"I have proclaimed, O Agni, these thy ancient hymns; and new hymns for thee who art of old. These great libations have been made to Him who showers benefits upon us. The Sacred Fire has been kept from generation to generation." - Hymn of Visvamitra.

THE HYMNS.

IT

T is not yet determined at what period the Aryas descended into the plains of India; whether Antiquity of moved by one impulse or in successive waves the Hymns. of immigration; whether impelled by disaster or desire. While their religious traditions indicate a march of conquest, those of agriculture, on the other hand, as embodied in the extensive organization of the village communes, have been supposed to point with greater probability to a peaceful colonization.2 Their earliest footprints at the base of the Himâlayas are effaced. It is even doubtful whether their name means "men of noble race or tillers of the earth.3 The etymology which derives it from roots (ar, or ri) that signify movement, is at least finely suggestive of the destiny of their race. It is pleasant too to trace, however dimly, a primitive association of labor with dignity and success, and to note that the name assumed by this vigorous people for themselves served also for their gods.5 In later times it was applicable to the Vaisyas, or third caste, who consti

1 Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, I. 515; Müller, in Bunsen's Philos. of History,

I. 129; Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. ii.; Ludlow's Brit. India, I. 37.

* Maine, Village Communities in the East and West, p. 176.

Müller's Science of Language, I. 238; Lassen, I. 5; Pictet, I. 28; Weber, Indische Studien, I. 352. Schoebel considers it the title of the family chiefs, or patriarchs.

tuted the mass of the community.1 Dates are uncertain in this remote antiquity. There are signs that, as early as twelve centuries before our era, the Aryas were not only a powerful people spread along the banks of the Indus, making obstinate resistance with trained elephants to the Assyrian invaders, but had even reached the mouths of the Ganges on the extreme east of India. The whole intermediate country lies before us in the half-light of a heroic age, the scene of epic and doubtless historic wars, of tribe with tribe and dynasty with dynasty.

But we have a record more precious than many precise facts and dates. We have the sacred song (Veda, or wisdom3) of these otherwise silent generations. The Rig Veda, oldest of the four Hindu Bibles,

the other three are mainly its liturgical development, is a collection of about a thousand Hymns ("Mantras," born of mind) composed by different Rishis, or seers not one of which can have originated later than twenty-six hundred, and few of them later than three thousand years ago. These initial syllables of Hindu faith are probably the devotions of still earlier times. They appear to have been composed in that part of north-western India now called the Panjâb, whose wide slopes descend seaward between the upper Indus and the Jumna; a land always famous for the spirit and grace of its free

1 St. Martin, Géographie du Veda, p. 84: Müller, ut supra. Ktesias: Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth., II. 18.

3 From the root vid, to know; Greek, olda; Lat., video; Germ., wissen; Eng., wit, wisdom.

"The Rig Veda," says Manu, "is sacred to the gods: the Yajur relates to man; the Sama, to the manes of ancestors." The Atharva consists, mainly, of formulas for use in expiations, incantations, and other rites.

Müller's Sansk. Literat., 481, 572; Whitney, in Chr. Exam., 1861, p. 256; Wilson's Introd. to Rig Veda; Duncker, II. 18; Koeppen, Relig. d. Buddha, I. 12; Colebrooke's Essays, I. 129; Lassen, I. 749.

tribes, having its outlook on soaring mountains and limitless snow-reaches; a land of picturesque hill ranges and of redundant streams, whose rushing waters these children of Nature loved to celebrate in their sacred songs.

We possess this Rig Veda in precisely the state, down to the number of verses and syllables, in which it existed centuries before the Christian era. It probably represents the earliest distinctly expressed phase of religious sentiment known to history. There is not the slightest sign of a knowledge of writing in the whole collection.3 In all ancient literature, there is no parallel to this inviolable transmission of "sacred text," and the veneration with which men are wont to regard such protection from the vicissitudes of time. may be more justly claimed for this the oldest of Bibles, than for any other in the world.

And the respect deepens when we reflect that these Hymns are outcomes of a yet remoter Past; Pre-Vedic that they point us beyond themselves to mar- Religion. vellous creative faculty in the imagination and faith of what is otherwise wholly inaccessible, the childhood of Man. They present a language already perfected without the aid of a written alphabet; a literature already preserved for ages in the religious memory alone! They sing of older hymns which the fathers sang, of "ancient sages and elder gods." They

1 Müller and Whitney, ut supra; Colebrooke, in Asiatic Researches, VIII. 481; Craufurd's Ancient and Modern India, ch. viii.

2 Müller, 557.

* Müller (497, 528) finds no sign of writing in ancient Hindu history. Whitney (Chr. Exam., 1861) thinks it may have been employed, though not for higher literary purposes. The language of the Rig Veda differs in many respects from the later Sanskrit, the learned language of its commentators. "Its freedom is untrammelled by other rules than those of common usage." Muir's Sanskrit Texts, II. 223; Whitney, in Journal of Amer. Oriental Society, III. 296.

were themselves old at the earliest epoch to which we can trace them. Their religion, like their language, was already mature when they were born. Do not seek in them the beginning of the religious sentiment, the dawning of the Idea of the Divine. Their deities

are all familiar and ancestral. It is already an intimate household faith, which centuries have endeared. "This is our prayer, the old, the prayer of our fathers." "Our fathers resorted to Indra of old: they discovered the hidden light and caused the dawn to rise; they who showed us the road, the earliest guides." "Now, as of old, make forward paths for the new hymn, springing from our heart." "Hear a hymn from me, a modern bard."2 As far back as we can trace the life of man, we find the river of prayer and praise flowing as naturally as it is flowing We cannot find its beginning because we can

now.

not find the beginning of the soul.

People.

The earliest religion is one with the maturest in this The Vedic respect: that it records itself in the details of life. And these primitive Hymns have been called the "historical" Veda, so real is the picture they give of the Aryas after their descent into India. They are described as a pastoral and to some extent agricultural race, divided into clans, and often engaged in wars of ambition or self-defence. Their enemies, designated as Dasyus, or foes, and Rakshasas, or giants, are unquestionably the aborigines of Northern India, and are described as of beastly appearance,

1 R. V., III. 39, 2; I. 48, 14.

2 Muir's Sanskrit Texts, III. 220-230.

3 It has been suggested that the hymns contain traces of an opposition between a peaceful and a warlike element within the old Aryan community, ancestors perhaps of the priestly and soldier castes, respectively. Wheeler, Hist. of India, II. 439.

Muir. See also Bunsen's Philos. of History, I. 343.