XIX. 9, where Ahuramazda is mentioning these two

THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 185
spirits as inherent in his own nature, though he dis- tinctly called them the ' two masters ' (payu), and the 'two creators.' But while at first these two creative spirits were conceived as only two parts or ingre- dients of the Divine Being, this doctrine of Zara- thushtra's became corrupted in course of time by misunderstandings and false interpretations. Spenta mainyu, the beneficent spirit, was taken as a name of Ahuramazda himself, and the Angra mainyu, by becoming entirely separated from Ahuramazda, was then regarded as the constant adversary of Ahura- mazda. This is Dr. Haug's explanation of the Dualism in the later portions of the Avesta, and of the constant conflict between God and the Devil which we see for instance in the first fargard of the Vendidad. The origin of good and evil would thus have been trans- ferred unto the Deity itself, though there the possible evil was always overcome by the real good. Zoroaster had evidently perceived that without possible evil there can be no real good, just as without temptation there can be no virtue. The same contest which is supposed to be carried on within the deity, is also carried on by each individual believer. Each be- liever is exhorted to take part in the fight against the evil spirit, till at last the final victory of good over evil will be secured.
This, of course, is not stated in so many words, but it follows from passages gathered from different parts of the Avesta.
The Angels, originally qualities of Ormazd.
The same process of changing certain qualities of the Divine Being into separate beings can be clearly
186 LECTURE vr.
watched in the case of the Ameshaspentas. The Ameshaspentas of the Avesta are lit. the immortal benefactors. These were clearly at first mere quali- ties of the Divine Being, or gifts which Ormazd might grant to his worshippers, but they became afterwards angelic or half-divine beings, such as Vohu mano (Bahman), good mind, Asha vahishta (Ardi bahisht), the best truth, Armaiti (Spendarmad), devotion and piety, Ameretad (Amardad), immortality, Haurva- t&d (Khordad), health, Kshathra vairya (Shahri- var), abundance of earthly goods.
As these angels formed in later times the great council of Ormazd, Ahriman also was supposed to be surrounded by a similar council of six. They were Akem mano, the evil spirit, Indra, $aurva, Nao7i- haithya, and two personifications of Darkness and Poison. In this way the original Monotheism of the Zoroastrian religion came to be replaced by that Dual- ism which is wrongly supposed to be the characteristic feature of the ancient Persian religion, and offers many points of similarity with the belief in God and His angels, and in a devil also, as we find it in the later portions of the Old Testament. From thence this belief was transferred to the New Testament, and is still held by many as a Christian dogma. Whether this belief in God and a devil and the angels forming their respective councils was actually borrowed by the Jews from Persia, is still an open question. If any of the Persian names of these angels or devils had been discovered in the Old Testament, the ques- tion would at once have been settled ; but there is only one really Persian name of one of these evil spirits attached to Ahiiinau, which actually has found
THE ESOHATOLOOY OF THE AVESTA. 187
its way into the Old Testament in the apocryphal book of Tobit, iii. 8, namely Asmodeus, which is the Persian Aeshma daeva, the demon of anger and wrath. This name could have been borrowed from a Persian source only, and proves therefore the exis- tence of a real historical intercourse between Jews and Persians at the time when the book of Tobit was written. We look in vain for any other Persian name of a good or an evil spirit in the genuine books of the Old Testament1, though there is no doubt great similarity between the angels and archangels of the Old Testament and the Ameshaspentas of the Avesta, as has been shown by Dr. Kohut in his very learned essay on this subject.
Of all this, of the original supremacy of Ahura- mazda, of the later dualism of Ahuramazda and Angra mainyu, and of the councils of these two hos- tile powers there is no trace in the Veda. Traces, however, of a hostile feeling against the Asuras in general appear in the change of meaning of that word in some portions of the Rig-veda and the Atharva- veda, and more particularly in the Brahma-Tias.
Asuras and Suras.
A new change appears in the later Sanskrit litera- ture. Here the Asuras, instead of fighting with the Devas, are represented as fighting against the Suras ; that is to say, by a mere mistake the ' A ' of Asura has been taken as a negative 'a,' whereas it is the radical 'a' of asu, breath, and a new name has been formed, Sura, which seemed to be connected with
1 See, however, my remarks on p. 52, on the appellation Ahmi yai ahmi.
188 LECTURE VI.
svar, the sky, and was used as a name of the gods, opposed to the Asuras, the Non-gods l. This is how mythology is often made. All the fights between the Suras and Asuras, of which we read so much in the Puranas, are really based on a misunderstanding of the old name of the living God, namely Asu-ra, not A-sura.
In whatever way we may try to account for the change of the Vedic Devas, gods, into the Avestic Daevas, evil spirits, there can be no doubt that we have to deal here with an historical fact. For some reason or other the believers in the true Asuras and in Ahuramazda must have separated at a certain time from the believers in the Vedic Devas. They differed on some points, but they agreed on others. In fact, we possess in the Yasna, in one of the more ancient remnants of Zarathushtra's religion, some verses which can only be taken as an official formula in which his followers abjured their belief in the Devas. There (Yasna XII) we read :
Abjuration of Dadva Worship.
' I cease to be a Deva (worshipper). I profess to be a Zoroastrian Mazdayaznian (a worshipper of Ahuramazda), an enemy of the Devas, and a devotee of Ahura, a praiser of the immortal benefactors (Ameshaspentas). In sacrificing to the immortal Ameshaspentas I ascribe all good things to Ahura- mazda, who is good and has (all that is) good, who is righteous, brilliant, glorious, who is the originator of all the best things, of the spirit of nature (gaush),
1 By the same process, sita, bright, socins to Lave been formed from asita, dark.
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVE8TA. 189
of righteousness, of the luminaries, and the self- shining brightness which is in the luminaries.
'I forsake the Devas, the wicked, bad, wrongful originators of mischief, the most baneful, destructive, and basest of beings. I forsake the Devas and those like Devas, the sorcerers and those like sorcerers, and any beings whatever of such kinds. I forsake them with thoughts, words, and deeds, I forsake them hereby publicly, and declare that all lies and false- hood are to be done away with.'
I do not see how after this any one can doubt that the separation of the followers of Zarathushtra, the believers in Ahuramazda, from the worshippers of the Vedic Devas, was a real historical event, though it does by no means follow that their separation was complete, and that the followers of Zoroaster surren- dered every belief which they formerly shared in common with the Vedic Bishis.
I think we shall be perfectly right if we treat the Avestic as a secondary stage, as compared with the old Vedic religion, only we must guard against the supposition that the Avesta could not have preserved a number of ideas and religious traditions older even and simpler than what we find in the Veda. The Vedic poets, and more particularly the Vedic philo- sophers, have certainly advanced much beyond the level that had been reached before they were de- serted by the Zoroastrians, but the Zoroastrians may have preserved much that is old and simple, much that dates from a period previous to their separation, much that we look for in vain in the Veda.
190 LECTURE VI.
Immortality of the Soul In the Avesta.
This seems certainly to be the case when we com- pare the Persian accounts of the immortality of the soul and its migrations after death with those which we examined before in the Upanishads. The idea that knowledge or faith is better than good works, and that a higher immortality awaits the thinker than the doer, an idea so familiar to the authors of the Upanishads, is quite foreign to the Avesta. The Avestic religion is before all things an ethical religion. It is meant to make people good. It holds out rewards for the good, and punishments for the bad in this life and in the life to come. It stands in this respect much more on the old level of the Vedic hymns than on that of the Upanishads. In the hymns, as we saw, the departed was simply told to run on the good path, past the two dogs, the brood of Sarama, the four-eyed, the grey, and then to go towards the wise Pitris or Fathers who were happily rejoicing with Yama. Or the departed was told to go forth on those ancient roads on which his fore- fathers had departed, and to meet the two kings delighting in (svadha) offerings, Yama and the god VaruTm. Nothing is said there of the smoke carrying him to the sky, nor of the sun moving towards the south or the north, or of the departed rising upwards till he reaches the moon or the place of lightning. The goal of the journey of the departed is simply the place where he will meet the Fathers, those who were distinguished for piety and penance, or those who fell in battle, or those who during life were generous with their wealth.
THE ESCHATOLOGY OP THE AVESTA. 191
The Fitrt's ox Fathers as conceived in the Vedic Hymns.
All this is much more human than the account given in the Upanishads. And when we read in the Rig-veda the invocations addressed to the Pitris or the three generations of ancestors, we find there too again a much more childlike conception of their abode than what is given us in the Upanishads. Sometimes the great-grandfathers are supposed to be in heaven, the grandfathers in the sky, and the fathers still somewhere on the earth, but all are invited together to accept the offerings made to them at the $raddhas, nay, they are supposed to consume the viands placed before them. Thus we read (Rig- veda X. 15) :
1. May the Soma-loving Fathers1, the lowest, the highest, and the middle arise ! May the gentle and righteous Fathers who have come to life (again), pro- tect us in these invocations !
2. May this salutation be for the Fathers to-day, for those who have departed before or after ; whether they now dwell in the sky above the earth, or among the blessed people !
3. I invited the wise Fathers .... may they come hither quickly, and sitting on the grass readily par- take of the poured-out draught !
4. Come hither to us with your help, you Fathers sitting on the grass ! We have prepared these liba- tions for you, accept them ! Come hither with your most blessed protection, and give us health and wealth without fail !
1 The Fathers who have reached the moon.
192 LECTURE VT.
5. The Soma-loving Fathers have been called hither to their dear viands which are placed on the grass. Let them approach, let them listen, let them bless, let them protect us !
6. Bending your knee and sitting on my right accept all this sacrifice. Do not hurt us, 0 Fathers, for any wrong that we may have committed against you, men as we are !
7. When you sit down on the lap of the red dawns, grant wealth to the generous mortal! O Fathers, give of your treasure to the sons of this man here, and bestow vigour here on us !
8. May Yama, as a friend with friends, consume the offerings according to his wish, united with those old Soma-loving Fathers of ours, the VasishtfAas, who arranged the Soma draught !
9. Come hither, O Agni, with those wise and truth- ful Fathers who like to sit down near the hearth, who thirsted when yearning for the gods, who knew the sacrifice, and who were strong in praise with their songs !
10. Come, O Agni, with those ancient Fathers who like to sit down near the hearth, who for ever praise the gods, the truthful, who eat and drink our obla- tions, making company with Indra and the gods I
11. 0 Fathers, you who have been consumed by Agni, come here, sit down on your seats, you kind guides ! Eat of the offerings which we have placed on the turf, and then grant us wealth and strong offspring !
12. O Agni, 0 Cratavedas, at our request thou hast carried the offerings, having first rendered them sweet. Thou gavest them to the Fathers, and they
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 193
fed on their share. Eat also, O god, the proffered oblations !
13. The Fathers who are here, and the Fathers who are not here, those whom we know, and those whom we know not, thou, Gatavedas, knowest how many they are, accept the well-made sacrifice with the sacrificial portions !
14. To those who, whether burnt by fire or not burnt by fire, rejoice in their share in the midst of heaven, grant thou, O King, that their body may take that life which they wish for !
Compared with these hymns, the Upanishads repre- sent a decidedly later development and refinement ; they represent, in fact, the more elaborate views of speculative theologians, and no longer the simple imaginings of sorrowing mourners.
If we now turn to examine the ideas which the followers of Zoroaster had formed to themselves about the fates of the soul after death and its approach to God, we shall find that they also represent a much simpler faith, though there are some points on which they are clearly dependent on. or closely allied with the Upanishads. unless we suppose that both the Zoroastrians and the authors of the Upanishads arrived independently at the same ideas.
Fate of the individual Soul at the general resurrection.
We read in the Vendidad XIX. 27 l :
' Creator of the settlements supplied with creatures, righteous one ! What happens when a man shall give up his soul in the world of existence1?
' Then said Ahuramazda : After a man is dead, when
1 S.B.E., vol. iv. p. 212. (4) 0
194 LECTURE VI.
his time is over, then the hellish evil-doing Da£vas assail him, and when the third night1 is gone, when the dawn appears and brightens up, and makes Mithra, the god with the beautiful weapons, reach the all-happy mountains and the sun is rising —
' Then the fiend, named Vlzaresha, carries off in bonds the souls of the wicked Daeva-worshippers who live in sin. The soul enters the way made by time, and open both to the wicked and to the righteous. At the head of the Kmva,t bridge made by Mazda, they ask for their spirits and souls the reward for the worldly good which they gave away here below.'
This Kmv&t bridge of which I spoke in a former lecture, is known as early as the Gathas (XLVI. 12), and it is called there the judgment bridge (p. 133) 2, also the bridge of earth (p. 183). In one place (p. 173) we read of the bridges, just as in the Upanishads we read of two roads, one leading to the Fathers, the other leading to the gods. There can be little doubt therefore that this bridge of the Avesta has the same origin as the bridge in the Upanishads. -We read in the jKVismd. Up. VIII. 4, 2, that 'day and night do not pass this bridge, nor old age. death and grief, neither good nor evil deeds ; that all evil-doers turn away from it, because the world of Brahman is free from all evil. Therefore he who has crossed that bridge, if blind, ceases to be blind ; if wounded, ceases to be wounded ; if afflicted, ceases to be afflicted. There- fore when that bridge has been crossed, night be- comes day indeed.' It is true that here this bridge
1 This shows that rising after the third night, or on the fourth day, was the recognised belief in Persia ; not on the third day, as among the Jews.
2 S.B.E., vol. xxxi.
THE ESCHATOLOQY OF THE AVESTA. 195
is already taken in a more metaphysical sense and identified with the Atman, the self; which, from a Vedanta point of view, is called the only true bridge between the self and the Self ; still the original con- ception of a bridge which separates (vidlm'ti) and at the same time connects this and the other world, which evil-doers fear to cross, and where all that is of evil is left behind, is clearly there. As the commen- tary explains that this bridge is made of earth, and as in the Avesta also, it is called the bridge of earth, we must take it as having been conceived originally as a bank of earth, a pathway (a pons) across a river (^TMnd. Up. VIII. 4, 1, note), rather than a suspended bridge over an abyss.
Rewards and Punishments after Death.
I shall now read you another and fuller account of what the Zoroastrians have to say about that bridge, and about the fate of the soul after death, and more particularly about rewards and punishments. This account is taken from the Hadhokht Nask l :
1 . Zarathushtra asked Ahurarnazda: ' 0 Ahuramazda, most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!
' When one of the faithful departs this life, where does his soul abide on that night1? '
2. Ahuramazda answered: 'It takes its seat near the head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming happiness : " Happy is he, happy the man, whoever he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul tastes as much of pleasure as t-he whole of the living world can taste.'
1 Cf. Haug, p. 220 ; Darmesteter, ii. 314. 0 a
196 LECTURE VI.
3. ' On the second night, where does his soul abide ? '
4. Ahuramazda answered : ' It takes its seat near the head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming happiness : " Happy is he, happy the man, whoever he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul tastes as much of pleasure as the whole of the living world can taste.'
5. ' On the third night, where does his soul abide?'
6. Ahuramazda answered : ' It takes its seat near the head, singing (the Ustavaiti Gatha) and proclaiming happiness : " Happy is he, happy the man, whoever he be, to whom Ahuramazda gives the full accom- plishment of his wishes ! " On that night his soul tastes as much of pleasure as the whole of the living world can taste.'
7. At the end of the third night, when the dawn appears, it seems to the soul of the faithful one, as if it were brought amidst plants and scents : it seems as if a wind were blowing from the region of the south, from the regions of the south, a sweet-scented wind, sweeter- scented than any other wind in the world.
8. And it seems to the soul of the faithful one as if he were inhaling that wind with the nostrils, and he thinks : ' Whence does that wind blow, the sweetest- scented wind I ever inhaled with my nostrils? '
9. And it seems to him as if his own conscience were advancing to him in that wind, in the shape of a maiden fair, bright, white-armed, strong, tall-formed, high-standing, full-breasted, beautiful of body, noble, of a glorious seed, of the size of a maid in her fifteenth year, as fair as the fairest thing in the world.
10. And the soul of the faithful one addressed her,
THE E8CHATOLOQY OF THE AVESTA.. 197
asking : ' What maid art thou, who art the fairest maid I have ever seen ? '
11. And she, being his own conscience, answers him : ' O thou youth of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, of good religion, I am thy own con- science !
' Everybody did love thee for that greatness, good- ness, fairness, sweet-scentedness, victorious strength, and freedom from sorrow, in which thou dost appear to me ;
12. ' And so thou, O youth of good thoughts; good words, and good deeds, of good religion ! didst love me for that greatness, goodness, fairness, sweet-scented- ness, victorious strength, and freedom from sorrow, in which I appear to thee.
13. ' When thou wouldst see a man making derision and deeds of idolatry, or rejecting (the poor) and shutting his door, then thou wouldst sit singing the Gathas and worshipping the good waters and Atar, the son of Ahuramazda, and rejoicing the faithful that would come from near or from afar.
14. 'I was lovely and thou madest me still love- lier ; I was fair and thou madest me still fairer ; I was desirable and thou madest me still more desirable : I was sitting in a forward place and thou madest me sit in the foremost place, through this good thought, through this good speech, through this good deed of thine ; and so henceforth men worship me for having long sacrificed unto and conversed with Ahuramazda.
15. ' The first step that the soul of the faithful man made, placed him in the Good-Thought Paradise ;
' The second step that the soul of the faithful man made, placed him in the Good- Word Paradise.
198 LECTURE VI.
' The third step that the soul of the faithful man made, placed him in the Good-Deed Paradise ;
' The fourth step that the soul of the faithful man made, placed him in the Endless Lights.'
16. Then one of the faithful, who had departed before him, asked him, saying : ' How didst thou de- part this life, thou holy man ? How didst thou come, thou holy man ! from the abodes full of cattle and full of the wishes and enjoyments of love ? From the material world into the world of the spirit? From the decaying world into the undecaying one1? How long did thy felicity last 1 '
17. And Ahuramazda answered : ' Ask him not what thou askest him, who has just gone the dreary way, full of fear and distress, where the body and the soul part from one another.
18. ' [Let him eat] of the food brought to him. of the oil of Zaramaya: this is the food for the youth of good thoughts, of good words, of good deeds, of good religion, after he has departed this life ; this is the food for the holy woman, rich in good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, well-principled and obedient to her husband, after she has departed this life.'
The fate of the soul of the wicked is throughout the opposite of what happens to the soul of a righteous man. During three nights it sits near the skull and endures as much suffering as the whole of the living world can taste. At the end of the third night, when the dawn appears, it seems as if it were brought amidst snow and stench, and as if a wind were blowing from the North, the foulest-scented of all the winds in the world. The wicked soul has to inhale that wind and then to pass through the Evil-Thought Hell, the Evil-
THE ESCHATOLOOY OF THE AVESTA. 199
Word Hell, and the Evil-Deed Hell. The fourth step lays the soul in Endless Darkness. Then it has to eat food of poison and poisonous stench, whether it was the soul of a wicked man or of a wicked woman. You will have perceived how much of real truth there is, hidden beneath all this allegorical language of the Avesta. The language is allegorical, but no one could have used that language who was not con- vinced of its underlying truth, namely, that the soul of the righteous will be rewarded in the next life by his own good thoughts, his own good words, and his own good deeds. The idea that these good thoughts, words, and deeds meet him in the shape of a beautiful maiden, whom at first he does not know, till she tells him who she is, is peculiar to the Avesta, though some faint indications of it may again be discovered in the Upanishads.
Good Works in the shape of a Beautiful Maiden.
For we read in the Kaushitaki-Upanishad, I. 3, that when the departed approaches the hall of Brahman he is received by beautiful maidens, called Apsaras. But what we look for in vain in the Upanishads is the ethical character which pervades the whole Avesta. It is good thoughts, words, and deeds that are rewarded in the next world, not knowledge which, as we saw, carried off the highest reward according to the teaching of the Upanishads. The sweet scents also by which the departed is greeted in the next world form a common element shared by the Upanishads and by the Avesta.
Influence on Mohammedanism.
It would be curious to find out whether this alle- gorical conception of the rewards of men in Paradise
200 LECTURE VI.
may have influenced the mind of Mohammed, when he promised his warriors that they would be received there by beautiful maidens. It would seem a curious misapplication of a noble conception. But it is per- fectly true that even in the Avesta the beauty of the young maiden who receives the righteous soul, is painted in what we should call warm and sensuous colours, though there was nothing in her description that would seem objectionable to an Oriental mind. Such changes have happened in the history of other religions also. The most probable historical channel between Mohammed and the Avesta would be the same again as that through which the idea of the bridge Es Sirat reached Mohammed, namely, his Jewish friends and teachers.
It is true there is no trace of a belief in Houris among the Jews, but Dr. Kohut pointed out many years ago, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellschaft, xxi. p. 566, that the Rabbis believed and taught that when man comes near death, all his acts appear before his soul, and that his good works promise to guide him to the judgment-seat of God. They hold that the souls of the pious are not admitted at once into Paradise, but that they have first to render an account and to suffer punishment for some defects that still cling to them. This lasts for a twelvemonth, when the body is supposed to be entirely decayed, so that the soul may rise freely and remain in heaven. ' The body,' says God, ' is taken from the earth, not from heaven, but thou, O soul, art a citizen of heaven, thou knowest its laws and thou alone shalt render an account.' This shows no doubt clear traces of Persian influence, but at the same time an independent treatment of Persian
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 201
ideas, such as we find them first in the Avesta. At all events these Rabbis had advanced far beyond the ideas which are found in the Old Testament as to the fate of the soul after death.
There is another curious passage quoted by Dr. Kohut from the Talmud (Synhedr. 91b, Midrash, Genes. Rabba 169). for which, however, I know no parallel in the Avesta. There we are told that at the time of the resurrection the soul will justify itself and say: ' The body alone is guilty, he alone has sinned. I had scarcely left it when, pure like a bird, I flew through the air.' But the body will say : ' The soul alone was guilty, she has driven me to sin. She had scarcely left me, when I lay on the ground motionless and sinned no more.' Then God places the soul once more into the body and says : * See, how you have sinned, now render an account, both of you.'
Extract from the Miiiokhirecl on the Weighing of the Dead.
In the Minokhired we get a still fuller account than in the Avesta of the journey of the soul across the bridge. There we read, II. 100 :
' Thou shouldest not become presumptuous through life, for death cometh upon thee at last, the dog, the bird lacerate the corpse, and the perishable part (sa#i- nako) falls to the ground. During three days and nights the soul sits at the crown of the head of the body. And the fourth day, in the light of dawn, (with the) co- operation of Srosh the righteous, Vai the good, and Vahram the strong, and with the opposition of Astovi- c]a,d, Vai the bad, Frazishto the demon, and Nizisto the demon, and the evil-designing Aeshm, the evil- doer, the impetuous assailant, it goes up to the awful
202 LECTURE VI.
-/jTindvar bridge (here Kinv&t has been corrupted into ^Tindvar), to which every one, righteous and wicked, is coming. And many opponents have watched there, with the desire of evil of Aeshm, the impetuous assailant, and Astovidad, who devours creatures of every kind and knows no satiety, and the mediation of Mitr6 and Srosh and Rashnu, and the weighing of Rashnu, the just, with the balance of spirits which renders no favour on any side, neither for the righteous nor yet the wicked, neither for the lords nor yet the monarchs. As much as a hair's breadth it will not turn and has no partiality, and he who is a lord and monarch it considers equally in its decision with him who is the least of mankind. And when a soul of the righteous passes upon the bridge the width of the bridge becomes as it were a league, and the righteous soul passes over with the co-operation of Srosh the righteous.' Then follows what we had before, namely, his meeting a maiden who is handsomer and better than any maiden in the world. And the righteous soul speaks thus, ' Who inayest thou be, that a maiden who is handsomer and better than thou was never seen by me in the worldly existence.' In reply that maiden says : ' I am no maiden, but I am thy virtuous deeds, thou youth who art well thinking, well speaking, well doing, and of good religion.'
The only new feature in this account is the weighing of the soul by Rashnu, the righteous. Of this there is no trace in the Upanishads, though we saw that it is alluded to in the Brahmanae (see p. 167). It is an idea well known in Egypt, but it is impossible to suppose that at that early time there was any com- munication between Egypt and Persia. It is one of
THE ESCHATOLOQY OF THE A VEST A. 208
those coincidences which can only be accounted for by our remembering that what was natural in one country may have been natural in another also.
Arrival of the Sonl before the throne of Bahman and Ahuraniazda.
Let us now follow the fate of the soul, after it has crossed the Kinvat bridge. When the Kin-vat bridge has been crossed, the archangel Bahman (Vohu-mano) rises from a golden throne, and exclaims : ' How hast thou come hither to us, O righteous one! from the perishable life to the imperishable life.'
The souls of the righteous then proceed joyfully to Ahuramazda, to the Ameshaspentas, to the golden throne, to paradise (Garo-nemana), that is the residence of Ahurainazda, the Ameshaspentas, and of the other righteous ones.
Thus we see that the journey of the soul from this life to a better life ends in the Avesta very much as it ended in the Upanishads. The soul stands before the throne of Ahuramazda in the Avesta as it stands before the throne of Brahinan in the Upanishads. Only while the Upanishads say very little about the punishments inflicted on the wicked, the Avesta ex- plains that the unrighteous soul is received with scorn even by the damned, its future fellow-sufferers, and is tormented at the command of Angra mainyu, though himself the spirit of evil, with poison and hideous viands.
Common background of Avesta and Veda.
If we compare the theories on the soul and its fate after death, as we find them in the Upanishads and in the Avesta, we see that a general belief in a soul
204 LECTURE VI.
and its life after death is common to both, and that they likewise agree in believing that the righteous soul is led to the throne of God, whether he is called Brahman or Ahuramazda. But in several respects the account of the soul's journey seems more simple in the Avesta than in the Upanishads. We saw that it agrees more with the notions which we find ex- pressed in the Vedic hymns about the departed, it insists more on the virtuous character of the soul, and distributes rewards and punishments in strict accordance, with the good thoughts, words, and deeds of the departed. It says little or nothing about the different stations on the two roads that lead to the Fathers or to the gods, but it is more full in the de- scription of the bridge and the weighing of the soul. The idea that knowledge or faith is better than good thoughts, words, and deeds has not yet dawned on the Persian mind, still less is there a trace of the belief in metempsychosis or the migration of the human soul into the bodies of lower animals.
The common background of the two religions is clear enough, though whether what is peculiar to each is a remnant of an earlier period or the result of later thoughts is more difficult to determine.
Fitaras, the Fathers in the Veda, the Fravashls in the Avesta.
We saw that in the hymns of the Veda the departed were often spoken of as Pitaras, the Fathers, and that after receiving for three generations the sraddha offering of their descendants, they were raised to a rank equal almost to that of the Devas, nay at a later time even superior to them. In the place of these Pitaras we find in the Avesta the Fravashis, or
THE ESCHATOLOaY OP THE AVESTA. 205
in an earlier form the Fravardin. This would corre- spond to a Sanskrit word pravartin, which, however, does not occur in Sanskrit. Pravartin might mean what moves forward or sets in motion, like pra- vartaka, a promoter, but it is explained in Zend as meaning protector. The Persian name Phraortes is probably a Greek corruption of Pravarti.
It is curious that the name of Pitaras should not occur in the Avesta, nor that of Pravartin in the Veda, though the two were clearly meant at first for exactly the same thing.
Wider meaning- of Fravashi.
The Fravashis, however, are not restricted to the departed, though their Fravashis are most frequently invoked. Every being, whether living or dead, has its Fravashi, its unseen agent, which is joined to the body at the time of birth, and leaves it again at the time of death. The Fravashis remind us of the Greek Daimones and the Roman Genii. The Fravashis belong to the spiritual, the body to the material crea- tion. Not only men, but the gods also, Ormazd, the sacred word, the sky, the water, the plants, all have their Fravashis. We may call the Fravashi the genius of anything. Dr. Haug. however, goes further and identifies the Fravashis with the ideas of Plato, which is going too far, for the Fravashis are always self- conscious, if not personal beings. Thus we read in the Fravardin Yasht • :
' Ahuramazda spake to Spitama Zarathushtra : To thee alone I shall tell the power and strength, glory usefulness, and happiness of the holy guardian angels.
1 Haug, p. 207.
20f> LECTURE VI.
the strong and victorious, O righteous Spitama Zara- thushtra ! how they come to help me. By means of their splendour and glory I uphold the sky, which is shining so beautifully and which touches and surrounds this earth ; it resembles a bird which is ordered by God to stand still there ; it is high as a tree, wide-stretched, iron-bodied, having its own light in the three worlds. Ahuramazda, together with Mithra. Rashnu, and Spenta Armaiti, puts on a garment decked with stars, and made by God in such a way that nobody can see the ends of its parts. By means of the splendour and glory of the Fravashis, I uphold the high strong Anahita (the celestial water) with bridges, the salutary, who drives away the demons, who has the true faith and is to be
worshipped in the world
" 12. 'If the strong guardian-angels of the righteous should not give me assistance, then cattle and men, the two last of the hundred classes of beings, would no longer exist for me ; then would commence the devil's power, the devil's origin, the whole living creation would belong to the devil.
16. fBy means of their splendour and glory, the ingenuous man Zarathushtra, who spoke such good words, who was the source of wisdom, who was born before Gotama, had such intercourse with God. By means of their splendour and glory, the sun goes on his path ; by means of their splendour and glory, the moon goes on her path ; by means of their splendour and glory, the stars go on their path/
Thus we see that almost everything that Ahura- mazda does is done by him with the assistance of the Fravashis, originally the spirits of the departed, after-
THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE AVESTA. 207
wards the spirits of almost everything in nature. But that they were originally, like the Vedic Pitaras, the spirits of the departed, we see from such passages as : •
'I praise, I invoke, and extol the good, strong, beneficent guardian angels of the righteous. We praise those who are in the houses, those who are in the countries, those who are in the Zoroastrian com- munities, those of the present, those of the past, those of the future, righteous, all those invoked in countries where invocation is practised. '
' Who uphold heaven, who uphold water, who up- hold earth, who uphold nature, &c.
' We worship the good and beneficent guardian angels of the departed, who come to the village in the season called Hamaspathmaeda. Then they roam about there ten nights, wishing to learn what assist- ance they might obtain, saying, " Who will praise us ? who will worship us? who will adore us1? who will pray to us ? who will satisfy us with milk and clothes in his hand and with a prayer for righteousness? whom of us will he call here ? whose soul is to worship you ? To wrhom of us will he give that offering in order to enjoy imperishable food for ever and ever ? "
Nowhere perhaps can the process by which the spirits of the departed were raised to the rank of gods be perceived more clearly than in the case of the Persian Fravashis, but nowhere again is there stronger evidence for what I hold against Mr. Herbert Spencer, namely that this deification of the departed spirits presupposes a belief in gods to whose rank these spirits could be raised.
LECTURE VII.
ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO.
v
Plato's Authority.
BEFORE I proceed to explain to you more in detail the ideas of the later Hindu philosophers on the fate of the soul after death, it may be useful, if only to refresh our memory, to devote one lecture to a consideration of the best and highest thoughts which the same problem has elicited in Greece. If we should find hereafter that there are certain simi- larities between the thoughts of Plato and the thoughts of the poets and prophets of the TJpanishads and the Avesta, such similarities are no doubt interesting, and perhaps all the more so because, as I pointed out before, we cannot ascribe them either to the com- munity of language or to historical tradition. We can only account for them by that common human nature which seems to frame these ideas by some inward necessity, though without any tangible evi- dence in support of any of them. You will not be surprised if I turn at once to Plato.
Plato, though called a philosopher only, speaks of the fate of the soul after death with authority, with the same authority at least as the authors of the Upanishads. Both Plato, however, and the
ESCHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 209
authors of the Upanishads were far too deeply im- pressed with the real truth of their teaching to claim for it any adventitious or miraculous sanction. Unfortunately they could not prevent their less inspired and less convinced followers from ascribing to their utterances an inspired, a sacred, nay a miraculous character.
Plato's Mythological Language.
It cannot be denied that the similarity between Plato's language and that of the Upanishads is some- times very startling. Plato, as you know, likes to clothe his views on the soul in mythological phrase- ology, just as the authors of the Upanishads do, nor can I see what other language was open to them. It is an absurd anachronism, if some would-be critics of ancient religions and ancient philosophies fasten with an air of intellectual superiority on this mythological phraseology, and speak contemptuously of the childish fables of Plato and other ancient sages as unworthy of the serious consideration of our age. Who could ever have believed, they say, that a soul could grow wings, or lose her wings. Who could have believed that there was a bridge between earth and heaven, and that a beautiful maiden was standing at the end of it to receive the soul of the departed ? Should we not rather say, Who can be so obtuse as not to see that those who used such language were trying to express a deep truth, namely, that the soul would be lifted up by noble thoughts and noble deeds, as if by wings, and that the highest judge to judge the soul after death would be a man's own conscience, standing before him in all its beauty and innocence, like the most beautiful and innocent maiden of fifteen M P
210 LECTURE VII.
years. Think only of the intellectual efforts that were required before even such parables could have been thought of, and then instead of wondering at the language in which they were expressed, we shall wonder rather that anybody could have misunder- stood them, and have asked to have such simple and transparent parables declared.
The Tale of the Soul.
Plato asserts without fear of contradiction that the soul is immortal. The Upanishads hardly assert it, because they cannot conceive that doubt is possible on that point. ' Who could say that the soul was mortal?' Mortal means decay of a material organic body, it clearly has no sense if applied to the soul.
' I have heard,' Plato writes, ' from men and women wise in divine matters a true tale as I think, and a noble one. My informants are those priests and priestesses whose aim is to be able to render an ac- count of the subjects with which they deal. They are supported also by Pindar and many other poets — by all, I may say, who are truly inspired. Their teaching is that the soul of man is immortal ; that it comes to an end of one form of existence, which men call dying, and then is born again, but never perishes. Since then the soul is immortal l, and has often been born, and has seen the things here on earth and the things in Hades ; all things, in short there is nothing which it has not learned, so that it is no marvel that it should be possible for it to recall what it certainly knew before, about virtue and other topics. For since all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things,
1 Westcott, Religious Thought in Vie Westt p. 27. See also Anthro- pological Religion, p. 821.
ESCHATOLOGY OP PLATO. 211
there is no reason why a man who has recalled one fact only, which men call learning, should not by his own power find out everything else, should he be courageous, and not lose heart in the search. For seeking and learning is all an art of recollection.'
The next passage occurs in the Phaedrus, where we meet with the myth of the chariot, guided by a charioteer, and drawn by two winged steeds, of which in the case of man, the one is good, the other bad. I must give you some of Plato's sentences in full, in order to be able to compare them afterwards with certain passages from the Upanishads.
The Charioteer and the Horses.
Plato (Phaedrus 246, transl., p. 123) says : ' Enough of the soul's immortality, her form is a theme of divine and large discourse ; the tongue of man may, however, speak of this briefly, as in a figure. Let our figure be a composite nature — a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteer of the gods are all of them noble, and of noble breed, but OUT horses are mixed ; moreover, our charioteer drives them in a pair, and one of them is noble and of noble origin, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble origin, and the driving, as might be expected, is no easy matter with us.'
If we turn to the Ka^Aa-Upanishad III. 3, we read there : ' Know the soul to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteer, and the mind the reins. The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads . . . He who has no understanding, and he whose mind (the reins) IB never firmly held, his senses (horses) are
Pa
212 LECTURE VII.
unmanageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer. But he who has understanding and whose mind is always firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a charioteer. He who has no under- standing, who is unmindful and always impure, never reaches the goal, but enters into the round of births (samsara). But he who has understanding, who is mindful and always pure, reaches indeed the goal, from whence he is not born again ' (from whence there is no return).
Some people have thought that the close coincidence between the simile used by Plato and by the Upani- shad, and the resemblance is certainly very close, shows that there must have been some kind of his- torical contact even at that early time between the religious thought of India and the philosophical thought of Greece. We cannot deny the possibility of such a view, though we must confess our ignorance as to any definite channel through which Indian thought could have reached the shores of Greece at that period.
The Procession of the Gods.
Let us now explore Plato's speculations about the soul a little further. There is his splendid description of the procession of the gods in heaven, a myth, if you like, but a myth full of meaning, as every myth was meant to be.
Zeus, we read, advances first, driving his winged car. ordering all things and superintending them. A host of deities and spirits follow him, marshalled in eleven bodies, for Hestia remains alone in the dwell- ing of the gods. Many then and blessed are the spectacles and movements within the sphere of heaven
ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 218
which the gods go through, each fulfilling his own function ; and whoever will and can, follows them, for envy is a stranger to the divine company. But when they afterwards proceed to a banquet, they advance by what is now a steep course along the inner cir- cumference of the heavenly vault. The chariots of the gods being well balanced and well driven, advance easily, others with difficulty ; for the vicious horse, unless the charioteer has thoroughly broken it, weighs down the car by his proclivity towards the earth. Whereupon the soul is put to the extremity of toil and effort. For the souls of the immortals, when they reach the summit, go outside and stand upon the sur- face of heaven, and as they stand there, the revolution of the sphere bears them round, and they contemplate the objects that are beyond it. That supercelestial realm no earthly poet ever yet sung or will sing in worthy strains. It is occupied by the colourless, shapeless, intangible, absolute essence which reason alone can contemplate, and which is the one object of true knowledge. The divine mind, therefore, when it sees after an interval that which really is, is supremely happy, and gains strength and enjoyment by the contemplation of the True (Satyam), until the circuit of the revolution is completed, in the course of which it obtains a clear vision of the absolute (ideal) justice, temperance, and knowledge ; and when it has thus been feasted by the sight of the essential truth of all things, the soul again enters within the vault of heaven and returns home.
Now here I must again stop for a moment, to point out a significant coincidence between Plato and the Upanishads.
214 LECTURE TIL
Belief in metempsychosis in Plato and the TTpanishads.
You may remember that the Upanishads represent the soul, even after it has reached the abode of the Fathers, as liable to return to a new round of exist- ences, and how this led in India to a belief in metem- psychosis. Now let us see how Plato arrives by the same road, yet quite independently, at the same con- clusion1 :
' This is the life of the gods,' he says, ' but of other souls that which follows God best and is likest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds and with difficulty beholding true being (TO 6v = satyam), while another rises and falls, and sees and again fails to see, by reason of the unruliness of the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world, and they all follow ; but not being strong enough, they are carried round in the deep below, plunging, treading on one another, striving to be first, and there is confusion and extremity of effort, and many of them are lamed and have their wings broken through the ill driving of the charioteer ; and all of them after a fruitless toil depart, without being initiated into the mysteries of the true being (rrjs row OVTOS Bias], and departing feed on opinion. The reason of their great desire to behold the plain of truth is that the food which is suited to the highest part of the soul comes out of that meadow ; and the wing on which the souls soar is nourished with this. And there is a law of destiny that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company with the god is 1 Phaedrus, p. 248, translated by Professor Jowett.
E8CHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 215
preserved from harm until the next period, and if attaining, is always unharmed. But when she is un- able to follow, and fails to behold the vision of truth, and through some ill hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and her feathers fall from her, and she drops to earth, then the law ordains that this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other animal but only into man, and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher or artist, or some musical and loving nature ; that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be a righteous king or lordly warrior ; the soul which is of the third class shall be a politician or economist or trader; the fourth shall be a lover of gymnastic toils or a physician ; the fifth a prophet or hierophant ; to the sixth a poet or some other imitative artist will be appropriate ; to the seventh the life of an artisan or husbandman ; to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue ; to the ninth that of a tyrant ; all these are states of probation, in which he who lives righteously improves, and he who lives un- righteously deteriorates his lot.'
The Nine Classes of Plato and Mann.
I have already pointed out in a former lecture the curious parallelism between Indian and Greek thought. You may remember that Manu also establishes ex- actly the same number of classes, namely nine, and that we could judge of the estimation in which his contemporaries held certain occupations by the place which he assigned to each. Plato places the philoso- pher first, the tyrant last ; Manu places kings and warriors in the fifth class, and assigns the third class
216 LECTURE VII.
to hermits, ascetics, and Brahmans, while he reserves the first class to Brahman and other gods. Thus you find here also as before a general similarity, but like- wise very characteristic differences.
Plato then continues : ' Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less ; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not without philosophy, may acquire wings in the third recurring period of a thousand years ; and if they choose this life three times in succession, then they have their wings given them, and go away at the end of three thousand years. But the others receive judgment, when they have com- pleted their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the houses of correction which are under the earth, and are punished; others to some place in heaven, where they are lightly borne by justice, and then they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men. And at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their second life, and they may take any which they like.'
Here there are not many points of similarity be- tween Plato and Manu, except that we see how Plato also admits places of punishment and correc- tion which we may call Hells, in addition to the inevitable chain of cause and effect which determines the fate of the soul in its migrations after death. In another passage Plato (Phaedo 113) gives a more de- tailed account, not quite worthy of a philosopher, of these hells and of the punishments inflicted on evil-
ESCHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 217
doers. Here the souls are supposed to become purified and chastened, and when they have suffered their well- deserved penalties, they receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. ' Those, however, who are considered altogether incorrigible, are hurled into Tartarus, and they never come out. Others, after suffering in Tartarus for a year, may escape again if those whom they have injured pardon them. Those on the contrary who have been pre-eminent for holiness of life are released from this earthly' prison and go to their pure home which is above and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy, live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer than these, — which may not be de- scribed and of which the time would fail me to tell.'
Human Souls migrating- into Animal Bodies.
We now come to what has always been considered the most startling coincidence between Plato and the philosophers of India, namely, the belief in the migra- tion of souls from human into animal bodies. Though we have become accustomed to this idea, it cannot be denied that its first conception was startling. Several explanations have been attempted to account for it. It has often been supposed that a belief in ancestral spirits and ghosts haunting their former homes is at the bottom of it all. But judging from the first mention of this kind of metempsychosis in the Upa- nishacls, we saw that it was really based on purely moral grounds. We find the first general allusion to it in the Ka^Aa-Upanishad.
There we read (II. 5) : ' Fools dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit and puffed up with vain
218 LECTFRT: vn.
knowledge, go round and round, staggering to and fro, like blind men led by the blind.
' The Hereafter never rises before the eyes of the careless child, deluded by the delusion of wealth.
' This is the world, he thinks, there is no other, and thus he falls again and again under my sway' (the sway of death).
The speaker here is Yama, the ruler of the Fathers, afterwards the god of death, and he who punishes the wicked in Hell.
With Plato also the first idea of metempsychosis or the migration of human souls into animal bodies seems to have been suggested by ethical considerations. At the end of the first thousand years, he says, the good souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their second life, and they may take any which they like l. The soul of man may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast return again into the man. Here it is clearly supposed that a man would choose according to his taste and character, so that his next life should correspond to his character, as formed in a former life. This becomes still clearer when we read the story of Er at the end of the Republic.
The Story of Er.
You all remember Er2, the son of Armenius, the Pamphylian, who was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards when the bodies of the dead were taken up already in a state of corruption, his body was found unaffected by decay and carried away home to
1 Phaedrus, p. 249.
2 For similar stories see Liebrecht in his Notes to Gei v:\sius of Tilbury, p. 89.
ESOHATOLOaY OF PLATO. 219
be burnt. But on the twelfth day, as he was lying on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told all he had seen in the other world. His soul, he said, left the body and he then went on a long journey with a great company. I cannot read to you the whole of this episode — you probably all know it — at all events it is easily accessible, and a short abstract will suffice for our purposes. Er relates how he came first of all to a mysterious place, where there were two openings in the earth, and over against them two openings in the heaven. And there were judges sitting between, to judge the souls, who sent the good souls up to heaven, and the bad down into the earth. And while these souls went down into the earth and up to heaven by one opening, others came out from the other opening descending from heaven or ascending from the earth, and they met in a meadow and embraced each other, and told the one of the joys of heaven, and the others of the sufferings beneath the earth during the thousand years they had lived there. After tarrying seven days on the meadow the spirits had to proceed further. This further journey through the spheres of heaven is fully described, till it ends with the souls finding themselves in the presence of the three Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. But here, instead of receiving their lot for a new life as a natural consequence of their former deeds, or mis- deeds, they are allowed to choose their own lot, and they choose it naturally according to their experience in a former life, and according to the bent of their character as formed there. Some men, disgusted with mankind, prefer to be born as animals, as lions or eagles, some animals delight in trying their luck as
220 LEOTUBE VII.
men. Odysseus, the wisest of all, despises the lot of royalty and wealth, and chooses the quiet life of a private person, as the happiest lot on earth. Then after passing the desert plain of Forgetfulness, and the river of Unmindfulness, they are caught by an earthquake, and driven upwards to their new birth. Plato then finishes the vision of the Pamphylian Er with the following words : ' Wherefore my counsel is that we hold for ever to the heavenly way, and follow after justice and virtue, always considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Then shall we live dear to one another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing.'
Coincidences and Differences.
This has justly been called the most magnificent myth in the whole of Plato, a kind of philosophical apocalypse which has kept alive a belief in immor- tality among the Greeks, and not among the Greeks only, but among all who became their pupils. There is no doubt a certain similarity in the broad outlines of this Platonic myth, illustrating the migration of the soul after death, with the passages which we quoted before from the Upanishads. The fact that Er was a Pamphylian has even been supposed to in- dicate an Eastern origin of the Platonic legend, but I cannot persuade myself that we should be justified in tracing the source of any of Plato's thoughts to India or Persia. The differences between the Indian and
E8CHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 221
the Greek legends seem to me quite as great as their coincidences. It may seem strange, no doubt, that human fancy should in Greece as well as in India have created this myth of the soul leaving the body, and migrating to the upper or ]ower regions to receive its reward or its punishment ; and more particularly its entrance into animal bodies seems very startling, when we find it for the first time in Greece as well as in India. Still it is far easier to suppose that the same ideas burst forth spontaneously from the same springs, the fears and hopes of the human heart, than to admit an exchange of ideas between Indian and Greek philosophers in historical times. The strongest coincidence is that between the nine or three times three classes of the soul's occupations as admitted by Manu and by Plato ; and again between the river Vic/ara, the Ageless, where a man leaves all his good and his evil deeds behind him, and the draught of the Zaramaya oil by which in the Avesta the soul is supposed to become oblivious of all worldly cares and concerns before entering paradise ; and again the plain of Forgetfulness and the river of Unmindfulness mentioned by Plato ; or still more the river Lethe or forgetfulness in general Greek mythology. Still, even this may be a thought that presented itself indepen- dently to Greek and Indian thinkers. All who be- lieved the soul to be immortal, had to believe likewise in the pre-existence of the soul or in its being without a beginning, and as no soul here on earth has any recollection of its former existences, a river of Lethe or forgetfulness, or a river Vi^ara and the oil of forget- fulness, were not quite unnatural expedients to account for this.
222 LECTURE VII.
Truth underlying Myth.
No one would go so far as to say, because some of these theories are the same in India and in Greece, and sprang up independently in both countries, that therefore they are inevitable or true. All we have &ny right to say is that they are natural, and that there is something underlying them which, if ex- pressed in less mythological language, may stand the severest tost of philosophical examination.
In order to see this more clearly, in order to satisfy ourselves as to what kind of truth the unassisted human mind may reach on these subjects, it may be useful to examine here the theories of some of the so-called savage races. In their case the very possi- bility of an historical intercourse with India or Greece is excluded.
The Haidas on the Immortality of the Soul.
I choose for this purpose first of all the Haidas, who inhabit the Charlotte Islands and have lately been described to us by the Rev. C. Harrison, who is thoroughly conversant with their language.
According to his description the religion of these savage Haidas would seem to be very like the religion of the ancient Persians. They believe in two prin- cipal deities, one the god of light, who is good, the other the god of darkness, who is evil. Besides these two, there are a number of smaller deities whom the Haidas pray to and to whom they offer small sacri- fices. They fear these smaller deities, such as the god of the sun and of the sea, more than the two great powers of light and darkness, though these two are supposed to have created everything, not exclud- ing even these smaller deities.
E80HATOLOQY OF PLATO. 223
The Haidas believe in the immortality of the soul, and their ideas about the journey of the soul after death are nearly as elaborate as those of the Upani- shads. When a good Haida is about to die, he sees a canoe manned by some of his departed friends, who come with the tide to bid him welcome to their domain. They are supposed to be sent by the god of death. The dying man sees them and is rejoiced to know that after a period passed within the city of death, he will with his friends be welcomed to the kingdom of the god of light. His friends call him and bid him come. They say : ' Come with us, come into the land of light ; come into the land of great things, of wonderful things ; come into the land of plenty where hunger is unknown ; come with us and rest for evermore. . . . Come with us into our land of sunshine and be a great chief attended with numerous slaves. Come with us now. the spirits say, for the tide is about to ebb and we must depart.' At last the soul of the deceased leaves his body to join the company of his former friends, while his body is buried with great pomp and splendour. The Haidas believe that the soul leaves the body immediately after death, and is taken possession of either by Chief Cloud or Chief Death. The good soul is taken pos- session of by Chief Death, and during its sojourn in the domain of Death, it is taught many wonderful things and becomes initiated into the mysteries of heaven (just as the soul of Na&iketas was in the domain of Yama). At last he becomes the essence of the purest light and is able to revisit his friends on earth. At the close of the twelve months' probation the time of his redemption from the kingdom of
224 LECTURE VII.
Death arrives. As it is impossible that the pure essence of light should come into contact with a depraved material body, the good Indian assumes its appearance only, and then the gates are thrown open and his soul which by this time has assumed the shape of his earthly body, but clothed in the light of the kingdom of light, is discovered to the Chief of Light by Chief Death, in whose domains he has been taught the customs to be observed in heaven.
The bad Indian in the region of the clouds is tor- tured continually. In the first place his soul has to witness the chief of that region feasting on his dead body until it is entirely consumed. Secondly, he is so near to this world that he evinces a longing desire to return to his friends and gain their sympathy. Thirdly, he has the dread of being conducted to Hell (Hetywanlana) ever before his mind. No idea of atonement for his past wicked life is ever permitted, since his soul after death is incapable of reformation and consequently incapable of salvation. This is very different from Plato and the Upanishads, where there is always a hope of final salvation.
Sometimes permission is granted to souls in the clouds to revisit the earth. Then they can only be seen by the Saaga, the great medicine man, who describes them as destitute of all clothing. They are looked upon as wicked and treacherous spirits, and the medicine man's duty is to prevent them entering any of the houses ; and not only so, but as soon as the Saaga makes the announcement that a certain soul has descended from the clouds, no one will leave their homes, because the sight of a wicked soul would cause sickness and trouble, and his touch death. Some-
ESCHATOLOGT OF PLATO. 225
times it happens that the souls in the domain of Death are not made pure and holy within twelve months, and yet when their bodies died they were not wicked enough to be captured by Chief Cloud. Then it becomes necessary that the less sanctified souls return to earth and become regenerated. Every soul not worthy of entering heaven is sent back to his friends and reborn at the first opportunity. The Saaga enters the house to see the newly-born baby, and his attendant spirits announce to him that in that child is the soul of one of their departed friends who died during the preceding years. Their new life has to be such as will subject them to retribution for the misdeeds of their past life (the same idea which we met with in India and in Greece), and thus the purgation of souls has to be carried on in successive migrations until they are suitable to enter the region of eternal light.
It sometimes happens that some souls are too depraved and wicked after twelve months in the clouds to be conducted to Hetywanlana ; they also are sent back to this earth, but they are not allowed to re-enter a human body. They are allowed to enter the bodies of animals and fish, and compelled to undergo great torture.
We see here how the Haidas arrived at the idea of metempsychosis very much by the same road on which the Hindus were led to it. It was as a punishment that human souls were supposed to enter the bodies of certain animals. We likewise meet among the Haidas with the idea which we discovered in the Upanishads and in Plato, that certain souls are born again as human beings in order to undergo (4) Q
226 LECTURE VII.
a new purgation before they could be allowed to enter the region of eternal light. This intermediate stage, the simplest conception of a purgatory, for souls who are neither good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell, occurs in the later Persian literature also. It is there called the place of the Hamistakan, the intermediate place between heaven and hell, reserved for those souls whose good works exactly counterbalance their sins, and where they remain in a stationary state till the final resurrection1.
The Polynesians on the Immortality of the Sonl.
I have chosen the Haidas, the aborigines of the North-west coast of America, as a race that could not possibly have been touched by one single ray of that civilisation which had its seat in Mesopotamia, or in Persia, or in Egypt or Greece. Their thoughts on the immortality of the soul, and of the fate which awaits the soul after death, are clearly of independent growth, and if on certain important points they agree with the views of the Upanishads, the Zendavesta, or Plato, that agreement, though it does not prove their truth, proves at all events what I call their natural- ness, their conformity with the hopes and fears of the human heart.
I shall now take another race, equally beyond the reach of Mesopotamian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek thought, and as far removed as possible from the inhabitants of North-western America, I mean the races inhabiting the Polynesian Islands. I choose them because thejT give us a measure of -what amount of similarity is possible on religious or philosophical
1 Haug, I.e. p. 389 n.
ESCHATOLOGY OF PLATO. 227
topics without our having to adjnit either a common historical origin, or an actual borrowing at a later time. I choose them for another reason also, namely, because they are one of the few races of whom we possess scholarlike and trustworthy accounts from the pen of a missionary who has thoroughly mastered the language and thoughts of the people, and who has proved himself free from the prejudices arising from theological or scientific partisanship. I mean the Rev. W. Wyatt Gill. Speaking more particularly of the islands of the Hervey group, he says :
' Each island had some variety of custom in relation to the dead. Perhaps the chiefs of Atiu were the most outrageous in mourning. I knew one to mourn for seven years for an only child, living all that time in a hut in the vicinity of the grave, and allowing his hair and nails to grow, and his body to remain unwashed. This was the wonder of all the islanders. In general, all mourning ceremonies were over in a year.'
But what did these islanders think about the life to come? It is seldom that we can get a clear account of the ideas of savages concerning the fate of their departed friends. Many avoid the subject altogether, and even those who are ready to com- municate their thoughts freely to white men, often fail to be understood by their questioners. Mr. Gill is in this respect a favourable exception, and this is what he tells us about the conception of the spirit- world, as entertained by his Polynesian friends :
' Spirit-land proper is underneath, where the sun- god Ra reposes when his daily task is done.' This reminds us of Yarna, the son of Vivasvat (the sun),
Qa
228 LECTURE VII.
who by the Vedic Indians was believed to dwell in the world of the Fathers and to be the ruler of the spirits of the departed. This spirit-world ' is variously termed Po (Night), Avaiki, Hawaii, Ha- waiki. or home of the ancestors. Still, all warrior spirits, i.e. those who have died a violent death, are said to ascend to their happy homes in the ten heavens above. Popularly, death in any form is referred to as " going into night," in contrast with day (ao), i.e. life. Above and beneath are numerous countries and a variety of inhabitants — invisible to mortal eye ; but these are but a facsimile of what we, see around us now.
' The Samoan heaven was designated Pulotu or Purotu, and was supposed to be under the sea. The Mangaian warrior hoped to " leap into the expanse," "to dance the warrior's dance in Tairi" (above), "to inhabit Speck-land (Poepoe)" in perfect happiness. The Rarotongan warrior looked forward to a place in the house of Tiki, in which are assembled the brave of past ages, who spend their time in eating, drinking, dancing, or sleeping. The Aitutakian brave went to a good land (Iva) under the guardianship of the be- nevolent Tukaitaua, to chew sugar-cane for ever with uncloyed appetite. Tahitians had an elysium named " Mini." Society Islanders looked forward to " Rohutu noanoa," i.e. " sweet-scented Rohutu," full of fruit and flowers.
' At Mangaia the spirits of those who ignobly " died on a pillow"1 wandered about disconsolately over the rocks near the margin of the ocean, until the day appointed by their leader comes (once a year), when
1 I te urunga piro, i. e. a natural death.
ESCHATOLOQY OF PLATO. 229
they follow the sun-god Ra over the ocean and de- scend in his train to the under-world. As a rule, these ghosts were well disposed to their own living relatives ; but often became vindictive if a pet child was ill- treated by a step-mother or other relatives, &c. But the esoteric teaching of the priests ran thus : Unhappy * ghosts travel over the pointed rocks round the island until they reach the extreme edge of the cliff facing the setting sun, when a large wave approaches to the base, and at the same moment a gigantic " bua" tree (Fagraea berteriana], covered with fragrant blossoms, springs up from Avaiki to receive these disconsolate human spirits. Even at this last moment, with feet almost touching the fatal tree, a friendly voice may send the spirit-traveller back to life and health. Otherwise, he is mysteriously impelled to climb the particular branch reserved for his own tribe, and conveniently brought nearest to him. Immediately the human soul is safely lodged upon this gigantic " bua," the deceitful tree goes down with its living burden to the nether-world. Akaanga and his assis- tants catch the luckless ghost in a net, half drown it in a lake of fresh water, and then usher it into the presence of dread Miru, mistress of the nether-world, where it is made to drink of her intoxicating bowl. The drunken ghost is borne off to the ever-burning oven, cooked, and devoured by Miru, her son, and four peerless daughters. The refuse is thrown to her servants, Akaanga and others. So that, at Mangaia, the end of the coward is annihilation, or, at all events, digestion. 'At Rarotonga tfre luckless spirit-traveller who had
1 Because they had the misfortune 'to die on a pillow,' and because they had to leave their old pleasant haunts and homes.
230 LECTURE VII.
no present for Tiki was compelled to stay outside the house where the brave of past ages are assembled, in rain and darkness for ever, shivering with cold and hunger. Another view is, that the grand rendezvous of ghosts was on a ridge of rocks facing the setting sun. One tribe skirted the sea margin until it reached the fatal spot. Another (the tribe of Tangiia, on the eastern part of Rarotonga) traversed the mountain range forming the backbone of the island until the same point of departure was attained. Members of the former tribe clambered on an ancient " bua" tree (still standing). Should the branch chance to break, the ghost is immediately caught in the net of " Muru." But it sometimes happens that a lively ghost tears the meshes and escapes for a while, passing on by a resistless inward impulse towards the outer edge of the reef, in the hope of traversing the ocean. But in a straight line from the shore is a round hollow, where Akaanga's net is concealed. In this the very few who escape out of the hands of Muru are caught with- out fail. The delighted demons (taae) take the captive ghost out of the net, dash his brains out on the sharp coral, and carry him off in triumph to the shades to eat.
'For the tribe of Tangiia an iron-wood tree was reserved. The ghosts that trod on the green branches of this tree came back to life, whilst those who had the misfortune to crawl on the dead branches were at once caught in the net of Muru or Akaanga, brained, cooked, and devoured !
' Ghosts of cowards, and those who were impious at Aitutaki, were doomed likewise to furnish a feast to the inexpressibly ugly Miru1 and her followers.
1 Miru of Maugaia and Aitutaki is the Muru of Rarotonga.
ESOHA.TOLOGY OF PLATO. 231
' The ancient faith of the Hervey Islanders was substantially the same. Nor did it materially differ from that of the Tahitian and Society Islanders, the variations being such as we might expect when portions of the same great family had been separated from each other for ages.'
We see in these Polynesian legends a startling mixture of coarse and exalted ideas as to the fate of the soul after death.
Mr. Gill says that there is no trace of transmigra- tion of human souls in the Eastern Pacific. Yet he tells us that the spirits of the dead are fabled to have assumed, temporarily, and for a specific purpose, the form of an insect, bird, fish, or cloud. He adds that gods, specially the spirits of deified men, were believed permanently to reside in, or to be incarnate in, sharks, sword-fish, &c., eels, the octopus, the yellow and black-spotted lizards, several kinds of birds and insects. The idea of souls dwelling in animal bodies cannot therefore be said to have been unknown to the inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands.
If it is asked, what we gain from a comparison of the opinions on the fate of the soul after death as entertained not only by highly civilised nations, such as the Hindus, the Persians, and the Greeks, but like- wise by tribes on a very low level of social life, such as the Haidas and Polynesians, my answer is that we learn from it, that a belief in a soul and in the immortality of the soul is not simply the dream of a few philosophical poets or poetical philosophers, but the spontaneous outcome of the human mind, when brought face to face with the mystery of death.
282 LECTURE VII.
The last result of Physical Beligion.
The last result of what I called Physical Religion and Anthropological Religion is this very belief that ihe human soul will after death enter the realm of light, and stand before the throne of God, whatever name may have been assigned to him. This seems indeed the highest point that has been reached by natural religion. But we shall see that one religion at least, that of the Vedanta, made a decided step beyond.
LECTURE VIII.
TRUE IMMORTALITY. Judaism and Buddhism.
IT is strange that the two religions in which we find nothing or next to nothing about the im- mortality of the soul or its approach to the throne of God or its life in the realm of light, should be the Jewish and the Buddhist, the one pre-eminently mono- theistic, the other, in the eyes of the Brahmans, almost purely atheistic. The Old Testament is almost silent, and to be silent on such a subject admits of one interpretation only. The Buddhists, however, go even beyond this. Whatever the popular superstitions of the Buddhists may have been in India and other countries, Buddha himself declared in the most decided way that it was useless, nay, wrong to ask the question what becomes of the departed after death. When questioned on the subject, Buddha de- clined to give any answer. From all the other reli- gions of the world, however, with these two exceptions, we receive one and the same answer, namely, that the highest blessedness of the soul after death consists in its approaching the presence of God, possibly in singing praises and offering worship to the Supreme Being.
234 LECTUBE VIII.
The Vedanta Doctrine on True Immortality.
There is one religion only which has made a definite advance beyond this point. In other religions we meet indeed with occasional longings for something beyond this mere assembling round the throne of a Supreme Being, and singing praises to his name ; nor have protests been wanting from very early times against the idea of a God sitting on a throne and having a right and left hand. But though these old anthropomorphic ideas, sanctioned by creeds and catechisms, have been rejected again and again, nothing has been placed in their stead, and they natu- rally rise up anew with every new rising generation. In India alone the human mind has soared beyond this point, at first by guesses and postulates, such as we find in some of the Upanishads, afterwards by strict reasoning, such as we find in the Vedanta-sutras, and still more in the commentary of $ankara. The Vedanta, whether we call it a religion or a philosophy, has completely broken with the effete anthropo- morphic conception of God and of the soul as ap- proaching the throne of God, and has opened vistas which were unknown to the greatest thinkers of Europe.
These struggles after a pure conception of Deity began at a very early time. I have often quoted the passage where a Vedic poet says — ' That which is one, the poets call by many names,
They call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan.'
(Rv. I. 164, 46.)
You observe how that which is spoken of as one is here, as early as the hymns of the Rig-veda, no
TRUE IMMORTALITY. 235
longer a masculine, no longer personal, in the human sense of the word ; it has not even a name.
Personality, a Limitation of the Godhead.
No doubt this step will by many be considered not as a step in advance, but as a backward step. We often hear it said that an impersonal God is no God at all. And yet, if we use our words wisely, if we do not simply repeat words, but try to realise their meaning, we can easily understand why even those ancient seekers after truth declined to ascribe human personality to the Deity. People are apt to forget that human personality always implies limitation. Hence all the personal gods of ancient mythology were limited. Jupiter was not Apollo, Indra was not Agni. When people speak of human personality, they often include in it every kind of limitation, not only age, sex, language, nationality, inherited character, knowledge, but also outward appearance and facial expression. All these qualifications were applied to the ancient gods, but with the dawn of a higher con- ception of the Deity a reaction set in. The earliest philosophers of Greece, who were religious even more than philosophical teachers, protested, as for instance, through the mouth of Xenophanes, against the belief that God, if taken as the highest Deity, could be sup- posed to be like unto man in body or mind. Even at the present day the Bishop of London thought it right and necessary to warn a Christian congregation against the danger of ascribing personality, in its ordinary meaning, to God. 'There is a sense/ he says 1) ' in which we cannot ascribe personality to the
1 Temple, Hampton Lectures, p. 57.
236 LECTUEE VIII.
Unknown Absolute Being; for our personality is of necessity compassed with limitations, and from these limitations we find it impossible to separate our conception of person. When we speak of God as a person, we cannot but acknowledge that this person- ality far transcends our conceptions. ... If to deny personality to Him is to assimilate Him to a blind and dead rule, we cannot but repudiate such denial altogether. If to deny personality to Him is to assert His incomprehensibility, we are ready at once to acknowledge our weakness and incapacity.'
It is strange that people should not see that we must learn, with regard to personality, exactly the same lesson which we have had to learn with regard to all other human qualities, when we attempt to transfer them to God. We may say that God is wise and just, holy and pitiful, but He is all this in a sense which passes human understanding. In the same way, when we say that God is personal, we must learn that His personality must be high above any human person- ality, high above our understanding, always supposing that we understand what we mean when we speak of our own personality. Some people say that the Deity must be at least personal ; yes, but at the same time the Deity must be at least above all those limita- tions which are inseparable from human personality.
We may be fully convinced that God cannot be personal in the human sense of the word, and yet as soon as we place ourselves in any relation to God, we must for the time being conceive Him as personal. We cannot divest ourselves of our human nature. We know that the sun does not rise, but we cannot help seeing it rise. We know that the sky is not
TRUE IMMORTALITY. 237
blue, and yet we cannot help seeing it blue. Even the Bishop can only tell us how not to think about God, but how to think about Him except as personal he does not tell us. When we see Xenophanes attempting to represent this Supreme Being as o-^aipoetS?]?, or like a ball, we see what any attempts of this kind would lead to. The same intellectual struggle which we can watch in the words of a living Bishop, we can follow also in the later utterances of the Vedic poets. They found in their ancient faith names of ever so many personal gods, but they began to see that these were all but imperfect names of that which alone is, the Unknown Absolute Being, as Dr. Temple calls it, the Ekam sat of the Vedic sages.
Struggle for higher conception of the Godhead.
How then was the Ekam sat, TO «' /cat TO ov, to be called? Many names were attempted. Some Vedic sages called it Pra-jia, that is breath, which comes nearest to the Greek ^ivyji, breath or spirit or soul. Others confessed their inability to comprehend it under any name. That it is, and that it is one, is readily admitted. But as to any definite knowledge or definite name of it, the Vedic sages declare their ignorance quite as readily as any modern agnostic. This true agnosticism, this docta ignorantia of medi- aeval divines, this consciousness of man's utter help- lessness and inability to arrive at any knowledge of God, is most touchingly expressed by some of these ancient Vedic poets.
I shall quote some of their utterances.
Rv. X. 82, 7. created these things ; something else stands between
238 LECTURE VIII.
you and Him. Enveloped in mist and with faltering voices the poets walk along, rejoicing in life.'
Rv. I. 164, 4-6. * Who has seen the First-born, when He who had no bones, i. e. no form, bore him that had bones. The life, the blood, and the soul of the earth- where are they? Who went to ask it to one who knew it ? Simple-minded, not comprehending it in my mind. I ask for the hidden places of the gods. . . . Ignorant I ask the knowing sages, that I, the not-knowing, may know, what is the One in the form of the Un- born which has settled these six spaces.'
Still stronger is this confession as repeated again and again in the Upanishads.
For instance. $vet. Up. IV. 19. ' No one has grasped Him above, or across, or in the middle. There is no likeness of Him. whose name is Great Glory.'
Or, Mu-ncZ. Up. III. 1,8. ' He is not apprehended by the eye, nor by speech, nor by the other senses, not by penance or good works.'
Ken. Up. I. 3. ' Thy eye does not go thither, nor speech, nor mind. We do not know, we do not under- stand, how any one can teach it. It is different from the known, it is also above the unknown, thus we have heard from those of old who taught us this.'
Kh&nd. Up. IV. 3, 6. ' Mortals see Him not, though He dwells in many places.'
In the Taitt. Up. II. 4, it is said that words turn back from it with the mind, without having reached it — and in another place, K&th. Up. III. 15, it is dis- tinctly called nameless, intangible, formless, imperish- able. And again, Mu-ncZ. Up. I, 1,6, invisible, and not to be grasped.
These very doubts and perplexities are most touch-
TRUE IMMORTALITY. 239
ing. I doubt whether we find anything like them any- where else. On one point only these ancient searchers after God seem to have no doubt whatever, namely, that this Being is one and without a second. We saw it when the poet said, ' That which is one the poets call it in many ways,' and in the Upanishads, this One without a second becomes a constant name of the Supreme Being. Thus the K&th. Up. V. 12, says: 'There is one ruler, the soul within all things, who makes the one form manifold.' And the $vetasvatara- Up. VI. 11, adds : * He is the one God, hidden in all things, all-pervading, the soul within all beings, watching over all works, dwelling in all, the witness, the perceiver, the only one, free from all qualities, He is the one ruler of many who (seem to act, but really) do not act.'
The -/TAand. Up. VI. 2, 1 , says : ' In the beginning there was that only which is, one only, without a second ; ' and the ~Brih. Ar. Up. IV. 3, 32, adds : ' That one seer (subject) is an ocean, and without any duality.'
MumZ. Up. II. 2, 5. ' In Him the heaven, the earth, and the sky are woven, the mind also with all the senses. Know Him alone as the Self, and leave off other names. He is the bridge of the Immortal, i. e. the bridge by which we reach our own immortality.'
These are mere gropings, gropings in the dark, no doubt ; but even thus, where do we see such gropings after God except in India ?
The human mind, however, cannot long go on with- out names, and some of the names given to the One Unknowable and Unnameable Being, which we shall now have to examine, have caused and are still caus- ing great difficulty.
240 LECTORE VIII.
Name for the highest Godhead, Brahman.
One of the best-known names is Brahman, originally a neuter, but used often promiscuously as a masculine also. It would be an immense help if we were certain of the etymology of Brahman. We should then know, what is always most important, its first conception, for it is clear, and philosophers ought by this time to have learnt it, that every word must have meant at first that which it means etymologically. Many attempts have been made to discover the etymology of Brahman, but neither that nor the successive growth of its mean- ings can be ascertained with perfect certainty. It has been supposed1 that certain passages in the Ka£Aa- Upanishad (II. 13 ; VI. 17) were meant to imply a derivation of brahman from the root barh or bn'h, to tear off, as if brahman meant at first what was torn off or separated, absolutum ; but there is no other evidence for the existence of this line of thought in India. Others have derived brahman from the root barh or brih, in the sense of swelling or growing. Thus Dr. Haug, in his paper on Brahman und die Brahmanen, published in 1871, supposed that brah- man must have meant originally what grows, and he saw a proof of this in the corresponding Zend word Baresman (Barsom), a bundle of twigs (virgae) used by the priests, particularly at the Izeshan sacrifices. He then assigns to brahman the more abstract mean- ing of growth and welfare, and what causes growth and welfare, namely, sacred songs. In this way he holds that brahman came to mean the Veda, the holy word. Lastly, he assigns to brahman the meaning of
1 Deussen, Veddnta, p. 128.
TRUE IMMORTAL [TY. 241
force as manifested in nature, and that of universal force, or the Supreme Being, that which, according to $ankara, ' is eternal, pure, intelligent, free, omniscient and omnipotent.'
When by a well-known grammatical process this neuter brahman (nom. brahma) is changed into the masculine brahman (norn. brahma), it comes to mean a man conversant with Brahman, a member of the priestly caste; secondly, a priest charged with the special duty of superintending the sacrifice, but like- wise the personal creator, the universal force con- ceived as a personal god, the same as Pra^apati, and in later times one of the Trimurti, Brahman, Vislmu, and $iva. So far Dr. Haug.
Dr. Muir, in his Sanskrit Texts, i. p. 240, starts from brahman in the sense of prayer, hymn, while he takes the derivative masculine brahman as meaning one w'ho prays, a poet or sage, then a priest in general, and lastly a priest charged with special duties.
Professor Roth also takes the original sense of Brahman to have been prayer, not, however, praise or thanksgiving, but that kind of invocation which, with the force of will directed to the god, desires to draw him to the worshipper, and to obtain satisfaction from him.
I must confess that the hymns of the Veda, as we now read them, are hardly so full of fervent devotion that they could well be called outbursts. And there always remains the question why the creative force of the universe should have been called by the same name. It seems to me that the idea of creative force or propelling power might well have been expressed by (4) K
242 LECTURE VIII.
Brahman, as derived from a root barh1, to break forth, or to drive forth ; but the other brahman, before it came to mean hymn or prayer, seems to have had the more general meaning of speech or word. There are indeed a few indications left to show that the root barh had the meaning of uttering or speaking. Brihas-pati, who is also called BrahmaTias-pati, is often explained as Va/cas-pati, the lord of speech, so that brih seems to have been a synonym of va&. But what is still more important is that the Latin verbum, .as I pointed out many years ago, can be traced back letter by letter to the same root. Nay, if we accept vridh as a parallel form of vrih, the English word also can claim the same origin. It would seem therefore that brahman meant originally utterance, word, and then only hymn, and the sacred word, the Veda, while when it is used in the sense of creative force, it would have been conceived originally as that which utters or throws forth or manifests. Tempting as it is, we can hardly suppose that the ancient framers of the Sanskrit language had any suspicion of the identity of the Logos pro- phorikds and endidthetos of the Stoics, or of the world as word or thought, the Logos of the Creator. But that they had some recollection of brahman having originally meant word, can be proved by several pas- sages from the Veda. I do not attach any importance to such passages as B?^h. Ar. IV. 1, 2, vag vai Brah- ma, speech is Brahma, for Brahman is here in the same way identified with prawa, breath, man as mind, aditya, sun, and many other things. But when we
1 Brahma is sometimes combined with brihat, growing or great, see Svet. Up. III. 7.
TRUE IMMORTALITY. 243
read, Rv. I. 164, 35, Brahma ayam vaH/i paramam vy6ma, what can be the meaning of Brahma masc. being called here the highest heaven, or, it may be, the highest woof, of speech, if there had not been some connection between brahman and va/c1? There is another important passage in a hymn addressed to BHhaspati, the lord of speech, where we read, X. 71, 1 : ' O Br^'haspati (lord of brih or speech), when men, giving names, sent forth the first beginning of speech, then whatever was best and faultless in them, hidden within them, became manifested through desire.' I believe therefore that the word brahman had a double history, one beginning with brahman, as neuter, TO oVroos ov, the propelling force of the universe, and leading on to Brahman, masc., as the creator of the world, who causes all things to burst forth, later one of the Hindu Triad or Trimurti, con- sisting of Brahman, /Siva, and Vishnu ; the other beginning with brah-man, word or utterance, and gradually restricted to brahman, hymn of praise, ac- companied by sacrificial offerings, and then, with change of gender and accent, brahman, he who utters, prays, and sacrifices, a member of the priestly caste.
Brahman, even when used as a neuter, is often followed by masculine forms. And there are many passages where it must remain doubtful whether Brahman was conceived as an impersonal force, or as a personal being, nay, as both at the same time. Thus we read, Taitt. Up. III. 1,1:' That from whence these beings are born, that by which when born they live, that into which they enter at their death, try to know that, that is Brahman.'
In the Atharva-veda X. 2, 25, we read : ' By whom Ra
244 LEOTUBE
was this earth ordered, by whom was the upper sky created ? By whom was this uplifted ? ' &c.
The answer is : * By Brahma was this earth ordered/ &c.
Sometimes Brahman is identified with Prawa, breath, as in Brih. Ar. Up. III. (s), 9, 9 : ' He asked, who is the one God? Ya and he is Brahman.'
Sometimes again it is said that Pra/rca, spirit, arose from Brahman, as when we read, M-und. Up. II. 1, 8: ' Brahman swells by means of heat ; hence is produced food (or matter), from food breath (pra-rat), mind,' &c.
However, this Brahman is only one out of many names, each representing an attempt to arrive at the concept of a Supreme Being, free, as much as possible, from all mythological elements, free from purely human qualities, free also from sex or gender.
Purnslia.
Another of these names is Purusha, which means originally man or person. Thus we read, MumZ. Up.