There remain about twenty poems the subject-matter of which is of a more or less secular character. They deal with social customs, the liberality of patrons, ethical questions, riddles, and cosmogonic speculations. Several of them are of high importance for the history of Indian thought and civilisation. As social usages have always been dominated by religion in India, it is natural that the poems dealing with them should have a religious and mythological colouring. The most notable poem of this kind is the long wedding-hymn (x. 85) of forty-seven stanzas. Lacking in poetic unity, it consists of groups of verses relating to the marriage ceremonial loosely strung together. The opening stanzas (1–5), in which the identity of the celestial soma and of the moon is expressed in veiled terms, are followed by others (6–17) relating the myth of the wedding of Soma the moon with the sun-maiden Sūryā. The Açvins, elsewhere her spouses, here appear in the inferior capacity of groomsmen, who, on behalf of Soma, sue for the hand of Sūryā from her father, the sun-god. Savitṛi consents, and sends his daughter, a willing bride, to her husband’s house on a two-wheeled car made of the wood of the çalmali or silk-cotton tree, decked with red kiṃçuka flowers, and drawn by two white bulls.
Then sun and moon, the prototype of human marriage, are described as an inseparable pair (18–19): —
They move alternately with mystic power;
Like children playing they go round the sacrifice:
One of the two surveys all living beings,
The other, seasons meting out, is born again.
Ever anew, being born again, he rises,
He goes in front of dawns as daylight’s token.
He, coming, to the gods their share apportions:
The moon extends the length of man’s existence.
Blessings are then invoked on the wedding procession, and a wish expressed that the newly-married couple may have many children and enjoy prosperity, long life, and freedom from disease (20–33).
The next two stanzas (34–35), containing some obscure references to the bridal garments, are followed by six others (36–41) pronounced at the wedding rite, which is again brought into connection with the marriage of Sūryā. The bridegroom here thus addresses the bride: —
I grasp thy hand that I may gain good fortune,
That thou may’st reach old age with me thy husband.
Bhaga, Aryaman, Savitṛi, Puraṃdhi,
The gods have given thee to share my household.
The god of fire is at the same time invoked: —
To thee, O Agni, first they led
Bright Sūryā with the bridal throng:
So in thy turn to husbands give
A wife along with progeny.
The concluding verses (42–47) are benedictions pronounced on the newly-wedded couple after the bride has arrived at her future home: —
Here abide; be not divided;
Complete life’s whole allotted span,
Playing with your sons and grandsons,
Rejoicing in your own abode.
The last stanza of all is spoken by the bridegroom: —
May all the gods us two unite,
May Waters now our hearts entwine;
May Mātariçvan and Dhātri,
May Deshṭrī us together join.
There are five hymns, all in the last book (x. 14–18), which are more or less concerned with funeral rites. All but one of them, however, consist chiefly of invocations of gods connected with the future life. The first (14) is addressed to Yama, the next to the Fathers, the third to Agni, and the fourth to Pūshan, as well as Sarasvatī. Only the last (18) is a funeral hymn in the true sense. It is secular in style as well as in matter, being almost free from references to any of the gods. Grave and elevated in tone, it is distinguished by great beauty of language. It also yields more information about the funeral usages of those early days than any of the rest.
From this group of hymns it appears that burial was practised as well as cremation by the Vedic Indians. The composer of a hymn addressed to Varuṇa in Book VII. also mentions “the house of clay” in connection with death. Cremation was, however, the usual manner of disposing of the dead, and the later Vedic ritual practically knew this method alone, sanctioning only the burial of ascetics and children under two years of age. With the rite of cremation, too, the mythological notions about the future life were specially connected. Thus Agni conducts the corpse to the other world, where the gods and Fathers dwell. A goat was sacrificed when the corpse was burned, and this goat, according to the Atharva-veda (ix. 5, 1 and 3), preceded and announced the deceased to the fathers, just as in the Rigveda the goat immolated with the sacrificial horse goes before to announce the offering to the gods (i. 162–163). In the later Vedic ritual a goat or cow was sacrificed as the body was cremated.
In conformity with a custom of remotest antiquity still surviving in India, the dead man was provided with ornaments and clothing for use in the future life. The fact that in the funeral obsequies of the Rigveda the widow lies down beside the body of her deceased husband and his bow is removed from the dead man’s hand, shows that both were in earlier times burnt with his body to accompany him to the next world, and a verse of the Atharva-veda calls the dying of the widow with her husband an old custom. The evidence of anthropology shows that this was a very primitive practice widely prevailing at the funerals of military chiefs, and it can be proved to go back to the Indo-European age.
The following stanza (8) from the last funeral hymn (x. 18) is addressed to the widow, who is called upon to rise from the pyre and take the hand of her new husband, doubtless a brother of the deceased, in accordance with an ancient marriage custom: —
Rise up; come to the world of life; O woman;
Thou liest here by one whose soul has left him.
Come: thou hast now entered upon the wifehood
Of this thy lord who takes thy hand and woos thee.
The speaker then, turning to the deceased man, exclaims: —
From the dead hand I take the bow he wielded,
To gain for us dominion, might, and glory.
Thou there, we here, rich in heroic offspring,
Will vanquish all assaults of every foeman.
Approach the bosom of the earth, the mother,
This earth extending far and most propitious:
Young, soft as wool to bounteous givers, may she
Preserve thee from the lap of dissolution.
Open wide, O earth, press not heavily on him,
Be easy of approach, hail him with kindly aid;
As with a robe a mother hides
Her son, so shroud this man, O earth.
Referring to the bystanders he continues: —
These living ones are from the dead divided:
Our calling on the gods is now auspicious.
We have come forth prepared for dance and laughter,
Till future days prolonging our existence.
As days in order follow one another,
As seasons duly alternate with seasons;
As the later never forsakes the earlier,
So fashion thou the lives of these, Ordainer.
A few of the secular poems contain various historical references. These are the so-called Dānastutis or “Praises of Gifts,” panegyrics commemorating the liberality of princes towards the priestly singers employed by them. They possess little poetic merit, and are of late date, occurring chiefly in the first and tenth books, or among the Vālakhilya (supplementary) hymns of the eighth. A number of encomia of this type, generally consisting of only two or three stanzas, are appended to ordinary hymns in the eighth book and, much less commonly, in most of the other books. Chiefly concerned in describing the kind and the amount of the gifts bestowed on them, the composers of these panegyrics incidentally furnish historical data about the families and genealogies of themselves and their patrons, as well as about the names and homes of the Vedic tribes. The amount of the presents bestowed — for instance, 60,000 cows — is sometimes
enormously exaggerated. We may, however, safely conclude that it was often considerable, and that the Vedic chiefs possessed very large herds of cattle.
Four of the secular poems are didactic in character. One of these (x. 34), “The Lament of the Gambler,” strikes a pathetic note. Considering that it is the oldest composition of the kind in existence, we cannot but regard this poem as a most remarkable literary product. The gambler deplores his inability to throw off the spell of the dice, though he sees the ruin they are bringing on him and his household: —
Downward they fall, then nimbly leaping upward,
They overpower the man with hands, though handless.
Cast on the board like magic bits of charcoal,
Though cold themselves, they burn the heart to ashes.
It pains the gambler when he sees a woman,
Another’s wife, and their well-ordered household:
He yokes these brown steeds early in the morning,
And, when the fire is low, sinks down an outcast.
“Play not with dice, but cultivate thy cornfield;
Rejoice in thy goods, deeming them abundant:
There are thy cows, there is thy wife, O gambler.”
This counsel Savitṛi the kindly gives me.
We learn here that the dice (aksha) were made of the nut of the Vibhīdaka tree (Terminalia bellerica), which is still used for the purpose in India.
The other three poems of this group may be regarded as the forerunners of the sententious poetry which flourished so luxuriantly in Sanskrit literature. One of them, consisting only of four stanzas (ix. 112), describes in a moralising strain of mild humour how men follow after gain in various ways: —
The thoughts of men are manifold,
Their callings are of diverse kinds:
The carpenter desires a rift,
The leech a fracture wants to cure.
A poet I; my dad’s a leech;
Mama the upper millstone grinds:
With various minds we strive for wealth,
As ever seeking after kine.
Another of these poems (x. 117) consists of a collection of maxims inculcating the duty of well-doing and charity: —
Who has the power should give unto the needy,
Regarding well the course of life hereafter:
Fortune, like two chariot wheels revolving,
Now to one man comes nigh, now to another.
Ploughing the soil, the share produces nurture;
He who bestirs his feet performs his journey;
A priest who speaks earns more than one who’s silent;
A friend who gives is better than the niggard.
The fourth of these poems (x. 71) is composed in praise of wise speech. Here are four of its eleven stanzas: —
Where clever men their words with wisdom utter,
And sift them as with flail the corn is winnowed,
There friends may recognise each other’s friendship:
A goodly stamp is on their speech imprinted.
Whoever his congenial friend abandons,
In that man’s speech there is not any blessing.
For what he hears he hears without advantage:
He has no knowledge of the path of virtue.
When Brahman friends unite to offer worship,
In hymns by the heart’s impulse swiftly fashioned,
Then not a few are left behind in wisdom,
While others win their way as gifted Brahmans.
The one sits putting forth rich bloom of verses,
Another sings a song in skilful numbers,
A third as teacher states the laws of being,
A fourth metes out the sacrifice’s measure.
Even in the ordinary hymns are to be found a few moralising remarks of a cynical nature about wealth and women, such as frequently occur in the ethical literature of the post-Vedic age. Thus one poet exclaims: “How many a maiden is an object of affection to her wooer for the sake of her admirable wealth!” (x. 27, 12); while another addresses the kine he desires with the words: “Ye cows make even the lean man fat, even the ugly man ye make of goodly countenance” (vi. 28, 6). A third observes: “Indra himself said this, ‘The mind of woman is hard to instruct, and her intelligence is small’” (viii. 33, 17); and a fourth complains: “There are no friendships with women; their hearts are those of hyenas” (x. 95, 15). One, however, admits that “many a woman is better than the godless and niggardly man” (v. 61, 6).
Allied to the didactic poems are the riddles, of which there are at least two collections in the Rigveda. In their simplest form they are found in a poem (29) of the eighth book. In each of its ten stanzas a different deity is described by his characteristic marks, but without being mentioned, the hearer being left to guess his name. Vishṇu, for instance, is thus alluded to: —
Another with his mighty stride has made three steps
To where the gods rejoice in bliss.
A far more difficult collection, consisting of fifty-two stanzas, occurs in the first book (164). Nothing here is directly described, the language being always symbolical and mystical. The allusions in several cases are so obscurely expressed that it is now impossible to divine the meaning. Sometimes the riddle is put in the form of a question, and in one case the answer itself is also given. Occasionally the poet propounds a riddle of which he himself evidently does not know the solution. In general these problems are stated as enigmas. The subject of about one-fourth of them is the sun. Six or seven deal with clouds, lightning, and the production of rain; three or four with Agni and his various forms; about the same number with the year and its divisions; two with the origin of the world and the One Being. The dawn, heaven and earth, the metres, speech, and some other subjects which can hardly even be conjectured, are dealt with in one or two stanzas respectively. One of the more clearly expressed of these enigmas is the following, which treats of the wheel of the year with its twelve months and three hundred and sixty days: —
Provided with twelve spokes and undecaying,
The wheel of order rolls around the heavens;
Within it stand, O Agni, joined in couples,
Together seven hundred sons and twenty.
The thirteenth or intercalary month, contrasted with the twelve others conceived as pairs, is thus darkly alluded to: “Of the co-born they call the seventh single-born; sages call the six twin pairs god-born.” The latter expression probably alludes to the intercalary month being an artificial creation of man. In the later Vedic age it became a practice to propound such enigmas, called “theological problems” (brahmodya), in contests for intellectual pre-eminence when kings instituted great sacrifices or Brahmans were otherwise assembled together.
Closely allied to these poetical riddles is the philosophical poetry contained in the six or seven cosmogonic hymns of the Rigveda. The question of the origin of the world here treated is of course largely mixed with mythological and theological notions. Though betraying much confusion of ideas, these early speculations are of great interest as the sources from which flow various streams of later thought. Most of these hymns handle the subject of the origin of the world in a theological, and only one in a purely philosophical spirit. In the view of the older Rishis, the gods in general, or various individual deities, “generated” the world. This view conflicts with the frequently expressed notion that heaven and earth are the parents of the gods. The poets thus involve themselves in the paradox that the children produce their own parents. Indra, for instance, is described in so many words as having begotten his father and mother from his own body (x. 54, 3). This conceit evidently pleased the fancy of a priesthood becoming more and more addicted to far-fetched speculations; for in the cosmogonic hymns we find reciprocal generation more than once introduced in the stages of creation. Thus Daksha is said to have sprung from Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha (x. 72, 4).
The evolution of religious thought in the Rigveda led to the conception of a creator distinct from any of the chief deities
and superior to all the gods. He appears under the various names of Purusha, Viçvakarman, Hiraṇyagarbha, or Prajāpati in the cosmogonic hymns. Whereas creation, according to the earlier view, is regularly referred to as an act of natural generation with some form of the verb jan, “to beget,” these cosmogonic poems speak of it as the manufacture or evolution from some original material. In one of them (x. 90), the well-known Hymn of Man (purusha-sūkta), the gods are still the agents, but the material out of which the world is made consists of the body of a primeval giant, Purusha (man), who being thousand-headed and thousand-footed, extends even beyond the earth, as he covers it. The fundamental idea of the world being created from the body of a giant is, indeed, very ancient, being met with in several primitive mythologies. But the manner in which the idea is here worked out is sufficiently late. Quite in the spirit of the Brāhmaṇas, where Vishṇu is identified with the sacrifice, the act of creation is treated as a sacrificial rite, the original man being conceived as a victim, the parts of which when cut up become portions of the universe. His head, we are told, became the sky, his navel the air, his feet the earth, while from his mind sprang the moon, from his eye the sun, from his breath the wind. “Thus they (the gods) fashioned the worlds.” Another sign of the lateness of the hymn is its pantheistic colouring; for it is here said that “Purusha is all this world, what has been and shall be,” and “one-fourth of him is all creatures, and three-fourths are the world of the immortals in heaven.” In the Brāhmaṇas, Purusha is the same as the creator, Prajāpati, and in the Upanishads he is identified with the universe. Still later, in the dualistic Sānkhya philosophy, Purusha becomes the name of “soul” as opposed to “matter.” In the Hymn of Man a being called Virāj is mentioned as produced from Purusha. This in the later Vedānta philosophy is a name of the personal creator as contrasted with Brahma, the universal soul. The Purusha hymn, then, may be regarded as the oldest product of the pantheistic literature of India. It is at the same time one of the very latest poems of the Rigvedic age; for it presupposes a knowledge of the three oldest Vedas, to which it refers together by name. It also for the first and only time in the Rigveda mentions the four castes; for it is here said that Purusha’s mouth became the Brahman, his arms the Rājanya (warrior), his thighs the Vaiçya (agriculturist), and his feet the Çūdra (serf).
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