Two Old Faiths | Page 3

so the sterner phenomena of nature--whirlwind and tempest, lightning and thunder, flood and storm-wave, plague, pestilence, and famine; all of these oftentimes assume in the East a character of awful majesty before which man cowers in helplessness and despair. The conceptions and feelings hence arising have from the beginning powerfully affected the religion of the Hindus. Every-where we can trace the impress of the grander manifestations of nature--the impress of their beneficence, their beauty, their might, their mystery, or their terribleness.
[Sidenote: The deities are "the bright ones," according to the language of the sacred books of India.] The Sanskrit word for god is deva, which means _bright, shining_. Of physical phenomena it was especially those connected with light that enkindled feelings of reverence. The black thunder-cloud that enshrouded nature, in which the demon had bound the life-giving waters, passed away; for the glittering thunder-bolt was launched, and the streams rushed down, exulting in their freedom; and then the heaven shone out again, pure and peaceful as before. But such a wonder as the dawn--with far-streaming radiance, returning from the land of mystery, fresh in eternal youth, and scattering the terrors of the night before her--who could sufficiently admire? And let it be remembered that in the Hindu mind the interval between admiration and adoration is exceedingly small. Yet, while it is the dawn which has evoked the truest poetry, she has not retained the highest place in worship.
[Sidenote: Fire much worshiped.] No divinity has fuller worship paid him than Agni, the Fire (_Ignis_). More hymns are dedicated to him than to any other being. Astonishment at the properties of fire; a sense of his condescension in that he, a mighty god, resides in their dwellings; his importance as the messenger between heaven and earth, bearing the offerings aloft; his kindness at night in repelling the darkness and the demons which it hides--all these things raised Agni to an exalted place. He is fed with pure clarified butter, and so rises heavenward in his brightness. The physical conception of fire, however, adheres to him, and he never quite ceases to be the earthly flame; yet mystical conceptions thickly gather round this root-idea; he is fire pervading all nature; and he often becomes supreme, a god of gods.
[Sidenote: Soma highly exalted. Soma becomes a very mighty god.] All this seems natural enough; but one is hardly prepared for the high exaltation to which Soma is raised. Soma is properly the juice of a milky plant (asclepias acida, or _sarcostemma viminale_), which, when fermented, is intoxicating. The simple-minded Aryas were both astonished and delighted at its effects; they liked it themselves; and they knew nothing more precious to present to their gods. Accordingly, all of these rejoice in it. Indra in particular quaffs it "like a thirsty stag;" and under its exhilarating effects he strides victoriously to battle. Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one; he is even the creator and father of the gods;[3] the king of gods and men;[4] all creatures are in his hand. It is surely extraordinary that the Aryas could apply such hyperbolical laudations to the liquor which they had made to trickle into the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a plant they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a mortar; and that intoxication should be confounded with inspiration. Yet of such aberrations we know the human mind is perfectly capable.
[Sidenote: Connection with Persian, Greek, and Roman systems. Varuna, the god of heaven. The sublimity of the Vedic description of him.] We have first referred to Agni and Soma, as being the only divinities of highest rank which still retain their physical character. The worship paid to them was of great antiquity; for it is also prescribed in the Persian Avesta, and must have been common to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Aryan race before the Hindus entered India. But we can inferentially go still further back and speak of a deity common to the Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Hindus. This deity is Varuna, the most remarkable personality in the Veda. The name, which is etymologically connected with [Greek: Ouranos], signifies "the encompasser," and is applied to heaven--especially the all-encompassing, extreme vault of heaven--not the nearer sky, which is the region of cloud and storm. It is in describing Varuna that the Veda rises to the greatest sublimity which it ever reaches. A mysterious presence, a mysterious power, a mysterious knowledge amounting almost to omniscience, are ascribed to Varuna. The winkings of men's eyes are numbered by him. He upholds order, both physical and moral, throughout the universe.
[Sidenote: Contrast with the laudations of Agni and Soma. The loftier conceptions of divinity the earlier.] The winds are his breath, the sun his eye, the sky his garment. He