hat die Talmud. Eschatologie
aus dem Parsismus aufgenommen 1 ” in the Zeitschr. der
Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch., xxi. vi. pp. 552-591.

D.   Isldm.

Literature. — Translations of the Qordn, by Wahl,
Halle, 1848; Sale, London, 1836; Kasimirski, with
introduction by Pautiiier, Paris, 1840 ; Ullmann, Cre-
feld, 1840; Rodwell, London, 2d ed. (chronologically
arranged, but very hypothetical). Some of these transla-
tions reproduced in Dutch by S. Keyzer, Haarlem, i860.
92

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

Cf. Til Noldeke, Geschichte des Qordns, Gottingen, i860.

G.   K. Niemann, De Kor&n, Eotterdam, 1864. G. Weil,
Muhamed der Prophet, sein Lehen und seine Lehre, 1843, an<l
Gesch. der Islam. Volker von Mohammed bis zur Zeit des Sul-
tans Selim, Stuttgart, 1866. Sir W. Muir, The Life
of Mahomet and History of Islam, 4 vols., London, 1858-
61. A. Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moham-
mad, 3 vols., Berlin, 1861-65. E. Dozy, Het Islamisme,
Haarlem, 1863, and De Israeliten te Mekka van Davids
tijd tot in de 5' eeuw onzer tijdrekening, ibid., 1864.

G. K. Niemann, Inleiding tot de hennis van den Islam,
Eotterdam, 1861. A. von Kremer, Geschichte der herrsch-
enden Ideen des Islams, Leipzig, 1868; Culturgeschicht-
liche Streifziige auf dem Gebiete des Islams, ibid., 1873;
and Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, 2 vols.
Vienna, 1875-77. On Islam in India, Garcin de Tassy,
L’Islamisme d’apres le Coran, &c., Paris, 1874.

58.   The purely Semitic universal religion is Islamism,
which first arose in Arabia six hundred years after Christ.
Some tribes had already abandoned their ancestral re-
ligion for Christianity in its Jewish or Ebionitish form,
and the Jews also had made a number of converts. But
neither the one nor the other religion had any great
attraction for the Arabs; the one was too exclusively
national, the other too dogmatic. Yet they imperceptibly
brought about a modification of the religious conceptions,
at least of the more advanced. There were poets before
Mohammed who already displayed a deep conviction of
the unity of God, and of man’s responsibility towards
him. A definite sect, even, had been formed, the Hanyf-
ites, who rejected both Judaism and Christianity, and
preached a very simple practical monotheistic doc-
THE RISE OF ISLAM.

93

trine, which they probably already designated Islam.
The ancient Fetishism was still kept up simply by habit,
and by the personal interest of tribes or families, but few
retained any belief in their idols. Even for those who
still remained faithful to the national gods, Allah was the
Sheikh of the spirits (Jinn), and these were his daughters;
nay, the worship of the fetishes was even justified by the
assertion that they were invoked only as mediators with
Allah. Meanwhile the chief god possessed neither tem-
ples nor priests; of the sacrifices he received the worst
part, and only in extraordinary circumstances did men
pass by the gods who stood nearer to man, in order to
seek a refuge with him. The seers (‘Arriif) and the
soothsaying priests (Kokin) had lost a great deal of their
credit, religion was in deep decline, and a number of
phenomena indicated that the need of a better was
awakened.

Judaism and Christianity had given currency to the
doctrines of one God, and of retribution, as well as to
the ideas of a revelation and the moral government of
the world.

The Hanyfites are commonly regarded as a sect which
arose under the influence of the above-named religions.
The name hanyf, “heretic,” “unbeliever,” may in that
case have been given to them by Christians and Jews,
because their belief was freer and also mingled with
heathen errors. This is the view of Sprenger, i. 67.
Dozy, in the Israeliten te Melclca, has defended the opinion
that the Hanyfites were a remnant of the Israelites, who
first made their way to Arabia in the time of David,
and subsequently after the destruction of Jerusalem by
Nebukadresar. Their doctrine, which they called Din
94

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

Ibrahim, would in that case be, not “ the belief of
Abraham,” but “ the belief of the Hebrews,” and the so-
called heathen traditions and usages at Mekka which
Mohammed adopted, would be originally derived from

the Israelites.

Islam, (nom. verb.) signifies “submission,” “surrender”
to God. The professors of the doctrine took the name of
Moslim (partic.), “ the believer,” “ one who is blindly
obedient to all God’s commands ” (Sprenger, i. 69 ; Dozy,
Islamisme, 26).

Jinn, derived by Sprenger, i. 221, from a root meaning
“to cover,” “to veil,” is erroneously explained by him as
the “darkening of the mind.” If the derivation is cor-
rect, the word must have been applied to the spirits, as
the hidden and invisible, or to the fetishes, as the out-
ward abodes of the spirits.

59.   To constitute Hanyfism into a religion, a fixed
doctrine, an organised worship, and a divine sanction
were needed. These were provided by Mohammed. Born
at Mekka in the year 571 A.D., of a family of distinction
though of no great power, he was left an orphan at an
early age, and was adopted by relatives. For a long time
he was obliged to seek his maintenance in a lowly calling,
till he became the third husband of a rich widow, Khadijali,
to whom he continued most closely attached till her
death. It was not till he had reached the age of forty
years that visions and ecstasies, the result of a sickly
system and protracted religious meditations in gloomy
solitude, brought him to the conviction that he was either
insane or a messenger of God. The latter thought gained
the victory. He felt himself called by God himself to be
the prophet of the strictest monotheism, and he hesitated
MOHAMMED.

95

not to obey tlie call. At first he found little belief out-
side the circle of his own family. Yet he had a power-
ful support in Iris wife, and in some friends of position.
Among these last the foremost place is due to the intel-
ligent and discerning Abu-bekr, and the courageous and
elastic Omar, two men without whom Islam could never
have triumphed. At Mekka, the preaching of Mohammed,
whatever were the temporal or the eternal penalties with
which he threatened the unbelievers, produced little other
effect than ridicule and insult against himself and the
persecution of his unprotected adherents. Twice were
his followers obliged to retreat to Abyssinia, and when he
recalled an utterance in favour of the ancient idolatry
which had been extorted from him, the exasperation
against him reached its height. He did not therefore
hesitate long to comply with the invitation of the most
vehement enemies of the people of Mekka, the inhabitants
of Medina, who swore fidelity to him, and he fled thither
with a number of his friends. This flight (the Hijra,
622-623 a.d.), is regarded by the Moslims as the first
triumph of their faith, and is the starting-point of their
chronology.

Offline PrometheusTopic starter

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #16 on: February 17, 2018, 11:50:38 PM »

60.   The favourable circumstances which surrounded
Mohammed at Medina operated unfavourably upon his
character. Beneath opposition and persecution he had
displayed the courage of his conviction, but when he had
once gained the mastery, the Prophet became an arbitrary
tyrant, who gave the rein freely to all his passions. His
vengefulness was felt by the Jews, who would not enrol
themselves among his followers, and by those who had
96

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

the misfortune to injure him. After the death of
Khadijali he began to keep a harem, to which he went
on adding new wives, among them even the lawful wife
of his adopted son. The scandal which such acts
caused even among the faithful, was allayed by revela-
tions received just as they were required, which can
hardly be ascribed simply to self-deception, and must
have been produced with intentional deceit. At Medina
Mohammed instituted public worship, but he appears
never to have lost sight of his great object, to make
Mekka, already the centre of the national religion, the
centre of his own religion. He preached the holy war,
which was, however, inspired quite as much by desire of
revenge and plunder, as by policy and fanaticism. After
fighting against the Mekkans with varying success, he
demanded permission to take part with his followers
in the pilgrimage to the Ka'ba, and his request was
granted under certain conditions. Not satisfied, however,
with this, he violates the armistice, advances in the year
630 with a very considerable army against his native
city, obtains possession of it by treachery, destroys the
idols in the Ka'ba, forces the worship there practised into
conformity with his own doctrine, and thus transforms
the city which had rejected him into the chief seat, and its
ancient temple into the principal sanctuary, of the true
faith. All the Arab tribes now submitted, at any rate
outwardly and simply out of fear, to Islftm, although the
general rising after the death of the Prophet proves how
superficial was their conversion. The idea of even uni-
versal dominion began to be entertained. Shortly after
the pilgrimage to Mekka, Mohammed had already sent
MOHAMMED.

97

letters to different princes, even to the Koman emperor and
the Persian king, demanding their submission; soon he
despatched small armies beyond the boundaries, sometimes
with considerable success, and he planned more and more
distant expeditions. But the end approached with swift
strides, and he felt that his task was finished. After a
few days’ illness, he collected all his strength to address
the faithful in the Mosque once more, returned home
exhausted, and died the same day, June 8th, 632, on the
breast of his favourite wife, Ayesha, daughter of Abu-
bekr, amid pious aspirations and in the firm hope of im-
mortality.

61.   The five pillars of Islam, of which the founda-
tions were laid in the teaching of Mohammed himself,
are as follows: (1) the acceptance of the two great
dogmas;   (2) prayer, regarded rather as an outward

religious action than as an impulse of the heart, all its
forms therefore being regulated with precision; (3) alms-
giving ; (4) fasting, kept strictly in the month of Kama-
dhan from sunrise to sunset; (5) the pilgrimage to
Mekka, which every free adult was bound to perform once
in his life. The first   of   the two   great dogmas is   the

doctrine of the unity   of   God, of   whose existence   the

Prophet continually adduced proofs, but of whose nature
he never attempted, or was not in a position, to form a
pure conception. The Qoran is marked by a strong
anthropomorphism, and well-attested traditions ascribe
to Mohammed the assertion that he had seen the deity
in human form. God   is   almighty   and all-knowing,   but

terrible in his wrath:   he   rewards   and punishes arbitra-
9S   RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

rily; he hardens the hearts of those whom he destines
to destruction; and every one, therefore, must tremble
before the fires of his hell. He requires men to sur-
render themselves to him with servile submission, yet
not even then are they always sure of his "grace. Such
a representation of, the deity naturally leads to the
doctrine of unconditional predestination, and this was,
accordingly, also taught by Mohammed ; but he was too
impulsive, and too little of a thinker, not to be untrue
to it sometimes. Moreover, the strictness of his mono-
theism did not prevent liim from admitting the jinns or
spirits into his system; but he transformed them, in imi-
tation of the Jews, into good and evil spirits, angels and
devils, the latter of whom, however, were, in his view,
capable of conversion.

Mohammed was very zealous in prayer and fasting,
and spent whole nights in prayer with his disciples.
Great value was ascribed to the invocation of the name
of God (dzikr), not only mentally but aloud. All the
ceremonies to be observed in connection with prayer, the
lustrations, gestures, and genuflections, were arranged by
the Prophet himself. Much value attached to their
public performance. This duty was observed by ‘Omar
even in the days of the persecution. Sprenger, i. pp.
318, sqq., 324, sqq.; comp. ii. p. 132.

The god of Mohammed stands no higher than the
common Semitic ideal of morality. He is an arbitrary,
vengeful, bloodthirsty tyrant, whose sombre traits are
only rarely relieved by one of the brighter touches by
which the Jewish prophets succeeded in throwing a kindly
glow over the image of their Yahveh. Mohammed did
not shrink from speaking even of Allah’s cunning. In
islAm.

99

tlie Qoran, sur. 8, 30, lie is called the craftiest of the
forgers of devices, who, by his own wiles, puts to shame
those of unbelievers.

For the chief of the evil spirits, Mohammed even pre-
served the Hebrew name Satan, as well as the Christian
name Iblis (Dialolos).

62.   With this gloomy conception of deity corresponds
the view taken by Islam of the world. The Qoran gives
very frequent utterance to the idea that our earthly life
has little value, and is but a passing game, while old
traditions ascribe to Mohammed sayings in which the
world is compared with all kinds of worthless objects.
The door was thus opened for the severe asceticism in
which the Moslims were soon to rival Christians and
Buddhists. The misery of this world was only surpassed
by the unspeakable pains of hell, which were depicted
with the blackest colours. But with joyous expectation
men might look to heaven, where in beautiful gardens,
clothed with splendid garments, and surrounded by black-
eyed girls, the blessed would drink the precious unintoxi-
cating wine of paradise. The union of gloomy contempt
for the world with luxurious sensuality is a characteristic
of all Semitic religions, to which only Mosaic prophetism
offers a favourable exception.

According to tradition, Mohammed compared the world
to a sheep cast away by its owner, nay, even to a dung-
heap with rotting bones. For unbelievers only is it a
paradise.

While his doctrine looked for joy to the future only,
the Prophet, with questionable consistency, contrived to
secure here on earth a foretaste of the sensual bliss of
IOO

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

heaven, a proceeding in which many believers have
zealously imitated him.

63.   Besides his faith in the unity of God, the Moslim
must believe in the divine mission of Mohammed. This
is the second main dogma. God has made known his
will by thousands of prophets, one after another, of whom
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are the most
eminent, while Mohammed is the last and greatest. God
revealed himself in different ways; to Mohammed, how-
ever, for the most part through the angel Gabriel. The
violent attacks of his chronic disease were regarded by
him as divine inspirations, but not till his return to con-
sciousness did he give utterance to any words. At first
lie undoubtedly believed with complete sincerity iu the
reality of these relations; afterwards, however, in the
days of his power, they often came just at the right
moment to justify him, to remove some scandal, or enable
him to attain some definite end. Frequently they con-
flicted with each other, and the later were employed to
modify or revoke the earlier. The conception was entirely
mechanical. But they were always blindly believed and
obeyed by his followers. Becorded in part during his
life, and in part preserved by memory, they were not
collected until after his death. This collection, fixed once
for all, bears the name of Qoran, and is regarded by the
orthodox as the uncreated word of God, though they also
attach great authority to tradition (Sonna).

The modes of revelation also included dreams, such as
that of Mohammed’s journey to Jerusalem by night, and
of his ascension to heaven. The symptoms of liis disease
islAm.

iox

have led many to regard it as. epilepsy, but Sprenger con-
siders it to have been hysteria muscularis. The angel
Gabriel is a product of his imagination, not an unknown
impostor, as Weil supposes. The form in which the
Prophet himself cast his revelations was a rhymed prose,
without any poetic value, but not free from rhetorical
bombast.

When his numerous harem and his marriage with the
wife of his adopted son gave general offence, he imme-
diately provided divine revelations to justify himself.
When severe vigils, enjoined by God, exhausted him too
seriously, came a new command, kept secret all that while
by God, to mitigate the old order; and when Mohammed,
after having refrained from contending against the idols,
began to oppose them with great energy, it was said that
God had not desired him to do so until then.

The revelations were called Qordn (to “ read,” to
“explain”), or Sdra (“line of a book,” “chapter”).
After they were collected, the first name became .the
title of the whole, 'while the second was used to designate
particular revelations. Both words axe of Hebrew origin.
The first collection was made by Mohammed’s secretary,
Zaid ibn Thabit, by order of Abu-bekr and ‘Omar, and
for their use. The second proceeded afterwards from the
same hand, in conjunction with some others. All the
texts not inserted in it were then destroyed.

64.   The religion founded by Mohammed is exclusively
Semitic, for in doctrine and organisation it is purely
theocratic. God is the sole, absolute, and arbitrary
sovereign, standing in an attitude of hostility against the
world, revealing himself mechanically by his prophets, and
especially by the last of them, to whose words and com-
102

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

mands all must blindly submit. Mohammed himself, also,
was both in his virtues and his vices a genuine Semite.
His teaching contained nothing original; the whole of his
preaching had been already put forth before him, and was
adopted by him from Judaism, from Eastern Christianity,
and from Hanyfism, and at first he even designated
himself a Hanyf. Even the idea of his prophetic calling
he borrowed from the Jews.   His visions were the result

of his sickly condition. His preaching was not, however,
merely an imitation of others, but the result of the over-
powering impression which the religion of the Jews and
their spiritual kindred made upon his mind, and which
impelled him to oppose the worship of idols, and proclaim
monotheism. He believed in his calling, accepted it
from conviction, and on account of it for a long time
courageously bore ridicule and abuse.

Before Mohammed, his older contemporary Zaid ibn
‘Amr, a Hanyf, had vigorously opposed the idolatry of
the Mekkans. Mohammed was acquainted with him,
and was certainly much indebted to him. See Dozy,
Id., p. 14; Sprenger, i. p. 119, sqq. Another view is
taken by Noldeke, Geseh. des Qor., p. 14. The influence
also of the Christians upon the Prophet must have been
considerable (Sprenger, ii. p. 180, sqq.) Waraka, the
nephew of Khadijah, was a Christian, and was even
canonised by Mohammed (Sprenger, i. p. 124, sqq.)

65.   The history of the subsequent development of
Islamism lies beyond our compass. It must, however, be
observed that the death of the Prophet was followed
immediately by a great defection through the whole of
Arabia, which was only suppressed by violence, and that
islAm.

103

the mastery soon came into the hands of the party 'which
had the most vehemently opposed Mohammed during his
lifetime. In its doctrines, especially in its conception
of God, and above all in its moral value, IsMm is far
inferior not only to Christianity, hut also to Mosaism and
to Judaism. But over the degraded forms of these
religions, which prevailed in Arabia and other Eastern
countries, it deserves the preference. The elements
which qualified it, in distinction from Judaism, to become
a universal religion, lay, first of all, in its freedom from
the bonds of a particular nationality, and next, in the
ease with which it could be summed up in two simple
doctrines. What Buddhism possessed in the doctrine of
Nirvana, and Christianity in the preaching of love, Islam .
found in the formula—“ There is no God but God, and
Mohammed is his prophet.” Its triumph in Arabia was
due to political considerations, and to the absence of any-
thing better to occupy the field. The way for its diffusion
beyond was paved by arms, and the pecuniary and civil
privileges conferred on believers among vanquished
peoples, secured for it a multitude of adherents. True
and zealous followers it found only among nations of
imperfect development, such as the superficial Christians
of Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, among the Berbers,
Negroes, Malays, and Turks. In Persia and India it only
conquered by force. The Persians were always regarded
as heretics, and the Mohammedan are, for the most part,
distinguished from the Brahmanical Hindus only by a
few forms. Founded among a people which developed
late, it is the youngest and also the lowest of the universal
religions. Only for a short time, under the stimulus of
ro4

RELIGION AMONG THE SEMITES.

favouring circumstances, and in conflict with its own
principles, did it call forth a higher civilisation. When
carried out with due strictness it brings all civilisation to
nothing.

Monotheism in itself, when the one God does not
combine everything that is divine, and the conception of
deity is one-sided and limited, by no means possesses
the great value commonly ascribed to it.

As a universal religion, Islam did not grow out of the
Arabian polydsemonism, but, like Christianity and Bud-
dhism, out of a nomistic religion.
( IOJ )

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #17 on: February 17, 2018, 11:51:43 PM »

CHAPTER IV.

RELIGION AMONG THE INDO-GERMANS, EXCLUD-
ING THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.

I.

THE ANCIENT INDO-GERMAN RELIGION AND THE ARYAN
RELIGION PROPER.

Literature.—Lieut.-Col. Vans Kennedy, Researches into
the Nature and Affinity of Ancient Hindu Mythology,
London, 1831. R. Roth, “Die liochsten Gotter der
Arischen Vtilker,” in Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgeidand.
Gesellsch., vi., 1852, p. 67, sqq. A. Pictet, Les Origines
Indo-Europdennes, ou les Aryas Primitifs, 2 vols., Paris,
1839-63, now antiquated in some parts. M. Muller,
Lectures on the Science of Language, 2 vols., especially lects.
viii.-xii. of the second vol., London, 6th ed., 1873. G.
V. Cox, The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, 2 vols.,
London, 1870. A. de Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology,
or the Legends of Animals, 2 vols., London, 1872. A.
Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gotter-tranks,
Berlin, 1859. L. Myriantheus, Die Aqvins oder die
Arischen Dioskuren, Munich, 1876. G. Schoebel, Re-
citer dies sur la Religion premihre de la Race Indo-Iranienne,
Paris, 1872; and K; M. BANERJEA, The Aryan Witness,
or the Testimony of Aryan Scriptures in corroboration of . . .
Christian Doctrine, Calcutta, 1873, both written under the
influence of a theological system, and largely hypothetical.
io6 RELIGION AMONG THE INDO-GERMANS.

P. Asmus, Die Indo-Germanische Religion in den Hanpt-
punkten ihrer Erdwickelnng, vol. i. Halle, 1875, vol. ii.
(part 1st), 1877.

66.   Comparative mythology has proved that all
Indo-Germans, or Aryans in the broadest sense, including
the Indians, Persians, Wends or Letto-Slavs, Germans,
Greeks, Komans, and Kelts, once possessed not only the
same language, but also the same religion. This religion
cannot have differed much in character from the Indo-
Germanie religions known to us from historic times. It
is certain that they named their gods “ the heavenly,”
or the “ shining ones,” (deva, deus, tivar), a name which
was preserved among the Indians, Romans, Scandinavians,
and Letto-Slavs, and probably also among the Greeks (0eos),
being replaced among the remaining races by other desig-
nations, and employed by the Persians in an unfavourable
sense. Their principal god, or, at any rate, the object of
their highest worship, was the heaven-father (Dyaus-pitar,
Zevf iraTrip, Jupiter). Among the Greeks and Romans
he was maintained in his supremacy; among the Indians
he was, to some extent, supplanted by other deities, though
even among them he always remained the father of the
highest gods; but among the Germans (Zio, Tyr) he was
entirely changed in character. By his side was then
worshipped another heaven god (Vanina, Ouranos), perhaps
a deity of the nightly sky, and probably of higher rank, of
whom the Greeks retained only a faint recollection, though
the Indians continued at first to stand in great awe of him.
In the tempests and thunderstorms they saw, as the
correspondence of myths proves, the contest of the gods
of light against the powers of darkness, and they already
ITS EARLY FORM.

107

recognised and worshipped a fire-god, the friend of men,
who stole fire from heaven. A female deity was regarded
as the mediator or messenger between men and gods
(Ila, Ida, Ira), or between gods and men (Iris). The
sun-god (Surya, Scare,   Sol) likewise, and the

dawn-goddess (Ushas, "Hcds, Aurora), were probably
objects of adoration. We are not at liberty, therefore, to
ascribe to them a kind of monotheism or henotheism at
so early a period. It is even very doubtful whether
their religion may be rightly called polytheism, or
whether it was really more than a very advanced
polydsemonism. The stage of development which they
had reached, can in any case only be matter for conjec-
ture, and does not admit of exact determination.

I keep the ugly hut established designation “ Indo-
Germans,” to distinguish the race from the Aryans proper,
who were the ancestors of the Indians and Persians.
The name Indo-Europeans is to be rejected on every
account. The name Aryans may also be applied to the
whole race, and the Indo-Persians may then be called
East-Aryans. The name Indo-Germans indicates the
two peoples between whom all the others belonging to
the race are scattered.

The connection of the Greek 6s6;, also, with deva, is
disputed by G. Buhler in Orient und Occident, i. p. 508,
sqq., by G. Curtius, and others.

Vanina signifies “ the coverer,” or the “ surrounder.”
As he becomes later on the god of the ocean, he may
originally have been the special ruler of the heaven-ocean,
like Hea in Mesopotamia.

On the theft of fire and the agreement of Pramdtha
and Prometheus, of the Bhrgu’s with the Phlegians (light-
io8

RELIGION AMONG THE INDO-GERMANS.

nings), and of Bhwranyu with Phoroneus, see the work of
Kuhn cited above.

The opinion that the Indo-Gennanic races began with
monotheism or henotheism, is defended by Max Muller,
Introduction to the Science of Religion, London, 1873, p.
170, sqq. See on the other side my essay in De Gids,
1871, No. 1, translated into German, Max Muller und Fr.
\J Schultze uber ein Problem, der Religions - Wissenschaft,
Leipzig, 1871.

67.   At a very early date the Indo-Germans fell apart
into a number of nations, which, one after another, quitted
their common home, and settled, some in Asia, and some in
Europe. They were not at first separated into the nations
which afterwards became independent, hut formed groups
like the Indians and Persians (to whom the Slavs or
Wends remained attached the longest), the Teutons and
Scandinavians, or the Greeks, Komans, and Kelts. Of this
the agreement of their religions affords evidence, besides
the indications of language and history. The Indians
and Persians must have remained the longest united as
one people, under the name of the Aryans. From the
Aryan religion proceeded, on the one hand, the Vedic
religion, the parent of Brahmanism and Buddhism, and
on the other,—though certainly not by immediate descent,
?—the Mazdeism of the Bactrians and Persians.

Arya (from ari, “devoted,” “faithfully attached”) is
explained by some scholars (Bohthlingk-Roth, Worterb.
sub voc,, Grassmann, Worterb. mm Rig Veda, sub voc.) as
“faithful,” “attached,” “ devoted,” les fideles; by others
(Benfey, Bid. sub. voc., Bopp, Gloss.) as “ honourable,”
“noble.” It is a general national name of the same kind
THE ARYAN RELIGION.

109

as Teutons and Slavs, including within it the idea of the
entire body of free men, and employed by a conquering
nation to distinguish themselves from their neighbours.

68.   The Aryan religion is known to us from mutual
comparison of the Indian and Persian religions. The
elements they possess in common must once have been
the joint property of both. The Aryans, like the Indo-
Germans, were polytheists. This is proved by a great
number of names of deities and semi-deities, which re-
mained in use among both Indians and Persians. Among
them Varuna, Mitra, and Aryaman, occupied the highest
rank, though in Mazdeism the first of these was replaced
by Ahura Mazda. Varuna, the heaven-god, and Mitra,
the light-god, were very severe, and were especially
dreaded by liars and cheats. Aryaman, the companion
and bosom friend, who presided over the contracting of
marriage, probably a fertilising sun-god, was a more kindly
being. With him was connected Bliaga (Bagha), the
assigner of destinies, whose name became at an early date
a general designation of the gods among the Persians and
Slavs. Next to the Devas, who were afterwards degraded
in Eran by the Zarathustrian reformation to the rank of
evil spirits, the dsuras (dhuras), “ the living ones,” or
“ spirits,” were worshipped as chief gods. The most
striking characteristics of this period, however, seem to
have been the great development of the worship of fire,
combined with magic, and the introduction of the drink
of immortality (soma,, haoma) at sacrifices as well as into
mythology. There is reason to believe that both usages
were adopted from a non-Aryan race, since they were
IIO RELIGION AMONG THE INDO-GERMANS.

familiar to the original inhabitants of Mesopotamia and
Media, and do not occur in this form among the other
Indo-Germanic races, though they also found points of
attachment to similar genuinely Indo-Germanic myths.

The worship of fire and the ideas and customs con-
nected with the drink of immortality, prevalent among
Indians and Persians, differ entirely from the usages ot
kindred races, and exhibit much more agreement with
those of the oldest inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and pro-
bably also of Media. Soma (Haoma) is a word belonging
to the Aryan period, as it does not occur among the other
Indo-Germans. I am only able to explain this pheno-
menon by the influence upon the Aryans of the peoples
already named.

IL

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

General Works.—J. Gildemeister, Bibliothecae Sanscritce
Specimen, Bonn, 1847. Th. Benfey, “ Indien” in Ersch
and Gruber’s Allg. EncyMopadie, sect. iL part xvii., Leipzig,
1840. On the Literature of India, A. Weber, Acade-
mische Porlesungen uber Indisehe Literaturgeschichte, Berlin,
1852; Id., Indisehe Skizzen, Berlin, 18573 Id., Indisehe
Streifen, vol. i. “ Zerstreute kleinere Abhandlungen,” vol.
ii. “ Kritisch-bibliographische Streifen,” Berlin, 1868-69,
Cf. his Indisehe Studien, Zeitsckr. fur die Kunde des Indisch.
Alterthums, since 1849. M. Muller, A History of Ancient
Sanskrit Literature so far as it Illustrates the Primitive Beli-
gionof the Brahmans, London, 1859. Monier Williams,
Indian Wisdom, or Examples of the Rdigims, Philosophical,
and Ethical Doctrines of the Hindus, London, 1875.

On the History of India.—Ch. Lassen, Indisehe Alter-
RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

hi

Ihumskunde, 4 vols., Bonn, 1847-61, 2ded. of vol. i. 1866,
and of vol. ii. 1874. J. Talboys Wheeler, The History
of India, vols. L-iii., London, 1867, &c. J. Muir.
Original Sanskrit Texts on the Origin and History of the
People of India, their Religion and Institutions, vol. i.,
“ Origin of Caste/’ 2d ed., London, 1868; vol. ii., “ Origin
of the Hindus,” 2d ed., 1871: vol. iii., “The Vedas,
Opinions on their Origin,” &c., 2d ed., 1868; vol. iv.
“ Comparison of Vedic with later Representations of the
principal Indian Deities,” 2d ed., 1873; vol. v. “Cosmo-
gony, Mythology, Religious Ideas, &c., in the Vedic Age,”
1870. Popular.—Mrs. Manning, Ancient anil Mediceval
India, 2 vols., London, 1869.

On Religion.—H. T. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays,
3 vols., London, 1837, 2d ed., with Life of the Author by
his son, T. E. C., 3 vols., ibid., 1873. H. II. Wilson,
Essays on the Religion of the Hindus, 2 vols., edited by R.
Rost, London, 1862. P. Wurm, Gesch. der Indisch. Reli-
gion, in Umriss, Basel, 1874. S. Johnson, Oriental Reli-
gions and their Relation to Universal Religion, i. “ India,”
London and Boston, 1873. J. Robson, Hinduism and Us
Relations to Christianity, Edinburgh, 1874. Cf. also the
journals,—Journal of the Royal Asialic Society of London
and of that of Calcutta, Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenland.
Gesellsch., Benfey’s Orient und Occident, the Rivista Orientate
of A. de Gubernatis, &c., and Max Duncker’s Geschichte
des Allerthums, vol. ii.

A. The Vedic Religion.

Literature.—Editions of the oldest Veda: F. Rosen,
Rigveda-Sanhita, lib. prim. Sanscr. et Lat., London, 1838.
hi. Muller, Rigveda Sahhitd, with the commentary of
Sayana, London, 1849, and foil., smaller edition in Pada
and Sanbita text, 2 vols., London, 1873. Til. Aufreciit,
112

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

Die Hymnen des Rigveda, in Roman character, 2 vols.,
Berlin, r86i, 2d ed., 1877. A. DE Gubernatis, Iprimi
Venti Inni del Rigveda, ripulbl, trad, e annot., Firenze,
1865.

Translations.—M. Muller, Rigveda Sanhita, translated
and explained, vol i., “ Hymns to the Maruts,” London,
1869 (no further volumes have appeared, but a complete
translation is promised). K. Geldner, A. KaGI, and R.
Roth, Siebenzig Lieder des RV. iibersetzt, Tubingen, 1875.
A. Ludwig, Der Rigveda, zum ersten male vollstandig ins
Deutsche iibersetzt mit Comment, und Einleitung, vol. i.,
Prague, 1876. H. Grassmann (author of the JVinter -
buch zum Rigveda,) Rigveda iibersetzt mit hit. und erlaut.
Anmerkk., vol. i., parts i.-iv., Leipzig, 1876-77. The
translation of Langlois cannot be trusted. That of
WILSON only reproduces the commentary of Sayana. H. T.
Colebrooke, “ On the Vedas or Sacred Writings of the
Hindus,” in Asiatic Researches, voL viii., Calcutta, 1805,
pp. 369-476, and in Miscellaneous Essays (see above).
R. Roth, Zur Litteratur und Gesch. des JVeda, Stuttgart,
1846. E. Burnouf, Essai sur le Veda, Paris, 1863.
N. L. Westergaard, Ueber den altesten ZeUraum der Ind.
Gesch., mit Riicksicht auf der Litteratur, Breslau, 1862. F.
Neve, Essai sur le Mythe des Ribhavas, Paris, 1857. A.
de Gubernatis, La Vita ed i Mirac. del Dio Indra nel RV.,
Firenza, 1866. A. Ludwig, Die Philosoph. und Religios.
Anschauungen des Veda in Hirer Entwkldung, Prague,

1875-

69.   After the separation of the Eranian and Indian
peoples, the Hindus established themselves in the land of
the seven rivers, at the mouths of the Indus, whence
their western neighbours called them Hapta Hindu, Sapta
Sindhdvas (now the Panjab, Panchanada, the five rivers).
THE VEDIC RELIGION.

JI3

There the old Aryan religion gave way before the in-
dependent development of the Vedic religion, so called
because it is only known to us through the Veda par
excellence, the Rigveda. It corresponds- with the toler-
ably advanced civilisation which the Hindus had already
attained. If in its doctrine of spirits and worship of
ancestors, as well as in the childlike nature of some
of its ideas, it still exhibits the survivals of an earlier
animistic conception, it has on the whole outgrown its
influence. The Devas, originally nothing more than the
phenomena and powers of the shining heaven, conceived
as persons, children of Dyaus, the heaven-god, and Prithivi,
the earth-goddess, are no longer simple powers of nature,
but to some extent, at least, beings endowed with moral
qualities, raised above nature, creators and governors of
the world. An idea of deity, which evinces great pro-
gress in thought, is applied to the chief gods, so that each
in turn is honoured by his worshippers as the highest.

70.   Among all these gods, however, India and Agni
were the principal objects of praise. Indr a, vritrahan,
the slayer of the foe, is the god who in the thunderstorm
defeats the cloud-serpent Ahi, and thus makes the fer-
tilising rain pour down upon the earth. In this conflict
he is surrounded by the Maruts or storm-gods, led by
Eudra; or Vayu, the wind-god, stands by his side. He
is also frequently united with Vishnu, the god of the
solar disc. At a later period his two comrades, Eudra
and Vishnu, were destined entirely to overshadow him.
Agni, as god of fire (ignis, Slav, ogni), is the soul and
origin of the universe, the mediator between men and
RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

1X4

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #18 on: February 17, 2018, 11:52:31 PM »

gods, lord of spells and of prayer. If Indra was rather
the god of princes and soldiers, Agni was the special god
of the priests. The worship paid to Soma, the god of the
drink of immortality, to whom even a whole book of the
Rigveda is consecrated, was little inferior.

There are passages in the Yeda which justify the con-
jecture that Indra and the Maruts were at first rivals,
and were not united until later. See RV. i. 165.

Brahmanaspati is the lord of spells, and Briliaspati the
lord of prayer. Both are surnames or forms of Agni.
Another very ancient fire-god is the heavenly carpenter
Tvashtri.

Almost all the 114 hymns of the ninth Mandala of the
RV. are addressed to Soma.

71.   That the sun-god should occupy a prominent
place among the Devas or light-gods, was natural. He
may still be traced in a number of gods and demigods.
But the proper sun-god of the Vedic period appears in
three forms, Surya, “ the shining one,” Pushan, “ he who
makes all things grow,” and Savitri, “ the vivifying.” He
was also named briefly Aditya, as son of Aditi, originally,
we may suppose, the goddess of the twilight. Aditi,
raised to the rank of universal mother, is also regarded,
however, as the mother of various other gods, and even
of the highest. The chief of these Adityas is the old
Aryan Varna a, who maintains during this period likewise
his significance as the Asura par excellence, and whose
dreadful anger the sinner endeavours to appease by
fervid prayers and by sacrifices. Mitra also is still wor-
shipped, but he seldom occurs alone, and he is generally
THE VEDIC RELIGION.

"5

united with Yaruna. Besides these two, and Savitri,
whom we have already named, the old Aryan deities
Aryaman and Bagha, and the Yedic gods DaJcsha, “ the
power,” and Arhsa, “ the sharer,” were also reckoned
among the Adityas, to whom Surya was sometimes added
as the eighth. At a later period their number rose to
twelve. Some gods, like the Asvins, the heavenly
physicians, are so completely raised to the rank of
rational beings, with human passions and emotions, that
it is hard to say what were the natural phenomena with
which they were once connected. The goddesses are
still kept in the background, which is a proof of youthful
and vigorous religious life. The dawn-goddess Usilas,
to whom hymns of extreme beauty are dedicated, the
river-goddess Sarasvati, who was afterwards fused with
Vetch, the goddess of language, and Sraddhd, the personi-
fication of faith, deserve to be specially named. The
more abstract divine figures, and the beginnings of a
monotheistic or pantheistic creed, which are found in
some of the hymns of the Rigveda, probably belong to
a later period.

Sarasvati, “ the rich in water,” by whom there some-
times stands a male Sarasvat, is probably an old Aryan
water-goddess, a conjecture supported by the Baktrian
IlaraqaMi and the Persian Harauvati (Arachotos, Aracliosia),
and not the deified river-nymph, whether of the Indus,
to which her name was perhaps first applied, or of the
small river which also subsequently bore it. In the Rig-
veda she is also the goddess of the piety which utters
itself in prayers and hymns.

72.   It cannot be doubted that the ancient Aryan
Il5

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

people at this early date also had their own priests, who
were very likely called, as was afterwards the case in Bak-
tria, atharvans, or priests of fire. In the Rigveda they hear
other names, especially that of brahman, which appears
to have originally meant nothing more than a “ singer of
sacred songs,” but soon came to designate a religious
functionary. Sometimes, though rarely, the word is used
to designate a regular priestly order. The office even
seems to have become hereditary; at any rate, the older
hymns contain occasional references to a brdhmana or
Brahman’s son, and in the later hymns these are more
numerous. The Brahmans were regarded, though not
universally, with high honour, and the poets especially
might count on rich rewards. Their claims and preten-
sions rose higher and higher, but they did not yet form
an exclusive caste, for kings and kings’ sons are also
designated as sacred singers, and performed priestly
functions, though, like many of the nobles also, they
generally had their house-priests (purohita).

Brahman, from the neuter brahma, a prayer or hymn,
seems to have been in early times a synonym for Icavi,
rishi, and other similar words. On the derivation and
original meaning of the word see M. Haug, Ueber die
Urspriingl. Bedeutung des JFortes Brahma, Munch., 1868,
and Brahma und die Brahmanen, ibid., 1871, the con-
clusions of which, however, cannot all be accepted with-
out further inquiry.

73.   Morality and religion were already closely con-
nected. The gods ruled over the moral as well as over
the natural order. Some of the hymns, especially those
THE VED1C RELIGION.

ii 7

addressed to Varuna, are marked by a deep sense of guilt,
and the mighty Indra must be approached in faith (srat).
The doctrine of immortality also indicates the ethical
character of the Vedie religion. The ideas of the Yedic
Hindus about ancestors and their worship were exactly

ythe same as those of savages, and their representations
of future bliss were still very sensuous, but they looked
for requital of their actions after death. The oldest songs,
however, say but little of immortality. Of the doctrine
of the transmigration of the soul, the entire Rigveda ex-
hibits not a single trace.

B.—Pre-Buddhistic Brdlmamsm.

literature.—Editions of the later Vedas. Th. Benfey,
Die Hymnen des Sdma-Veda (with translation), Leipzig,
1848. A. Weber, The JFMte Yajur-Veda, Berlin, 1849,
«fcc. R. Both and W. D. Whitney, Atharva-Veda San-
hitd, 2 vols., Berlin, 1855. The Aitareya Brdhmana (of the
Rigveda), edited by M. Haug, 2 vols. (with translation),
Bombay, 1863. Translations from the Satapatha Brdh-
mana in Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, passim, and Weber’s
Indische Streifen, vol. i. Grhyasdtrdni, Indische Hausregeln,
Sanskr. und Deutscli, von A. F. Stenzler, I. Asvalayana, 2
vols., Leipzig, 1865. Manava-dharmasastra; Lois de Manm,
trad, par A. LoiSELEUR Deslongchamps, Paris, 1833.
Of. Ydjnavalhjadharmasdstram, Ydjn.’s Gesetzbucli, Sanskr.
und Deutsch von A. F. Stenzler, Berlin and London, 1849.

C.   Schoebel, Btude sur le Rituel du Respect Social dans
I’Btat Bralman, Paris, 1870. H. Kern, Indische Theorieen
over de Standenverdeding, Amsterdam, 1871.

74.   With the diffusion of the Hindu-Aryans over the
region south-east of the Seven Eivers, and their settle-
n8

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

ment on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna, their
religion enters upon a new era. The Yedic religion gives
birth to Brahmanism or the hierarchy of the Brahmans.
The fresh originality of the Vedie age, though not at
first entirely extinct, for the most part disappears. A
number of hymns, occurring chiefly in the later books of
the Rigveda, were certainly not composed till the first
portion of this period, and tolerably far down in it too;
but they no longer breathe the same spirit as the earlier,
and the chief concern was the collection, arrangement,
and interpretation of the hymns handed down by tradi-
tion, of which the true meaning was but rarely grasped.
It is not possible to determine with certainty in what
century Brahmanism arose. If, however, as is most
probable, Buddhism was founded in the fourth and
third centuries before our era, the growth of Brahmanism
cannot have begun much later than the eighth century
B.C., and perhaps we ought, with some scholars, to carry
it considerably further back. The history of Brdhmanism
falls properly into three periods—the pre-Buddhistic; that
of its conflict with Buddhism; and that which follows its
victory over Buddhism; but the last two are too closely
connected to admit of sharp distinction from each other.
We have, therefore, to trace, first of all, the origin, esta-
blishment, and internal development of Brdhmanism, as a
national and purely Aryan sect, in contrast with the non-
Aryan religion and morals of the older occupants of the
country; and next, its contest with Buddhism and other
heresies, over which it triumphed, though not till after
it had enlarged its own boundaries, adopted much that
was not Aryan, and entirely transformed itself into a
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.   119

religious communion, the character of which was no longer
exclusively national.

On the date of the foundation of Buddhism, see below,

§8S.

75- The Brahmanic religion is entirely under the con-
trol of what Europeans call the caste system. Between
ranks and castes there is an essential difference. Caste is
rank with sharp impassable boundaries, which admit no
one who is not bom within them. The four Indian castes
appear as ranks, with different though corresponding
names, in Baktria also, as well as in Europe in tho
middle ages, and wherever society stands at the same
stage of development. Castes, at any rate with the same
rigid separation, are found nowhere but in India. There
they were originally four in number, three being Aryan,
viz., that of the Brahmans, i.e., the learned; that of the
Raj any as or Kshattriyas, i.e., the princes and warriors;
and that of the Yaisyas, i.e., the commonalty, the people
(vis), and one being non-Aryan, viz., the Sudras, i.e., the
natives, who served the Aryans, and especially the
Br&hmans, as slaves. The general name which they bore
enables us to conjecture how they arose. They were
called Varna, which denotes both “ kind ” and “ colour.”
This term at first simply indicated the difference between
the whiter Aryans and the dark-coloured natives whom
they subjugated, and with whom, as though belonging to a
different kind, they would hold no intercourse. When
settled ways and agriculture had replaced their wandering
shepherd-life, the warriors began to keep themselves
strictly apart from the working-class, and the learned in
120

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

the same way separated themselves from both warriors
and workers; and although they were all counted mem-
bers of the religious community, the idea of varna colour,
or kind, was also transferred to them. Thus arose the
doctrine, already expressed in a later hymn of the Rig-
veda, that not only the two races, but also the four ranks,
were of different origin, and had been separately created.

Differences of opinion exist about the anti quit}' of the
castes. See the essays already referred to: Kern, Ind. Theo-
rieen over de Standenverdceling, and Hang, Brahma und die
Brahmanen, and, on the other side, Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, ii.
p. 454, sqq. I adopt the view of those who regard the four
ranks as ancient, at any rate as a natural division of society
at a definite stage of its development, while they consider
the castes proper as purely Indian.

The members of the three highest castes are all of them
dvij&’s or twice-born, but not so the Sudras.

The hymn of the Rik, in which the four castes proceed
out of four parts of Purusha’s body, is the well-known
Purusha-sAkla, x. 90.

76.   The same causes, combined with the circumstance
that writing was unknown, or at any rate was not gene-
rally employed for literary purposes, contributed to give
increasing influence to the Brahmans. Subject at first to
the princes and nobles, and dependent on them, they
began by insinuating themselves into their favour, and
representing it as a religious duty to show protection and
liberality towards them. Meanwhile they endeavoured
to make themselves indispensable to them, gradually
acquired the sole right to conduct public worship, made
themselves masters of instruction and of the most influ-
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BR HMANISM.

121

ential civil offices, and set themselves up as the exclusive
guardians and interpreters of revelation (sruti) and tra-
dition (smriti), in virtue of possessing a higher knowledge,
which the mass of the people did not comprehend. They
had frequently, however, to encounter grave resistance
from the princes. Sometimes they were compelled to
acknowledge the spiritual superiority of a rdjanya; on
some occasions they were unable even to withhold from
him the dignity of Brahman; generally, however, they
contrived, either by assumption and arrogance, or by
cunning, to attain their end.

On the introduction of the art of writing, see M.
Muller, Sanskrit Literature, p. 500, sqq., Westergaard,
Aeltesl. Zeitraum, &c., p. 30, sqq. Nearchus (325 B.C.) and
Megasthenes (300 B.C.) both state that the Indians did
not write their laws, but the latter speaks of inscriptions
upon mile-stones, and the former mentions letters written
on cotton. From this it is evident that writing, probably
of Phoenician origin, was known in India before the third
century B.C., but was applied only rarely, if at all, to
literature. The oldest known inscriptions, those of
Asoka, may be placed about 250 B.C.

Among the princes whose intellectual superiority is
recognised by the Brahmans, Janaka, the Prince of Videha,
occupies the foremost place. As early as the Satapatka
Brdhmana (xi. 6, 2, 1), it is related how he reduced a
party of four Br&hmans, among whom was the famous
YSjnavalkya, ad terminos non loqui. Another king,
Ajatasatru of Kasi, did something similar, and men
shouted after him, as he himself complained, “ Janaka!
Janaka! ” See these and other examples in Muir’s
Sanskrit Texts, i. p. 427, sqq., and Westergaard, op. cit.,
pp. 13-16.
122

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

77.   The character of the religion of this period is
revealed by what we may call its religions literature.
By far the greater number' of the works belonging to it
were composed with a view to the sacrificial service.
Together they constitute the Veda, the sacred knowledge,
or the four Vedas. Of these, it was necessary that the
Hymn-Veda (Rig-Veda) should be known by the reciting
priest (hotri), the Chant-Veda (Sdma-Veda) by the sing-
ing priest (udgatri), and the sacrificial-formula-Veda
(Yajur- Veda) by the officiating priest (adhvaryu). The
Atharva-Veda was not recognised until later, and was
assigned to the presiding and supervising priest, who was,
however, required to know much more than this. The
Yajur-Veda was divided, after two rival schools, into the
“ White ” and the “ Black.”

Each of these Vedas had its Sahhitd or collection of
hymns, of which only two, those of the Rik and of the
Atharvan, deserve this name. That of the Sama-Veda
contains, with two exceptions, only Rik verses, arranged
in the order in which they were sung at the sacrifice.
Those of the two Yajur-Vedas (Taittiriya- and Vajasaneyi-
Sahhita) are simply a portion of, and selection from,
the Brahmanas of the Adhvaryu priests, drawn up for
the purpose of giving them a Sanhita of their own, though
they had no need of one. The two first collections con-
tain some very ancient and remarkable remains from a
previous period, but poems of the Brahmanic age were not
excluded from the Rig-Veda, and in the Atharva-Veda
are very numerous.

Further, to each Veda belong different Brahmanas,
treatises of ritual and theology, afterwards supplanted
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BR.. HMANISM.

123

by the Aranyakas (“ forest treatises ”), and the connected
Upanishads (“ confidential communications ”), theological-
philosophical treatises, prepared more especially for the
use of the hermits. The Brahmanas contain here and
there occasional elevated thoughts, and not a few
antique traditions of the highest importance, but they are
in other respects marked by narrow formalism, childish
mysticism, and superstitious talk about all kinds of trifles,
such as may be expected where a pedantic and power-
loving priesthood is invested with unlimited spiritual
authority.

Finally, each Yeda had its sutras (“threads”), short
compact guides for public and domestic sacrifices, and the
knowledge of the laws.

All these books were handed down orally, and each

school ([charana) had its own text (salchd), both of
Sahhitus and of Brahmanas. Even when the art of
writing was already known, it was regarded as a grave
sin to write them down.



The preceding section deals only with the religious
writings of this period. That it was not deficient (also)
in other literary productions, such as epic narratives,
poems, &c., is certain; hut these have perished, or have
been in part interwoven and remodelled in later works of
this kind. The Big-Veda also contains hymns of a non-
religious character.

The schism in the school of the Yajur-Yeda, among
the Adhvaryus, is attributed, not without reason, to
YSjnavalkya, to whom, therefore, the white Yajush owes
its origin. He or his school extracted the poetical quota-
tions which occurred in the Brfthmana, and collected them
into a Sahhita, whence some scholars (e.g., Max Muller)
124

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2018, 11:55:37 PM »

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

explain the name “ White Yajush ” (sukla). This would
then mean “ the cleared,” “ the purified,” Thereupon,
the representatives of the old school, in order that they
also might have a Sanhita, simply affixed this by no
means appropriate title to the first portion of their
Brahmana.

Of the existing Upanishads only a few belong to this
period; the rest are of later date.

Following these three kinds of works (Yedas, Brali-
manas, and Sfitras), Max Muller has incorrectly divided
this age into three sharply defined periods, and on this
division has founded his history of ancient Sanskrit
literature. Westergaard falls into another extreme, in
actually placing the Sfitras before the Brahmanas. It is
certain that the composition of Sutras and Upanishads
continued when the Yedic Sanhitas were already closed,
and no new Brahmanas were composed. Brahmanas only
satisfied the requirements of the time when a trifling
theology was in the ascendant.

The dread of the reduction of the sacred Scripture to
writing may have had its ground in the fear of seeing it
fall into unqualified hands, and at the same time in deep
reverence for the divine word, which would be thereby
polluted.

78.   In the doctrine of the gods Br&hinanism made
but little change. This was the natural result of the
recognition of the Yedas as a book of revelation, and of the
prominence of sacrifice, in which the Yedic gods always
occupied the highest place. The Brfihmans simply at-
tempted to arrange the Yedic gods, whether by the three
worlds, earth, air, and sky, or by the nature of the deities,
so that, for instance, Indra was the king, Agni the priest,
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

125

or by some other standard. The Asuras, however, who
had been in earlier times the chief of the gods, and in the
beginning of this period were still placed along with the
Devas, were lowered, perhaps in consequence of their
resemblance to the gods of the old hostile occupants of
the country, to the rank of evil spirits. The reverence S
for the Devas also perceptibly diminished as the Brahmans
placed themselves on their level, and the hermits espe-
cially, who did penance, regarded themselves as superior
to them in power and dignity. The only exception was
in favour of Iludra, the violent storm-god, whose worship
increased considerably in this period, and served as one of
the foundations of the later Siva-worship; he had not
yet, however, become the chief god. Men felt, however,
the need of such a supreme god as the maker and ruler
of the universe, and this need could only be imperfectly
satisfied by the creations of the Yedic liishis. Another
plan, therefore, was adopted. At first, and this appears
even in the later Vedic hymns, some of the surnames of
the ancient gods, in particular of the fire-god Agni, were
endowed with a separate existence, or such a god under
one of these surnames (Visvakarman, “the maker of all
things,” Brahmanaspali, “ the lord of spells, or of prayer,”
Prajapati, “ the lord of creatures ”) was regarded as the
creator and lord of the world. From these speculation
ascended to the Brahma, the magic power hidden in the
sacred word and in prayer (and as such the special in-
heritance of the priests), and regarded this as the imper-
sonal, self-existent (svayambhu), supreme cause of the
universe. This brahma, though always neuter in the
Biahmanas, soon became, in a certain sense, personified;
126

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

and finally, as the male Brahma, was exalted to he the
all-ruling personal deity, without ever becoming a true
national god.

To the three worlds, earth, air, and slcy, correspond
the three chief gods Agni, Indra united with Vayu or
Vishnu, and Surya. Besides the name Visvakarman,
&c., the name Iliranyagarbha, “ the golden world-egg,”
was also used to designate the sun fire-god as creator.
Kasyapa, also, in the later tradition a famous sage, must
be regarded as a universal creator and sun-god of the
same kind.

79.   In spite of the supreme power of the Brahmans,
the right of the head of the family to offer the family
sacrifices remained unimpaired. But at the public sacri-
fices, with the arrangements and symbolism of which we
are still but imperfectly acquainted, the usages and cere-
monies became more and more elaborate and involved,
requiring a constant increase in the number of minis-
trants, all of whom were of necessity Brahmans. The
sacrificial ceremonial at the consecration of a king (raja-
suya), the very common horse-sacrifice (asvamcdha), the
proper human sacrifice (jourushameclhd), and the general
sacrifice (sarvamedha), were the most important. At
these four sacrifices, human victims were really offered
in ancient times, but as manners grew more gentle,
this practice began to decline, and at an early date,
though not with universal approval, fell into disuse. The
idea was even expressed that all sacrifices of blood were
unnecessary, though they still prevailed for a long while
after this period.

At length men grew weary of pondering on the mean-
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

127

ing of sacrificial actions and quarrelling over points of
theology; and while some, with more practical aims,
and contented, therefore, with short Sutras, neglected the
study of the Brahmanas, others sought in the Aranyakas
and the oldest Upanishads satisfaction for their craving
for mystic contemplation and philosophical reflection,
and occupied themselves by preference with the ques-
tions of the origin of the universe, the nature of the
deity and of the soul, the relation of spirit and matter,
and other problems of the same kind. These were the
beginnings from which Hindu philosophy was afterwards
developed.

The commutation of the old human sacrifice by a sub-
stitute is certainly alluded to in the legend of Sunahsepa,
quoted from the Aitareya Brdhmana by M. Muller, Sanskr.
Literature, Append., p. 573, sqq., cf. pp. 408-416. It has
some correspondence with that of Abraham and Isaac.
The superfluous nature of all sacrifices of blood is taught
in the Aitar. Brdhrti., vi. 8, see M. Muller, op. cit., p. 420,
and in the Satap. Brdhm. 1, 2, 3,6, cf. Weber, Ind. Streifen,
i. p. 55, in an important essay which deserves to be con-
sulted on the subject.

80.   The moral and social ideal of the Brahmans is
known to us from the so-called lawbook of Mann, the
main features of which are pre-Buddhistic. Their moral
teaching stands relatively very high, though it has not
risen above eudaemonism. With much that is genuinely
humane, it contains much that is arbitrary and unnatural,
and resembles all the laws of antiquity in placing moral
purity on a line with the prescriptions of sacerdotalism
and magic.
128

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

V Purified by various ceremonies from the stains of birth,
the Arya, invested with the consecrated cord and girdle,
enters as a disciple of the Brahmans on the first stage of
his training, and after completing his course, he cele-
brates, by the offering of his first sacrifice, the feast of
his new birth. He then becomes a householder (griha-
paii), and after having discharged his duties in this capa-
city, he hands over to his son, who has in the meantime
himself attained the same position, the care of all belong-
ing to him, and retires into the forest to pass his days
undisturbed in religious works and silent meditations.
The highest ideal that a man can reach on earth is to
become a yati (self-conqueror) or sannyasi (self-renouncer).
The latter offers no more sacrifices, he is raised above the
things of the world and of sense, and devotes himself
exclusively to the contemplative life. Such is the way
to final deliverance (moksha) from the bonds of sensual
existence.

The majority of men, however, do not as yet attain
this goal. The wicked and the impious are condemned
to hell, and there suffer dreadful torments. Those who
have faithfully discharged their religious duties are re-
warded with heaven, and become Devas. Every one, how-
ever, who has not yet obtained deliverance must be bom
again on earth, in the shape of a plant, an animal, or a
man of lower or higher rank, in proportion to the number
of his sins. This process continues until he has reached
the highest stage of self-abandonment and contemplation
(tapas), when, freed from everything material, he sinks
away into the soul of the universe and is united with it.
This dogma, improperly called that of the transmigration
PRE-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.   T29

of tlie soul, is unknown to the oldest Yedic hooks, but it
was current before Buddhism, as it is the foundation of
the Buddhist doctrine of deliverance.

On the age of the Manavadharmas&stra there is great
difference of opinion. Max Muller, Sanskrit Literature,
p. 62, sqq., combats the view of Sir W. Jones, who
thought that the law-book could not have been drawn up
laterthan 800 B.c. A. Barth, Rev. Critique, 1875, No. 48,
considers even 500 B.C., as proposed by Monier Williams
and others, too early. That those passages which refer
to a much later time are interpolations, is conceded by
all The main contents of the work may be safely brought
down towards the close of the pre-Buddhist period.

For our purpose it is to a certain extent unimportant
whether it was ever actually applied in its entirety as a
law. It is sufficient that it exhibits to us the ideal of the
Br&hmans.

81.   The social ideal of the Br&hmans is the unlimited
power of the hierarchy and the strict separation of castes.
At the end of this period, .owing to mixed marriages and
other causes, the old castes were increased by a number
of half-pure and impure castes. Various useful callings
were thus branded as sinful, and men were prevented
from withdrawing even from shameful occupations to
which birth condemned them. The highest claims were
made by the law-book on the Brahmans, but they also
received from it the most extravagant privileges, and it
provided that the unlimited authority of the kings should
be placed at their service. Woman was kept in complete
dependence, the Sudra was despised, and those who stood
outside the community (Chdnddlas, Svapdkas) were doomed
I

130   RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

to a life of the greatest misery, and were esteemed no
higher than sacrificial animals. Such a position could
not be long endured, and this serves to explain not only
the rise of Buddhism, hut also its rapid diffusion, and the
radical revolution which it brought about.

C. The Conflict of Brdhmanism with Buddhism.

Literature.—Among editions of Pali texts, the following
are the most important: the Mahawansa, edited by Hon.
G. Turnour, Colombo, 1S37. Dhamma-pada, ed. by V.
Fausboll, Copenhagen, 1855. The Upasampadd-Kamma-
vdcha and Pdtimokkha, by J. F. Dickson in the Journ. Boy.
As. Soc., 1873 alld 1875. Klmddaka-Pdtha, ibid., 1869,
by R. C. Childers. The Jdtaka Commentary, by Faus-
boll, vol. i., pt. i., London, 1875. Suttas Palis, ed.
by Grimblot, with translations by Burnouf and
Gogerly, Paris, 1876. Mahd Parinibbdna Suita, by
Childers, Journ. Boy. As. Soc., 1874 and 1876.

E.   Burnouf, Introduction a VHistoire du Buddhisme Indien
(1844), 2d ed., Paris, 1876. Id., Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi
{trad, du Saddharma Pundartka), Paris, 1852. C. F.
IvoPPEN, Die Beligion des Buddha und dire Entstehung, Berlin,
1857. Id., Die Lamaische Hierarchicwnd Kirche, ibid., 1859.
Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, Le Bouddha el sa Beligion,
2d ed., Paris, 1862. W. Wassiuew, Der Buddhismus,
Seine Dogrnen, Gesch. und Liter aim, i860 (translated into
French by La Comme, Paris, 1865). A. Schiefner,
Tdrandtha’s Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien, aus dem
Tibet., St. Petersburg, 1869. R. Spence Hardy, A
Manual of Buddhism in its Modern Development, translated
from Singhalese MSS., London, i860. Id., Eastern Mona-
chism, compiled from Singhalese MSS., London, i860.
Id., The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists compared
with History and Science, London, 1866. Histoire du
BUDDHISM.

iji

Bouddha Sakya Mouni, trad, du Tibelain par Ph. Ed.
Eoucaux, Paris, 1868. Lolita Vistara, Erzdlung von dem
Leben und der Lere des Cdlcya Simha, uberselzt von S. Lef-
mann, part i., Berlin, 1874. Foe koue Id, ou Fetation des
Royaumes Bouddhigues par Chy Fa Ilian, trad, par A.
Remusat, Paris, 1836. Stanisl. Julien, Voyages des
Pelerins Bouddhisles, vol. i.; “ Yie de Hiouen Thsang,”
vols. ii. and iii.; “ Mrinoires sur les Contr^es Occi-
dentals, par Hiouen Thsang," Paris, 1853-58. L.
Feek, Ftudes Bouddhigues, ire S^rie, Paris, 1870. Id.,
Etudes Bouddh. L’Ami de la Vertu et VAmitie de la Vertu,
Paris, 1873. H. Keen, Over de jaartelling der zuidelijke
Buddhisten en de Gedenkstukken van Agoka den Buddhist,
Amsterdam, 1873. E. Sen art, Essai sur la Legende du
Buddha, son Caractere et ses Origines, Paris, 1875. Popu-
lar, C. D. B. Mills, The Indian Saint, or Buddha and
Buddhism, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1876. T. W.
Rhys Davids, Buddhism, a Sketch of the Life and Teachings
of Gautama Buddha, London, 1877.

On the question of Nirvana see J. F. Obry, Du Nirvana
Bouddhigue, Paris, 1863 ; R. C. Childers, Dictionary of
the Pali Language, s. voc. Nibbdnam, and the authorities
cited by these writers; and T. W. Rhys Davids, Contem-
porary Review, January 1877, on “The Buddhist Doctrine
of Nirvana,” &c.

On the Jainas : J. Stevenson, The Kalpa Sidra and
Nana Tatva, translated from the Mdgadhi, London, 1848.
A. Weber, “Ein Fragment des Bhagavatl,” Akad. der
Wissenscli., Berlin, 26th October 1865, and 12th July and
25th October 1866. S. J. Warren, Over de Godsdienstigc
en Wijsgeerige Begrippen der Jaina’s, Zwolle, 1875.

82.   Buddhism, which was to prove so dangerous an
enemy to Brahmanism, seems not to he much older than
132

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

the fourth century before our era. Its founder, who was
called Siddharta, according to tradition, though commonly
named the Buddha or “ enlightened,” the “ sage ” or the
“ lion ” “ of the tribe of Sakya ” (S&kya-muni, Sakya
Simha), and also designated by many other titles of
honour, lived and worked probably in the second half of
the fifth century B.C., but the legends which have sur-
rounded his career have completely hidden it from our
view. The chief features of this legendary history are
as follows:—In order to deliver the world from the
misery beneath which it sighs, the sage descends from
heaven, where he occupies the highest rank among the
gods, to earth. Here he was miraculously conceived in
the womb of Maya (“ illusion ”), the wife of the Sakya
king Suddhodhana of Kapilavastu, in Ayodhya (Oude), /
and there he was born in an equally extraordinary
manner. Educated as a prince, and excelling in know-
ledge and ability of every kind, he early betrays an
inclination to a contemplative life, which is strenuously
resisted by his father, who supposes that he has over-
come it by inducing his son to marry. He contrives,
however, to flee from the luxurious court, and to reach
Raj agriha, the capital of Magadha. There he becomes a
disciple of the most famous Brahmans, devotes himself to
the severest mortifications, triumphs over the repeated
temptations of the god of love and death, Mara, but
remains inwardly dissatisfied. He then abandons asceti-
cism, and endeavours by means of calm and intent con-
templation to penetrate to the deepest insight (bodhi),
and thus to gain deliverance from the miseries of exist-
ence. At Gaya, a little village in Magadha, under the
BUDDHISM.

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2018, 11:56:40 PM »

133

shadow of the sacred fig-tree (bodhi-tree), seated on the
throne of knowledge (bodhi-manda), he actually attains
the dignity of Buddha. Upon this he begins to preach,
first at Benares (Varanasi) and subsequently all through
India; multitudes without number, including not a few
princes and Br&hmans, and the Buddha’s own family, are
converted, and even women are admitted to discipleship.
After triumphing over every obstacle, he is doomed to
witness, by the desolation of his native city, the ruin of
his whole race, and at last, at the age of eighty year’s, he
dies, or rather enters into Nirvana. No fire can burn his
corpse, but it is consumed at last by the glow of his own
piety, and his bones are collected out of the ashes by his
disciples as precious relics, and deposited in eight Stupas.

The dates assigned to Buddha’s death vary widely.
That Of the Southern church has been most generally
accepted, according to which the attainment of Nirvana
falls in 543 B.C. Westergaard, Buddha’s Todesjahr, p. 95,
sqq., places it 368-370, with which result A. Weber,
Indische Streifen, ii. 216, agrees. Kern, Jaartelling der
Zuid. Buddh., p. 1, sqq., assigns Buddha’s entrance into
Nirv&na to 388 B.C., and T. W. Rhys Davids, Academy,
25th April 1874, fixes it about 410.

SOnart, Essai sur la Legende du Buddha, endeavours to
prove that the whole story of the Buddha is a legend,
composed of the ordinary elements of a solar myth, and
that we are no longer in a position to extract from it the
kernel of historic truth. He is, no doubt, right to a cer-
tain extent; further investigation must determine whether
his conclusion is not too decidedly negative. He does
not, however, like Wilson, deny the existence of the
Buddha. The narratives of birth and childhood, inde-
134

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

pendently of their supernatural character, are doubtful
in the highest degree. Maya is a purely mythical being,
and Kapilavastu an altogether unknown city, while its
name suggests that of Kapila, the reputed founder of the
S&nkhya philosophy, which has so many points of agree-
ment with the later Buddhist teaching. The other places
named in the legend are familiar enough, R&jagriha,
at that time a resort of sages and hermits, V&ranasi
(Benares), which continues the holy city to this day, and
G&ya (Buddhag&ya), where the bodhi-tree beneath which
Buddha sat is still pointed out. This is, however, no
guarantee for the historical character of the stories con-
nected with these places.

83.   Whether the Buddha was really the son of a king
or not, it may be regarded as certain that he did not belong
to the caste of the Brahmans. There is equally little
reason for doubting that he sought for peace first of all
among the Brahmans, then in solitary penance,—yet in
both instances in vain,—and attained it only by that con-
templation absorbing the soul, which became the charac-
teristic of his followers. His wandering life in the garb
of a mendicant, his preaching that all who followed him
in this might be delivered from sickness, pain, old age,
and death, and should strive after Nirvana as the highest
goal, the great impression which this doctrine made on
men of all classes, if not through the whole of India, yet
according to the oldest tradition, in particular districts, the
opposition which he encountered from many, the loyal
devotion of his disciple Ananda, the few details related
of his death—all this cannot belong to the realm of
fiction. And this suffices to show us in the Buddha a
BUDDHISM.

135

man, who, whatever may have been the value of his
philosophy of life, out of genuine conviction and pity for
his fcllowmen, chose a life of self-denial and renuncia-
tion to realise a great idea and promote the universal
salvation.

Even though we should be obliged to concede that the
whole course of Buddha's life is borrowed from the well-
known myth of the sun-god, and that the majority of the
details of his legend find their explanation in this myth,
it will still be impossible to derive the traits we have
enumerated from this source.

84.   Buddhism, though it is a reaction against the
Brahman: c hierarchy, is, in fact, an outgrowth of Brah-
manism. It rests upon the so-called dogma of the trans-
migration of the soul, and the Buddhist, like the
Brahman, seeks for deliverance from the endless succes-
sion of re-births. But it pronounces the Brahmanic
penances and abstinence inadequate to accomplish this,
and aims at attaining, not union with the universal
spirit, but Nirvana, non-existence. Without denying the
existence of the devas, at any rate at first, it places each
Buddha, as the Brahmans ranked every ascetic, above
them, but it goes a step further, and makes even the
supreme Brahmfi, subordinate to a perfect saint. It
differed from Brahmanism, as primitive Christianity
differed from the Jewish hierarchy, by rejecting outward
works or theological knowledge as marks of holiness, and
seeking it in gentleness, in purity of heart and life, in
mercy and self-denying love for a neighbour. Above all,
it is distinguished by its relation to castes. The Buddha
136   RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

comes neither to oppose them, nor to level everything.
On the other hand, he adopts the doctrine that men are
horn in lower or higher castes, determined by their sins
or good works in a former existence, but he teaches, at
the same time that, by a life of purity and love, by
becoming a spiritual man, every one may attain at once
the highest salvation. Caste makes no difference to him;
he looks for the man, even in the Chandala; the miseries
of existence beset all alike, and his law is a law of grace
for all. The Buddhist teaching is, therefore, quite popular
in its character, its instrument is preaching rather than
instruction, it is not esoteric like the Brahmanic, or in-
tended only for individuals. And while the piety of the
Brahman aimed at selfishly securing his own redemp-
tion, the Buddhist cannot attain salvation without regard
to the well-being of all his fellow creatures. The ideal
of the first is a hermit striving to save himself, the
ideal of the second a monk, enrolled in a brotherhood,
striving to save others. Buddhism, in fact, rejected the
authority of the Yeda, the whole dogmatic system of
the Br&limans, their worship, penance, and hierarchy, and
simply substituted for them a higher moral teaching. It
was a purely ethical revolution; but it would certainly
have succumbed beneath this one-sided tendency, had it
not in the course of time taken up into itself, under
another shape, much of what it had first opposed.

There are two degrees of Nirvana, one consisting of
^ the complete sanctification by which a man became an
Arhat, or “ venerable person,” and the other being the
annihilation of all existence, for which the Arhat strives,
and which he cannot attain until death. The first of
BUDDHISM.

137

these is called in PAli savupddisesanibbdnam,—i.e., “ the
annihilation of everything except the five Ichandhas
(skandhas) or qualities of being; ” sometimes also kile-
sanibbdnam, the “ extinction of passion.” The second is
described as anupddisesanibbdnam or JchandanibbdnarK,
“extinction of being.” Thus Childers correctly, loco oil.

The sketch which we have presented of the relation of
the Buddha to the caste-system, is, of course, founded on
the picture of him drawn by his followers. It is possible
that this conception belonged to him originally, but it
may also have been an inference from his teaching.

Primitive Buddhism ignored religion. It was only
when in opposition to its first principles, it had made its
founder its god, and had thus really become a religion,
that the way was open for its general acceptance.

85.   The real history of Buddhism does not begin till
the middle of the third century before our era. Of
the first century of its existence we know nothing with
certainty. It appears to have developed silently hut
steadily. Monasteries were founded, and sects were
formed. If it had been the original idea of the Master to
turn all men into clergy, that is, into mendicant monks,
practical reasons, of course, soon rendered it necessary to
admit lay brothers and sisters by their side, who were
bound only to fulfil the moral law. The foundations of
the discipline (vinaya) and of the law or belief (dharma)
were laid; even metaphysical problems (abhidharma)
were already to some extent discussed. But in the
middle of the third century B.C., a great change took
place. The expedition of Alexander the Great had
brought the Hindus into contact with the Greeks. His
rival Chandragupta, following his example, founded a
138   RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

mightier empire than India had ever known before, and,
perhaps, favoured Buddhism. Further advance was made
by his grandson Asoka, who even became a convert to the
new faith, and raised it to the position of the state religion.
His numerous inscriptions show us that the Buddhism of
this period was still exceedingly simple, and they prove
that it had not yet assumed an attitude of hostility towards
the Brahmans. The royal protection naturally brought
a multitude of converts, especially Brahmans and hermits,
who were admitted into the monasteries without instruc-
tion in the law and without ordination. The heresy, the
laxity of discipline, and the neglect of ordinances, which
resulted from these circumstances, rendeed a tribunal for
the trial of heretics indispensable, and a council desirable.
A council was therefore held under the presidency of
Maudgaliputra (Moggaliputto), which, after fixing the
canon, resolved on a vigorous effort to spread the true
doctrine. Missionaries were now despatched to all parts
of the peninsula, and even to Kashmir and Gandhara,
west of the Indus. Mahendra, the king’s own son, went
to Ceylon, and there founded the Southern Buddhist
church, which was destined to remain so much purer
than the Northern, and was at a later date to carry
Buddhism to Burma and Siam. While the dynasty of
Chandragupta was on the throne (till 178 B.c.), Buddhism
enjoyed golden days in India. But under King Push-
pamitra, the founder of a new dynasty, a violent persecu-
tion was commenced, at the instigation of the Brahmans,
against the followers of Sakya-muni, so that it became
necessary to hold the next council—which followed
within two hundred years, and at which the hierarchic
BUDDHISM.

139

and contemplative school of the Great Passage (Malid-
yana) was recognised as orthodox—in Kashmir, under
the protection of the non-Hindu king Kanishka. The
period of conflict now began.

According to the Buddhist reckoning the council which
met under Asoka was the third. The second, said to
have been held a hundred years earlier under a certain
king Kfilasoka, is as little historic as that prince himself.
The convocation of the first council, also, by Aj&ta?atru
near Rajagriha, is open to serious doubts.

Vinaya, Dharma, and Abhidharma, together constitute
the Tripitaka (Tipitakam), “ the three Baskets,” the com-
plete Holy Scriptures. The rise of metaphysical discus-
sion before the time of Asoka is proved by the fact that
in one of his inscriptions he cites an Abhidharma of Chari-
putta.

The dynasty of Chandragupta was called the Maurya,
and that of Pushpamitra, the Sunga.

86.   The struggle lasted long, and the Brahmans and
the Buddhists gained by turns the upper hand. Till the
fourth century A.D., the latter seem to have been in the
majority. But in the two following centuries, they
rapidly declined. In many places still occupied, at the
time of the Chinese traveller Pa Hian (400 a.d.) by Bud-
dhist temples, towers, and monasteries, his fellow-country-
man Hiouen Thsang, in the first half of the seventh cen-
tury, found nothing hut ruins, or Brahmanic sanctuaries.
Under the protection of the powerful King Siladitya,
about this period, Buddhism revived once more for a time,
and a great council, even, was held at which the Chinese
pilgrim played a distinguished part. Hot long after-
140

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

wards it encountered a violent opponent in the celebrated
teacher of the Mimansa school, Kumarila-Bliatta, and
later still in the great enemy of all heresies, the orthodox
Sankaracharya, who was born in 788 A.D. It is com-
monly supposed that the Buddhists were the victims in
India of bloody persecutions and were exterminated with
violence, but of this supposed fact no satisfactory proofs
are forthcoming. On the contrary, Buddhism appears
to have pined away slowly. It continued to exist
for some centuries in some of the remoter districts.
In Kashmir it held its ground at all events till 1102,
and in the modem Bengal certainly down to 1036, while
it has continued in Nepal till the present day. The
majority of believers who remained faithful fled to
foreign lands, amongst others to Java, and spread their
faith there. Others passed into the sect of the Jainas
which was not exposed to persecution.

87.   The sect of the Jainas derived its name from its
veneration of Jinas or eminent ascetics, who had con-
quered all the desires of sense, and thus raised themselves
above the gods, MaMvira being the most celebrated
among them. It is very closely related to Buddhism,
and in Sanskrit literature is hardly to be distinguished
from it. 'While some scholars regard it as a Buddhist
sect, others believe it to have been founded before
Buddhism; it is at any rate certain that it existed in
the sixth century of our era. Its sacred books, the most
important of which, called the Kalpa-Sutra, was written
in the same century, are composed in a dialect belonging
to the district in which Buddhism took its rise (the
THE JAINAS.

141

Ardhamdgadhi). Its origin lies hidden in obscurity, but
it is not improbable that it proceeded from a compromise
between Buddhism and Brahmanism in the first centuries
after Christ.

The Jainas are divided into two bodies, those dressed
in white robes (Svetambara) and the naked {Diganibara,
literally “persons rohed in air”), the latter of whom,
however, only lay aside their dress at meals. Like the
Buddhists, they look to Nirvana as their goal, they treat
the devas as inferior beings liable to rebirth, they divide
themselves into clergy and laymen, they reduce their law
to a few leading commands, they impose confession on
the believer as the preliminary to obtaining priestly abso-
lution, and every year they keep a solemn fast (pcmju-
shana), They have, however, a great aversion to the
Buddhist worship of relics. In their worship of the
greater number of the Hindu gods, especially of the three
principal deities of this era and of Ganesa, in their main-
tenance of a certain division of castes, and even in their
application of the name Br&hmans to their priests in
Western India, they were not essentially different from
the Buddhists, for much the same usages prevailed among
them also. The doctrines set forth in their holy Scrip-
tures differ in many respects from both the Bralimanic
and the Buddhist systems. The toleration extended to
them by the Brfthmans even though they were regarded
as heretics, led large numbers of Buddhists to take refuge
in their community in the days of the persecution.

Jina, “ the conquering,” is also one of the commonest
surnames of the Buddha. According to the Jainas,
Gautama (Budclha) was a disciple of their great saint,
142

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2018, 11:58:02 PM »

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

Mahavira. They are mentioned in 587 A.D. by Yara-
hamihira.

The clergy or monks are- called SddJms or Tatis, the
laymen Sr&vakas, “hearers.” The five (or ten) chief com-
mandments of the Jainas and those of the Buddhists
exhibit very close agreement. Their great fast, or period
of silent meditation, in the rainy season, Paryushana or
Pajjfisan, does not differ much from the Buddhist vassa
(varsha) or rainy season, in which the followers of Buddha
also were accustomed to abstain from travelling, and to
stay in some remote spot absorbed in contemplation.

D.   The Changes in Br&hmanism under the Influence of its Conflict
with Buddhism.

Literature.—For a list of editions and translations of
the Ram&yana and Mah&bh&raia up to 1847, see Gilde-
MEISTEr’s Bibliothec. Sanscr. Specimen, pp. 29-53. Since
that date, the edition by Gorresio has been finished,
and a complete translation of both epics by HlPP. Fauche
has appeared. The Itamayana has also been translated
by Griffiths.

Portions of the poems have been translated by Theod.
Pavie, and subsequently by Ph. Ed. Foucaux, Le Mahd-
bh&rata, onze episodes, Paris, 1862. Of the Bhagavad-Gttd,
the most recent translations are those by Em. Burnouf
(Nancy and Paris, 1861), and F. Lorinser, Die Bhag.-Gita,
ubersetzt und erlauiert, Breslau, 1869. The latter work has
been severely criticised by K. T. Telang, Bhagavad-GUd,
translated, with Notes and an Introductory Essay, Bombay,
1875. Cf. A. de Gubernatis, Studie suit’ Epopea
Indiana, Firenze (no date).

For the Puranas, see Gildemeister, op. cit., pp. 54-60.
The most important translations are those of the Bhdg-
avala-Furdna, by Edg. Burxouf, Paris, 1840, and follow-
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

143

ing years, and of the Vishnu-Pur&m, by H. H. "Wilson,
London, 1840, re-edited in the complete collection of
Wilson’s works by Dr. Fitzedward Hall, 4 vols., London,
Triibner & Co., 1865 and foil.

88.   The Br&hmans perceived that it was not enough
simply to exterminate their dangerous rival, they must
also endeavour to provide for the wants which Buddhism
had satisfied. To give up their doctrinal system and their
hierarchy, to make their esoteric teaching the common
property of all, to let go the authority of the Yeda—
this was impossible for them, without destroying their
order. But it was possible for them to modify that
system, to supply a new basis for their hierarchy, to com-
bine their own doctrine with the prevailing popular
belief, and by setting the claims of orthodoxy very low,
to gain allies out of various sects. These methods were
applied by them in the days of the ascendency of
Buddhism with such success that its power declined more
and more, and persecution and violence seem to have
been superfluous, if they were practised at all.

89.   The first thing needed for this purpose was a
popular conception of deity. Neither the somewhat
abstract gods of the latest Rik-hymns, nor their own
Brahma (masc.), and least of all the impersonal—or at
any rate neuter—Brahma, could fulfil this requisite,
for not one of them had become a god of the people.
Such a deity they found in Vishnu, the worship of whom
seems to have increased considerably in the last four
centuries B.c. In the old-Vedio time Vishnu was a god
of subordinate importance, generally connected with Indra,
144

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

and seldom celebrated by himself. He was a sun-god,
who traversed the whole world in three steps, hut he was
thrown almost entirely into the shade by Surya and
S&vitri. He did not rise much higher in the Brahmana
period/ at least among the Brahmans and Kshattriyas.
Now, however, he is ranked among the twelve Adityas,
and is soon elevated to be the supreme god. In this
capacity the names and forms of Prajapati, Brahm&, and
other creative deities, are transferred to him. By the
infinite world-serpent (sesha or ananta) he is drawn over
the waves of the primeval ocean, or by the sun-bird
Garuda, through the sky, or he appears in human form
with four hands, three of which carry a shell, a dart, and
a club. In his heaven, Vaikuntha, his consort Lakslimi
or Sri, the goddess of love and beauty, of fruitfulness and
marriage, dwells by his side ; to her the cow was dedicated,
and her symbol was the lotus flower.

The slight estimation in which Vishnu was held by the
Br&hmans, even as late as the end of the Brahmanie
period, may be inferred from the fact that in the laws of
Manu he stands no higher than in the Veda, and that
Yaska, 400 B.C., still places him in the second rank. It
has even been conjectured (Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. p. 165,
sqq., and passim; Lassen, Ind. AUerth., i. p. 488, sqq., 2d ed.,
i. p. 586, sqq.), that in the oldest versions of the epics,
which were certainly especially current among the
Kshattriyas and reflected their belief, he had not as yet
attained the eminent place assigned to him in the later
redactions of the poems.

Garuda or Garutmat, who appears already in the Rig-
veda as a divine sun-bird, and is also enumerated in the
oldest Buddhist Sutras among the lesser gods, was for-
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM. 145

merly connected with Indra. How he was transferred
from the cultus of this deity to that of Vishnu, is related
in the Mahdbh&r. 5, 104, vs. 3674, sqq.

90.   Of the Vishnu worship the doctrine of the
avatdras or incarnations (literally, “ descents ”), is charac-
teristic. Just as the Buddha becomes man whenever the
world needs to be redeemed from misery, Vishnu also, if
danger threatens the devas or their worshippers, assumes
one form or another to bring them deliverance. The
number of these avataras was not at first strictly defined,
and kept mounting higher and higher. Among the
oldest of them is the “ dwarf-incamation ” (vaman&vatura)
borrowed from Vishnu’s own sun-myth: then he appears
as the fish who saves Manu at the deluge (matsyavatara),
as the tortoise who, at the churning of the heavenly
ocean (i.e., at the creation), supports the earth (kurmd-
vatdra), and as the boar which restores it to equilibrium
when it has sunk into the under world (varahdvatara),—
three sun-myths which were first applied to Brahma as
creator, and were transferred from him to Vishnu. With
the last of these myths is connected that of the “ man-
lion” (nrsimhdvatdra), under which shape Vishnu freed
the world from the sway of a demon-king. Besides this
the doctrine of the avataras afforded an opportunity of
identifying him with favourite heroes of tradition, who were
probably once deities. Such were E&machandra, who,
like Buddhism, extended his conquests to Ceylon; Para-
surama, the “ axe-Bama,” an ancient deity of fire and
lightning, whom the Brahmans raised to be their hero as
the slayer of all the Kshattriyas; and Krishna the
hidden sun-god of the night, always connected in the
7   K
146

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

Epos with the light Arjuna, the visible sun-god, and
whose myth forms a counterpart of the legend of Buddha,
though they are as far apart as the poles in character.
In later times Vishnu was also connected with several
other divine beings.

The myth of Vishnu as a dwarf is to he found as early
as the Satapatha Brdhmana (see Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. p.
122, sqq.) It is noteworthy that in this version Vishnu
does not assume the form of a dwarf, but actually is a
dwarf. The only use there made of the myth by the
Brahmans is to attach to it their theory of sacrifice. It
is highly instructive to compare their representation with
the much more original story in the Bdmdyana (i. 32, 2,
sqq.), and with the form in the Bhdgav. Purdna (viii. 15, r,
sqq.), which has been in many respects modified, where
Vishnu only needs two steps to traverse earth and
heaven, and the Asura prince Bali, whom he dethrones, is
placed in a very favourable light.

Some of the avat&ras appear to have been borrowed
from the mythology of non-Hindu inhabitants of India.
Lassen, Ind. Alterth., iv. p. 583, conjectured that this was
the case with the dwarf. The man-lion also appears to
me to belong to a system different from the Hindu. The
boar is also a form of the sun-god in the Zend-Avesta.
Bama-chandra, like Krishna, is a god of night; his name
connects him both with the night (rdma, “ night,” “ rest,”
“ dark,”) and with the moon (chandra). His spouse is Sita,
“ the furrow,” the ploughed earth, which, according to a
representation common in antiquity, was fertilised by the
moon and by the dew descending from it, or the night
wind sent by it (in the Zend-Avesta, R&man is the genius
of the air \Vayu, the Sanskr. Vayu], who gives taste to
food). That Parasu-Rdma is a god of the solar fire admits
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

147

of no doubt. He springs from the Br&hman race of the
Bhrigus (lightning), his father’s name is Jamadagni, “ the
burning fire.” Like all gods of solar fire he is the nightly
or hidden one, and accordingly he slays Arjuna, the bright
god of day. Out of this the myth of the Kshattriya-slayer
developed itself spontaneously. In the myth of Krishna,
on the other hand, the two sun-gods are friendly, the old
pair of deities Vishnu and Indra in a new shape.

91.   In the cultus of Krishna the worship of Vishnu
reaches its climax. Traces of Krishna-worship indeed
make their appearance at an early date; but not till he
was regarded as an avatara of Vishnu, especially in the
form of Mr&yana, who had previously been identified
with Brahma, did it spread through the whole land. In
the Epos he is represented as a demi-god, who distin-
guished himself by his heroic deeds, his higher know-
ledge, and his miraculous power, while later on he took
the rank of the highest god. The Bruhmanic theosophists
make him a disciple of the Br&hmans, who devotes him-
self to mystic meditations, and thus in the Bhagavad-
Gita he appears as the preacher of an ethical-pantheistic
doctrine, and proclaims himself as the Supreme Being
and the Redeemer. At a later date, viz., in the Gita-
govinda, special prominence was given to the legends of
his miraculous birth, his intercourse with the shepherds,
and his luxurious life with the shepherdesses, the remem-
brance of which was celebrated by special religious
festivals.

When Buddhism had ceased to be dangerous to the
Brahmans, the Buddha himself was included among the
atavaras of Vishnu, and the sect of the Bauddha-
143

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

Vaishnavas arose, which attempted to fuse the two sys-
tems together.

At the end of this age (Kaliyuga) Vishnu is to appear
as Kalkin, to root out all wickedness.

In all his incarnations Vishnu is a god of salvation
and beneficence, and as a human being he is in no way
inferior to the Buddha in gentleness, humanity, and self-
denial, of which the Brahmans had many striking ex-
amples to present. To this Parasurama forms the only
exception, hut it is probable that the Brahmans did not
connect this form with him till they felt themselves
strong enough to re-establish their authority again, if
need be, by force.

If the Indian Herakles, of whom Megasthenes speaks,
is really Krishna, as Lassen affirms (Ind. Alterth, i. p.
647), the worship of Krishna must have become tolerably
general by 300 B.C. But the identification leaves much
to be desired. The name occurs in an inscription dating
probably from the beginning of our era (Bayley, Journ.
As. Soc. Bengal, 1854, cf. "Weber, Zeitschr. der Deuisch.
Morgenl. Gesellsch., ix. p. 631). The figure and the myth
of Krishna are certainly of great antiquity, though it
was not till later times that his cultus spread over the
whole of India.

Nara and Narayana also are ancient gods. Their
names signify “ man ” and “ son of man ” (Bohtlingk and
Both, JForlerb. Bopp explains NS.rfi.yana otherwise, “ he
who goes through the waters ”), and are doubtless con-
nected with Nereus and the Nereids. They correspond
with Arjuna and Krishna, Indra and Vishnu. In the
Brahmanic period, even as late as in the laws of Manu,
Nfirfiyana is a surname of Brahma.
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

I49

The legends of the Gita-govinda are not of more
recent growth than the stories about Krishna in the epics,
though they were not adopted into the Br&hmanic system
until later. They belong, on the contrary, to the oldest
myths of the Aryan race. The representation of the god
as a disciple of the Brahmans, which we meet with in the
Chandogya-Upanishad, is, however, much more modern.

In the teachings of the Bhagavat-Glta, Lorinser be-
lieves he can detect citations from the New Testament,
and the stories of Krishna’s birth and childhood appear
to Weber to exhibit traces of Christian influence. They
are, in my judgment, very doubtful. The works of
Lorinser and Telang have been cited above. Comp. A.
Weber, “Ueber die Krishnajaum&shtami” (Krishna’s Ge-
burtsfest) in Abhandll. der Konigl. Akademie detr Wissensch.
in Berlin, 1867. The views of Lorinser and Weber are
shared by F. Nfeve, Des Blemenls Btr angers du Mythe et du
Culte de Krichna, Paris, 1876. On the whole question
see C. P. Tiele, “ Christus en Krishna,” in the Theolog.
Tijdschr., 1877, No. 1. p. 63, sqq. Senart is of opinion
that the Krishna-myth served as the type for the legend
of Buddha. Even if that is correct, it still remains true
that the Brahmans took up the old popular representa-
tions which had been first adopted by the Buddhists,
modified their form, and then employed them again as
weapons against their opponents.

The significance of the future Buddha, Kalkin, whose
name if translated would mean “ contagion,” “ falsehood,"
is still very enigmatical.

92.   At the same time with Vishnu, perhaps even
before him, Kudra also, whose worship had made such
advances in the previous period (see § 78), was raised,
under his euphemistic name of Siva, to the position of
RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

150

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #22 on: February 18, 2018, 12:00:22 AM »

supreme deity (.Mahadeva). His character is not to be
reproduced in a single word. As Eudra his nature is
violent and dreadful; he lives in the wilderness on the
loftiest mountains; in asceticism, and, therefore, in power,
he surpasses all other beings. But at the same time he
is a god of fruitfulness, and thence the creator; and he
is from this time, therefore, generally worshipped under
the symbol of the power of propagation, the lingam.
It is not without reason that it has been supposed that
this symbol is not of Aryan origin, and that the Siva of
this period has arisen out of the fusion of Agni-Eudra
with a native deity. Certainly both the representation of
his person and the character of his cultus are thoroughly
unbr&hmanic, various foreign elements, such as the worship
of serpents and spirits (bhutas) being connected with his
worship. He was particularly popular in the mountain
districts of the north and in the Dekhan, and the Brahmans
saw in Sivaism a welcome ally against Buddhism.

The consort of Siva, who combines in her person the
same conflicting characteristics, who is marked out by
her self-renouncing piety (tapas) as an ancient fire-goddess,
and by her relation to Sarasvati, the goddess of the waters
and of knowledge, as a goddess of mountains and streams,
was invoked alike under the ancient names Ambika and
Uma, the “ mother ” and the “ protectress,” as well as by
the titles Kali, the “ black one,” and Durga, the “ terrible.”
As Kall-Durga she is the goddess of death, horrible in
shape, and worshipped with bloody sacrifices. In the
pantheon and in the cultus she takes a much more pro-
minent place than all the other goddesses, whose quali-
ties and names were transferred to her; and she was
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

151

even connected with Krishna and as Devimahatmya (“ the
majesty of the goddess ”) with Vishnu.

Siva means “ the gracious,” one of the euphemisms by
which it was endeavoured to appease dreaded deities, in
sound somewhat resembling his characteristic name,
Sarva, the “destroyer,” the “wrathful.” The epics relate
how the supreme gods, Vishnu and Krishna on the one side,
and MahSdeva on the other, vied with each other in their
compliments. All these passages in which they recipro-
cally glorify each other are, of course, interpolations. But
the worship of Mah&deva as the supreme god must be the
oldest. Passages, however, are not wanting which show
that his cultus was not introduced till after the first
period of Brahmanism, and then not without resistance.
The Lingam is certainly not a symbol of ancient Brah-
manism, and Sisnadevas (phallus-gods) are opposed in
the Vedas and excluded from pure sacrifices. He was
regarded both as destroyer and creator, inasmuch as he
was both storm-god and fire-god, and his union with Agni
may have served as the point of attachment for the
Br&hmans. I conjecture that Siva or Sarva was not
original, but was derived from his consort Durga, whose
attributes were transferred to Agni-Eudra, when she was
united with him. It is in this sense that we designate
him a native deity, which cannot be absolutely proved,
and is still doubted by many scholars, but is sufficiently
clear from the non-Aryan character of his cultus.

In the case of his spouse we must distinguish with the
same care between the mountain goddess Parvatt or
Haimavati, the ancient mother-goddess Umfi or Ambika,
and Kdli, Karali or Durga, who is certainly not of Aryan
origin. In the last who, properly speaking, has no con-
sort, we may recognise the goddess of death and of the
*52

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

under-world, wlio is found both among the oldest inha-
bitants of Central Asia and among the Malays. As the
spouse of Mahadeva she is, however, the goddess par ex-
cellence (Devi), and all the goddesses, therefore, and not
only Sarasvati (who was connected with P&rvatl) and
Nirjriti (the goddess of evil, resembling Durga in character),
but even Maya, Sri (spouse of Vishnu), Savitri, and others,
might be identified with her.

93.   Among the gods adopted during this period into
the Brahmanic system, Ganesa, the god of arts and wis-
dom, occupies the principal place. The greatest difficulty
was to find room in the same system for all the three
chief gods whose worshippers were for the most part
hostile to each other. The endeavours to fill up the
gulf between the rivals may be speedily traced in dif-
ferent mythic narratives of their reconciliation. The first
expedient was simply to place the three side by side, and
ascribe the same rights to each of them. Generally, how-
ever, two of them had to submit to be subordinated to the
third. Or Vishnu and Siva were united into one person,
Hari-Tuirau, who was then united with Brahma and regarded
as the chief god. Last of all arose the doctrine of the
Trimurti, according to which the three gods were repre-
sented as so many forms or revelations of one supreme
deity in his threefold activity as creator, sustainer, and
destroyer. Among the people, however, this doctrine
made little way. Moreover, it appears not only to have
arisen in the South of India, but to have been confined
exclusively to that portion of the Peninsula.

Besides the worship of Ganesa, practised by his parti-
cular sect, the GAnapalyas, we meet in this period with
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM. 153

that of Skanda K&rtikeya, the god of war, and of Kdma,
the god of love.

The union of Hari (ie., Vishnu) and Hara (Siva) had
its counterpart in the fusion of the male and female deity
also into one under the name Ardhanari. All this indi-
cates a strong tendency to monotheism.

The first appearance of the Trimurti is in the 14th
century A.D., but the idea that the supreme being exer-
cises by turns one of the three functions already specified,
is of great antiquity. The application of this conception
to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, is entirely arbitrary, the two
latter, for example, being creators no less than the first.

94.   It is characteristic of this period that it gave rise
to a new sacred literature, totally different in character
from the Brahmanic. But the Brahmans perceived very
clearly that the rich literature of the Buddhists, if its
influence was to he rendered harmless, needed something
to counterbalance it. With this view, the eighteen
Puranas which still exist, and a similar number of
Upapuranas, were composed: by the members of the
sects they were placed on the same footing as the Vedas,
and regarded as of great antiquity; none of them, how-
ever, were written till after the eighth century A.D.,
and the majority even are much later. Their object is
nothing less than to give a history of the universe since
its origin, and they are concerned not only with theology,
but with all departments of knowledge.

At the same time, the two great epics, the Mahfi-
bliarata and the Eamayana, in which the ancient gods,
already completely transformed into heroes, lived and
moved as human beings on the earth,—or rather, in which
the old myths were blended with some great historic
154

RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

events into an epic narrative,—were modified and inter-
polated by the worshippers of Vishnu and Siva, to make
them the vehicles of their particular theology.

Purina signifies “ancient tradition;” the Upapur&nas
are the By-Pur&nas, and are of less importance. Both
perhaps contain some elements of older Purinas now
lost, but they differ totally in spirit and contents from
the character of these works, as we infer it by descrip-
tion. Following the number of the great gods, they are
divided into three groups of six; but the six, which are
devoted to the glorification of Brahma, while they con-
tain a number of legends about him, chiefly insist on the
worship of Siva, and especially of Vishnu.

In the older parts of the epic poems, the principal
heroes and heroines are only compared with the chief
gods and goddesses. In passages subsequently inserted
they are elevated into their amt&ras. Ever and anon the
opportunity is seized to thrust in a panegyric on Vishnu
or Siva, or to furnish a proof of their supreme power.
It is often very easy to separate these additions from the
original text, which must have been in existence before
the year 300 B.C. It was a master-stroke of the Brahmans
to make these epics, which seem to have been originally
the peculiar literature of the Kshattriyas, available for
their purpose.

95.   Meanwhile, the Brahmans surrendered nothing of
their claims and privileges. To prevent the people from
escaping from their control, they lowered themselves to
them, but they were always careful to make it appear
what deep reverence was ever paid, even by the
highest gods, to a member of their caste. They likewise
remained faithful to their over-estimate of knowledge
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM.

155

(jndna) as a means of deliverance. They therefore
opposed the doctrine of Sandilya, which substituted piety
(ibhakti) and love to God for knowledge, and vigorously
maintained the authority and infallibility of the Yeda,
which they now even declared to be eternal and un-
created. Practically, however, they made concessions
upon this point, and regarded as orthodox every school or
sect which acknowledged the authority of the Yeda, even
though it denied its eternity.

The dispute about the eternity of the Veda is highly
instructive, especially when the Brahmanic doctrine of
revelation is compared with the teachings of Christian
and Mohammedan theologians on the inspiration of the
Bible and the Qoran. In subtlety and absurdity it far
transcends anything which either of the latter have ever
devised.   /

It was simply the recognition of the authority of the
Veda that secured even for the Nyaya and the atheistic
Sankhya philosophy the credit of orthodoxy by the side
of the orthodox Ved&nta.

96.   Of the six so-called philosophical systems, only
three properly answer to this description. The Vedanta,
the “ end of the Veda,” is purely pantheistic and monistic,
and is connected (as Uttara-mimdmsd, “later considera-
tion ”) with the proper or older Mlmamsa, (Purva-
mimdmsd), a more ritualistic system. The Nydya (“ rule,”
“ maxim ”) is occupied with the method of philosophical
inquiry, and the Vaiseshika (from visesha, “ difference,”
“ attribute ”) which is connected with it, applies the
method to nature. Analytical in their principles, they
are diametrically opposed to the synthetic SdnJchya
RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

156

(“ reasoning,” “ synthesis ”) a dualistic and atheistic sys-
tem, which exercised very great influence not only upon
thought but also on religion. The practical side of this
system is represented by the Yoga philosophy, which is
distinguished from the Sankhya by its decided theism,
and undertakes to show how, by concentrating the mind
in profound reflection, it is possible to attain union with
the divine principle, while its professors surpass in self-
torture all the ascetics of the world. The so-called
founders of these schools are for the most part mythical
persons. Beneath the systems which hear their name, we
may discern clearly the animistic view of the universe.
In the doctrine of the independent existence of the soul,
and the inferences to be drawn from it, they all agree.

The Vedanta, the S&nkhya, and the Nyaya, are the only
schools that possess any of the characteristics of philo-
sophical systems, and even they only deserve this desig-
nation in a limited sense, as the object of them all is not
the search for truth, hut the redemption of men.

The PArva-mimarnsa is founded on the Brahmanas,
but the Vedanta, on the other hand, on the Upanishads,
which suffices to indicate their respective characters. On
this system, and on (Jankara, the famous champion of
orthodoxy, see A. Braining, Bijdrage tot de Kennis van den
Veddnta, Leiden, 1871.

The animistic character of these systems appears in
the fundamental conceptions which they all possess in
common. As the union of body and soul (which, like the
substance of the universe, is eternal) is the cause of all
misery, deliverance consists in the complete separation of
the soul from the body, and it is to this goal that the
different systems are intended to lead.
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM. 157

The reputed founders of the Vaiseshikas, Sankhya, and
Vedtota schools are certainly mythic beings,—Kanada
(the “atom-eater”), Kapila (the “yellow”), and Vyasa
(“ extension,” “ separation ”); probably also Gotaraa, the
supposed founder of the Ny&ya, is of the same order.
Jaimini, the founder of the Pdrva-mtmafnsa, may very
well be regarded as a historical personage, and Patanjali,
the father of the Yoga, is certainly so.

97.   As soon as Buddhism was overcome and driven
out, the sects which had only been united by the pre-
sence of danger, burst through this artificial union, and
were again separated. Vishnu was once more worshipped
by the Vaishnavas, Siva by the Saivas, as the supreme
deity, and each body split into a number of smaller
communities, to which new ones were perpetually being
added. The most famous of the later Vaishnava sects
are those founded in the twelfth century by Ramanuja
in Southern India, and sometime afterwards by Raina-
nanda. The first of these is distinguished by great strict-
ness, and the avoidance of all profane persons; while to
this the second is in many respects diametrically opposed,
though its founder Ram&nanda was originally one of the
followers of Ramanuja. Expelled because he had eaten
with unconsecrated persons, he abstained from imposing
on the disciples whom he gathered round him, any com-
mands of ceremonial purity, and even taught that the
clergy ought to reject all forms of worship. Erom a
disciple of Ramananda came, further, the sect of the
Kabirpanthi, from whose writings the famous Nanak
Shah, the founder of the religious community of the
Sikhs (Sishya), derived a large portion of his doctrine.
RELIGION AMONG THE HINDUS.

158

The K&birpanthi hardly belong to Vishnuism any longer,
though they are counted among its adherents, but they
have adopted many elements of Mohammedanism, and
are zealous Monotheists. Like the followers of Rama-
nanda, they employ the vernacular. The repugnance to
animal sacrifices is shared by all these communities, and
they are all alike open to members of every caste.

The Saiva sects are composed chiefly of clergy or
monks, living in solitude, or united in fraternities. Siva
is their god, as the protector and the example of self-
denying penitents. They have now, however, for the
most part degenerated into mere jugglers, and no longer
enjoy much respect.

The doctrine of the followers of Ramanuja accords, in
many respects, with the Vedanta. Vishnu is in their
view the same as Brahmk The adherents of Ramananda
worship Vishnu as R&ma or Sita-Eama. K&bir is cer-
tainly a fictitious name for the unknown founder of the
community of the K&blrpanthi. Much as the author of
their sacred books may have derived from the teachings
of the Mohammedans, he was certainly far better ac-
quainted with the Hindu writings than with the Islamitic,
and he must, therefore, have been a Hindu. A complete
translation of the Adi Granth, the sacred book of the
Sikhs, has been recently published by Dr. E. Trumpp,
London, 1877. Comp, also his Festrede, Ndnak, der
Stifter der Sikh-Beligion, Munich, 1876.

98.   The deep decay of Brahmanism is evinced by the
rise and spread of the Sakta-sects, who worship the per-
sonified power of the three great gods as female beings.
POST-BUDDHISTIC BRAHMANISM. 159

Though these bodies have some points of affinity with the
other sects, they constitute really a return to representa-
tions and usages belonging to a lower stage of religious
development. They are divided into two groups, those
of the right hand (DaJcshindchdri), and those of the left
hand (V&mdcMri), of whom the first follow a stricter
ritual, while the second are characterised by magic cere-
monies and disgusting licentiousness. Sometimes, how-
ever, they merge in each other. The rise and spread of
these sects affords an example of the revival of ancient
elements as soon as the bonds of the hierarchy are
weakened, and the chain of purified tradition is
broken.

Meanwhile, under the influence of Islam and Chris-
tianity, a number of mixed sects have arisen, such as that
of Xunak Shah already named, and the later Brahmo-
samaj, which is perhaps destined to give a new direction
to Brahmanism.

To the wives of the three great gods, Durga, Lakshmi,
and Sarasvati or Savitri, Rad ha, the spouse of Krishna,
must also be added, who is indeed regarded by some sects
as the chief goddess.

It is impossible to mistake the striking correspondence
between the worship of the Saktis and the primeval
nature-worship of the pre-Aryans and pre-Semites, in
which the great mother-goddess is the supreme object of
worship, and which has left so many traces behind it
through the whole of Asia. The Dakshinachari and
Vamachari flow into each other, among other places, at
Calcutta. At any rate, the sect of the Right-hand estab-
lished there follows to some extent the ritual of the Left-
hand. On this subject compare Pratdjiachandra Gosha,
i6o

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2018, 12:01:51 AM »

RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIANS.

BurgA pujA, with notes and illustrations, announced in the
Theol. Tijdschr. 1872, p. 344, sqq.

The sect of the Brahmo-samaj founded in 1830 by
R&m Mohun Roy, and reformed in a liberal spirit in our
own time by Keshab Ghander Sen, recognises the moral
grandeur of Jesus, and the truth of the fundamental
Christian principles, but does not absolutely abandon the
Hindi! tradition. It aims at a religion consisting in the
worship of God as the loving Father of all men, and re-
sulting in brotherly love to all. Whether it is destined
to exercise any great influence in the future, cannot as
yet be determined.

III.

RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIAN (PERSIAN) NATIONS.
MAZDEISM.

Literature.—General and historical works: F. Spiegel,
ErAnisclxe Alterthumskunde, i. Geogr., Ethnogr., und alt.
Geschichte, Leipzig, 1871, ii. Religion, Geschichte bis sum,
Tode Alexanders des Grossen, ibid., 1873. The third and
last voL is in the press. Id., Arische Studien, i. Leipzig,
1874. F. Muller, Zend Studien, i. and ii., Vienna, 1863.
Flathe, Art. “ Perser, Geschichte ” in Ersch and Gruber’s
Allg. Encydppadie, sect. iii. vol. xviL pp. 370-434.
Lassen, Aeltere Geographic, ibid., pp. 435-443. Spiegel,
ErAn, Beitr. zur Kenntniss des Landes und seiner Geschichte,
Berlin, 1863. F. Justi, Beilrage zur alien Geogr. Per-
siens, i. Marburg, 1869, ii. ibid., 1870 (Universitats Fest-
schrift).—Sacred Literature. Editions of the Zend-Avesta
by Spiegel (with Huzvaresh-translation), Leipzig and
MAZDEISM.;

161

Vienna, 1851, and following years, and by Westergaaiid,
Copenhagen, 1852-54. Of the Vendiddd Sdde, by H.
Bkockhaus, Leipzig, 1850. Of the Bundehesk, with
transcription, translation, and glossary, by F. Justi,
Leipzig, 1868. Latest editions of the Persian cuneiform
inscriptions, Spiegel, Die Altpers. Keilinschriften, ini
Grundtext mit Uebersetz., Gramm., und Glossar, Leipzig,
1862 : C. Kossowicz, Inscriptions Palaeo - fersicae
Ackaemenidarum, ed. et expl., Petropol., 1872. The Ardd-
Virdf Ndmalc, with translation, &c., by M. Haug and

E.   W. West, Bombay and Loudon, 1872. Further, M.
Haug, Die fiinf Gdtlid's . . . Zaratlmstra’s, herausgeg.,
iibersetzt und erkldrt, i., Leipzig, 1858, ii., ibid., i860, to be
used with very great caution. The following chiefly
depend on Spiegel: Decern Sendavestae Excerpla, recensuif
et latine vertit C. Kossowicz, Paris, 1865, and by the
same writer, G&iha aliunavaiti, Petersburg, 1867; Gdtlia
ustavaiti, ibid., 1869 ; Saratustricae Gdthae poster, tres, ibid.,
1871. Neriosenglis Sanskrit translation of the Yasna,
edited by Spiegel, Leipzig, 1861. F. Spiegel, Avesla,
aus dem Grundtext iibersetzt, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1852-1863,
with which must necessarily be compared his Commentar
iiber d. Avesta, 2 vols., ibid., 1865-1869, as it contains a
number of emendations and modifications of the translation.
Detached pieces: M. Haug, Das aclitzehnte Kapitel des Wen-
diddd iibersetzt und erhlart, Miinchen, 1869. Hubsciimann,
Ein zoroastrisches Lied (Fagna, 30), ibid., 1872. Comp,
further, R. Roth, “ Beitrage zur Erklarung des Avesta,”
i.-iii., and F. Spiegel, “Zur Erklarung des Avesta,”
both in the Zeitschr. der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch., xxv.,
pp. 1 sqq., 215 sqq., 297 sqq. M. Breal, “Fragments de
Crit. Zende,” Joutn. Asial., 1862 (includes an essay on
the first Farg. of the Vendid&d). W. D. Whitney, “ On
the Avesta,” Journ. Amer. Orient. Soc., v. 1856, and
162

RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIANS.

Oriental and Linguistic Studies, New York, 1875, and Max
Muller, Chips from a German Workshop, artt. v.-viii. (A
number of purely philological works cannot be enume-
rated here.) Religion.—Th. Hyde, Historia Religionis vet.
Persarum eorumgue Magorum, Oxford, 1700, still note-
worthy. I. G. Rhode, Die heilige Sage und der gesammte
Religionssystem des Zendvolkes, Frankfort, 1820, founded
entirely on the translation of the Zend Avesta by
Anquetil Duperron, which is no longer of any use. The
confusion of elements belonging to different periods, and
the want of a good translation, render K. Schwenck’s
Mythologie der Perser, Frankfort, 1855, useless. C. P.
Tiele, De godsdienst van Zarathustra van haar ontstaan in
Baktrie tot den val van het Oud-Perzische Rijk, Haarlem,
1864, requires revision, especially for the history of the
origin of Mazdeism. M. Haug, Essays on the Sacred lan-
guage, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees, Bombay, 1862
(to be used with caution). F. Windischmann, Zoroastr.
Sludien, herausgegeben von Spiegel, Berlin, 1863 (contains
among other things a complete translation of the Bunde-
hesh and the Farvardin-Yasht). Id., Die Persische Ana-
hita oder Andilis, Munich, 1856. Id., “Mithra,” in
Abhandll. fur die Kunde des Mmgerd., i., No. r, Leipzig,
1857. I. G. Stickel, De Diance Persiae Monum.
Grcecliwyliano, Jena, 1856. J. H. Vullers, Fragmente
uber die Religion des Zoroaster, Bonn, 1831. J. Oppert,
“ L’Honover, le verb cr^ateur de Zoroastre” (Ann.dePhilos.
Chretienne, Janv., 1862). A. Hovelacque, Morale de
VAvesta, Paris, 1874. James Darmesteter, Haurvetdt
et Ameretdt, Essai sur la Mythologie de VAvesta, Paris, 1875.
On the Parsism of the present day, Dadhabai Naoroji,
The Parsee Religion, and The Manners and Customs of the
Parsees, London, 1862.—See further, “ Contributions
towards a Bibliography of Zoroastrian Literature,” in
ORIGIN OF MAZDEISM   163

Triibner’s American and Oriental Literary Record, July 20,
1865.

99.   After the division of the Aryans into Hindus
and Eranians, the latter probably remained for a consider-
able time faithful to the ancient Aryan religion, though
not without adopting Turanian elements into it. Maz-
deism or Parsism is a reformation of this religion, ascribed
by its confessors to Zarathustra (Zoroaster). Of the his-
tory of this reformer, whose very existence even has been
called in question, nothing is known with certainty, though
a number of legends have been transmitted of his birth,
temptation, and miraculous deeds. It is equally uncer-
tain at what time the religion of Zarathustra was founded.
It appears from the oldest sources that the religious re-
formation accompanied the introduction of agriculture and
of settled life. The language in which these documents
are composed is an East-Eranian, and Bactria, therefore,
must have been the fatherland of Mazdeism, though it
was certainly raised to the rank of state religion in the
Persian empire from the time of Darius Hystaspis, and
perhaps even before him. Taking its rise in East-Eran
probably before or during the eighth century before our
era, it made its way after that date with the Aiyan tribes
over Media and Persia, and there, it would seem, in the
hands of the non-Aryan priestly tribe of the Magi, un-
known in Bactria, it underwent not unimportant modifi-
cations.



The close relationship of Parsism to the old-Aryan
religion is placed beyond all doubt by comparing it with
the Vedic and Brahmanic religions. Haug and others
RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIANS.

(including the present writer in an earlier work) have
defended the opinion that Mazdeism arose at the same
time with the old-Vedic religion, and that both were
the result of a schism among the followers of the old-
Aryan religion. The grounds on which this opinion
is based, appear, however, on further inquiry to be .
insufficient.

On the question whether Zaratliustra must be regarded
as a mythical personage, there is as yet no agreement.
Kern, “ Over het woord Zarathustra en den mythischen
persoon van dien naam ” (Mededeelingen van de Koninkl.
Akad. van Weteifischappen, 1867), answered it in the affir-
mative. On the other side, Spiegel, Er&n, Altertk, i. p.
708, and Heidelb. Jahrbb., 1867, No. 43. Justi, Golt. Gel.
Ameigen, 1867, No. 51. Cf. Spiegel, “ Ueber das Lebeti
Zarathustra’s,” in Sitzungs-Berichla der Kbnigl. Baler.
Akad. Fhilos.-PIdlol. Glasse, January 5, 1867. Even the
name Zarathustra has received various explanations.

From the inscriptions of Darius I. it appears that
Mazdeism was in his time the official religion of Persia.
With the exception of the short sepulchral inscription of
Cyrus, no such inscriptions remain from his predecessors.
It is not improbable that they also were already Mazda-
worshippers.

The selection of the eighth century is not arbitrary.
In the narratives given by the Assyrian kings of their
military expeditions into Media, it is not till the eighth
century and onwards that Aryan names begin to appear,
and in the first Fargard of the Vendidad only East-Eranian
countries are named, while with the exception of the
Median city Itaglia, neither Media nor Persia is mentioned.
This tradition describes the countries created by Aliura-
Mazda, which can have no other meaning than the
countries where Mazdeism prevailed. If its origin can-
AIAZDEISM.   165

not be brought down later than the eighth century b.C!.,
Mazdeism must by that time have been in existence.

The Magians were certainly a pre-Semitic and pre-
Aryan priestly tribe in West Asia, whose head, Rab-mag,
belonged to the court of the Babylonian kings. See
Jer. xxix. 3. It is held by some scholars (Lenormant)
that, in the form emga, “ glorious,” “ exalted,” the name
is already found in Akkadian as a title of honour borne
by the learned and the priests, which seems rather doubt-
ful to me. The Akkadian word mah, “great, high,
principal,” has more likeness to the Semitic Mdg, the
Persian Magus, the Bactrian AFughu. Of course the
Ertaians must have derived it from their own Maz,
“great,” or Maga, “greatness.”

100.   Our knowledge of the Zarathustrian religion is
chiefly derived from the Avesta (or Zend-avesta), a collec-
tion of writings or fragments composed at different dates,
the remains of a much richer literature, and from the
Bundehesh, a cosmogonic-theological work, written in
Pehlevi not earlier than the third century of our era, but
preserving many older traditions. The Avesta is divided
into Izeshne (yasna), “ sacrifices,” “ sacrificial prayers,” Vis-
pend (yispe ratavo, “ all lords ”) praises to the supreme
powers, and Vendidad (yi-daevadata), the law “given
against evil spirits,” a book which contains, together with
ancient traditions, the moral and ceremonial laws, and
the prescriptions relating to purity. These three books
together, arranged in a peculiar way, constitute the pure
Vendidad (Vendiddd-sdde), the Parsee prayer-book. The
Yashts, sacrificial songs, resembling some which occur in
the books just named, form, with some shorter texts, the
166 RELIGION AMONG THE ErAnIANS.

small Avesta (Khordak-Avesta), and are certainly by far
the most poetical portion of the Holy Scripture. The
greater part of these books are written in the same East-
Eranian or Bactrian dialect, but a portion of the Yasna,
chaps. 28-53, like some ancient prayers, is composed in
another dialect, and contains the five Gatlias or religious
odes and a prose-work, the Yasna of the seven chapters,
—certainly the oldest documents of Pars ism.

The Bundehesh was composed under the reign of the
Sasanidse, the restorers of Parsism, whose sovereignty
began at the commencement of the third century a.d.
By that time Bactrian had already become a dead lan-
guage. But it is clear that the learned men who wrote
this book employed ancient documents in its composition.
The Avesta, the Yashts not excluded, must be older, but
it is not possible to determine with any certainty the
dates of the origin of the different books. Their relative
antiquity is all that is settled. Their chronological suc-
cession is as follows : the second part of the Yasna, the
Vendidad, the first part of the Yasna, the Vispered, the
Yashts, &c.

101.   Ear above all divine beings stands Ahura mazddo,
the all-wise Lord or Spirit. In the oldest hymns and
texts, including, for instance, the confession of faith, he is
glorified as the Creator and the God of light, of purity
and truth; the giver of all good gifts, and in the first
place of life,—his praise and worship transcending every-
thing. He is invested with the same rank in the inscrip-
tions of the old-Persian kings of the race of Hakhamanis,
who profess themselves indebted for their sovereignty to
him ; and the restorers of the empire and its religion, the
AHURA MAZDAo.

167

S&stmidffi, vie with them in his worship. With the
extension of the world of divine beings as objects of wor-
ship, the homage dedicated to him increased rather than
declined. The finest names were devised for him, and
the latest representation is perhaps the most exalted.
The preaching of this god as the supreme, and, indeed,
almost as the only deity, is certainly the new and charac-
teristic element of the Zarathustrian reformation, the
adherents of which even called themselves distinctively
Mazdayasnan, worshippers of Mazda. It was an obvious
step to identify him -with the good spirit (spento mainyus),
one of the two who, according to the Parsee doctrine,
existed from the beginning, and this identification took
place at an early period; but it was not till a very late
modification of the system that he was placed on the
same footing with the evil one of the two spirits (anro-
maAnyus), and boundless time {zrvan akarana) was set
above both.

A large number of Ahura mazda’s titles of honour may
be found collected in the Ormazd yasht. The description
given of him by the Bundehesh is more elevated than
that in the Avesta.

In the combination Ahura-mithra (dual) he takes the
place of the old-Aryan Yaruna; but it would be erro-
neous on this account to place him on a level with the
latter ; he stands infinitely higher.

The system which represents Zrvan akarana as the
supreme deity, and Ahura mazda and Anro-maTnyus as his
sons, is most probably no earlier than the time of the Sa-
sdnidse, and is an attempt to restore monotheism, which
was endangered by the application of dualism to the
conception of deity also.
i68

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #24 on: February 18, 2018, 12:02:51 AM »

RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIANS.

102.   Next to Ahura mazda follow six lofty spirits, and
these seven make up the number of the sacred immortals
(amesha spehta). The representation of seven supreme
spirits is old-Aryan, hut the new system raised one of
them above the rest, and inserted fresh figures in the
ancient frame. For five of these Amesha spenta (Amshas-
pands) were originally abstract ideas, their personification
being only slightly advanced in the oldest hymns. The
first three, Vohu mono, “ the good mind,” Asha rnhista,
“ the best purity,” and Kshathra vairya, “ the desired
kingdom,” are scarcely more than attributes of Ahura
mazda; the last two, JTaurvatat and Ameretat, “ welfare ”
or “ health,” and “ immortality,” are eternal powers con-

A

ferred by Mazda. Armaiti alone, an old-Aryan deity, has a
more definite personality, and denotes at once the wisdom
which protects and fosters the earth and the earth itself.
Vohu mand became at a later date the genius who protects
mankind and receives them into his abode in heaven, as
the agent by whom Ormazd’s creation is extended; long
afterwards, under the degenerate name of Bahman, he
appears as the lord of the animal world. As the genius
of purity, Asha vahista is, of course, the spirit of fire, the
enemy of sickness and death, the adversary of all evil
spirits, and he is always, therefore, closely connected with
Atar, “ fire,” the son of Ahura mazda. Kshathra vairya soon
becomes the genius, not only of the kingdom but also of
riches, lord of the precious metals, who teaches their pro-
per employment, and punishes their misuse. Haurva-
tat and AmeretS,t are already in the Gathas gods at once
of health and long life, and of the waters and plants, and,
in general, of plenty, and they are, therefore, most closely
THE AMES HA SPENT A.

169

connected with Armaiti. They gradually came to be
regarded more definitely as the spirits who provided
food and drink, the conquerors of hunger and thirst.

The Amesha spenta have a general resemblance to the
Vedic Aditya’s, which were originally six or seven in
number, and various epithets are applied to them in com-
mon. See Spiegel, Er&n. Altherth., ii. p. 31. But in
personality they were quite different.

It is remarkable that the names of the Amesha spenta
are half neuter and half feminine. Armaiti, in the form
Aramati, also occurs in the Veda, and acts among the
Hindus as well as among the Er&nians as the genius of
wisdom or piety, and also of the earth. Accordingly the
founder ofMazdeism has adopted this entire figure from
the old-Aryan system.

The relation between Asha and Atar is completely
analogous to that between the Babylonio-Assyrian Anu
and ijiamdan, though the two pairs of deities are at the
same time separated by great diversities.

J. Darmesteter has endeavoured to prove that the
abstract significance of the Amesha spenta preceded the
material, and, in particular, that Haurvatat and Ameretat
originally personified health and long life. Not till a
later period, so he supposes, were they set over the waters
and plants; and it was from their older attributes that their
significance as spirits of plenty was derived. Though the
essay contains much that is admirable, and the author has
accurately expounded the necessary connection between
the various functions of these deities, he has failed, in my
judgment, to furnish the proof that the material significance
is the derivative. The question is part of the larger subject
of the origin of Mazdeism and its connection with the Yedic
religion, an inquiry which is still far from being completed.
170

RELIGION AMONG THE ERA ALANS.

103.   The general name Yazata, “ worshipful,” served
for addressing a number of spirits, partly derived from
the Aryan mythology, partly peculiar to the Zara-
tliustrian system. The first named deities, which were
probably too deeply rooted in the popular faith to be
altogether supplanted by new and more abstract repre-
sentations, were not, however, adopted among the Yazatas
without having undergone some modification, and being
made subordinate to Ahura mazda. The chief of them
are Mithra, the god of light, Nalryd sanha, the fire-god,
Aparn napdt, the god of the fire dwelling in the waters,
Haoma, the god of the drink of immortality, and Tistrya,
the genius of the dog-star. The goddess of the heavenly
waters and of fruitfulness, Anahita (old Pers. Andhata),
is of foreign Chaldee origin. When, under the govern-
ment of Artaxerxes Mnemon, the cultus of Mithra, com-
bined with foreign usages, increased in importance, this
goddess, also, was worshipped with special zeal, and in
entirely unorthodox fashion. The cultus of both deities
spread over Western Asia to Europe, and was on the
whole more widely diffused than that of any other deity
of antiquity.

It was natural that prominence should be given in
Mazdeism to that side of the character of the old-Aryan
deities which most harmonised with the spirit of the new
doctrine. Thus Mithra became more especially what
Varuna had been in the Yedic religion, the god of truth
and right, the guardian of leagues; Nairyo ?anha, in the
Veda Nara sansa, a surname of Agni and other deities, the
messenger between the dwellers in heaven and men;
Haoma (the Indian Soma), the genius of life and health,
THE YAZATAS.

171

the protector against evil spirits and wicked men—the
revengeful and licentious; and Apam napat was at any
rate brought into connection with the genuinely Maz-
dayasnian representation of the heavenly glory. Tistrya
alone retained his physical significance pure and simple,
like the other star-spirits with Hvare hshaeta, the sun-god,
and Mao, the moon-god, at their head, who, however, retire
into the background among the Eranians. Moreover, the
traditions of the Aryan heroes supplied not a few ele-
ments for the Er&nian, some of which were even attached
to the person of Zarathustra.

The goddess AnMiita bears the genuine Aryan surname
Ardhvi Sdra, and her common name signifies the .“un-
spotted.” She is, however, a foreign deity. See my
Godsd. van Zarathustra, p. 181, where it is shown that she
was adopted from the Semites. It was not then known,
and has only come to light since, that the Semites must
in their turn have derived her from the Akkadians.

104.   The genuine Zarathustrian Yazatas are all, like
the majority of the Amesha spelltas, personifications of
ideas, as is plain from their very names, such as Bashrm
razista, “ the most perfect justice,” Daena, “ the true
faith,” or “ the law,” and others. Even the ancient
prayers were elevated into personal spirits of this kind,
and the most eminent of these, the Ahuna vairya prayer,
was even turned into a sort of Logos, a divine creative
word. But the highest in rank of all the Yazatas is
Sraosha, who was placed nearly on a level with the holy
immortals. He is, as his name proves, a fine hold personi-
fication of “ hearing,” both of invocation and of listening
to the sacred prayers, maxims and sacrificial songs, and he
thus naturally becomes the founder of sacrifice, the genius
172

RELIGION AMONG THE ERAnIANS.

of obedience and watchfulness, who contends against evil
spirits with spiritual weapons.

Besides Eashnu razista and Daena, there also deserve
to be mentioned among this order of Yazatas Mathra
spefiia, the sacred sacrificial rubric or magic formula, and
Damdis upamand, the “ oath ” or “ curse,” and the Zara-
thustrian Question. The entire divine revelation, namely,
is clothed in the form of answers given by Ahura mazda
to the questions of Zarathustra, and these last are then
ascribed to the inspiration of a special genius. The well-
known Honover is simply the later form of Ahuna valrya,
and was originally the oldest of the Parsee prayers.

Sraosha appears already in the GatMs as a personal
being : the tendency to anthropomorphism fastened more
strongly on him than on any of the other Yazatas of the
same order, and at a later date he was for the most part
connected with Mithra.

105.   From the Yazatas we must distinguish the Fra-
vashis, the divine or heavenly types of all living beings,
including the Yazatas and even the Amesha spentas.
They are at once the souls of the deceased and the pro-
tecting spirits of the living, created before their birth,
and surviving after their death, and they are sometimes
identified with the stars. This doctrine, arising out of
animistic representation of the independence of souls or
spirits, and of their immortality, and recurring in one
shape or another among all nations of antiquity, received
among the Eranians—probably under the influence of a
native religion—a special development, and, in a higher
form, was adopted into the Zarathustrian system from the
very beginning.
ITS DUALISM.

173

The Fravashis reappear afterwards in Judaism as
guardian angels, and from these they passed into Chris-
tianity (cf. Matt, xviii. 10). The meaning of the word
Fravashi is uncertain. It probably signifies “ the earlier ”
(fra) “ grown ” (vaksk).

106.   Parsism is decidedly dualistic, not in the sense
of accepting two hostile deities, for it recognises no wor-
ship of evil heings, and teaches the adoration only of
Ahura mazda and the spirits subject to him; hut in the
sense of placing in hostility to each other two sharply-
divided kingdoms, that of light, of truth, and of purity,
and that of darkness, of falsehood, and of impurity. This
division is carried through the whole creation, organic
and inorganic, material and spiritual. Above, in the
highest sphere, is the domain of the undisputed sove-
reignty of the all-wise Lord, beneath, in the lowest abyss,
the kingdom of his mighty adversary; midway between
the two lies this world, the theatre of the contest.

At the head of the evil or dark spirits stands Aiiro
mainyus, the “ attacking ” or “ striking ” spirit, the creator
of everything physically or morally unclean, and, as such,
the opponent of Ahura mazda. Beneath him stand the
daevas (the devas of the Aryan and pre-Aryan period),
degraded from the rank of good to that of evil spirits.
These include some Yedic gods, as well as purely Eranian
creations, of which last-named Aeshma, “ anger,” is the
chief, or, at auyrate, the best known. To the kingdom
of Anro mainyus there belong, further, the Dmjas (Nom.
sing, druhhs), the “ liars ” or “ deceivers,” an order of
female spirits or monsters, who were already counted as
evil spirits before the daevas had become so, and the
174

RELIGION AMONG THE ERAnIANS.

Pairikas, another order of female beings, who seduced the
pious by their beauty. It was not till later that some
amount of arrangement was introduced among these
beings, and each of the principal spirits, for example,
each of the Amesha spentas, obtained his distinct coun-
terpart. The character of Anro mainyus is opposition,
he simply follows the creative activity of Ahura mazda,
producing whatever may injure his good creations.

Anro mainyus becomes in Parsi Aharman, in modern
Persian Ahriman, among the Greeks ’Ass/.ttdwos. His name
signifies the “striking” or “attacking spirit.” He is also
called the “wicked” {ahem), or the “most wicked”
(iacistem) “spirit” (mand). In the Gath&s he is still a
more or less abstract conception, but he very soon comes
to be personified.

The Vedic gods enumerated among the Daevas are
Indra (Indra or Ahdra), Sarva (Saiirva, originally a fire-
god, afterwards an epithet of Agni, later still identified
with Siva), and N&satya (Ndohhaithya), the prototype of
the Yedic Asvins. Aeshma daeva was adopted in the
form of Ashmodeus by the Jews and the Christians. Of
the other genuinely Etonian Daevas we must also men-
tion Asto-vtdhdtus, the “ bone divider,” a genius of dissolu-
tion, and Apaosha. the “ drought.”

Druj, nom. drukhs, denotes literally the “deceiver,” the
"liar,” and is really the same word as the old High
German gitroc, modem Dutch gedrocht, both signifying
“a monster,” “a monstrous conception of the imagina-
tion, by which man is deceived.” This order of beings
includes old-Aryah spirits of darkness, such as Azhi
dah&ka, the “ biting snake,” the AM or cloud snake of
the Yeda, and Nasus (ve*6;), the " corpse-demon; ” and
purely Eranian spirits, like Btishyansta, a genius of sleep.
ITS DUALISM.

175

Pdirika is derived from a root (par) which, among
other meanings, signifies to fight, to contend, and also to
go away, to run off. Even pure nature-beings, such as
Duzhydira (old Pers. Dusiydra), the “bad year,” “failure
of crops,” are referred to this group.

The classification of the evil spirits places A16 manJu
(“evil disposition ”), for example, opposite to Yohu man&,
and Ifidra, the king of the Daevas, opposite to Khshathra
vairya, the “ desired kingdom.”

Tdrtc and Zdric, the demons of hunger and thirst, or,
more correctly, of sickness or death, are the adversaries
of Haurvatat and Amerctat.

107.   This dualism further dominates the cosmogony,
the cultus, and the entire view of the moral order of the
world held by the Mazda-worshippers. Not only does
Abro mainyus spoil by his counter-creations all the good
creations of Ahura mazda, but by slaying the protoplasts
of man and beast, he brings death into the world, seduces
the first pair to sin, and also brings forth noxious ani-
mals and plants. Man finds himself, in consequence,
surrounded on all sides by the works of the spirit of
darkness and by his hosts. It is the object of worship
to secure the pious against their influence. This is of the
utmost simplicity, without images or temples: pure fire
plays the principal part, and has the power, when com-
bined with the sacred spells and sacrificial songs, to break
the might of the evil spirits, and purify men from their
pollution. The whole life of the believer is a constant
conflict with evil, in which, as is universal in antiquity,
little difference is made between physical and moral evil.
Agriculture, likewise, and the care of clean animals and
176 RELIGION AMONG THE ErAnIANS.

plants are powerful means of weakening the kingdom of
impurity. But the love of truth, also, vigilance and
activity, are weapons which win the victory in this
contest.

The protoplasts of men and animals are the well-known
Gaydmart (modern Pers. Kaydmars), i.e., Gayb marelan,
“ human ” or “ mortal life,” and Goshurum, i.e., Gilts urvan,
the “bull” or “ox-soul,” both of whom were slain by
Ahriman. The first men, Gay6mart’s offspring, are
seduced by him to sin. The correspondence between
the legends of the fall among the Persians and the
Israelites is well known.

108.   With this fundamental thought the disposal of the
dead, and the representations of the destiny of the deceased
and the future of the world, are in accord. Purity inheres
especially in fire, earth, and water : the bodies of the dead,
therefore, must not be burned, nor buried, nor cast into a
river; they are exposed on artificial mounds or towers
reserved for the purpose (dakhmas), to be devoured by
birds of prey. After death the souls of the departed are
obliged to cross the bridge Chinvat. For the wicked
this bridge is too narrow, so that they fall off, and sink
down into the under world (Duzakh), there to be tor-
mented by the spirits of evil. The good, however, are
welcomed by Sraosha or Yohu man6 into the Abode of
Song {yard demand), the dwelling-place of Ahura mazda
and the saints. But the joys of heaven and the pains of
hell do not last for ever. Hereafter the sovereignty of
Anro mainyus shall come to nought. Three thousand
years after Zarathustra, the conquering saviour (Saoshyds
Vevethragna), preceded by two personages to p 'pare the
ITS ESCHATOLOGY.

177

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #25 on: February 18, 2018, 12:04:14 AM »

way, sliall be born by supernatural means. Tbe contest
reaches its climax. Everything is in flames, but only the
wicked suffer; the pious feel nothing more than an agree-
able warmth. By this discipline all creatures are refined;
the evil spirits are destroyed; the earth is renovated,
and the sole sovereignty of Ahura mazda begins, to be
continued without end.

The bridge Chinvat, commonly interpreted as the
“ bridge of the gatherer,” an explanation which now ap-
pears to me very doubtful, is borrowed from the old
Aryan mythology, and was probably originally the rain-
bow which unites heaven and earth. The P&rsee eschato-
logy represents the judgment of souls as conducted there
not only by Sraosha, but also by Mithra, the genius of
truth, and Rashnu, the genius of justice. Saoshyas (Pehlv.
Sdcidsh, Par si Saosyds), the Saviour, is the son of the
virgin mother Eredatfedhri (“ she who possesses a mighty
father ”), who conceives him in a miraculous fashion from
Zarathustra. He renews the world and resuscitates the
dead, after having first destroyed everything. Here, also,
in spite of the differences, the correspondence with Jewish
and Judseo-Christian ideas is striking. The doctrine of
the purification of the wicked is peculiar to Parsism.

/

109.   The old-Aryan theology and cultus are only in
part the source of many of the distinctive features of
Parsism. The doctrine of the Fravashis, and the whole
system of spirits with the dualism so strictly carried
through it, the cosmogony, the sjtecial homage offered to
fire, some of the sacrificial customs, and other representa-
tions, also remind us of the religion of the Akkadians,

who were so closely connected with the ancient inhabi-
7   M
178 RELIGION AMONG THE ERANIANS.

tants of Media and Elam. It is probable, therefore, that
the Zarathustrian religion, especially in its later develop-
ment, owed its form to the influence of the native reli-
gion of the Medians. The Chaldee religion may also
have contributed one element or another to the Median
and Persian Aryans, for before their settlement in Media
and Persia, the Assyrians had reduced a good deal of Eran
under their sway. Some other peculiarities again must
be derived from other sources. But to all these foreign
elements the Aryan mind has given an independent
shape, resulting in a religious communion, whose simple
creed and pure practical morality preserved it from
the extravagances of its sister communion in India, and
stimulated its adherents to an active life and valiant
deeds. The less luxuriant climate of Eran and the
national character may have co-operated in this direction;
but this high development, and especially their almost
monotheistic conception of deity, must be to a large
extent ascribed to the preaching of a reformer, or at any
rate to a little circle of thinkers.

After the Greek conquest Mazdeism fell into decline.
It was brilliantly restored in the third century a,d. by
the Sasfinidae, but it finally succumbed before the fana-
tical violence of Islam. In a few districts of Persia it
still drags on a miserable existence, but it continues to
flourish with some vigour among the Parsis who emi-
grated to India, and there it even appears to be not
incapable of reforms.

Amid many rash conjectures, F. Lenormant, La Magie
chez les Ghaldeens, pp. 178 sqq., and 191 sqq., has many just
remarks on the influence of the old-Median religion on
AFFINITIES WITH THE AKKADIANS.

179

Mazdeism, and the correspondence between the former
and the Akkadian. His idea that the Proto-Medes
worshipped a serpent-deity, and that this was Azhi
dahaka, and identical with King Astyages, is altogether
erroneous. Azhi dahaka is a purely Aryan demon, and
Astyages has nothing to do with him.

The strange treatment of the dead, and the great value
set on the dog, which distinguish the Eranians from kin-
dred races and from their western neighbours, have been
found among Tibetan tribes; and these practices, there-
fore, they must have adopted from the earlier inhabitants
of southern Eran. See among others, Koppen, Religion
des Buddha, ii. p. 322 sqq.

1Y.

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #26 on: February 18, 2018, 12:05:34 AM »

RELIGION AMONG THE WENDS OR LETTO-SLAVS.

Literature.—See I. J. Hanusch, Die Wissensehaft des
Slavisehen Mylhus, Lemberg, 1842, pp. 49-62. The Rus-
sian sources are enumerated by W. R. S. Ralston, The
Songs of the Russian People, London, 1872, pp. x-xii. See
further, Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales; Id., KhUof and
his Fables; Id., Early Russian Eistory, London, 1874, and
Gotlesidee und Culius Id den Ellen Preussen, Berlin, 1870.
The work of Hanusch, though rich in material, is ren-
dered useless by its want of a critical and historical
method of comparison. Ralston is a well-informed and
careful guide, who may be safely trusted. Comp, also F.
J. Mone, Geschichle des Hddenthums irn Nordl. Europa, 2
vols., Leipzig and Darmstadt, 1822-23.

110.   Down to the introduction of Christianity, reli-
gion, among the Wends or Letto-Slavs, remained at a
i8o

RELIGION AMONG THE WENDS.

point of development far behind even that of the Veche
and old German religions. It is very probably older,
and it is certainly lower, than any of the Indo-Germanic
religions with which we are acquainted. It contains the
germs both of the polytheism of the Hindus and of the
dualism of the Persians, but without the philosophical
colouring which distinguishes the one, or the ethical
character of the other. Its cosmogony is still purely
mythical, the conflict between the divine beings is simply
that between the powers of nature, and with this stage of
development its cultus and its doctrine of immortality
are in accord.

The Letts, who form one of the two great divisions
of this race, include the Letts proper, the Lithuanians,
and the old-Prussians. The Slavs are divided into
East and West-Slavs. Of the first of these groups the
principal members are the Russians, of the second, the
Poles and Czechs (Bohemians and Moravians). The
Slavs of Southern Austria and European Turkey (Ser-
vians, Bulgarians, Croats, &c.) form a separate group
of Southern Slavs, different from, yet most closely allied
with, the Eastern. The name Wends, now limited to the
Slavs of the Lausitz, seems to have been originally the
most general.

It is probable that the Letto-Slavs, like the Germans,
remained united with the Aryans longer than the Kelts,
Greeks, and Romans, and they have preserved the reli-
gion of this period in its purest form, while it reached
a higher and independent development among the
Germans.

The proofs of the other statements in the text will be
found in the following sections.
ITS ANIMISTIC BASIS.

181

111.   Like all mythological religions, that of the Wends,
also, rests on the doctrine of souls or spirits, which
scarcely reaches among them a higher stage than among
savages. The soul, of which the ancient Wends formed
very different conceptions, though they were such as are
found among all other peoples, moves about in freedom,
remains for a while after death in the neighbourhood
of the body, but then sets off on its journey to the
shadow-land, which is sought either in the underworld, or
on a happy island in the East, the abode of the sun, or in
the sky. The journey is thus either a sea-voyage over
the world-ocean, or a journey on foot over the rainbow
or the milky-way, or the ascent of a steep and slippery
mountain; and the survivors were careful to provide the
dead with what they would require on one of these ex-
peditions. The idea of retribution has not yet arisen;
the life after death is simply a continuation of the life on
earth. The dead, therefore, were furnished with every-
thing appropriate to their condition, even with wive3 and
slaves; for the unmarried a consort was provided at the
grave; and second marriages were rare. To the three
representations of the kingdom of the dead correspond
three modes of disposing of the corpse,—(i), burial, which
carried the soul to the underworld; (2), burning, which
bore it in the smoke to heaven; and (3), burial or burn-
ing in a boat, which transported it to the island of the
sun. But the souls of the deceased always continued in
relation with the living, and as their return was dreaded,
feasts and sacrifices were zealously celebrated to appease
them, or all kinds of devices were employed to keep
them away.
RELIGION AMONG THE WENDS.

182

J The soul was represented as a spark kindled by the
god of thunder, as a star (as among the Persians), a
vapour, a breath of air, a shadow; or, again, as a winged
creature, whether an insect or a bird, especially a dove, a
crow, or a cuckoo. The butterfly was even called a
“ little soul ” (dushichka). It appears also as a mouse, as
among other nations; the milky-way is called the
“ mouse-path.”

The sky is named Rai (Lithuan. rojus, comp. Sanskr.
raj. = “ to be bright or white ”), and the underworld Peklo,
which is a regular deity among the old-Prussians. It was
only under Christian influence that this afterwards be-
came hell. The stories of the island Buydn (“ the
burning ”) agree in many respects with one of the chief
dogmas of Parsism. The white stone Alatuir (electron 1)
found there, is the sun. The world of the dead is also called
Nava, a name which has not as yet received an adequate
explanation, but which some writers have connected with
the conception of the voyage of the ship (navis, vavj).

Burning and burial were both practised by the Slavs
as by all the Indo-Germans ; with these, correspond the
different representations of the realm of the dead.

The same usages are found among the old-Prussians
and the Lithuanians.

112.   A peculiar richness characterises the doctrine of
spirits among the Letto-Slavs, of which that of the old-
Eussians may serve as an example. They divided the
demons into spirits of the house, the water, the forest, and
the air. The house-spirits are, properly speaking, fire-
spirits, and are the objects, in their two-fold character, of
great veneration. The house-spirit watches over and
protects the house and its inhabitants, not excluding the
ITS DEMONOLOGY.

183

animals, shares all tlieir fortunes, is, as a rule, friendly;
or, when he is angry, is easy to he appeased: but, if he
is altogether neglected, shows that he is a spirit of might,
who rules not only over the beneficent fire on the hearth,
but over the lightning as well All the qualities of water,
its fertilising and destructive power, its treacherous beauty
and mystic depth, its magic power which sets the mill-
wheel in motion, are personified in the beautiful Eusalkas,
and their male companions; all the terrors of the forest
and the dangers which threaten travellers through it, are
embodied in the wood-demons, which are naturally at
the same time the spirits of the storm. Koshchei, the
genius of winter, is a very evil being, and so are the con-
tagious sicknesses which wander about in the shape of
old women or hideous men, as well as that multitude of
wizards and witches, who, during their lifetime, often
become were-wolves, and, after death, bloodsucking vam-
pires. All this is purely animistic; but the Slavic
demonology is favourably distinguished from that of
savages by the poetical guise in which it is arrayed.
That it is not mere poetry, but really religious belief, is
proved by the awe with which the spirits are regarded,
and the often costly sacrifices offered to them.

Domovoij (doma = “ house”), the house-spirit, stood in the
closest connection with the domestic hearth, and, in case of
removal, had accordingly to be transferred with great cere-
mony to the new dwelling. Frequently he assumed the
the form of the master of the house. He is found, how-
ever, wherever there is fire, even in the lightning. The
crowing of the cock, his sacred animal, puts to flight all
other spirits, but not him. Only the Domovoy of the same
184

RELIGION AMONG THE WENDS.

house is friendly : those from elsewhere are jealous and.
dangerous.

To the Vodyanuie, water-spirits, belong the Rusdlkas (rus,
old-Slav. = “stream,” rosd, “ dew,” Lat. ros), much dreaded
for their deceitful qualities, and in the summer time
solemnly chased away. Tsar MorsJcoi, the water-king, with
his fair swan daughters, stands at the head of this realm.

The wood-spirits, Lyeshie, bear most resemblance in
conception and character to Pan and the Satyrs, and
have nothing in common with the clouds, with which a
certain school of mythologists attempts to connect them.
That they axe also wind-gods appears from the represen-
tation of the storm as their marriage-procession, and the
whirlwind as their bridal dance.

The Domovoy is content with small domestic sacrifices,
but the spirit of the mill-stream requires the first swarm
of bees, the other water-spirits demand a horse, the wood-
spirits a cow, and all exact a portion of the harvest. In
ancient times, also, human sacrifices were certainly offered.

113.   Religion did not, however, remain stationary at
this point among the Wends any more than among other
nations. Besides these spirits they also recognised and
worshipped real deities, raised above nature, who were
called by the Letts Dewas and by the Slavs Bogu. At
their head there once stood among all the peoples of this
race the thunder-god Perwn or JPerkuns, the god who
smites the demons with his glowing flashes so that the
blood pours forth from their wounds in streams upon the
earth. In honour of him a perpetual fire of oak-wood
was kept up. Among the Lithuanians and old-Prussians,
two other gods were placed as his equals by his side, of
whom the one, Balrivvpo, must have been a joyous and
NA TURE OF ITS DEITIES.

185

beneficent sun-god, and the other, Pccollos, the god of the
hidden solar fire in the underworld, both being indis-
putably of native origin, and not adopted from any other
source. Sun-gods were worshipped by the Slavs in great
numbers; some being male, such as DazKbog, the god of
day, son of Svarog, the god of the sky (Svarozhich), and
Zado, always united with Lada, counterparts of Freyr
and Freya, and corresponding in character with these
German deities; one being female, the spouse of the
unfaithful Moon-god, and mother of the stars, who be-
longs to another mythological formation. Tire-gods also,
—of whom one, Ogon, bears the same name as the Vedic
Agni, and another Kuenets, is a sort of Vulcan, a cunning
smith, but at the same time a hero who destroys demons
—and a multitude of other divine beings, were objects
of worship. Among these we may further name the
Spirit of Life (Polish, 'Zywie, Russian, Jiva), embodied in
the cuckoo, the White and the Black god (Byel hog and
Czerno log), gods of light and darkness, of whom the first
is also named Svantovich,—representations and names
agreeing with some of the Parsi, but destitute of the
ethical significance which they received in the Zara-
thustrian system, and which none of the Wend deities
possesses.

Dewas in Lithuanian signifies “ god,” but the unfavour-
able meaning which the word acquired among the Persians
attached itself even amongst the Letts to deiwys, “ idol,”

“ ghost.” Bogu is the Sanskr. hhaglia (Bactr. bagha), old-
Pers. baga, from bhaj (Bactr. baz), to “ divide,” to “ distri-
bute.” I11 the use of this word again the Slavs agree more
closely with the Persians than with the Hindus. Some
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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #27 on: February 18, 2018, 12:06:51 AM »

RELIGION AMONG THE WENDS.

writers regard Perun as a deity adopted from the Scan-
dinavians. Among them he appears under the name of
Fiorgyn, in a very subordinate position. If there was any
borrowing at all, the originalty is not in this instance on
the side of the Germans. This is true also of the Lettic
triad, which has been supposed to be derived from the
Goths. From what source, in that case, came the purely
Lettic names of these deities ? Comp. Gottesidee und
Oultus der alt. Preuss. p. 39 sqq. Patrimpo, the joyous
harvest-god, and Pjecollo, the ripener of the grain, are
both sun-gods, hut the latter dwells in the underworld,
and is the god of the dead, a part which he also plays
in the beautiful Lithuanian myth of Nijola (the Letto-
Slavic Kora-Proserpina). His name, which is applied
among the Russians to the underworld itself, comes from
pjec, to “hake,” to “warm,” the Sanskr. pack, to “burn,”
to “ cause to ripen.” Patrimpo I am inclined to connect
with the Sanskr. trimp (from trip), to “ enjoy to satiety.”
Svarog comp, with Sanskr. svarga, the sky.

Lado or Did-Lado, “ the great Lado ” and his consort,
“ the great goddess,” are, like Freyr and Freya, gods of
love, marriage, and fertility.

Jim, 'Zywie, comp. Sanskr. and Bactr. jiv, “ life,” old-
Pers. ziv, personified hy the Parsis as Jtsti, father of the
double unity AsMhwra. Byel and Czerno bog are parallel
with the two Zarathustrian spirits Spefito-mainyus and
Anro-mainyus. Svanto or Sveto in Svantovid = Spfefito,
being identical in form and meaning (i.e., “ holy ”).

114.   The relation between man and the higher powers,
also, so far as we know, still stood, at any rate among the
Slavs, at a very low stage of development. The spells
in which they believed, the amulets which they wore to
secure or avert the presence of spirits, the peculiar oracles
ITS IMPERFECT DEVELOPMENT.

187

by which they sought to discover the future, all belong
to the animistic view of life. This is also true to a cer-
tain extent of their feasts, in which the magic purport
was not wholly obscured, and the life of nature was as
yet scarcely elevated by any ethical conception, though
poetic and dramatic elements were not wanting. The
East-Slavs appear to have had neither temples nor priests,
nothing but sacred places and wise men and women, a
land of enchanters and enchantresses, who had power
over the elements, and were at the same time gifted with
prophetic utterance.

The Lettic branch was somewhat more advanced. At
least the Lithuanians had a priestly order, and the old-
Prussians even a sort of high-priest, who lived apart in a
sacred place, surrounded by the veiled images of the gods,
and from this retreat issued his commands through his
subordinate priests.

The amulets, composed of all kinds of charms, have
always the form of a button, a lock, or a net, nduzui,
which is connected with uzui, “bands,” and uzit’, to
“fasten these are clearly fetishes, serving to secure
the presence of the guardian spirit by binding him, and to
keep off hostile spirits. The oracles, both those by which
it was sought to learn the coming weather, and the result
of the harvest, as well as those concerning the issue of a
war or of personal destiny, are marked by the accidental
and magical character of the lot, which is genuinely
animistic. The feasts also were supposed to possess a
magical efficacy on the elements, as in the case of the
ceremony of pouring water on a girl decked with leaves
at the summer festival of the Servians, “ that the heavenly
women (the cloud-spirits) may give rain,” as they said.
i S3

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

Among the East-Slavs this feast still retained a bac-
chanalian and even phallic character.

It was customary among them for the head of the
family or the tribe to offer sacrifices on behalf of all
beneath a sacred tree (an oak was preferred), or on
the bank of a running stream. But the Vyedun, the
“enchanter,” literally, the “knowing one" (vyedaf, to
“ know ”), and especially the Fyeshchaya Zhena, the “ wise
woman,” were held in high honour among them, at any
rate in times of prosperity.

The old-Prussian high-priest was called Kriwe or Griwe
(from hrych, to “ hide ” ?), and dwelt at a place named
Romowe (rozmowa, “ conversation” t), which the dead also
were obliged to pass upon their journey.

V.

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

See the literature in K. Simrock, Handbuch der Deut-
schen Mythologie mit Einschluss der Nordischen, 3rd ed.,
Bonn, 1869, p. 7 sqq., and L. S. P. Meyboom, JDe Gods-
dienst der oude Noormannen, Haarlem, 1868, p. 19 sqq.
Indispensable, Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 3rd
ed., 2 vols., Gottingen, 1854, and J. W. "Wolf, Beitrdge
zur Deutsch. Mythologie, Gottingen, vol i., 1852, vol. ii.,
1857. Comparative, AY. Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen-
Forschungen, Berlin, 1858. For Dutch mythology, L. Ph.
C. van den Bergh, Proeve van een Kritisch Woordenboek
der Nederland. Mythol., Utrecht, 1846.

115.   Among the Germans religion reached a much
higher development than among the Wends, which must
he ascribed rather to the richer endowments of their race
RELATION TO OTHER RELIGIONS. 1S9

than to the influence of a more advanced civilisation.
With this circumstance is connected the fact that, with
the exception perhaps of the Keltic, there is not one of
the Indo-Germanie religions which has departed so far, in
respect of the names of the chief deities, from its kindred
as the Germanic. In doctrine it most resembles the
Persian, and, like the Persian, it is inferior in philosophi-
cal contemplation to the Vedic religion, though it equally
surpasses it in its moral standard. Our fullest knowledge
of it is derived from the two Eddas, of which the older
contains a collection of very ancient and chiefly mytho-
logical songs, while the younger is composed of prose
traditions, together with fragments of older poems. They
are the sources for the religion of the Scandinavians or
Normans, from which, however, that of the Germans
proper does not essentially differ. German mythology
must be studied chiefly through the medium of oral
traditions.

The superiority of the German religion over that of
the Slavs is evinced by the fact that it made so much
more out of the same materials. The fundamental con-
ception in all the Indo-Germanic religions is the conflict
between the higher deities who control nature, and the
rude forces of nature, especially between light and dark-
ness. No nations of this race have realised this dualism
with such clearness as the Letto-Slavs, the Germans,
and the Persians, but while with the first it remained
purely physical, the two latter alone, and certainly
independently of each other, gave to it an ethical
character, and wrought it, as it were, into a sublime
drama.

The older Edda (“ grandmother,” here, however, in a
190

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

special sense, as the guardian of the ancient poesy) is
ascribed to Saemuudr, the wise, and is therefore called
Edda Saemundar kins fr6da: the latter was collected and
written by Snorri, the son of Sturla, and bears in con-
sequence the name Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Among the
best translations is that of Simrock (3rd ed., Stuttgart
and Tiibingen, 1863). How much still remains to be done
for the criticism and correct interpretation of the Edda-
sagas is proved, for instance, by the important disserta-
tion of Barend Symons, Untersuchungen tiler die sogenannte
Volsunga Saga, Halle, 1876. In the Story of the Volsungsand
Niblungs, London, 1870, Morris & Magniisson have repro-
duced some portions of the elder Edda for English readers.

116.   The cycle of the Germanic gods is not entirely
deficient in names derived from Indo-Germanic antiquit}',
but they are not numerous, and the deities which bear
them only occupy in the system a subordinate place.
The ancient Dyaus still survives in Tyr, who is still
among some tribes a god of the sky; but in the system of
the Edda he is not a little degraded, for he has become
the god of the sword and of fraternal strife. The Letto-
Slavic Peruns or Perkunos may he recognised in Fiorgyn
(Goth. Fairguni) who has furnished a name to several
mountain-forests, but he has seen his sovereignty pass to
his son Odhinn and his grandson Thorr, who are purely
Germanic gods. The very ancient and general name for
deity, Deva, is not quite forgotten, hut it has been obliged
to give way to the more usual designations Aesir and
Vanir, which are found exclusively among the Germans.
The deities belonging to these orders, derived probably
from different tribes and only afterwards united, opposed
ITS CYCLE OF GODS.   191

the ‘wild powers of nature which were represented as
giants. These, under the names of the “ eaters ” (jotunn)
or the “ thirsty ” (thurs), were worshipped as powers of
violence and terror, and human sacrifices even were
offered to them. They were at first neither good nor bad,
but they came gradually, and with increasing definite-
ness, to be regarded as evil beings, foes of the good deities.
Between them and the Aesir and Vanir stand the Elves,
divided into three classes, two of which consist largely of
dwarfs. They are the lower, less dreaded demons of an
earlier period, and therefore, though they are at peace
with the gods, they often play a very mischievous part
They also, like gods and giants, were the objects of
sacrifice.

Tyr, genit. Tys, Goth. Tins, old high Germ. Zio, is the
Yedic Dyaus, the Greek Zeus. In compounds it often
occurs with the general meaning of “ god.” Among the
Semnones or Suabians Tyr is still the god of the sky,
among the Scandinavians the god of the sword and of
unnatural war, but the sword was originally the lightning,
and the war the strife of the heavenly powers.

Fiorgyn is the Perkunos of the Letto-Slavs, and was
probably adopted from them. The elves it has further
been proposed to identify with the Vedic Ribhavas, and the
Maren with the Vedic Maruts, but, like Tyr and Fiorgyn,
they have no prominent place in the German system.

The plural Itvar, “ gods,” which occurs now and then,
corresponds to the Vedic deva. The Aesir (As, pi. Aesir,
Goth, and old high Germ, ans) are commonly explained
to mean the “ beams,” the supports of the universe, which
seems to me very doubtful. It is far more probable, in
accordance with the opinion kindly communicated to me
192

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

by my friend Prof. Kern, that the word, of which the
original form is ansu, is connected with the Er&nian anhu
(and thus also with the Ahuras and Asuras), and means,
therefore, the “beings,” the “spirits.” The Vanir are
originally the “ waters,” and hence also the “ beautiful,”
the “lovely;” comp. Venus.

The three classes of elves are the Lios-(“ light ”), Svart-
(“black”), and Ddck-(“ dark”) Alfar; the two last kinds
dwell in the ground, and to them belong the dwarfs.
That they were not mere productions of poetic imagina-
tion, but beings in whose existence and power men really
believed, is proved by the sacrifices dedicated to them.

117.   By the union of Aesir and Vanir, the elevation
of single attributes of the gods to independent beings,
and other causes, the German polytheism grew richer
and richer, hut it is a mistake to suppose that it issued
from monotheism. It was not till afterwards that an
approach was made to this in the representation of the
highest god as the All-Father. Far above the other
Aesir stand Odhinn, Th6rr, and at first also Loki. Odhinn
or "VVodan was originally a nature-god, the personification
of the violent movements of the air, of the breath which
blows through the universe. Then, as a deity controlling
nature, he was the warlike patron of princes and heroes,
whom he gathers after their death into his Walhalla;
and finally he rose to he the king of the gods, lord of the

A

world, and god of the soul. Thorr or Donar, the Asa
par excellence, with his wonderful hammer Miolnir, was,
as his German name implies, the thundering god of the
sky. As such he was the summer-god, who contends
?with and overcomes the dreaded powers of winter; and,
THE AES1R AND VANIR.

193

as protector of agriculture, the god of the people and of
servants, he was especially a god of civilisation. Loki,
probably also a god of the air, was very closely connected
in the old myths with these two chief-gods, so that he
forms a triad with them, and fights by their side against
the winter-giants, whom he generally outwits. In later
times he was to acquire a totally different significance.
The chief of the Vanir was Freyr or Fro, the Lord, god
of the bright sky, source of life and fertility, and there-
fore, in the system to which he properly belonged, the
creator. After his union with the Aesir, he became the
god of peace and love. Of the goddesses, who differ little
from each other, the Asynia Frigg, wife of Odhinn, and
the Yana Freya, “ the Lady,” sister of Freyr and spouse
of Njordr, the god of the sea, occupy the highest rank.
Subsequently Freya entirely supplants Frigg, and even
takes her place as Odhinn’s consort. Originally a per-
sonification of the earth, then of the moon, she becomes
the goddess of beauty, fertility, and love. The doctrine
of the three Norns or goddesses of destiny covers a deeper
thought, which the Greeks embodied in their Moirae, and '
the Eomans in their Parcae, each in their own way.

All-Father, originally (as early as Hrafnag. 1) an epithet
of Odhinn. Odhinn, O.H. Germ. Wuotcin, New Germ.
IVodan, Fris. TVcda, from watan = to “ wade,” meare, con-
nected, with the German wuth (“wrath”) and muth
(“ courage ”). — Thdrr (for Thonar, Thom ?), O.H. Germ.
Donar, is the Asabrdgr, the Asa-prince. The representa-
tion of him contains non-German (Turanian) elements,
such as the epithets Atti or Etzel (Attila), i.e., “grand-
father.” Loki, whose name is connected by Simrock with
194

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

lux, X‘.uxos, Sanskr. Mg, and by Grimm with lukan, to
“ shut,” to “ close,” seems rather, as his name Loftr implies,
to have been a god of the air (luft). In the myth in which
he outwits the winter-giant with his horse Svadilfari (the
cold wind), he is the cool spring-breeze.

The triad of the three highest gods corresponds curi-
ously with the three chief heroes of the Finnic epos, and
so with the three principal deities of the ancient Finns.

The meaning of the name Norns is uncertain. They
are three, Urdlvr, the “ past,” Verdhandi, the “ present,”
and Skuld, the “future.” The Greek Moirae and the
Roman Parcae are both of another character, the domi-
nant idea being, in the one group, that of death (fiogor,
mors), and in the other that of production {partus). The
Norns have it for their function to accomplish destiny,
scop (cf. scheppen, schaffen, to “ shape,” to “ create ”), orlog
(“fate,” still surviving in the Dutch word oorlog,
“ war”).

118.   The moral standard of the Germanic religion is
shown forth, among other indications, by the history of
the Asa Loki and of the goddess HeL The first gradually
sinks lower and lower beneath the rank first occupied by
him by the side of the two highest gods, and he finally
becomes an evil being. As the god of fire he was not to
be trusted; for however beneficent he might be, he was
at the same time dangerous and treacherous. While the
myths were still nothing more than nature myths, this
caused no difficulty: but when the attempt was made to
detach the Aesir from nature, and measure their character
by a moral standard, it was inevitable that Loki should
sink and finally be thrust out. Hel encounters the same
fate, though she was originally no other than the dark
ITS ETHICAL CHARACTER.

195

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #28 on: February 18, 2018, 12:07:54 AM »

underworld, properly speaking the twilight, both darkness
and light, the goddess of death and life.

Loki, who was first of all the brother, then the bosom-
friend of Odhinn, was the contriver of frequent tricks by
which he brought the Aesir into danger, but he always
rescued them again by his cunning. He counsels aii
alliance with the winter-giant, the architect (Smidhr,
“smith,” Find off Feder, “wind and storm”), with his
horse Svadilfari, which was to overthrow the god, but he
manages to frustrate it. He carries Idunn to Thrym-
heim, but he brings her back, and is one of those who go
thither to recover the stolen hammer of Thorr.

When, however, the conflict of the powers of nature
came to be transferred to the domain of ethics, he be-
came the father of the destructive powers, the wolf Fenrir,
the serpent of Midligardh, and Hel, and it was he who
instigated the murder of Baldr. He abuses the gods as
their evil conscience, he is pursued, chained, then he
breaks loose again in the last contest, only to be finally
altogether overthrown. The myth is exactly parallel to
the Prometheus myth, which is, however, worked out in
a completely opposite sense, with sympathy for the hero.

Hel (Goth, halja, connected with the Sanskr. k&U, the
“black”), has an equally ambiguous meaning as “twi-
light,” but the further she can be traced into antiquity,
the higher is the position which she occupies.

119.   The clearest manifestation, however, of the
ethical character of this religion is seen in the description
of the great drama of the world, which corresponds both
in general and in some detail with the Persian, and, like
its parallel, rests upon ancient nature-myths. Its chief
features are as follows. In the beginning innocence and
126 RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

freedom from care everywhere prevail. But lying and
sin soon make their appearance, and even steal within the
circle of the gods. The gods are indeed constantly victori-
ous in the conflict with the giants ; hut the adoption of
giantesses into then- community, the birth of violent mon-
sters, children of Loki, his falsehoods and deceptions, are all
the forerunners of a future fall. The death of Baldr, the best
and wisest of the Aesir, one of the disasters brought about
by Loki, is the great turning-point of the drama, for it
proves the mortal nature of the gods. The wicked god and
the dangerous monsters are for a time subdued and put in
chains, but at last they burst their bonds. The break-up
of all institutions and ordinances (Bagnarok, commonly
the “ twilight of the gods ”) begins. For three years
there is winter, and an unnatural war rages. The gods
wrestle with the collected forces of cold, fire, and dark-
ness, and in this strife they perish with their adversaries.
Then, however, everything renews its life; the chief of
the Aesir are now hallowed and purified; mankind lives
again, no longer subject to the miseries of existence; and
the earth recovers its power of growth. Baldr returns
from the underworld, and beneath the sway of the supreme
but unnamed god, all beings in the renovated world lead
a life of freedom from care, and peace.

The basis of this representation in nature may still be
clearly traced. Like all ancient nations, the Germans
made at first no sharp distinction between moral and
physical good and evil. But for the study of the develop-
ment of religion, it is of the highest interest to observe
how the same nature-myths underwent an ethical trans-
formation among both Germans and Persians, quite inde-
THE DRAMA OF THE WORLD.

197

pendently of each other, and with characteristic differences
among each people; and how, consequently, while the
forms remain the same, the development of religion
advances with that of the nation.

The myth mentions three female Thurses, or giantesses
(Old Engl, thurst, goblin or wood-demon, A. S. thyrs),
which were adopted into the circle of the Aesir, and
thus became the primal cause of their fall. These three
are not the three Korns (Simrock), but Angurbodlia, Gerda
and Skadhi, the wives of Loki, Freyr, and Njordhr.
Beneath these three there lay originally (1) a thunder-
myth (Loki, the god of fire, by Angurbodlia [“ messenger
of fear”], the thunder-cloud, begets Fenrir and Hel, i.e.,
darkness, and the serpent of Midhgardh, the shower); (2)
a myth of the sunset (Freyr, the sun-god, sinks into the
arms of Gerdha, the earth-girding sea); and (3) a winter-
myth (Njordhr, the god of the sea, is married to Skadhi).

Baldr is Baldag, the white god of day, the Byelbog of
the Slavs, having probably been adopted from them.
Ilddhr, his blind brother, who slays him, agrees in that
case with Czerno bog, and was originally the god of
darkness.

Ragnarok, interpreted by Grimm as Gbtterdammerung
“ twilight of the gods,” and formerly translated by others
“ elementorum dissolutio," in connection with Aldar log,
“ ruptura sjeculi,” is properly the break-up or dissolution
of the ordinances and regulating powers in nature and
the world.. All the chief Aesir take part in the contest,
and each has his special adversary, whom he overcomes,
though he himself is in his turn overthrown. Odhinn
fights against Fenrir, Tyr against Managarm, Thorr
against the serpent of Midhgardh, Heimdall against Loki.
Vidliar alone, the god of the forest and of revival, sur-
vives Fenrir, whom he slays.
198 RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

The same myths which at first expressed simply the
conflict between light and darkness, night and day, and
were afterwards transferred to the succession of the
seasons, became then blended into one whole, and were
applied to the entire course of the history of the world.
It was the necessary consequence that they were at the
same time elevated by moral conceptions.

120.   It is remarkable that while the conception of the
gods among the Germans stands so much higher than that of
the Letto-Slavs, their psychology, their doctrine of immor-
tality, and their cultus, are in the same backward condi-
tion. The representation of the soul and its destiny after
death is still largely animistic, though the idea of retri-
bution after death is not wholly wanting. Magic was
still very general. The cultus was on the whole exceed-
ingly rude; even human sacrifices were not infrequent.
It was conducted among the Germans chiefly in sacred
groves, or at least in very small and simple temples. But
some progress is, nevertheless, to be traced. The Normans
had larger sanctuaries, and among them some of great
celebrity. The cultus of animals and trees was only
kept up because it had been brought into connection
with the worship of the higher deities, and a deeper signi-
ficance began to be sometimes attached to sacrifice.
The priests acquired a very high rank. They belonged,
among the Germans at any rate, to the nobility, and had
peculiar influence as heralds and judges. Even their
names indicate rather an exalted conception of their
office.

All these considerations prove that the Germanic re-
ligion was in a state of transition and temporary decay
ITS IMPERFECT DEVELOPMENT.

19?

?when Christianity began to make its way to the North.
The new faith was itself no longer entirely pure, as it
was already mingled with a number of Greek and Roman
elements, and it was unable wholly to supplant the
ancestral religion, hut it blended with the popular beliefs,
and breathed a new spirit into the old forms. And it is
certainly not a matter of chance that it was among these
same Germans, who, even in barbarous times, had intro-
duced moral conceptions into their theology, that the
reformation was most earnestly taken to heart, and most
triumphantly carried out, and that its prevailing character
was not intellectual, but ethical.

The reception of the heroes in Odhinn’s Valholl implies
already the passage from the theory of continuance to
that of retribution. For though they continue there
the occupations of their past lives, their reception is a-^
reward for their valour. There are, moreover, traces of a
place of punishment.

Human sacrifices consisted not only of criminals and
prisoners of war, but even of widows and slaves. In
epidemics even children were offered, and they were also
immured in the foundations of new buildings, in regularly
animistic fashion, with food and toys.

In the development of religion, the forms of worship,
which are very tenacious, are the slowest and the last to
undergo modification.

An O.H. Germ, title for priest was Ewarto, from fiwa,
the “divine and human law.” Another, Old-Norman,
was Godi, fern. Gydja, from Gudh, “ god.” Among the
Normans the priests exerted influence even over war, and
indeed the priesthood and the kingship were combined
among them.
200

RELIGION AMONG THE GERMANS.

In the fusion of Christianity -with the popular beliefs,
the myths and traditions became legends; the place of
( Wodan was occupied by Christ, St. Michael, or St.
Martin; for Donar appeared Christ or St. Peter; Fro
was supplanted by St. Andrew, mitissirnus sanctorum,
St. Stephen, or St. Nicholas; the place of the goddesses
was taken by Mary; St. Gertrude represented Gerd’ha,
&c. Loki, of course, became the devil.
( 201 )

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Re: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele
« Reply #29 on: February 18, 2018, 12:08:48 AM »

CHAPTER Y.

RELIGION AMONG THE INDO-GERMANS UNDER
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEMITES AND
HA MITES.

Literature.—M. W. Heffter, Die Religion der Griechen
und Romer, 4 vols., Brandenburg, 1845. W. H. Eoscher,
Studien zur Vergleich. Mythologie der Griechen und Romer, I.
Apollon und Mars, Leipzig, 1873. IL Juno und Hera,
ibid., 1875 (deficient in exactness of method, the conclu-
sions, therefore, being insufficiently confirmed). A.
Preunek, Hestia-Vesta, Tubingen, 1864, a monograph of
great importance. Emile Burnouf, La Legende Athen-
ienne, Rtude de Mythol. comparde, Paris, 1872 (sets forth a
doubtful and improbable theory). W. Grimm, Die Sage
von Polyphem, Berlin, 1857 (also in the Alhandll. der
Kaiserl. Akad. zu Berlin, 1875, p. 1 sqq.).

I.

RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

Literature—History.—G. Grote, History of Greece, 8
vols., London, 1862, vol. i., describes the Greek religion
objectively, without any attempt to explain it. E.
CuRTitrs, History of Greece, transL by A. W. Ward, 5
vols., London, 1868-73, admirably adapted for exhibit-
ing the connection between the history of the people and
the development of its religion. J. P. Mahaffy, Social
Life in Greece from Homer to Menander, London, 1874,
202

RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

ingenious but one-sided. Comp, further Schomann’s
Griech. Alterthiimer, 2 vols., 3d ed., and A. H. G. P. VAN
den Es, Grieksehe Antiguiteiten, 2d ed., Groningen, 1873.

Mythology and Religion.—F. G. Welcker, Griech.
Gotterlehre, 3 vols., Gottingen, 1857-62. J. A. Har-
tung, Die Religion und Mythologie der Griechen, 4 vols.,
3:865—73. k- Preller, Griech. Mythologie, 2 vols., 2d
ed., 1860-61 (a 3d ed. of vol. i. has since appeared). J.
W. G. van Oordt, De Godsdienst der Grieken en hunne
Volksdetnkbedden, Haarlem, 1864. Id., Grieksche Mytho-
logie. Eene schets, ’s Gravenh., 1874. For the older'works
comp. Preller, i. pp. 19-24.

Important Monographs.—J. Overbeck, Beitrage zur
Erkenntniss und Kritik der Zeusreligion, Leipzig, 1861
(also in the Ahhandll. der Sachs. Gesellsch. der Wissensck,
iv. No. 1). Nagelsbach, Die Homer. Theologie, 2d ed.
by Autenrieth, Niimberg, 1861. J. Girard, Le Senti-
ment Religieux en Grece d’ Homlre d Eschyle, Paris, 1869.

F.   Leitschuh, Die Entstehung der Mythologie und der
Entwickelung der Griech. Religion nach Hesiods Tlieogonie,
Wurzburg, 1867. E. Buchholz, Die Sittliche IVeltan-
schamng des Pindaros und Aeschylos, Leipzig, 1869. E.
Zeller, Die Entstehung des Monotheismus hei den Griechen,
Stuttgart, 1862. J. Ma.hly, Die Schlange im Mythus
und Cultus der Classischen Volker, Basel, 1867. H. F.
Perthes, Die Peleiaden zu Dodona, Moers, 1869. E.
Dohler, Die Orakel, Berlin, 1872. H. D. Muller,
Ares, ein Beitrag zur Entwickelung der Griech. Religion,
Brunswick, 1848. J. Buskin, The Queen of the Air
(AthlnS), 2d ed., London, 1869.

121.   The Greek religion, which was destined one day
to attain a higher development than the other Indo-Ger-
man religions, was not at first separated from them by
THE PELASGI.

203

any great differences. The proof of this may be found
in what is still known of the religion of the Pelasgi,
whose name denotes rather a period than a race. The
statement that they worshipped the God of heaven on
their sacred mountains without images and under no
definite name, does not warrant the inference that their
cultus was purer than that which succeeded it and was
monotheistic, but simply means that they still regarded
and worshipped their gods, even the highest of them, as
nature-beings, and if they made no images of them, they
were nevertheless not without fetishes. Some sanctuaries
of this Pelasgian Zeus continued to exist in later times,
and one, that at Dodona in Epirus, even remained in
high honour. There, the will of the deity of the sky
was learned from the rustling of the sacred oak, his fetish,
or by other purely animistic methods. In Arcadia and
Messenia, human sacrifices even were offered to him. It
was not till afterwards that the institution of, the Olympic
games, and the protection of Sparta, gave to the ancient
Zeus-worship in Elis the high significance which made
this region itself a holy land, and raised the temple to he
one of the principal sanctuaries of all the Hellenes.

It appears that Asia Minor was the last place in which
the Greeks, the Phrygians, and the later Italian races
were united in one people. Phrygian worship and arts
were naturalised in Hellas from the remotest times.

The Pelasgians were not a special Greek race, hut the
name denotes all the first settlers in Greece who were
, found already in the new fatherland by tribes which
entered it subsequently, such as the Dorians and Ionians.
They were not, therefore, regarded as barbarians, and
RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

their gods were invoked together with the Hellenic. The
attempt (made by P. Volkmuth, among others, Die
Pelasger als Semiten, Schaffhausen, i860) to prove that
they were Semites, and more specifically, Phenicians,
must be treated as a complete failure. The points of
agreement between the Syro-Phenician and the Greek
religions, which are called in to support this conclusion,
must be viewed in quite another light (see below).

A deity without name or image, belonging to the re-
motest times, denotes a nature-power which has as yet
received no human form. The Pelasgic cultus cannot
have advanced to monotheism, for by the side of Zeus
there was certainly a female deity, whose place was occupied
at Dodona by Dione, who was brought from elsewhere,
and at Olympia by Hera; and it is equally certain that
the Pelasgi also worshipped other gods, such as Pan, the
god of pastures, an ancient deity of light.

The fetishes remaining from this remote period, besides
the oak at Dodona and other trees, consisted in sacred
stones, such as that of Delphi, sticks, like the so-called
sceptre of the Pelopidse at Chaeronea, the most ancient
Hermee, and various animals, subsequently dedicated to
the gods, but originally regarded as their incarnations, as
the eagle of Zeus, the wolf of Apollo, the owl of Athene,
&c. Metamorphoses are an attempt to bring the oldest
representation of the gods into harmony with the later.

Zeus revealed himself at Dodona by his breath, or
rather by his voice, heard in the rustling of his oak or in
the thunder, the latter being imitated in a peculiar way.
It was the oracle of an agricultural people. His servants
were the sacred Selloi, from 'whom the name Hellenes,
even, has been derived. At the time when Dodona
flourished, the people still called themselves Graikoi,
Greeks.
CAUSES OF ITS DEVELOPMENT.

20$

In Arcadia the chief ancient sanctuary of Zeus was on
Mount Lyltaion, and in Messene on Mount Ithome. In
the former locality and at Elis, the sacred mountain bore
the name, as in Thessaly, of Olympus.

122.   But whatever he the resemblances of the Greek
religion in origin and character to kindred religions,
especially to the Vedic and Germanic, and though in the
Pelasgian period, at any rate, it reached no higher level,
it soon advanced in development beyond them all. The
ancient nature-deities are replaced more and more by
gods endowed not only with the shape of men, but with
real humanity, who continually rise in moral dignity and
grandeur, and to whom the Greeks transferred the divine
element in man. The causes of this development are the
same as those of their great progress in general civilisa-
tion, which was due (among other circumstances) to the
nature of the country which they inhabited, their splendid
natural gifts, and the many-sided intercourse of the
several tribes both among themselves and with the re-
presentatives of an older and very rich culture. The last
of these may indeed be regarded as the foremost cause of-
all. In the Greek religion we see the first fair fruits of
the fusion of the Indo-Germanic and Aryan with the
Semitic and Hamitic elements,—the dawn of a new era.

Herodotus, i. 131, draws a distinction between the
Egyptian and Hellenic gods, the former of whom he
designates avOioivoudu;, the latter d^ws-opusa;.

The peculiarity of the countries occupied by the Greeks,
which consisted chiefly of coasts and islands, has been
rightly specified as a cause of their advanced civilisation.
206

RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

But it is necessary to avoid the one-sidedness which
derives everything from this circumstance. That the
genius of the people was another factor, is proved by the
low stage occupied by the later inhabitants of the same
regions.

A highly important stimulus to the development of
religion among the Greeks came, however,, from the active
sea traffic to which their country gave occasion, and which
brought the backward Greek races into contact not only
with their more advanced kinsmen, but also with the
Semites and Hamites. Besides this, they were obliged in
some cases, as in Asia Minor, in Crete and Cyprus, to
divide the country with the Phenicians and Syrians
already settled there. Although it is supposed from the
evidence of the Egyptian monuments, that they took part
as early as the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries in
military expeditions against Egypt (which still appears
very doubtful, at any rate), the influence exerted on them
by the inhabitants of this country seems to have been
mediate rather than direct.

Wherever the Phenicians established their colonies,
they at once founded a sanctuary for their national deities,
whom the native Greeks then either adopted or blended
with their own gods. Mdkart of Tyre was naturalised as
Melikertes or Makar, or was combined with Herakles.
The luxurious Sidonian Ashtoreth was transformed into
Aphrodite, and the stem Tanith was united with other
goddesses. Under the influence of Baal-Shalam the
Pelasgian Zeus of Salamis became Zeus Epikoinios, &c.
The Greeks were further indebted to the Phenicians for
the cultus of the planets and the doctrine that the stars
are deities which rule the world, both these, as we know,
having been in their turn derived from the Akkadians.
We may refer also to the Samothracian gods. The wor-
NATIONAL AND FOREIGN ELEMENTS. 207

ship of images, likewise, passed from the Semites to the
Greeks.

The elements received by the Greeks from their own
kinsmen have been to a large extent personified by tradi-
tion, in the band of gods and heroes who came from the
East into the later civilisation of Hellas, such as Herakles,
Dionysos, Danaos, Argos, Agenor, and others, while
Ivadmos, the brother of Kilix or Phoinix, represents
rather the Semitic civilisation. It is probable that the
worship of the sea-god Poseidon (an Ionic name), and
certain that the cultus of Apollo, was introduced among
the inhabitants of Greece proper by their kindred in Asia
Minor.

The history of the Greek religion is one of the most
striking examples of the great law that the richness and
elevation of religious development are proportional to the
opportunities of intercourse on the part of one nation with
others, and the completeness of the fusion of races.

123.   It is often possible in the myths and forms of the
Greek gods still to distinguish very clearly between the
national and the foreign elements. Thus in the myth of
Zeus, his contest with Kronos, like that of Kronos with
Ouranos, his absolute victory over the powers of nature,
his unlimited sovereignty, are of Semitic origin; while
his contest with Prometheus and his human passions and
attributes come from Indo-Germanic sources. The bene-
ficent Demeter, the fruitful mother-earth, with her
daughter Kore, the blooming spring begotten by Zeus,
protector of agriculture and giver of abundance, is
genuinely Greek; while the sombre queen of the under-
world, who becomes by Poseidon the mother of Perse-
phone, goddess of death, must be a foreign deity.
208

RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

In the same way Greek theology also possesses two
representations of the world of the dead. According to
one, the Semitic, it lay within the earth, and there the
departed led a life of shadows without spirit or conscious-
ness, which was, however, a melancholy continuation of
their earthly careers. The other, the Indo-Germanie,
placed it in the west, at the setting of the sun, where
the privileged were admitted to Elysium or the islands
of the blessed. These different representations it was
endeavoured as far as possible to combine.

In some cases the union of these dissimilar elements
was never successfully effected. The difference between
the chaste maidenly Artemis, protectress of innocence and
modesty, hostile to everything savage and lewd, and the
blood-thirsty and sensual goddess of Tauris, Asia Minor,
and Crete, was always vividly felt even by the Greeks.
Generally, however, the fusion is so complete that it is
hardly possible to separate the foreign from the national
elements. This is the case, for example, with Dionysos,
Apollo, and Athene.

What we have designated briefly Semitic, is strictly
speaking only north-Semitic, after it had been modified
by intercourse with the oldest occupants of Mesopotamia.
The myths adopted by the Greeks from the Semites were
as a rule Akkadian, but they reached the Greeks in the
form given to them by the Northern Semites.

Whatever be the meaning of the name Kronos (to the
unfortunate derivations which have been proposed Kuhn
has recently added another by the suggestion of a doubt-
ful Sanskrit word krdna, “ creating, for himself,” Ueber
Enlwicidungsslufm der Mytheribildung, Berlin, 1874,
UNION OF DISSIMILAR ELEMENTS.

209

p. 148), it is certain tliat he has nothing to do with
Chronos, “time,” and that the god who mutilates his
father and eats his children is of genuinely north Semitic
origin. A satisfactory explanation of his myth is still
wanting, but that he is a god of the dark, and particu-
larly of the nightly sky, is proved by the representation
that he eats up his own children, all of them light-gods.
The stone, the form in which he devours his son Zeus, is
supposed by some scholars to be the sun, which the god
of night is afterwards obliged to vomit forth again, after
which the other gods whom he swallowed, also return to
life.

The Indo-Germanic character of the Prometheus myth
has been shown by Kuhn, Die, Herabkunft des Feuers und
des Gottertranhs lei den Indogermanen. The spirit of the
myth also, as it was worked out by the Greeks, is com-
pletely non-Semitic.

The world of the dead beneath the earth with the
shadows that cannot feel, is obviously Sheol with the
Kephatm. For this reason (if for no other) the rape of
Persephonl and her descent into hell must be a non-
Greek myth; and accordingly we find the exact parallel
to it in the old Akkadian epos.

Perhaps even the chaste Artemis is not a Greek god-
dess at all; but she is, in any case, Indo-Germanic. Her
name points to a Phrygian origin. Arlamas, comp, the
Er&nian arta, areta, “perfect,” arelhamat, “lawful,”
“ legitimate.”

In Dionysos lurks an Indo-Germanic deity of the drink
of immortality and the vintage, with which is connected
the myth of his birth from SemelS. The god of the
seasons, to whom a festival was celebrated in the winter,
is probably a foreign sun-god. On the Lycian god, Apollo,
see below. If the name of Athena really corresponded to

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