Chapter 6 RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PRE-BUDDHIST INDIA

In reading the Brahma?as and older Upanishads we often wish we knew more of the writers and their lives. Rarely can so many representative men have bequeathed so much literature and yet left so dim a sketch of their times. Thought was their real life: of that they have given a full record, imperfect only in chronology, for though their speculations are often set forth in a narrative form, we hear surprisingly little about contemporary events.

The territory familiar to these works is the western part of the modern United Provinces with the neighbouring districts of the Panjab, the lands of the Kurus, Pancalas, and Matsyas, all in the region of Agra and Delhi, and further east Ka?i (Benares) with Videha or Tirhut. Gandhara was known[201] but Magadha and Bengal are not mentioned. Even in the Buddha's lifetime they were still imperfectly brahmanized.

What we know of the period 800 to 600 B.C. is mostly due to the Brahmans, and many Indianists have accepted their view, that they were then socially the highest class and the repository of religion and culture. But it is clear from Buddhist writings (which, however, are somewhat later) that this pre-eminence was not unchallenged[202], and many admissions in the Brahma?as and Upanishads indicate that some centuries before the Buddha the Kshatriyas held socially the first rank and shared intellectual honours with the Brahmans. Janaka, king of Videha[203], and Yaj?avalkya, the Brahman, meet on terms of mutual respect and other Kshatriyas, such as Ajata?atru of Ka?i and Pravaha?a Jaivali are represented as instructing Brahmans, and the latter in doing so says "this knowledge did not go to any Brahman before but belonged to the Kshatriyas alone[204]." But as a profession theology, both practical and speculative, was left to the Brahmans.

The proper relation between the nobles and Brahmans finds expression in the office of Purohita[205] or domestic chaplain, which is as old as the Vedas and has lasted to the present day. In early times he was not merely a spiritual guide but also a councillor expected to advise the king as to his enterprises and secure their success by appropriate rites. By king we should understand a tribal chief, entrusted with considerable powers in the not infrequent times of war, but in peace obliged to consult the clan, or at least the aristocratic part of it, on all matters of importance. A Purohita might attain a very high position, like Devabhaga, priest of both the Kurus and Srinjayas[206]. The Brahmans did not attempt to become kings, but the sacred books insist that though a Brahman can do without a king, yet a king cannot do without a Brahman. The two castes are compared to the deities Mitra and Varu?a, typifying intelligence and will. When they are united deeds can be done[207]. But "the Gods do not eat the food of a king who is without a Purohita." Other castes can offer sacrifices only by the mediation of Brahmans, and it does not appear that kings disputed this, though they claimed the right to think for themselves and may have denied the utility of sacrifice[208]. Apart from kings the duties and claims of the Brahman extend to the people at large. He has four virtues, "birth, deportment, fame and the perfecting of the people," and in return the people owe him respect, liberality, security against oppression and against capital punishment.

Towns in this period must have been few and those few essentially forts, not collections of palaces and temples. We hear of Ka?i (Benares) but the name may signify a district. People are said to go to the Kurus or Pancalas, not to Mithila or any other city. It was in village life-which is still the life of the greater part of India-that Brahmanism grew up. Probably then as now Brahman families occupied separate villages, or at least quarters, and were allowed to hold the land rent free as a reward for rendering religious services to the king. They followed various professions but the life which was most respected, and also most lucrative, was that devoted to the study and practice of sacred science, that is the learning and recitation of sacred texts, performance of ceremonies, and theological discussion. The later law books divide a Brahman's life into four stages or a?ramas in which he was successively a student, a householder, a hermit and an ascetic[209]. The third and fourth stages are not very clearly distinguished. A hermit is supposed to renounce family life and live in the forest, but still to perform sacrifices, whereas the Sannyasi or perfect ascetic, in many ways the ideal of India, subsists on alms, freed alike from duties and passions and absorbed in meditation. In the older Upanishads three stages are indicated as part of contemporary practice[210]. For a period of from nine to thirty-six years, a Brahman dwelt with a teacher. While his state of pupilage lasted he lived on alms and was bound by the severest vows of obedience and chastity. The instruction given consisted in imparting sacred texts which could be acquired only by hearing them recited, for writing, though it may have been known in India as early as the seventh century B.C., was not used for literature. The ?atapatha Brahma?a recommends the study not only of the four Vedas but of the precepts (perhaps grammar, etymology, etc.), the sciences (perhaps philosophy), dialogues (no doubt such as those found in the Upanishads), traditions and ancient legends, stanzas and tales of heroes[211], showing that, besides the scriptures, more popular compositions which doubtless contained the germs of the later Epics and Puranas were held in esteem.

On terminating his apprenticeship the young Brahman became a householder and married, moderate polygamy being usual. To some extent he followed the occupations of an ordinary man of business and father of a family, but the most important point in establishing a home of his own was the kindling of his own sacred fire[212], and the householder's life was regarded as a series of rites, such as the daily offering of milk, the new and full moon ceremonies, seasonal sacrifices every four months and the Soma sacrifice once a year, besides oblations to ancestors and other domestic observances. The third stage of life should begin when a householder sees that his hair is turning grey and a grandson has been born. He should then abandon his home and live in the forest. The tradition that it is justifiable and even commendable for men and women to abandon their families and take to the religious life has at all times been strong in India and public opinion has never considered that the deserted party had a grievance. No doubt comfortable householders were in no hurry to take to the woods and many must always have shirked the duty. But on the other hand, the very pious, of whom India has always produced a superabundance, were not willing to bear the cares of domestic life and renounced the world before the prescribed time. On the whole Brahmanic (as opposed to Buddhist) literature is occupied in insisting not so much that the devout should abandon the world as that they must perform the ritual observances prescribed for householders before doing so.

The Brahman's existence as drawn in the law-books is a description of what the writers thought ought to be done rather than of the general practice. Still it cannot be dismissed as imaginary, for the Nambutiri[213] Brahmans of Travancore have not yet abandoned a mode of life which is in essentials that prescribed by Manu and probably that led by Brahmans in the seventh century B.C. or earlier[214].

They are for the most part landowners dwelling in large houses built to accommodate a patriarchal family and erected in spacious compounds. In youth they spend about eight years in learning the Veda, and in mature life religious ceremonies, including such observances as bathing and the preparation of meals, occupy about six hours of the day. As a profession, the performance of religious rites for others is most esteemed. In food, drink and pleasures, the Nambutiris are almost ascetics: their rectitude, punctiliousness and dignity still command exaggerated respect. But they seem unproductive and petrified, even in such matters as literature and scholarship, and their inability to adapt themselves to changing conditions threatens them with impoverishment and deterioration.

Yet the ideal Brahmanic life, which by no means excludes intellectual activity, is laid out in severe and noble lines and though on its good side somewhat beyond the reach of human endeavour and on its bad side overloaded with pedantry and superstition, it combines in a rare degree self-abnegation and independence. It differs from the ideal set up by Buddhism and by many forms of Hinduism which preach the renunciation of family ties, for it clearly lays down that it is a man's duty to continue his family and help his fellow men just as much as to engage in religious exercises. Thus, the ?atapatha Brahma?a[215] teaches that man is born owing four debts, one to the gods, one to the Rishis or the sages to whom the Vedic hymns were revealed, one to his ancestors and one to men. To discharge these obligations he must offer sacrifices, study the Veda, beget a son and practise hospitality.

The tranquil isolation of village life in ancient India has left its mark on literature. Though the names of teachers are handed down and their opinions cited with pious care, yet for many centuries after the Vedic age we find no books attributed to human authors. There was an indifference to literary fame among these early philosophers and a curious selflessness. Doctors disputed as elsewhere, yet they were at no pains to couple their names with theories or sects. Like the Jewish Rabbis they were content to go down to posterity as the authors of a few sayings, and these are mostly contributions to a common stock with no pretension to be systems of philosophy. The Upanishads leave an impression of a society which, if reposeful, was also mentally alert and tolerant to an unusual degree. Much was absent that occupied the intelligence of other countries. Painting, sculpture and architecture can have attained but modest proportions and the purview of religion included neither temples nor images. India was untroubled by foreign invasions and all classes seem to have been content to let the Kshatriyas look after such internal politics as there were. Trade too was on a small scale. Doubtless the Indian was then, as now, a good man of business and the western coast may have been affected by its relations with the Persian Gulf, but Brahmanic civilization was a thing of the Midland and drew no inspiration from abroad. The best minds were occupied with the leisurely elaboration and discussion of speculative ideas and self-effacement was both practised and preached.

But movement and circulation prevented this calm rustic world from becoming stagnant. Though roads were few and dangerous, a habit of travel was conspicuous among the religious and intellectual classes. The Indian is by nature a pilgrim rather than a stationary monk, and we often hear of Brahmans travelling in quest of knowledge alone or in companies, and stopping in rest houses[216]. In the ?atapatha Brahma?a[217], Uddalaka ru?i is represented as driving about and offering a piece of gold as a prize to those who could defeat him in argument. Great sacrifices were often made the occasion of these discussions. We must not think of them as mere religious ceremonies, as a sort of high mass extending over several days. The fact that they lasted so long and involved operations like building sheds and altars made them unlike our church services and gave opportunities for debate and criticism of what was done. Such competition and publicity were good for the wits. The man who cut the best figure in argument was in greatest demand as a sacrificer and obtained the highest fees. But these stories of prizes and fees emphasize a feature which has characterized the Brahmans from Vedic times to the present day, namely, their shameless love of money. The severest critic cannot deny them a disinterested taste for intellectual, religious and spiritual things, but their own books often use language which shows them as professional men merely anxious to make a fortune by the altar. "The sacrifice is twofold," says the ?atapatha Brahma?a, "oblations to the gods and gifts to the priests. With oblations men gratify the gods and with gifts the human gods. These two kinds of gods when gratified convey the worshipper to the heavenly world[218]." Without a fee the sacrifice is as dead as the victim. It is the fee which makes it living and successful[219].

Tradition has preserved the names of many of these acute, argumentative, fee-loving priests, but of few can we form any clear picture. The most distinguished is Yaj?avalkya who, though seen through a mist of myths and trivial stories about the minutiae of ritual, appears as a personality with certain traits that are probably historical. Many remarks attributed to him are abrupt and scornful and the legend indicates dimly that he was once thought a dangerous innovator. But, as has happened so often since, this early heretic became the corner stone of later orthodoxy. He belonged to the school of the Yajur Veda and was apparently the main author of the new or White recension in which the prayers and directions are more or less separate, whereas in the old or Black recension they are mixed together. According to the legend he vomited forth the texts which he had learnt, calling his fellow pupils "miserable and inefficient Brahmans," and then received a new revelation from the Sun[220]. The quarrel was probably violent for the ?atapatha Brahma?a mentions that he was cursed by priests of the other party. Nor does this work, while recognizing him as the principal teacher, endorse all his sayings. Thus it forbids the eating of beef but adds the curious remark "Nevertheless Yaj?avalkya said, I for one eat it, provided it is tender[221]." Remarkable, too, is his answer to the question what would happen if all the ordinary materials for sacrifices were absent, "Then indeed nothing would be offered here, but there would be offered the truth in faith[222]." It is probable that the Black Yajur Veda represents the more western schools and that the native land of the White recension and of Yaj?avalkya lay further east, perhaps in Videha. But his chief interest for us is not the reforms in text and ritual which he may have made, but his philosophic doctrines of which I have already spoken. Our principal authority for them is the B?ihad-ra?yaka Upanishad of which he is the protagonist, much as Socrates is of the Platonic dialogues. Unfortunately the striking picture which it gives of Yaj?avalkya cannot be accepted as historical. He is a prominent figure in the ?atapatha Brahma?a which is older than the Upanishad and represents an earlier stage of speculation. The sketch of his doctrines which it contains is clearly a preliminary study elaborated and amplified in the Upanishad. But if a personage is introduced in early works as expounding a rudimentary form of certain doctrines and in later works is credited with a matured philosophy, there can be little doubt that he has become a great name whose authority is invoked by later thought, much as Solomon was made the author of the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and the Song which bears his name.

Yaj?avalkya appears in the B?ihad-ra?yaka as the respected friend but apparently not the chaplain of King Janaka. This monarch celebrated a great sacrifice and offered a thousand cows with a present of money to him who should prove himself wisest. Yaj?avalkya rather arrogantly bade his pupil drive off the beasts. But his claim was challenged: seven Brahmans and one woman, Garg? Vacaknav?, disputed with him at length but had to admit his superiority. A point of special interest is raised by the question what happens after death. Yaj?avalkya said to his questioner, "'Take my hand, my friend. We two alone shall know of this. Let this question of ours not be discussed in public.' Then these two went out and argued, and what they said was Karma and what they praised was Karma[223]." The doctrine that a man's deeds cause his future existence and determine its character was apparently not popular among the priesthood who claimed that by their rites they could manufacture heavenly bodies for their clients.

2

This imperfect and sketchy picture of religious life in India so far as it can be gathered from the older Brahmanic books has reference mainly to the kingdoms of the Kuru-Pancalas and Videha in 800-600 B.C. Another picture, somewhat fuller, is found in the ancient literature of the Buddhists and Jains, which depicts the kingdoms of Magadha (Bihar) and Kosala (Oudh) in the time of the Buddha and Mahav?ra, the founder of Jainism, that is, about 500 B.C. or rather earlier. It is probable that the picture is substantially true for this period or even for a period considerably earlier, for Mahav?ra was supposed to have revived with modifications the doctrines of Par?vanatha and some of the Buddhas mentioned as preceding Gotama were probably historical personages. But the Brahmanic and Buddhist accounts do not give two successive phases of thought in the same people, for the locality is not quite the same. Both pictures include the territory of Ka?i and Videha, but the Brahmanic landscape lies mainly to the west and the Buddhist mainly to the east of this region. In the Buddhist sphere it is clear that in the youth of Gotama Brahmanic doctrines and ritual were well known but not predominant. It is hardly demonstrable from literature, but still probable, that the ideas and usages which found expression in Jainism and Buddhism existed in the western districts, though less powerful there than in the east[224].

A striking feature of the world in which Jainism and Buddhism arose was the prevalence of confraternities or religious orders. They were the recognized form of expression not only for piety but for the germs of theology, metaphysics and science. The ordinary man of the world kept on good terms with such gods as came his way, but those who craved for some higher interest often separated themselves from the body of citizens and followed some special rule of life. In one sense the Brahmans were the greatest of such communities, but they were a hereditary corporation and though they were not averse to new ideas, their special stock in trade was an acquaintance with traditional formul? and rites. They were also, in the main, sedentary and householders. Somewhat opposed to them were other companies, described collectively as Paribbajakas or Samanas[225]. These, though offering many differences among themselves, were clearly distinguished from the Brahmans, and it is probable that they usually belonged to the warrior caste. But they did not maintain that religious knowledge was the exclusive privilege of any caste: they were not householders but wanderers and celibates. Often they were ascetics and addicted to extreme forms of self-mortification. They did not study the Vedas or perform sacrifices, and their speculations were often revolutionary, and as a rule not theistic. It is not easy to find any English word which describes these people or the Buddhist Bhikkhus. Monk is perhaps the best, though inadequate. Pilgrim and friar give the idea of wandering, but otherwise suggest wrong associations. But in calling them monks, we must remember that though celibates, and to some extent recluses (for they mixed with the world only in a limited degree), they were not confined in cloisters. The more stationary lived in woods, either in huts or the open air, but many spent the greater part of the year in wandering.

The practice of adopting a wandering religious life was frequent among the upper classes, and must have been a characteristic feature of society. No blame attached to the man who abruptly left his family, though well-to-do people are represented as dissuading their children from the step. The interest in philosophical and theological questions was perhaps even greater than among the Brahmans, and they were recognized not as parerga to a life of business or amusement, but as occupations in themselves. Material civilization had not kept pace with the growth of thought and speculation. Thus restless and inquisitive minds found little to satisfy them in villages or small towns, and the wanderer, instead of being a useless rolling stone, was likely not only to have a more interesting life but to meet with sympathy and respect. Ideas and discussion were plentiful but there were no books and hardly any centres of learning. Yet there was even more movement than among the travelling priests of the Kurus and Pancalas, a coming and going, a trafficking in ideas. Knowledge was to be picked up in the market-places and highways. Up and down the main roads circulated crowds of highly intelligent men. They lived upon alms, that is to say, they were fed by the citizens who favoured their opinions or by those good souls who gave indiscriminately to all holy men-and in the larger places rest houses were erected for their comfort. It was natural that the more commanding and original spirits should collect others round them and form bands, for though there was public discussion, writing was not used for religious purposes and he who would study any doctrine had to become the pupil of a master. The doctrine too involved a discipline, or mode of life best led in common. Hence these bands easily grew into communities which we may call orders or sects, if we recognize that their constitution was more fluid and less formal than is implied by those words. It is not easy to say how much organization such communities possessed before the time of the Buddha. His Sangha was the most successful of them all and doubtless surpassed the others in this as in other respects. Yet it was modelled on existing institutions and the Vinaya Pitaka[226] itself represents him as prescribing the observance of times and seasons, not so much because he thought it necessary as because the laity suggested that he would do well to follow the practice of the Titthiya schools. By this phrase we are to understand the adherents of Makkhali Gosala, Sa?jaya Bela??hiputta and others. We know less about these sects than we could wish, but two lists of schools or theories are preserved, one in the Brahmajala Sutta[227] where the Buddha himself criticises 62 erroneous views and another in Jain literature[228], which enumerates no fewer than 363.

Both catalogues are somewhat artificial, and it is clear that many views are mentioned not because they represent the tenets of real schools but from a desire to condemn all possible errors. But the list of topics discussed is interesting. From the Brahmajala Sutta we learn that the problems which agitated ancient Magadha were such as the following:--is the world eternal or not: is it infinite or finite: is there a cause for the origin of things or is it without cause: does the soul exist after death: if so, is its existence conscious or unconscious: is it eternal or does it cease to exist, not necessarily at the end of its present life but after a certain number of lives: can it enjoy perfect bliss here or elsewhere? Theories on these and other points are commonly called vada or talk, and those who hold them vadins. Thus there is the Kala-vada[229] which makes Time the origin and principle of the universe, and the Svabhava-vada which teaches that things come into being of their own accord. This seems crude when stated with archaic frankness but becomes plausible if paraphrased in modern language as "discontinuous variation and the spontaneous origin of definite species." There were also the Niyati-vadins, or fatalists, who believed that all that happens is the result of Niyati or fixed order, and the Yadriccha-vadins who, on the contrary, ascribed everything to chance and apparently denied causation, because the same result follows from different antecedents. It is noticeable that none of these views imply theism or pantheism but the Buddha directed so persistent a polemic against the doctrine of the tman that it must have been known in Magadha. The fundamental principles of the Sankhya were also known, though perhaps not by that name. It is probably correct to say not that the Buddha borrowed from the Sankhya but that both he and the Sankhya accepted and elaborated in different ways certain current views.

The Pali Suttas[230] mention six agnostic or materialist teachers and give a brief but perhaps not very just compendium of their doctrines. One of them was the founder of the Jains who, as a sect that has lasted to the present day with a considerable record in art and literature, merit a separate chapter. Of the remaining five, one, Sa?jaya of the Bela??ha clan, was an agnostic, similar to the people described elsewhere[231] as eel-wrigglers, who in answer to such questions as, is there a result of good and bad actions, decline to say either (a) there is, (b) there is not, (c) there both is and is not, (d) there neither is nor is not. This form of argument has been adopted by Buddhism for some important questions but Sa?jaya and his disciples appear to have applied it indiscriminately and to have concluded that positive assertion is impossible.

The other four were in many respects what we should call fatalists and materialists[232], or in the language of their time Akriya-vadins, denying, that is, free will, responsibility and the merit or demerit of good or bad actions. They nevertheless believed in metempsychosis and practised asceticism. Apparently they held that beings are born again and again according to a natural law, but not according to their deeds: and that though asceticism cannot accelerate the soul's journey, yet at a certain stage it is a fore-ordained and indispensable preliminary to emancipation. The doctrines attributed to all four are crude and startling. Perhaps they are exaggerated by the Buddhist narrator, but they also reflect the irreverent exuberance of young thought. P?ra?a Kassapa denies that there is any merit in virtue or harm in murder. Another ascetic called Ajita of the garment of hair teaches that nothing exists but the four elements, and that "fools and wise alike are annihilated on the dissolution of the body and after death they are not." Then why, one asks, was he an ascetic? Similarly Pakudha Kaccayana states that "when a sharp sword cleaves a head in twain" the soul and pain play a part similar to that played by the component elements of the sword and head. The most important of these teachers was Makkhali Gosala. His doctrine comprises a denial of causation and free will and an assertion that fools and wise alike will make an end of pain after wandering through eighty-four hundred thousand births. The followers of this teacher were called j?vikas: they were a distinct body in the time of Asoka, and the name[233] occurs as late as the thirteenth century in South Indian inscriptions. Several accounts[234] of the founder are extant, but all were compiled by bitter opponents, for he was hated by Jains and Buddhists alike. His doctrine was closely allied to Jainism, especially the Digambara sect, but was probably more extravagant and anti-social. He appears to have objected to confraternities[235], to have enjoined a solitary life, absolute nudity and extreme forms of self-mortification, such as eating filth. The Jains accused his followers of immorality and perhaps they were ancient prototypes of the lower class of religious mendicants who have brought discredit on Hinduism.

3

None of the phases of religious life described above can be called popular. The religion of the Brahmans was the thought and science of a class. The various un-Brahmanic confraternities usually required their members to be wandering ascetics. They had little to say to village householders who must have constituted the great majority of the population. Also there are signs that priests and nobles, however much they quarrelled, combined to keep the lower castes in subjection[236]. Yet we can hardly doubt that then as now all classes were profoundly religious, and that just as to-day village deities unknown to the Vedas, or even to the Puranas, receive the worship of millions, so then there were gods and rites that did not lack popular attention though unnoticed in the scriptures of Brahmans and Buddhists.

We know little of this popular religion by direct description before or even during the Buddhist period, but we have fragmentary indications of its character. Firstly several incongruous observances have obtruded themselves into the Brahmanic ritual. Thus in the course of the Mahavrata ceremony[237] the Hotri priest sits in a swing and maidens, carrying pitchers of water on their heads and singing, dance round an altar while drums are beaten. Parallels to this may be found to-day. The image of Krishna, or even a priest who represents Krishna, is swung to and fro in many temples, the use of drums in worship is distressingly common, and during the Pongol festivities in southern India young people dance round or leap over a fire. Other remarkable features in the Mahavrata are the shooting of arrows into a target of skin, the use of obscene language (such as is still used at the Holi festival) and even obscene acts[238]. We must not assume that popular religion in ancient India was specially indecent, but it probably included ceremonies analogous to the Lupercalia and Thesmophoria, in which licence in words and deeds was supposed to promote fertility and prosperity.

We are also justified in supposing that offerings to ancestors and many ceremonies mentioned in the G?ihya-s?tras or handbooks of domestic ritual were performed by far larger classes of the population than the greater sacrifices, but we have no safe criteria for distinguishing between priestly injunctions and the real practice of ancient times.

Secondly, in the spells and charms of the Atharva[239], which received the Brahmanic imprimatur later than the other three Vedas, we find an outlook differing from that of the other Vedas and resembling the popular religion of China. Mankind are persecuted by a host of evil spirits and protect themselves by charms addressed directly to their tormentors or by invoking the aid of beneficent powers. All nature is animated by good and evil spirits, to be dealt with like other natural advantages or difficulties, but not thought of as moral or spiritual guides. It is true that the Atharva often rises above this phase, for it consists not of simple folk-lore, but of folk-lore modified under-sacerdotal influence. The protecting powers invoked are often the gods of the Rig Veda[240], but prayers and incantations are also addressed directly to diseases[241] and demons[242] or, on the other hand, to healing plants and amulets[243]. We can hardly be wrong in supposing that in such invocations the Atharva reflects the popular practice of its time, but it prefers the invocation of counteracting forces, whether Vedic deities or magical plants, to the propitiation of malignant spirits, such as the worship of the goddesses presiding over smallpox and cholera which is still prevalent in India. In this there is probably a contrast between the ideas of the Aryan and non-Aryan races. The latter propitiate the demon or disease; the Aryans invoke a beneficent and healing power. But though on the whole the Atharva is inclined to banish the black spectres of popular demonology with the help of luminous Aryan gods, still we find invoked in it and in its subsidiary literature a multitude of spirits, good and bad, known by little except their names which, however, often suffice to indicate their functions. Such are ?apati (Lord of the region), Kshetrapati (Lord of the field), both invoked in ceremonies for destroying locusts and other noxious insects, ?akambhara and Apva, deities of diarrhoea, and Arati, the goddess of avarice and grudge. In one hymn[244] the poet invokes, together with many Vedic deities, all manner of nature spirits, demons, animals, healing plants, seasons and ghosts. A similar collection of queer and vague personalities is found in the popular pantheon of China to-day[245].

Thirdly, various deities who are evidently considered to be well known, play some part in the Pali Pitakas. Those most frequently mentioned are Mahabrahma or Brahma Sahampati, and Sakka or Indra, but not quite the same as the Vedic Indra and less in need of libations of Soma. In two curious suttas[246] deputations of deities, clearly intended to include all the important gods worshipped at the time, are represented as visiting the Buddha. In both lists a prominent position is given to the Four Great Kings, or Ruling Spirits of the Four Quarters, accompanied by retinues called Gandhabbas, Kumbhandas, Nagas, and Yakkhas respectively, and similar to the Nats of Burma. The Gandhabbas (or Gandharvas) are heavenly musicians and mostly benevolent, but are mentioned in the Brahma?as as taking possession of women who then deliver oracles. The Nagas are serpents, sometimes represented as cobras with one or more heads and sometimes as half human: sometimes they live in palaces under the water or in the depths of the earth and sometimes they are the tutelary deities of trees. Serpent worship has undoubtedly been prevalent in India in all ages: indications of it are found in the earliest Buddhist sculptures and it still survives[247]. The Yakkhas (or Yakshas) though hardly demons (as their name is often rendered) are mostly ill disposed to the human race, sometimes man-eaters and often of unedifying conduct. The Mahasamaya-sutta also mentions mountain spirits from the Himalaya, Satagiri, and Mount Vepulla. Of the Devas or chiefs of the Yakkhas in this catalogue only a few are known to Brahmanic works, such as Soma, Varu?a, Ve?hu (Vishnu), the Yamas, Pajapati, Inda (Indra), Sanan-kumara. All these deities are enumerated together with little regard to the positions they occupy in the sacerdotal pantheon. The enquirer finds a similar difficulty when he tries in the twentieth century to identify rural deities, or even the tutelaries of many great temples, with any personages recognized by the canonical literature.

In several discourses attributed to the Buddha[248] is incorporated a tract called the S?la-vagga, giving a list of practices of which he disapproved, such as divination and the use of spells and drugs. Among special observances censured, the following are of interest. (a) Burnt offerings, and offerings of blood drawn from the right knee. (b) The worship of the Sun, of Siri, the goddess of Luck, and of the Great One, meaning perhaps the Earth. (c) Oracles obtained from a mirror, or from a girl possessed by a spirit or from a god.

We also find allusions in Buddhist and Jain works as well as in the inscriptions of Asoka to popular festivals or fairs called Samajjas[249] which were held on the tops of hills and seem to have included music, recitations, dancing and perhaps dramatic performances. These meetings were probably like the modern mela, half religion and half entertainment, and it was in such surroundings that the legends and mythology which the great Epics show in full bloom first grew and budded.

Thus we have evidence of the existence in pre-Buddhist India of rites and beliefs-the latter chiefly of the kind called animistic-disowned for the most part by the Buddhists and only tolerated by the Brahmans. No elaborate explanation of this popular religion or of its relation to more intellectual and sacerdotal cults is necessary, for the same thing exists at the present day and the best commentary on the S?la-vagga is Crooke's Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India.

In themselves such popular superstitions may seem despicable and repulsive (as the Buddha found them), but when they are numerous and vigorous, as in India, they have a real importance for they provide a matrix and nursery in which the beginnings of great religions may be reared. Saktism and the worship of Rama and Krishna, together with many less conspicuous cults, all entered Brahmanism in this way. Whenever a popular cult grew important or whenever Brahmanic influence spread to a new district possessing such a cult, the popular cult was recognized and brahmanized. This policy can be abundantly illustrated for the last four or five centuries (for instance in Assam), and it was in operation two and a half millenniums ago or earlier. It explains the low and magical character of the residue of popular religion, every ceremony and deity of importance being put under Brahmanic patronage, and it also explains the sudden appearance of new deities. We can safely assert that in the time of the Buddha, and a fortiori in the time of the older Upanishads[250] and Brahma?as, Krishna and Rama were not prominent as deities in Hindustan, but it may well be that they had a considerable position as heroes whose exploits were recited at popular festivals and that Krishna was growing into a god in other regions which have left no literature.