Reading section 17

Both archaeology and historical notices tell us something of the history of Muttra. It was a great Buddhist and Jain centre, as the statues and viharas found there attest. Ptolemy calls it the city of the gods. Fa-Hsien (400 A.D.) describes it as Buddhist, but that faith was declining at the time of Hsuean Chuang's visit (c. 630 A.D.). The sculptural remains also indicate the presence of Graeco-Bactrian influence. We need not therefore feel surprise if we find in the religious thought of Muttra elements traceable to Greece, Persia or Central Asia. Some claim that Christianity should be reckoned among these elements and I shall discuss the question elsewhere. Here I will only say that such ideas as were common to Christianity and to the religions of Greece and western Asia probably did penetrate to India by the northern route, but of specifically Christian ideas I see no proof. It is true that the pastoral Krishna is unlike all earlier Indian deities, but then no close parallel to him can be adduced from elsewhere, and, take him as a whole, he is a decidedly un-christian figure. The resemblance to Christianity consists in the worship of a divine child, together with his mother. But this feature is absent in the New Testament and seems to have been borrowed from paganism by Christianity.

The legends of Muttra show even clearer traces than those already quoted of hostility between Krishna and Brahmanism. He forbids the worship of Indra,[384] and when Indra in anger sends down a deluge of rain, he protects the country by holding up over it the hill of Goburdhan, which is still one of the great centres of pilgrimage.[385] The language which the Vishnu Purana attributes to him is extremely remarkable. He interrupts a sacrifice which his fosterfather is offering to Indra and says, "We have neither fields nor houses: we wander about happily wherever we list, travelling in our waggons. What have we to do with Indra? Cattle and mountains are (our) gods. Brahmans offer worship with prayer: cultivators of the earth adore their landmarks but we who tend our herds in the forests and mountains should worship them and our kine."

This passage suggests that Krishna represents a tribe of highland nomads who worshipped mountains and cattle and came to terms with the Brahmanic ritual only after a struggle. The worship of mountain spirits is common in Central Asia, but I do not know of any evidence for cattle-worship in those regions. Clemens of Alexandria,[386] writing at the end of the second century A.D., tells us that the Indians worshipped Herakles and Pan. The pastoral Krishna has considerable resemblance to Pan or a Faun, but no representations of such beings are recorded from Graeco-Indian sculptures. Several Bacchic groups have however been discovered in Gandhara and also at Muttra[387] and Megasthenes recognized Dionysus in some Indian deity. Though the Bacchic revels and mysteries do not explain the pastoral element in the Krishna legend, they offer a parallel to some of its other features, such as the dancing and the crowd of women, and I am inclined to think that such Greek ideas may have germinated and proved fruitful in Muttra. The Greek king Menander is said to have occupied the city (c. 155 B.C.), and the sculptures found there indicate that Greek artistic forms were used to express Indian ideas. There may have been a similar fusion in religion.

In any case, Buddhism was predominant in Muttra for several centuries. It no doubt forbade the animal sacrifices of the Brahmans and favoured milder rites. It may even offer some explanation for the frivolous character of much in the Krishna legend.[388] Most Brahmanic deities, extraordinary as their conduct often is, are serious and imposing. But Buddhism claimed for itself the serious side of religion and while it tolerated local godlings treated them as fairies or elves. It was perhaps while Krishna was a humble rustic deity of this sort, with no claim to represent the Almighty, that there first gathered round him the cycle of light love-stories which has clung to him ever since. In the hands of the Brahmans his worship has undergone the strangest variations which touch the highest and lowest planes of Hinduism, but the Muttra legend still retains its special note of pastoral romance, and exhibits Krishna in two principal characters, as the divine child and as the divine lover. The mysteries of birth and of sexual union are congenial topics to Hindu theology, but in the cult of Muttra we are not concerned with reproduction as a world force, but simply with childhood and love as emotional manifestations of the deity. The same ideas occur in Christianity, and even in the Gospels Christ is compared to a bridegroom, but the Krishna legend is far more gross and naive.

The infant Krishna is commonly adored in the form known as Makhan Chor or the Butter Thief.[389] This represents him as a crawling child holding out one hand full of curds or butter which he has stolen. We speak of idolizing a child, and when Hindu women worship this image they are unconsciously generalizing the process and worshipping childhood, its wayward pranks as well as its loveable simplicity, and though it is hard for a man to think of the freaks of the butter thief as a manifestation of divinity, yet clearly there is an analogy between these childish escapades and the caprices of mature deities, which are respectfully described as mysteries. If one admits the worship of the Bambino, it is not unreasonable to include in it admiration of his rogueries, and the tender playfulness which is permitted to enter into this cult appeals profoundly to Indian women. Images of the Makhan Chor are sold by thousands in the streets of Muttra.

Even more popular is the image known as Kanhaya, which represents the god as a young man playing the flute as he stands in a careless attitude, which has something of Hellenic grace. Krishna in this form is the beloved of the Gopis, or milk-maids, of the land of Braj, and the spouse of Radha, though she had no monopoly of him. The stories of his frolics with these damsels and the rites instituted in memory thereof have brought his worship into merited discredit. Krishnaism offers the most extensive manifestation to be found in the world of what W. James calls the theopathic condition as illustrated by nuns like Marguerite Marie Alacoque, Saint Gertrude and the more distinguished Saint Theresa. "To be loved by God and loved by him to distraction (jusqu'a la folie), Margaret melted away with love at the thought of such a thing.... She said to God, 'Hold back, my God, these torrents which overwhelm me or else enlarge my capacity for their reception'."[390] These are not the words of the Gita-govinda or the Prem Sagar, as might be supposed, but of a Catholic Bishop describing the transports of Sister Marguerite Marie, and they illustrate the temper of Krishna's worshippers. But the verses of the Marathi poet, Tukaram, who lived about 1600 A.D. and sang the praises of Krishna, rise above this sentimentality though he uses the language of love. In a letter to Sivaji, who desired to see him, he wrote, "As a chaste wife longs only to see her lord, such am I to Vitthala.[391] All the world is to me Vitthala and nothing else: thee also I behold in him." He also wrote elsewhere, "he that taketh the unprotected to his heart and doeth to a servant the same kindness as to his own children, is assuredly the image of God." More recently Ramakrishna, whose sayings breathe a wide intelligence as well as a wide charity, has given this religion of love an expression which, if somewhat too sexual to be perfectly in accordance with western taste, is nearly related to emotional Christianity. "A true lover sees his god as his nearest and dearest relative" he writes, "just as the shepherd women of Vrindavana saw in Krishna not the Lord of the Universe but their own beloved.... The knowledge of God may be likened to a man, while the love of God is like a woman. Knowledge has entry only up to the outer rooms of God, and no one can enter into the inner mysteries of God save a lover.... Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the same. There is no difference between pure knowledge and pure love."[392]

These extracts show how Krishna as the object of the soul's desire assumes the place of the Supreme Being or God. But this surprising transformation[393] is not specially connected with the pastoral and erotic Krishna: the best known and most thorough-going exposition of his divinity is found in the Bhagavad-gita, which represents him as being in his human aspect, a warrior and the charioteer of Arjuna. Probably some seventy-five millions to-day worship Krishna, especially under the name of Hari, as God in the pantheistic sense and naturally the more his identity with the supreme spirit is emphasized, the dimmer grow the legendary features which mark the hero of Muttra and Dvaraka, and the human element in him is reduced to this very important point that the tie uniting him to his worshippers is one of sentiment and affection.

In the following chapters I shall treat of this worship when describing the various sects which practise it. A question of some importance for the history of Krishna's deification is the meaning of the name Vasudeva. One explanation makes it a patronymic, son of Vasudeva, and supposes that when this prince Vasudeva was deified his name, like Rama, was transferred to the deity. The other regards Vasudeva as a name for the deity used by the Sattvata clan and supposes that when Krishna was deified this already well-known divine name was bestowed on him. There is much to be said for this latter theory. As we have seen the Jains give the title Vasudeva to a series of supermen, and a remarkable legend states[394] that a king called Paundraka who pretended to be a deity used the title Vasudeva and ordered Krishna to cease using it, for which impertinence he was slain. This clearly implies that the title was something which could be detached from Krishna and not a mere patronymic. Indian writings countenance both etymologies of the word. As the name of the deity they derive it from _vas_ to dwell, he in whom all things abide and who abides in all.[395]

5

Siva and Vishnu are not in their nature different from other Indian ideas, high or low. They are the offspring of philosophic and poetic minds playing with a luxuriant popular mythology. But even in the epics they have already become fixed points in a flux of changing fancies and serve as receptacles in which the most diverse notions are collected and stored. Nearly all philosophy and superstition finds its place in Hinduism by being connected with one or both of them. The two worships are not characteristic of different periods: they coexist when they first become known to us as they do at the present day and in essential doctrines they are much alike. We have no name for this curious double theism in which each party describes its own deity as the supreme god or All-god, yet without denying the god of the other. Something similar might be produced in Christianity if different Churches were avowedly to worship different persons of the Trinity.

Siva and Vishnu are sometimes contrasted and occasionally their worshippers quarrel.[396] But the general inclination is rather to make the two figures approximate by bestowing the same attributes on both. A deity must be able to satisfy emotional devotion: hence the Tamil Sivaite says of Siva the destroyer, "one should worship in supreme love him who does kindness to the soul." But then the feature in the world which most impresses the Hindu is the constant change and destruction, and this must find a place in the All-god. Hence the sportive kindly Krishna comes to be declared the destroyer of the worlds.[397] It is as if in some vast Dravidian temple one wandered through two corridors differently ornamented and assigned to the priests of different rites but both leading to the same image. Hence it is not surprising to find that there is actually a deity--if indeed the term is suitable, but European vocabularies hardly provide one which meets the case--called Harihara (or Sankara-Narayana), that is Siva and Vishnu combined. The Harivamsa contains a hymn addressed to him: fairly ancient sculptures attest the prevalence of his worship in the Deccan, especially at Badami, he was once the chief deity of Camboja and he is still popular in south India. Here besides being worshipped under his own name he has undergone a singular transformation and has probably been amalgamated with some aboriginal deity. Under the designation of Ayenar (said to be a corruption of Harihara) he is extensively worshipped as a village god and reputed to be the son of Siva and Vishnu, the latter having kindly assumed the form of a woman to effect his birth.

Another form of this inclination to combine and unite the various manifestations of the Divine is the tendency to worship groups of gods, a practice as old as the Vedas. Thus many temples are dedicated to a group of five, namely, Siva, Vishnu, Durga, Ganesa and the Sun and it is stated that every Hindu worships these five deities in his daily prayers.[398] The Trimurti, or figure of Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, illustrates the worship of groups. Its importance has sometimes been over-estimated by Europeans from an idea that it corresponded to the Christian Trinity, but in reality this triad is late and has little significance. No stress is laid on the idea of three in one and the number of persons can be increased. The Brahma-vaivarta Purana for instance adds Krishna to Brahma, Siva and Vishnu. The union of three personalities is merely a way of summing up the chief attributes of the All-God. Thus the Vishnu Purana[399] extols Vishnu as being "Hiranyagarbha, Hari and Sankara (_i.e._ Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), the creator, preserver and destroyer," but in another passage as him who is "Brahma, Isvara and spirit (Pums), who with the three Gunas (qualities of matter) is the cause of creation, preservation and destruction...." The origin of the triad, so far as it has any doctrinal or philosophical meaning, is probably to be sought in the personification of the three Gunas.[400]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 334: See especially Dig. Nik. XX. and XXXII.]

[Footnote 335: But the lists may be pieces of folk-lore older than the suttas in which they are incorporated.]

[Footnote 336: The Dionysus of Megasthenes is a deity who comes from the west with an army that suffers from the heat of the plains. If we could be certain that he meant Siva by Dionysus this would be valuable evidence. But he clearly misunderstood many things in Indian religion. Greek legends connected Dionysus with India and the East.]

[Footnote 337: Macdonell seems to me correct in saying (_J.R.A.S._ 1915, p. 125) that one reason why Indian deities have many arms is that they may be able to carry the various symbols by which they are characterized. Another reason is that worship is usually accompanied by dhyana, that is forming a mental image of the deity as described in a particular text. _E.g._ the worshipper repeats a mantra which describes a deity in language which was originally metaphorical as having many heads and arms and at the same time he ought to make a mental image of such a figure.]

[Footnote 338: But some forms of Sivaism in southern India come even nearer to emotional Christianity than does Vishnuism.]

[Footnote 339: I cannot discover that any alleged avatara of Siva has now or has had formerly any importance, but the Vayu, Linga and Kurma Purana give lists of such incarnations, as does also the Catechism of the Shaiva religion translated by Foulkes. But Indian sects have a strong tendency to ascribe all possible achievements and attributes to their gods. The mere fact that Vishnu becomes incarnate incites the ardent Sivaite to say that his god can do the same. A curious instance of this rivalry is found in the story that Siva manifested himself as Sarabha-murti in order to curb the ferocity of Vishnu when incarnate in the Man Lion (see Gopinatha Rao, _Hindu Icon_. p. 45). Siva often appears in a special form, not necessarily human, for a special purpose (_e.g._ Virabhadra) and some tantric Buddhas seem to be imitations of these apparitions. There is a strong element of Sivaism borrowed from Bengal in the mythology of Tibet and Mongolia, where such personages as Hevajra, Samvara, and Mahakala have a considerable importance under the strange title of Buddhas.]

[Footnote 340: The passage from one epithet to the other is very plain in _R.V._ I. 114.]

[Footnote 341: Book XVI.]

[Footnote 342: In the play Mricchakatika or The Clay Cart (probably of the sixth century A.D.) a burglar invokes Kartikeya, the son of Siva, who is said to have taught different styles of house-breaking.]

[Footnote 343: A similarly strange collocation of attributes is found in Daksha's hymn to Siva. Mahabharata, XII. Sec. 285.]

[Footnote 344: Atharva, V. xi. 2. 24.]

[Footnote 345: It is not certain if the Sisnadevah whom Indra is asked to destroy in Rig. V. VII. 21. 5 and X. 99. 3 are priapic demons or worshippers of the phallus.]

[Footnote 346: VII. secs. 202, 203, and XIII. sec. 14.]

[Footnote 347: The inscriptions of Camboja and Champa seem to be the best proof of the antiquity of Linga worship. A Cambojan inscription of about 550 A.D. records the dedication of a linga and the worship must have taken some time to reach Camboja from India. Some lingas discovered in India are said to be anterior to the Christian era.]

[Footnote 348: See F. Kittel, _Ueber den Ursprung der Linga Kultus_, and Barth, _Religions of India_, p. 261.]

[Footnote 349: As is also its appearance, as a rule. But there are exceptions to this. Some Hindus deny that the Linga is a phallic emblem. It is hardly possible to maintain this thesis in view of such passages as Mahabh. XIII. 14 and the innumerable figures in which there are both a linga and a Yoni. But it is true that in its later forms the worship is purged of all grossness and that in its earlier forms the symbol adored was often a stupa-like column or a pillar with figures on it.]

[Footnote 350: Such scenes as the relief from Amaravati figured in Gruenwedel, _Buddhist art in India_, p. 29, fig. 8, might easily be supposed to represent the worship of the linga, and some of Asoka's pillars have been worshipped as lingas in later times.]

[Footnote 351: But not of course the soul which, according to the general Indian idea, exists before and continues after the life of the body.]

[Footnote 352: Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_, I. 84; II. 219.]

[Footnote 353: They are however of some importance in Vishnuite theology. For instance according to the school of Ramanuja it is the Sakti (Sri) who reveals the true doctrine to mankind. Vishnu is often said to have three consorts, Sri, Bhu and Lila.]

[Footnote 354: _E.g._ Sat. Brah. I. 2. 5. See also the strange legend _Ib._ XI. 1. 1 where Vishnu is described as the best of the gods but is eaten by Indra. He is frequently (_e.g._ in the Sata Brah) stated to be identical with the sacrifice, and this was probably one of the reasons for his becoming prominent.]

[Footnote 355: See many modern examples in Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk Lore of Northern India_, chap. IV. and _Census of India_, 1901, vol. VI. _Bengal_, pp. 196-8, where are described various deified heroes who are adored in Bengal, such as Goveiya (a bandit), Sailesh, Karikh, Larik, Amar Singh, and Gobind Raut (a slayer of tigers). Compare too the worship of Gopi Nath and Zinda Kaliana in the Panjab as described in _Census of India_, 1901, vol. XVII. pp. 118-9.]

[Footnote 356: The Bhagavata Purana (I. iii.) and the Bhaktamala (see _J.R.A.S._ 1909, pp. 621 ff.) give longer lists of 22 and 26, and the Pancaratra gives 39. See Ahirbudhnya Samhita, V. 50-55.]

[Footnote 357: Book I, cantos 74-76.]

[Footnote 358: A parallel phenomenon is the belief found in Bali, that Buddha is Siva's brother.]

[Footnote 359: For Brahmanic ideas about Buddha see Vishnu Purana, III. 18. The Bhagavata Purana, I. 3. 24 seems to make the Buddha incarnation future. It also counts Kapila and Rishabha, apparently identical with the founder of the Sankhya and the first Jain saint, as incarnations. The Padma Purana seems to ascribe not only Buddhism but the Maya doctrine of Sankara to delusions deliberately inspired by gods. I have not been able to find the passage in the printed edition of the Purana but it is quoted in Sanskrit by Aufrecht, _Cat. Cod. Bib. Bodl._ p. 14, and Muir, _Original Sanskrit Texts_, p. 198.]

[Footnote 360: See Norman in _Trans. Third Int. Congress of Religions_, II. p. 85. In the _Ind. Ant._ 1918, p. 145 Jayaswal tries to prove that Kalki is a historical personage and identical with King Yasodharman of Central India (about A.D. 500) and that the idea of his being a _future_ saviour is late. This theory offers difficulties, for firstly there is no proof that the passages of the Mahabharata which mention Kalki (III. 190, 13101; III. 191, 13111: XII. 340, 12968) are additions later than Yasodharman and secondly if Kalki was first a historical figure and then projected into the future we should expect to hear that he will _come again_, but such language is not quoted. On the other hand it seems quite likely (1) that there was an old tradition about a future saviour called Kalki, (2) that Yasodharman after defeating the Huns assumed the role, (3) and that when it was found that the golden age had not recommenced he was forgotten (as many pseudo-Messiahs have been) and Kalki again became a hope for the future. Vincent Smith (_Hist. of India_, ed. III. p. 320) intimates that Yasodharman performed considerable exploits but was inordinately boastful.]

[Footnote 361: Another version of the story which omits the expedition to Lanka and makes Sita the sister of Rama is found in the Dasaratha Jataka (641).]

[Footnote 362: But this colonization is attributed by tradition to Vijaya, not Rama.]

[Footnote 363: See especially book VI. p. 67, in Growse's _Translation._]

[Footnote 364: See Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, vol. IV. especially pp. 441-491.]

[Footnote 365: Ekanatha, who lived in the sixteenth century, calls the Adhyatma R. a modern work. See Bhandarkar, _Vaishn. and Saivism_, page 48. The Yoga-Vasishtha R. purports to be instruction given by Vasishtha to Rama who wishes to abandon the world. Its date is uncertain but it is quoted by authors of the fourteenth century. It is very popular, especially in south India, where an abridgment in Tamil called Jnana-Vasishtha is much read. Its doctrine appears to be Vedantist with a good deal of Buddhist philosophy. Salvation is never to think that pleasures and pains are "mine."]

[Footnote 366: Chand. Up. III. 17.6]

[Footnote 367: The Kaush. Brahm. says that Krishna was an Angirasa XXX. g. The Anukramani says that the Krishna of Rig Veda, VIII. 74 was an Angirasa. For Ghora Angirasa "the dread descendent of the Angirases" see Macdonell and Keith, _Vedic Index_, s.v.]

[Footnote 368: _E.g._ Dig. Nik. V. The Pancaratra expressly states that Yoga is worship of the heart and self-sacrifice, being thus a counterpart of the external sacrifice (bahyayaga).]

[Footnote 369: Pan. IV. 3. 98, _Vasudevarjunabhyam vun._ See Bhandarkar, _Vaishnavism and Saivism_, p. 3 and _J.R.A.S._ 1910, p. 168. Sutra 95, just above, appears to point to _bhakti_, faith or devotion, felt for this Vasudeva.]

[Footnote 370: Especially the Besnagar column. See Rapson, _Ancient India_, p. 156 and various articles in _J.R.A.S._ 1909-10.]

[Footnote 371: X. i, vi.]

[Footnote 372: III. i. 23, Ularo so Kanho isi ahosi. But this may refer to the Rishi mentioned in _R.V._ VIII. 74 who has not necessarily anything to do with the god Krishna.]

[Footnote 373: See Hemacandra Abhidhanacintamani, Ed. Boehtlingk and Rien, p. 128, and Barnett's translation of the _Antagada Dasao_, pp. 13-15 and 67-82.]