CHAPTER I. they were taught the art of war, which was more or less barbarous, according to their advance in civilization. Thus in primitive times they were trained to fight with their fists, to wrestle with their feet and arms, to throw stones, and to brandish clubs. At a later age they learned to shoot with bows and arrows, to throw the quoit or chakra, to wield swords and spears, to tame horses and elephants, and to drive in chariots. They frequently contended against each other, or were engaged in wars against the non-Vedic people, whose country they invaded and occupied. In this fashion they became warriors, hunters, and athletes, and besides practising the use of arms, they gambled with dice, or pursued romantic and often lawless amours. Their food was not the simple fare which the Rishis offered to their gods, but consisted of roasted horse and venison dried in the sun; and instead of fattening on milk and butter, they revelled in fermented liquors, and possibly in strong wine. Tifferent religious ideas. The religion of the Kshatriyas furnishes significant illustrations of the effect of culture on theological beliefs. It was not so much inspired by the phenomena of external nature, which lead men to propitiate the spirits of fire, water, and the sky, as by the strong instincts of humanity, which lead men to adore heroes and heroines. The Kshatriyas worshipped the same gods as the Rishis, but endowed them with different attributes. The gods of the Rishis were poetical creations of the imagination; those of the Kshatriyas were incarnations of manly strength and feminine beauty. Thus the Rishis invoked the Sun as the divine illuminator of the universe; but the Kshatriyas worshipped him as their own ances ceptions of tral hero. The distinction is even more marked in CHAPTER I. the different conceptions of Indra, who was the great Different congod of the Kshatriyas. The Rishis invoked Indra Indra. as the deity of the firmament, who marshalled the winds as his armies and battled against the clouds for the release of the welcome rains. To this day Indra is the god of the harvest throughout southern India, and is especially the deity of the great Poongul festival, which takes place about the month of January. This festival is one of the last relics of the old Vedic religion which still remain in India. It is at once a harvest time and Christmas time amongst the people of the Peninsula; when families of joyous worshippers array themselves in new clothes, and propitiate the god Indra, and feast their respective households with new rice, boiled in new pots, mixed with milk, sugar, butter, and every other Hindú delicacy." The Kshatriyas, on the other hand, worshipped Indra as a warrior of flesh and blood, the ruler of the universe, and sovereign of the gods. As a warrior he is represented as armed with the sword and chakra, the battle-axe and the thunderbolt, riding on an elephant with armed warriors around him. He was the protector of the fair-complexioned Vedic-Aryans against the blackskinned non-Vedic people. He was also a type of 11 The Poongul festival has been admirably described by the late Mr Gover in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, Vol. V., new series. The most important feature in the ceremony is that of boiling the rice and milk, which bears a remarkable resemblance to old English traditions of the boiling of Christmas puddings. A new earthen vessel is filled with the new rice, mingled artistically with milk, sugar, butter, and other Hindú dainties; and the boiling is then watched with the deepest interest, for the surging up of the milk is regarded as a favourable omen for all future harvests, and is hailed with shouts of rejoicing. Few young scholars have exhibited a deeper appreciation of the Hindú character, and a finer sympathy with the nature worship of Vedic times, than Mr Gover; and his early death will be long lamented by all who are familiar with his writings. CHAPTER I. Sovereignty, of a lord paramount of India; and a mythical conception has been preserved in the sacred writings of a succession of Indras reigning over all India at some ancient capital in the neighbourhood of Delhi. Even the name has survived in local tradition, and extensive heaps of mounds in the neighbourhood of the modern Delhi still bear the name of Indra-prastha, or the " dominion of Indra."12 Again, as a deity, Indra appears as a sovereign ruler of the gods, reigning on high in an oriental heaven. He is seated on a throne, with his beautiful wife Indraní by his side. Around him are all the gods and goddesses of the Vedic pantheon; whilst beautiful nymphs, named Apsarasas, are ever dancing before him. This Kshatriya idea of Indra corresponds to the Homeric idea of Zeus, enthroned on high amongst the Olympian deities; and it is curious to note that the gods of the Kshatriyas, like the deities of Homer, are supposed to take a deep personal interest in the prosperity or adversity of mortals, and are moreover endowed with human passions and desires. Differences of A still more striking distinction between the worship. Rishis and the Kshatriyas is to be observed in their form of worship. The Rishis offered a portion of their daily food of grain and butter to the spirits of the earth, air, and blue ether. The Kshatriyas, on the other hand, feasted their gods with flesh-meat and strong wine. At these Kshatriya feasts hecatombs of animals were slaughtered and cooked, and of course were consumed by the so-called worship 12 Indra-prastha was the original settlement of the Pandavas, as related in the Mahá-Bharata. The point will be fully illustrated hereafter. the Kshatriyas. pers in high festival. In ancient times these feasts CHAPTER I. were public banquets of a political character, but Flesh feasts of more or less mixed up with the worship of the gods, who were supposed to share in the feast, and take an interest in the occasion. In a later and Brahmanical age they were regarded as religious merits, and also as sacrifices for the atonement of sin. Amongst the most famous were the Rajasúya, or royal feast, which was celebrated after the acquisition of a kingdom or Raj; and the Aswamedha, or imperial horse feast, by which a great Raja was supposed to assert his sovereignty over inferior Rajas, who were obliged to attend on such an occasion to acknowledge his supremacy and do him homage. toms of Rishis There was also a marked difference between the Marriage cusmarriage ideas of the Rishis and those of the Ksha- and Kshatriyas. triyas. When a young Rishi desired to marry, he presented a pair or two of kine to the parents of the damsel, and then the nuptial rite was celebrated by her father.13 But amongst the Kshatriyas the marriage ceremony often involved the idea of capture. A young Kshatriya might obtain a wife by carrying away the daughter of another Kshatriya; but before doing so the law required that he should have defeated her parents and kinsmen in open battle. Again, in primitive times a maiden was often offered as a prize in an archery match; in other words, she was obtained by the superior prowess of the winner over all other competitors. But in heroic times young men and maidens enjoyed a liberty which was unknown in a later and Brah 1 See History, vol. ii., part v., Brahmanic Period, chap. viii. Swayamvara, CHAPTER I. manical age; and thus the marriage union involved an expression of preference on the part of the bride, and became known as the Swayamvara, or "selfof the maiden. choice" of the maiden. In the first instance the damsel, who was offered as a prize in archery, was permitted to exercise the power of prohibiting any objectionable candidate from entering the lists; and even after her hand was won, she was required to express her approbation by presenting the garland to the winner. In another, and apparently a later, age there was no competition in arms; and the damsel simply notified her choice in an assembly of Kshatriyas by throwing the garland round the neck of the favourite suitor. Ultimately, in the age of polygamy, when daughters were kept in greater seclusion, the damsel appears to have been guided in her choice by the advice of her father or old nurse, who were present with her at her Swayamvara. But still the idea was retained that the damsel had chosen her own husband; and thus it was sometimes the boast of a handsome and heroic Raja, that he had been the chosen one in many Swayamvaras.14 This graceful institution has for centuries been driven out of India by later Brahmanical law, under which the girl has no voice in the matter, but is betrothed by her parents before reaching the age Traces amongst of maturity. The form, however, or some trace of it, still lingers amongst the modern Rajpoots. The royal maiden perhaps has no real preference, and is merely a puppet in the transaction; but a cocoa the Rajpoots. 14 See in the Markandeya Purana: there is a curious legend of a Raja named Avikshita, who had been chosen by many ladies to be their husband. |