THE VEDAS, OR SACRED BOOKS OF INDIA.

HE oldest, and nominally the most weighty, authorities of the Brahmans for their religion and institutions are the Vedas, of which works four are usually enumerated -the Rich, or Rig- Veda; the Yajush, or Yajur Veda; the Sáman, or Sama- Veda; and the Atharvana, or Atharva-Veda. Many passages are to be found in Sanskrit writings, some in the Vedas themselves, which limit the number to three, and there is no doubt that the fourth, or Atharva- Veda, although it borrows freely from the Rich, has little in common with the others in its general character or in its style; the language clearly indicates a different and later era. It may therefore be allowably regarded rather as a supplement to three than as one of the four Vedas.

Of the other three Vedas, each has its peculiar characteristics, although they have much in common, and they are apparently of different dates, although not separated, perhaps, by any very protracted interval. The Rig- Veda consists of metrical prayers or hymns, termed Súktas, addressed to different divinities, each of which is ascribed to a Rishi, a holy or inspired author. These hymns are put together with little attempt at methodical arrangement, although such as are dedicated to the same deity sometimes follow in a consecutive series. There is not

much connection in the stanzas of which they are composed, and the same hymn is sometimes addressed to different divinities. There are in the Veda itself no directions for the use and application of the Súktas, no notices of the occasions on which they are to be employed or of the ceremonies at which they are to be recited: these are pointed out by subsequent writers in Sútras, or precepts relating to the ritual; and even for the reputed authors of the hymns and for the deities in whose honor they are composed we are for the most part indebted to independent authorities, especially to an Anukramaniká, or index, accompanying each Veda.

The Yajur Veda differs from the Rich in being more particularly a ritual or a collection of liturgical formulæ. The prayers or invocations, when not borrowed from the Rich, are mostly brief and in prose, and are applicable to the consecration of the utensils and materials of ceremonial worship as well as to the praise and worship of the gods. The Sáma- Veda is little else than a recast of the Rich, being made up, with very few exceptions, of the very same hymns, broken into parts and arranged anew for the purpose of being chanted on different ceremonial occasions. As far, also, as the Atharva- Veda is to be considered as a Veda, it will be found to comprise many of the hymns of the Rich. From the extensive manner, then, in which the hymns of the Rig- Veda enter into the composition of the other three, we must naturally infer its priority to them and its great

appropriated to the purpose and probably for the most part of a temporal and personal to the maintenance of a perpetual fire, al- description—wealth, food, life, posterity, catthough the frequent allusions to the occasional kindling of the sacred flame are rather at variance with this practice. There is no mention of any temple or any reference to a public place of worship, and it is clear that the worship was entirely domestic. The worshipper, or Yajamana, does not appear to have taken of necessity any part personally in the ceremony, and there is a goodly array of officiating priests-in some instances seven; in some, sixteen-by whom the different ceremonial rites are performed, and by whom the Mantras, or prayers or hymns, are recited. That animal victims were offered on particular occasions may be inferred from brief and obscure allusions in the hymns of the first book, and it is inferable from some passages that human sacrifices were not unknown, although infrequent, and sometimes typical; but these are the exceptions, and the habitual offerings may be regarded as consisting of clarified butter and the juice of the Soma plant.

The Súkta almost invariably combines the attributes of prayer and praise; the power, the vastness, the generosity, the goodness, and even the personal beauty, of the deity addressed are described in highly laudatory strains and his past bounties or exploits rehearsed and glorified, in requital of which commendations, and of the libations or oblations which he is solicited to accept, and in approval of the rite in his honor, at which his presence is invoked, he is implored to bestow blessings on the person who has instituted the ceremony, and sometimes, but not so commonly, also on the author or reciter of the prayer. The blessings prayed for are

tle, cows and horses, protection against enemies, victory over them, and sometimes their destruction, particularly when they are represented as inimical to the celebration of religious rites, or, in other words, people not professing the same religious faith. There are a few indications of a hope of immortality and of future happiness, but they are neither frequent nor, in general, distinctly announced, although the immortality of the gods is recognized and the possibility of its attainment by human beings exemplified in the case of the demigods termed Ribhus, elevated for their piety to the rank of divinities. Protection against evil spirits (Rákshasas) is also requested, and in one or two passages Yama and his office as ruler of the dead are obscurely alluded to. There is little demand for moral benefactions, although in some few instances hatred of untruth and abhorrence of sin are expressed, a hope is uttered that the latter may be repented of or expiated, and the gods are in one hymn solicited to extricate the worshipper from sin of every kind. The main objects of the prayers, however, are benefits of a more worldly and physical character. The tone in which these are requested indicates a quiet confidence in their being granted as a return for the benefits which the gods are supposed to derive from the offerings made to them in gratifying their bodily wants, and from the praises which impart to them enhanced energy and augmented power; there is nothing, however, which denotes any particular potency in the prayer or hymn, so as to compel the gods to comply with the desires of the worshipper-nothing of that

The chief deities of the Veda are Agni and Indra. The former comprises the element of fire under three aspects: first, as it exists on earth, not only as culinary or religious fire, but as the heat of digestion and of life and the vivifying principle of vegetation; second, as it exists in the atmosphere or mid-heaven, in the form of lightning; and third, as it is manifested in the heavens, as light, the sun, the dawn and the planetary bodies. The sun, it is true, is acknowledged and hymned as a divinity, the soul of all movable and immovable beings, and his manifestations are already known as A'dityas.

enforced necessity which makes so conspicu- | wages a doubtful war with the king of the ous and characteristic a figure in the Hindu gods. This contest with the clouds seems to mythology of a later date, by which the per- have suggested to the authors of the Súktas formance of austerities for a continued period the martial character of Indra on other occaconstrains the gods to grant the desired boon, sions, and he is especially described as the although fraught with peril, and even destruc- god of battles, the giver of victory to his tion, to themselves. worshippers, the destroyer of the enemies of religious rites, and the subverter of the cities of the Asuras. A popular myth represents him also as the discoverer and rescuer of the cows, either of the priests or of the gods, which had been stolen by an Asura named Pani, or Vala. Like Agni, he is the possessor and bestower of riches and the granter of all temporal blessings when devoutly worshipped and when propitiated by the Soma juice, which seems to be more especially appropriated to him, and which has the effect of inspiring him with animation and courage. Some of his attributes are obviously allegorical references to the locality of the firmament, as when he is said to have elevated the sun and fixed the constellations in the sky, to be more vast than heaven and earth, and to have sundered them when originally united; of another, which refers to him in the guise of a ram, no very satisfactory explanation is given, although the metamorphosis suggests some analogy between him and Jupiter Ammon. His taking part in the wars of tribes and princes and ensuring the triumph of those he befriends belongs to the poetical part of the personification, and arises, no doubt, from that character for personal valor derived from his metaphorical defeat of Vritra, and the real instrumentality of the electricity of the atmosphere in the descent of fertilizing showers.

Indra is a personification of the phenomena of the firmament, particularly in the capacity of sending down rain. This property is metaphorically described as a conflict with the clouds, which are reluctant to part with their watery stores until assailed and penetrated by the thunderbolt of Indra. As in all allegories, the language of fact and fiction is apt to be blended and confounded in the description of this encounter, and the cloud, personified as a demon named Ahi, or Vritra, is represented as combating Indra with all the attributes of a personal enemy, and as suffering in the battle mutilation, wounds and death. In the versions of the conflict found in later works and in the heroic poems and Puránas the original allegory is lost sight of altogether, and Vritra becomes a real personage an Asura, or king of Asuras, who

H. H. WILSON (Member of the Royal Asiatic Society).