A Comparative View of Religions | Page 2

of the laws of the state (the Celestial Kingdom), in which he sees the reflection of heaven, to the recognition of the Emperor as the son and representative of heaven, and to the worship of the forefathers, especially of the great men and departed emperors, to whose memory the Chinese temples, or pagodas, are dedicated. The origin of this religion dates, according to the tradition, from Fo-hi (2950 B.C.), the founder of the Chinese state. In the fifth century before Christ, Kong-tse, or Kong-fu-tse (Confucius), appeared as a reformer of the religion of his countrymen, and gathered the ancient records and traditions of his people into a sacred literature, which is known by the name of the "King" (the books), "Yo-King" (the book of nature), "Chu-King" (the book of history), "Chi-King" (the book of songs). The contents of the "King" became later with the Chinese sages Meng-tse (360 B.C.) and Tschu-tsche (1200 A.D.) an object of philosophical speculation. The doctrine of Lao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as the basis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supreme principle, Tao, or Being, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine of the Indians, among whom he lived for a long time; but this doctrine never became popular in China.
3. THE EGYPTIANS.
The worship of nature, which is seen in its beginnings among the Chinese, exhibits itself among the Egyptians in a more developed form as theogony. Here also the reflecting mind rose to the recognition of two fundamental principles, the producing and the passive power of nature, Kneph and Neith, from which sprang successively the remaining powers of nature, time, air, earth, light and darkness, personified by the fantasy of the people into as many divinities. The Egyptian mythology also (none has as yet been discovered among the Chinese) exhibits a like character. Fruitfulness and drought, the results of the Nile's overflowing and receding, are imaged in the myth of Osiris, Isis, and Typhon. The visible form under which the divine was worshiped in Egypt was the sacred animal, the bull Apis, dedicated to Osiris, the cow, dedicated to Isis, as symbols of agriculture; the bird Ibis, the crocodile, the dog Anubis, and other animals, whose physical characteristics impressed the as yet childish man, who saw in them the symbol, either of the beneficent power of nature which moved him to thankfulness, or of a destructive power which he dreaded and whose anger he sought to avert. The religion of Egypt was not of a purely spiritual character. To the man whose eye is not yet open to the manifestation of the spiritual around him and in him, the divine is not spirit, but as yet only nature. The animal, although in the form of the sphinx approaching the human, holds in Egyptian art a place above the human as symbol of the divine.
CHAPTER II.
THE ARIAN NATIONS.
1. THE EAST ARIANS. THE INDIANS.
In the development of religion among the Indians, the following periods may be distinguished:--
a. The original Veda-religion.
b. The priestly religion of the Brahmins.
c. The philosophical speculation.
d. Buddhism.
e. The modified Brahminism after Buddha, in connection with the worship of Vishnu and Siva.
a. The original Veda-religion.
The original religion of Arya originated in Bactria. From thence, before the time of Zoroaster, it was brought over, with the great migration of the people, to the land of the seven rivers, which they conquered, and which stretched from the Indus to the Hesidrus. It consisted, according to the oldest literature of the Veda, in a polytheistical worship of the divine, either as the beneficent or the baneful power of nature. The clear, blue sky, the light of the sun, the rosy dawn, the storm that spends itself in fruitful rain, the winds and gales which drive away the clouds, the rivers whose fruitful slime overspreads the fields,--these moved the inhabitants of India to the worship of the divine as the beneficent power of nature which blesses man. On the other hand, he changed under the impression of the harmful phenomena of nature, the dark and close-packed clouds which hold back the rain and intercept the sunshine, the parching heat of summer, which dries up the rivers and hinders growth and fruitfulness, and these also he erected into objects of awe and religious adoration. From this view of nature sprang the Indian mythology. The oldest divinity (Deva) of the Indians is Varuna, the all-embracing heaven, who marks out their courses for the heavenly luminaries, who rules the day and the night, who is lord of life and death, whose protection is invoked, whose anger deprecated. After him, the great ruler of nature, there appear, in the Veda hymns, Indra, the blue sky, god of light and thunder, the warrior who in battle stands beside the combatants; Vayu, the god of the wind,